"Morg! Morg, orishi!! (Attack, full assault!!)"
Azog stood atop one of the Lonely Mountain's surviving palace walls, arms spread wide as he roared orders to his Orc legions with savage fury.
A deafening war horn resounded across the wasteland. In every corner of the ruined Dwarven palace, Orcs poured out like cockroaches from their hiding places, surging in a massive black tide toward Dale.
Inside Dale, both humans and Dwarves saw the oncoming flood of enemies. Jerren immediately commanded the Redmane Legion to battle readiness, while Thorin, now composed after his earlier rage, joined Dain atop the newly rebuilt town walls.
The Orc horde spilled across the wasteland between the Mountain and Dale like flowing black pitch. Ranks of burly Orcs marched in near full-body heavy armor, wielding iron-forged spears and shields that gleamed dully in the dim light.
This was unlike any force previously seen. The armored army was Azog's hidden trump card, originally meant to shock Dwarves who looked down on Orc strength. Repeated setbacks had forced Azog to reveal them now.
Nor were they alone. Packs of snarling wargs and waves of lightly armored Orc fodder brandishing battered blades swarmed alongside the heavy infantry like a living nightmare.
As the full mass emerged from the Mountain, clouds rolled in from nowhere, blotting out the sun. One after another, massive trolls shoved aside rubble and roared toward Dale, their thunderous voices echoing off the stone walls.
Finally, a dozen Olog-hai trolls, limbs transformed into weapons and sight deprived, marched forth guided by Orcs riding their backs like grotesque cavalry.
As Azog's force neared Dale, the catapults manned by the Redmane Legion behind the wall opened fire first.
Burning red Lion firepots traced deadly arcs through the air, slamming into the ground in explosive bursts of flame, shredding Orcs and leaving patches of inextinguishable fire. Red tongues of flame devoured even more of the advancing horde.
"Second wave, switch to granite!" Jerren's commanding shout echoed from the wall.
Signalers sounded their horns. Eight heavy trebuchets loosed with a chorus of mechanical howls.
Half-ton boulders crushed bodies in sprays of black blood, flattening warg cavalry under their tremendous weight as well.
But from the Orc rear came the grinding of gears and the groans of massive beasts. Six roaring Olog-hai trolls pushed forward with catapults strapped to their backs like living siege engines.
Squatting low, Orcs leaped down and expertly manned these war engines, hooting with savage glee as granite rocks were sent arcing toward Dale's defenders.
Boulder-sized stones crashed into the old defensive walls, shattering battlements and spraying deadly stone fragments in all directions.
Three Redmane soldiers were struck. Two reacted quickly and raised their brass shields, which buckled and dented but held against the impact. The unlucky third took fragments in the waist; his spine shattered in a spray of crimson blood.
Another granite boulder crashed directly onto a catapult, smashing it apart and igniting nearby firepots, engulfing two Redmane crew members in roaring flames.
Elsewhere, a stone struck a building near a catapult, collapsing the wall and whipping a snapped winch cable into a hapless Dwarf, shattering half his face in a burst of bone and blood.
Jerren cleaved a flying rock fragment with his flame-bladed sword and shouted, "Target those beasts with the catapults on their backs!"
But the Olog-hai moved faster than Jerren had anticipated. The Lion Legion's shots fell short, their ammunition better spent battering the main Orc horde pressing forward.
If the enemy moves while we stand still, our own engines will be sitting ducks, Jerren grimly realized.
He hadn't expected the enemy to literally mount catapults on living trolls, and these kept cunningly out of ballista range.
As the Orcs drew closer, the Legion and Dwarves alternated ducking flying stones and loosing arrows at the Orc fodder scrambling to deploy siege ladders against the walls.
Soon, trolls and wargs were at the walls themselves, claws scraping against stone.
While Jerren pondered a solution for the mobile Olog-hai artillery, Freyja's bold voice broke through the chaos.
"Is that how you got all your white hairs, Jerren?"
She booted an Orc off the wall with a powerful kick, overturning the whole ladder. Orcs screamed as they tumbled to their deaths below.
Her greatsword, still dripping fresh Orc blood, showed the toll of hacking her way from the ramparts to reach Jerren's position.
Jerren, batting back a toppled ladder with his own sword, shot back, "You have a better idea for dealing with trolls acting as siege engines?"
Freyja thumped her armored chest with confidence. "Easy. Give me twenty Redmane knights, and I'll go dismantle the lot of them!"
With a wry grin, she added, "You've been in Redmane City too long. You forgot our combat style."
Jerren offered no objection to her bold plan. "Fine, I approve!"
"Love it! No wonder Lord Radahn has such an eye for tactics!" She wasted no time gathering her strike force.
On the Dwarf side of the wall, the troll boulders were causing devastating havoc. Dain dodged one massive stone and ran from cover to smash an Orc with his war hammer, then spotted Freyja organizing her cavalry charge.
"Hey, Thorin! Tarnes' friends are pulling together cavalry for a sally. Our goat riders should go with them!"
Thorin cut through an Orc with the Icerind Hatchet and nodded grimly. "Good thinking!"
He shouted over the din of battle, "Fili! Kili! Take the goat-riders and support Tarnes' cavalry!"
The brothers rallied their troops, but Freyja and her knights had already charged out of the gates, mixing nervous energy with cold steel in their determined eyes.
Kili judged the gate situation and called out, "We'll just leap from the wall onto the Orcs below. Goats aren't horses, but they're better than horses!"
War-goat riders thundered down from the wall, hooves striking sparks off the stone as they trampled Orcs climbing up the siege ladders.
"Make way for Grandpa!" Kili whooped with battle joy as they crushed helmet and skull alike, painting the wall with gore.
The war goats themselves used their sharp horns to gore Orcs reaching for their riders, and by the time the last rider hit the ground, a three-meter heap of Orc corpses lay piled below the wall.
"Support our allies!" Fili bellowed as they charged toward Freyja's knights on the battlefield.
Outside the walls, the goat-riders became a living wedge of destruction, splitting the enemy host with blood-dripping horns. Two troll artillery carriers were immediately beset by the combined knights. Coming alongside Freyja, Fili called out, "The left troll is the Dwarves' target!"
Without hesitation, Freyja and her group veered right, focusing their attack on the nearer, now-fleeing troll.
Fili vaulted up the left-side troll's back with acrobatic skill, while Kili blasted its knees with beast magic, both brothers working in perfect coordination to fell the massive creature and slay its Orc gunners.
Fili climbed up and drove his longsword deep into the troll's skull, then dropped astride his faithful goat. Kili's magic hammered the beast's knees until it collapsed with a thunderous crash.
With the final troll-mounted catapult destroyed by Freyja's devastating sword strike, the Legion's catapults resumed their deadly fire, and the orc front line wavered and began to break.
Thorin, watching anxiously from the wall, relaxed only when he saw both Fili and Kili emerge unharmed from the melee. Dain, still enthusiastically smashing Orc skulls, joked, "If you worry so much about them, don't send them to war!"
Thorin shook his head with grim determination. "Our blood won't let us stand behind walls while our comrades bleed and die in the field."
On the battlefield, Freyja cantered over to the brothers, grinning widely. "Excellent work! Was that beast-prayer magic I saw? Bits of Bernahl's style mixed in there? How about joining the Legion permanently?"
Kili almost agreed on the spot, but Fili replied diplomatically, "Sorry, but we're only students of Tarnes and Bernahl. Our loyalty lies with them."
Freyja clicked her tongue in disappointment, then brightened with renewed enthusiasm. "Well, the Redmane Legion is always open to warriors like you! General Radahn would be very interested. Change your minds, and just come find us."
Fili nodded respectfully this time, acknowledging the honor.
From the Lonely Mountain rose the wail of war horns and billowing columns of black smoke. The ground shook with the thunderous march of Azog's true army.
Azog's elite forces were finally advancing in full strength.
Fili and Kili saw hordes of bats pouring out from the mountain caves, so vast and numerous they seemed like dark clouds blotting out the entire sky.
"By the Stones of Durin! Is Azog some kind of beastmaster? First trolls, then Goblins, and now massive bat swarms?" Kili shouted in amazement.
Freyja wheeled her warhorse around, calling urgently, "Save the clever quips for later! Back to Dale immediately! The real fight, Azog's main course, is about to begin!"