Rise of the Horde - Chapter 559 - 559
The first thing that truly broke the Threians was not death.
They were soldiers. They had trained for death. They had marched knowing it might come.
What they had not trained for was being spoken to while they died.
The Rakshas at the center stepped forward again, shields grinding, boots sinking into a carpet of corpses that squelched wetly beneath their weight. Their spears rose and fell in measured, merciless rhythm.
“Lok’tar… grahm’kar… lok’tar…”
Victory. Blood. Victory.
The words were not shouted.
They were stated, as if announcing a fact the world had simply failed to notice until now.
A Threian front-ranker screamed and drove his sword forward with all his strength. The blade skidded uselessly across a Raksha’s shield. The orc did not even look down at him.
“Small bite,” the Raksha murmured.
He thrust his spear forward, the iron head punching through the man’s collarbone and exiting his back. The Threian’s scream cut off mid-breath.
The Raksha leaned closer as the man slid down the shaft.
“See? Wall holds. You don’t.”
He yanked the spear free and stepped forward.
The corpse vanished beneath the advance.
*****
The Rakshas fought like a machine that had learned to hate.
Their shields overlapped perfectly, curved faces slick with blood, dented and scarred but unyielding. Spears stabbed over shield rims, under arms, through visors, into throats. Every thrust was supported by another Raksha bracing the shaft, ensuring it went deep enough to kill.
A Raksha captain roared down the line.
“Throm’gar! Half-step! Lock!”
The formation shifted as one.
Threians were crushed between shields, ribs snapping audibly. One man screamed as his arm was pinned and then severed at the elbow by a spear thrust that came from nowhere.
Another Threian tried to crawl away, legs mangled, fingers clawing at the mud.
A Raksha noticed and planted a boot on his spine.
“No crawling. Stand like warrior. Die like one.”
He drove his spear straight down.
The chant grew heavier, deeper, like a drumbeat made of voices.
“Blood for ground! Iron for bone! Ground remembers…Names are gone!”
Threian officers screamed themselves hoarse trying to issue commands.
“Push! Push the center!”
They were answered with laughter.
A Raksha leaned forward, tusks slick with blood, and shouted in broken Threian.
“Push? You already pushing…into ground!”
He slammed his shield forward, knocking three men flat, then stepped over them as his brothers finished the work.
*****
On the Rakshas’ left, the Yurakks had fully given themselves to slaughter.
They no longer advanced in straight lines. They surged in knots, splitting and reforming, stabbing wherever fear showed its face.
A Yurakk ducked under a desperate sword swing and laughed.
“Too high! Always too high!”
He stabbed the man in the thigh, then the belly, then the throat, counting each blow.
“One. Two. Three.”
He shoved the corpse aside and moved on.
Another Yurakk grabbed a wounded Threian by the hair, forcing his head up.
“Look at me, pink-eye. Look.”
The Threian sobbed, blood bubbling from his mouth.
“Good. Remember this face. Tell ground about it.”
The blade went in slow.
The Yurakks began chanting faster now, pounding shields, stamping feet.
“Zug-zug! Blood-zug! Cut and drag and cut again! Skin splits! Bone sings! Horde eats everything!”
A Threian unit tried to form a shield ring.
The Yurakks circled them, laughing, throwing insults in a dozen dialects.
“Little wall!”
“So cute!”
“Break it! Break it slow!”
They rushed in all at once.
The ring collapsed in seconds.
*****
On the right, the Yurakks pressed relentlessly, using mockery like a blade.
A Threian soldier stabbed wildly, screaming.
A Yurakk leaned aside, letting the blade pass inches from his face.
“Missed,” he said calmly.
He stabbed the man through the neck.
Another Yurakk tore a Threian helmet off and hurled it into the mud.
“Too heavy for you,” he sneered. “Your head already empty.”
The Threians tried to rally, shouting prayers, calling on their forefathers, their gods, anything.
The orcs answered with chants.
“No gods here! Only blood! Pray to ground….It listens!”
A Threian banner fell. An orc planted his foot on it and roared:
“This cloth means nothing! You bleed same without it!”
The Yurakks advanced another step.
Aliyah Winters stood rigid, every instinct screaming at her that she had waited too long.
Her infantry was fully engaged now…too deep, too entangled, too surrounded by killing to be recalled.
Messengers ran to her and died.
Orders were shouted and swallowed by noise.
She could see no clear lines anymore….only violence, rippling outward.
She saw Threian soldiers fighting bravely, desperately, back-to-back, cutting down orcs only to be swallowed by the advance.
And she saw something worse.
She saw confidence in the enemy.
Behind the Rakshas’ front line, younger orcs stared wide-eyed at the carnage.
“They don’t run yet,” one muttered.
A veteran spat. “They will. Or they will all die. Same lesson.”
Another Raksha laughed darkly.
“Good fight. Pink-skins have spine. Break makes louder sound.”
Nearby, a Yurakk shouted gleefully.
“I got three! Who got more?”
“Four! One still screaming!”
“Finish him then count!”
Laughter erupted even as blades fell.
*****
The Horde’s voice unified again, deeper and louder than before.
“Lok’tar! Blood-bound! Lok’tar! Iron-willed! Step and kill! Step and kill!”
The Rakshas advanced another full step.
Threian lines buckled.
Men were crushed against their own shields, speared through backs, trampled as they fell.
A Raksha captain roared:
“Now! Break them now!”
The pressure increased.
The center surged forward like a tidal wave of iron and flesh.
The ground was no longer earth.
It was mud, blood, and bodies ground together by boots.
Wounded men screamed until voices failed.
Some begged. Some cursed. Some laughed hysterically as they died.
The orcs answered all of it with the same response.
Iron.
Boot.
Laughter.
“Lok’tar ogar!”
“Blood and iron!”
“Horde stands!”
And as the sun beat down on the Orcish Plains, the consolidated Horde line continued to advance…mocking, chanting, killing…while Aliyah Winters watched the battle she could no longer steer grind forward into something far darker than she had ever planned.
The first true clash had begun.
And it would not end quickly.
Aliyah Winters felt the last thread of restraint inside her tear apart.
The orcs were still chanting. Still laughing. Still advancing while her infantry bled themselves dry against shield walls that refused to break. Men were dying by the dozens every minute, crushed, speared, gutted in the mud while guttural voices mocked them in languages half understood and wholly hateful.
She could not endure it any longer.
She gripped her sceptre tightly and raised it high, its gems glinting under the light, her voice cutting through the din with a force born of command and fury.
“All forces,” she shouted, every word torn from her chest, “give them everything. Everything!”
Messengers ran. Horns sounded. Banners shifted.
The battlefield answered her at once.
The Threian archers moved with practiced speed despite their exhaustion. Bowstrings were drawn until fingers split and bled. Quivers were passed forward by cavalrymen who had been reduced to errand riders moments earlier, their pride swallowed by necessity.
Mage attendants ran among the ranks, hands glowing as they brushed arrow shafts.
Frost crept along fletching. Lightning crackled at arrowheads. Pale runes ignited and sank into wood and steel alike.
Sir Ferin Luthen stood amid the archers, blood streaked across his face, his voice hoarse but unbroken.
“Loose.”
The sky vanished.
Arrows screamed upward in a single impossible wave, blotting out the sun. They fell like judgment.
The first impacts tore into the orcish lines with terrifying force. Shields exploded into shards of frozen wood and metal. Lightning lanced through clustered bodies, muscles locking as hearts burst inside chests. Frost detonations flash froze entire knots of warriors before shattering them into clouds of red ice.
Rakshas fell. Not one or two but dozens at once, spears slipping from numbed fingers, shields breaking apart under magical force. Yurakks roared as lightning crawled across their armor and cooked them from the inside.
For the first time the orcs’ laughter faltered.
The Threian infantry roared in savage triumph and surged forward, hacking and stabbing at stunned enemies.
Aliyah did not allow herself to hope yet.
“Cavalry,” she commanded, voice sharp as drawn steel. “Both flanks. Charge.”
The horns wailed.
On the left and right, Threian cavalry thundered forward in full gallop. Hooves churned mud and blood into spray. Lances crackled with enchantment. Knights leaned low in their saddles, teeth bared, eyes fixed on the enemy flanks.
The impact was catastrophic.
On the left, the 3rd and 5th Yurakk warbands were hit at speed. Lances punched through shields and bodies alike, lifting orcs from the ground and hurling them backward. Horses crashed through broken ranks, trampling fallen warriors into pulp while riders hacked down stunned survivors.
On the right, the 6th through 8th warbands were struck just as hard. Shield formations tore apart under the momentum of armored beasts. Orcs were dragged screaming beneath hooves, skulls crushed, ribs snapped.
For the first time since the battle began the consolidated orcish line bent visibly.
Shouts of pain and surprise erupted from the orcs.
The Threian infantry pressed harder, desperate to capitalize.
Aliyah felt her heart hammer in her chest.
Now or never.
“Mages,” she shouted, arm slashing downward. “Shatter them.”
Sir Loric Avelle raised his staff without hesitation.
The Threian mages answered as one.
The air screamed.
Runic circles flared beneath their boots. Chanting layered upon chanting, harmonies grinding against each other until reality itself seemed to vibrate. Mana surged outward in blinding torrents.
Ice spears erupted from the ground beneath orcish feet, impaling bodies by the dozen. Arcane blasts punched through shield walls and detonated behind them, tearing warriors apart from within. Cones of freezing wind swept across the battlefield, locking limbs solid before shattering them with concussive force.
An entire Raksha spear rank vanished beneath a single concentrated blast, bodies torn into fragments that rained down across both armies.
The Threians screamed in fierce joy and horror.
The orcs roared back, some in pain, some in fury.
For a brief moment, the orcs seemed to drown beneath magic.
At the forefront of the orcish line stood the Amazzfer.
Not a shaman. Not a commander.
A warrior.
He was massive even by orcish standards, his armor dented and split, his body covered in wounds both old and new. Blood coated him so thoroughly that it was impossible to tell which was his and which belonged to others.
In his hands he held the Golden Wolf.
It was not an artifact in the way the Threians imagined. Not a relic to be venerated and kept safe. It was a symbol, a burden, a duty to be down passed from one bearer to the next through blood and survival.
The Amazzfer had already killed with it.
He had smashed skulls with its haft. He had split shields with its weight. He had taken arrows and blades and spells and still stood.
As magic rained down, he threw his head back and laughed, a sound raw and savage even amid the chaos.
He raised the Golden Wolf high and roared in orcish, his voice tearing through the storm.
“Grakh tor Urkhan grah.”
Then louder, so loud that even the Threians heard the meaning if not the words.
“The Chieftain is with us.”
The Golden Wolf blazed.
Light erupted outward, not as a wall but as a presence, a spreading shimmer of golden force that rolled across the Horde like a living thing. It was translucent, imperfect, flickering where spells struck it, but undeniably real.
Weaker magic struck it and died.
Frost lost its bite and fell as mist. Lesser lightning dispersed into harmless sparks. Enchanted arrows dulled mid-flight and clattered against shields.
Stronger spells still punched through. Entire groups of orcs were still obliterated by the most powerful incantations. The barrier did not make them invincible.
But it changed the battle.
The orcs felt it immediately.
Their roars returned twice as loud.
“Chieftain watches over us,” one bellowed as an arrow glanced off the golden shimmer.
“He is with us,” another shouted as ice shattered harmlessly against the light.
The Amazzfer lowered the Golden Wolf and charged back into the fight, barrier radiating from him as he ran.
He smashed into the Threian infantry like a living battering ram.
The battlefield collapsed into madness.
Magic still fell but no longer with absolute dominance. Cavalry fought desperately on the flanks, riders dragged from saddles, horses stabbed and screaming. Infantry lines dissolved into swirling knots of killing.
The Amazzfer waded through it all.
A Threian swordsman struck him across the shoulder. He backhanded the man with the Golden Wolf and crushed his skull. Another plunged a spear into his thigh. He snapped the shaft and gutted its owner in the same motion.
Blood streamed down his arms and chest. Wounds gaped. Still he fought.
“Loktar,” he growled between breaths, smashing shield and helm alike.
Nearby orcs rallied around him instinctively.
“Stand with the Wolf,” one shouted.
“Fight where he fights,” another roared.
The golden shimmer followed him, thinner now, flickering under constant magical strain, but still present.
Aliyah saw him.
Saw the light.
Saw the orcs rally instead of breaking.
Her stomach sank.
“That is no relic,” Sir Loric whispered beside her, dread creeping into his voice. “That is belief. The power of faith.”
Aliyah clenched her jaw.
She had committed everything.
Archers firing until arms shook uncontrollably. Cavalry locked in bloody melee with no room to maneuver. Mages burning themselves out, faces pale and bleeding from the nose.
There was nothing left to hold back.
She stared across the battlefield at the blood drenched orc holding the Golden Wolf aloft amid fire and ice and screaming men.
“If he falls,” she said quietly, “they may still break.”
If he does not, she did not finish.
The Orcish Plains had become a place of annihilation.
And neither side would leave it unscarred.
