<[b][url=http://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/7116/posts/ooc]Sheets[/url][/b]> <[b][url=http://widget02.mibbit.com/?settings=c2129339a43d8c49d86c34fa8dff7610&server=irc.foonetic.net&channel=%23Waaagh]Chat[/url][/b]> [IMG]http://static2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120209125458/lotr/images/7/79/Uruk_Hai.jpg[/IMG] The siege of Malish seemed to have only one real outcome, and it was one the defenders of that small city were facing with a grim inevitability. A gurgling death from disease and starvation or the humiliation surrender, the rape and pillage of the city by the victors. One would be an ignominious death and the other an ignominious life. The Achnal, a gathering of human bandits and killers on horseback, pillagers and enslavers, had an ambitious ruler that spent a decade of unifying these warriors on the Savage Frontier. A great warlord had arisen from the wilds and saw the riches of the civilized world that he promptly coveted. Malish, to be fair, was the low-hanging fruit. A city old in pride but poor in much else, though apparently the natives managed to build the wall up better than expected, or feared, according to the information provided by their employer, who spoke of the dire straits of his city-state, its homes having long since overflown its defenses, leaving much of the city outside of the walls that could defend it. Word of the first battles was grim, but that word spurred Beler Ustan-Sul, a prince of the ruling family, a cousin to the sitting Queen, to action. One man against the tide could to little, but he had the seal of the city and authorization to deal on behalf of his ruler, and that was accepted, along with the promise of payment, for the services of the only large company of mercenaries that would sign on with him. That was Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi. It was how Prince Beler found himself at the head of near a thousand orcs, heavily armed, terrifying in their battle panapoly of plate and chain, but derided and untrusted. And there were small bands of other warriors as well that took service, auxiliaries of a sort. The orcs set a ferocious pace, one that surprised the Prince, who was a warrior and accounted a decent one -- the orcs were brutish, hard and ugly, but apparently they'd found march discipline somewhere. The same pattern through the rocky, grassy, river-fed terrain of the land around Malish of wake, feed, pack, march, with short breaks to catch breath, the orcish drillmasters calling out the order in their harsh, ugly tongue. He expected fights to break out, having fought tribal orcs many a time in serving Malish, keeping the barbarians and orcs at bay, and yet, that didn't happen here. The normally factitious orcs in the red-painted armor grunted, groaned and swore with the strain, but kept their order and were, soon enough, back on the march. They had pikes with a foot of steel at the end sheathed in leather, their bows wrapped in doeskin against the elements, and other precautions taken. Orcs weren't known for the care of their equipment, and yet these orcs seemed to be concerned with the sharpness of their blade, the glean of their armor, the correct placement of a red-painted decorative skull or the sheen of horns upon a helm. They bore these burdens and kept a pace that only the fittest humans would have been able to keep up. When asked, the half-orc, with a Vendish accent, told him, “The Achnal are an old enemy of the orcs. Many tribes fight the Achnal over much of the same lands. Lots of tuskers,” the company’s shorthand for themselves, “want to settle an actual score with them. The rest of them? Well, a good tusker likes a fight.” The auxiliaries, small bands of human sellswords kept their distance, those that kept up, and it wasn't only for disdain of orc kind. They were on horseback, it was the only way these humans managed to keep up, and the orcs had wargs among them. Beler had seen the demon-wolves of the orcs before, here and there, mounted by champions, but he'd never seen them in such large numbers. It was accepted wisdom that orcs had no love for any beast or the ability to organize themselves beyond a rough rule of the strongest, and yet the wargs were easily the most pampered things in the entire camp; well-fed, their fur looked after, their toenails checked. But to be mounted on the back of one was still a terrifying and awkward experience – the beasts were lower slung and smelled musky, unpleasant to his nose. But, Koloch “the Drillmaster” assured him, as his liaison from Radush Eye-Drinker, which was to say his bodyguard among the orcs as well as the man that answered his questions, the beasts were worth their weight in gold – humans had nothing like them. Elves had their griffons in the air and one heard legends of dragons ridden like horses, but it had never been seen. But these were wolves, ridden by warriors, and organized into a large unit. The smell was such that the human auxiliaries had to keep their distance, lest the smell of the wargs and the orcs terrify them. -- The humans they were being hired to face were old enemies of many orc tribes, and one thing orcs thrived on were their grievances. It was not considered alright to continue old hatreds among orcs from within the unit, Koloch knew, but it wasn’t really considered worth worrying about if a member of the company wanted to nurse their grudge with the outside world. So they did. But here and now, it was a useful thing; it spurred the march – even those that had no experience of the Achnal wanted a piece of this storied enemy of orc-kind, and overlooked, with a sellsword’s practicality, that they were fighting humans in defense of humans. An elf would blanch at the prospect and dwarves did not consider it seemly to wage war amongst themselves, but for the orcs, it was an old hat, and nothing to blink an eye at. But the old hatred fueled the march, and kept the spirits high, with the booming grunts of their marching cadence, which was an adaptation of those war-songs that could keep a pace, as they crossed over countryside and disused old road – the Achnal had patrols of sentries out, roving on horseback, but Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi had wargs hunting them and the element of surprise. As they drew closer, day by day, more heads were collected as trophies for the warg-riders, and others were forced to look on in envy, all the keener for their turn at the enemy. It kept the wargs well-fed as well. On the day before arrival, they stopped the march early in contravention of the usual dawn-to-dusk routine of marching, in order to prepare and rest before the next leg of the march. Once the encampment was set, the equipment was checked and the orcs bedded down in their blankets for the night, the officers of the Company came together and planned the next details of the operation; to break the siege. But the first part of the plan, the part that involved Koloch, was simple: “The Chosen will break through the encampment here,” old Radush thrust a blunt finger at the map, which in and of itself was not considered orclike conduct for a warleader – using maps – “and get Prince Beler into the city. Overrun the camp quickly, slaughter the sentries. They’re not expecting a relief force, so they will be focused on keeping sorties in the city pinned in. Meanwhile, the Wargs will break up and raid across the lines to create a distraction that should give you the opportunity to pass in darkness. They’ll be torching everything they can, Koloch. But get it done and get out – don’t linger.” That too, was part of the plan. They’d hit with the raids and turn the enemy toward the Company. Getting Beler into Malish to tell the leaders of the city the plan, was instrumental, however. It was a job for the best the orcs had, those warriors that were singular in their ability and able to make the best of small numbers. The officers were gathered in the command tent of old Radush Eyedrinker, reporting on the readiness of the companies, planning the details and dealing with the minutae of the march and warfare in a way that was completely foreign to most Orcs; it was the true innovation of Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi to actually organize warfare. In orcish society, warfare was traditional and largely unevolved. A warrior might use a weapon taken from an enemy as a prize, but no self-respecting orc warrior imitated the ‘squishies.’ Except, of course, an orc that wanted to win – and that was the Company’s take on that. They’d had the argument often enough with raw recruits in the Pikes, and evolved it down to the point where they could win it with a sentence…and a taste of the lash if the words didn’t settle it. “Appreciated,” Koloch replied, in his strange accent; he’d been raised among humans, and while he understood Orcish well, he still spoke it ‘funny’ according to other orcs. But in orcish fashion, the Drillmaster was a dangerous, cold piece of work, and that earned him respect. The Company prized killers, and Koloch was unsentimental and mechanical in his approach to the work, as regular as a man chopping wood when he was killing. That demeanor as he fought, calculating, angling his armor to deflect blows, wearing the enemy down, was useful for those that learned from him, for he was an above average example of the enemy the company was most likely to face -- Humanity. There were others in the Company that knew the fighting ways of other peoples, of course, but Koloch was an unusual half-orc in the sense that he'd been exquisitely trained by a human armsmaster. He'd shed his allegiance to humanity, but retained their methods of making war. Furthermore, he was a founding member of the company, and was still here breathing – the company prized who got the job done, not who was simply the strongest. The mark of respect in Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi wasn’t if one could win an arm wrestling contest among fellow orcs, but how well one adapted to the enemy and defeated them, and lived to tell the tale. Old, wise veterans were prized here, moreso than the latest strong bull youngster bathed in the blood of the chief he just vanquished. That was grim stuff to think of with daylight still in the sky, but also, part of the point – they’d stopped early in the afternoon to get rested for the night march to come. The Company was just weary enough to accept the advice to get sleep now, “Youse tuskers git yer shuteye, cuz it’s hoomy killin time termorrah an’ dat’s exhaustin’. Not cuz squishin a hoomy is hard, but cuz deres a lot of ‘dose bunnies,” was the advice of the veteran section leaders, but the excitement was there, despite the attempt to wear the men out of their excess energy early on with the screws put to them a bit in assembling camp – they were worked faster, chivvied into hurrying up and using their excitement up a bit, but sleep still didn’t come easily for most. And sleep ended abruptly while it was still plenty dark out, the camp quickly broken down and orcs kitted up fully for a fight, with extraneous march equipment piled high into ox-drawn carts (the oxen were kept well away from the wargs) to be hauled after them. Koloch, though, was with the other chosen, mounted upon wargs reserved for the Company’s best warriors, the individuals that formed a cadre of experience and skill for the jobs that required more than an orc to stand in a formation and carry a pike, jobs that required individual courage and grit. Stiffen up a battle line, fight an enemy champion, demand a surrender from the enemy, or, as it turned out…escort the employer through a siege line into the city they were relieving. Koloch was not the most comfortable on warg-back, but he’d been learning over the years to let the warg do much of the thinking – you told them what you wanted, unlike the horses the humans favored, and worked with a warg more closely. They were pack animals, and you had to think like a pack animal to fight on wargback, which perhaps put Koloch at a disadvantage; he’d grown up among humans and it took a real change in outlook to deal with wargs. On the other hand, the wargs were naturals at night, unlike horses, and they were smart enough that the rider didn’t need to control them on the move. In fact, it was better if one weren’t a natural warg-rider, to attempt it because wargs were known to bite idiots. Others led the approach, and Koloch was along for the ride, his halberd strapped to his back and his falchion, a large, nasty piece of work that was more like a cleaver than a sword in many respects, kept sheathed but nearby at hand, ready to come out for a fight if they should encounter a patrol. The glow of the city under siege, from the fires that burned at the enemy encampment and perhaps within the city itself, lit up the skyline, obscuring the stars. The tension went up as the flaming skies grew closer and closer in a blur of a night-run on wargback. But that wasn’t here or now; the Achnal encampment that were their victims was one of many strung out along the perimeter of the city, horses and men, tents and other makeshift dwellings. They’d gotten fat and complacent in waiting out the starvation of their enemies or hurling rocks at the walls. They ventured up from these safe havens of warmth and food and women to take bowshots from the actual siege fortifications, further up, but here, they were snuggled in and warm, their horses penned and only occasionally taken out to grass and exercise on mounted patrols that were supposed to spot enemies. The Achnal were new to this sort of warfare, and they didn’t expect anything to get through the patrols, nor did they think orcs would ambush hunt their patrols on wargback. They didn’t expect orcs this far out. Prince Beler was there, hanging on for dear life, but he wasn’t really expected to fight. Koloch spent time with the older human man, enough to be impressed by the man’s honor and loyalty, but both of them knew that Beler’s job here wasn’t butcher’s work. Others of the Chosen were there, on wargback in a loose pack that loped toward the target – a point on the siege lines where the Chosen would strike. All along the siege line, the humans were spread out, with their horses kept in pens and tied down to the spot, out of bow and crossbow range of the defenders, but also exposed to the advance of the wargs –indeed, in the distance, the horses started to whicker, detecting the raiders from a distance, and some of the defenders might even take note – because the Achnal were, if nothing else, sensitive to the moods and needs of their animals. The snort of his warg, the rumbling of the beast’s entire body alerted him to the imminent arrival – he got his blade out and got ready. He knew what was coming as his mount, and the others, leapt over the fence and into the enclosure; there was a spray of blood all over him as his warg savaged the belly of the first horse, and as the shrieks went up, from man, beast, and, of course, orc, the battle was joined; his blade came cleaving down into the skull of the young man, perhaps even a boy, that was trying to defend his horses with a spear, but Koloch didn’t spare pity – the boy made his choice and died standing, rather than laying down. He wasn’t about to disrespect the lad’s choice to die with dignity and he had the rest of the battle to fight