Story:The Surprise Attack

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This story is the first part of the Emrian Conquest Series. It is written by Sethanic and Zeokx is allowed to write if he wishes.
==Prologue: Four Years Ago==
The area was busy. The sounds of rushing workers filled the architect's ears as he walked with another, discussing the plans for it. It was made to withstand any cannonball, yet it was a simple design. It had an vertically opening gate, allowing the troops to pass through. Nothing short of an army could pass through this fortress, and that's if they had siege weapons. The Emrians would have no idea what to expect when the Veptims and Dracnothros of Raxus ran through their doors! The architect could happily imagine their screams, but he had to work on the precise mechanism for the g- Alarm bells rung.
The Veptim lines rushed at the foe, despite the fact they had no idea what it was, though they presumed it was it. They were correct. The scouting force readied for the incoming clash. Halberds were readied. Bets were made on who would survive. Ged was one of the many who was on horseback, wielding a lance. The horde approached. Swords clashed.
A sword lashed out and cut flesh. The wound bled for a minute and stopped, while Ged crashed to the ground backwards, crying in agony, his horse running off and his sword lost. Around him he heard voices shouting for help and saying things like "Hold the line" or "Go back to the hell you came from, you ugly beast." The smell of dead bodies reached him and the soldier puked. He wiped his mouth and spotted a halberd among the dead's weapons.
Ged crawled over, being careful trying not to get stepped on by the approaching Lizardmen. This battle had gone wrong fast. He caught the edge of the halberd, tugged on it until it was next to him. He clung on to it with his left arm and got to his feet in pain and realised something. He felt his right pocket and found his custom flintlock pistol, Jessie. It was an ugly thing with four barrels, though it had small golden decorations on it. Due to the design, it could fire up to eight times without reloading. He made sure it was working and placed in in his belt. He heaved the halberd up. It was a heavy thing, much heavier than any sword Ged had wielded before. He lifted it above his head to see how he could do. Its design caused the thing to fall forwards and get firmly wedged within a Veptim. It falling was beyond anything Ged's muscles could do to stop it.
Ged, still in shock of him accidentally killing it, planted his left foot on the body, now covered in green goo from the impact. He braced his back right leg to push and had a tight grip of the weapon. He pulled the weapon out with great practice and held it like he had in training. He liked the weight in both hands.
He walked up to a Warrior who was dueling a Emrian Soldier. The soldier saw Ged and ducked, dodging both blows, one from a Veptim, and one from the Veptims head, flying off into the back of another, distracting it, allowing a swordsman to open up its stomach.
Around him, Ged assessed the battlefield. He saw a surrounded group of soldiers, valiantly fending off as many as the scum as possible. Around him others did the same. It was a nightmare. And then it hit him: the flintlocks! He fell back and vomited, the vile substance ungracefully leaving his mouth. He wiped it clean with the back of his left hand. And then it hit him, but in the way he realised it: the flintlocks! Ged gave another little vomit before his stomach was fully empty. He saw a group of the savages running with flintlocks, firing shots all over the place. Two can play that game Ged whispered to himself. He stood up, ignoring the sharp pain in his shoulder, and took out Jessie.
He aimed and fired. Once, Twice, Triple, Quadruple.... seven times. He watched as six of them dropped dead, but one still stood, gripping his damaged arm. Jessie released a cloud of black smoke as the last of them fell face-first into the mud.
Behind him he heard a rallying call as the last of the scouting force formed a line of defense against the enemy. Those who had nothing to lose, or wished to die for someone else stayed and fought 'til the end. Ged ran behind them and fell of one knee, narrowly avoiding a musket shot. He fiddled with his favourite gun and brought it to bear upon the wretches one last time. in the following minute a total of thirty-seven cracks were heard. Ged ran off once his ammo was dry and just escaped the Veptims. He would be back for revenge, along with the dozen other survivors of the two hundred, if of course he could survive his wounds, which were hurting more than ever now without the adrenaline rush.
==Chapter 1: The Reemergence==
The Veptims marched onward, killing anything in their wake. 25,000 troops all marched towards the minor city. Already five hundred had died getting their as the Veptims were following that path.
They marched through the towns of Inis and Fingal, adding them as towns of their own as they went. They arrived at the city of Thurles a week after conquering Fingal and bombarded the gate by ramming troops into it. The gate broke under the force of an Ogre, though his head was knocked from his shoulders by Ged's halberd.
Ged grinned as his halberdiers had the enemy bogged down by the gate. The man to his left, Jaques, was knock backwards by an arrow. He clutched his chest. It was bleeding but he would survive if he was treated. Ged momentarily helped him up, using wild strokes to dissuade the enemy from jumping into him.
He passed him his halberd and planted his feet into position like Ged taught him to. Ged spotted incoming lizardmen bigger than the others around them.
With a horrifying roar, two massive beasts powered their way forward, pushing their squealing kin aside. Their skin was black unlike the others and they easliy doubled, if not tripled their height. Their eyes were filled with feral malice. Heedless of anything but the blood lust, they hurled themselves at the fragile halberd lines.
Ged maneuvered into the path of the biggest, his halberd tight within his grip. His aim would have to be just right. He felt his mouth go dry.
The Veptim lurched towards him, shouting some obscene mockery of language. One of Ged's men, knocked off balance with an unlucky stroke, blundered into its path. It casually swatted him aside as if he was a mere fly with its vast clenched fist. Ged heard the spine snap cleanly. He grimaced as the sight. The monster threw itself at him. Spittle flew into his face, thick and stinking.
Ged roared his defiance in return. He thrust his blade at the creature's chest. His aim was good, angled upwards and left. The lizard leapt to one side evading the attack. Ged had been expecting the feint and turned the shaft to match. The halberd embedded itself in the Ogre's flank just below its rib cage.
The Veptim grunted and pressed on. Before Ged knew it, the halberd was stuck. He reached for the sword at his belt. Too late. The hammer sized fist struck him in the shoulder, thankfully not the actually hammer which dwarfed it.
Ged landed well over five yards from where he was hit on his back. His vision swam. He couldn't make out a thing and he even had bits of pure blackness creeping in towards the edges. He tasted blood in his mouth and felt some more around his stomach. The earth shook as the Ogre, now just a blurry shape, charged again. He tried to move, but his legs felt like congealed fat. He unsheathed his sword and prepared for the beast beating him to death with its giant hammer. He desperately held his sword in front of himself and tried to focus on the shapes and failed miserably, only making them blurrier. He saw the collision coming, raised his sword and hoped for the best.
==Chapter 2: The Last Light==
'I'll kill you!' Ged shouted at the Ogre. He drew Jessie and fired nine times. The bullets had no impact or connection to it. Behind him he heard his family calling his name. He ignored them for the moment, trying to better the Ogre and then rush to embrace them, not before. He rammed his halberd through its chest and it sunk to the ground, dying. A look of betrayal followed as if Ged was a traitor. He turned and saw his family screaming in a fire. Out of all things to get them, a house fire. Ged began to cringe at the sight when he was abruptly awoken by Grunwald, his friend and second-in-command.
Ged looked about, his heart rate slowing every few seconds, his breathing heavy. He imminently knew that he was very badly wounded as the only sign he could make out was labeled 'Likely to Die'. He must be in the apothecaries ten-- his vision! It had cleared after whatever the apothecaries did. He smiled as his thoughts came back to him. He nodded a bit to himself, ignoring Grunwald as if he wasn't there. Ged moved his head over the table he was lying on and puked for about a solid minute. After readying himself and annoying Grunwald, he smiled, embraced and said 'So, we won yet?'
"Fraid not' Grunwald said sadly.
'Blast!' Ged replied as if he was just joking. 'How bad is it?'
'If the Elves arrive, we may be able to hold Thurles!'
'There are two possible things in that sentence Grunwald. I don't trust it. Like a formal person. You can't rely on them.'
Grunwald laughed, roughly patted his commander on the back, though it would have easily broken every bone in a three year old's body.
'Grunwald,' Ged said looking him in the eye. 'Tonight all of us dine in Thornum.'
'Not I have anything to do about it,' he grumbled.
Now it was Ged's turn to laugh. He liked people like him. Good, stoic, simple. The kind of men you could trust.
'One more question,' Ged asked Grunwald, a serious facial expression upon his face. 'How long was I out?'
'Not much more than a week, maybe two at most. Some fight you were in there, Commander.'
'Don't call me that Grunwald. You know I hate that.'
'Aye. Okay then, ye old friend!' Grunwald laughed. Ged was impressed with how well he was handling the fact that he would probably never leave Thurles.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The battle raged.
The halberdiers have fallen to a bastion within the city. The civilians were ready to evacuate in case of worse battle results.
Ged and Grunwald were in the front three groups. The enemy were dying in droves. If you were a horseman or a swordsman, you could kill about five on average before they got you, though while if you were a halberdier or a pikeman you could take on a hundred and stay standing if your morale stayed together. This was fighting at its best thought Ged as he hacked away at a nearly dead Ogre. The back spike of the halberd dug into the leg of it. Ged pulled it out and brought it crashing down upon its skull, the spike piercing all the way to the brain.
Ged leveled his halberd and impaled two targets through their hearts, not even having to do anything about aiming. He took out his right Jessie and took down an Ogre which dwarfed the one which knocked him out over a week previously. Things were bad. They had to retreat. The groups beside them were being pushed back, but while the halberdiers were succeeding at killing the enemy, the other groups were not. As they fell back, the flanks of Ged's halberdiers would be exposed and nobody wanted that.
'Retreat! Don't turn you back or you'll be killed!'
An idiot ran away and was imminently picked upon. He barely manage to thrust his halberd at the foe, delaying his possible and likely death. Ged noticed the face. He had helped him prior to him awaking up. What was his fac- Jaques! The man was only twenty-three and joined the army mainly so that he could send it to his home and dying mother, hopefully enough to get food and not let his mother starve. He was a fine halberdier, though he was lacking in courage at some desperate points.
'Jaques!' Ged yelled at him. 'Get your ass over here!'
Jaques hurried along into position to escape Ged's wrath, though he would have preferred the Veptim's anger to his. He had seem many a scar when people annoyed Ged. He had one himself right along his spine. That was a tough day.
'Stay in position!' Ged shouted as they walked backwards, killing all of the necessary things to kill in the way. A Ogre spontaneously caught alight. Another froze. Another shrunk. Another exploded. Another was chomped in half by a large Scarlet Drake Dragon. The Heart of the Dragon Mercenaries had arrived.
One dragon imminently slaughtered the surrounding Veptims. They walked on corpses. Their riders of course, had immense magical abilities, equal to a Snow Elf. A Veptim Ogre lunged at the first Scarlet Drake Dragon to land, but it was foiled when a ice blast froze it solid.
The enemy were being pushed back. Ged felt more hope return in the atmosphere. A swordsman cried off to his right. They charged the foe, killing a hundred before reaching the dragons which landed among them. The defenders have managed to advance. 'Forward!' Ged shouted triumphantly and his group and the other halberd and pike units moved forwards and forced the enemy back.
Sweat rolled down Ged's arms as he expertly moved the halberd, amputating a pair of legs in a single stroke. He stepped forwards on to the veptim's corpse, crushing it underfoot and impaling another target simultaneously. He worked his way through the enemy. One almost got him when he tripped on a body pile, but he managed to dodge its blow and bring his halberd up inside its neck.
'Cannons!' Ged yelled.
The machines roared and blew holes within the enemy ranks, at least two hundred killed in the opening salvo.
'Gunners!'
The arrows flew overhead and successfully removed the lives of their targets. Then the musketeers fired, their many guns and numbers making a traveling maelstorm of lead in the direction of the lizards.
'Cavalary!' Ged shouted.
The knights charged the enemy and quickly pulled out and drew their swords for another lot of knights to do the same. This was repeating, though lances didn't last long and were replaced with broadswords.
Ged worked his halberd some more, ignoring the protests of pain and strain from his arms, drenched in sweat.
'Dragons!' Dragon flew down from the sky and set the enemy alight. Some were frozen, some were teleported to the middle of nowhere. Another storm of bullets and cannons came with the dragons, slaughtering Veptims in dozens.
Yet still they came. In that very five minutes, a thousand beasts had died. In the twenty minutes before that, two hundred and fifty died. Two days ago from then, two thousand died, yet in five minutes of fighting a thousand Veptims died. They would fight until the last one Ged realised as he killed another, impaling it through the chest. And so would the humans.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
'Sir!' a man shouted at a tiresome Ged. One by one his unit had to be replaced due to exhaustion. They suffered minimal causalities themselves though, with about five people on average dying per unit.
'Yes?' Ged said, barely heeding the messenger.
'The mages are ready.'
'Tell them to use it. I want to see them all die,' Ged replied a shocked expression on his face. He fell backwards on to his bed and slept, though the bed was uncomfortable, like all military ones. He was awoken when the mages were done triple checking.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The mages were gathered above the fighting on the top of the bastion. The fighting was taking place on terrace three due to large numbers of the enemy. On the fifth terrace were the mages.
Exor Eled Mei S Ir'Kia. That was the phrase the Mages were chanting. 'Exor's Light Be Delivered In True Pain' is the rough translation. Dark thundercloud rolled overhead. A great big ball composed of light appeared. It grew. It passed the 100 meter radius and stopped. It hovered for a minute before it fell.
The ensuring chaos left the area in front of the bastion devastated. The Dragons had fled back by the mages on the top of the bastion and added in their magical abilities. This time the lizard armies surged forwards again, only for a ball of light twice the size of the previous one crashed into them. An explosion rocked the ground and some buildings collapsed.
The Veptims kept on coming, but they were fewer in number. In the two spells all mages were killed, but the Veptims lost over two thousand. They were down to 11,000 while the humans had 3,500, the odds still being 3:1 in Veptims favour. The battle was drawing to a close.
==Chapter 3: The Last Stand==
It had been five days since the mages sacrificed themselves.
Since then the humans had been losing ground and the Heart of the Dragon mercenaries had left. Ged was standing on the foot of a statue, erected in memory of the Mages. 'Today!' He spoke, his voice echoing in the wide open space around him. 'Today...' he trailed before taking a deep breath and continuing.
'At the edge of our hope,' People gathered around to listen to the Commander. They were evacuating the civilians as he went on.
'at the end of our times,' People were clinging to his every word. They wanted to have a speck of hope on the horizon.
'not only have we chosen to believe in ourselves, but in each other!' The crowd nodded and murmurs of agreement were heard.
'Today there is not a single man or woman in here who shall stand alone.' The crowd was waiting for the speech to end. This was usually the encouraging bit.
'Today we face the monster at our door, and bring the fight to them!'
'Today we are cancelling the apocalypse!' The crowd cheered and Ged told a man to get people into formation. The Veptims weren't going to wait for them. Ged felt proud seeing the people cheering at him and looking at him for encouragement. He couldn't remember the last time he felt good since... he tried stopped his train of thought, trying not to think about his family, but he couldn't. His wife was Caoimhe (Quwi-va) Fitzgerald, a great descendant of Ymir the Ageless, a mage who was of great power. He couldn't be killed by arrow, sword nor poison. Eventually a tree fell on him, ending his reign of terror as he was immune to all things unnatural.
Then there were his children, Johnathan, his nine year old son, along with his twin female children, Mary and Sue. They were horrible children, running about and destroying the house, possibly the worst people he'd ever known, while Ged's son was learning how to use a sword. He had even got a shiny new steel one for his ninth birthday, though he wasn't allowed to use it until his thirteenth. By Exor, Ged prayed. Let them be safe.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The clash came. the pikemen thrust their pikes forward, impaling the foe, holding them back, but they were quickly overrun by stampeding Ogres. A hail of bullets saw their demise and Ged and his Halberdiers were up against the tide. They had made a name of themselves, the Rebels, the same as their sport team as they were all from the southernmost province.
The enemy were sending their biggest and faster units first. A trio of Ogres knocked their smaller brothers aside to reach the front lines. Ged put himself in front of the biggest. His mouth went dry again. A sense of Deija Vú filled him. His aim would have to be perfect.
Ged went too high, the beast dodging out of habit, however Ged brought it down and the beasts' head popped off in a squirt of green blood that smelt like crap.
Ged looked around and noticed something. 'Grunwald!' he yelled. He was struggling with an Ogre in close combat. desperately trying to hold it away. Ged dropped his place from the formation, the ones behind him moving up. Upon getting closer he swung his halberd right into the Ogre's chest. It grunted, stood up and punched Ged in his chest. He fell to his left and back a yard or so. He drew the two Jessies and put down the Ogre.
Ged rose unsteadily to his feet and ran over to Grunwald. He was thankful. He was helped to his feet. They both saw a terrible sight. A large ungodly Ogre was coming their way. It was about sixteen times the size of Ged. When it moved you could feel the very act. A halberdier group, Ged's had fallen back, tried to kill it. It just waded through them, crushing humans underfoot.
The Doombringer roared. Everything stopped as the humans covered their ears, allowing the Veptims to press the new advantage. The tide had turned in the swarms favour. Ged and Grunwald ran back to the final base, limping and wrecked from the carnage.
'What's going on here?' Ged demanded as he fell back into a chair.
'Yea!' Grunwald said afterwards, catching the group's attention. They turned and faced them.
'What's going on with that...' Grunwald trailed off, looking for a word. 'Doombringer?'
'We don't know,' one admitted. 'Our defenses cannot penetrate its natural armour.'
'Try cannons!' Ged retorted.
'We have.'
'The cannons aren't killing it?!' Grunwald asked, surprise and desperation evenly mixed in his voice.
'No, Sir.'
'Then use everything! And if we can't kill it then, we should evacuate!' Ged said again.
'Of course Sirs.' The man left and gave out orders. He loved shouting.
'How are the Elves?' Grunwald asked.
'The Elves?' one of them replied, clearly puzzled by the question. 'Haven't you heard?! They left us upon seeing the devastation!'
'WHAT!' thundered Grunwald. 'Our supposed allies turn their back on us when we need them most?!'
'Yes sir,' the man said, not looking like he wanted to say that.
'Get the men to fall back. Thurles is lost.'
The man looked hesitant as he replied "right Sir.' He headed off and began relaying more orders. Grunwald and Ged went to get some sleep. He'd need it and so would Ged.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
'Evacuate!' Ged was yelling. encouraging people to run away, out of the city using the opposite gate. He and Grunwald had been tasked for getting them out. The Doombringer was getting closer, the ground shaking with every stride. Fifty people were prodding it with pikes to hold it back from the escaping crowd. They were working as the pikes were slightly longer than its arms. Those pikes were oversized.
The Doombringer realised it could simply walk through them as a pike lodged itself in its leg, snapping unevenly in half from the force. The defenders defeated by the foe walking, they too ran to the gate, along with the Doombringer.
100 strides. The group were almost out, only a few seconds left.
75 strides. The last were here, only about fifty people.
50 strides. The last dozen people.
40 strides. As the last person left Grunwald ordered the last two to come back. The Doombringer was in walking distance from them. It needed to be delayed. Grunwald got them to help Ged leave, despite his protests, they dragged his feet along the ground as he wanted to die fighting. Grunwald drew his halberd and proceed to cut the rotor muscles in its arms after a successful amount of attacks and feints. After ducking under a foot, Grunwald left his halberd there. It broke the skin, muscle and bone and the Doombringer screeched.
Grunwald drew his bastard sword and hacked at the ankle of it to no avail. It caught him, lifting him up. It studied him briefly before throwing him into the distance. It had poor eyesight and the enemy were gone to it. It yelled. Thurles had been conquered.
'Ged!' Grunwald yelled back at him as he flew overhead. 'Kill the thing for me with your bastard!' Ged was crying as his friend left his sight. His bastard sword had been given to him as a present from Grunwald. It was identical to his. 'Goodbye old friend,' Ged whispered. The fact that Grunwald was gone was horrible. Unbelievable. He had been around for all of Ged's life and now he's gone. Ged's winging was replaced by anger at the Doombringer and the Veptims even more than when they had slaughtered his unit, as they had killed his best friend. They. Would. Pay.
==Notes==
Inis and Fingal are real Irish towns in the western county of Clare. Thurles is a city in Tipperary, a central county. A big thanks to Chris Wright, author of Swords of the Emperor, a Black Library Novel in the Warhammer Universe. Reading this fantasy novel I figured out how in the name of the Del halberds worked and good verbs to use for them. The speech at the start of Chapter 3 is from Pacific Rim, a great film. The Rebels Team in Chapter 3 is a Gaelic Football Team from Cork, Ireland, the southernmost county. Caoimhe is an Irish name meaning beautiful, lovely, etc. No I don't know why I imagine western Emria as being very Irish.
==References==
Veptim
Heart of the Dragon
Dracnothro
Human
Sun Elf
Category:Fiction