Chương 117: The Battle for Future Bacon

Lyrion heard the goblins before he saw them. The rain made every sound strange beneath the wooden shelter. It drummed on the slanted roof above his head, ran in cold streams from the corners, and turned the road before the mountain into a silver-brown churn of mud. The world beyond the shelter blurred into streaks of grey, green, and stone. Even the trees seemed farther away than they were, their trunks wavering through the downpour like figures behind clouded glass. Then came the chittering.

It slipped through the rain first as a scratch, then rose into a wet, eager chorus that made the hair along Lyrion's arms lift. He straightened at once. Beside him, Faelor stopped mid-complaint with his mouth still open, one hand already reaching for his bow. The gnome, Tibbin, squinted down the forest's edge.

He was barely taller than Lyrion's hip, with dark hair plastered to his forehead, a short spear in one hand, and a belt full of throwing spikes, potion vials, and small tools he claimed were all essential to survival. The rain had soaked him so thoroughly that his oversized hood sagged over one eye.

"That sounds like goblins," Tibbin said. The human woman at the front, Sarra, lifted her shield. She was broad-shouldered, scarred at the jaw, and built like someone who had spent a lifetime turning inconvenience into bruises for other people. Her Hearthguard Harness sat over layered armor reinforced by Varn's work, the leather dark with rain, the metal plates dull under the grey light.

"It is goblins," she said. Keldrum, the Veinbound dwarf beside the shelter post, spat into the mud. He was newer to the wardens, level ten, with a trimmed beard, square hands, and the kind of stubborn face that made Lyrion think of stones refusing rivers. He tightened his grip on his short axe and shield.

"How many?" Keldrum asked. Lyrion stepped into the rain. Cold water struck his face and ran beneath his collar. He ignored it and focused on the west side of the forest, where wet branches crowded close and the shadows gathered thick between the trunks. Movement flickered there: bent shapes, yellow eyes, rusted blades, small bodies hunched low over larger, darker forms. For a breath, he thought it was only a band. Then the mounts came into view.

Squat hog-like beasts burst through the rain, their backs bristling with dark hair, tusks jutting like chipped stone. Mud flew beneath their hooves. Their bodies were low and powerful, shoulders thick, heads ugly with muscle and rage. Beneath their bellies, pale plates of stone overlapped like natural armor. Tibbin made a strangled sound.

"Are those stonebelly hogs?" Faelor's eyes narrowed.

"Their undersides are plated."

"Bad news," Tibbin said.

"The part named stonebelly appears to be accurate." Around twenty goblins rode or ran with them. Most were small, green-grey, and low-level enough that Lyrion could read their panic beneath their frenzy. But two rode larger hogs in the center, ash-grey skin slick with rain, taller than the rest, their bone charms clattering against crude armor. One carried a hooked spear. The other gripped a jagged axe and shouted in a harsher tongue that made the hogs surge forward. Lyrion identifies them as the true danger.

He tells Faelor, "left grey." Faelor answers with a sharp smile.

"Yours or mine?" He felt a smile coming and let it stay where everyone could see it. Anyone wanting a serious, gruff group leader could go bother Rogan, Kerrin, or Havlik.

"Both." Lyrion felt Faelor step beside him. A long time ago, he would have hated that. Back in the Northern Bows, before fire and bone came to their village, Faelor had been the boy he competed against in everything. Their fathers had led different hunting groups, and old rivalry had trickled down into their sons like winter meltwater through roots. Lyrion had measured himself against Faelor's bow arm, Faelor's speed through branches, Faelor's praise from elders.

Faelor had done the same to him, smiling too sharply every time he won, sulking too obviously every time he lost. Then their fathers died. So many did. Houses burned. Bone things walked through smoke. The Northern Bows became memory and ash, and the rivalry that had once seemed large enough to fill their boyhood turned to something foolish in the face of graves. They fled together with the survivors.

They took up bows to guard those who remained, though at first they could barely keep arrows steady through hunger, fear, and grief. Competition became trust. Trust became habit. Habit became brotherhood. Hearthroot had come after that. Some days, their arrival felt like yesterday. Other days, Lyrion felt as if he had lived beneath golden leaves all his life. Tunnels. Beast attacks. Goblins. Wall patrols. Rogan's endless drills. Selathi's corrections, sharper than any blade and twice as useful.

The first time his profession named him Warden of the Hearthroot, he had stood behind the training yard with shaking hands and said nothing to anyone for half an hour. He had made a promise after the goblin raid. What happened to his first home would never happen to this one. He drew his bow.

"Sarra front. Keldrum, hold the shelter edge and keep them from the mountain door. Tibbin, low and moving. Faelor, left riders. I take right." Faelor smiled without looking at him.

"You sound like Rogan when he is disappointed."

"That sounds like an insult." Tibbin chuckled and lifted his spear.

"I'll be sure to let Rogan know you said that!" Behind them, Lord James and Bramli appeared in the entrance. Lyrion heard his lord's voice through the rain, sharp and controlled.

"Bramli, any blessed dwarf who can hold a weapon. Now." Bramli vanished into the mountain, bellowing for help. James remained near the threshold, cloak snapping around him in the wind, hands already lifting as pale mana gathered around his fingers. He held his place, ready to support them while leaving the battle in their hands. He trusted them to hold. That trust burned hotter than fear. Lyrion breathed in. His profession settled around him, quiet and firm.

A thread pulled taut between him, the ground he defended, and the people behind him. His skill answered. Anchored Aim. The rain slowed in his thoughts. The first goblin rider leaned low over its hog, teeth bared, spear lifted. Lyrion released. The arrow struck the goblin through the throat. He drew again before the body fell. The second arrow punched into another rider's eye as its hog lurched over a rut. The goblin snapped backward and vanished beneath hooves. Two down in a single breath.

Faelor laughed, fierce and bright.

"Showing off?"

"Counting," Lyrion said. Faelor loosed. His arrow caught a rider in the shoulder and spun it from the saddle. Another shot drove into a hog's cheek, making the beast rear sideways and collide with two running goblins. Tibbin whooped despite himself, then ducked as a stonebelly hog thundered toward the shelter. Sarra met it. Her shield slammed forward with a crack that shivered through the rain. The hog hit like a rolling boulder. Mud burst around Sarra's boots. Her armor creaked.

The goblin on its back stabbed down with a rusted spear, aiming for the gap near her shoulder. The spear struck Varn's reinforced harness. Leather, padding, and metal plates caught the blow. The point bit shallow, enough to make Sarra grunt, far from enough to drop her. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. Her shield answered before she did.

A dull pulse ran through the hide and studs, gathering the force of the impact instead of letting it scatter through her arm. Sarra snarled, shoved the spear aside, and drove the shield upward with a short, brutal motion. Rebound Guard flared across the shield's rim. The stored force struck back through the goblin's chest with a heavy crack, lifting the rider clean off his mount and sending him tumbling backward into the mud.

"That all?" she growled. Keldrum finished the goblin with his axe before it could rise. The hogs split around Sarra, trying to circle. Rogan's drills lived in Lyrion's body now, anchoring him before panic could turn into pursuit. He held the line, and Faelor held with him. Tibbin moved only where the formation allowed, darting in short bursts while quick calls passed between them through the rain.

"Left!"

"Rider loose!"

"Low tusks!"

"Behind shield!" A goblin tried to slip past the shelter post toward the mountain entrance. James lifted one hand. A translucent mana barrier snapped into being, angled like a pane of pale glass. The goblin slammed into it face-first, rebounded, and staggered directly into Keldrum's shield. Keldrum blinked at the gift, then hit the goblin so hard it folded.

"Thank you, my lord!" he shouted. James's answer came strained but amused.

"Any time." A stonebelly hog charged Tibbin. The gnome dropped flat into the mud as tusks swept over him, rolled beneath the beast's side, and stabbed upward with his spear. The blade glanced off stone plating with a hateful spark. Tibbin scrambled away.

"Bad news. Bellies are armored!" Faelor cut down a goblin and shouted back, "Then stop aiming at the part named stonebelly!"

"I was confirming the name!" A thrown spear spun through the rain toward Faelor's back. Lyrion saw it too late. James did not. A mana barrier flashed between Faelor and the spear. The weapon shattered against it, pieces falling into the mud. Faelor glanced back once, eyes wide, then grinned toward the mountain.

"I liked that one!"

"Focus!" Lyrion called. The ash-grey goblin with the hooked spear drove toward Sarra. It was smarter than the others. The hook caught her shield rim and yanked. Sarra let the pull happen for half a breath, stepping with it just enough to unbalance the rider's expectation, then slammed her sword into the shaft. The village-forged blade bit deep and cracked the wood. Faelor moved at her side.

His Emberforge sword flashed through the rain, droplets hissing into steam where they struck the heated metal, and bit into the hog behind the foreleg, where bristle gave way to softer hide. The cut opened red. The beast screamed and staggered. The ash-grey goblin twisted, spear half-broken, and Lyrion's arrow took it through the ribs. It fell. The second ash-grey goblin shrieked and flung a bone charm into the mud. The charm burst with a bitter grey puff.

The hogs nearest it went wild, eyes bright, foam flying from their mouths. One crashed into Sarra's shield and drove her back a pace. Another charged toward Tibbin as the gnome tried to regain his feet. Tibbin's eyes widened. James's barrier rose before the beast could trample him. The hog struck it, cracked the surface, and skidded sideways. Tibbin did not waste the breath.

He yanked a small clay vial from his belt, the one Ilyndra had distributed to the mountain guards only that morning with stern instructions and far too much pride. He smashed it against the mud near the hog's snout. Thick violet-grey smoke burst outward. It smelled of sharp herbs, mineral ash, and something sweet enough to make Lyrion's nose sting. The hog squealed, stumbling blind. The goblin rider coughed and clawed at its eyes.

Tibbin darted through the smoke like a knife in fog, jumped onto a low rock, and drove his spear behind the hog's foreleg where Faelor's earlier strike had shown the weakness. The hog collapsed sideways. Tibbin hit the mud rolling. The ash-grey goblin tumbled free, and Keldrum charged with a roar. Axe met bone charm, then shoulder, then throat. The larger goblin fell under the dwarf's fury. For a moment, the fight turned. The ordinary goblins lost the momentum of their charge. Some tried to flee.

Others stabbed wildly from their mounts. Lyrion switched from bow to sword as one hog came too close, his village-forged blade cutting into a leg joint deeper than he expected. The weapon sang in his hand, clean and eager, and the beast stumbled long enough for Faelor to finish the rider. Sarra's shoulder bled through the harness, but she kept moving. Her sword rose and fell. Her shield struck faces, ribs, snouts. She spoke little, only grunts and short commands, a grim center around which the others could move.

A goblin leapt from its hog toward Lyrion. Faelor was there. Their blades crossed in front of the creature. Lyrion cut high, Faelor low. The goblin hit the ground in two pieces, and for a heartbeat they stood back to back, rain running down their faces, just as they had in the forest years ago when their hands shook and their arrows missed more often than they struck. Faelor's shoulder pressed against his.

"Your count?" he asked.

"Six."

"Liar. Five."

"You missed the first runner."

"I gave that one to Tibbin for morale." Tibbin, from somewhere under the smoke, shouted, "I accept!" Then the mountain roared. Bramli came out first, dust-covered and furious, wedge hammer in both hands. Behind him came eight Veinbound dwarves with quarry tools rather than weapons. Picks. Mallets. Pry bars. Short axes. One carried a stonecutting wedge in each fist as if he had been waiting his whole life to apply professional expertise to skulls.

Bramli took in the scene and bellowed, "You brought beasts to my quarry?" The dwarves crashed into the remaining goblins. They fought like people who understood weight, impact, and breaking points, every movement shaped by the hard logic of stone and force. A stonebelly hog lunged, and Bramli's hammer struck one of the underside plates along a seam. The plate cracked with a sharp report. Another dwarf drove a wedge into the break and kicked it deeper.

The hog screamed and collapsed as its armored belly split enough for Keldrum to finish it. The young dwarf pointed suddenly at another hog.

"There! Left rib plate! Weak shine!" Bramli did not question him. He struck where the young dwarf pointed. The plate shattered. Tibbin slid in and stabbed the opening, laughing like a madman through rain and smoke. The remaining goblins panicked. Lyrion shot one from its saddle. Faelor cut another down as it ran. Sarra took a goblin spear across her shield, shoved through the impact, and drove her sword into the creature's chest.

The woman's face was streaked with rain and mud, eyes bright with the fierce calm of someone who had decided survival was an insult to throw at her enemies. James raised one final barrier across the entrance as a riderless hog bolted toward the mountain door. The beast struck the mana pane, veered off, and thundered into the mud beyond the shelter. Then the battle ended as quickly as it had come. Rain filled the silence. Bodies lay in mud and runoff, goblin blood mixing with water and stoneheart dust.

Dead hogs steamed in the cold. A few wounded beasts snorted and staggered at the edge of the road. The violet smoke thinned slowly, leaving behind the bitter herb smell of Ilyndra's potion. Lyrion stood with his sword lowered, chest heaving. Faelor leaned against his shoulder for half a heartbeat, then pushed away before anyone could comment. Tibbin sat in the mud, staring at his own hands. His eyes went wide.

"I gained three levels," he said. Faelor blinked.

"Three?" Tibbin's grin spread slowly, enormous and filthy.

"Eight to eleven." Keldrum let out a bark of laughter, then froze as his own notification appeared. His mouth worked once before sound came out.

"Two levels," he said, voice rough with disbelief.

"Ten to twelve." The others started to cheer, but Tibbin's face changed before the sound fully rose. His grin faltered into something stunned and bright, as if the system had struck him somewhere deeper than pride.

"Wait," he whispered. Keldrum's laughter died at the same moment. He looked down, then up again, rain running through his beard and mud streaked across one cheek. Tibbin swallowed.

"Profession unlocked." Sarra went very still. Keldrum breathed out, almost reverently.

"Warden of the Hearthroot." For a heartbeat, the rain seemed louder than everything else. Then Tibbin looked at Sarra, his filthy grin returning by inches, shakier this time and far more dangerous.

"Unfortunately for you," he said, lifting his muddy chin, "I am finally one of you." Sarra stared at him for half a breath, then stepped forward and clasped his shoulder hard enough to make him wince. Her smile came slowly, fierce and proud.

"Took you long enough," she said. Tibbin's grin broke wide again, and Keldrum laughed so hard he had to brace one hand against his knee. Sarra wiped rain from her face, a smile still on her face.

"One level for me."

"One for me too," Faelor said, then turned to Lyrion with a wicked smile.

"And you?" Lyrion waited. Nothing appeared. The rain continued. Faelor's smile widened.

"Oh," he said with deep sympathy.

"Our fearless leader has been overlooked by the heavens." Tibbin stood, wobbling with pride.

"Perhaps the system saw him counting wrong." Keldrum nodded solemnly.

"A grave offense." Sarra lowered her shield and, gave Lyrion a wicked smirk.

"Maybe it rewards results." Lyrion looked at all of them. His friends. His unit. His wardens. He should have had a retort ready. Instead, pride rose in him so strongly that it stole the words. Tibbin and Keldrum had unlocked something in themselves today. Sarra and Faelor had advanced. A couple of Bramli's workers were shouting about levels too, slapping one another on the back with bloodied hands and quarry hammers. They had fought as Heartroot. That was worth more than a level. Then James shouted.

"The hogs!" Every head turned. James stood in the rain near the mountain entrance, cloak soaked dark, eyes fixed on the riderless stonebelly hogs still staggering at the edge of the road. Lyrion stared at him. James pointed.

"I want the hogs!" For one stunned breath, no one moved. Tibbin raised a hand.

"Alive?"

"Preferably!" Bramli roared, "Ropes!" Chaos resumed. Dwarves charged for coils. Sarra swore and limped after one hog. Faelor looked at Lyrion with helpless disbelief, then started laughing as he ran. Tibbin, newly level eleven and clearly drunk on survival, dove for a rope twice his length. Keldrum tried to help him and became tangled in it immediately. James's mistdrake runner chose that moment to join the game.

She streaked through the rain with delighted elegance, cutting off one fleeing hog and breathing mist into its face. The hog stopped, confused and offended. Bramli and two dwarves tackled the rope around its tusks before it recovered. Lyrion stood in the rain, bleeding from a shallow cut along his forearm, sword in hand, watching his lord, eight dwarves, two elves, a gnome, one human shield warrior, and an outraged hog become tangled in ropes. Faelor appeared beside him, panting and grinning.

"We survived goblins so we could become farmers." Lyrion watched the hog drag Tibbin three feet through the mud while the gnome shouted that this was tactical positioning.

"Stonebelly hog farmers," Lyrion said with a smirk. Faelor considered that.

"That sounds worse." Lyrion looked toward the mountain, the scattered goblins, the wardens gathering rope, James's fading mana barriers, and the captured hog snorting in the mud. Rain washed blood from the road. The last goblin chitter faded into the trees. Hearthroot had been attacked, and Hearthroot had answered with blades, training, and one lord who looked at monsters and saw livestock. He smiled. The new home held. And in the strangest way possible, it had gained pigs.