Rise of the Horde

276 Chapter 27Lishtal and his group were having a hard time defending themselves as attacks came pouring onto them from all sides, “Hey watch it!” a cry from the cheering audience rang out as a blade energy went towards them after missing its intended target. “You mutts are just this much? Tsk… tsk… You are weaker than I thought!” Atef began mocking the hound who were turtling up in an attempt to provoke them and have them break up their formation and judging by the darkened faces of the victims of his mocking, his words were affecting their minds.

The clash took its first victim as a poor bandit got directly struck by a blade energy after his comrades failed to protect him, the first casualty was quick to followed by the next then more fell after. Lishtal and the hounds with him were slowly thinning down the number of their foes but they also suffered casualties on their side as four of their peers lay among the dead and they have two more injured in the center of their formation which was being protected by them. They also suffered varying wounds from shallow to deep gashes but they can’t find time to treat their injuries as their foes didn’t let up on the attack.

Atef can already feel his arms going numb after his numerous attempts to make a breakthrough on the defensive formation of their foes. He didn’t know how many strikes he had delivered already but he was sure that it must have been a lot and his battle energy was almost depleted since strikes without battle energies infused in them would just be shrugged off by their foes who were shielding themselves with their own battle energies. The possible outcome of the battle doesn’t look great for them but upon noticing the dimming battle energies of the hounds, he determined that they were also running out of battle energies after the continuous usage of it.

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Along the streets near the gateway to the town, Pelko and his companions came into conclusion that the place were of no danger after they made circles around the area. They followed the narrowest paths which would be the most unused ones in town because of its narrowness, along the paths that they have chosen, they seldomly spotted corpses unlike the main streets which had a lot of them scattered about.

Khao’khen entered the town and got confused after not seeing a siege engine nearby the gate, he was puzzled on how the gate was destroyed and his first thought was it must have been something related to a battering ram since there was an absence of throwing siege contraptions outside the walls. And he was somewhat curious in finding out what was the exact equipment as he wanted to know if they can replicate it and used it in future battles but there was nothing but corpses near the gateway. ‘The attackers might have taken it with them…’ he was still hopeful in the existence of a possible siege contraption that he might have never seen or knew about.

He then tasked the Skallsers to begin creating barriers to replace the destroyed gate as to prevent possible hidden foes outside the walls from striking their rear when they get entangled with those enemies who were already inside the town. “The town only has one gate, right?” he wanted to confirm with Adhalia to which she nodded in confirmation, “But we can’t rule out the possibility of an escape path inside the castle of the baron.”

After noticing that the Skallsers were slowly in creating a passable barrier to replace the wrecked gate due to the lack of materials, Khao’khen waved his hands towards the ogres. “Pile your weapons on the gateway to block the entrance.” The ogres who were standing around like statues began tossing the tree trunks that they had in their hands towards the gateway and created a messy pile. “Hey! Pile them carefully!” Khao’khen shouted as the tree trunks on top of the file rolled down and almost took down some of the Drakhars but they managed to escape the path of the rolling tree.

Soon, the gateway was successfully blocked by a pile of tree trunks and the gaps between them were not enough for average adults to pass through. The obstruction was also durable enough to not crumble even after an ogre leaned onto it but dangerous looking enough to frighten anyone from using brute force since the trees might come rolling down.

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Satisfied with their work, Khao’khen nodded his head as he went up the walls to get a better view of the small part of the town while they waited for Pelko’s group to return from their scouting. Adhalia also went up the walls to find out whether there were changes in the town or not ever since she last set her eyes on it. The first thing that caught her eyes was the wide expanse of gold outside the walls, the wheat field of the House of Masud which was their greatest source of wealth. All the golden stalks were almost harvested but there was more than a quarter of the fields that remained untouched based on its more dazzling color of gold which signifies the presence of grains among the stalks.

When she turned around, she took into her sight the outer side of the town which didn’t have much changes since the last time she saw it as she could still see the same old houses with only a few new buildings nearby. The castle in the distance was still the same except for the addition of some towers on its walls and the greater number of vines that climbs the west side of the castle. Khao’khen was busy surveying the terrain outside the walls and his mind began thinking of ways to make use of what he sees to their advantage against their foes since who knows when this place might become a battlefield where they will fight on in the future.