For the League by Matt Gilbert

3869.CE

Wilhelm puked. As did a man along his rank to the left. The regimental dogs scampered between the feet of the men, scoffing down the offerings of the morning’s undigested breakfasts. He could hear nervous whimpers and prayers fearfully whispered all around him. A large brute of a man in front of him shook and cried. As he wiped his mouth and stood back up, Wilhelm noted the dark wet patches running down the big man’s trousers. Battle was terrifying for even the bravest of men. If you weren’t scared, you were mad. He gripped the shaft of his halberd as hard as he could. His knuckles white, the pain was something to focus his mind on. 

A stirring in the lines became a loud murmur, and heads turned to the right. Wilhelm stood on tip-toe and tried to see beyond the ranks in front, catching a glimpse of the duke, resplendent on his huge winged beast, pacing up and down the lines. He was clad in polished plate and riding what appeared to be a scaly, winged lizard. Its head resembled that of a ferocious rooster and its black, cunning eyes darted frantically across the ranks as a hiss rasped through its wickedly hooked beak. 

“Cockatrice,” Pieter said. “From the menagerie in Targun Spire. Vicious bastard thing that is.” 

The duke was battling with his mount, trying to get it to remain still, eventually resorting to kicking the obdurate beast with his armoured shoes, causing it to twist and snap but eventually relent. Having stopped it moving, with some difficulty, he now stood tall in his stirrups. 

“Men of the League,” he bellowed, “our lands are once more threatened by orc filth. These are our lands. The lands of our wives and children. I know you have fought for them before, and I know the hearts of my men. You are all…” 

The rock came out of nowhere and landed with a terrific smash, cleanly taking the head off the cockatrice and skidding across the soft earth before slamming into the serried lines of bowmen forty yards to Wilhelm’s right. There was a stunned silence while eyes and brains tried to comprehend what had just happened. Then the screaming started. Those bowmen directly in the path of the projectile that were not eviscerated completely stared at their shattered and missing limbs, as they lay in the middle of a mess of bloody flesh, feathers, and rubble. 

Blood-curdling cheers and roars reached the League’s front lines, evidence the orcs had witnessed the accuracy of their goblin allies. The ground shook as the vast orc horde began to pick up pace and close the distance with the reeling humans. Officer-knights ran to the duke, struggling to pull his trapped leg from under the lifeless body of his prized beast. 

Having been hauled free, the duke angrily shoved his rescuers aside. 

“Where’s my horse?” he yelled, voice raw with emotion. “Where’s my bloody horse?” 

Still cursing, the duke was dragged away between the lines as sergeants and regimental champions roared commands at their shaken units. 

“Archers. Loose!” 

“Brace for impact!” 

Wilhelm could feel the orcs before he could see them. The thunderous charge that preceded them reverberated through the ground and his quivering legs. There was a palpable and murderous sapping of energy that swept through the human ranks ahead of the approaching monsters. 

Men lowered spears and locked shields together. Those in the ranks behind added their shields and readied their weapons. Seconds later, the orcs hit with a sickening and deafening crash. Greenskin ferocity and rage met human bravery and stubbornness and, against all the odds, the human line held. Countless orcs died as they met the sharpened points of the human phalanx, but those behind them simply leapt over their fallen brethren and onto the shields preventing them from reaching the butchery they craved. Men screamed and orcs bellowed. Swords, axes and cleavers chopped, slashed, and were broken, as what discipline either side had shown dissolved into a brutal melee of desperate violence. 

Time lost all meaning. Wilhelm felt his fear dissipate, and in its place, cold rage took hold, giving him a strange awareness of everything around him. His halberd had been splintered, and he now fought with a sword taken from a fallen soldier that no longer had need of it. To his left, an orc was hacking at a man that lay screaming on the floor. Wilhelm tore a spare axe from the orc’s belt and buried it in the creature’s skull. He raised his shield just in time to stop a crunching blow from a snarling orc with a huge hammer that had broken through the line to reach him. The brute was covered head to toe in thick armour, and behind its murderous eyes, lightening appeared to flicker and spark. Wilhelm kicked out with all his might into the orc’s shin, causing it to slip on the mud that was now churned and slick with gore. Using the opening he’d created, he grabbed his troll-bone handled dagger, a gift from his uncle, and buried it up to the hilt in the orc’s eye socket. The lightening instantly flashed and died, and the orc toppled backward into its fellows behind who filled the gap created with terrifying efficiency, trampling its body into the mass of dead at their feet. Wilhelm slipped himself, stumbling on what he thought was Pieter’s face. Lucky he did – the blade of an axe whistled through the air where his head had been an instant before, merely nicking his cheek, instead of ripping through his jawbone. 

Wilhelm found himself at the front of his regiment, a chaotic swirl of chance and bloody carnage. He was lifted off his feet by a huge orc that grabbed him by the throat and began to squeeze, attempting to crush his neck. As he kicked helplessly and his vision began to go dark, the mass of orcs faltered and their war-cries turned to bellows of pain and anguish. Through his dimming eyes, he made out the breathtaking sight of the duke’s household knights making a bone-crunching charge into the side of the enemy lines. Lances, bones, and orcs shattered, and Wilhelm was dropped to the ground, where he lay sprawled across the bodies piled there as he gradually lost consciousness. 

*** 

“Wake up boy!” 

Wilhelm had been shaken to. As he came round, he slowly took in the scene around him. He was lying awkwardly on Jickrum, at one time the village farrier – a father of two good strong boys. Simon, the eldest of the two, lay at his father’s feet, missing his legs. Half covered by the dismembered body of an orc krusher and those they had died alongside, he noted the others he knew and had grown up with that lay around him. Rickard, the mudlark-turned-farmer. Jayce, the village baker with a joke for every occasion. Pieter, his best friend. They had all joined the duke’s ranks as paid, trained men after the last orc raids. 

Before he could contemplate what that meant, he was given another shake. 

“Get up lad. Pick up your sword and get back in line. There’s more of the scum, and the duke wants to take the fight to ‘em before they recover. He’s mighty pissed is his royalness. On your feet!” 

Groggily, Wilhelm dragged himself to standing and wearily joined the other men forming up. There was no time to think about what had happened and what might be. It was only early morning. Orcs were invading his home and killing his friends. 

The fighting has only just begun. 

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