Dakgu picked up his arrows and moved in closer, falling in behind the Wargs while the Pikes and Blades started the assault in through the gate, while the Spikes supported the attack under the eyes of the masters -- a well-oiled green machine, the discipline showing through. The Bunnies didn't expect the bristling wall of pikes, the steady methodical ways of the blades, who used their heavier armor to their advantage as they ground the Bunnies that tried to flank. They didn't expect the rapid saturation fire of the Spikes who put the arrows where the bunnies tried to form up their own. And the wargs worked the flanks, a snarling, feral wall of fur. Their riders existed as symbiotic protection for the Wargs who often supervised their own end of the battle at the direction of their pack alphas, with the orcs merely along for the ride -- the so-called "Demon Wolves" understood more than humans and elves would ever suspect.

The Warlord wanted this place taken as a base for operations, something Dakgu understood well -- they were taking it and occupying it before any of the other humans, their allies, managed to get a foothold and claim it for their own. The orcs were expected to lay a longer and more protracted siege so some Bunny mercenary captain or lord would be able to use up the orcs as their fodder and claim the place for their own. A triumph of human superiority.

Except it wasn't working like that. As the Pikes forced a way in, the Blades and the Wargs started their work. Different from the typical cavalry, the Wargs were naturally inclined to flank and envelop the enemy, rather than charge in and out. They worried at the hamstrings, attacked from behind in great leaps. There were horses here, but they were safely penned away (and would make for a wondrous victory feast) and the bunnies fought on foot, because their mounts didn't have enough open space to operate. Not true of the Wargs, who found the houses within the walls, the barracks, easy to leap upon and spring from in their vicious attacks. Demon wolves indeed, to a human's eyes, but lovely creatures. In any case, with the Blades moving in to butcher the last of the combatants, Dakgu yelled, "Careful with the Wargs, damnit!" 

There were calls from the drillmasters of the companies, the warriors in charge of keeping order in the ranks, at times with the lash because orcs in a bloodlust could get carried away and charge all of a sudden, to avoid fires, to stay in the ranks. A battle line of Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi was a testament to brutality and efficiency, but not much in the way of grace of beauty. Tacticians could admire the pragmatism, but the raw ugly was right there.

But that's how the orcs liked it. The bunnies were not prepared for the spectacle -- the best of them, the armored knights, were forming a knot of defense while others tried to fight alongside, but wound up screaming in terror or losing themselves into battle madness, throwing themselves at the enemy in a rage or trying to find desperate escape. They were facing the sight of blood-soaked orcs in the night, snarling their commands to each other in their awful language, tusked things in inhumanly heavy armor that they bore easily enough to fight well in, cutting them down with scant mercy. There was, after all, always a blood feud to be had here, and these orcs were outcasts from everything, fire in their bellies and hate in their eyes.

When the fighting was finally ended, it took more than a few flicks of the lash to settle the Tuskers down, to keep them from just cutting the prisoners open, "Ransoms, y' stupids! Dese bunnies are worth more meals than is on dere bones!" That was shouted in the language of the bunnies, which most of the Company understood well enough, for the benefit of the bunnies. A prisoner pissing himself, after all, was a prisoner kept in line.

"Good," old Radush said, on the back of a great beast of a warg, the alpha, "Round up the bunny prisoners, put them under reliable guard -- blades -- and get these defenses repaired. And hell's fire, let's get some proper orcish decoration up on these walls."

After all, he had to deal with the other mercenaries under the same employer and various petty lords. Radush wanted to make sure they knew who owned Langshul when they finally caught up with the company's rapid advance.