Chapter 27 - Fourth Day

Everyone had expected the siege to be long and hard. 

But they were wrong. 

Very wrong.

The Orcs were faster, stronger and had higher endurance.

Unfortunately they had a fatal flaw, they were unbelievably stupid.

After rallying beyond the moat, the horde simply rushed over along the 6m wide pathways towards the gate.

Due to the jostling around, some of them even fell to the moat.

The pitiful Orcs do not know how to swim, so the defenders watched on as the attackers who tripped to the moat were drowning to their watery death.

They held a shield up but it simply wasn't enough.

As the Orcs crashed to the gate. It groaned loudly but held.

The gates were heavily reinforced. 

It's not coming down anytime soon.

Then came the arrows from the defenders.

Slowly but surely, the Orcs thin out.

Kiel could see tensions were easing amongst the soldiers.

All those months of preparations had paid off.

By sun down, the Orcs started to fall back. They had been exhausted, stuck on the narrow pathways becoming life targets.

Surprisingly, almost all of them were wounded but the dead were not as many as they had thought.

Amongst the thousand strong Horde. At most 1-200 died, and this number included those that drowned.

Kiel had not been doing anything but observing since the beginning of the war.

As they were about to return to rest for the night, some smartass amongst the nobles thought that the Orcs were nothing scary and so they asked Damien to let them lead a small raiding party out to kill some Orcs.

Kiel stood at the side and merely watched on. Damien looked at him. Kiel simply remarked:

"If they want to die, none of my business. But make sure the gate closes in time. They are much faster than you think."

Damien shrugged and gave the green light.

In just under 30 minutes, the raiding party was assembled, numbering 50 riders.

They rode out the gates. The nobles that stayed behind had insisted the gates remained open so the raiders could come back safely. 

Kiel was bored so he followed them to the gate and when he heard the commotion, he walked over and slapped the noisy noble. 

He insisted the gate was half shut, just enough for a rider to ride in and had men ready at all times to close them on command.

He then stood outside the gate to watch with a few scouts.

The noble on the wall and Damien could easily see the raiders on their horses as they carried torches.

Just as the last rider crossed the moat on the other side, thanks to his "Nightvision(B)" he saw in full HD of what happened.

The Orcs had seen them coming from just as the gates were open.

They had lay in ambush around the exit.

Just as the last rider entered the trap, hundreds of Orcs swarmed the bunch of idiots, tearing them to pieces.

There was nothing to watch as Kiel went back behind the gate and started pushing the gate close.

The other scouts also hurried in as the gates were closing and as the Nobel inside were cursing at them to stop, the miserable screams of the raiders were heard from across the silent moat.

The nobles turned pale.

The gates were closing and a lone raider had managed to run back on the pathway leading to the gates.

He was screaming desperately for them to open the gate but before he even got midway, a spear flew from behind him and pinned him to the ground.

An Elite Orc Hunter walked out of the crowd and picked up the spear along with the screaming man still stuck at the middle of it.

With 1 hand, he grabbed the head of the last surviving man under the watch of the guards and nobles on top of the walls and twisted the head off.

He then proceeded to gnaw on the head as he slung the spear with the raider's body on his shoulder. 

The Orc seemed to say something which caused the rest of the Orcs behind it to roar in excitement.

He then turned around and walked away back to his camp.

By then the gate had been closed completely and the locks were in place.

The nobles who had lost their champions and some even their sons were crying and yelling for revenge.

Damien simply slapped some of them as he retired to his castle to rest.

Kiel stayed on the wall and slept against the bulwark along the City wall.

That night, it seemed like only Kiel managed to have a good night's sleep.

The next morning, they could see that the Orcs were roasting the horses and humans over the fire pit and most of them were left with only skeletons. 

That sight made everyone on the wall realize that without Kiel's warning and all the preparations he suggested. That would have been their ending.

Kiel started to see gratitude and respect amongst all the common soldiers. 

The raiders were made up of elite fighters. None of the soldiers on the wall stood a chance against most of them yet now they became the Orcs's supper and breakfast.

It didn't take a genius to figure out that would be their fate had their walls, gates and moat were not built.

Starting the second day, the Orcs came with heavy axes. 

As usual they charged along the pathways till they reached the gates, then they started smashing the gates with the axes they bought.

The archers were working double time to prioritize the target wielding axes but there were just too many Orcs.

After the Orcs retreat, the Human would open the gate, salvage arrows, get as many metal back as possible to be smelt back to arrow heads. While another team of engineers would try to repair or add reinforcements on the gate. 

Everytime this was done was nerve wracking as they had to watch out for the Orcs charging in.

On the evening of the 3rd day, the Orcs charged while they wanted to repair the gate.

Fortunately everyone managed to get in and the gates managed to be shut properly before further mishap.

The next morning the Orcs continue to smash against the City Gate.

Every thump on the City Gate was unnerving as it was the only thing standing between them and the savage Orcs.

Furthermore, Less and less of them died as they started to make use of shields from the trees they sourced further out.

This can not go on. 

As the Orc retreated on the fourth day, Kiel asked Damien for oil.

Once he got his hands on them, he climbed down the gate with a rope and proceeded to oil three quarters of the pathways without the Orcs noticing.

Then he climbed back up to rest and waited for dawn to break.

This is only a small remedy, after this, he would have to think of better methods if not the defense would fail.