"When do you think the orcs will attack?"

"When this snow is over. Carey Ben said.

"Regular, huh?" said Berdwin with a smile, his thick velvet-gloved fingers stroking the broadsword's scabbard, "do you see something?"

"There's nothing worth noting," said the Ranger, "and that's what makes me uneasy." ”

Birdwin patted his friend on the shoulder.

He understood why the elven rangers were worried, no one could keep their minds calm in the presence of wolves, especially a pack of hungry wolves with no way back—but he wasn't that worried, anyway, it was just a war, like the wars that would happen every early winter, blood, pain, and death, and he had been through twenty of them, from a humble young hunter with only clothes and a bowstring to the master of Thundercastle - He still vividly remembered the feeling of standing barefoot on the wall and shooting arrows downward, more distinctly than fear was the numbness and tingling of the cold, and when an orc jumped up on the wall to tear him apart, it was the old lord's sword that cut off the orc's head - after the battle he was given a pair of boots, which were good boots, a little big, but good he preferred to put them on his head.

In the two years following that battle, he became one of the old lord's servants, then he became a knight, and he married Penny, who was still wearing those boots, which by then fit his foot.

The second snow lasted for a day and a night, and on the morning of the third day, the clouds thinned and the light became brighter, and the entire dragon's belly pass was covered with white snow.

In the imagination of ordinary people, the war between humans and orcs must be extremely fierce and brutal, perhaps, but if you think that it will have a dramatic thunderous opening, you are very wrong- The first to die in this battle was not even a human or an orc, but an ordinary brown pipit, which awoke and immediately rose from a branch of its choice to fly into the air, what it thought was a safe place, but the next moment, two white claws with splintered scales seized it, and its iron beak chiseled through its head.

The wind brought the smell of blood and winter wine, which was a precious drink for the orcs who were not well cultivated and brewed, except for their leaders, priests, and warriors, ordinary orcs could only drink the blood-mixed winter wine before the war, a drink from humans that boiled the blood in their bodies, freed their souls and paralyzed their pain.

The defenders of Fort Thunder moved in an orderly manner.

The archers staggered through the tunnels in the walls, stopping every now and then to see if the moving stones that had blocked the shooting holes could be pulled out—some of them would freeze or become entangled in the roots of climbing plants—and they looked out, and better than ever, the snow was only knee high. In the previous years of extreme cold, the snow had not even reached the lowest of the shooting holes, and the blizzard obscured their vision, and in many cases they did not find it until the orcs rushed to the point where the bow and arrow were about to fail, and the snow that was taller than a human became their best shelter and armor.

The passage was cramped, cold and gloomy, and the glass bottles hanging from the ceiling and walls contained phosphorus fire to provide the necessary lighting, which was not suitable for torches or braziers, and the archers put their hands in their arms while they waited, in case they stiffened and failed in a pinch.

The soldiers on the walls began to inspect and roll out their ballistas one last time, small torsional trebuchets, wooden platforms jutting out of the walls, makeshift wooden passages around the walls, and so on - they boiled the snow and ice in cauldrons, and when they melted, they splashed on all the wood and the walls, and some of the water flowed into the shooting holes along the cracks in the stones, wetting the archers who were leaning against the shooting holes to observe the outside world, and causing a great shouting and shouting.

More water was hijacked by the harsh cold as it flowed down the sloping walls, it was so soft and fragile when it was still water, and it was defenseless, but the ice they condensed was so hard that it was like a set of colorless steel armor specially designed for the walls of Thundercastle, and even sharp spears could not penetrate it.

Kerriben and a part of the elves were scattered on the turrets and walls, holding a triangular monolithic bow that was quite common among elves, the body of the silver-crowned wood, shimmering with a metallic silver-gray luster, and at his feet lay an quiver containing nearly twenty arrows, and he pulled out one of them, put on the bowstring, and gently plucked it casually as if it were just a greeting to an old friend, but with a short chirp, a large bird screamed roughly, falling from the gray sky, and fell heavily no more than a few dozen feet from the black-haired spellcaster- It was an easy bird to impress, its naked, triangular head without a single fluff was black, but its curved beak and tumor-like sac were red, which made it look as bloody as if it was always buried in its entrails, and its vitality was equally beyond that of an ordinary bird, and the knights poured oil on it, lit it on fire, and then carried it with their spears and threw it out of the walls. The flames burned on its body, but after it was thrown off the walls, the cry of an old man and the laughter of a child continued for a long time.

"Shruggy vultures," said Kerribben, "the sacred birds of the orc god Kawuha, and the priests of the orcs keep them, and they eat carrion and poisonous snakes, and their claws, beaks, blood, and feathers are poisonous, and they are plague-inducing bugs. ”

"This is a sign of evil for the orcs to their enemies. The Ranger stared into the distance and said, "They're coming." ”

More chattering vultures flew through the valley towards Thundercastle, and if one of its kind was shot down before reaching the walls, they would land on the blood-stained snow and scramble to feast, and even the toughest warriors shuddered at the cunning and vicious gaze as they craned their heads and looked up.

The elven silver flute was the first to pierce the cold, transparent air, followed by the trumpets of humans.

The first to appear at the other end of the pass were not orc warriors, but orc human slaves, young orcs and old and wounded ordinary orcs who could not fight, scattered unevenly, staggering forward with subtle steps, constantly stabbing the ground in front of them with the branches in their hands, and taking every step very carefully - but that did not mean that they could cross the entire canyon unharmed - Cremar helped the humans of Thundercastle to set traps in the canyon, and when the weather was cold enough, the mage cast spells to soften the dirt and cavinate the ground, and the water soaked straw mat was used to hide and cover it, which could withstand a human maiden walking on it after being frozen, but it could never bear the weight of an orc, let alone a heavy siege machine, no matter how big or small.

The orc discarded items were only used to test and fill the trap, and none of them were surprised when the first man fell into the trap, although the pace of progress inevitably slowed down - the human slaves were the first to be consumed, and they made no more sound than the instinctive cry at the moment of falling into the trap - perhaps they knew it was in vain, whether it was a painful ** or a cry for help. However, the orcs and orcs who were still in their infancy would pray for mercy with a glimmer of hope after falling into the trap, but they were greeted only by large chunks of snow.

The orc soldiers who followed pushed the surrounding snow into deep pits, turning a deaf ear to the curses and cries, the traps were not deadly, there were neither sharp wooden thorns nor entangled vipers at the bottom, and almost all humans, orcs and orcs who fell into the traps were still alive.

Together with the snow, they fed the pits, and the orc soldiers drove the big, fat horned deer with their hoofs and dragged small catapults and drills across, crushing the snow and ice to the black behemoth.

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