Chapter 12: The Siege of Hiroga City
While we went off to do our own plan, General Kull still continued his own.
KR-01 informed the general that a group of roaches ran including myself, but Kull wasn't concerned. He thought that after he took Hiroga City, he would send out some of his roaches to find and execute the 'cowardly traitors' such as myself. That was what we were to his eyes, and I wouldn't blame him for that. KR-01 only knew we were gone because the general told him to keep watch over me. However, they were completely unaware that we were executing our own plan.
He still had a large force of roaches, but I didn't believe it was enough. Unfortunately, he thought otherwise. He marched his troops forward straight to the city. He still had thousands of roaches and dozens of bronze giants under his command. All we had were around fifty. Some roaches were caught off guard by the yellow mushrooms on the path, but for the most part, it did little to the number of roaches.
Plenty of roaches shivered. They hoped that the Queen would give them some encouragement, but that wasn't coming - not in the Shadow Lands. And as for General Kull, he cared little about what his troops feared.
As soon as they were in range of the city, General Kull was able to see it. The tremendous dragon atop a towering mushroom in the middle of the city. The high walls made of mushrooms. His undead bats scoured the battlefield from above to scout the enemy, but each one was shot down by precise arrows.
The dragon roared a cry for all to hear. Its power and ferocity couldn't be compared. But the general wasn't worried. He believed that the dragon wouldn't be any trouble.
He raised his metal arm and pointed straight at the city. He yelled, "Roaches, charge. Charge for your Queen. Charge straight into the fires. Show the dark elves your loyalty to the Queen!"
The roaches yelled a battle cry, although they weren't exactly ecstatic about it. However, they had no choice but to attack. Those were the orders of the general - and subsequently, the Queen's orders. The thousands of roaches charged. The cries of battle could be heard for miles. The dark elves didn't meet them personally in battle. They fired volleys of arrows safe behind their walls. The bronze giants shot out large bolts of lighting at the wall, but it did little effect.
The roaches fired electricity at them. The walls protected most of the dark elves. However, our troops were getting shot left and right. The dark elves also shot the occasional arrow covered in yellow mushrooms. Explosions went off. Bodies of dead roaches covered the field. Sometimes, a roach would end up stepping on some yellow mushroom without realizing until it was too late.
General Kull and KR-01 stayed behind alongside a couple of bronze giants.
A couple of dark elves hid among the shadows and mushrooms. They aimed their arrows at the general from the sides. They fired, but Kull knew they were there. He conjured a wall of bones protecting him from any arrows. A couple of dark elves jumped at him, but KR-01 quickly dispatched them. He then picked up an electric crossbow and began firing at the dark elves among the shadows with unreal precision. It was as if it could see them better than Hornet.
The battle raged on. It wasn't long that they would send in their black dragon. The dragon gave out a bellowing roar and took to the skies. It hovered above the roaches and looked at them like ants. With the flap of its wings, hordes of roaches were flung back. Some took cover behind the large mushrooms and held their ground. The dragon flew overhead and its mere presence above them flung roaches away.
It spit fire at them without any remorse. I could smell the scent of cooked bug miles away. It smelled like barbecue. The cries of burning roaches echoed throughout the forest. As the dragon rained fire and circled around the battle, the dark elves shot their volleys of arrows. The bronze giants melted away atop of other dead roaches. The roaches fired bolts of lightning at the dragon above, but its scales did nothing but reflect it back. One moment a bolt shot at the dragon would get shot right back at another roach.
It was a slaughter, but General Kull wasn't worried. There were still plenty of roaches still alive. A few thousand dead meant nothing to him.
As the bodies of roaches piled on, General Kull began citing a ritual. He knelt down and placed his right hand on the ground - the only hand that was still flesh and blood.
"O' great killer of kings. Lord of death. Poisoner of worlds. Collector of bones. I call upon you. I offer the flesh and bones of my fallen. I offer the flesh and bones of a thousand living soldiers. Take them and bring death to our enemies, Great Lord Kellet."
As he chanted, a mist came over the dead roaches. Skeletal arms of many creatures began dragging them down into the mud.
"Glory to the Queen! Glory to the - ack!" One roach yelled before his whole body felt like it was on fire. But he wasn't lit aflame.
A thousand living roaches who fought with everything they had soon vomited black ooze. They cried a shriek of pain before their entire bodies convulsed. It felt like their exoskeletons were being torn apart and their inner skin flayed alive. They were being dragged down into the dark mud by others who were offered before them. The other roaches who were unaffected couldn't even try to understand what was happening to them without getting hit by an arrow.
A dark mist came out from under the ground. It circled around like a tornado amidst the battlefield. As the dragon looked at the dark, misty circle from above, it saw hundreds of glowing, yellow eyes staring back at it. As the black dragon was about to breathe out a scorching fire towards it, a large, skeletal arm rushed out from the shadows. It grabbed onto the dragon's throat as it was about to shoot out its flames. The dragon coughed out nothing but a little smoke. As the other roaches ran forward, some couldn't help but watch what was happening as the chaos ensued. The mushrooms surrounding the black mist died en masse. The feeling of death came over everybody's shoulders except for General Kull, KR-01, and the few bronze giants remaining.
As the dragon tried to flail itself free, the monster's grip tightened.
It came out from the under its earthy grave. A towering titan emerged made of bones and dead flesh. It was three times the dragon's size. So many skulls. So many bones and eyes from many different creatures. There was one large skull where its head would be. It wore a crown made of black diamond. An amalgamation of many different bones that it collected over the millennia. A creature so ancient that it must have been around during the Age of Gods. It opened its jaw and cried a shriek that deafened everything around it. Great Lord Kellet.
General Kull took a seat and breathed heavily. He had his eyes closed as he was seeing through two of Great Lord Kellet's eyes. The general saw a giant collar that was around the dragon's neck.
A bundle of General Kull's undead bats flew across the field yelling, "Forward, bugs! Forward! Climb the walls and take the city!"
As the roaches heard the general's orders and saw the behemoth that he summoned, they felt invigorated and charged forward without fear. None of them saw any way on how they could lose, now. The dark elves didn't give in to fear. They kept firing their arrows as the roaches made their way to the wall. It was still a long way, and the arrows didn't help them.
Great Lord Kellet began pummeling the dragon with its other arm. The dragon resisted, but the general saw it as no match for the being he summoned. As the dark elves knew that the dragon wasn't able to help them, they sent out hundreds of flying sharks. They all wore similar collars as the dragon. They flew into the battle and started charging at the soldiers from above. Their rows of teeth cut through most of their exoskeletal armor. One of the sharks chomped on one roach's leg and dragged him around. But this roach wouldn't go down. He took out his blade and began stabbing the shark in its eye. As the shark fell, he got back up limping forward picking up a fallen electric crossbow.
As the roaches were being pushed back even as Great Lord Kellet fought the dragon, the troops would get one more pleasant surprise. An explosion happened in the city. Our small team of roaches made it. Cutter led his troops through the sewers and into the city attacking the soldiers from within. They made their way straight to the inner wall and attacked the dark elf archers.
The roaches on the battlefield got to the side of the wall and began climbing up using their sharp claws. As they made their way up, some of the roaches noticed that the wall began to move. An eye sprung open on the wall. As one roach was about to put his hand on the wall to climb, a mouth opened and chomped down on the roach's arm tearing it off. The whole wall was alive. Tendrils came out from between the cracks. They grabbed onto some of the roaches and consumed them whole. The roaches started shooting at them, but the lightning did little to harm these creatures. None of the roaches could even make it half-way up without getting torn apart by one of these mushroom creatures.
Cutter's team was doing the best they could killing whoever they could, but there were too many of them.
And to make matter worse, the dragon broke free of Great Lord Kellet's grip. The collar was cracked and damaged, but still functioning. Its glowing, purple eyes met with hordes of glowing, yellow eyes. As the dragon was able to breathe again, it was about to shoot a scorching flame down at the giant creature from above. Great Lord Kellet, however, had other powers. It opened its jaws and shot out a stream of poisonous mist. The dragon coughed out only a bit of smoke. Great Lord Kellet grabbed onto the dragon's tail and dragged it down all while still shooting poison. But the dragon wasn't finished, yet. As poison filled the dragon's lungs, it took its large hands and shut Kellet's jaw from breathing out more poison. The dragon only needed a single breath. It breathed out the strongest flame it can conjure straight at the monster. Its bones began to melt. Then, the dragon opened Great Lord Kellet's jaw wide open. Flames entered into its body burning it from within. It tried to shoot out poisonous gas, but couldn't. The dragon concentrated its flames. The fire focused and turned into a bright, purple beam. The towering skeleton began to burst from within. Bones turned to ash. Flesh melted into just a steaming pile of goo. Great Lord Kellet began falling back into the dark mist. And when the dragon was finished, it was nothing more than just an arm that gripped the dragon's tail. The dragon lashed his tail and the fingers of its hand broke.
General Kull looked in surprise.
"Impossible. Damn it. Maybe, I should have offered two thousand lives. Or maybe even my own arm, again," General Kull complained as he bit into his fleshy fingers. He couldn't summon another for some time. His whole body felt too weak to do so as he sat watching the battle. General Kull now felt like he couldn't win. He looked at the battle from above using his bats looking for some way to achieve victory, but he could see none. The troops couldn't get up the wall. And the roaches that were inside the city were being surrounded and slaughtered. A feeling of disappointment came over him. All he could think of was the utter disgrace he would have to face if he retreated.
The dragon roared a bellowing cry once more. It had planned to go after the roaches near the wall. It didn't plan on shooting any flames to risk damaging the wall, but a couple of swipes with it claws would do the trick. But the dragon's plans changed. A bolt of lightning far off in the distance went straight into the dragon's eye. It cried in pain. The beings who controlled the dragon thought it must have been a lucky shot. But then, seven more shot came from afar. Each one hitting the dragon's glowing purple eye like an easy target. It began to bleed. It looked off into the distance where the shot came from and suddenly one more bolt came at it. This time it went into the other eye. It roared and went straight at where the bolts were coming from.
Now, it was our turn to fight the dragon. I didn't expect to kill it, but if we could get that collar off, then maybe it would no longer follow the dark elves. Or at the very least, we would distract it long enough for the roaches to be able to take the city. They just needed time, and all that was left was hope.
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