CHAPTER 161: FOR HONOR

The roar of the Ether Bolts reached a terrifying crescendo. The Arcane Archers, now numbering seventy with reinforcements, poured every ounce of their mana ammunition into the stress point. Finally, with a grinding, earth-shaking sound, a thirty-foot section of the curtain wall, weakened by a thousand years of weather and these last hours of pure energy, gave way. The stone collapsed into the moat, creating a massive, ragged ramp of debris and dust.

The remaining Lupen levy vanguard, a desperate mix of Frogkin and Kobolds, let out a unified, hungry roar and swarmed the makeshift bridge, rushing through the thick pall of smoke. Their Lupen sargeants screamed orders, urging them to secure the breach.

They surged into the inner bailey, expecting disorganized resistance. Instead, they were met by a heavy Ursarok shield wall—bearfolk knights and veterans, shoulder-to-shoulder, their massive, thick iron-rimmed shields locked tight. The initial contact was brutal. Frogkin and Kobold bodies rebounded instantly, snapped back by the sheer, immovable weight and muscle of the Ursaroks. The Vanguard was instantly stalled, their spear tips meeting solid iron and bone.

"Don’t be deterred! This is their last stand!" a Lupen sargeant shrieked, rallying the levies. Their morale, fueled by the sight of the broken wall, restored instantly, and they pushed forward with renewed savagery, falling like beanstalks against the Ursarok iron.

From the rear, the Arcane Archers—now at maximum saturation—switched back to Fire Mode for maximum area denial. A hailstorm of fiery mana bolts exploded on the Ursarok shields, sending smoke, debris, and steam everywhere. The blast was deafening, but when the smoke dissipated, the Ursaroks stood firm, their formation wobbling but unbroken.

A Lupen lieutenant, exasperated by the resistance, snarled, "Damn Ursaroks! Switch to Ether Mode! Break the line!"

The Ether bolts slammed into the Ursarok formation. This was the shock Borkor had anticipated: the pure concussive energy finally broke the shield lock. The first line of Ursaroks stumbled back, and the morale of the Lupen forces surged. They roared in unison: WRAAAAGGHHHH!!! as they poured through the breach, seeing the sturdy formation finally concede ground.

High above, from the inner wall’s battlements, Captain Freya and General Borkor watched as their forces in the bailey slowly retreated toward the inner keep walls, luring the enemy deeper.

Borkor smiled, the satisfaction chilling. "Wait until their main cluster of Arcane Archers is fully inside, past the breach. Then drop the debris. We’ll trap them, separate the wolves from their toys, and slaughter them in close quarters."

Captain Kjell, acting as the rear guard commander, shouted, "Retreat slowly! Keep the shields up!" He watched a group of four massive Ursaroks hidden behind a heavy winch mechanism high up on the still-standing wall section. He glanced left and right—the main Ursarok knight corps stood ready, hidden in the barracks inside the curtain wall, waiting for the opportunity.

The Lupen forces, led by their enthusiastic Arcane Archers and command staff, piled in, believing victory was secured. As the arcane archers and several key lieutenants crossed the threshold and began fanning out into the bailey...

Kjell roared. "NOW!"

The four Ursarok veterans on the battlements engaged the winch mechanisms. With a scraping shriek of stone against stone, a massive, specially prepared stack of granite blocks and reinforced timbers, strategically positioned during the siege preparations, slid off the ledge and collapsed directly onto the breach. The impact sent a plume of dust high into the air, instantly blocking the mouth of the breach.

One of the trapped Lupen lieutenants, his face draining of color, screamed, "It’s a trap! It’s a trap!"

Freya, poised on the inner wall, immediately raised a crimson-and-gold flag—the signal.

The knights hidden inside the bottom floor of the curtain wall and the barracks burst out of hidden secondary gates. Heavy, armored Ursarok forces swarmed the bailey, instantly surrounding the confused and panicked invaders.

Borkor, watching from above, smiled with grim triumph. The entire front-line force, including the crucial seventy Arcane Archers, was encircled and pressed into a tight, impossible space. The Lupen forces were instantly neutralized: the archers could not fire their powerful weapons due to the tight quarters and the catastrophic risk of friendly fire.

Outside the fortress, on the hill overlooking the chaos, Jorah watched in horror as the granite pile fell, blocking the breach. His eyes went wide, not just with tactical failure, but with the dawning realization of the trap. The most devastating consequence: most of his Arcane Archers—the alliance’s technological edge—were now trapped inside the Ursarok killing field, leaving him with only ten to guard the siege camp.

He slammed his fist onto the map table. "No... he had a secondary plan all along! The walls were bait!"

His remaining lieutenants watched in a cold sweat. Then, a Lupen scout on a desperate, foam-flecked wolf-beast galloped up to the tent.

"Captain! Captain! Cavalry force in the southern forest!" the scout gasped, pointing wildly. "There are at least one hundred Ursarok knight cavalry, heavy shock troops!"

Jorah’s face went pale. The pieces snapped together: it wasn’t an angry hunting party from Hearthglen; it was a deliberate sortie. The eastern reinforcements, the western vengeance hunters, and now the southern cavalry—they were entirely enveloped.

Were they already there all along? Were they waiting for us to commit the Arcane Archers? How? This is impossible! his mind screamed, his facade of arrogance crumbling into shock.

He snapped back to the immediate crisis, pushing his terrified thoughts aside. "Defend! Defend the perimeter, you fools!" he shouted, drawing stares of confusion from his officers. He yelled in haste, "Form a defensive line, I said! Gather the remaining forces and protect our remaining Arcane Archers!"

The remaining lieutenants, knowing their chance of surviving a simultaneous flanking attack from the forest and the western hills was minimal, gathered the meager forces: roughly 370 men, including just 100 raw levies, and 200 knights from various retinues.

Jorah, fueled by a terrifying desperation, pulled on his helmet and grabbed his sword and shield, stepping out of the command tent. His officers watched him, waiting for the speech of doom.

"We are the proud Red Rose Knights," Jorah declared, his voice cutting through the rising wind. "We might belong to different orders, but our goals are aligned: to die with honor! Our names will be remembered! We will not survive as cowards! We will survive and win!"

They cheered, their morale brittle but temporarily boosted by their captain’s sudden fervor. They formed a thin defensive line, staring toward the horizon where dust clouds already signaled the approach of the heavy Ursarok cavalry.

The remaining levies, cannon fodder to absorb the initial contact, gulped, watching their flimsy spears and wooden shields.

The Arcane Archers aimed their weapons, expecting to kill most of the Ursarok cavalry as they were used to attacking in tight formations. But as they watched the horizon, their faces filled with shock and fear: the enemy cavalry, under Commander Grif’s expert direction, suddenly scattered just before entering range, spreading into fast-moving, smaller groups. The weapons were now useless.

Then, a second scout, riding a panicked, exhausted wolf-beast, arrived. "Captain! Captain! There’s another cavalry behind us! Forty heavy knights, approaching fast from the west!"

Jorah muttered, "Shit!" He realized the Ursaroks had deployed another group of sortie. There was no way, there was only one group of sortie. Forty Ursarok knights, while small in number, were worth nearly two hundred of his own divided men. Fighting on two fronts was now a suicide mission.

The remaining officers descended into immediate, frantic debate.

"We need a skirmish screen! Now!" shouted Lysander, a younger Lupen lieutenant, his hand trembling on his sword hilt. "We commit thirty of our swiftest knights, send them straight for plains! Harass and withdraw! We must buy ten minutes!"

A scarred, older officer, Tarrus, shook his head violently. "Foolish! Those are Ursarok heavy cavalry! You send thirty men, you get thirty corpses in three minutes! They won’t even slow them down. We’d lose our best riders with no return!"

Jorah was staring at the map, his jaw clenched, the tremor of the approaching cavalry already a faint drumbeat in the ground. "He scattered them... he knew we’d try to target their formation. Our remaining Arcane Archers are useless against a scattered charge."

"Then we must fortify the camp!" Tarrus insisted, pointing to the supply wagons. "Pull the wagons into a circle! Create a temporary palisade for the levies! We hold until sunset, Captain!"

"And what happens when the forty knights from the west hit our rear while we’re busy chaining the wagons?" Jorah countered, his voice raw. "We’d be pinned down and slaughtered like pigs in a pen, Tarrus. We cannot fight on two fronts with so few knights remaining. We don’t have the numbers to spare a task force, and we don’t have the time to build a defense that will withstand a true Ursarok charge."

The officers fell silent, their eyes filled with a dreadful understanding. Every standard tactical option was suicide. The only way to win time was to bleed out their entire remaining knight core—and even that was a long shot.

His own lieutenant from the Red Rose order, Nirall, stepped forward. "Captain, I recommend you and the other field commanders escape now."

Jorah was shocked. "Don’t be a fool! We can still fight!"

Nirall smiled, a genuine, sad expression. "We already did, Captain. Our objective was to distract the enemy forces so that the Third Army could advance deep into Ursarok home territory. Now look—their strategic reserve is committed, their capital garrison is distracted, and their most valuable asset, the Citadel reinforcements, are marching towards us. We already achieved our mission."

Jorah stumbled back, realizing the horrifying truth—he was expendable, but the overall alliance strategy was not. "What about you?"

"I’ll die with honor, and my name will be remembered, like you said, Captain," Nirall affirmed, his voice steady.

Jorah swallowed hard, respect replacing his panic. "Your honorable sacrifice shall be written in the tomb of heroes, Nirall. This I swear." He then looked at the other knights. They echoed Nirall’s sentiment, urging their captain and the command staff to live.

Jorah and five other key lieutenants, all mounted on their fastest wolf-beasts, glanced one last time at Nirall and the doomed defensive line. They wheeled their mounts and rushed north, fleeing the carnage.

As they rode, Jorah bit back tears of shame and gratitude. "You’re a good lad, Nirall. I may not be able to do the same thing you’ve done, but your actions reminded all of us what a true knight should be."

Nirall, watching his captain retreat, turned to face the thunder of hooves, his sword raised. "For God Fenrir!" he roared. The remaining Lupen knights howled, accepting their fate. The levies, however, simply held their shields, filled only with the cold dread of knowing they were about to die in a war that wasn’t theirs.

In the plains, the 2nd Cavalry Knight captain, watching Jorah’s desperate retreat, dismissed the fleeing figures. "Let them go," she ordered the knight beside her. "There’s nothing worse than running away for a knight than dying. Besides, our focus is on the siege camp. Let’s hurry and rally with Commander Grif. The true victory is here."

The Ursarok force thundered toward the camp, eager for the fight.