Chương 63: [The Meat-grinder]

The boys scrambled to their feet.

"Get inside the town," Shai ordered, her voice dropping the playful edge it had held seconds ago.

"Now!"

"We'll cover the retreat," Leo said. She looked at the five of them, unarmed and tired from the busy morning, then gave a sharp nod and sprinted toward the line. Around them, the training ground was a frantic bustle. Trainees who had been enjoying themselves minutes ago stared at the approaching grey-green tide, their faces pale. Some broke for the town gates immediately; others stood paralyzed, wooden training swords hanging uselessly in their hands as the reality of the charge set in.

"Back to the town! Move!" Bram's voice boomed, deep and guttural, carrying over the shriek of the wind and the pounding of feet.

"Behind the barricade! Now! Don't look back!"

"One of you, whoever's fastest, get the off-duty guards. Hurry!" Shai shouted as she arrived at the line. The North-West guards arrived at a sprint, slotting into the already forming shield wall. Eighteen in total. Twelve shields formed a jagged, slightly curved arch across the center, Bram planting himself in the middle like an iron stake. Aldric fell in behind the line, his spear leveled, the lethal tip clearing the shield rims.

Bram began making noise, shouting insults at the oncoming mass to draw their attention to the center of the wall. Rika moved to the rear of the formation, her feet finding purchase in the grass as she drew her first arrow. She didn't wait for the impact. The shaft hissed over the center of the shield wall, catching a goblin in the throat and dropping it backward into the dirt. Following the curve to the left of the shields, Torren stood outside the line, his massive maul resting on his shoulder.

He watched the gap close with a terrifyingly calm focus, his feet planted wide in the churned earth. Shai moved in just beside him, tucked behind the leftmost shield but coiled to strike. On the far right, Nessa and Mars held the flank, Growlie crouching low and huffing embers. They were hidden just out of sight behind the right edge of the wall, positioned to catch anything trying to loop around toward the town gates. The goblins hit the line.

The sound was a heavy, wet thud of meat on iron and wood, the dull, sickening noise of impact against bone. Bram met the first charger with his shield, felt the weight of it, and brought his hammer down in a short, brutal arc. The head of the weapon caught the lead attacker; the skull caved with a sickening crunch, spraying dark, syrupy blood across the face of his tower shield as the thing collapsed into a heap of twitching limbs. He kept shouting, keeping the horde's attention focused on him and those around him.

On the left, Torren stepped into two goblins that tried to skirt the end. He brought the maul down, the force driving the first creature's ribcage inward until bone fragments punctured the skin in a spray of red. He stepped over the mangled remains, his boots sliding in the widening pool of blackish gore, and caught a second mid-leap, breaking it against the hard-packed dirt. More enemies pushed toward Torren, while Shai laid in wait like a predator.

She held her position as they closed the distance, then made her move. As the goblins tried to turn the corner of the leftmost shield, aiming for the gap between her and Torren, she darted out. Her blade opened the first from groin to sternum, the creature's entrails sliding out onto the grass in a steaming pile. A throwing dagger buried itself in another's throat before it could scream. She was back behind the shield before the others could respond. This book was originally published on Royal Road.

Check it out there for the real experience. To the right, Growlie let out a roar of dragon fire. He may have been a juvenile, but the heat was intense all the same. The blast rolled across the field, drying the sweat on the guards closest to the flame. Four goblins caught the blast directly; their skin blackened and bubbled in seconds, the fat underneath rendering and hissing as it ignited. The smell carried to the boys further back, thick, sweet, and cloying.

It was the scent of roasting meat mixed with a metallic tang of copper that turned the stomach. One attacker stopped moving after a few seconds of frantic rolling; the others shrieked until Mars ended them with quick thrusts of his short sword. Behind the line, Aldric used his spear to find the gaps. He put the point over the shields into the faces of the creatures pushing hardest. One took the tip through the eye socket; the spear went in clean and came out trailing a string of vitreous humor and blood.

The one behind it took the return stroke in the throat, coughing black spray over the front rank of the shield wall. Rika tracked the line from flank to flank, her arrows darting out to drop anything trying to hook around the shield rims. Her accuracy was perfect, yet she was a single bow against a flood of green-grey flesh. The weight of the horde never let up, and the air grew thick with the smell of blood and sweat: a grim reminder that no matter how many she killed, the margin for error was razor-thin.

The hobgoblin finally committed. It drove straight for the center initially, its rusted broadsword shearing through the neck of a goblin that didn't move fast enough. The blade slammed into Bram's shield, the collision ringing out like a hammer on an anvil and staggering the big man back half a step. But the beast didn't stay to trade blows. It backed off, snarling, its eyes scanning the formation with predatory intelligence.

It moved with a sideways gait toward its left, heading for the right side of the shield wall, weaving through the press of its own smaller kin. It found the corner where Lucian waited. The hobgoblin struck at the shield, driving the rim back into Lucian's own forearm. The jagged edge of the blade slid over the rim, biting into the flesh of his upper arm. Blood ran down the inside of the shield, soaking Lucian's sleeve and dripping onto the grass. He let out a strangled grunt, his teeth bared, but he didn't waver.

He kept the shield up, eyes locked on the monster. Before it could strike again, Aldric's spear flashed over Lucian's shoulder, punching through the hobgoblin's cheek and taking out teeth. The beast tore itself away, hissing in fury as it spat blood and bone. On the far right, the kobolds reached their mark. Rika saw the shortbows come up. They were fanned out in a wide arch, targeting the exposed back and flank of the guard line. The formation was pinned; no one could break off to intercept.

"Kobolds!" she screamed, her voice cracking with the strain.

"Drawing! Now!" She loosed an arrow, dropping one, but the others were already mid-draw. She reached for another shaft, her jaw set, bracing herself to see her friends hit while they stood there with nothing to protect them. Then, the air behind her fractured. A jagged shard of ice from Parmo screamed past her, slamming into the lead kobold with a crack and shattering into a spray of frozen shrapnel that scythed through the two standing nearest.

A heartbeat later, a ball of fire from Phil detonated in the center of their group. A thunderous boom shook the ground, a Volcanic Blast that sent a shockwave of heat rolling over the archers and tossed charred reptilian limbs into the air. Finally, a bolt of white-blue lightning from Leo crossed the gap. The sound hit a split second after the impact. The left flank of the kobold it hit was erased, leaving behind a half-charred corpse.

A scorched patch of grass and a stinging cloud of ozone marked where the spell had landed. The expected volley of arrows was broken, but it didn't send them running. The remaining thirteen kobolds hissed, their coordinated clicking rising into a chorus of snarling rage. They didn't retreat; they pivoted, their reptilian eyes narrowing as they locked onto the source of the noise. They began to fan out, nocking fresh arrows, their focus shifting entirely away from the guard line and onto the boys.

Behind the veterans, the five boys stood a dozen paces from the barricade, the eyes of the other trainees on them, their hands still glowing with the residue of the magic. They were unarmed and breathing heavily, their mana bars sitting in the yellow, depleted from the morning but with enough left for a fight. For a moment, the roar of the battle seemed to fade, replaced by the thudding of their own hearts and the sharp, coppery scent of the slaughter drifting from the shield wall.

They stood in the gap between the guards and the town, a small, unproven line, as thirteen pairs of slitted eyes fixed on them with murderous intent.