Michael Pearce - Diaries of a Dwarven Rifleman

The newly arrived troops had some time to rest but not much. The assault began with torches flaring to life all along the lines. A commotion could be heard spreading through the Baasgarta lines as they realized what was in the wind.

The dwarves advanced by ranks, maintaining their standard rate of fire of a volley every two seconds. The goblins responded with their light repeating crossbows. While their breastplates were proof against these the dwarves were still vulnerable to hits in the arms, legs or face. Heavy crossbows were shooting as well, and these would pierce the dwarven armor, but they had a slow rate of fire. The dwarves pressed forward despite taking heavy casualties, driving the Baasgarta back.

The southern goblins’ rapid fire guns quickly proved their worth when the fighting moved into the trenches, as did the dwarven infantry's short cut-and-thrust swords. The close-quarters fighting was murderous. Casualties streamed back from the front, aided or carried by the dwarves’ medics but they made steady progress, especially when they could bring their guns into play.

The sounds of the battle were punctuated by the firing of the engineers’ siege engines, like giant crossbows, sending either long, iron-shod wooden bolts or round cast-iron balls whirring over the heads of the combatants to smash into the city's walls. Never meant to withstand a siege, the walls were already crumbling under the impacts.

Engvyr estimated that despite the heavy casualties they would reach the walls by dawn, but he was wrong. At first light everything went abruptly, completely and literally to hell.

Portions of the Baasgarta city had begun to burn. Projectiles from the siege engines had upset or scattered fires, and even with stone buildings there are plenty of things that can ignite. Engvyr felt bad about the thousands of Braell trapped within, but if the siege wasn't broken quickly their lives were forfeit regardless. For now the fires helped to light the battlefield as the dwarves and their allies relentlessly drove the Baasgarta back against their own shattered walls.

Suddenly the light dimmed and there was a basso rumble that reminded Engvyr uncomfortably of the mine collapse that he had been caught in as a boy. For a moment he thought the Baasgarta battlemages must be suppressing the fires until he looked up and saw them burning as tall and bright as ever. He realized the darkness was in his own perception.

The battlemages cried out in alarm. He saw several of them crouch or cower defensively and then it hit. A soundless, lightless explosion that knocked everyone flat but somehow did not disturb anything physical.

His vision went white as a shriek of agony, grief and triumph tore through his mind, clawing away at the edges of his sanity. Pain exploded through his head. It felt as if someone had sank a red-hot cleaver into the middle of his skull. Images and sensations flooded through his brain, distorted and incomprehensible. He nearly went mad as he tried to cope with the input of inhuman senses that had no name. In the end it was the pain that was his salvation, the one overwhelmingly human feeling in the maelstrom. It gave him something to focus on. His flailing hand landed on the action of his rifle and he gripped it frantically, another anchor against the flood of insanity washing over him.

The force of the flow subsided, but he was still awash in the alien perceptions. He forced his eyes open, and the input of the familiar sense of sight overwhelmed the madness. His head throbbed and his vision was gray at the edges but he could function. Rolling over, he gritted his teeth against the agony as he forced himself to his knees and looked around. Several others were also rising and he braced himself with the rifle, using it as a walking stick to lever himself to his feet.

Others did likewise, supporting themselves at first with the edges of the tables or the seats of stools scattered around the command area. Engvyr noted that the battlemages were not among those recovering from that blast of… whatever. Most of them were writhing in agony but some were terribly still. Staggering closer he could see blood trickling from the eyes, ears and noses of the unmoving mages.

The fighting had stopped entirely as dazed soldiers, dwarf, goblin and Baasgarta, struggled to their feet. Fumbling out his spyglass he looked over the ranks. Perhaps half were already on their feet. Of the others some were still, some writhing on the ground. Others simply sat with their heads in their hands, trying to cope with the agonizing headache.

“Lord and Lady,” He heard someone say behind him, “What the bloody hell was that ?”

Someone else, Colonel Oakes he realized, replied, “At a guess the Dreamer's ritual succeeded.”

They were interrupted by a new sound. Rock cracked explosively and groaned. Turning back to the city Engvyr saw dust puff up from the mountainside and out of the gates to the underground. The earth began to tremble beneath their feet and the soldiers before the walls cried out in fear.

“It's coming,” Engvyr said. Either no one heard or his words simply didn't register.

“IT'S COMING!” he bellowed, and the spike of pain caused by that nearly made him black out.

Rocks began to slide down the hillside into the city, then great chunks of earth broke away, crushing everything in their path. The city was obscured by dust, then stone cracked, groaned and then burst from the mountainside. Boulders the size of houses sailed into the ranks, crushing soldiers of all sides impartially. A vast roar swelled as behind the pall of dust something massive stirred, moved, advanced.

Without warning a tentacle, thick as a thousand year old tree and a hundred paces long or more lashed out of the dust and scythed through the ranks of the Baasgarta. Many were flung through the air but some stuck to it, screaming as it withdrew into the cloud.

Soldiers began to fire. Bullets and crossbow bolts vanished into the cloud. Another tentacle speared out of the dust. Its tip split into dozens of smaller tentacles that pierced a score of soldiers then lifted them up and away. In some small part of his mind Engvyr felt pride for his brethren as their firing gradually went from individual shots to merge into volleys.

WHAM

WHAM

WHAM

Every two seconds like clockwork, the sound imposed order on the chaos of the battlefield. Even the Baasgarta began firing their crossbows in time to that metronome of destruction. Wave after wave of bullets and crossbow bolts vanished into the cloud.

As the dust began to settle a nightmare form was revealed. Though he hadn’t seen it in decades, it was familiar to him. He had last seen a ghost of this shape made from swirling wind and sand. The reality of the being, in the flesh, was a thousand times more horrible.

It was all colors and no color, seeming to glow faintly from within, but shed no illumination in the pre-dawn gloom. It was a hundred feet tall or even more, and it trampled the remains of the Baasgarta city beneath mismatched feet of all shapes and sizes.

A tentacle formed and again swept through the ranks of soldiers, scattering scores and scooping up dozens more. As the tentacle retreated the body split into a great maw lined with teeth to receive it. The tentacle, covered in writhing, screaming men was inserted into the mouth and bitten off, the stump withdrawing into the body as it slammed shut with an audible crash. Other tentacles formed and swept or speared into the ranks, lifting more soldiers to the maws that formed to receive them.