The attack came without warning, no roar of a war horn or marching feet on the ground. There was only a low rumble that seemed to come from the very mountain itself. It was a sound that was of… inevitability and of a tide turning from the world ending.
The first wave of the troll army hit the clan's outer defenses not with a bang but an utterly terrifying grind. They were not a charging horde but a river of stone and muscle that flowed into the narrow tunnels of the mountain, their sheer numbers a weapon in and of itself.
Ruk was waiting for them standing at the front of his new army with a calm expression. He was not the whelp who had cowered in the shadows or the new War General who had won his crown in a duel. He was a king among his peers.
He had chosen his ground carefully in a narrow, winding tunnel of a natural chokepoint that was barely wide enough for two trolls to stand near eachother. It was a deathtrap of a place where the trolls' greatest strength, their numbers, would become their greatest weakness.
He had also prepared his army together and what he witnessed was that they were not the disorganized, undisciplined brawlers of the old way. They were a single fighting machine arranged in a deep and tightly packed unit, their shields interlocked with spears together like a bristling forest of sharpened and deadly points.
And behind the wall of male warriors, were the females. Grasha's Valkyries who were not armed with spears but with bows, slings, and javelins. They were not the front line but the fire support.
They were the death from above.
It was a strategy that was born of desperation from understanding the enemy's weakness. The trolls were strong but also stupid and were predictable. They were creatures of brute force and Ruk knew they would charge and die.
The first trolls to enter the chokepoint did not even see the orcs. They were too focused on the path ahead with the scent of blood on the promise of a feast. They hit the orc unit like a tsunami hitting a seawall.
The impact was a physical blow of a shockwave that sent a tremor through the entire tunnel. The orc shields buckled with there spears splintering, the warriors groaned under the overwhelming weight of the troll charge. But the wall held and groaned.
Then the killing began... The orc spears with their points hardened in the fires of the forge, found their mark. They did not aim for the trolls' thick hides, they aimed for their eyes, throats and the soft unprotected flesh of their underbellies. It was a bloody and onesided affair to witness. The trolls for all their size were trapped and helpless
The ones in the front died quickly, their hulking forms collapsing to the tunnel floor.
The ones in the back pushed forward with their minds too primitive to understand what was happening as their rage blinded them to see the deathtrap that they were walking into. They trampled their own dead and kin, in their futile attempt to reach the enemy.
And all the while the Valkyries rained down death from above with their arrows and javelins, they were a constant hailstorm of pain and death. They did not aim for kills but for wounds like eyes, joints and anything that would slow the trolls down, and break their charge it was a masterpiece of death.
Ruk stood at the front of it all, with his expression unsettling and strangely… calm. He was an artist and this was his masterpiece.
He did not fight, instead he watched and observed as he analyzed to better direct his people around the slaughter. He was the will of the clan and the god of the mountain.
The battle raged for hours against the trolls, their numbers seemingly endless as they kept coming with more and more, but the more that came into the tunnels the more that kept dying.
The tunnel floor was a puddled with a carpet of troll corpses and the air was foggy with the scent of blood. It was the scent of victory.
But Ruk knew that this was not the end or the beginning of the end. This was just the end of the beginning. The first wave had been a test like a sacrifice to the real army from the Mountain King, he was holding back his elite guard of champions and monsters that were still yet to come and Ruk knew that these were not going to be esily defeated. He knew that he needed to do more to break the trolls' morale and shatter their will to show them that they were not just fighting an army.
They were fighting a god.
He stepped forward and walked to the front of the unit, his warriors parting before him like the Red Sea before Moses. He stood before the tide of trolls as if he was a David before a Goliath.
He raised his hand and with a silence a new silence that was not of fear, but of… confusion the trolls minds unable to comprehend what they were seeing and they hesitated as they stopped and stared.
And then, Ruk spoke in the language of the mountain and of the gods.
"I am the mountain!" he said, "And you are trespassers. Leave now and I will spare your lives. Stay and I will feast on your souls!"
It was a desperate bluff that was backed by the power of his DESIRE stat and the power of his will.
The trolls minds unable to comprehend the words but they understood the tone and the threat. They hesitated and wavered in place for a second then looked at each other with eyes that had a deeply unsettling fear that they have never felt before.
And then they broke apart and turned to flee. They ran from the small whelp and the god of the mountain like a wave parting against a rock and they did not lok back at Ruk for one secound in there moment of terror.