Harrat discovered the incoming horde of goblins sometime around midafternoon. Several scouts were captured, trying to determine the size of the incoming enemy and their intentions. He sent a messenger, which a bloodthirsty set of outrunners filled with arrows and dragged back into camp.

  “Killa nother Harratman!” they proclaimed gleefully, dumping the body at Lobix’s feet. The man was a wayfinder, but Laryn noted the messenger satchel he had once carried.

  Inside Laryn found an offer of payment to the goblins, seeking an alliance with them. As he examined the offer, Laryn realized that it had been strange that Zaremba hadn’t even asked for gold when negotiating with him. She really was a different kind of goblin.

  They charged on through the forest, and Harrat must have gotten nervous, because riders on horseback began weaving through the woods at their flanks, trying to pick off goblins with their bows.

  The harrying tactics only served to whip the goblins into a furious bloodlust. They swarmed through the trees, running down horseback riders in packs.

  Goblins weren’t as fast as horses, but they worked together, to cut off a route of escape, and drive a scout into the embrace of concealed soldiers nearby.

  Laryn cringed at the chaos and lack of order among the horde. This would never fly in a human army; it would devolve into chaos, morale would break, and the whole army would be useless. But as the chaos increased among the goblins, their ferocity and effectiveness seemed to grow. Laryn had feared that the horde would be a frothing mess before they even met the enemy, but as the afternoon stretched on, he began to fear the beast that he had unleashed on Harrat.

  As the sun dipped low in the west, they came onto the remains of Harrat’s camp.

  In that moment, Adi contacted him. “Laryn! Harrat is here! He’s got claimstakes, and bridges for the river. He’s going to try to take the island!”

  Laryn checked his map, and sure enough, Harrat was bleeding essence out of his perimeter tiles, hoping to flip them neutral and avoid working against their influence.

  “Hold on a bit longer!” Laryn replied. “We’re coming!”

  The horde, smelling the scent of the enemy hanging heavily in the air, picked up the pace. Goblins ran on short legs, powering ahead. The march turned into more of a stampede as they trampled undergrowth.

  Laryn knew where they were now. They were less than an hour from the northwest gap; closer to half an hour if they maintained this pace.

  He muttered to himself as he jogged on. “Hold on. Hold on!”

  Adi gave him terse reports. “Flaming arrows took hold on one of their bridges,” she said. “They tried landing it on the east beach, but its burning strongly now.”

  “Volley of arrows took us by surprise, and we have a few injured here. We’re going to need backup.”

  “[Mages] knocked over one of the siege bridges, but they’re probably going to get it back up.”

  “A few men managed to jump in the river upstream and swim down to land on the island. Luckily Gall saw them, and Conor and Mat killed them as they came out of the water.”

  “Thatch and Jarik were up in the lookout tower, sniping Harrat’s mages. A magical explosion took the tower down, but they’re both okay.”

  “They’re trying again with another bridge, I don’t think we can stop this one.”

  Harrat’s men continued claiming Laryn’s tiles, cutting a gash into his kingdom and breaking rings, removing his buffs.

  Ahead, Laryn saw the northwest Gap. Harrat’s rear guard stood among the remains of the wall there, ready for the attack. Through the trees, Laryn scanned the enemy.

  A wall of heavy infantry, three rows deep, armed with pikes and shields spanned the gap. Cavalry waited in the wings. Archers raised bows from the rear; in all Harrat had position half his banner here—around four hundred men—to stop the goblin swarm.

  And that was likely enough, Laryn realized with grim unease. The goblins would rush in an unorganized swarm, dashing themselves against that wall of men. A two to one advantage in numbers was not enough for the goblin horde to overcome a prepared defensive line.

  Laryn needed to break that line.

  He ran, getting ahead of the smaller goblins with his long strides. Armed with small, round, wooden shields, hundreds of them could be mowed down by archers before they even reached the front line.

  Laryn burst from the tree line, into the large clearing created by Harrat when he’d established his first camp here. The scorched remains of the kingdom core, destroyed by Laryn, still lay on the ground.

  The archers raised their bows; sergeants shouted commands. The front line of men lowered their pikes. For a half dozen strides, Laryn was the lone figure on the field, running at full tilt toward an army.

  Then the goblin horde burst from the trees behind him. Bowstrings thwacked, and arrows hissed through the sky. Laryn summoned an elemental [Shield], spreading it as broadly as he could. A shimmering, crackling sheet of Life essence absorbed dozens of arrows.

  Goblins outside the protective magic screamed as arrows pierced flesh. Some were forced to abandon their shields, as the thick shafts sank deep into the wood, making the shields unwieldy.

  Laryn scanned for signs of a magical counter attack. Harrat had at least a dozen mages with his force; he wouldn’t leave this army without a few.

  A trio of elemental darts slammed into him from the left, smashing his limbs and throwing his broken body into the air. His [Temporal Thinking Space] activated, and he knew he’d just been killed.

  But the mages had revealed their location to him. He reset time by three seconds, sacrificing tiles that he was about to loose to Harrat’s claim stakes anyways.

  Immediately he launched a life [Bomb] at the hidden mage position on the ridge. It exploded, uprooting trees and triggering a small avalanche of stones which tumbled down the rocky cliffs.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  The archers continued firing, but Laryn was far enough ahead of the horde that no arrows landed near him.

  He stared down the men forming the wall in front of him, shifting tensely as they readied their pikes to impact them. They looked determined, confident, but also uncertain. Laryn’s confident charge into their lines unsettled them.

  Laryn drew his sword.

  Every nearby pike angled toward him. Two elemental [Bombs] exploded in the lines, sending earth into the air, and knocking soldiers to the ground. Kenna and Zaremba, using their magic abilities to help him soften the line.

  As stones and clods of dirt rained down around, Laryn impacted the line like a tornado. The off balance and disoriented soldiers failed to bring their long pikes to bear. He killed six men as he burst through to the other side of the line.

  Screams and shouts of men tore the air. Soldiers dropped pikes, grabbing secondary weapons as they turned to face Laryn. Commanders shouted for men to hold the wall.

  Archers turned and ran, scattering at the sight of Laryn’s blood spattered form bursting from the ranks of their army.

  Laryn turned and pushed into the back of the rank of soldiers, forcing them to abandon their pikes and turn their backs to the goblins.

  The first wave of the charging goblin horde hit the line of soldiers with an audible thwack. On either side of the line, the shield wall held.

  But Laryn had punched a hole in the center of the wall, and goblins poured through that gap, like water draining from a tub.

  The horde spilled behind enemy lines, spreading out and turning Harrat’s united front into two chaotic masses of struggling, fighting men. Some goblins chased down archers, while others spread to encircle the pike men.

  The wings of the wall crumpled, and soldiers tried to reform in new defensive positions, leaving a vast space for more goblins to pass through the Northwest Gap.

  Laryn caught hold of Lobix in the chaos.

  “Rally your men!” he shouted at the goblin leader. “This is a distraction, we need to hit Harrat.”

  As Lobix scrambled to collect a force of goblins who hadn’t lost their minds to bloodlust, Laryn worked his way through the melee, heading toward Vallor and the island.

  Harrat’s siege bridges, large structures designed to roll into place and then drop across a gap, mostly lay in ruins on the beach. One still burned, and another lay in pieces, smashed by magical attacks.

  The walls erected around the island were low, but speckled with arrows. Laryn detected no movement or signs of life from the island.

  Harrat’s final siege bridge had been rolled into place near the still burning one. Soldiers clung to the upright bridge, some even hanging to ropes at the top of the structure. With a ponderous swing, it slowly tipped down toward the island.

  Counterweighted by more soldiers, the top dropped, then crashed down into the sand across the river. Soldiers sprang from the bridge, as more scrambled across the newly established bridge.

  Then the bridge exploded. An elemental water [Bomb] sent planks, splinters, and ropes whipping through the air, and the whole structure lurched, sending soldiers into the water and drifting down stream.

  But the bridge did not collapse. Around two dozen soldiers had already landed on the island, and more worked their way across. Arrows flew from Vallorians firing into the exposed flank, but there were simply too many men. The defenders of the island would not last long.

  “Lobix!” Laryn screamed, and found the goblin leading a swarm of soldiers toward him. A few hundred goblins would have to do.

  The chaos at the gap had attracted attention from the soldiers on the beach; archers turned their attention away from the island, and a few commanders scrambled to arrange a defense against the oncoming horde.

  Laryn searched for Harrat’s core of mages, and discovered them lounging beneath a canopy, set up in a comfortable position far back from the beach and out of range of the Vallorian weapons.

  He still had a dart, but his other magical abilities were on cooldown. He knew that core of mages was Harrat’s most powerful weapon. Harrat was clearly not feeling desperate yet, otherwise his mages would be expending all their power fighting.

  The mages had been helping the soldiers with their fighting, but their major task was to protect Harrat. If Laryn cornered them and Harrat, leaving no room for escape, they’d fight like dragons. Harrat was clearly nervous about the situation, and was preserving his personal guard to make sure that he escaped alive.

  As much as Laryn wanted to end this right here, right now, he knew that saving Vallor and living to fight another day was the most he could ask for. But a charge into Harrat and his mages would be suicidal.

  So he lead his goblins toward the bridge.

  A few magical attacks exploded in among the goblins as they charged. But the attacks were intermittent and non-committal.

  Soldiers on the near portion of the bridge caught sight of the incoming goblins and began dismounting, forming up in ranks to prepare for the onslaught.

  Laryn smashed into the line first, whirling like a storm. He felt incredible; strength and power surging through him. They stood on Vallorian soil here, and though Harrat had managed to neutralize many of Laryn’s tiles and break several of his rings, he still had strength buffs.

  At one influence, the effects of the kingdom core on the fight were small, but they strengthened Laryn and hindered Harrat’s men.

  He cut his way through to the near side of the bridge, then led his goblin force across the bridge, sweeping soldiers out of his way. A massive hole gaped in the bridge where one of the Vallorian mages had fired the elemental [Bomb].

  Laryn jumped down to the ground at the far end of the bridge, feeling like he’d come home.

  Panicking Ondwin soldiers formed up to face him as his goblins piled off the bridge and gathered at his back.