Chapter 39

Letting go of the breath in his chest he hadn't noticed he was holding, Alvar viewed it become a milky white cloud with small ice crystals forming at its core, as the drop in temperature only now became apparent to him and started to shiver in the darkness they all had been left behind in.

Just as he was starting to feel a wave of relieve wash over himself at the fact that nothing further had happened the faint sounds of war drums began to thunder in the distance, like a nightmare rousing them all from the frozen state of fear that had glued them all to their respective spots.

"To the gates, now!" Sjorn Frostfang, Alvar's instructor and one of the commanders of the warriors roared into the silence of the shivering crowd, causing all the soldiers, no matter their profession to rush out into the night, hopefully still in time to make sure their walls hadn't been breached yet.

"Get your friends, young man! We need to bring the civilians to safety!" The old necromancer spoke with an urgent voice, causing Alvar to nod, his mind already running a 100 meters a second, causing him to come to a sudden stop as he came to the conclusion that his grandparents were still at home, unaware of what was happening!

"My grandparents are alone at home and have no idea what is happening!" Alvar spoke while turning back around, already in the motion to rush into the bustling crowd at his front.

"I will see to it that they are informed. Give me your hand!" The old necromancer spoke to which Alvar complied without hesitation in the hopes the old man knew what he was doing.

With fascination Alvar observed as the old man dug one of his fingernails harshly into the side of one of Alvar's fingers and gathered a drop of blood on it. With a few mumbled words the drop of blood vanished and at its place appeared a thin red cord that disappeared through the gates of the great hall. Next the old man mumbled another incantation, this time louder, and finished his nearly sung words by tapping his wooden staff on the ground.

In reaction a faint shimmering silhouette came into being next to the old man who whispered a few words into its ears after which the being simply disappeared back into the nothingness it had come from.

Though having many questions for the old man Alvar decided to postpone them for a later date and simply rushed into the bustling crowd to find his friend Veli and bring him back to the old necromancer, wondering all the while why he suddenly trusted the old fellow so much but soon shoved his thoughts to the back of his mind, having more important things to consider right at that moment…

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Sjorn Frostfang had seen many battles throughout his considerably long life, after all warriors normally didn't live that long in most cases. In every battle he could remember being part of he had always known exactly what he was doing. The only exceptions being his first battle and the long night 12 years ago. And this very night today reminded him eerily much of that accursed day, Sjorn mused to himself while rushing ahead of his battalion of troops to secure the gates of Hoelbrak.

As he had given his orders to secure the protections of Hoelbrak his eyes had briefly fallen on his newest disciple and while rushing out of the wooden gates hoped the lad would stay alive, but soon crushed those thoughts in order to focus on his tasks at hand.

"Secure and fortify those gates as much as possible! We cannot allow those fuckers to breach our gates like they did twelve years ago!" Sjorn called over to his subordinates who nodded with firm expressions and rushed over to the gates to assist the engineers at the fortification of the gates.

Meanwhile Sjorn took out his two axes and looked them over one last time to check for any damages that may come to bite him in the ass once he was in battle but found none and was about to head over to the gates to check on their progress when he caught something whistling through the dark night sky out of the corner of his eye and promptly dove behind cover while roaring: "ARROWS INCOMING! ARCHERS, ON YOUR POSITIONS AND RETURN FIRE!" causing many of his comrades to seek shelter of their own while some were not as fortunate as him and under cries of pain fell to the rain of death that covered the advancing troops until they were in position to attack their gates.

'Those bloody fuckers clearly know of our defences in place. Should have known better than to assume they didn't! Come on, get a grip Sjorn! This is Jormag we are talking about here!' Sjorn thought to himself while he tried to come up with a solution to the situation in his mind but couldn't think of anything on the fly that would help them immediately.

His musings were interrupted though by metal or ice crashing against the large gates of Hoelbrak causing his eyes to widen at the fact that the enemy had advanced so far already.

He observed as the archers on the top of the gate shot their arrows at the enemies at the entrance to Hoelbrak but knew somehow that their efforts wouldn't be enough and his instincts proofed to be right once again as with another crash and the sounds of wood splintering the enemy tore down their gates and began to flood into Hoelbrak.

The enemy had arrived and it was once again time to soak his trusty war axes in their blood! And with those last thoughts of his and under roared commands to form a line Sjorn dove into battle with his fellow warriors, just like he had done 12 years ago…