Chương 67: Gatehouse

"Get in here!" I shouted, then stepped away from the door. As soon as the rest of the squad had darted through the gatehouse's door, I slammed it behind us and barred it, locking out any orcs who had chased us up the stairs. And locking us in with the ogre and a pair of worker orcs. The workers turned to us and stared with icy glares. One shouted, "Samefaces! Some here to die? Get them, Yorug!" The ogre mumbled something, then picked up a beam of wood from the ground.

It was heavy, and it had nails in its tip, turning it into a makeshift mace.

"Anchor, how strong is the ogre?"

"Titanium."

"Can you take it down?" He fired an arrow straight at the ogre's head, enhanced with Presence. The shot pierced through the beast's forehead, piercing its skull, but it didn't shatter it, and it wasn't enough to kill the ogre. They didn't seem to need their brains much.

"No, it seems I cannot," Anchor said.

"Not with one arrow. I didn't figure my resonance skill would do more than Anchor's archery. His, after all, was a Journeyman-tier Skill, and mine was only an Apprentice-tier Skill. But I did have another trick. Unlike golems, ogres were fleshy. They probably weren't immune to fall damage.

"Get back!" I shouted to Brawl. He darted to my side and used his shield to block a hammer swipe from a worker orc. At the same time, I created a gravity well above the ogre, sending it flying up into the roof and smashing through the stone. The ogre was tall, and it had to hunch over to fit in the gatehouse, anyway. I didn't want to know how the orcs had gotten it inside, and now, no one would have to worry about getting it out.

But instead of just pulling directly upward, I harnessed the innate grasp on directional force that I'd accumulated while merging the Art. I tilted the gravity well slightly and sent it flying on an angle. That way, it wouldn't fall right back into the reversed field and start bobbing up and down, and it wouldn't crush us. The ogre flew through the air, and I didn't see it land, but I heard the crunch and the fleshy squelch.

It wasn't getting up, that was certain, and I hoped it had landed on a few other orcs when it fell. The last worker orc charged us, holding a whip that he'd been using to strike the ogre, and Brawl unceremoniously flung him to the side with a swing of his flail.

"Now," I said, "we have to figure out a way to get this gate open." The gate had a capstan behind it that connected to the winches. Brawl pointed at it and said, "There, brothers." We gathered around it, each taking a bar and inserting it into the capstan, then spinning. Even Morph helped push it. The gate wasn't meant to be lifted with only four people, but we managed with our enhanced strength ('our' being mostly Brawl), pushing as hard as we could until it slowly slid upward.

Chains creaked, and the portcullis slid upward through the floor of the gatehouse. A ratcheted gear helped hold it in place, and when we let go, it didn't slam down on our allies. Through the thin gap in the floor, I could already see Lord Ceonwin's party rushing through the gate. I wanted to rest and lay back, but I still had Presence, and there was still a city to retake.

I shook out my arms and breathed out a long exhale, then rushed to the back wall of the gatehouse, where there were slit windows looking down on the main thoroughfare. A few of the other squads who had infiltrated the west wall had caught up. The senior sappers were moving slower and more cautiously, but they'd probably killed more orcs than us along the way. And now, as the orcs who had gathered to meet Ceonwin's force at the gate retreated, the sappers from the west cut them down.

They punched and sliced with meticulous movements, cleaving through the crowds of orcs like they were nothing but paper. It didn't help that the orcs were fleeing, and they hadn't been expecting another force to cut them off. I estimated there were about three hundred orcs who had rushed to defend the wall. We'd taken a few losses, but overall, it was a resounding victory. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. But we couldn't slow down.

If the orcs regrouped, we were in trouble.

"We need to clean up the wall and take it," I said, making a split second decision. Orc archers on the walls were already turning to face Ceonwin's force as it breached the wall. If we let them keep the wall, they'd cause no end to our troubles.

"Head left," I said.

"Brawl, how fast do you think you can kick down this door?" I tilted my head toward the door that we'd locked ourselves in the gatehouse with.

"Kick it down, brother?"

"Yeah," I said. Orcs pounded on the door and clawed at it, still trying to get in and kill us.

"We can't exactly open it slowly." Brawl grinned, and I motioned to the door. He took a running start, then slammed his shoulder into the door. The hinges snapped and it flew off, slamming into the orcs in the hallway outside. It crashed into one and flung him into the wall, and sent a few others tumbling back down the stairs. Some retreated, trying to get away from us, but they didn't make it far. A squad of senior sappers raced up the stairs, killing the orcs before they could escape.

"Good work getting the gate open, brothers," the sergeant of their squad said. I couldn't make out any defining features—his helmet covered his eyes.

"We're going to clean up the wall," I said.

"Unless Ceonwin has different orders for us."

"Those are his orders."

"Wonderful." I rushed out onto the curtain wall after other sappers, following closed behind them. Once on the wall, we slowed to a cautious march, killing any orcs we came across, until we had circled an eighth of the wall and met a different squad who had cleaned up the next section. They reported that they had cleared away their orcs, too, and there was no one left on the outer wall. So that Lord Ceonwin and the rest of the ground forces knew, we tore down any orc flags we found and lit all the snuffed torches.

Maybe it would help make our numbers look larger. But even if we had the wall, we didn't control the entire outer city yet. There were still plenty of orcs between the outer wall and the inner wall. I knelt on the edge of the wall, searching for our targets below. From what I remembered of the maps Owl showed us, there was an armoury nearby—and right ahead of me, I spotted a camp where the orcs had rounded up captive civilians. At the moment, the beasts were panicking and glancing around, looking for orders.

Some rushed back to the inner wall, and others held their ground.

"Is that Black Captain thing here yet?" I asked one of the senior sappers.

"I've seen no signs," said the sapper.

"He'll be holed up in the inner city, enjoying the spoils of conquest, and it will take time for him to realize what's happening." I weighed the consequences and options. I wanted to free the prisoners, but if we could maintain our momentum…

"Should we attack the inner wall?"

"There's still a large force of orcs gathered in the inner city. Too large for us to deal with. Even if we retook the inner wall right now, we couldn't hold it for long—we're going to need the help of the regulars and the civilians." I nodded.

"What about that prisoner camp, then? That look like a good target?"

"As good of a target as any," the sapper said.

"We'll take the ogres. You four take the trolls." I gave a curt nod.

"Got it." We jumped down from the wall, but instead of falling all the way to the streets below, we leapt across to the rooftops. If we could keep the high ground, that was far better for us, even if we were slightly more exposed now, surprise didn't matter as much. As we raced across the rooftops, I looked back toward the main thoroughfare, where Ceonwin and the other sappers were cleaning up the orcs and spreading through the lower city.

Their squads branched through all the streets, spreading like wildfire and hunting for the unorganized orcs. But we weren't the only ones on the rooftops. There were a few human-shaped shadows climbing on the shingles. I caught their faint silhouettes for a moment, but they dipped out of sight. They were following Lord Ceonwin.

"You see them, too?" one of the sappers asked.

"Yeah," I whispered.

"Subtle Men?"

"Best I can tell." I grimaced.

"They seem interested in Ceonwin."

"Perhaps they're guarding him."

"Perhaps," I said, trying to make it sound like I believed him and agreed with him. I couldn't make it look like I was too suspicious, in case these guys were spies and tried to report me. Yeah, from what I could tell, the Subtle Men and sappers didn't get along great, but I didn't want to trust anyone too much.

"But we have a mission," I said.

"Lord Ceonwin will handle that if it's a problem."

"Indeed." I kept running, crossing the rooftops and racing toward the prisoner camp. The camp was located in an old market square, but the stalls had been destroyed and looted. Tents stood along one side of the camp, made of ragged furs, and the human prisoners were kept with their wrists bound, exposed to the elements in fenced-off areas, or for the valuable prizes—the strongest slaves—tied to heavy logs with a chain. They'd been out in the elements for days since the city had fallen.

Some coughed, and they were all dirty. They drank from muddy puddles to keep themselves alive, and something told me they hadn't been eating well. All the while, orcs watched them to make sure they didn't try anything. There were probably fifty regular orcs patrolling the camp, as well as an ogre and a few trolls. More than enough power to keep the average mortal civilians in check. Some of the orcs were looking at the wall, trying to figure out what was happening—if they should be retreating or not.

A few orcs spoke orders to each other in harsh voices, but they were awfully quiet—quieter than humans would've been.

"Ready, newbie?" the sapper asked.

"Ready," I replied, and the others in my squad all nodded their approval. We jumped down from the rooftops and rushed into the camp, picking our targets and attacking.