The hobgoblin was pacing back and forth as though agitated. No doubt it was plotting the downfall of the village and while it had lost most of its fodder goblins, it had also severely weakened most of the people on the inside. The large number of much bigger, more professional-looking goblin warriors surrounding the hobgoblin commander said that it had not yet committed its best fighters. Frankly, Ryan didn’t expect the village to survive another attack, hence why he was peeking out the open gateway and watching the large group of goblins as their leader pondered what to do. Clearly night was when they preferred to attack. It gave them the advantage, considering they could likely see in the dark and the humans couldn’t. Ryan looked over his haggard group of fighters. This was as best as he was going to be able to pull off.

  “All right, let’s do this,” he said, pushing the gate fully open and walking out onto the field beyond the walls. The hobgoblin leader turned its attention toward him and tilted its head as though confused. To be fair, this idea was either brilliant or suicidal. The next few minutes would tell.

  Ryan’s crew grouped up as they all exited the village, raising their shields and moving forward into something that looked like an armored tortoise. Ryan wanted to call it a testudo, but that was probably the wrong Latin word. The point was, there were shields covering every gap possible and spears sticking out. Maybe it was less like a turtle and more like a sea urchin. Regardless, all the shields were pointed toward the archer goblins because that was the obvious long distance threat. Said goblins were picking themselves up off the ground and reorganizing themselves into whatever formations were dictated by their commanders. It didn’t take long before they were all firing. The hail of arrows started raining down, creating small thuds on the wood of the shields, along with the occasional ping when it hit a shield boss, and the occasional swear as an arrow made its way through a gap and nearly—or actually did—hit someone.

  The group continued moving forward toward the goblin fighters, who were in turn putting themselves together into their own formation. The hobgoblin continued to stare as though confused, as if looking for the trick and not finding it.

  Someone tripped, and the whole unit had to stop until he got back up, narrowly avoiding a hail of small arrows. A loud thud rang out behind the shields, followed by an “Oh shit!” that sounded a lot like fear and not pain. Ryan looked over to find a larger arrow shaft sticking out of his shield, its point having missed the guy’s hand by only a few inches, and stopping in front of his face by only a few less. Ryan looked through the gaps in the shields at the archers and eyed the big one. Then he returned his gaze back over the group of fighters and the hobgoblin, still standing there waiting.

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  “Slight change of plans,” Ryan said.

  Ryan altered the course of his group, further confusing the hobgoblin. To him, it must look like Ryan and his group of stupid humans were orienting themselves to be in the exact worst place to fight, with the archers at their backs and the fighters up front. The sudden change in tactics may have actually gotten the group closer than Ryan had originally hoped.

  “After the next volley, break for the archers and slaughter as many as possible,” Ryan said, just before the next hail of arrows came. They were now close enough that each one pounded into the shields, sticking their pointed tips through the wood, their shafts protruding out the front. There were half a dozen curses of pain as some of the projectiles made it through the gaps, and then came the heavier thump of a bigger arrow going through a shield and eliciting a wet scream from someone. The group broke and started charging, leaving behind whoever had been hit by the large arrow, who was likely on the ground dying. The human archers dropped their shields and swiveled around, firing their last seven arrows at the largest goblin on the field.

  Ryan was not the fastest person in the group, and as such he was not the target of the largest goblin archer's arrows. It had clearly panicked, missing its first shot, which flew past the group rapidly gaining on it. Instead of fleeing like its smaller brethren, it stood its ground and took another shot, dropping the lead person and then succumbing to the spear points. The smaller ones kept fleeing to the forest. It was good news if they kept running. Bad news if they got to the trees, turned around, and started firing. The human archers had apparently done their job well, taking out the larger hobgoblin. The rest of the goblin fighters seemed to be arguing with each other and looked to be pretty close to fighting themselves.

  This gave Ryan time to patch up the one injured guy who was not dead—at least good enough to be moved back to the village and set before Ingrid—as well as giving the other villagers time to collect some of the dropped goblin arrows and bows. About the time the goblin fighters figured out who was in charge, their new leader was instantly turned into a pincushion, causing the rest of them to also flee.

  You've reached war leader level 29.

  “Oh, fuck off,” Rrian said as he dismissed the notification. He watched the other villagers cheering and shouting insults after the fleeing goblins. As much as he wanted to join in their enthusiasm, their next task was going to be counting the dead. The only thing Ryan could really do was let out a tired sigh.

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