Chapter 833: The Great Battle of Mountain Beasts (15)
From within the laager, the orc spearmen—armed with long, wickedly sharp spears—stepped forward into the gaps between the shields. With practiced precision, they thrust their spears out in quick, lethal jabs, each strike aimed at the trolls’ vulnerable spots. The spears shot out like serpents from their defensive coil, aimed at exposed flesh, eyes, necks, and the soft underarms of the towering trolls.
Trolls howled in agony as the spears found their marks. The thick hide that normally protected them was pierced, and black blood spilled onto the battlefield. Some trolls, wounded and enraged, swung wildly at the shield wall, but the orcs held firm. Each time a troll brought its massive weapon down on the shields, an orc spear shot out in return, stabbing deep into their bodies.
Behind the spearmen, the orc archers continued to rain arrows upon the trolls. The archers had become more accurate now, targeting weak points with brutal efficiency. Arrows flew in quick volleys, aimed at the trolls’ eyes, throats, and exposed joints, piercing through armor and flesh alike. Some trolls, with arrows embedded in their faces and necks, fell to the ground, choking on their own blood.
But the trolls were nothing if not adaptable. The troll commander, a massive figure with a deep scar running across his chest, recognized that his initial plan of overwhelming the laager head-on wasn’t breaking through quickly enough. The orc defenses, though battered, were holding strong, and the toll on his own forces was mounting. He needed a new approach.
With a thunderous roar, the troll commander ordered his forces to shift their tactics. Instead of focusing their attacks on a single front, the trolls began to spread out, surrounding the orc laager. Trolls moved swiftly to all sides of the orc formation, creating a ring of heavy infantry that pounded against the shield wall from every direction. The laager was now under attack from all sides, and the orc defenders were forced to divide their attention.
The orcs, now beset on all fronts, had to reinforce their shield wall in multiple places. The spearmen and archers inside the laager shifted to cover the trolls’ new angles of attack, but the pressure was immense. The once-tightly packed formation was beginning to show signs of strain. The trolls were no longer just pushing on one front—they were everywhere at once, pounding the shield wall with brutal, coordinated strikes.
The orc commander, seeing the shift in troll tactics, adjusted his strategy as well. He ordered the spearmen to rotate positions rapidly, striking at any trolls that got too close to breaching the perimeter. The orc warriors inside the laager shuffled quickly, moving in tight, disciplined formations to block the trolls’ attacks from all angles. But even with this rapid adaptation, the sheer force of the troll assault was starting to take its toll.
The shield wall, though resilient, began to weaken in certain areas. Trolls, seeing the strain, focused their attacks on the weakest points. A section of the orc laager near the eastern flank began to crumble under the pressure. A massive troll, wielding a club the size of a tree trunk, smashed into the weakened shields, sending orcs flying backward. The troll roared in triumph as he broke through the defenses, only to be met by a swarm of spearmen who quickly jabbed at him from all sides. The troll howled in rage as he was pierced by a dozen spears, but before he fell, he swung his club one last time, crushing two orcs beneath it.
On the western flank, the trolls were employing a different tactic. Several trolls worked together, grabbing at the edges of the orc shields and pulling them apart, trying to create gaps in the formation. Orcs screamed in fury as their shields were ripped from their hands, leaving them exposed to the trolls’ savage blows. The spearmen inside the laager rushed to fill the gaps, thrusting their spears at the trolls who had managed to break through. The battle on this side became a desperate, bloody melee as orcs and trolls fought in close combat, each side determined to annihilate the other.
Despite the mounting pressure, the orc commander remained calm. He knew that if his forces could hold out just a little longer, the trolls would tire. Their brute force approach was draining, and the orcs, though fewer in number, had the advantage of discipline and endurance. He ordered the archers to focus their volleys on the trolls who were attempting to break the shield wall, hoping to slow their advance and give his spearmen time to regroup.
But the troll commander had no intention of letting the orcs recover. With another roar, he ordered his remaining heavy infantry to charge the weakest point in the laager—where the orcs had already lost several shields. The trolls, massive and furious, charged with renewed vigor, slamming into the orc defenses with enough force to shake the ground.
The orcs, their backs against the wall, fought with everything they had. Shields splintered, spears broke, and the ground beneath them was slick with blood. But for every orc that fell, another stepped up to take his place, determined to hold the line no matter the cost.
The battle had become a brutal, grinding war of attrition, with both sides locked in a deadly stalemate. The trolls, with their overwhelming strength, were slowly wearing down the orc defenses, but the orcs, with their unyielding discipline, were making the trolls pay for every inch of ground they gained.
The war between the orcs and trolls raged on, each side unwilling to yield, knowing that the next few moments could determine the fate of the battlefield.
The orc commander’s sharp mind saw the critical moment approaching. The trolls, believing they had worn the orcs down, had grown more aggressive, slamming into the battered shields and probing for weak points. But the orc leader knew that his force still had reserves of discipline and coordination to call upon.
He barked a series of rapid commands, and the Wagon Laager sprang into action, executing the daring Rotation Maneuver. In a feat of remarkable orc discipline, the outer ring of orc warriors—those who had borne the brunt of the troll onslaught—began to rotate inward. Their bodies, drenched in sweat and blood, moved with synchronized precision, stepping back in unison while fresh orc soldiers rotated to the front of the formation. This circular motion gave the impression that the laager was not merely defending but constantly in motion, adjusting, shifting like a living fortress.
The trolls, brutal and single-minded, had never seen such a tactic before. They had been convinced that the orc formation would eventually buckle under their relentless blows. But instead of weakening, the orc lines surged with renewed strength. Fresh orc warriors, shields unblemished by battle and muscles still rippling with energy, stepped into the breach, taking the place of their weary comrades.
With this new rotation, the orc shield wall was no longer the brittle, cracked defense the trolls had been hammering at. It was reinforced, stronger than before. The spears, too, thrust outward with fresh vigor, catching the trolls off guard. The trolls, expecting to tear through the weakened orcs, instead found themselves once again facing a wall of spikes and steel, with deadly spear tips flashing between the orcs’ shields. Every troll who lunged forward was met with a volley of sharp, punishing stabs.
The troll commander, sensing that his brute force approach had reached its limits, ordered his warriors to switch tactics once more. He roared, commanding his forces to divide into smaller groups and attack specific sections of the laager. It was a gamble—if they could isolate parts of the laager, they could finally break the orc defenses.
Trolls with the largest weapons, wielding heavy war hammers and clubs the size of trees, targeted the eastern and western flanks of the laager. They heaved their massive weapons over their heads, bringing them down with bone-shattering force. The sheer weight of these strikes buckled shields and forced orc defenders to their knees, but each time a gap was made, orc spearmen rushed to fill it, stabbing wildly at the advancing trolls.
At the northern edge of the laager, the trolls brought in their archers again, hoping to weaken the formation from a distance. Massive, crude arrows, some the size of small javelins, rained down upon the orcs. But the rotation of the laager worked here, too. As the orc warriors rotated positions, they brought fresh shields to the front, holding them high to absorb the arrows.
But the trolls’ archers adjusted. Now, they aimed for the few gaps in the rotation—the fleeting moments where the orc warriors were shifting positions, hoping to catch them as the shields were lifted or lowered. A few arrows found their mark, piercing through the weak spots in the orc armor, bringing down warriors in brutal fashion.
Meanwhile, on the southern flank, the trolls changed their approach entirely. They abandoned the frontal assault and began climbing over the bodies of their fallen comrades, using the dead as makeshift ramps to try and vault over the shield wall. Massive, agile trolls leapt over their own dead, hurling themselves down into the middle of the orc laager. The orcs inside the formation were caught off guard by this new attack, and chaos erupted as the trolls began swinging their clubs and axes wildly, slaughtering orc archers and spearmen from within their own ranks.
