Chapter 52: The Battle of Razorpeak — Part 2
[HALBARAD POV]
The supply wagons burned beautifully.
Halbarad watched from the treeline as flames consumed three wagons of grain and dried meat—food that would have fed orc warriors for weeks, now turned to smoke and ash. Around him, his Rangers melted back into the forest, silent as the shadows they resembled.
"That's the fourth convoy this week." Tormund's whisper barely carried. "They'll be getting hungry in that fortress."
"Hungry and angry." Halbarad allowed himself a thin smile. "Both work in our favor."
The raids had been running for five days now. Five days of hitting orc supply lines, killing foragers, burning anything that couldn't be carried. The Rangers moved like ghosts—striking, vanishing, reappearing miles away to strike again. The orcs couldn't catch them. They'd tried, sending war parties into the forest. Those parties hadn't returned.
"Movement." A scout appeared from the underbrush. "Orc patrol, thirty strong. Coming from the northeast."
"Distance?"
"Half a mile. Moving fast. They heard the wagons burning."
Halbarad assessed the terrain with the practiced eye of decades. The forest here was dense, the undergrowth thick. Perfect for Rangers. Terrible for orcs who relied on numbers and formation.
"Set ambush. Standard pattern. Kill the leaders first."
The Rangers dispersed without acknowledgment, finding positions among the trees and brush. Within moments, they were invisible—fifty warriors who'd vanished as completely as morning mist.
The orc patrol arrived minutes later, crashing through the forest with characteristic subtlety. They found the burned wagons and stopped, their guttural language carrying clear despite the distance.
Angry, Halbarad noted. Good. Angry enemies make mistakes.
The orc leader was easy to identify—bigger than the others, better armored, carrying a notched blade that had seen considerable use. He barked orders, gesturing at the forest, clearly commanding his warriors to fan out and search.
They never got the chance.
Halbarad's arrow took the leader through the throat. Before his body hit the ground, forty-nine more arrows found their marks. The first volley killed eighteen orcs. The second volley killed twelve more. The survivors—those few who'd somehow escaped the initial storm—fled into the forest, where individual Rangers hunted them down.
The engagement lasted less than two minutes.
"Casualties?" Halbarad asked as his Rangers emerged from concealment.
"None. Brennan took a cut from a stray swing, but it's minor."
"Good. Strip the bodies for intelligence. Anything useful comes with us."
[DAY FOUR — EVENING]
The war drums had started the night before.
Even from five miles distant, the sound carried through the mountain passes—deep, rhythmic, angry. The orcs were communicating, coordinating, working themselves into the frenzy that preceded major action.
"They're getting ready to move." Halbarad's kinsman—Halbarad the Elder, though the distinction had become confusing—had joined the raiding force for the final phase. "The drums are rally calls. Gathering the warriors."
"How long before they march?"
"Tomorrow. Maybe the day after. They'll want full strength when they come."
Halbarad studied the distant fortress, visible as a dark mass against the mountain slopes. Torches moved along its walls—patrols, sentries, the constant motion of an army preparing for war.
"Then we give them one more reason to hurry."
[THE FINAL RAID]
The grain stores burned at midnight.
Halbarad had saved this target for last—the main supply cache outside the fortress walls, guarded but vulnerable. His Rangers had spent two days mapping patrol patterns, identifying gaps, planning the approach. When they struck, they struck perfectly.
Forty Rangers against a hundred orc guards. The odds favored the orcs—on paper. In practice, the orcs never had a chance.
The first wave of arrows killed the sentries before they could raise alarm. The second wave created chaos among the reinforcements rushing from their barracks. By the time the orcs organized a coherent response, the Rangers had torched the grain stores and vanished into darkness.
But the retreat wasn't clean.
"Contact left!" The warning came too late. An orc patrol—returning from forest search rather than responding to the attack—stumbled into the Rangers' withdrawal route.
Close combat. The worst scenario for hit-and-run tactics.
Halbarad's sword cleared its sheath as the first orc reached him. He sidestepped the creature's wild swing, drove his blade through its throat, spun to face the next attacker. Around him, Rangers fought with the desperate efficiency of men caught in a situation they'd trained to avoid.
The engagement lasted three minutes—an eternity in combat. When it ended, four Rangers lay dead and seven orcs had joined them.
"Move," Halbarad ordered, his voice tight with controlled grief. "We mourn later. Now we run."
They ran.
[DAY FIVE — MORNING]
The fortress gates opened at dawn.
Halbarad watched from a ridge overlooking the pass, his surviving Rangers gathered around him. They'd run through the night, putting distance between themselves and pursuit, circling back to observe the results of their campaign.
The results exceeded expectations.
Orcs poured from Razorpeak in a river of dark armor and savage banners. Not a sally—a full march. War parties, siege teams, the entire garrison minus a skeleton crew. Eighteen hundred warriors, maybe more, moving toward the allied position with the determined fury of an army that had been humiliated and hungered for revenge.
"They took the bait." Tormund's voice carried wonder despite the grim context.
"They had no choice." Halbarad allowed himself a moment of satisfaction—brief, carefully contained. "We killed their foragers, burned their supplies, made fools of their patrols. Their war chief was losing face every day we remained uncaught. He had to attack or lose command."
"What now?"
"Now we rejoin the main force." Halbarad turned from the spectacle of the marching army. "Lord Aldric needs to know what's coming. And we need to be there when it arrives."
The Rangers moved out, covering ground with the tireless efficiency of their kind. Behind them, war drums echoed through the mountains.
The battle was coming.
Everything depended on what happened next.
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