"Kill! Kill all the savages!"
From atop Tar Fort's low walls came hoarse, frenzied roars, like the howls of wounded beasts, each wave louder than the last. Amid the brutal slaughter, they carried a heart-shuddering tenacity.
The battlements had already become an asura slaughterhouse, strewn with corpses in every direction. There were defenders and militia in tattered chainmail, dead in all manner of ways, as well as even more Sauron elite soldiers clad in iron armor, their faces twisted in savagery.
Many corpses even hung from the crenellations, their limbs contorted as blood streamed down the mottled stone walls, soaking great stretches of the ramparts in a horrifying dark crimson-black. Under the early summer sun, it reflected an eerie sheen.
The defenders and the civilians forcibly organized into the fight now had strangely soaring morale. Having beaten back two waves of the Sauron elite's frenzied assaults, they had seen with their own eyes that those supposedly invincible "Northern Territory savages" could bleed, could scream, and could be knocked from the walls and smashed to pieces.
Once fear was overwhelmed by the more primal urge to survive and the stimulation of bloodshed, under the unceasing threat of death, people lost the leisure to think. Only the most instinctive struggle remained.
Driven by Heberson, who led from the front like a madman and roared as he supervised the battle, this rabble unexpectedly unleashed fighting strength far beyond their usual caliber. With crude weapons and their own flesh and blood, they stubbornly sealed this narrow breach.
Yet the chill in the hearts of the Sauron, especially Veteran Soldiers like Thomas and Einar, only grew deeper.
They had long since reached the very front of the siege force. What they heard was not only the cries of battle from the walls, but also the