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Unto the Ages: Chapter 163
🕑 Added 2025-04-10 15:41:33 +0000 UTCWhen Grud declared his intention about the children, there were a few disgruntled faces, but they were young, in the minority, and had no place questioning their chieftain.
As for the loot, the men were more than happy with their haul. Coin, jewelry, trinkets, and resources were all in different piles in the village square. The only problem was getting all this loot back home.
There were carts in the ransacked tribe, but most were primarily those pushed by hand. Fortunately, they belonged to a tribe that no longer needed their resources, so the men removed the wheels from the hand-pushed carts and repurposed them to create wagons. With over eighty uninjured men working, along with some others who had minor injuries, the men were able to work through the night to assemble enough wagons to transport their loot.
By late morning the next day, Grud and his men rode out of the Thunder Strider’s tribe after setting fire to all the buildings and walls on the way out. They were not going to leave the place intact for another tribe to move in and have a well-defended base for free.
Tavora, the children, and the injured were loaded on wagons, their horses now used to pull the wagons.
As they were trotting back towards where they had left the main bulk of the alliance force, Grud decided it would be a good idea to hurry back to assist the rest of the alliance. So, Grud left a quarter of his riders with the convoy of their spoils of war and took the rest to ride hard back towards the alliance forces.
***
~Ba’Rak POV~
It has been three days since they launched their attack on the alliance forces that had captured one of their allied tribes and fortified it. However, despite having superior numbers surrounding them and inflicting casualties, his army was repeatedly repelled from the walls.
As he sat in the command tent, his commanders in front of him were bickering on how they were going to defeat the enemy before them. But even with the ruckus in front of him, Ba’Rak’s thoughts kept going to the sight of Grud and his hundred riders going past them.
It did not take a genius for Ba’Rak to know that Grud was going to attack his tribe. But with a hundred men? Even without his army defending the tribe, it would be suicide. Ba’Rak thought that Grud would be in the exact situation he was currently in, banging on the walls in an attempt to get in and attack the enemy.
But what if that was not the case?
Ba’Rak had grown up hearing tall tales of Grud’s conquest in the Newlands, about how he and his men took down villages with walls tall and strong enough to defend against humongous beasts. This made him wonder, if there was even a grain of truth in those tall tales, would his tribe survive Grud’s attack?
Growing increasingly worried about his fears coming to pass, Ba’Rak expelled the thought from his mind as an impossibility, ‘What are a hundred riders going to do against high walls and over a thousand defenders?’ he thought to himself as he focused in on what his commanders were bickering about.
In the past three days, they had tried most things to get in or breach the walls. Ladders, ramps, battering rams, setting fire to the walls, shooting flaming arrows over the wall in hopes of something catching fire, but nothing worked.
When they tried to go over the walls with ladders, his men took heavy casualties for no gain. The moment they climbed up, they were pierced with spears, or their ladders were pushed over, leaving them vulnerable for archers to pick off the fallen men.
When Ba’Rak’s men tried making ramps by stacking chopped-up trees, the results were a lot better. It may have taken the lives of many men to rush to the walls and put down logs and branches, but they eventually successfully made three ramps that reached the top of the wall. That was when Ba’Rak’s men actually got their first foot on the wall, and the alliance forces got their nose bloodied.
It took a great deal of fighting, but his men were ultimately pushed from the walls, and the ramps were torn down and burned. However, this was at a considerable cost to the alliance forces. In fact, dismantling the ramp alone claimed twice as many lives from the alliance forces as there were in Ba’Rak’s men during that engagement.
While both sides were licking their wounds from the ramp battle, Ba’Rak ordered fire attacks to keep the pressure on, but they were all extinguished with water. He later received information from some of his men who were familiar with this tribe that they had access to a well, rendering their attacks nearly useless.
Ba’Rak was brought out of his thoughts as his commanders came to a decision. They decided to go with the ramp tactic again, despite it being the most costly tactic. But Ba’Rak did not mind. Most of those who were wasting their lives to build the ramps were all from tributary tribes, and it mattered little to his eyes. Ba’Rak was saving his men for when there was a proper breach to send his men in
Just as Ba’Rak was about to give his approval of the plan, there was the sharp sound of a whistling arrow that sounded over the camp. Upon hearing this, everyone in the tent froze in place for a few seconds before the commanders broke out into action and rushed towards the tent’s entrance, only to bump into one of the men budging in. “The signal came from the rear!”
Hearing that, Ba’Rak’s worries started becoming reality. ‘Could Grud really have come back so fast? That is impossible! Even if they attacked my tribe, they would have at least been held up as long as I have been held up here… Yeah, there must be a better reason… they must have sustained heavy losses trying to take my tribe and come running back instead… yes, that's it. Now all I need to do is wipe out what is left and slay Grud, and I will become a legend!’ Ba’Rak thought to himself as he got off his makeshift throne, “To the rear! We will crush them!” Ba’Rak roared, and his commanders echoed him.
Minutes later, Ba’Rak’s men were shouted into battle lines facing the rear, and as Ba’Rak and his men waited in anticipation, they could soon hear the rumble of hooves.
As Ba’Rak observed his men from the back, he could see them nervously tightening their grips on their weapons, and he could hear Grud’s name being whispered among the ranks. Not wanting his men to fall into panic, he commanded his commanders to enforce discipline among the men and shut them up.
A few minutes later, Grud and his riders were within sight but still out of range of his arrows.
“Ready!” one of Ba’Rak’s commanders shouted, and all the archers nocked arrows, “Aim!” came the second command, and they raised their bows. But before the Grud and his riders got into range, and the command to release was called, Grud jumped out of sight into the trees while his riders scattered to the sides.
Seeing this action, Ba’Rak shouted the first thing that came to mind. “They are flanking us! Alert the others in the encirclment!”
Seconds later, witsling arrows were shot in the direction of his other men to warn them of incoming danger. But despite the warning, it did not take long for sounds of combat to echo out from other sides of the encirclement.
“Chieftain! What are your orders?” one of his commanders asked, “Do we reinforce the rest?”
Ba’Rak thought about it for a few seconds before he came to a decision. “No, if we do, we will just end up chasing their horses around, and if we retreat, they will ride us down and kill us. We launch an all-out attack and take the tribe for ourselves. It is the only defendable position around.”
At his command, the signal for a full-scale attack was sounded, and every segment of the encirclement that was not engaged charged the tribe's walls with whatever they had.
***
Grud did not expect the Thunder Strider forces to react the way that they did. He expected them to chase his riders around while the alliance forces inside the walls had a chance to ready themselves to go on the offensive, but now, he had to make sure that the alliance forces didn't get overwhelmed.
Grud rushed ahead, overtaking the Thunder Striders charging towards the walls. He then jumped at the wall while swatting away a few arrows shot at him by archers who did not recognize him at first glance.
As Grud impacted halfway up the wall and dug his knife into the wood to get a hold, he shouted at the archers who were leaning over to shoot him, “Don't shoot, it's me, Chieften Grud.”
That stopped the archers as Grud climbed his way up before they had the chance to lower a rope for him.
Without wasting any time, Grud unslinged his spear from his back and ran to the section of wall facing the bulk of the Thunder Strider forces and readied himself.
