When Malik returned to the gate, he was pleasantly surprised. About a hundred men had been organized into small groups and were receiving some basic instruction from Stern’s Guardsmen. Beyond the gate, Malik could see the builders erecting the wooden beams at regular intervals as he had requested.
“It’s looking better,” Malik said to Jenner and then lifted his voice. “Who among you needs a sword?”
Several confused faces looked up from their drills and turned to face Malik. Malik stood beside the cart the old man from the museum had obtained. The cart was overflowing with weapons, and at the front there were two large barrels filled with highly flammable oil.
“Form an orderly line,” Malik said, and gestured to the back of the cart.
The men came trotting over. Malik reached into the cart and handed the first of them a rather elegant, slender blade. The man took it, started to move on, and then stopped in his tracks.
“This is the sword of Perocles, the first defender of Ebulon,” he said in awe.
“What’s your name?” Malik replied.
“Auryn,” the man said.
“Well, now it’s the sword of Auryn, Ebulon’s last defender.” Before the man had a chance to reply, Malik turned to Jenner.
“Make sure all these weapons are are distributed, then meet me on the wall.”
Jenner nodded.
“Make sure to grab a sword for yourself,” Malik admonished.
Glancing around, Malik’s gaze fell across Old Ives who was swinging his broken bottle in slow, obviously non-lethal arcs.
“Ives,” Malik said.
The old man looked around in confusion for a moment before his gaze came to rest on Malik. He smiled and came stumbling over.
“Where did your bottle cart go?”
The old man gestured to the cart which had been pushed into a small alley out of the way.
“Perfect,” Malik said. He took Ives by the elbow and then helped him bring the bottle cart next to the barrels of oil.
“I have a job for you Ives.”
Ives smiled a toothless grin.
“I need you to fill up these bottles like this,” Malik said as he poured oil from the barrel into the bottle. “Then I need you to soak a rag and stuff it into the bottle’s mouth.” Malik performed the task and held forth the bottle with the oil soaked rag dangling out along its side.
“Can you do that?”
“Sure,” Ives said with a smile. He then deftly set about the task and had three of the bottles done in the time it had taken Malik to do one. For the first time since he had come to Ebulon, Malik was impressed.
“Ives,” he said, a touch of affection entering his voice, “what’s your family name?”
“Molotov,” Ives replied.
“Perfect.”
By the time night fell the numbers guarding the wall had swelled to around five hundred. There were some grumblings, but Malik was satisfied at the production on such short notice.
The grumbling continued until a single voice gazed over the wall and noticed something strange in the distance.
“What’s that?”
Malik squinted his eyes, but experience revealed more to him than his vision.
“It’s a column of torches,” he said, and though he didn’t put any force behind his declaration, he knew the words carried along the wall.
Silence descended, and the men watched as the approaching column grew larger and larger.
Time passed, and Malik could feel the nerves of the protectors of Ebulon harden to a razor’s edge.
Finally, a single Orc emerged from the shadows to stand at the edge of the clearing before Ebulon’s gate. He held a torch and sniffed the air, turning its body this way and that. Malik sneered at the sight of him, for he was pig like and brutish. He stood taller than a man, and his body rippled with muscles that seemed more fitting for a beast of burden than a creature that walked upright.
All too soon, another creature appeared, then another, until the whole clearing was infested with growling, snarling beasts. They stood beyond the wooden beams that rose out of the earth and seemed to confuse the Orcs as to their purpose.
Malik waited.
More and more of the creatures arrived, and the ones from the back began pushing the front lines forward. There was no logic to the approach, just a mass of muscle and rusted steel.
Malik watched it all, and had just about given up hope that any organization would emerge from the chaos, when the attacking force suddenly went silent. The massing throng of bodies separated, and a white skinned beast stepped forth from the crowd.
“It’s their tribal leader,” Jenner whispered.
“Let’s get an idea what we’re dealing with,” Malik said to Jenner, throwing him a wink. He then lifted his voice so that it echoed across the clearing.
“Orc army, as you can see we are heavily fortified here with sufficient forces to repel your attack. However, there is no need for you to charge forward and throw away your lives needlessly. From what I understand, Ebulon has many gates, and some of them are guarded by singular heroes who feel the greatest nobility can be found by perishing alone on a battlefield in defense of the weak. Why not pass this gate by and assist your brethren in the eradication of such fools? I’m fairly sure you’ll find less resistance there than here.”
Jenner snapped his head around to regard Malik with an incredulous look at his semi-treasonous remarks. Malik chuckled as he noticed the reaction was shared by nearly every figure all the way along the line.
“Relax,” Malik said with a smirk, “it was worth a shot, but it’s not going to work.”
In answer, the white Orc lifted his arm and roared a beastly cry which incited all the creatures beneath his command to charge forward in a frenzied rush.
Malik felt the small contingent of archers he had put together tense, but he lifted his arm to calm them.
“Wait until the ladders come, then send your arrows far out into the throng. We need a barrier of bodies to inhibit their retreat when it starts raining fire.”
The archers nodded.
All too soon the ladders came rising out of the darkness. Malik dropped his hand, unleashing the barrage of arrows that provoked squeals of anguish and death as they connected in the distance. The arrows continued to fly, volley after volley, as the snarling faces came charging up their ladders from below.
Malik leaped onto the wall, swinging his sword downward in a terrible arc that separated the lead Orc’s forearms from his body. Unbalanced, the heavy beast tumbled backward, knocking several of its brethren from their perch upon the ladder. The disruption caused the whole structure to fail, and the ladder went skidding across the wall to dislodge the adjacent scaling mechanism as well.
Grabbing a torch, Malik grabbed one of Ive’s oil bottles, set it alight, and threw it with tremendous force down into the surging masses. As the bottle broke and sprayed oil everywhere, the flames spread with hungry abandon eliciting more cries of pain along with the sound of sizzling flesh.
“Ummm, bacon,” Malik said with a sadistic grin.
Jenner, who somehow had gotten his fine clothing sprayed by dark, brackish blood, stared up at Malik in disbelief.
Malik threw him another wink as he tossed down two more flaming bottles. This time the resultant liquid fire spread to one of the upright poles, which Malik had also ordered soaked in oil. Flames erupted high into the sky, and Orcs were pushed against the burning brand both by the forces from behind eager for the taste of battle, and those at the front who were trying to retreat and tend their terrible wounds.
More ladders thumped against the wall, and Malik danced about, assisting the Guardsmen in dislodging them. After less than an hour, all of the erected beams were alight, and the smell of death and the sound of dying filled the air.