The gate area was a battlefield. Mangled bodies filled the spiked trenches once meant to stop boarmen. Lines of barricades were all shattered and broken. Darryl and the rest of the villagers were holding the last line of fortification.

  The archers broke from Brenn and scrambled up the makeshift firing platforms. The remaining spearmen rushed to reinforce the front lines.

  “Took you long enough!” Darryl hollered. “Push the bastards back!”

  Brenn propped himself up against the palisade, trying to not aggravate his fresh stump too much. Though his shield was a powerful artifact, bashing skulls with it wasn’t a good use of his already drained strength anyway. The onslaught of monsters was mostly comprised of the boarmen tribe. It had to be a young one, since great part of their numbers were the nimble, waist-high boarlets. Annoying to fight, but not overly dangerous when Darryl led the men.

  Arrows rained down on the boarlets, tearing through their thin fur. A brute—overgrown beast lumbering at three meters of height—tried to clear some of the debris. Six guards thrust their spears deep into its chest, almost lifting its massive body off the ground.

  Brenn scanned the battlefield. Bert the blacksmith and several other villagers were running down the road toward them, spears in their hands. A whole gang of brutes charged the barricade.

  “Hold steady!” Darryl roared. The guards speared the monsters as they came, but the brutes still managed to knock over the barricade in a tumble of wood, dirt and rocks. Darryl sliced the last brute’s gut open, then dove away just in time to avoid being caught under the debris. Boarlets poured through the breach. The guards threw their spears and drew hatchets and clubs.

  A boarlet lunged, swinging a bone dagger. Bert hacked its shoulder open, crashing it into the ground. While Bert was trying to pull the corpse off his axe, another vermin leapt at him, but a guard smashed it down with his shield.

  “Archers, target the breach!” Darryl called out.

  The guards repositioned under the blanket of arrows. A few shieldmen blocked the breach with tower shields, others heaved the overturned barricade back into place.

  Brenn took a minute to breathe. The air didn't feel right. Something was pulling at the surrounding mana.

  Hobgoblin spellcasters, two of them in mismatched robes, stepped forward from the edge of the horde. Mangled symbols of power flickered in the air around them.

  Darryl hollered, “Fire!” and the archers sent a barrage of arrows at them, piercing one through the throat and knocking it down. The other raised its claws. Lightning struck from the dark sky and the monster caught it, forming a glowing sphere. The hobgoblin’s head caught on fire. It threw the ball lightning at the archers then screamed and swatted its long ears, spreading the fire to its sleeves and erupting like a twig of dried leaves.

  Brenn groaned, raised the artifact shield, focused on the spell whirling toward the fortification. Activating the counter-spell enchantment of his shield, a whirlpool of faintly visible energy erupted in front of him. The ball lightning curved, pulled by the enchantment. It struck the shield, breaking through the whirlpool, splintering the metal surface, sending sparks around the shield’s edges. Then the lightning condensed and with a loud ring, reversed its course, snapping back at the horde in a burst of white light.

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  The bolt ripped through the ranks of monsters and exploded in their midst, reducing the boarlets to ash and snuffing out the adult boarmen in an instant. Even the massive brutes roared in pain. Those close to the epicenter collapsed, their smoking bodies twitching in the dirt.

  Brenn watched the monsters scatter through the haze. Even the brutes, once fearless, trampled over their kin in their desperate retreat.

  Darryl lowered his sword. The guards sagged against the barricades.

  “I’d kill for a thing like that,” someone muttered behind Brenn. He didn’t answer. If all one had to do was kill someone to get such a shield, humanity would be in much better state.

  “Good job, folks.” Darryl shouted. “Now get your asses out there bring me more people. We need those trenches cleared and barricades replaced!”

  A few minutes later, villagers emerged from their houses and shuffled to the battlefield. Some, with spears, finished off the wounded brutes; others brought spikes to place behind the trench lines.

  Brenn sat down on a crate and rolled his shoulders. The ache had settled in. He was proud of his village. When he first arrived in Grainwick, the village had barely a dozen guards and no defenses to speak of. Back then, they hadn’t been ready to stop the brutes from upturning fortifications. They didn’t even have a palisade tall enough to stop the boarlets from climbing over.

  Day by day, for five long years they dug trenches, sharpened spikes, and built fortifications. Sold enough wheat to buy weapons and armor. Together, they had given Grainwick a chance at survival.

  Somewhere in the darkness beyond the palisade, the weird monster that took his arm still lived. Its carapace was similar to a hunter-killer, but it was about ten times the size of one. Those tentacles it had on its back were also a first for Brenn. He wasn’t the most up-to-date with classifying monsters, not anymore, but if there existed a whole tribe of those things, he’d know. So not only was it intelligent, but it was also a singular being. A unique. Just great.

  Brenn tightened his grip on his shield and peered toward the square. The totem pulsed faintly, with red streams of light coiling around it, reaching a sixth of the way to the top. Fifteen hours left of that hell.

  One moment, David was standing at the door, watching the carnage. The next, he had his arms wrapped around his knees, rocking on the floor of the shed, his clammy hands pressed against his ears. He didn’t remember leaving the doorway.

  The monster was gone, but its stare haunted him even when he closed his eyes. Golden strings of light had dispersed into the air from the six corpses it left behind.

  He stared at Mom lying on the floor, but her face blurred and shifted into Marie’s. The bruises on her cheeks were deeper, darker, her skin paler and tighter. David dug his fingers into his legs to stop their trembling.

  “I’m sorry,” he croaked. “Forgive me!” He dragged himself to her and clutched at her fur blanket.

  The ever-present prickling of mana started to fade. The cracks in the walls began to glow; faint streaks of red haze seeped through, pushing back the oppressive darkness. The sight of the world bathed in red, so unsettling the day before, this time brought reprieve. The Long Night was over.

  The door to the shed burst open, and Dad crashed through them. His brigandine was slashed open, his face streaked with dirt and blood. “You’re alive,” he said.

  David looked up at him. He had been angry that his dad had left them, but not anymore.

  Dad crossed the shed in two strides and pulled David into a rough embrace. His armor bit into David’s ribs, but he didn’t mind. Then his dad knelt down and hugged Mom. She looked around and groaned.

  David sat back against the wall. His eyes stung, and shame pressed down on him like an anvil. Dad grabbed him by his shoulder, and pulled him closer. Mom sat up and tried to wrap her arms around them. The warmth of their bodies enveloped David. He clenched his fists, trying to hold back tears, but the dam burst anyhow.

  David buried his face in their clothes and sobbed. Dad hugged him, shaking too, and David sunk into the warmth. For a moment, nothing else existed outside that warmth. If it were his choice, they would have stayed that way until it was over, but dawn arrived, and Dad had to go help the villagers rebuild. Mom fell back asleep as soon as he left, and David was alone again.

  He stood up to leave, and the brass vial slipped out from his pocket and rolled across the floor. David bent over and picked it up. The reflections of ice and flame danced around his fingers. He didn’t even know what made the vial so important, but it looked powerful. Quite unlike him. That had to change, and soon.