Iron Blooded

The sound of the horn was our salvation – and it almost came too late.

My arm had grown numb from swinging my sword. I grunted from the effort of lifting my shield, as the Ork in front of me charged. His tusks shone bright in the ring of torches as he grunted, lifting an axe with a blade the size of my head.

I hunched, forced to duck down as I deflected the blow. The sharp crash of metal on metal was enough to make my already numb arm rattle in its socket. The Ork snarled, beady eyes squinting in rage when he saw me still standing. One of the soldiers beside me lunged, spear shaft aimed for the monster's heart.

The Ork knocked it aside, bringing up his axe in a sweep that nearly took the man's head off. I twisted, boots digging into loose dirt as I firmed my stance. My sword stroke passed halfway through the orks skull with a wet snick. The beast’s squeal was cut off as his body went limp. Then it tilted backward.

“Shit,” I hissed as the grip of my sword was wrenched from my tired fingers. I made a half-hearted lunge for it but was too slow. The muscled body of the red ork tumbled backward down the bluff, knocking another Ork warrior off of his feet. The moment of reprieve was temporary.

For the last few minutes, we had held the tide of orks with nothing but a tight formation and higher ground. But the reality of our situation was beginning to set in. Red orks are a massive breed of monsters, known mostly for their physical strength and brutality. On the wall of Ceris, fighting these monsters had been intimidating enough. But outside of a siege on an open plane with nothing standing between that brutality but our own armor, flesh, and bone? This was something else entirely.

The light of the moon shone off the eyes of the orks in the darkness. A sea of them, and they weren’t slowing for anything. Hands stretched out from the line, jerking me back into formation as the next wave crested the bluff. Without a sword I only had time to grip the edge of my shield, swinging it forward like a battering ram in an attempt to knock my enemy off balance. The ork stumbled but recovered quickly, hefting an iron clad club and swinging for my head. I ducked behind my shield but the sheer force of it slammed into me, knocking me sideways onto the spearman next to me.

The line swayed as men adjusted.

“Shit,” I swore for the second time, fumbling in the dirt as I struggled to rise. The spearman blinked down at me, eyes wide.