“Get down!”
The command sliced through the din of battle. It was a low, gravelly rasp, but to Josh’s ears, it was the sound of salvation.
Josh threw himself low, covering Bhel’s prone body just as a sudden, lethal whistling tore through the dark overhead.
Three black-fletched shafts materialised from the gloom in terrifyingly rapid succession, burying themselves deep into the throats and eyes of the three lead crimson kobolds with wet, aty thwacks. The sheer kinetic force of the heavy arrows stopped the massive creatures dead in their tracks, dropping them backward onto the plaza, choking on their own blood before they could even swing their weapons.
Footsteps pounded frantically against the slick cobblestones.
Josh turned his head to see Carcan sliding to her knees beside Bhel in the bloody mud. He almost didn't recognise her. Her pristine white robes were stained dark with soot, gore, and earth. Her hair was matted to her forehead, and a vicious, swelling purple bruise covered the left side of her face. But her eyes were wild, burning with an unyielding, furious light.
"Carcan?!" Josh choked out, the relief hitting him so hard the edges of his vision blurred. "We thought—the explosion—"
"Save the eulogies, I'm not dead yet," she snapped, though her voice trembled with adrenaline and terror.
She didn't look at him. Her eyes were fixed on the ruined, gaping flesh of Bhel's side. With a shaking hand, she ripped a small, crystal vial from her belt, the liquid inside glowing a fierce, sapphire blue. She yanked the cork out with her teeth, spitting it aside, and downed the contents in a single, desperate swallow.
The effect was instantaneous and violent. The lines of exhaustion on her face stretched terrifyingly tight, her skin turning a sickly, translucent pale as the raw, concentrated mana flooded her depleted system. She gasped, her spine arching as if the potion was physically burning her from the inside out.
"Carcan, you're overriding—" Josh started, reaching out. He knew the danger of consuming too many mana potions over a short window, and she was clearly past that. It could tear a mage's veins apart, boiling their blood.
"Shut up and cover us!" she scread.
She slamd both her hands directly into the pulsing pool of blood over Bhel’s wound. Golden light erupted from her palms, so bright Josh had to squint. It wasn't the gentle, soothing glow of a minor nding spell; this was raw, forceful magic, imposed upon the physical world through sheer, stubborn willpower.
Bhel’s body convulsed. A deep, guttural groan tore from his lips. Josh watched in awe and nausea as the magic forced the jagged edges of flesh back together. Veins knitted like bloody worms, muscle fused, and the splintered ribs snapped back into alignnt with sickening, wet pops. Steam rose from the wound, thick with the sll of ozone and hot copper.
Carcan scread, the sound tearing at her throat. A thin line of dark blood began to trickle from her left nostril from the sheer, overwhelming strain of the spell, but she didn't let up. She poured everything she had into the dwarf, the golden light pulsing in ti with her racing, erratic heartbeat.
The imdiate area wasn't safe. The blinding flash of Carcan's arrival had montarily stunned the frontline, but two more crimson heavy-infantry kobolds vaulted over the corpses of their brethren, spears raised to skewer the glowing healer.
Before Josh could even bring his splintered shield up, two more dull thwacks sounded in rapid succession from the shadows to their right.
A black-fletched arrow sprouted suddenly from the throat of the left kobold, a geyser of dark blood following the impact. A fraction of a second later, a second shaft buried itself to the fletchings directly through the eye of the right one. Both creatures dropped like stones, dead before their knees hit the mud.
From the shadows of the ruined depot, Perberos erged.
The ranger looked like a phantom woven from the smoke. His cloak was torn, his leather armour scored with shallow cuts, but his movents were as fluid and terrifyingly precise as ever. He stepped forward, his bow lowered but his eyes constantly scanning the shifting frontline.
"Miss ?" Perberos muttered, a grim, humourless smile playing on his lips.
He didn't wait for an answer. Moving with a cold, practiced efficiency, the ranger stalked through the imdiate aftermath of his kills. He planted a heavy boot on the chest of the twitching, eye-shot corpse, yanking his arrow free with a sickening crunch of bone. He wiped the gore on the creature's ragged loincloth, moving quickly from body to splintered crate, salvaging whatever intact arrows he could find from the dead and feeding them into a quiver that had been running dangerously low.
He paused when he reached Josh. Perberos t the warrior's exhausted eyes. "Look after her," the ranger ordered, his voice a low gravel. "I'm heading up."
The battlefield was shifting around them. Holding the wide, open floor of the plaza was becoming a death sentence against a swarm that poured through the shattered main gate like a ruptured artery. They needed to plug the wound.
High above, on the surviving inner wall walkways, the city's ranged reserves coordinated a concentrated counter-assault, and the night sky above the plaza ignited. Arcing trails of volatile magic, bursts of crimson fireballs, shattering lances of ice, and crackling webs of azure lightning rained down alongside a dense, whistling storm of steel-tipped arrows. The concentrated barrage slamd into the swarming kobolds with devastating effect, turning the centre of the plaza into a chaotic at grinder of explosive concussions, shrieking scales, and pinned bodies.
The suppressive fire created a twenty-yard dead zone, a montary falter in the endless tide of the horde.
"Push it up! Choke the breach!" a veteran guardsman bellowed over the magical explosions, spitting blood and gesturing wildly toward the gate with a broken halberd.
Seizing the violently won reprieve, half a dozen guardsn and a handful of surviving adventurers threw their shoulders into the heavy detritus littering the plaza. With a collective, straining groan, they heaved against overturned rchant carts, iron-banded barrels of grain, and the splintered remnants of wooden palisades.
The screech of grinding wood and tearing tal against the bloody cobblestones echoed into the night. They used the massive pile of debris like a wide battering ram, driving it relentlessly forward. Kobolds that had survived the magical barrage and were trying to scramble to their feet were caught squarely in the path. Their frantic shrieks were cut short as bones snapped and ribcages collapsed, crushed rcilessly beneath the rolling, grinding weight of the barricades.
They shoved the entire mass of wreckage directly into the splintered stone mouth of the shattered gate, effectively plugging the massive hole.
Imdiately, the heavy infantry surged into the shrinking gap behind the makeshift wall. Iron-rimd shields slamd together with a resounding clack, interlocking into a solid, impenetrable line of oak and steel. Spears and longswords were thrust forward through the gaps, resting securely on the top edges of the ruined carts. By sacrificing the open space and utilizing the covering fire, they had shrunk the frontline from a chaotic, sprawling plaza down to a lethal, ten-foot bottleneck.
Behind the new line, the golden light from Carcan's hands violently snuffed out. She collapsed backward onto the wet stone, chest heaving, her hands coated to the wrists in Bhel's blood. She looked on the verge of passing out, but she managed a weak, bloody grin at Josh.
On the ground, Bhel took a sudden, deep breath that sounded like a heavy forge bellows drawing air. His eyes snapped open, the glassy, unfocused look entirely gone. He looked down at his side. His armour was still shredded, the skin beneath stained red, but the gaping, fatal hole was replaced by a massive, shiny pink scar.
Bhel let out a low rumble that turned into a booming, terrifying laugh. He reached out, grabbed the haft of his massive discarded axe, and hauled his sheer bulk upright. He reached down and pulled Carcan to her feet with one hand, shielding her with his body.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
"Good nap," Bhel grunted, cracking his thick neck. His eyes locked onto the swarming breach. "My turn."
—
Satisfied that the ground floor wouldn't imdiately collapse, Perberos pivoted and took the stone stairs to the battlents two at a ti, his boots pounding against the ancient masonry. He burst out onto the wind-swept wall walk just in ti to see Brett a few yards away. The mage's muscles were straining as he frantically tried to crank the heavy winch of an emplaced arbalest.
Thwump. The massive siege weapon fired, sending a steel-tipped bolt the size of a javelin screaming into the dark. It tore through two regular kobolds before pinning a heavy brute to the muddy earth outside the walls.
"Took you long enough!" Brett shouted over his shoulder, sweat carving clean trails through the heavy soot on his face. He looked down over the lip of the parapet to see the newly ford shield wall, catching sight of Josh, Bhel, and Carcan holding the centre of the barricade. A wild, hysterical laugh tore from his throat. "You beautiful, terrifying bastards!"
Brett imdiately abandoned the slow-loading arbalest. He didn't have the ti or the back strength for the heavy winch anyway. Pushing himself away from the timber fra, he stepped up to the edge of the parapet and leaned heavily against the cold stone, peering directly down into the churning courtyard.
He raised his soot-stained hands toward the shattered portal, feeling the familiar, burning pull in his core.
"Eat ash!" he scread, his voice cracking.
A localised inferno roared to life between his palms. He unleashed a blinding, furious torrent of liquid fire directly into the bottleneck of the gatehouse. The flas cascaded down like a waterfall of pure heat, washing over the surging kobolds and turning the stone archway into a blistering kiln. The stench of roasting at and screeching scales filled the air as Brett rained fire down upon the enemy, desperate to stem the endless flow pouring through the shattered wood and stone. He quickly ate through the mana he had regained over the past few minutes, but it was worth it.
"Perberos, we need overwatch!" Josh yelled up from the ground, his voice nearly lost over the roar of Brett's flas. "They're swarming the barricade rubble!"
The ranger nodded. His eyes darted around the chaotic battlefield before settling on the remnants of a stone watchtower that had taken a huge hit earlier in the night. The roof was gone, but the jagged stonework provided a perfect, elevated firing platform. Perberos sprinted along the wall, vaulted over the bodies of fallen guardsn, and scrambled up the ruined masonry with the agility of a spider. Reaching the top, he vanished into the shadows of the jagged teeth of the stone.
Seconds later, it began to rain death.
The party was together again, working as one, and the sudden realisation that they hadn't lost their friends sent a fresh, blinding surge of adrenaline through Josh’s veins. He gripped his sword tightly, ignoring the throbbing, sickening ache in his relocated shoulder.
They fell into a rhythm. It was a brutal, ugly, desperate dance of survival, but it was a rhythm nonetheless.
Bhel stood at the centre of the barricade, an immovable object of rage and steel, his massive axe cleaving through the bodies that tried to climb the debris. The dwarf was covered head to toe in viscera, looking like a demon of war. Josh protected the dwarf's blind spots, his sword a blur of parries and heavy thrusts, his boots slipping on cobblestones that had turned into a slick ice rink of gore and voided bowels.
From above, as often as he could safely do it, Brett provided a blistering, impassable screen of heat. The fire elentalist rained continuous, sweeping arcs of fla down on the opposite side of the gatehouse, several feet in front of the barricade, incinerating the front ranks and turning the mud into a steaming, glass-slicked oven. Behind them on the ground, Carcan, leaning heavily against a shattered cart, provided precise, localised bursts of healing when it was needed, whilst doing her best to get herself back into a fighting state.
And from the highest point in the ruins, the invisible angel of death sang a deadly, unbroken song. Perberos didn't waste his scavenged arrows on the rank and file; he targeted the horn-blowers trying to coordinate the assault, the heavy hitters charging the line, and anything that looked larger or more armoured than the rest.
Hack. Slash. Burn. Move. Thrust. For fifteen agonising minutes, they held. They ford a breakwater of violence against an endless, screeching tide.
But as the minutes dragged into an eternity, the cold, terrifying reality of their situation began to creep back in, piercing the euphoric adrenaline of their reunion.
The rhythm was steady, but it was slowing.
Josh’s arms felt like they were moving underwater. Every swing of his sword took a monuntal effort of will, the blade jarring painfully against bone and iron. Bhel was bleeding from a dozen new, minor cuts, his roars lacking their earlier earth-shaking volu, replaced by grunts of exertion. Carcan was completely spent; she had slumped to the floor, her hands empty, her eyes glazed, unable to summon even a spark of magic to stop a minor cut bleeding freely down Josh’s cheek.
And on the wall above, Brett's roaring inferno had sputtered out, reduced to pathetic, flickering embers that barely ward his own shaking hands. He slumped over the parapet, his breath coming in ragged, wet sobs, his mana core scraped painfully, dangerously hollow.
Earlier in the night, the sky had been illuminated by the spectacular, terrifying majesty of the mages. Massive fireballs, crackling lightning storms, and localised blizzards had torn through the horde’s rear lines, providing invaluable cover fire. Now, Josh glanced toward the inner keep. The brilliant flashes of arcane artillery were sputtering and dying out.
"The mages," Brett wheezed from the wall above, staring blankly toward the inner keep, a thin line of blood dripping from his nose. "We’re running dry. We're all running dry."
"Hold the line!" Bhel repeated to himself, chopping downward into a scaled shoulder. But the words lacked conviction. It was a plea, not an order.
The magic was waning. The defenders were running out of mana, out of stamina, out of arrows. And the horde… the horde seed infinite. Looking over the wreckage of the barricade, Josh could see the sea of red, yellow, and green scales stretching out into the impenetrable darkness, lit only by the hellish glow of the burning siege towers.
They couldn't last. It was a mathematical impossibility. Ten more minutes. Maybe five. Then their arms would simply stop working, the muscles tearing from the bone, and they would be dragged down into the mud and eaten alive.
A sudden, chilling shift in the atmosphere brought Josh’s desperate thoughts to a screeching halt.
The endless, deafening roar of the horde… paused.
It wasn't silence, but a sudden, terrifying drop in volu. The chittering ceased. The frantic scrambling over the barricades stopped. So of the kobolds that were currently in the plaza disengaged entirely, backing away from Josh and his friends, their weapons lowered, their reptilian faces pressed low to the mud in a gesture of absolute, grovelling submission.
"What…" Brett panted from above, looking down in wild confusion, wiping a mixture of soot and blood from his stinging eyes. "What are they doing?"
"Falling back?" Josh shouted, though he knew the answer. The dread pooling like ice water in his stomach told him the truth.
"No," Perberos’ voice drifted down from the ruined tower, tight and unusually high-pitched. "They aren't retreating. They’re making way."
The sea of monsters beyond the gates began to part. It was like watching a dark, scaled ocean split down the middle. Thousands of kobolds scrambled over each other, trampling their own wounded, desperate to get out of the path of whatever was approaching the breach.
The ground began to vibrate.
It started as a subtle tremor, but quickly grew into heavy, rhythmic thuds that rattled the loose stones of the plaza and shook the blood from the hanging debris. Thud. Thud. Thud.
Through the thick, choking smoke, illuminated by the dying embers of a shattered siege engine, a silhouette erged.
Josh felt the breath leave his lungs in a rush of absolute terror.
It was a kobold, in the sa way a hurricane is a breeze. The monstrosity stood easily nine feet tall. Its scales were a dark, iridescent obsidian, thick and overlapping like the plating of an ancient, slumbering dragon. Great, curled horns swept back from its elongated, heavily scarred skull, and a pair of tattered, vestigial leathery wings rested against its heavily muscled back.
It wore plates of armour that looked like they had been ripped directly from the hull of a warship, bolted, welded, and chained directly to its flesh. In its massive, clawed hands, it dragged a weapon that defied logic—a slab of black iron the size of a blacksmith's anvil, mounted on a rusted steel beam. The sheer weight of the weapon gouged a deep trench in the earth as the beast dragged it forward.
The boss stopped at the base of the ruined barricade. It slowly raised its head.
Two glowing, furnace-red eyes locked onto the spot where Josh, Bhel, and Brett stood.
The beast didn't roar. It didn't need to. It simply opened its jaws, revealing rows of jagged, serrated fangs, and exhaled a thick cloud of sulphurous, black smoke. The aura of sheer, oppressive power radiating from the creature hit them like a physical wave of heat, suffocating and heavy.
"Gods above," Carcan whispered from the mud, her voice hollow and empty.
Josh looked at his sword. The blade was notched, deeply dulled, and slick with gore. His muscles were twitching violently with exhaustion. He looked at Bhel, who was leaning heavily on his axe, his face pale beneath the gri. He looked up at Brett on the wall, who was staring wide-eyed at the behemoth, his hands shaking so violently he couldn't even summon a spark.
Up in the tower, Perberos reached back to his quiver, his eyes locked on the monster's unarmoured throat. His hand t empty air. He was completely out of arrows.
The obsidian behemoth planted its massive feet, grabbed the steel beam of its weapon with both hands, and started to slowly walk towards the barricade. The beast tilted its head back to the ash-choked sky and finally roared—a sound that shook the very air from their lungs, promising nothing but a slow, agonising death.
They were empty. They were broken. And the true nightmare had just arrived.
Reviews
All reviews (0)