Rise of the Horde - Chapter 565 - 565

The impact came like the collapse of a cliff.

The orcish host slammed into the Threian infantry line with a sound that drowned even the screams. Wood cracked. Iron rang. Flesh burst. Shields buckled inward as if struck by a tidal wave, the sheer mass of charging bodies forcing the front ranks backward step by step despite locked arms and braced legs.

Men were crushed before they ever struck a blow.

An infantryman in the center vanished beneath the press, his scream cut short as two orcs slammed into him from opposite sides. His shield snapped, ribs folded inward, and he was driven face first into the frozen ground where boots trampled him until there was nothing left to recognize as human.

Elsewhere the line bent hard.

A knot of orcs hit one section with particular fury, roaring as they hurled themselves forward. Spears shattered against thick hides and layered scrap armor. The Threians were shoved back several paces, heels sliding in blood and churned dirt. A captain went down under the weight of three bodies, his helmet torn away as an axe caved in his skull. The men around him nearly followed, panic flashing white hot through their eyes.

But the line did not collapse.

Officers screamed orders hoarse with desperation. Shields locked tighter. Men leaned into each other, backs pressed together, breath coming in ragged bursts as they absorbed the impact. Where the line buckled, reserves surged forward, slamming their shields into place, stabbing low and fast beneath raised axes and crude armor.

No one fought alone.

A lone orc burst through a thinning section, tusks bared, axe already swinging. He took a sword to the thigh that staggered him, then a spear through the shoulder that pinned his arm uselessly, then a dagger driven up beneath his jaw by a third man who lunged in close. He fell choking on his own blood, crushed beneath the boots of his fellows as they were forced back.

Again and again it happened.

The Threians did not duel. They swarmed.

When an orc pushed too far forward, they gave ground just enough to draw him in, then closed from all sides. Blades hacked into joints. Spears punched into bellies. Shields shattered knees. Even with their monstrous vitality, orcs bled out roaring when wounds stacked faster than flesh could endure.

Still the pressure did not ease.

Orcs climbed over the bodies of their dead to reach the line. Some threw themselves bodily onto shield walls, grabbing rims and dragging men down with them. Others smashed shields aside with brute strength, opening momentary gaps that were instantly filled with stabbing iron and screaming bodies.

The ground beneath the clash became unrecognizable.

Mud mixed with blood into a thick red slurry. Frozen patches shattered underfoot, sending fighters slipping and falling where they were instantly trampled. Severed limbs vanished beneath boots. Faces were crushed into the earth until teeth broke loose and jaws hung slack.

Behind the infantry, the mages continued their work.

Ice dominated the field.

A wave of frost rolled outward from raised staves, coating charging orcs in rime. Beards froze solid. Muscles stiffened mid stride. Some fell and shattered as their bodies struck the ground, frozen flesh breaking apart like brittle stone. Others slowed just enough to die screaming beneath spear thrusts.

Jagged ice spears erupted from the earth in sudden forests, impaling advancing warriors and blocking the path of those behind them. Orcs smashed into the frozen obstacles, cracking ribs and skulls, piling up in screaming heaps that became killing grounds as archers shifted their aim and loosed into the mass.

The archers had not stopped.

They rotated in practiced rhythm.

Those at the front fired until fingers bled and shoulders burned, then fell back without shame or hesitation. Fresh archers stepped forward, bowstrings already drawn, arrows flying almost immediately. In the rear, healers bound split fingers and swollen wrists, murmuring quick spells or wrapping cloth tight before shoving the men back toward the line.

Arrows fell into the melee with brutal precision.

Shots took orcs through exposed necks, through eye sockets, through open mouths as they roared defiance. Others plunged into backs as warriors tried to push forward to join the fight, dying without ever striking the enemy.

The noise was unbearable.

Metal on metal. Bone cracking. The wet sound of blades sliding through flesh. Screams layered atop screams until they became a single unbroken roar that echoed off the mountain walls and returned amplified.

In one section the Threian line broke completely.

An orc chieftain barreled through with half a dozen warriors at his back, his axe coated black with blood. He bellowed triumph as he hacked down two soldiers in quick succession, splitting one helm and tearing the other nearly in half.

For a heartbeat it seemed the gap would widen.

Then the reserve hit him from both sides.

Spears rammed into his flanks. A shield smashed into his knee, folding it backward with a crack that could be heard over the chaos. He roared in pain and fury, swinging wildly, severing a man’s arm at the elbow before a sword punched through his throat from behind. He dropped, gurgling, his warriors dying around him one by one beneath coordinated strikes.

The gap closed as if it had never existed.

Aliyah Winters watched from behind the lines, her scepter blazing with cold light.

She could feel the strain in the air, the way mana bent and screamed as it was forced again and again into devastating shapes. Her mages were exhausted, many nearing their limits, but they held. They focused on disruption rather than annihilation, freezing lanes, breaking charges, forcing the orcs to arrive in ragged waves rather than overwhelming floods.

The orcs fought with ferocity.

They did not break easily.

Even wounded, even impaled, some crawled forward on broken limbs to drag Threians down with them. One orc with his belly split open wrapped his arms around a soldier’s legs and bit through the man’s calf before a mace crushed his skull.

But ferocity without unity bled itself dry.

As minutes stretched into an eternity of slaughter, the newcomers began to falter. Not everywhere. Not all at once. But in pockets where the dead lay thickest, where ice turned ground into death traps, where arrows fell without pause.

They screamed louder. Charged harder. Died faster.

The Threian infantry line bent and reformed, bent and reformed again, never snapping fully. Every step backward was answered by two forward. Every breach was sealed with blood and iron.

By the time the sun climbed higher above the Lag ranna peaks, the ground before the Winters Army was carpeted with bodies.

And still the fighting raged on.

*****

The center did not bend this time.

It tore open.

Five orcish chieftains burst through the Threian line like living battering rams, their presence unmistakable even amid the chaos. Each was larger than the warriors around them, broader in the shoulders, thicker in the chest, their armor a mismatched collection of trophies torn from fallen enemies. They did not move like common fighters. They advanced with certainty, with the brutal confidence of those who had killed their way to leadership.

Where they struck, shields shattered.

One chieftain drove forward with a massive cleaver, hacking down through overlapping shields as if they were thin planks of rotten wood. Another used a heavy mace, swinging in wide arcs that crushed helmets and pulped skulls with single blows. A third simply charged bodily into the line, lifting men off their feet and hurling them aside to be trampled by the warriors pouring in behind him.

The Threian formation near the center disintegrated under the weight.

Men were knocked aside, shoved backward, or dragged down into the mud. Orcs flooded into the gap, roaring in triumph as they stabbed, hacked, and crushed anything that moved. The neat geometry of the infantry line dissolved into pockets of desperate fighting. Officers screamed orders that were swallowed by the din.

A standard fell.

For a moment it looked as though the entire center would collapse, splitting the Winters Army in two.

Behind the infantry, panic rippled through the archers.

Some loosed arrows into the press at near point blank range, shafts vanishing into writhing masses of green flesh. Others hesitated, seeing orcs breaking free of the melee and charging toward them with weapons raised. Mages recoiled, hastily forming barriers of ice and frost, knowing full well that if the enemy reached them, most would die within seconds.

Aliyah Winters felt the danger like a knife pressed against her spine.

If the center broke completely, the battle was lost.

She turned sharply to Sir Rhaegar Vance, who stood nearby with his helmet under his arm, watching the carnage with clenched fists.

“Permission to engage,” he said, his voice steady despite the horror unfolding before them.

Aliyah did not hesitate.

She met his gaze, saw the resolve there, and nodded once.

“Go,” she said. “Do not let them reach the rear.”

That was all the permission he needed.

Sir Rhaegar Vance drew his blade in one smooth motion, iron singing as it cleared the scabbard. The sword was already stained dark from earlier fighting, its edge nicked and worn, but still deadly. He slammed his visor down, lifted the blade high, and roared.

“To me!”

The cry cut through the chaos like a hammer strike.

Veterans near him turned at once, recognizing the voice, the authority, the promise of survival. A dozen, then two dozen soldiers surged toward him, forming instinctively into a wedge. Shields locked. Spears angled forward.

Rhaegar did not slow.

He charged straight into the breach.

The ground shook beneath his boots as he slammed into the nearest orc, driving his sword up beneath the creature’s ribs and ripping it free in a spray of blood. He pivoted immediately, shield bashing another aside while a soldier behind him speared the staggered orc through the throat.

They pushed forward together, a living spearpoint driven into the heart of the chaos.

Around them, the fighting was savage and intimate. Men screamed as axes bit into flesh. Orcs howled in fury and pain as coordinated thrusts punched through armor gaps. Bodies fell and were instantly stepped over, crushed into the mud until faces were unrecognizable.

Then Rhaegar saw him.

The biggest of the orcs around.

The orc towered over the melee, nearly a head taller than those around him, muscles knotted like rope beneath scarred gray skin. His armor was a patchwork of iron plates and bone trophies, and in his hands he wielded a massive two handed axe, its blade notched from countless kills. Blood streamed down his arms, some of it his, most of it not.

The chieftain laughed as he fought, a deep booming sound, and with a single swing he cleaved a Threian soldier from shoulder to hip, the body collapsing in two pieces at his feet.

Rhaegar locked eyes with him.

The world seemed to narrow.

He raised his sword and began forcing his way toward the chieftain, cutting down any who stood in his path. Soldiers rallied around him, sensing the shift, pressing forward with renewed fury.

The orc chieftain noticed.

His laughter turned into a grin, tusks bared as he pointed the axe toward Rhaegar and bellowed something in his harsh tongue, a challenge that needed no translation.

Around them, the battle raged on unabated.

The gap in the line was still contested, still bleeding, but it no longer widened unchecked. The reserves poured in, slamming into the flanks of the infiltrating orcs. Mages hurled ice into the rear of the breach, freezing warriors in place and buying precious seconds. Archers abandoned long shots and fired straight into charging figures only paces away.

At the center of it all, two leaders moved toward each other through a storm of blood and iron.

Their duel was inevitable.

But for now, the clash of armies continued to rage, the outcome of the battle trembling on the edge of a single decisive moment.

*****

Sir Rhaegar Vance reached the chieftain through a corridor of death.

Bodies lay piled and trampled beneath their boots, Threian and orc alike crushed into the churned earth until armor and flesh were indistinguishable. Rhaegar shoved past the last of his men and stepped into a small clearing of violence where instinctively both sides drew back, sensing what was about to happen.

The orc chieftain loomed before him, chest heaving, tusked grin wide and mocking. Blood ran freely down his torso, matting the coarse hair that covered his arms and shoulders. One eye was swollen nearly shut, yet his stance remained solid, feet planted wide, axe resting casually against his shoulder as if the carnage around him were nothing more than a warmup.

He spoke in his guttural tongue, voice booming even over the clash of steel behind them.

“Pinkskin chief comes himself,” the orc growled, his words thick with contempt and amusement. “Good. I was getting bored.”

Rhaegar said nothing.

He raised his shield, angled his blade forward, and advanced.

The chieftain laughed and surged forward at once.

The axe came down in a brutal overhead strike, fast for something so massive. Rhaegar barely had time to brace. The impact was thunderous. His shield buckled inward, metal screaming as the force drove him down to one knee. Pain flared up his arm, numbing his fingers.

Before the orc could follow through, Rhaegar rolled to the side, the axe biting deep into the ground where his head had been a heartbeat earlier. Dirt and shattered stone sprayed upward.

Rhaegar slashed at the chieftain’s legs as he rose.

The blade bit into thick muscle, drawing a line of dark blood. The orc snarled, more in irritation than pain, and kicked Rhaegar square in the chest. The blow sent him skidding backward through the mud, air exploding from his lungs.

Rhaegar scrambled to his feet just as the axe swept toward him again in a wide horizontal arc. He ducked beneath it, felt the wind of its passage tear at his helm, and drove his sword upward into the orc’s side.

The strike landed, punching through layered leather and into flesh.

The chieftain roared, a sound of fury rather than agony, and slammed his forehead into Rhaegar’s helm. Stars exploded across Rhaegar’s vision as he stumbled back, blood streaming from a split brow beneath the metal.

The orc wrenched the sword free of his side and tossed it aside, ripping it from Rhaegar’s grip.

For a split second, Rhaegar stood unarmed.

The axe rose again.

Rhaegar surged forward instead of retreating.

He smashed his shield into the chieftain’s face, cracking tusk against iron. The orc staggered, snarling, and Rhaegar drew his dagger with his free hand, plunging it into the creature’s thigh again and again. Each strike landed deep, blood spraying hot across his gauntlet.

The orc howled and grabbed Rhaegar by the shoulder, lifting him clear off the ground with terrifying strength. He slammed Rhaegar down onto his back, the impact knocking the breath from him entirely. The axe descended toward his chest.

Rhaegar twisted desperately.

The blade glanced off his breastplate, carving a deep gouge and tearing through mail. Pain seared across his ribs. He screamed and shoved upward with his shield, deflecting the next strike just enough to avoid being cleaved in two.

Around them, the battle pressed closer. Threian soldiers fought to hold the widening ring. Orcs howled encouragement to their chieftain, beating weapons against shields.

Rhaegar forced himself upright, lungs burning, vision swimming.

The orc was bleeding heavily now, his leg slick with blood, his side torn open. Yet he stood tall, axe raised, eyes blazing with savage delight.

“You fight well,” the chieftain snarled. “For a dying man.”

Rhaegar spat blood onto the ground.

“We will see who dies first.”

He lunged.

The chieftain met him head on. Iron rang against iron. Rhaegar ducked and wove, using speed and precision against brute force. He slashed across the orc’s arms, stabbed into the abdomen, drove his shield into the creature’s wounded thigh, forcing it to buckle.

The chieftain answered with sheer savagery.

He abandoned defense entirely and charged, shoulder slamming into Rhaegar like a battering ram. They went down together, rolling through mud and blood. The axe skidded away. The dagger vanished somewhere in the dirt.

They grappled like beasts.

The orc’s hands closed around Rhaegar’s throat, crushing, thumbs digging in. Rhaegar clawed at the massive arms, his vision dimming, ears ringing. He felt his strength ebbing, the weight of the chieftain bearing him down inexorably.

With a desperate roar, Rhaegar reached blindly and found the hilt of his fallen sword.

He drove it upward with everything he had.

The blade punched through the chieftain’s jaw and into his skull.

The orc froze.

His grip slackened.

For a heartbeat, the world went silent.

Then the chieftain collapsed forward, crushing Rhaegar beneath his immense weight. Blood poured from the wound, soaking Rhaegar’s armor, filling his mouth with the copper taste of victory and horror.

Soldiers rushed forward, hauling the corpse away. Rhaegar lay there gasping, staring up at the smoke filled sky, barely aware of the cheers that rose around him.

The breach began to close.

Orcs faltered as they saw their leader fall. Threian infantry surged with renewed fury, spears and swords driving the orcs back step by bloody step. The line did not break.

Aliyah Winters saw the moment from the rear and felt her chest loosen for the first time since the clash began.

The center still stood.

The battle was far from over, but one chieftain lay dead, and with him died the certainty of orcish victory.

Rhaegar Vance was pulled to his feet, barely conscious, bloodied and battered but alive.

The war raged on around him, yet for that moment, amidst the chaos, a single truth burned bright.

The Winters Army would not fall easily.