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Message: <blockquote data-quote="seasong" data-source="post: 498089" data-attributes="member: 5137">The Battle of Eastpass, pt IV, continuedOver the next day, several things happened at once.Greppa reached Theralis safely, only to discover that reinforcements were not coming. There were orcs at Theralis, and a rather sizable battle going on there. Eastpass, although valued by the city, could be defended by a small group for an indefinite time, while the city was losing soldiers every day, and needed everyone they could get their hands on.Greppa was barely allowed to leave, himself, to return to Captain Agina.The orcs at Eastpass, when they realized that no more fireballs were coming, hiked upslope en masse, and began really whaling on the defenders. Merideth began missing sleep rather severely, as the only healer. She catnapped between clashes, catching a few minutes here and there, and healing soldiers in a fog of sleep deprivation.Athan, called to battle, and not quite awake, managed to walk right into an orcish spear, ripping his gut open and dropping him out of the battle. Merideth healed enough to stabilize him, but only his iron constitution kept him alive.And then Greppa returned with the bad news.-----Another two days, and the shield guards were functionally automatons. Few things can focus your skills like the daily threat of death, and the orcs had come to fear their lock-stepped shields. The soldiers themselves hid entirely behind the shields, trusting the movements of the spears behind them to guide their movement.-----And then, finally, reinforcements, of two kinds.Eastpass led to the north, the primary trade partner of the Theralis valleys. And while Theralis had stored food, they couldn't last through a sustained siege on that and grapes. Thus, Eastpass became suddenly, vitally important, and a thousand soldiers were setn away from the Theralis front, to aid Eastpass in clearing the northern road.Secondly, however, were the people of the Theralis valleys. All had served in the military during their youth, and they'd spent the past week frantically making spears and gathering into informal companies. Now they'd arrived, ten thousand strong: northern farmers, fathers and mothers, aunts and uncles, ready to tear into the orcs like a human storm.War is hell, even for orcs.-----The plan, after Captain Agina had been safely over ruled, was to push out of the pass and into the valley, using those soldiers who had shields (perhaps 300) as a wedge.Then a lot of people would die. But more orcs would die than Theralese, and there were more Theralese than orcs, by nearly a 3 to 1 ratio. Theralese Captains like words like acceptable loss, when it's acceptable to them.As morning dawned, they began the push.-----Athan was put just behind the center of the longspears, wielding a short spear and a freshly healed gut. A pair of youths bracketed him, carrying as many spears as they could. Their job was to hand him spears as he threw them, and to pick spears up off the ground as the shield line stepped over them. Another two dozen youths were arrayed similarly - the goal was to prevent hurt orcs from getting away from the front line to heal.Merideth followed just behind the longspears as well, accompanied by two more experienced healers. Together, the three of them would attempt to keep the carnage to a manageable level.Greppa had a pair of youths bracketting him, as well: two hurt soldiers, each carrying buckets of mud.Captain Agina was chosen to lead the central group. She expected to die.The push began, shield guards using their shields and the pointy ends of those behind them to force the orcs back. The orcs were, to put it mildly, surprised - they knew the shields as something that held a line, not shoved forward.One braced step at a time, the line surged out of the narrow pass, and began a downslope descent. Orcs who turned to run were brought down by hurled spears; orcs who stayed to fight found themselves beating on an iron wall while spears poked out of closely covered slits. Orcs began to die, and the wall marched on.For several minutes, this continued, until the shield line reached the point where it could no longer cover the entire battle field. Then, the line stopped and held, while the ten thousand fresh adults got into position, and prepared for the hard part.-----The orcs were not idle, however. The Bunahken tribe, in particular, devised a cunning strategem. As other tribes retreated before the Theralese war machine, they hastily chopped down a number of sizable pine trees, and began stripping branches off.The trunks were laid out, and cut to a manageable length, and then they waited for the Theralese to begin moving downslope again.-----Finally, everything was as ready as it could be. Athan's two assistants had handed off their extra spears and retreated behind the second wall, high in the pass. The injured were similarly removed from the battle. Two spears arranged themselves with each shield guard, and prepared to keep as much formation as possible. Merideth and Greppa got as close to center as possible, praying that the warm bodies around them would keep them alive while they cast their spells.The army advanced.The battle was more chaotic now. Defenders at the edge of the shield wall fought more desparately, and a wall of spears barely kept the orcs at bay. Attention shifted to these edges, and soldiers began to die. Orcs died faster.As they began to get near the bottom of the slope, a ragged cheer formed, and the Theralese war machine continued to grind its way onto the northern road.The Bunahken made their move. At a dead run, they came out of the forest, hauling a half ton of battering ram with them. Dozens of orcs on each side, they broke cover and charged the line of shields. A number of spears were hurled. A number of Bunahken fell. But the rest continued the charge.When the first tree hit the first shield, the sound was, by some quirk of fate, almost a pure tone, like an iron bass gong. The shield guard carrying it never noticed - his shield had slammed into him at something close to twenty miles an hour, and he'd flown backwards several feet, unconscious, through his spear comrades.Nor was the tree stopped. It punched through the first spear soldier's gut, mostly splitting his torso in half, and grazed the leg of the longspear behind him, shattering the thigh. The orcs continued the charge, deep into the shield line, as people dove to either side trying to avoid the tree.And then the charging orcs lifted their spears from their backs, and began to slaughter... as the second and third trees hit, with less pure tones, the shield wall.In the space of six seconds, the tide turned.to be continued</blockquote>

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