Didn't finish the chapter yet, but here is a first part. Hope you like it!
1.Trigiat:
It was already late in the morning when Lirkos woke up. He stood up from his bed and yawning he opened his window. When he saw the sun had already risen quite high, he jumped to his wardrobe to pick some clothes and - while descending the stairs - he pulled them on.
When he was downstairs he took his big backpack and ran to the kitchen to get something to eat for on the road: a piece of tasty bread, some stewed rabbit and a flask with water. Then he went for his bow and quiver and left the house in a hurry.
Walking on the paved road of his street he saw one of the merchants of his village, Thedris Anygluf, making his way to the market with his goods.
“Good morning Lirkos”, he said.
“Good morning”, the elf smiled.
“Good luck with the hunting, I hope you’ll catch a big one!”
“Thanks and good luck with the selling to, Thedris”
“Well the sun is shining in a nice blue sky, those are the best days for us”
“Yes, I enjoy a nice summer day to”, Lirkos grinned and continued his way over the Earsbridge on the path to the woods of Trigimon.
While walking further he was softly singing a song, which he had heard in the bar. Some bard who was on the road to Ogran had performed that mystic, beautiful song a few times that evening and now Lirkos could not get it out of his head.
There is a river,
down in the forestland.
Beyond the mountains,
That’s where you will find
the Rolling River, the Rolling River,
the Rolling River of hope.
And when the night comes,
and the moon rises to the top..
When the clouds seem to fade,
and the light shines on the water
That’s when they call it moonriver, moonriver,
oh moonriver made of the stars…
It took only a few minutes before he was stepping on the sand covered with needles of the pine trees, with already an arrow nocked ready to fire when he saw a deer, a swine or any other tasty animal. He sniffed the typical scent of the fresh morning air of the forest. As he continued his way with careful steps, not to crack a twig or so, he was looking behind every tree and bush to look for a beast to hunt.
Suddenly he heard the hideous growl, that familiar awful growl, that could only be of a Tryjador. A beast not much bigger then the size of a cat, but with a razor sharp kind of beak and a small horn on top of his head. Tough the creature was one of the most ugliest that Lirkos knew around in the forest, the taste of their meat was delicious, certainly if you stewed it with some nice vegetables.
He looked around to find the beast, though not moving around to be as quiet as possible. Then he heard the growl again and saw his prey not more then fifteen metres away.
Quickly he aimed with his bow, pulling the feathered end of the projectile to his chin… and then let it loose. The shot flew through the air with an incredible speed to end in the flank of his victim.
The Tryjador was heavily wounded and it jumped to a nearby bush in a desperate attempt to hide, but already the elf had fired a second arrow, which hit the poor thing again in the throat.
“Haha, my first catch of the day”, the bowman smiled, “and a good one to”, and he stuffed the cadaver in his bag, after pulling the arrows out for reuse.
After that he took a slice of bread with a piece of the stewed rabbit. He sat down against an oak satisfied by what he caught and slowly ate his meal, enjoying the midday sun shining through the trees.
With the sound of the singing birds and the calm flow of the river Lirkos felt asleep.
“Hold the lines! Hold the lines!”, Lirkos heard his division leader crying, “Incoming! Prepare to fight!” Not another attack, he thought irritated. The Dwarves were continually attacking there improvised line defences for the last two weeks on regular base. Although they kept their ground the casualties were numerous, there troops were almost halved by now.
Shivering due to another cold breeze he tried to find his bow – they were camped in a valley close to a mountain pass, which they had to defend at all cost. He had been promoted to corporal two days ago, but that was mostly because the number of officers was shrinking very fast. Anyway he was now the leader of his tent, which contained ten others.
“You’ve heard it guys, get your weapons and man your posts”, he said followed by a sighed “yes sir”.
He couldn’t blame his men, all were exhausted because of the endless battles with few moments to rest. The reinforcements should have come days ago, but they were probably slowed down by the avalanches and storms the other nights.
Finally he found his bow and ran out of the tent to take his place behind the defences. It were not really walls, you couldn’t even call it a palisade, but stacked up crates, some big stones, a few places with a low wooden wall made by chopped down trees and anything else that could provide some cover.
“Over there they are, lord”, a scout reported to their leader pointing at some shades who were blurred by the mist.
“Good, run to the left flank command posts to check if they are prepared”, the lord ordered the young man, “go, hurry!” he shouted while turning his steed towards the battlefield.
The Dwarves were coming closer rapidly and it seemed that their numbers were more massive then any attacks before!
Lirkos counted the ten soldiers who he was responsible for and he nodded satisfied when he saw they were all there. Their commander was encouraging all the Elves with a speech: “Today we fight again and this will not be the last time, because we are warriors made to fight, live and die for the glory of the Elves. Our silver arrows will pierce the armour of those stubborn Dwarves, we will once again be victorious! Hold your ground, don’t let them desecrate this land, as you are brave and courageous like every Elf is supposed to be! Now take up your bows and shoot these villains back to their stinking caves!”
A loud applause, clattering of weapons and war cries followed. Lirkos felt the adrenaline of a battle coming up and readied to fire.
Not long after he heard: “Aim!”, he stretched his bow and fired his first arrow at the “Fire!” command.
A whole hail of arrows disappeared in the thick mist followed by awful cries of the Dwarves. The Elf saw many of his enemies toppling over, but it was only the first few of an endless force.
There was no need for another command, all of them reloaded their bows as quickly as possible – which took only a few seconds for the well-trained archers – and they fired again and again.
It didn’t last long though before the Elves had to switch to melee weapons as the Dwarves charged them with their dangerous axes. The warriors who were armed with spear and shield were placed at the barricades to hold off the charge.
Lirkos his group were only armed with short swords, so they continued using there bow as long as they could. As the two armies hit together in a fierce clash of steel the spearmen seemed to hold out pretty well against their enemies strokes, but as madmen the Dwarves kept attacking – almost crawling and jumping over the bodies of their dead companions – and tried to hammer and slash their way through the heavily defended barricade.
While the warriors fighting at the wall with their long spears, the archers were still firing their silver-tipped arrows over the barricade. Lirkos felt in his quiver that he was almost out of arrows, so he took more time aiming his targets to make sure he didn’t wasted any.
The Elves seemed to be winning, but when the second wave came in, the ‘wall of spears’ was broken at diverse points, also in front of the corporal’s place.
Immediately some Dwarven berserkers were storming in through the undefended holes and swung their heavy war axes at the archers.
Rapidly Lirkos throw his bow away and unsheathed his sword just in time to block a first stroke, then he pivoted around to slash his enemy in the back.
“Take those places in”, he ordered his men, while finishing a second Dwarf, and in a few seconds two of them had picked up a spear and filled up the ranks.
“Sir, … sir”, Lirkos heard someone calling, he looked around and saw it was the scout who had been send to the left command posts, “the… the…left flank… is breaking”, the man was out of breath and was bleeding from a deep scar above his right eyebrow.
“You there!”, the lord ordered to one of the mounted dragonriders, “go to them and tell them to retreat to the armoury tent in the middle”
“Right away, Sir”, the knight said and spurred his horse in a dead run to the falling command posts.
Just when the rider was out of side they all heard a stunning noise, all knew what it was but still they were all looking terrified ahead and there they saw them coming, the feared ram riders. Dwarves mounted on big rams that could break through any line of defence when charging.
“Embrace for impact”, Lirkos heard someone shouting and he put his bow on his back to unsheathe his short sword again.
“Hold your ground! Don’t let them break through! Don’t dishonour yourself!”, the commander was frantically ordering his soldiers.
The stamping of the ram’s hooves on the ground was getting louder and louder, as they came closer. All soldiers in the front lines were holding their spears to make a futile attempt to stop the enemies wave of frenzied mounted Dwarves!
The last metres seemed to last forever, like they lived in slow-motion - although it only lasted a few seconds – when all thoughts were running through their heads.
Then the big clatter of steel and cries of pain followed, that set their minds to only one thing… surviving.
As expected the wall of spears were no match for the strength of the stubborn Dwarves and their powerful mounts, as they trampled the brave elves and making a big hole in the defences. All the Dwarven infantry took this opportunity to march forward, like water flowing through a breached dam.
“Dragonriders present!”, the officer of the mounted elite regiment shouted, followed by a quick “Charge! Charge with the dragonblade! Not for glory, not for power, but for the honour of our people! Ride out my brothers!” and the cavalry, with their shiny silver and gold armour, met the stout Dwarven rams in battle.
Although this stopped the breakthrough of the Dwarves, some of their infantry got through the lines and were running toward Lirkos. As he slashed his sword with a one-handed side swing, just in time to hold of an upcoming axe-wielder, he almost lost his balance. He quickly recovered, to parry the smash of a next enemy, even before that his first victim had dropped to the ground. He turned around and in the same move he stabbed the unlucky Dwarf in the back.
Suddenly a hail of arrows flew through the ranks, killing and wounding Elfs everywhere.
“Watch out for their crossbowmen!”, one of the soldiers cried, when not a second later an arrow split his skull.
“All footsoldiers retreat to the weapons tent immediately, regroup there!”, the lord shouted.
“Come on guys, we get out of here”, Lirkos told his men, “quickly now!” They all ran through the tents to get out of the continuous hails of crossbow bolts. Unfortunately the last one caught an arrow in his back. Lirkos immediately grabbed his wounded companion and dragged him over the ground, as he was to heavy with the armour to pick him up. As speedy as he could he went to the middle, where all forces were regrouping.
When he was continuing his way he looked behind him and saw that the wounded elf was already torn up with arrows, so he dropped the body and ran to the meeting point on his own. With crossbow bolts whirring by him and Dwarves mounted on the gigantic rams closing, he ran as hard as he could. He almost tripped over a wooden box, but fortunately he recovered quickly, while another soldier in front of him fell down with a throwing axe between his shoulder blades. He heard the stamping of the ram hooves louder and louder which indicated he was losing distance quickly.
Suddenly he felt the blade of an axe hitting his shoulder! In his fall he managed to grab the saddle of the ram rider and tried to hold on, sliding through the mud. He had dropped his sword when he was struck, but luckily he still had a belt knife and he planted it in the back of the Dwarf. While the Dwarf toppled off the ram, he made use of his extreme agility and climbed up the beast and rode toward his allies.
Fortunately his elven companions recognised him and they lowered their spears. As fast as he could he jumped off the ram and moved towards the weapons tent, where some officers where handing out razor sharp spears and long broad shields bearing the sign of the army.
“Make a full circle of spears and shields, do not let them surround us! Together we will fight, together we will break their charge, together we will survive! Now, brave fellow brothers, stand here with me! Here, where I make my final stand! Today we will write history as heroic warriors who held their ground against a vast… horde… of savage… Dwarfs!” Lirkos recognised the man who was making that speech as the general commanding the whole army and it gave him an enormous adrenaline boost as he was taking his place at one of the front rows of the wall of shield and spears.
To be continued...