Chapter 97：The Elven Prince's desperate battle

[25th Sun]

"Gasp! Ha...Ha...ha...ha..."

I woke up surprised on a simple bed.

Looking around I recognize that I'm on the castle infirmary.

"DAMN!!!!!!!!"

"FUCK!!!FUCK!!!FUCK!!!"

"WHY AM I SO USELESS!!!!!!!"

Tears flow down my eyes as I let out a myriad of emotions through my voice.

How could I let this happen!?

Why things end up this way!?

As I cry by myself, I slowly recall the events that led us to now.

...

All this started when the Orcs started their attack on us.

On the first day our sneak attack destroyed their siege weapons, we also hit their leader a hard blow using enchanted weapons. Our objective was to kill or at least maim their leader and make subsequent fights easier, unfortunately it seems we have failed.

On the second day the leader appeared as if nothing had happened to him at all, their attacks persisted without siege weapons making it extremely ineffective. It was like they were willing to exchange 20 or more of their warriors for a single life of my elves. In the end of the day they suffered so many losses that their army should have been crippled, making them unable to proceed.

Thinking back, maybe this is where our first mistake happened. We should have attacked them with everything we had and finished them off. But my father, the King, was against it, saying that we would have no chance outside the protection of our walls. I tried to argue saying my fiance was still in their hands but he simply said he couldn't risk the whole city for a single fiance...

On the third day a red mist surrounded the city. We could hear screams and cries from outside but our army still didn't dare to go out and lose our defensive advantage. I privately sent a few scouts but none of them came back, making me start thinking maybe father was right.

On the fourth day the voices stopped, the mist cleared out and their army came back stronger than before. I didn't understand what they did but the result was clear: not only they were stronger, their numbers had also been replenished.

As the battles proceeded I tried all tricks in my book, from simple baits and traps to enchanted weapons, seals and scrolls, but no matter how effective they were there were always causalities on our side, our resources were gradually being depleted and no matter how many of those monsters we killed, more of them appeared the following days!

It's like the Orc's Leader was toying with us, keeping things in a balanced state, not killing us just to enjoy more War! But this made no sense, he should know that the humans would notice their movements before long and then it would be their turn to fight defensively.

We fought and fought like there was no tomorrow and for many of us, there truly was no future. And finally our numbers had been reduced to less than a tenth of their original number, making it impossible to keep on defending with only these tactics, so, to compensate for the crescent number of fallen soldiers we were forced to started using banned artifacts.

The artifacts had immeasurable power but each activation required us sacrificing a member of our royal family. The sadist inventor who made them said it was so we wouldn't abuse them but now we barely could use them to defend ourselves.

At first it was grandfathers and grandmothers, then my aunts and uncles, then my cousins, and finally my own parents, leaving only me and my two siblings alive.

The artifacts were super effective against normal orcs, killing them in the hundreds. Unfortunately the same wasn't true to their Leader who seemed to be protected by a blessing from a powerful demigod. Even so we still were able to turn things around temporarily each time an artifact was used but every time it seems like we grew close to victory the cursed mist appeared and their numbers grew back again.

And this last time when the mist appeared again there were no parents to stop me from going out, so I took the few elite knight that were left and launched a sneak attack on the orcs.

We rode our horses through the red mist and rapidly approached the orc's camp and as we reached there we saw a picture of Hell. The blood of our brothers was being collected to form a huge pool. Inside it, our sisters were raped and would soon after give birth to new orc babies, those babies had runes drawn in their bodies and forced to eat the meat of our brothers causing them to suddenly transform into adults and those adult orcs would join the others in raping our sisters.

Many of the knights with me were unable to resist and started throwing up immediately, unable to fight anymore. As for the other half of us, we soon found out our magic was greatly reduced inside this mist, making it impossible to use Mana to reinforce our strikes or defend ourselves, putting us in a really bad situation.

The orcs started noticing our presence and jumped toward us naked as mindless zombies, easily capturing a few of us.

Noticing the situation was not in our favor, I readily sounded the retreat. Our horses turned around and started running away.

The orcs started throwing whatever they could find at us, from lances to stones and even body parts, their ridiculous strength made even the most common object a deadly projectile.

My knights positioned themselves behind me, acting as a wall.

I had no chance to do anything, all I could do was keep running while hearing the their cries of pain from those behind me.

Finally something hit me from behind. The blood rushing through my head made me feel no pain, just the impact. I had no idea what had hit me, and all I could do was keep riding until everything went black.

...

Remembering my wound I looked over my body and saw a huge bandage over my belly.

It seems like I was pretty lucky to reach here alive...

I wonder how many others were able to survive...

As I was lost in thought a nurse appears through the door. Seeing me awake she cover her mouth in surprise and turns around and dashes away. A few minutes later our old General appears through the door, accompanied by the nurse and the doctor.

The General smiles at me, making me smile back and suddenly...

SLAP!

"YOU FUCKING IDIOT!!! WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING!!! GOING ALONE TO THE ENEMY CAMP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RED MIST!?!? ARE YOU CRAZY!!??"

His voice resounded like a thunder, spreading through the whole building, shocking everyone who heard it.

"YOU ARE THE HEIR TO THE THRONE!!!! YOU CAN'T JUST DISAPPEAR LIKE THIS WITHOUT CONSULTING ANYONE'S OPINION!!! HAVE SOME RESPONSIBILITY!!!! OUR WHOLE KINGDOM IS DEPENDING ON YOU!!!"

I lowered my head in shame, knowing now was not the time or place to find excuses.

His sermon kept on going for longer than an hour, reminding me of my duties and what could have happened. Meanwhile the doctor acted deaf, making all the checks to ensure my health was restored. Finally the old general took a long sigh and asked:

"So, what did you saw? At least say it was worthy putting your life at risk!"

"That I am not sure, but at least I have the answers on how they are creating more and more soldiers and we can use that as a base to formulate our next counter attack plan, and pray we can hold out at least until the humans arrive..."

"So you are going to let the humans claim the credit after all your hard work?"

"What else can we do? Even if I sacrifice myself and my siblings, it still won't be enough to finish them all off."

"That's completely out of question! You are the last royal elves of the Kingdom! No matter what your bloodline must be preserved!"

"Then all we can do is hold our ground. Have the humans started moving yet?"

"Yes, a message arrived just this morning, it seems like their whole army has left the fortress and is heading our way, they should be two or three days from us."

"Good. While I am a bit worry they will back stab us in our moment of weakness, it is still better to fall to humans than orcs."

"My Lord, please don't joke around! All humans are descendants from elves, they should have the minimum respect for their ancestors!"

"I really wish this was a joke. As humans and elves separated, so did our costumes and traditions, making our values and views differ greatly. Now a days it's not uncommon to find humans who look down on elves or even worse and if their new Lord is like the last one, this is a possibility we have to prepare for..."

"So, what should we do?"

"For now, there is nothing we can do about that. The orcs have sealed all escape routes, so all that is left for us is fight or die."

"Then we shall fight to death!"

"Yeah, that we will do... General, here are your new orders."

"Yes, my Lord!"

"Draft all men and women older than twelve years old, they shall join the defenses starting tomorrow. Make sure to explain the situation to them and provide proper equipment."

"Twelve, my lord?"

"Yes, we got no choice and it's better for them to die fighting than being captured and have a fate worse than death."

"I understand..."

"Next, assemble all merchants and blacksmiths, I need whatever supplies than have."

"Yes, sir."

"And the last thing, kill whatever animals we have left and prepare a big public banquet to rise the moral."

"But sir, this will destroy our future-"

"We need to be alive to have a future, right now it's more important to rise our moral, later we can trade with the humans and slowly grow back our stocks."

"Understood...if that's all, this one will now go fulfill his new missions."

"Go do that, then I will-"

The doctor who was quiet until now suddenly interrupted me.

"You will rest! No matter the grade of the potion I made you drink, your body still needs to rest to recover. Now lie down and sleep so that you can fight tomorrow."

"Sigh...understood doctor..."

3 more days...

They should arrive just as the mist comes back...

Will we be able to last that long??