The orc's roar triggered the others near him, they let out ferocious roars of their own. In no time at all, what some would assume to be a sonic attack was launched at the knights.
The ten orcs all charged in axes and pickaxes handy. The knights were astounded by this bizarre push but they reacted very quickly.
Multiple arrows started to cut through the air landing squarely on the parts of the orc that took the lead. Head, Heart, arms, legs, it was a flurry of arrows that targeted to take his life or at least incapacitate him. The orc had no choice but to die in that case.
But his job was done. With him taking all the arrows, the rest of the orcs should be able to wreck some-
"Aaaaargh!!!" But reality was much more often than not beyond the expectation of the simple-minded. The orc was forced to close his eyes to never open them again while watching his fellow orcs being killed.
A spear to the heart, a knife to the throat, an arrow to the head. There was barely any time for the orcs who had crossed the shield line to attack. In his dying breath, the leading orc believed that the shield wall was protecting them more than anything.
"ROOOOOOARRR!" But it wasn't like the orcs did nothing, it was simply that it may as well have been nothing.
"AAAAAAH!!!" A knight screamed after being picked right into his eye. The penetrative force of the pickaxe allowed it to pierce right through his mana reinforcement, this orc was ruthless.
So ruthless in fact that he then grabbed the human's helmet, and as he was stabbed from behind by one of their comrades he pulled off their helmet and headbutted the knight.
The knight's profusely bleeding face was bashed in mercilessly and continuously while the orc slowly lost strength. The sight was one to marvel at. How could something so weak destroy one of their own so thoroughly?
They were left agape until the last second where the orc finally fell.
"Damn! Hold in there!" Balin's company did not have a healer. Healers were very rare. But thankfully Balin himself was an apothecary.
But as one of the squad members tried to feed the dying knight fruits he found that nothing could really help someone after taking a pickaxe straight into one's eyes.
The last orc who put everything on the line to make it across the shield wall fell onto the cold ice with a thud signaling the close of this skirmish.
"2 dead, 9 injured, one grave" A new progress report. The attack of the orcs could have been considered a complete defeat. Even with the conditions as they were they only managed to take out two knights.
"Are you all stupid!?!" Balin couldn't help but lash out. Most of the injuries were from some of them slipping and spraining something, but that made it all the more pathetic!
"Aim for their arms, heads, etc. Incapacitate instantly or kill" Balin instructed with a grim expression. These 'elites' were being overwhelmed by such an atmosphere? Did someone swap out his actual subordinates?
Balin was fed up, he was fed up entirely. He wanted the treasure whatever it might be but it was perhaps much smarter for him to simply crush his way forward.
"Mages with water affinity, help me out" Ice was ultimately just frozen water. It was a well-known fact that those that could control water also had extremely limited control over ice.
But with enough mages, extremely limited became limited, and limited eventually became uninhibited. The ice tunnel started to crackle, cracks started to web around the ice.
What were they destroying? Why the path in front of them of course! If any tunnels were dug above they were sure to collapse and the same for any dug below, they would be crushed.
Soon, some orcs fell from the tunnel ceiling and were immediately shot to death by Ray and his small squad. Balin and his mages were glad to see things succeed so they kept at it. But unfortunately, that was all the easy pickings they were granted.
"Eliminate the rest of these rats" Balin decided that the only true way to take advantage in this cramped space was to have them separate as they came across branching tunnels.
The squad captains were all at least near or at the peak of the B-class. Few like Ray were even in the A-class! The weakest B-class was still a B-class!
The weakest link in Balin's company were some C-class mages but it was generally well known that mages were often times better than their other professional counterparts at the same level. There was little difference between them and being B-class.
Thus, Balin's order to eliminate them was within reason. Even if they were to lose one or two per squad that was the maximum he would allow. As for what he himself would do? Naturally, it was to press forward with the mages. How else was he to get the potential treasure?
***
Sharog and the other orcs were currently holed underground. This was necessary, the icy environment was too frosty and was starting to turn the orc sluggish. At first, they were wondering why Sharog was making them dig underground but after seeing the humans start to attack it all made sense.
What didn't make sense now however was why she sent out the only orcs with pickaxes now? Weren't they sitting ducks?
"We have nowhere left to go" Sharog even faintly heard the live orc traps she made all being triggered at once without warning. This reassured her of her decision to get rid of the pickaxes.
She couldn't have anyone mining and having that sound echoed across to everyone, she may as well turn herself and the others in at that point.
The orcs frowned hearing the words of Sharog. Wasn't this her fault?
First, they took the unconscious Dakgu with them. There was no point in carrying extra baggage. Secondly, she brought them into this tunnel. Was she planning on having them all die together in one spot? Lastly, they got rid of their pickaxes! What!?!?!
The sound of footsteps faintly reached the ears of the orcs who tried to get ready for battle only to be met with obstruction. Their current hole was a straight tunnel filled to the brim with orcs, it forced one on one conflict.
That sounded good, but these orcs would hardly ever win a one on one match.
"We'll charge out…" Sharog said after much deliberation. Judging by the small number of footsteps that they could hear the humans had to have split up into smaller groups.
With their numbers, with some sacrifices, they could have the majority push back out into the surface successfully. The only issue was going up the ladder, which unbeknownst to Shel was actually already resolved for her.
The orcs hearing this wanted to instinctively shout and celebrate but they excised some self-control, well, either that or others exercised it for them.
"ROO- Urgh- Why'd you hit me?" This however also caused small fights in the linear tunnel leading to some orcs being delayed from exiting.
That was at least until a soft blade of wind flew past the top of everyone's head reminding them of their predicament. One by one, the orcs started to exit before going out into a sprint.
The tunnel from which they came out of was connected to the main tunnel, the tunnel made by Vorgarag's flame array, but it wasn't at the end. It was in fact one of the closer ones to the entrance.
"Orcs!" The knight from earlier Theo yelled gripping his broadsword laced with killing intent. If his helmet wasn't blocking his eyes they would be shooting out daggers.
But the orcs didn't respond to this shout full of hatred, that was nothing more than human gibberish they couldn't really understand. Yet there still existed a hidden sense of oppressive danger which was only alleviated by the grip on their axes.
With a weapon in hand and an enemy in front of them, the orcs were back to the days of fighting above ground to live another day. This brought about a sort of special feeling, one of resigned excitement.
"Rooooar!!!!" So as they let out battle cries that resonated inside the entire tunnel they didn't care to look back.
Theo's sword arced across the air and intercepted an axe. The axe was brought down by the strike twisting the arm of the orc holding it. Theo's mana reinforcement had made it so.
He then swung out his sword horizontally aiming at the throat of the distracted orc. A clean swipe, blood spurted sideways painting the path red.
But after one went down another immediately pressed forward.
"A- Aurgh-!" Theo was suddenly feeling overwhelmed after an orc jumped forward swinging their axe overhead.
He wanted to kick back the orc but as soon as he tried the force made him slip backwards. The orc wasted no time in jumping atop of him.
"K-" Theo wasn't even allowed to grunt as a flurry of attacks started to land on his body.
Other orcs started to make their way past Theo and the orc beating him to a pulp, they were flooding forward in rows of five sweeping every human in their path. Even if the human did survive, they didn't do so without letting many more orcs go past.
"This is impossible!" The squad captain screamed electricity crackling and coursing through his weapon amplifying it greatly. He was clearly holding his own but why were these orcs still managing to make it past! Well, the answer to that was obvious. They were outnumbered.
A path built on corpses of her fellows was the path Sharog had chosen to resolve her own mistakes using her meager abilities.
