One Moo'r Plow

The siege began at dawn’s earliest light. For several days, I had sat and watched in dread as far off in the distance, the horde assembled. I sat and cursed my terrible vision, unable to make out anything but blurred shapes. But where sight failed me, sound and smell performed to make up for it.

The sound of hundreds of hooves on rock, the scratching of claws on stone, the patter of feet by the hundreds echoed along the valley walls. The faintest stench of an unwashed horde drifted over the distance. These did not alarm me.

The Godtouched did.

By instinct alone, I knew they drew close. Senses I did not possess told me of their location amidst the horde.

And if I knew where they were, the same must be true for them.

Dread crept through me, roiling as I stood and waited. On and on. They did not come at once, contrary to what I expected. Instead, the horde waited. Horns stirred the fortress at random hours through the day and nights that followed. Riders darted in and out of range of the nests above. Testing their responses, I assumed.

Minotaurs died for these tests, but more rode away than fell to the stone. The prey-piercers delayed the horde with their presence and impunity with which they sent down death from on high.

Yet that was all they could do. Delay. Stall and keep them at bay while the fortress entrenched itself into the siege. While we hoped for reinforcements that would not come.

It was on the fifth day that this changed.

I knew the chitter of goblins before my eyes could glimpse their small, wretched shapes. A spyglass handed upon my bellow was pressed to my eye and let me view the happenings from afar.

Nothing in the valley itself. I scanned back and forth, trying to find the noise’s source. They were somewhere, and sound indicated a sizeable amount of them.

Flailing green limbs entered my vision as I realized my error. I needed to look up. Surprise was the first emotion I felt as a green tide tumbled off the cliifside high above, herded there by their minotaur overseers. Goblins fell and slid down the cliff en masse.

Many died, their targets missed as their delirious screams echoed through the canyon. Some landed where they were intended to go. The jutted lips of the rock tunnels that extended along the canyon. For every one that missed, one or more landed. These suffered quick, painful bursts of broken limbs for they were still frail creatures being tossed from on high to stone below. These cushioned the falls of the horde behind them.

Small, frail creatures that thirsted for blood and chaos, reveling in petty death and destruction. The minotaurs used them as such.

Now, they flooded the tunnels in their numbers and chaos. No real match for the armored and experienced humans that kept watch there. They were not intended to. One tumbled over the edge, fanatical gleam in its eyes, body inscribed with runes. It struck a pile of its fellow, bounded up and dashed towards the nearest group of soldiers, hands upraised and screaming venom atop its lungs.

It too was cut down, and fire exploded forth.

The chattel was pushed off first, followed by the flame disciples. Goblins, of all creatures, possessed an unnatural, almost suicidal obsession with flames and dragons. These were painted with images of scales and fangs, lit torches strapped to their backs and tooth-daggers wielded in either hand.

Children of the fire, they proclaimed themselves. Born to die in blazes of glory. This I remembered from Garek’s memories. The minotaurs were happy to use them as disposable fodder, helping them fulfill their wishes of fiery death.

The humans knew this too.

Horns sounded and orders were bellowed to withdraw. They could not contest a goblin bombardment from above. There was only so far that the minotaur overseers could herd the goblins up the cliffside, which they had spent the past several days likely doing. Instead, the defenders were pulled back, fighting all the way.

The green tide continued to pour down. One, three, a dozen goblins trickling after the initial onslaught. Hundreds were now in the tunnels, hounding the sentinels as they retreated.

Not for long. Another horn blew, followed by one of confirmation from afar. Moments passed, the sound of strife and war in my ears as I stood at the wall’s edge, greatspear in hand. And then, rock crumpled and slid, washing the green tide down into the valley amidst a rain of boulders.

The foremost tunnels were collapsed, those still within crushed and broken below as the debris spilled forth.

“Destroyed them before the goblin sappers got any use from them.” Valencia observed next to me. “Adric is well-prepared.”

“The archers were never meant to stop the horde.” I realized.

“Takes more than a few arrows to quell all that bloodthirst.” She smiled mirthlessly. “Most they were meant to do was have them falter, for a time. Give them pause. Force them to expand time and resources simply so they can reach our walls.”

“And once their use is done, deny the enemy of them.”

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“This is how you fight your kind, Garek. Not upon the field of glorious battle like some fools would have you believe. If the battle is joined while they are fresh, it is lost.”

“Instead, they must suffer. Every step towards these walls must be made in misery, in hopelessness as their kin die next to them. Every footstep forward a slog that breaks the spirit just a bit more.”

“So that when the battle is finally joined, they have nothing left to give.” I summarized, eyes still locked on the crumbling canyon walls. Rock had shaken loose now, destabilized by the magecraft that had torn the tunnels down.

“Prime for a rockslide.” The dreadknight noted next to me. Her attention was focused out at the shapes that milled at the valley’s mouth, preparing to march towards us.

The dreadknight’s aura of malice seemed lightened now, no longer the oppressive force I had come to know. Instead, it seemed focused. Directed out over the horde in the distance, all her ill will firmly set upon them. If I had expected glee and delight from her, it was not present. Instead, Valencia was a picture of calm.

This unsettled me. Her features were almost meditative, quiet and at peace. This, I had never glimpsed before.

“Can you feel it, Garek?” She asked. “Them. Their presence.”

“The Godtouched? Yes.”

There was an almost serene peace in her voice as the dreadknight continued.

“My time is near. I feel it, just out of my reach. The time of rewards for all that I have done.” Her eyes burned with intensity, dark flame that threatened to scorch anything that drew near. “You might relate. A farmer sows and grows his crops, patiently waiting for the harvest when all his effort will be rewarded.”

“Well I have waited and tended overlong, my fields barren with spite as the winter draws near. The gods they have been given patronage from have refused me. And their gore will soon glisten on these stones, their vessels served to those Below.”

Anger flared across the sky at her words. Warnings came in thunder, yet Valencia stood in defiance. Nervous glances were cast around from the bannermen and soldiers alongside us. Adric heaved us a glance of annoyance before turning back to his captains.

Something terrible would come of this. The feeling pervaded deep within, unshakable. This heresy would not go unanswered, I knew sure as the sun rose.

Horns continued to sound, these much deeper and disembodied. From the valley mouth came a tide huge, armored figures. Minotaurs, armed for war. Here to spill blood, mine above all else.

“Prepare.” Adric barked at the mages that stood alongside him. One plainly dressed in leather armor and robes, the other in plate and cowl. Both ready for war. Anticipation flowed through my veins as I too stood, weapons in hand and blood in the future.

The time had come. Now came the sum of all my fighting. The pinnacle of my strength and skills were needed here.

The horde marched. The first sign that gave me pause. They did not flow as a tide of anger and bloodlust, but rather marched as a legion.

“Crumple.” Adric commanded, and the walls obeyed. Stone slid from the canyon walls, avalanches of rock tumbling down onto the coming horde. Enough sheer weight to crush them underneath.

It was in this moment a second sun approached.

Light blinded all. Heat radiated from on high as the silhouette of two massive horns stretched skywards from behind the legion’s march. Splendor overwhelmed those around me as I stared in defiance at the vast presence that rose.

One of the Godtouched revealed themselves. A caged sun hung between the ethereal horns, its power radiating outwards. Rocks and stone were pushed away, driven into the walls themselves by sheer might and glory.

I watched, entranced by brilliance as the legion of the sun marched closer and closer. My mind screamed to move, to do something, anything other than stand with spear in hand and witness glory eternal.

Hatred, malice, spite and darkness swept over the silent wall. Valencia’s unbridled hate ripped through the might that bore down from above. Soldiers vomited, snapped from their stupor by the sheer fervor of the dreadknight’s aura. I almost joined them.

Hopelessness weighed on every corner of my body, flogged at and driven down by Valencia’s rage. I gazed up at the new sun, hanging between the massive horns of a foe come to slay me.

I was just a simple farmer. This was a being of war and glory. Gifted by the Gods Above themselves to shine with such brilliance.

“Up, you dogs!” Valencia’s voice pierced the veil once more. “Man your posts!”

A fist rocked me to the face. I pulled back, anger in my veins and blood in my mouth.

The dreadknight. For a moment, I was wroth incarnate. Then the overbearing aura of hope lost returned.

“Fight, fool!” The cruel figure demanded even as I was crushed beneath the sheer glory above.

“You killed a GOD, damnit! These parlor tricks are nothing to you, minotaur!” She roared. Darkness flared and hatred rose to outlive the hateful.

She was right. Her words pierced the dull veil once more and dragged it away. Valencia’s darkness cloaked the sky around us, a shelter of dread in place of the oppressive sun above. I snapped from my stupor, fighting every inch of the way. My body felt heavy, muscles ready to give out though we had not yet started.

They were already halfway down the canyon, entirely uncontested. I was the first to be awoken, all others around me frozen and staring at the sky. Eyes turned away from the sun, I roared and began to shake them awake.

One of the mages had collapsed, senseless after the ethereal sun had emerged. Try as I might, I could not wake him. The other staggered into consciousness once more as Valencia shook him and Adric awake.

No minotaur had ever possessed such magic. They disdained it, shunned it. It had to be the Godtouched.

If it were any possible for the pit in my gut to grow deeper, it did so now. The ground quaked and rubble slid down the valley, a sea of stones and debris to make the march closer as difficult as possible. Arrows flew from the walls, bathed in liquid fire and noxious gasses.

All late. The enemy had advanced far too close already. Half the valley had been taken before it could be contested, and now the desperate pace began. The marathon had turned to a sprint, and now we all ran to outpace death.

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