The chief of the Badgers was jumping up and down, and screaming. Pirjo looked at him, and they could hear him attempting to keep his two thousand warriors in order.
One of his sub-chiefs decided enough was enough. He promoted himself in the time honored Orcish manner, by lopping off the chief’s head with a battle axe. While the Badger line was confused, by the sudden promotion, they were hit by two thousand Black Bear warriors from the side. It appeared to be an attempt to pay back a long ago slight forgotten to everyone else.
The captain looked at the battle below. “What an incredible slaughter. What an incredible slaughter.” He leaned back against the wall muttering.
Pirjo looked at her husband, and then spoke to the Orcs again. “The Beloved of the Goddess is still waiting. Should he go home, because the Orcs cannot decide who should face him?”
This galvanized the largest tribe, the Golden Bears into rushing the hilltop. Pelicans and Cardinals stopped fighting each other to defend against the greater threat, eight thousand screaming Golden Bear warriors. With the Golden Bears were packed against the base of the hill, the Bighorns, nominally Golden Bear allies, decided to backstab them, and three thousand Bighorns attacked the Golden Bears from behind.
The priestess in yellow spoke. “Sister, husband, I make it about half of the tribes engaged.”
The ‘Beloved of the Goddess’ inclined his head slightly to indicate ‘Yes’.
The priestess in red spoke for the first time, “We need to speed things up. The contractions are closer.”
Pirjo sighed. “I’ll try,” she whispered. In a louder voice, “Our husband is getting impatient. We thought that Orc warriors were honorable. Will you not supply a warrior to fight the Beloved of the Goddess?”
Chaos. Three thousand Squirrel and Raccoon warriors marched from their encampments (in one case after a quick change of command) to attack the Golden Bears from behind. Four thousand Deer and the Loon warriors attacked the Black Bears, wiping them out almost at once. Thousands of Mockingbird, Bison, and Elk warriors rampaged into the Badger encampment from the other side, ending up in a pitched battle with the Deer and Loon warriors when the last Badger warriors went down.
The Beaver tribe decided to imitate their namesake, thousands of warriors building traps across the front and sides of their encampment, to keep the warriors of the other tribes out.
“That is most of them now sister,” breathed the priestess in yellow quietly. “No, wait. Look to the rear!”
Five of the smaller tribes, the Fox, Moose, Roadrunner, Coyote, and Grizzly Bear had decided to take advantage of the chaos to loot. They were after women and children mostly.
Orcish rules were that women and children could be adopted by any tribe. They often were, because Orcish lives were brutal and short. Adopting the wives, sons, and daughters of a defeated tribe was one way to prevent your own from perishing.
In the case of the Fox tribe, they appeared to be going about it intelligently, making offers to the women to join them. In the case of the Grizzly Bears, well, they had a fight on their hands. Orc women may not have been warriors, but they knew about weapons.
Moose was smart. They’d been spying on the others, and decided to imitate Fox’s success with bribery. Roadrunner was doing both, depending upon what each local sub-chief thought was right. Coyote, well, they were so far to the rear it was hard to tell.
Meanwhile, the larger tribes kept on fighting, oblivious to what was occurring in the rear. Only the Beaver tribe realized that a raid was going on, and they were so upset with everyone else, that they suddenly decided to up stakes, and leave the battlefield. Of course they raided every encampment they could on the way out. They were Orcs.
About a half hour later, an exhausted Orc warrior in hacked and slashed armor staggered up to the gates of Ebulon. He cried out, “I claim the right of combat with the beloved of the Goddess,” then collapsed flat on his face in the mud and blood at the base of the wall.
Kanerva let out a little cry, and a gush of liquid came from beneath her legs.
Pirjo turned to the captain, who was still leaning against the wall, looking stunned. “Her water’s broken, we must get her home. I think that we’ve done enough here today.”
She looked over the battlefield. “I make that at least twenty thousand dead, and ten thousand fled. Those fled will take tales of this with them, and not return. Since we are Kanerva’s midwives, we really can’t stay.” She bent over, and gave the captain quick peck on the check. “Good luck Captain, and the Goddess’ Blessings be upon you and your city.”
Then the ‘Beloved of the Goddess’ picked up and carried his pregnant wife back through the whirlpool, his two other wives holding onto his shoulders, the cat-beast at his side.
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Entry point 15 - by Matt Taylor
Commander Alatearamae of the Ebulonite 7th brigade looked out over the snowy battlefield, the Orc bodies piled almost as high as the corpses of her fallen warriors. They had blunted the attack of the Orcish vanguard but she knew that it wasn’t over yet. Her ranks had been badly mauled and the knowledge that the main Orc force was still out there gave her pause. She wasn’t worried about the Orc blood running down her spear and onto her hand, she wasn’t worried about the remnants of her fortifications. The only thing on her mind was what would happen to her kingdom should the invaders overrun this entry point. Only a warrior knew the crushing silence of waiting, waiting for contact, waiting for death. A silence broken only by the sounds of her troops hurriedly trying to rebuild some defensive gate at their outpost. It was as if time was in slow motion. A gradual march towards a pre-determined fate that one would in turns anticipate and fear.
Alatearamae was snapped from her internal reverie by a sudden sound. Instantly, she raised her spear, preparing to call her forces into formation for battle, thinking that it marked the onslaught of the main Orcish hordes. She stopped herself short however when she recognised that the unexpected sound was not in fact Orc war drums but rather an odd singing. The song was almost whimsical, a stark contrast to the blood soaked environs and was like no battle march she had ever heard. This peaked her curiosity and she scrambled up the ladder to the lookout post in hopes of sighting the source of this strange tune, unsure if it would spell salvation or certain damnation for her and the remaining troops of the 7th brigade. To her surprise, three strange forms appeared on the horizon and marched towards her position, continuing their curious cant.
The commander was dumbstruck by the forms marching in military formation towards the outpost. They appeared virtually identical save for their colour. Each of the three was a corpulent figure with minimal definition around their features. Virtually just three roughly shaped balloon men, one in a deep red colour reminiscent of a fine wine, one the pale yellow of well matured cheese and one the vibrant green of a fresh celery stick and each carrying a unique weapon. Weapon might have been a euphemistic term she realised a moment later when she got a good look. The red figure was carrying what appeared to be a giant butter knife while the yellow figure was wielding a 4 tined fork. Rounding out the set was the immense desert spoon carried by the green figure. She knew that the king had called for help from the other worlds but this surely could not have been what he had in mind, could it?