It Flickers and Dies

[DoS Archive]

From: novashayde@aol.com (NovaShayde)
Date: 27 Jul 1998 14:51:17 EDT

The enemy attack for the remainder of the day was half-hearted at best. Earlier defeats were beginning to take their toll on their morale and some had begun to abandon their camp, returning to their homes and families, no longer wishing any part in the bloodbath. Though the attacks were light, small mistakes on the parts of the defenders, so very weary from seven straight days of battle, proved very costly. Perhaps a bit cocky from
their earlier victories on the day, the defenders were not ready when the next attack came. The enemy did not mass, they just broke camp and ran, forgoing siege ladders entirely for grappling hooks. Within minutes, the defenders had been pushed back far enough on the Wall of Peace for the enemy to gain a foothold.
The enemy had resorted to trickery to gain a precarious hold on the outer edge of the wall. The archers of the defenders had no time to string their bows before the enemy grappling hooks came sailing over the wall. The bladesmen ran forward to cut the ropes, but there proved to be too many of them, and the enemy gained the wall in a matter of minutes. Close to twenty defenders were cut down and used as human shields to keep the enemy from
being slashed to pieces as they climbed onto the wall. Those defenders that couldn't clear the ropes in time for the enemys' arrival were hopelessly outnumbered and easily killed, their bodies thrown over enemy shoulders to become makeshift shields that the remaining defenders were loathe to cut into for whatever reasons... these shields were once brothers, friends, comrades all... to stab them, even in death, would seem a dishonor to their memory.

Grey Shadow was the first to run forward, his blades flashing down to cut through shin guards and tear through tendons, ligaments, and bone of the enemy shield-bearers. A glancing strike from a club knocked him away, but the damage was done. The enemy had lost most of their shields and were quickly hacked apart by the regrouped defenders, their bodies sent hurtling from the wall to shatter on the streets below.
Nova Red Arrow jumped onto an outcropping at the far end of the wall, his metal strung bow firing volley after volley of sparkling red arrows into the climbing enemy. Here, away from the blade, Red Arrow was at home. The satisfying metallic "twang" of his bow rung out above the clashing swords as the arrows hammered home, one after another at a blinding rate. His inhuman speed made him a one-man archer unit, his keen, colorless eyes picking
out enemy archers on the ground before they had a chance to snipe him from his roost. Arrow after arrow punched through enemy armor and helm, some of the men screamed as they fell, others had no time...
Hadrian War Sabre stuck close to where the defense was hardest-fought, the center of the defending line gave way more than once, but always he was there to close it and urge his men on to victory with shouts and hollers. As the sun began to set on the seventh day, the cost of the early victory was slowly realized. Two hundred and fifty-three defenders lay dead or dying upon the wall, though the enemy losses were enormous in comparison, these
deaths were the hardest to take... many of them could have been prevented if only they had paid attention. Though most of the dead were the weaker swordsmen, many of them doubling as archers, they had still survived thus long... it didn't seem their time to go.
As the enemy retreated for another night, the defenders milled on the wall, some of them carrying the bodies away and throwing down sand and woodshavings to absorb the pools of blood, others sitting in quiet groups, barely speaking a word. Morale sunk slowly with the sun as the weight of the day laid down upon them and the heady rush of the earlier victories wore away. This would most certainly be a long night.