The Fall of Ik

I see a city lit aflame, faces screaming from the fires that seemingly reach the heavens above. Mothers and children rush from the gates of the city, only to fall into a trap by some unknown force, the likes I've never seen before. Charred flesh and exposed bone gobble the stragglers left behind, and my vision goes black. Then, I hear someone calling me. "Gudrig! Gudrig by Aerc get up!" I can feel someone shaking me, and my eyes open. It's my wife, Trinn.



"What dear, what?" I say, rubbing my eyes. My body feels stiff and I find the room to feel hotter than usual, and the air a little hard to breathe. "Is something wrong?"



"There's a fellow Orc at the door, they say your time to serve Petrill has come." Trinn's hands are tensed around my shoulders, worry-filled in her eyes. I look at her, shocked. I'm barely the age to marry, how am I the age to serve in the war?



"Are you sure they're here for me?" I say as I quickly get out of bed, putting on clothes that were set neighbor for the day. All Trinn does is nod, her lips quivering as she tries to leave the room. I grab her hand and pull her towards me. "Trinn, I'm going to come back home for you, alright?" She remains silent. I take a few steps towards her and wrap my arms around her to try and comfort her, I can feel a teardrop onto my hand.



"I can't be so sure of that, Gudrig.. There are so many that have died in this war, who's to say-" She cuts herself off, unable to finish her sentence.



"We haven't got all day! If there are any men in this home that is capable of serving, please meet us at the door! Now!" An old, grizzled voice strikes the newfound silence in our home. Trinn turns around quickly and lays a kiss on my cheek and sits on the bed, leaving me to meet my fate with the man at the door. I make my way out of the room but stop just before existing to look back at Trinn.

"I'm coming back for you..." I whisper to her, "...I swear it." I then leave to meet the man at the door.



"There you are, decided to take your sweet time and wanted a grizzled vet to raise his voice at you?" The voice belonged to an Orc, much taller and broader than I. He had 2 others behind him, each equipped with spears.

"I'm sorry- I just woke up from-"



"No excuses! The King has put out a levy on additional troops and supplies for the war front. You're lucky enough to be of age for conscription." He smirks, before examining me. "Aerc knows you can use some time on the field." I bite my tongue as to not say something rash to the men in front of me, and just look to the floor in embarrassment. "Come along now, we must take you to the training field, there you'll be trained along with others much like yourself in tactical and personal combat." He guides me to the training field, and as we march along I look back to my house and feel my heartache to see Trinn again.



By the time we arrive, I can see some Orcs already training, one of them barely smart enough to use his shield in combat. "The King made plenty of educational reforms as you are well aware of, however, there are still plenty in our kingdom who do not have the luxury to learn. It's quite surprising to see you have a good vocab."



"My father attended one of the universities that were built by the King, and served some time as a diplomatic envoy to Scandun."



"The Kingdom of Man? The King is quite fond of them." Our conversation ended there as we walked through the rest of the training field, the sounds of wooden swords and shields bashing against one another quickly got irritable. He showed me the Barracks of the camp, we sleep on the floor with hay and pelts for beds, as do the commanders. The field, of course, command building, and a single watchtower looking over it all.



As we made our way past the watchtower, the Orc Commander handed me a training sword and ordered me to train in the fields. I took off, eager and anxious to try combat for the first time. Orc Commander followed suit to watch over me and whoever he chooses as my combatant. He picks someone out of the field that's built similar to me, if but a little shorter, and we trade blows. One! Two! Three! My combatant strikes in quick precision, and I manage to block them all in reflex. We both lock eyes on each other, both shocked that I managed to block his strikes.



But it isn't over I realize as he attempts to strike again, I parry his strike and push for one of my own. Nearly does my sword hit him before he knocks my weapon out of my hand. "Battle is ove-" The Orc Commander tries to call before my combatant tries to strike again, I quickly dodge out of the way and make my way for my sword on the ground. The Commander is astonished but doesn't get involved. I quickly grab my blade from the floor and grip the handle tightly, belting out a war cry that pierces the skies and launch a seemingly endless assault against my combatant, he blocks most besides the last few on my barrage, and he is put on his knees from my last strike.



"You've won.." he pants, ".. but how?" I drop my weapon to check on him for any serious wounds, but he is only bruised with a small cut on his hand.



"I don't know! It all just came to me..." I trail off, looking at the Orc Commander who quickly made his way next to us.



"You both did great out there, more of that and we'll have the bastards in Kuntar begging for mercy!" He slaps a hand on our shoulders, nearly pushing us to the floor. We're taken to the barracks to rest from our training, and the next few months have been more or less the same since then. The combatant's name, I've learned, is Loghorz. We've grown to be friendly rivals, sparring against each other constantly, or seeing how many combatants we can defeat in a day. However, I've noticed with each passing day the air gets harder and harder to breathe, and it gets hotter and hotter, and lately, I've been hearing sounds at night, similar to that of rats clawing at walls.



Loghorz and I were promoted to official soldiers to serve Petrill, and the King's levy for resources and manpower was no longer needed since Scandun declared war on Kuntar, joining us in the war. As such, Loghorz and I have been posted as wall guards to oversee Ik. Then, I start to choke, the air has become so hard to breathe I can barely stand it and the heat appears to only be affecting a handful of us Orcs on the walls, until suddenly it all goes away. The cool breeze strikes me for the first time in what feels like months and I suddenly find it easier to breathe again, but I'm still uneasy.



A blond man comes dashing to Ik's gate screaming at us, "OPEN THE GATES! THE END OF DAYS IS COMING! THE END OF DAYS IS COMING!" he screams, but the gates remain closed.



"What do you mean the end of days? The sky is clear and the weather is fair!" one of the guards jest with him, but the man seems to not take no for an answer as he pulls out a scroll and yells at us some more.



"I HAVE AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE TO GIVE TO THE KING OF THE ORCS! IT MUST REACH HIM, NOW!" My hairs suddenly stand up and I get sudden chills, and I feel the sudden urge to let him inside.



"Guys, we need to let him in if he has something the King needs to see." The rest agree and order the gates to be opened, the man dashes in, and suddenly a huge gust of wind strikes us all, one Orc even falls off the wall and we can hear him hit the ground. We look out over the horizon to see something we, and no living thing in this realm, has ever seen before. A giant wound tears open into the sky, the size of mountain ranges, and out pours a wave of red and white, quickly charging down the mountainside. This seemingly hellish horde appears to be making its way to Ik.



"LITE THE BONFIRE!" I yell, and the Orcs assume their positions to defend the walls, a bell goes off to signal a potential siege of the city. The wave gets closer and closer and we can start to make out the bodies of the ones leading the charge. Legs of flesh charging faster than any man I've seen run with razor-sharp teeth, and eyes that can pierce into one's soul and corrupt it with evil, and behind it a wave of skeletons with steel and iron piercing through their bones.



"What are these things?" Loghorz whispers and the archers on the walls unleash a volley of arrows onto the horde. The horde soaks up the volley as if it was nothing, doing little to slow it down, and new creatures continue to pour from the wound. Giant wyrms that fly, with the face of a beetle and tail of a cobra. A giant spider that crawls from across the sky, the size of several cities! And many a wicked hellspawn. The horde finally arrives at the walls, bashing themselves onto the stone, doing little to nothing against our defenses. We pour down hot water and tar upon them, their screams filling the air, before one of our own begins attacking us.



He stabs one of the archers and kicks a spearman off the wall before Loghorz beheads him. "What the hell was that?!" was all that escaped from Loghorz's lips before the Wyrms. 2 of them grabs the gatehouse and begins to unroot it from the ground, leaving a gaping hole in our defenses.



"THE WALL IS IN THE SKY!" I shout, reinforcements arriving to find themselves confused as to what we're up against, but form a spear wall along the hole, acting as a new wall. The horde continues to rise in number, every 1 creature we kill another 20 seem to appear almost out of nowhere, and the wyrms continue to fly overhead, disrupting the defensive formation we previously established and forcing us to thin our men more and more. The creatures start to stack themselves on top of each other, climbing on one another, clawing into each other's flesh like monsters, and we have to constantly push them back off the walls, stabbing, kicking, punching, everything we can do to hold these walls.



But then I get the wind kicked out of me, someone magically appears in front of me, and before I can get a good look at them, I am kicked from the wall. Time seems to stop as I am falling, as I think of Trinn. How I've wanted to spend more time with her as I was posted at the walls, how I wish we could've had a family of our own. How I wish I could've gotten back to her, as I said to myself months ago. My body slams onto a corpse of a fellow soldier, taking some of the blow and saving my life. I let out a long groan as I try to get up and see who's on the wall, limbs flying off as I see a bloodied scythe hacking at my fellow kinsmen. I try to rush back up the walls before I hear a familiar grizzled voice, "Gudrig! We need you down here to aid the spear wall!"



I turn to see the Orc Commander who's trained me, I've never got to learn his name. "But sir, the walls!



"Brutikai are sent to take care of that demon, we need you here!" he shouts at me, pointing at a hole in the formation in our spear wall for me to fill. I quickly step into formation and point out my spear. Just in front of us is a large pile of corpses, hellspawn and Orc alike. With each push these things make the pile gets bigger and bigger, and its to the point we're standing on some of our own men, even if they are dead. We manage to hold this position for almost an hour, the demon that kicked me off the wall continuing to wreak havoc across Ik and the Wyrms removing more and more wall before a Brutikai comes to the commanding officer. I quickly look behind me in hopes there's good news, but the commander throws his helmet to the floor, and looks like he himself is about to burst into tears before the Brutikai walks up to us.



"Orcs, you've all done Petrill a great honor today, and protected Ik with your lives, but the King has issued a retreat order of the city. There is no victory for us here, but you all have the option to leave or stay here, giving up your lives to protect those leaving." A large number of Orcs around me run for the hills, the demons seem to notice and make another push that we barely manage to withstand with the assistance of the Brutikai. "Make your option now, there's no going back."



Needless to say, those who didn't already leave stayed for a final stand, we abandoned the walls and went for the city center where we can make use of the road network to pull them in a chokepoint. We hold out for several hours, my muscles growing weak before the assault suddenly stops. "is... is it over?" my breath is shakey and my body sore, much like the handful of others around me. The city is lit aflame and I can feel the heat strike my body, the Brutikai lays in a pool of blood protecting a child that's too terrified to move. I walk over to move the body off him.



"Hey... you alright?" I reach my hand out to the child, a shaken boy holding a teddy bear, he reaches back and grabs my hand before fighting against me and screaming, trying his best to getaway. I look behind me to see a skeleton in a jesters costume. He carries a bloodied scythe, and a single eye in his left socket, the eye colored like a bloodied ocean.



"Oho! The Orc I kicked off the wall! My my looking fine for a dead man walking, chosen one~" his voice sounds awful cheery, but has an echo to it and occasionally has distortion that follows after a couple words spoken.



"Who the hell are you!" I ready my spear at him, realizing my battalion is dead since this thing arrived.



"Me? Someone didn't take the time to read about me? I'm Anpu, what the ancient Scandunians call the "Angel of Death"~" *he uses a finger to slowly push down my spear, it begins dismantling itself in my hands and I feel my body lock in place* "I had my eyes on you for a while, and a couple others here on Ik~ Your people were in the perfect situation for my grand awakening! In war, just faced civil war, what's not to love about you orcs and your need for blood~?" I try to battle against whatever magic Anpu is using to keep me in place, but he clenches his fist and it seems to only get stronger around me.



"You're not as fun as your wife was, she sang a lot when we had some play time~" My eyes widen and I can feel my eyes widen, my heart racing.



"YOU BASTARD! WHAT DID YOU DO?"



"I'd break a finger, and she'd bed for mercy in the sweetest cries~ She was a great host, but I didn't toy with her much! I'm saving that for a select number of others I wish to meet~ But for now you Orcs will have to do." I break free of his magic and move to punch him, and I land a strike, then two more, and another one, cracking his skull in more and more before he suddenly vanishes. I look around for him,



"SHOW YOURSELF!" Then there's a sudden pain in my chest, blood rushing out from my mouth. I look to my chest to see a blade pierced through it, and I turn around to see Anpu grinning at me.



"Peekaboo~!" He pulls his scythe out of me and I quickly hit the floor, trying to breathe but quickly losing sight. I can hear Anpu walking past me, and the final words I hear him say before I take my final breath is, "Come here little boy, this will only be a second~."