Along the road, that ran from the port city of Rahun, to the Citadel of the Dragon, the dwarven soldiers of king Oryn Tornado marched east.

Fifty legendary Shaman warriors in full battle gear. Sea green cloaks pulled tightly over light, leather padded sea green plate armor. Their beards and hair braided and tied behind them, slung over their broad shoulders. Each equiped with signature, arm length shields, hinged at the elbow and wrapping around their forearms like gauntlets. to allow full movement and use of the deadly, fine edged tonfa’s that each warrior had strapped under their left arms.

Each shaman of the sea turtle clan was armed to the teeth. long, slightly curved, enchanted swords strapped to their backs. Throwing daggers in criss-crossing belts across their chests.

Flanking the well oiled column of mage warriors were one hundred foot soldiers, twenty five scouting the road ahead, fifty protecting their flanks to the north and south, twenty five bringing up the rear. All seasoned shield warriors, veteran orc fighters and keepers of the peace.

These flanking foot soldiers allowed the shaman warriors to bend their minds and wills earthward, their minds and bodies reading, feeling and interperating the ripples and waves in the earth living fabric.

They all felt the disturbance as it washed over them like a thick wave, but it was Keldrid Thunderhand, the leader and eldest of their order, that recognized it for what it was, a tear in the earths fabric, a rift between earths material plane of existence and another, dark, foul plane, a doorway in space and time.

Keldrid ran to the front of the column, to inform King Tornado of the danger, reassuring his soldiers with his confident demeanor. He caught up to the kings vanguard just as they crested a rise in the road, and the entire column stopped short in horrified shock and surprise.

Looking down into a shallow valley, they saw what appeared to be a swirling black hole of nothingness that blooted out the road beyond. Five dwarves were running up the hill toward the main group, while the remaining twenty formed a dwarven shield wall across the road below, their hair and cloaks blowing behind them as they were buffeted by the hot, acrid wind blowing from the portal.

Out of the black rip in space marched a score of demons, each ten feet tall, with enormous, bat like wings folded on their backs. Their heads were porkine in appearance with great, jutting tusks and goat like horns. Their massivly muscled, humanoid torso’s were clad in blood red armor, which stood out in sharp contrast to their black skin. Each demon held a huge red sword in their clawed hands, that seemed to pulse with the heat of hell. Keldrid could feel the earth protest each time one of their foul, taloned feet touched the earth, scorching it, and turning it black.

They fell on the dwarven shield wall with thousands of years of pent up fury, sweeping their great swords left and right, up and down, cutting through shields and armor, flesh and bone like it was linen, killing valiant dwarves with each swing and chop, crying out their pleasure in gutteral voices that sounded like broken glass and metal shards scraping together.

Keldrid bade king Tornado to call the advancing foot soldiers back, as his shaman warriors marched to the forefront. Greenish storm clouds began to roll in from the west, giving the scene in the valley a sureal look as Keldrid stood atop the hill, surrounded by his grimfaced, spellcasting fighters, their cloaks billowing wildly about them in the cross winds, natural and unnatural.

“Leave this place now and we will let you live”, bellowed Keldrid down the hill. The demon leader looked up, holding a dwarven head in his hands. It answered Keldrids demand by spitting, then hurling the torn head toward the assembled dwarves. The missile caught fire as it hurtled up the hill, and the demons charged.

With a wave of his hand, Keldrid redirected the flaming head directly into one of the demons, which exploded and showered the earth with hot coals.

Keldrid then raised his right hand to the sky, chanting, seeming to draw power from the advancing storm clouds. His hand burst into green white flame and he directed it at the demon leader, who side stepped the fire ball, allowing it to slam into a demon directly behind, blowing it to pieces, and taking out several others around it.

Other shaman warriors called on the powers of earths elements, and hurled icy missiles into the demon ranks, snuffing their un-clean fires in a burst of steam and glowing coals.

Keldrid then cast a spell of ice on his weapons and engaged the demon leader in combat, ducking under it’s red hot sword, feeling the hot air of it’s passing as it singed his hair and set his cloak afire. Keldrid came out of his crouch in a spin, bringing both his enchanted blades around, tonfa high and sword low, scoring hits on the demons thigh and knee, hising through black demon flesh with a burst of steam. Moving to his right, Keldrid’s back swing cut the demons head from it’s deformed body as it crumpled on it’s crippled leg.

Oryn Tornado took heart in his shaman warriors bravery and success and led the charge of foot soldiers, falling on the demons that were taking injuries from Keldrids warriors icy blades. King Tornado, axe held high, charged a demon who was standing atop a dead dwarf, it had tore the head from the soldiers mutilated body and was holding it up above it’s own up-raised, bestial head, allowing the blood and pulp to drip into it’s open maw, as if it was squeezing nectar from a fruit.

Oryn brought his axe down on the creatures spine, between it’s wings and right above its hind quarters. He felt his axe bite deep into flesh and bone as boiling ichor spewed out, burning his face and arms. The demon let out an un-earthly howl and turned, slapping the dwarven king aside, raking through his breast plate with razor sharp, metal shod claws and opening up three slashing wounds on Oryns chest.

Before the demon could finish the stricken dwarf, several soldiers jumped to their kings defense, hacking and slashing with axes and swords, growing more confident as they realised the demons earthly forms could be dealt wounds with material weapons, sending their twisted souls screaming back to where they came from.

Dwarves fell on demons in sheer overwhelming numbers. Many dwarves were lost before the battle ended. The blackened, steaming battle field was littered with smoking demon parts and dead and injured dwarves. Of the one hundred and fifty dwarves that set out in defense of Tebla-A-Khoro, only 91 survived, and only sixty, thirty of which were legendary shaman warriors, would continue on the road east, Oryn Tornado and Keldrid Thunderhand among them, though they were injured and exhausted. The rest were sent back to Rahun with the injured, and word of the battle and to send a larger force east. It would not do them any good to leave the bulk of Rahun’s military behind if the rest of the island fell around them.

***

Behind the marching column of dwarves, the clouds opened up, driving sheets of cool, clean rain cleansed the scorched, despoiled earth, that was the scene of the horrific battle just hours before.

Swirling cross winds created a great funnel cloud, forming above, and touching down, at the spot where the demons breached earths material plane. The tornado’s tip danced and spun on the ground, seeming to erase any signs of the demons passing.

As it reached the mass grave of the fallen dwarves, great stones, piled high by the dwarves of the sea turtle clan, marking their fallen kin, the twister raised and hovered above the mound. Many ghostly forms issued from the stones, rising into the the swirling cloud. A great black mist, in the shape of a clawed hand reached up and grasped at the ghostly forms in vain. The tornado then took on the shape of a great war hammer and smote the hand, dissipating it.

Mother nature took the souls of her children back from the depths of hell. Zaranoth screamed in anguish and rage as the sun broke through the clouds and smiled on the funeral mound of the brave dwarven soldiers.

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