There are two songs that go with this chapter, in order:
Dark Souls OST: Pinwheel's Theme, spooky music from an excellent game. Id recommend that you start it at the start of the chapter. Or start it right now, since I'm trying to cut down on the length of these authors notes.
It was really tough to decide on theme music for Magmar, but eventually I decided on the theme from Terminator 2: Judgement Day. (Terminator 2: Judgement Day Theme) It's dramatic, intense, and it's from Terminator 2, so it works. Play it at any time that feels right.
Story now:
"That… is a lot of monsters."
Spyro, Cynder and Asha stood atop one of the Shattershelf watchtowers and looked down at a seething horde of orcs.
Spyro couldn't help but be a little bit intimidated. He'd been afraid, years ago, when the Dark Master had sent his army out against Warfang, he'd thought at the time that was because the city was close to being destroyed, now he realised that armies were simply scary no matter what the occasion was.
The walled plains before Shattershelf were filled with orcs. The vast seething lake of armed creatures was so huge Spyro that couldn't begin to guess how many there were.
"We estimate one hundred and twenty thousand." Asha said.
"But… how? How can you even say that much? Look at them, there are so many it's impossible to count them!"
"We've fought armies here before; smaller ones usually, I admit, but once you start to put them in perspective you can recognise an approximate number from a good vantage point."
Spyro and Cynder watched the orcs move around, the rippling effect that the constant movement caused was disquieting. Because the vast majority of the soldiers Malefor had created didn't have mouths the entire army was ominously silent. Seeing the masses of orcs waiting far below the Shattershelf tower was unsettling.
The two dragons looked higher, the guards in the watchtowers in the mountain pass that Shattershelf was positioned on had all been withdrawn just before the army had arrived. Now the towers were filled with roosting wyverns and winged grublins, there were thousands up there. Possibly even tens of thousands. While it was possible to guess the numbers of the ground troops it was much harder to tell how many flying creatures might be waiting up there for the call to attack. They could all come roaring down in a huge swarm at any moment.
"Those will be trouble." Asha observed. "We have little to fear from the Wyverns while we're within the city walls, but our defences were not designed to protect against flying grublins. We must alert my brother."
"What are those?" Cynder asked, pointing back down again. She had observed a number of what seemed to be siege weapons being moved into position all across the enemy army. There would have been at least four hundred of the strange devices.
"Oh, that's not good." Asha said, displeased. "There goes plan A. Those things are called siege ballista, giant crossbows designed to fire massive quarrels at dragons that attempt to harass the army from the air. They've brought a lot of anti-air firepower. I would have recommended to my brother that we send a force of dragons out to retake the mountaintop watchtowers and kill the grublins within, but any dragon that attempted to fly across the plain would be targeted and brought down immediately."
The three dragons watched the army move around on itself as the hundreds and thousands of orcs marched themselves into positions for a first assault on the fire dragon city.
"We shall go and inform my brother of this."
Magmar was standing at one of the deep set windows of his throne room, looking out over the besieging army with mild interest.
"Shattershelf has been attacked before in the past. We have multiple advantages over enemy armies."
He looked up at Asha.
"Do they have battering rams?"
"Not that we saw, but-"
"But we're dealing with orcs. Yes." Magmar tapped his claws on the stone thoughtfully. "They can move their siege machinery through the earth below us; they could bring out a battering ram, or multiple, at any moment."
Magmar looked around and walked across the room. He spoke to the other three dragons, but he was mostly thinking out loud to himself.
"Orcs are difficult. An enemy with no supply lines to cut, with no mouths to feed. No factions that would squabble and no homes to return to."
"We need to kill them all in the field, but there are flying grublins here as well, thousands of them, you know as well as I do that our defences will not be suitable for-"
"I know." Magmar said. "The stone here is threaded with razor wire to keep out earth dragons; the wire is close enough together to also stop larger orcs from entering, as are the windows too small for them. But grublins can pass through stone and slip through windows; they'll likely be crawling in the corridors within minutes of the battle being joined."
"We need to get rid of them. We need a way to take the grublins out of the battle."
"No we don't." Magmar said. "Pair up the young dragons from the school, organise a full sweep of every corridor in the city. Outer corridors are to be checked constantly, every five minutes as a minimum, if we can spare permanent guards for windows then do so. Inner corridors are to be swept for grublins at least every ten minutes. Get the older dragons who won't be fighting on the battlefield to search as well, everyone who is able to kill a grublin should be looking for a grublin to kill!"
"Right away, brother."
"Come back immediately sister, delegate the organization to someone else, I want you here, and get Flare as well."
Asha bowed and left the room. Magmar went back to the window and looked out.
"The walls on the plain are designed to break up an enemy army into manageable isolated sections and then to trap them. We will allow the orcs to breach some of the outer walls, and then we shall meet them in battle on our own terms."
"I was wondering what those walls were for." Spyro said.
"Now you know. Shattershelf has many defences; the outer walls are only the first."
Asha arrived, Flare skipping beside her. Flame and Ember trailed behind the two dragonesses.
"Have you seen the state of the siege from the watchtowers or the windows, Flare?" Magmar asked.
"Not yet. I was planning to look after lunch."
"Look now please." Magmar had no idea if Flare was joking, but he didn't care to find out either. He gestured to the windows. "Your assistance would be appreciated in the battle. I intend to lead the elite guard against the enemy orcs in battle."
"I can't judge without seeing the army from above, but that seems like a feasible tactic if you use the walls to negate the numbers advantage the orcs have."
Magmar nodded, and then he turned and stalked for the door.
"I'll prepare our first attack." Magmar said. He paused to look back at Spyro. "A dragon of your skills is welcome to join it. Warfang or not."
"I'll come." Spyro agreed. Magmar and Asha left and Spyro and Cynder followed them towards a war.
Flare sighed; she went to the window and looked out.
"Interesting." She calculated the strength of the army out there compared to what she knew of the Shattershelf dragons. "Malefor must surely know that he isn't likely to win this battle. Not without an ace."
"What do you mean?" Ember asked, joining the older dragoness at the window. She looked out at the horde of orcs at the base of the city. "There's so many." She whispered.
"Shattershelf is strong, the walls are well defended and some of the most powerful dragons in the world are here. Magmar for one, and also myself."
"Is Magmar really that strong? Spyro defeated him." Ember said.
"He certainly is that strong. Don't underestimate him just because Spyro won against him. Have you heard the phrase 'a one dragon army'?"
"I think so." Flame said, also joining them at the window. "That's a lot of monsters." He said. "No dragon can be equal to an entire army, surely?"
"Not necessarily in combat prowess, but a dragon like Magmar is almost unstoppable on the battlefield, capable of swinging an entire battle one way or the other."
"What about Spyro?" Ember asked.
"Spyro is much the same. Shattershelf happens to have a large number of dragons at this level at this particular time. Malefor may have picked a bad moment to try to take it."
I just hope Spyro will be okay." Ember said. "And Cynder too." She added after a moment.
Flare considered the pink dragoness, Ember looked back at her. The pink dragoness had a glint of determination in her eyes.
"I don't want to sit here and just do nothing, Flare, can we go down there and help them?"
"If you feel ready for this then I won't stop you." Flare said.
Magmar stood at the gates of Shattershelf, behind him over fifty dragons had assembled. This was the main force of Shattershelf's guard, the elite guard. Those dragons that bothered to carry weapons or wear armour at all had chosen their own equipment over the course of their careers in battle; none of them were in standard issue armour. Spyro and Cynder stood to one side of the assembly, Flare, Ember and Flame joined them as the other dragons finished preparing for the battle.
Magmar had put on a similar set of spiked armour to that which he had worn in his match against Spyro. The huge fire dragon looked as terrifying as he had last time, clad in his jagged steel. His eyes almost seemed to glow with bloodlust as he looked over his chosen force of dragons.
"The strategy is simple. These are orcs, and they have no mercy and no intelligence, they will not tire of fighting us until they see every dragon in Shattershelf dead. Our only way to defeat them is to slay them all, and then slay their master."
The fire dragon allowed a feral grin to spread over his features.
"But these are orcs! One dragon is worth a thousand of their lives, no, one dragon is worth ten thousand of their lives! There are one hundred and twenty thousand of them out there waiting for us. Do you know what that means?"
He looked around, nobody answered him, but that was probably part of the point of these pre battle speeches in Spyro's opinion.
"That means that I expect twelve dead dragons by the end of this siege. If there are less I will be happy, if there are more I will be disappointed. I expect twelve."
Magmar turned around.
"Open the gate. And bring me my sword."
The gate was opened and a dragon came up to Magmar with the biggest, scariest sword Spyro had ever seen.
"What is that?" He asked Flare.
"That's a greatsword. Magmar's preferred weapon. Spring Dawn he named it."
"Spring dawn?" Cynder asked sceptically. Magmar didn't seem like the type of dragon to give a weapon a joke name, but the huge sword was massive, broad and heavy, made of steel tinted a bloody red. It was ugly and had an appearance of brutal efficiency; the name Spring Dawn did not suit it.
"The end of winter." Flare said simply. "He used it in the ice and fire wars to kill dozens of ice dragons, it terrified everyone who faced him, his use of it made him legendary."
"Why didn't he use that thing against me?" Spyro asked. "I would have been much more afraid to fight against him if he'd had that."
"Because The Dragonslayer is currently in Warfang and you could have chosen to use it against him. That wasn't a trade-off Magmar was willing to make. Perhaps he should have, but he didn't."
Magmar took the greatsword in his mouth and gave it a test swing, the blade made a deep whoosh as it cut the air. He growled in satisfaction then tossed the huge weapon up before catching it in his forepaws. The blade of the sword ignited with a roar, glowing with heat and flames.
"Let's go kill some things." The fire king snarled.
The orcs had brought siege towers high enough to cross the plains walls, the fire dragons that had been holding the walls had allowed some of the ramparts to be taken, but still held their defences on other areas of the walls.
The siege towers the orcs built had done their jobs, allowing first dozens and then hundreds of orcs to stream over the wall and into the area beyond it. The orcs found themselves in a flat area facing a second, even higher wall. There were walls on all sides now, and the innermost ones were more heavily guarded. Hundreds of orcs crossed to begin to create a strong position and found themselves isolated, now unprotected by the siege ballista they had brought all this way to counter the powerful dragons. They heard fighting behind them, despite the limited intelligence that the orcs possessed they were able to realise that more dragons had come from the city and regained control of the wall they had just crossed, destroying the towers that had landed there and cutting off all reinforcements to the orcs within. There were now dragons on all sides of the walls, the orcs had been surrounded. Cynder was impressed at how well the Shattershelf defences had turned this particular part of the battle in their favour.
A massive red dragon in dark armour leapt off the walls and landed on the open ground. The orcs, there must have been at least six hundred of them, watched him silently to see what he would do.
Magmar smiled without pity or mercy, he grunted as he swung his heavy sword around to a guard position, the huge blade began to burn fiercely.
"Welcome to my city. Surrender for a quick death."
Orcs were not mindless, they did feel emotion, fear, even caution, but they were also created to desire nothing more than battle. That their position was hopeless meant practically nothing to them, because there was a chance for each of them, no matter how slight it might have been, that they would kill a dragon.
Magmar grinned wickedly as the orcs began to charge at him, he shifted his position slightly as arrows bounced harmlessly of his armour. As they got close enough he crouched to lunge forwards.
"Kill them all!" He roared, and then he exploded forwards with a blazing comet dash and begun to wreak havoc.
Magmar fought with nothing held back, aiming to kill everything within his reach as quickly and completely as possible. He held his massive sword in his jaws and cut down dozens of orcs with each huge sweep, brutally bisecting entire creatures. The flames on the sword trailed through the air around him in sheets of fire. His spiked, armoured tail lashed around, filling all of the space his sword did not cover and crushing anything it hit. He was surrounded, but Magmar was well aware of that and he did not care. Arrows and blades that got past his lethal sweeping blows were deflected by his jagged armour. Magmar constantly lunged forwards as he cut down every beast in his reach faster than more orcs could charge in to replace them. He used his comet dash to blast his way into the thickest groups of orcs that he could find and killed anything that crossed his path, unless it was a dragon.
Spyro and Cynder remained with the dragons who watched from the walls as the other fire dragons engaged the army of orcs that had threatened their home. The dragons did not appear to need any help, they were outnumbered by easily ten to one, and for grown dragons skilled in combat those odds were not just acceptable but were downright easy.
Spyro and Cynder stayed among the dragons that were making sure no more siege towers reached the walls before the fire dragons were done. Cynder looked over the walls, many of the ballista were aimed to catch a dragon that might take off from the walls, but none were aimed low enough to threaten her or the other dragons while they stood there.
It took no more than four minutes for the fire dragons to wipe out the orcs that had been unwise enough to cross the wall. Only one now remained alive. Magmar had caught one of the last orcs when he saw that his first victory was certain.
He held the orc off the ground and slowly strangled him.
"Can you understand me?" He growled. The creature made no response. "Answer or die, can you understand me?"
The orc nodded. Magmar released his stranglehold for a few seconds before resuming his crushing grip. The orc beat helplessly at his armoured paw.
"I mean to throw you off the walls, back to your pathetic army. Will you carry a message to your master?"
It shook its head, Magmar growled and squeezed harder.
"Will you reconsider?"
The orc held on for as long as it could against the red dragon's claw, but eventually it nodded.
"Tell your master to pack up his army and leave. This city has never been taken and he will not be the first to succeed. I will kill him myself if he does not do as I have asked. I have no need for pawns to fight battles for me."
Magmar spread his wings and leapt up to the top of the wall, his armour crashed at the impact of his landing.
"Go. Give your master my message."
Magmar wound up and hurled the orc off the wall, the creature arced through the air gracefully before landing crumpled in the sand. After several seconds it got up and began limping back to its own lines. Magmar growled in satisfaction and turned away from the besieging army.
"Any injuries?" He asked.
"Nothing major, a few of the dragons have minor bruises." Asha reported.
"Good. We have another contingent of the Orc army isolated in the same way, let's do this again."
Spyro did some maths in his head. Assuming they had killed six hundred orcs and there had been one hundred and twenty thousand then they would need to have only about two hundred more battles like this one before the whole orc army would be gone.
He looked out at the massive army beyond the walls again. He doubted that would be how this battle ended up turning out.
Malefor and Gracious looked down on Shattershelf from one of the watchtowers that the fire dragons had given up. Gracious watched as the fire dragons destroyed over a thousand of the orcs from their army, and as far as he could tell they hadn't taken a single enemy dragon out of the fight, nor had they gained any ground that the fire dragons hadn't allowed them to take.
He could see Magmar down far below them, the huge armoured dragon was easy to recognise even from this great distance, cutting his way through each battle. Gracious wanted him dead, everything he'd done until now had been to see the bloodfire dragon dead at his feet, to kill him personally if possible.
"We're getting nowhere." He said to Malefor, frustrated. "The walls and river are countering our advantages. We can't take down the dragons."
"The city is well defended." Malefor agreed.
"What do we do?" Gracious asked.
"We have plenty of options." Malefor said. "What do you suggest?"
Gracious frowned; this was a test he was sure. Malefor would have the answer, he always did.
"I suggest we bring the battering rams up and destroy the outermost walls entirely. If the Shattershelf defences are in ruins then the fire dragons won't be able to surround our soldiers and cut them off from the main body of the army."
"Good. And how shall we keep the fire dragons from stopping us destroying the walls?"
Gracious considered this. He finally had the tools he needed to break the city open, now he just needed to work out how to use them.
"We'll use the wyverns and grublins to keep the dragons pinned within the city while we work. Have them chase the fire dragons off the outer walls and back into the city itself, and then keep them there by sending grublins in through the windows. By the time they can destroy the grublins and wyverns to return to the open battlefield it will be our terrain, not theirs."
"I advise you to make haste. I am expecting we shall have company, possibly within the week; we cannot hold this siege with impunity for long."
"Who is coming?" Gracious asked. "Fire dragon reinforcements?"
"The Guardian dragons of Warfang. They are coming here." Malefor said. Gracious looked surprised, but he had no doubt that Malefor was speaking the truth. Malefor was extremely well informed.
"We can take the city before they arrive; I estimate we'll need only two days."
"Excellent. Are we making progress on our hidden way into the city?" Malefor asked.
"Yes. The fire dragons have a blind spot in their defences."
"Just as I predicted." Malefor smiled. "If Magmar goes out to protect his city again then he may not have a city to return to."
Gracious remained perched on the watchtower, Malefor left him there. A few minutes later Gracious growled in satisfaction as the tens of thousands of grublins and wyverns he controlled filled the sky above the defenders. He watched, savouring his triumph as the huge battering rams were brought up to slowly break the walls of Shattershelf, walls that had stood for hundreds of years, into rubble.
Malefor sat in one of the empty rooms below and considered his chessboard. His grander plan was progressing apace. Perhaps his victory would mean Gracious' defeat, or perhaps the two of them could both emerge from Shattershelf victorious. But if only one dragon was to claim victory in this siege it would be Malefor.
Shattershelf was trivial to him, compared to the value of that which was within it.
Spyro and Cynder, along with the other dragons who remained to guard the walls were the first to notice the movement in the mountains.
Asha immediately alerted her brother. The remainder of the trapped orcs were finished off quickly so that the dragons could prepare for the new threat.
To call what came next a 'threat' was something of an understatement. The huge swarm of grublins and wyverns blocked out the sun and put the entire valley below them into clouded shadow. More kept on coming, pouring from the watchtowers and roosts or perches on the steep cliffs.
This was no elite force or group of specialist troops, the grublins and wyverns made up a large portion of Gracious' army. Spyro couldn't guess how many there were, and neither could Asha or even Magmar, they had never encountered a swarm this size.
Even Gracious himself did not know exactly how many troops Malefor had gifted him with, but he judged the swarm to be easily eighty thousand strong, and more than enough to send the dragon defenders running from their little walls.
Magmar looked up at the massive cloud in fury, realising that they stood no chance against it. He considered his options quickly, knowing he had very little time before the swarm committed to a full scale attack.
Already grublins were falling on them like rain, Magmar casually swatted the creatures that flew close to his eyes, but others landed on his armour and tried to find ways through.
Cynder used wind to spear any grublins that came near her or Spyro, but the other dragons had no such protection.
Flame and a few of the other dragons shot fire wildly into the air, trying to scare the grublins into attacking easier targets.
Magmar reached his decision in seconds, seeing that fifty dragons against tens of thousands of flying grublins, small though the creatures might be, was not a good situation.
"Back to the city." He growled. The other dragons reluctantly broke ranks and retreated, flying quickly for one of the smaller gates and torching the grublins that got in their way as recompense for a battle they weren't going to get the chance to fight.
When the swarm of grublins and wyverns saw the dragons start to retreat the entire cloud pulsed forwards dangerously, unsure if they were to pursue and destroy, or allow the fire dragons to get away freely.
High above the cloud Gracious was making their decision for them. He considered his options for a moment before choosing.
"Magmar is down there. Kill the others; bring him to me alive or dead." The ice dragon growled. After a moment his order was relayed to the swarm and the airborne army crashed down upon the retreating dragons.
Spyro couldn't see more than a few meters in any direction, there were grublins and wyverns everywhere. A random part of his mind wondered how they managed to not bump into each other, but for the most part he was entirely focused on not dying.
Cynder had it much easier, her sweeping wind attacks knocked grublins from the sky, stunning or killing everything around her, she was the only one of them to be unthreatened and she didn't even need to put much of her mana into staying that way. Spyro charged his scales with electricity, using lightning armour to make himself untouchable. He was still threatened by the breath attacks of the wyverns, so he killed them with ice or fire when he saw one.
The dragons landed at one of the smaller doors into Shattershelf, only one dragon could enter at a time. They formed a defensive circle as the horde of grublins above them thickened.
Flare stepped up, she created a huge storm of fire above them, she closed her eyes and began to move, unlike Spyro who had shaped his fire with his paws, Flare used her whole body, slowly dancing and turning on the spot and sweeping her twisted wings with dramatic movements to maintain the flames.
Spyro reared up and added his own fire to Flares, allowing the fire guardian dragoness to manipulate it for him so that she didn't need to create her own. Ember gave Flare her fire too. A grublin flew at the pink dragoness, Ember saw it coming and shrieked, hitting it. After a second she continued using her fire breath to help Flare.
"I do hope you're retreating, not just staring." Flare murmured to nobody in particular, seeing as everybody was staring at her and her fire rather than retreating it would be fair to say that she spoke to everybody.
Asha went to the door and began to quickly direct dragons through it.
Flare used Spyro and Ember's fires to shield them from the bulk of the flying swarm; the Shattershelf dragons were no longer close to being overwhelmed and spread out to combat the enemies that made it around or through the flames.
Magmar casually crushed the grublins that had clung to his armour; he passed his greatsword to a dragon that was going through the door into Shattershelf.
"Put that back." He ordered, the dragon nodded and took the weapon inside.
Eventually only Flare, Ember, Cynder and Spyro remained outside with Magmar. The fire king considered the state of things, beyond Flare's veil of fire a howling crowd of grublins waited to attack.
"Go inside." He said to them. "I'll make a defence until we can close the door."
Cynder was surprised at the gesture. Considering that it was only Warfang dragons out there aside from Magmar she wouldn't have put it past him to shut the door and leave them to the swarm.
Magmar put his paw to the ground and began to create earth walls around the door.
"You can cease your fire in three, two," Magmar spread his paws for a final manipulation. Spyro could sense his power through the earth; the fire dragon was very skilled in earth manipulation too.
"One."
Magmar sealed them inside a dome of earth at the same moment that the Warfang dragons stopped their fire.
Flare opened her eyes and gradually stopped dancing.
"This is cosy." She said absently, looking around at the earth walls.
"It won't last long, get into the city." Magmar growled. He waited at the door until the others had all entered before he stopped reinforcing his earth dome and jumped inside.
"Close it! Now!" He snapped and the door was quickly closed. Less than a second later grublins could be heard beating on it from the other side.
The dragons panted, rushed with adrenaline. Magmar stood tall and addressed them briefly.
"This was a minor success, but still a success. Our city will not fall. If you are injured you may rest, if you are not then patrol the corridors, grublins will squirm through holes and crevices, many will already have found a way inside. The vermin cannot be allowed to gather."
Magmar glanced down as a grublin chose that exact moment to crawl from the ground at his feet. He stomped on it, crushing it flat. A few seconds later another one stated to emerge from the same bit of stone and he crushed it too.
"Get somebody to watch this spot." Magmar growled, and then he walked away. Most of the other fire dragons spread out and took different corridors to start looking for more grublins.
Asha approached Flare.
"I would like to thank you for what you did out there. Dragons would likely have died if you hadn't been with us."
"I'm glad to help." Flare said.
Asha nodded, she looked at Flare for a moment, then walked away.
"That thanks extends to you as well." Flare said, looking first at Ember and then at Spyro. "I'm proud of both of you."
Spyro smiled.
"We should probably help stop grublins from getting into the city." he said.
"That would be a valuable use of time." Flare agreed.
Spyro nodded, he brushed Cynder with his tail and she followed him down the corridor after Magmar. They came across the fire king talking to another fire dragon straight away.
"Lord Magmar, two of the young dragons from the school have gone missing."
"Are you certain?"
"Yes, they didn't come back from their patrol."
"And why not?"
"I don-" Magmar cut the dragon off before he could finish.
"Don't say 'I don't know.' Tell me why or tell me what you suspect. I don't want to hear incomplete information."
"I fear they may have come across more grublins then they can defeat. I don't think they would have disappeared for any other reason."
"Most likely." Magmar agreed. "Where had they been patrolling? Have you searched for them?"
"They were searching the ice caverns, I looked for them, but when the grublins started to attack I-"
"Fine. Go back to what you were doing." Magmar dismissed the other fire dragon; he sighed and turned before spotting Spyro and Cynder.
"There are two young dragons who have not returned from the ice caverns. You're famous for this little 'saving the innocent' thing you do, purple dragon; will you go and find them or do I have to send someone else?"
"Yes." Spyro said. "We'll go."
"Good. It's likely that the grublins will be massing there, holing up in the caves below us, if there are other dragons who are not needed up here then you may bring them with you to clear the pests out."
"Got it." Spyro said.
Magmar walked away, Spyro turned to Cynder.
"I have no idea where the entrance to the ice caverns is."
Gracious had tired of watching his army batter away at the stone of Shattershelf, he may have driven the fire dragons off the field, but progress was still slow. He flew down from his vantage point on the watchtower, marvelling at the army that was now his to command. The Orcs filled the valley, the wyverns and grublins filled the sky, truly Malefor had fulfilled the promise he had made all those years ago to the ice dragon.
Gracious landed beside a cave that sloped steeply into the base of the mountains. This was no natural cave, it had been constructed on Malefor's orders, the genius purple dragon had predicted a weakness in the Shattershelf defences that his orc army was in a unique position to take advantage of.
When the bulk of the fire dragons met Gracoius' army again outside Shattershelf they would have no hope of retreat, their city would be overrun by orcs. The razor wire in the stone may have protected Shattershelf from a direct assault, but the ice caverns below them had no such defence.
Gracious looked across at the General.
The General had been created with special care by Malefor, this creature was unique in his army, in form it looked like the greater grublins, skeletal and pale, it carried a similar shield and sword, but it was larger and possessed draconic wings that no other creature Malefor created had. This one could also speak, but its voice was a twisted rasping croak that was disturbing to hear, so it remained silent unless speech was necessary.
The most important difference between the General and every other creature in Malefor's army was that it possessed intelligence, genuine intelligence rather than a cheap imitation. The General had been Malefor's only successful attempt at creating a living creature out of earth and dark magic.
The General had been overseeing the creation of the tunnel, now it bowed deeply to Gracious as the ice dragon issued commands.
"I will be there when this city falls. Continue the siege aboveground as planned. I will lead the force in the ice caverns myself."
The General bowed again.
"It will be done, lord." The creature rasped.
Gracious left his army above ground and began to walk down into the depths of the earth.
"For my brother."
Hope you liked the chapter, it was a challenge to write a scene of this scale. I'd be grateful if you could tell me how I did in a review.
Thanks for reading!
"Not everything has a deeper meaning."
-4Dragons