[The Z]

The fire had brought pure havoc to the once serene forest, obliterating nature's creations as if the Nine Hells had ascended into the world of light. There was no escaping the wrath of the legion, whether man, woman, elf, or child. Screams of the damned echoed in Erudish’s ears and the howls of battle-crazed orcs complemented them in wondrous cacophony – a symphony of agony directed by a maestro of chaos.

War was not something to be feared, the half-orc noted from his perch away from the battle as he surveyed the gruesome scene, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. War was a way of living; there was no honor in striving for an unattainable goal such as peace. There was no point in shying away from the inevitable pain that all creatures noble and evil eventually experience; there was no reason to deny the vipers of conquest their prey.

Orogs with broken bones continued to struggle violently, blood caking their maws and weapons while druids cried incantations in a desperate attempt to stave off their foes. Even those of Erudish’s clan who faced inevitable death on the forest floor with festering fatal wounds bit into the calves of their enemies – facing their fate with all the intensity and insanity of their god, Da’Nogra, accepting death as a chance to fight in the deity's greater, less material conquests. By now the smoke was so thick that many on both sides coughed to death, hacking blood that frothed from the sides of their lips, their lungs charred and black.

The battlefield was a thankless array of devastation. Druids fought like dervishes of Silvanus, summoning spiders from the ground to slice limbs from the orcs while harnessing the elements to create a whirlwind of thunder and earthquakes amidst the raging unnatural fires that surrounded them. Many of the attackers were caught helplessly in entanglement spells, but their fellow soldiers ignored them, carrying out orders in a machine-like fashion. Those that were caught in the vines were burnt beside those they sought to destroy.

Finally the dam broke and the invading army was forced to give ground, repelled by showers of lightning and corpses. Slowly, the orcs lurched backwards, baiting the defenders to counterattack. Those that obliged were immediately beaten back with a flurry of spears and eventually, the invaders had nearly backed completely out of the battlefield. Yet, the cannon fodder had served its purpose: suppressing and suffocating the defenders for as long as the sappers needed.

Erudish didn’t know if the second phase of his plan surprised the druids. What he did know was that they couldn’t have been pleased with just how much his army had actually corrupted their lands – not only by burning it to ashes, but by tunneling underneath it and removing the soil. The scene was one the half-orc relished. After all, it was not everyday he had the opportunity to watch dozens of druids blown to the sky by a well-placed barrel of explosive powder and laugh gleefully as the bodies crashed to the earth in a gory mountain of arms, heads, torsos, and innards. More troops poured from the now gaping crater into an already frenzied fray, swallowing the few druids that evaded the blast.

Sensing that their grove was taking its last gasps, reinforcements rushed from the throne room to take the places of their fallen kin. Erudish growled with fangs bared. The great axe now rested in his hands, ready to send even more humans to the grave. He turned to his smaller raiding party and motioned silently that the time to strike was now. The flank that lead to the grove's now underhanded heart lay bare before them.