Siege State

Tom set out with his group the next morning. The Lord General had contacted them again the evening before: the orcs were now testing multiple surge skills on the wall at once.

To make things worse, a huge battle had broken out between the Lord and his followers and the resistance efforts last night, and several city blocks had been laid to waste. With the sheer amount of refugees packed into Wayrest at the moment, the death toll had been high.

The Lord General was anxious, and he needed to know what the orcs were up to. The Watch had been trying to sneak closer to Ren’s Delve to spy on the Smith, and had found little success. Many of the forged Idealist orcs had Shadow skillsets, and the Smith had also evidently forged Hiding from the captured soldier now working on Rea’s cave too. Many of the orcs were being dedicated to obscuring their siege preparations, and even more were on high alert against intrusions.

The Lord General had asked if they could try and pierce the veil, and the Hunters had readily agreed. Several teams would hit the orcs hard from the north and east, using the same hit and run tactics as before, and try to draw as much attention as possible. Scriber had been working overtime manufacturing enchanted traps for them to use.

Several other squads of four, including Tom’s would then try and sneak in closer while they were distracted. Every squad chosen for this had one thing in common: they all had some method of information gathering.

A couple of Hunters had medium range teleportation skills, as well as stealth skills, and hoped to be able to jump close enough to spy. Several others had long range sensory skills. A few, like Tom, had familiars that were inconspicuous enough to get close.

Everyone was nervous about the mission. If the Watch were having trouble getting close, then they would surely struggle too. This was not an operation carried out in the Deep, where the Hunters truly excelled, like the hit and runs. The Watch were famous for their sensory and stealth skills. It was a daunting challenge.

Scriber, as usual, had come through for them. Every infiltration team had been kitted out with the same enchantments Scriber and Cub had been using when they’d met up as Val had been poisoned. They were combined shielding and obscuring enchantments. Even though Tom wouldn’t be getting as physically close to the centre of the army as others, he felt much safer with them.

He had also provided Rosa with an additional gift. The night before, after the meeting, he and Cub had invited Tom, Rosa and Val into their workshop. He had shuffled around, gathering up a few things, muttering about sub-standard enchantments, while Cub looked on grinning. Eventually, the enchanter presented Rosa and Val with matching bows.

Both bows were absolutely exquisite. Rosa’s was a little longer than Val’s, her being taller than the older woman, but otherwise they looked exactly the same. Matte black steel, slightly pink, and recurved, with enchantments etched down the entire length.

Cub explained the construction with the passion of someone who truly enjoys their work. They had used scraps of dragonbone for the core of the bows, because they had some flex, and also provided amazing strength.

The risers were matte black, made of soulsteel. The limbs were made of a matte steel, very slightly pink. Cub explained that it was a slightly different alloy of soulsteel, and the enchanting iron from the nails than they had used on Tom’s spear. It had increased flexibility and elasticity.

It was built to be flexible and strong, whilst still retaining excellent conductive properties for their mana. The inlaid runes were in the same bloodsteel as his spear, running all up and down the limbs and risers.

Scriber excitedly told them of the enchantments. There were the regular strength, self-repair, durability and conductivity ones, but he had added more for flexibility and elasticity. There were closed enchantments on the grip: force and stealth enchantments, to be exact. The dragonbone cores acted like mana batteries, allowing them to store mana from their Ideals in it to be converted into the appropriate types.

The idea was that any arrows fired by the bow would be silent, and have a far greater impact force than usual. In Tom’s opinion, the best parts of the bows were the matching tension enchantments at each limb tip. There was a trigger enchantment linked to them in the grip which, when supplied with a tiny amount of mana, would produce a string made of pure force.

Rosa and Val were both utterly enamoured with their new weapons. Then Scriber produced two quivers as well.

Both quivers were made from treated drake leather, which was an ideal material for enchanting. Both quivers had spatial storage enchantments, and could hold hundreds of arrows. Both were full.

Cub had a skill under his Ideal of Forging that allowed him to duplicate finished products for a mana cost that scaled with the complexity of the item. For more complex projects, like armour, or swords, it was not usually worth it. For small, quick items, like arrows, it was perfect. He had managed to make not only enough arrows to fill Rosa and Val’s new quivers, but enough to supply their entire operation for the foreseeable future.

Scriber had put every single one of his mice to work on those arrows while he slept. Tom still didn’t know how many mice made up his mischief exactly, but it seemed like hundreds. Every single arrow was made from lightweight steel and enchanted.

There were several types of enchanted arrows. The basic type, which everyone else had been given, and which made the majority of those in Rosa and Val’s new quivers, were simple. Piercing runes on the arrowtips, and open enchantments paired with small mana battery enchantments on the shafts. The arrows could be imbued with mana from an Ideal, would take on its properties, as with any open enchantment, and the mana battery runes would ensure they held their charge until they reached their target.

Scriber had also supplied the pair with some special arrows. Some had shattering runes at the tip of the arrowhead, and force dispersion enchantments at the back. They were to blast holes in soft targets.

They had arrows that could impart a variety of different debuffs. Arrows that placed an invisible mark on a target. They even had some arrows that could heal.

Every one of the special arrows he’d made had one last feature: control runes on the fletching, controlled via a trigger in the nock. They would be able to adjust each arrow’s trajectory, just slightly, as it flew.

Needless to say, Scriber and Cub were the most popular men in the cave that night. Tom stopped counting at forty combined ‘thank yous’ from Rosa and Val, and he was sure there were at least five times as many said.

As they hiked through the woods to their target, Tom watched as Rosa cradled her new bow like it was a newborn child. It would be of great use to her in particular. Most of her skills were …unsubtle, to say the least. They would be undone if they attracted too much attention here.

They were making for the eastern trade road, and hoping to steal down it. They would reach it soon. The diversionary attacks from the other teams should have already started. He wasn’t sure, but through Sus and Sol, each flying high up in the sky, he thought he could detect subtle flows in the orcs to the north and south.

The army was far too large to fully divert, but the plan was to simply engage a large enough number of them to hold their attention. As long as there were less orcs milling around aimlessly, getting in their way, then the plan would be a success. All they needed was a small window to creep closer and hopefully learn more.

They had dispatched several random orcs before they reached the trade road, but now that they had made it there, they became more circumspect. Tom used Sere’s all encompassing vision to pick them a path forward.

Slowly, but surely, they made their way down the road, hopping between hedgerows, scuttling from alleyways to fences, sheltering behind walls, or inside empty houses. The stealth enchantments from Scriber were a massive advantage. They had much more wiggle room as to how close they could risk coming to an orc before it was likely they would be detected. That, combined with Sere’s guidance, made the infiltration simply a matter of patience.

He could detect Cass’ nervousness as they delved deeper and deeper behind orc lines. Rosa was growing more tense as well, though he believed hers was of an angrier persuasion.

They reached the second village ring. They were at a stage now where the closest orc was never more than fifty feet or so away. It would have to be close enough. Tom began to look for a spot they could hunker down undisturbed while he scouted with Sere.

Rosa whispered for them to follow, and led them into an abandoned cottage. The shutters had been smashed, and the door was hanging off its hinges. Once inside, she fossicked about for a little while, then found a catch, cleverly hidden inside a knot in a floorboard. She pulled open the hatch, and they descended inside.

“How did you know it was here?” Cass asked. Tom thought it was a fair question.

“I know some villagers keep secret basements, to hide things when the tax men come. The Guards, they look the other way. If the villagers are miserable, it makes life miserable for the Guards too, yes? It was simply a matter of looking for a cold space underneath a house,” she explained.

“Handy,” was all Cass had to say.

“Good stuff.” This from Errol.

“Right,” Tom said. “Let me know if anything happens. I’m going to need to concentrate.” And he let his attention fully sink into his bond with Sere.

He left several sparrows perched on roofs in the village they were hiding in. It was an ingrained habit now, to have at least some watching over him. The rest he sent northwards, towards Ren’s Delve, and the heart of the orc army.

The village was absolutely swarming with orcs. They were in every building. Those left standing, anyway. At a glance, there was a similar pattern here to the original encampment. Several large buildings, the town hall, and some mining warehouses, had been commandeered by the Idealist orc leadership. They were heavily guarded, and the only orcs close were those large, more ferocious specimens: likely Idealists too.

Tom noted the same piles of wood that he had seen before, those he had picked as being shaped for battering rams. There were no roofs for them anywhere in sight, though the orcs probably had enough manpower that they could just throw more bodies at them to carry them when others died.

Something about them didn’t seem quite right though. He sent a couple of Sere’s bodies to investigate more closely. He pondered it for a while, then had a realisation: the massive logs had no handles. If the orcs weren’t planning on mounting them inside a mobile platform, then why was there nowhere to hold them?

Now that he was closer, he noticed a pile of boulders between the logs and the mine. Orcs were working together in teams to roll new ones out of the mines, and add them to the growing heap. Stones for catapults, maybe? And yet there were no arms, no wheels, no rope, or beams the right size.

There was a huge amount of wood being carried into the mine, through the main entrance on the side of the hill. Curiously, it looked as though the orcs were enlarging the entrance. They were a little bigger than humans, on average, but nowhere near so much as to justify the excavations they were making.

The more Tom surveyed the area, the more puzzled he became. It seemed a huge amount of activity was centred around the mine. He even saw orcs carrying food in. They must have teams working very deep if they couldn’t even make it out to eat.

Tom eyed the town hall. The biggest and most vicious looking orcs were arrayed around it. It was almost certainly where the Great Smith and his chieftains were. He considered sending Sere to spy, but he had gotten exceedingly lucky last time. There was no guarantee that he wouldn’t be waiting for hours for them to discuss anything important.

He chose instead to check the mining operations first. Perhaps there was some weakness, some flaw that they could exploit, that would allow them to deny the orcs access to the metals within. They seemed to be very focused on it.

Several sparrows flitted around the entrance, then entered, one by one, when it seemed like no orcs were paying attention. If possible, he wanted to return from this mission with the orcs none the wiser, and sparrows heading into a mine would raise eyebrows if noticed.

Luckily, the excavations on the mineshaft entrance were raising hellish amounts of dust. There were plenty of nooks and crannies in the walls and roof for the sparrows to flit between. As they worked their way further in, Tom was astonished by the orcish renovations. They were widening the tunnel for quite some way.

A sinking feeling suddenly hit him. Were they trying to sap the walls? Mine their wall fully under Wayrest? It made a lot of sense. The one area in which the orcs held a clear advantage was manpower. It would be ludicrous to mine under walls from so far out for humans, but for orcs? Who didn’t care about their own safety? Who could breed more workers so fast, that it didn’t matter if some died?

Tom shivered, and pushed Sere faster. He had to find out quickly. Who knew how long the orcs had been digging. Every second could count. The sheer urgency made bile rise in his throat.

As they went deeper, and deeper, the flow of orcs coming and going remained steady, and the way grew narrower. Thankfully, it also became darker, and Sere’s bodies had no trouble avoiding detection.

Tom pushed and pushed, winding through passageways, past intersections where the tunnels split, always following the flow of orcs. Eventually, the flow grew thicker again. The orcs going deeper were going slower, and the orcs coming out were going faster. Almost as if they were afraid.

He had never heard of orcs being afraid of the dark, or of being underground. The whole situation was becoming more puzzling by the minute. Perhaps they were afraid of a collapse? There were still orcs working on widening the tunnels, even down this deep, though not as many. The natural width had increased again, so perhaps there wasn’t as much of a need.

Suddenly, the two furthest of Sere’s bodies burst into a wide open space, filled with flickering shadows. There were torches burning on the walls. They wheeled, finding the wall again, and settled, hoping they had not been seen. After a short while, it became clear they were unnoticed.

They were in a cavern. A massive one. It looked to be a staging ground, an area that miners could use to recuperate, repair tools, drop off ore, without having to return all the way to the surface. It appeared natural, though it was clear it had been shaped and refined somewhat. The space was huge.

More bodies flitted through into the space. Tom noted several Idealist orcs keeping watch on the other orcs coming and going. There were far more Idealist guards than should realistically be necessary. The orcs would not steal any ore. What would a regular orc do with a lump of ore? Tom looked closer. Why were they bringing so much food down all this way?

The orcs walked towards the centre of the cavern, depositing the various food in untidy piles. The Idealist guards quickly shooed them along again, though not many appeared to need it. They approached the food piles, and the watching guards, as if trying to muster the courage to stick their hands in a furnace, and then scuttled away as if they’d been burned.

Tom listened as a bark came from deeper in the chamber. Every orc froze, hesitating for just a second. The Idealist guards each pointed at a nearby orc, seemingly at random, and then dragged them, struggling, further in.

Tom could only make out dancing shadows and bizarre shapes in the middle, so he sent a few of Sere’s bodies closer still. They perched on some stalagmites.

Miles away, Tom threw his hand over his mouth to stifle a yell. His eyes went wide, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Sweat beading on his skin from concentration became a river from fright, and the skin beneath it flushed cold. He mastered himself, slowly, but surely, but it was difficult.

He recalled Sere’s bodies. In a few minutes in the centre of that cave, he had seen enough.

A single scene burned itself into his mind’s eye. One of the Great Smith’s chieftains, grabbing a hapless orc by its neck, and forcing it closer to a giant, straining mass. It pressed the orc to it, and glowing red lines lit up all over the chieftain’s body.

The lines flowed into the struggling orc, and from there, into the mass it was being held against. Tom felt vomit threaten his throat at the memory.

In the middle of the cave, the orc had melted. It had become malleable, and the chieftain had shaped it, like clay, adding it to the mass. He had stopped, resting, perhaps recovering his mana. Then he had beckoned to the Idealist guards to bring him another.

Another orc. Another disposable body. More mass for their creation.

An orc of enormous proportions. Utterly gargantuan. Muscles bulging and flexing as it lay dormant, its great chest heaving as it slowly drew breath. Several limbs twisted and malformed, waiting to be shaped.

And more chieftains were working. And more gargantuan bodies lying around them.

The orcs were not building siege weapons.

They were Forging them.