The Summer of Hate Part 3 of 4 (Rounds 5 & 6)

Round 5: 

Alas, Von Nashorn, we knew ye well.

At the very edge of the battlefield, Erich von Nashorn's senses returned to him.  His family had conquered and settled and fought to hold the Black River country.  His father and uncle and brother and several cousins had died fighting to keep it. His men had all died fighting for it.  He might survive this battle if he continued to flee, but his family's honor would be wrecked beyond repair.  He had sons, after all.  They would live after him.  Best to set for them an example they could live by.  He pulled hard on his horses' reins and brought the beast about to face Bungole Bushwhacka.  Bungole's green lips slithered back over his yellow fangs in something that resembled a grin.  "Come on, Gobbies!"  he shouted over his shoulder to Oogie Spazzjabber's gang.  "Tinned Humie for breakfast!  Spazzjabber's horde swept in to von Nashorn's front as Bushwhacka drove his boar against the knight's flank.  In the ensuing struggle, von Nashorn was wounded, but fought valiantly on, killing two goblins.

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So far, the goblin fanatics had hurt not a single man nor dwarf, but they had killed many, many Orcs and goblins.  They were not finished, yet.  The remaining fanatic, having already slaughtered about a dozen of his friends, changed course inexplicably and came careering back into the rear of Narchukk Toungcutter's arrer boys, jellying two of them.

Near the monastery wall, the last remaining crewman of the flame cannon stoked his pot-bellied charge furiously...she would be ready to fire next round!  Near the bank of the creek, the dwarf crossbows loosed once more at the Orc chariot...and slew the last boar!  The chariot was now essentially a hunk of terrain occupied by a single Orc!  The commanders of the Orc light artillery saw the chariot feathered with bolts and knocked out.  The commander of the bolt thrower swore a bright blue streak.  Nary a dwarf was in his field of vision.  There was nothing he could do.  On the other side of the river, the commander of the stone thrower was in a similar, but still substantially different, situation.  He couldn't clearly see any allies either, but there was something he could do!  He made a wild guess at the position of the dwarf crossbows and loosed his load of rocks in their general direction.  Hey...couldn't hurt, right?
It could, actually.  The shot deviated wildly and landed smack in the midst of Scarffgagg Sorehead's Psycho Squad, killing five boys outright.  "Err...whoops!"  the stone thrower commander smirked sheepishly.  Oy, you lot!  Try an do better next time, eh?"

Near the bridge, Anbjorn Anvilpate, the Dwarven contingent commander, roared and rushed into the flank of Scarffgagg Sorehead's Psycho Squad, cutting down one frothing Orc with a sweep of his mighty greatsword.  Scarffgagg Sorehead and his lads fought with their usual berserk fanaticism, but somehow, something was wrong.  Two more orcs went down, one under the blade of the Razorbacks' leader.  Scarffgagg brought a dwarf down with a crushing stroke from his meat cleaver, but...but darn it, it was all supposed to be way easier than this!  Nobody had said anything about Stunties being here...and they were fighting like devils!  It didn't help that the Orc's artillery was killing them almost as fast as the dwarves.  This game wasn't so fun anymore.  Slowly, Scarffgagg's boys were pushed back.  Blood madness gripped the dwarves and they stepped forward over the dead and dying orcs, taking down three more orc boys with sturdy sword-thrusts from behind their shield-wall.  Despite their fearsome reputation as berserk, blood crazed nutbags, the Psycho squad was borne steadily backward...

Elsewhere, the allies did not have it so easy.  On the other side of the monastery, Johann von Treuehardt thought he saw his chance.  "Come on, boys! He shouted.  Let's give 'em the Prince's steel!"  His helblitzen surged forward, bearing down on Rufuss Drakk and the remnants of the stikkas.  One halberdier speared a stikka, and another wounded Rufus' skeleton champion!  Johann von Treuhardt went straight for Rufuss Drakk.  But he had underestimated the strength and guile of the old Orc.  Rufuss dodged von Treuhardt's blows and struck back, wounding the gallant old hero with his fearsome enchanted wound sword!!  Blood streaming from the rents in his armor, Von Treuhardt called upon the power of his magical mace of mighty striking, smashing back at the orc shaman and wounding him!  But the power of the orc shaman's magic sword was too much for him.  At last, wounded with many wounds, von Treuhardt sank, dying, upon the trampled earth.

Nearby, the Red Dragons were just as keen to get to grips with the enemy.  "Let's go, lads, bellowed Borri Basherson, brandishing his mace at Narchakk Toungecutter's Orcs. With a terrible shout, the Dwarf spearmen rose up and charged, coming together with Narchukk's arrer boys with a terrific crash.  Narchukk's boys dropped their bows, drew their swords and raised their shields just in time to receive the Dwarves' charge.  Borri Basherson went straight for Narchukk Tounge Cutter, wielding his mace with terrific strokes.  Though the Orc was nearly twice the dwarf's height, he seemed not his adversary's equal in battle.  Borri landed a punishing blow on Narchukk's thigh, wounding him badly.  The wound awoke the Orc chief's fury and he struck back, wounding the dwarf chieftain in return.  There was no knowing how this fight might end.

At the monastery wall, the brothers fought on against Bad Bloody Frumpkin's Goblins.  Two goblins and two monks fell in the desperate melee..  Though now hopelessly outnumbered, and with goblins leaping the wall to lap round them, the last surviving monks stood back to back and refused to give ground.

On the hillock near the river, The Hermit of the Mount cast cure light injury on himself, healing some of the burns inflicted on him by Rufuss Drakk's fireballs...

Round 6:

The armies were now locked.  Masses of men and dwarves and goblins shoved and shouted and endeavored most earnestly to beat each others' brains out.   From his vantage point on his knoll, the Hermit of the Mount could see Erich von Nashorn being overborn by  a flood of green skinned scum.  The Dwarf baggage train could see the grim sight too, and were scurrying away toward the creek as fast as ever they could.  The Hermit shouted down to the crossbow dwarves, who had no obvious targets now that the orc chariot was out of action. "Hurry, you dwarves!  Wheel to the left!  The  enemy is about to get round behind us!  Looking about, the arbalestiers identified the threat and turned to face toward the west, preparing to march behind the army and meet the flanking attack head on.  The hermit left his mound, too, racing to head off the disaster.

Nearly all the brothers had fallen.  To his right, brother Smyte saw Brother Felix go down, overcome by a half-dozen goblins.  The hateful green things were leaping over the walls everywhere, now.  There were not enough brethren left to hold them off.  Brother Smyte flailed away at the goblins with his mace, trying to keep them back, but they were coming over everywhere.  He saw brother Heng go down, then brother Byrne.  A swarm of hideous green faces, twisted with hatred, swam before his eyes.  It happened so quick.  He felt something go up under his ribs, and suddenly it was hard to breathe.  Well, he thought, he could have done worse.  As bad as things had turned out, it wasn't like Frog Hollow.  With his own eyes, he had seen the women and the little ones loaded in wagons and on horses hand mules, hurrying down the south road.  However things turned out here, at least they had bought them time.  They would soon meet the Prinz von Refn's men coming the other way.  They would be safe.  He felt something hit hard against his face and realized it was the ground.  He had fallen.  Goblins were racing by him on all sides.  He tried to pull himself up, but soon had to admit that the task was beyond him.  Well, he had saved the little ones. That was something.  The Great Lord couldn't find fault with that.  For a moment, he heard a little voice laughing, deep inside himself.  He felt pain.  He felt fear.  He suddenly felt a great loneliness.  To comfort himself, he imagined himself with the Great Lord.  And soon enough, it was so.

Near the monastery wall the dwarf flame cannon crewman saw to his delight that his weapon was at last ready to fire.  He looked about for a target.  To his right was a jumble of human warriors and orcs, to his front a few scattered orc and goblin archers.  To his left...to his left...he saw goblins leaping over the walls of the monastery, surrounding and cutting down the very last of the brave monks who still held out.  The dwarf's beard bristled with a magnificent hatred and a diabolical ecstasy as he aimed the cannon square into the mass of goblins and fired....

Right at the moment of victory, Bad Bloody Frumkin's gobbos were caught up in a maelstrom of napthic horror that engulfed and devoured eleven of their number and sent the few survivors sprinting back toward their rafts on the  Black River.  Brother Pyre and brother Brand, last survivors of their order, stood astonished amoung the piles of dead, staring in wonder at the sooty, capering figure behind the flame cannon.
"Oy-Yoi-Oy!" shouted the dwarf gunner.  "Cook 'em up, cook 'em up, cook 'em up-up-up-up-up!"
"Saved by a psychopath, murmured Brother Brand.  Praise the Great Lord!"

Near the riverbank, Anbjorn Anvilpate and the razorbacks continued to drive back Scarffgagg Sorehead's Psycho Squad, killing two Orcs while losing none of their own. Wading into his enemies, stepping over the slain, laughing crazily as he do so, Anbjorn Anvilpate cut down two more orcs by himself.  Though he hadn't realized it yet, Scarffgagg's mob had by now been very nearly annihilated.

Near the center of the battlefield, the Dwarven Red Dragons and Narchukk Toungecutter's boys continued their battle.  Amoung the lower ranks, the fighting was inconclusive, but Borri and Narchukk, driven almost to frenzy by mutual hatred and the pain of their wounds, grappled, beat, kicked and clawed at each other until both fell to the ground and stopped moving.  Their warriors pushed in, trying to save their captains, but it was too late.  Both chieftains died fighting.

Almost crazed with grief at the death of their beloved lord, the fallen von Treuehardt's men at arms drove home their attack against Rufuss Drakk and the battered remnants of Orcs and goblins nearby him.  One man cut down a stikka with his halberd; amazingly, the three survivors of the once twenty strong stikka unit refused to flee!  Another man tried to bring down the skeletal champion, but failed.  Near the center of the melee, a young trooper, wild with hatred and despair, stepped forward and drove his halberd up under Rufuss Drakk's cloak.  Rufuss fell into the crushed grass not far from the body of von Treuehardt.  Men closed in, kicking, stamping, stabbing with their polearms, and soon the old orc was finished, or so it seemed.  As they pushed forward, the men at arms drove the stikkas before them, and the undead champion Rufuss had summoned faded into the morning air as instability took its toll.  As the fight continued, another stikka fell to a vicious downward cut from a halberd.  That was it.  The two surviving stikkas turned tale and headed for the Black River as fast as their knobby green legs could carry them.

Erich von Nashorn knew it was over.  Goblins swarmed about him, grabbing for his horses's reins, stabbing upward with their crooked swords.  His horse brained one goblin with her hooves...he cut through another with his broadsword...and then the horse was going down, and he was going down with her.  He knew he would never get up.

The goblin fanatic went spinning off a good distance to the north  and nobody was sorry to see him go.  Bad Bloody Frumpkin and what was left of his mob headed in more or less the same direction, quite uninterested in rallying.  Over on the riverbank, the orc stone thrower boss tried for speculative fire again.  After all, could his luck stay bad forever? The law of averages must surely be on his side by now.  He aimed at about the spot he figured the Red Dragons to be and ordered his boys to loose.  A rain of rocks came down on the orc chariot, pounding it and its crew and draft animals into splinters and meat.  The Orc boss scratched his head.  "I've gotta be doin' somefin' wrong here, he thought.  I knew I wasn't cut out fer dis war machine stuff.  Shoulda stayed a boar boy."  The bolt thrower crew pushed their machine as far as they could to the right, hoping to get a shot at the fallen von Treuehardt's halberdiers next round.

Feeling quite exhilarated by the act of killing von Nashorn and his men, Bungole Bushwhacka went galloping up to the manor gate, fairly salivating at the thought of all the sweet loot that must be inside.  Tacked to the heavy oaken door was a small hand written note.  Bunghole seized it and glared at it. "Out of Play" it said.  "Gragghhh!  Bunghole roared, crumpling the note and flinging it in the grass.  'At's typical, innit?  I... suddenly he caught the scent of something...something...wonderful!
"Oy!  he roared at Oogie Spazzjabber and his gobbos.  "Ey gobbies!  I smell booze, lads!  Over dere!"  He gestured.  Pointy heads turned in the direction of the promised libations.  Then, without a word, command or signal, the goblins were scrambling over the rocks and tree-roots, heading straight for ol' Piet's beer wagon.

Continued next week!