[Deadeye Level 24!]

  [Skill – Quivershield gained!]

  [Skill – Barb-Bound Bastion gained!]

  [[Skill Augmentation - Quiverburst (Barb-Bound Bastion) gained!]

  [Cutterwaul Fighter Level 26!]

  [Skill – Drag Cut gained!]

  [Skill – Muted Steps gained!]

  [Verseblade Level 27!]

  [Skill Improvement – Piercing -> Enhanced Piercing Strikes gained!]

  [Skill – Dirge to the Fallen gained!]

  [Skill - Lesser Endurance gained!]

  Sirrochon’s eyelids cracked as he forced them open, dirt-encrusted hands brushing flecks of dried blood away. The sky overhead was dark, lit briefly every few seconds by a flash of fire or ribbon of silver or buzzing energy in one of a hundred different colours. The din of battle was all around. Everything hurt.

  How long had he been out for?

  He managed to lever himself into a sitting position as the last memories before he’d blacked out came rushing back, and a few feet away he saw a familiar body laid out, untended, sprawled where she’d fallen, sword still sticking out of her chest.

  She wasn’t the only one.

  Behind her, the body of an allagi lay, throat cut, eyes staring lifelessly across the hilltop, and to the right, an adventurer with two holes the size of his fist through her torso.

  Do I know her? Wasn’t she retired? Istani?

  The fog of unconsciousness was slow to burn away, but as it did Sirro realised where he was and who surrounded him.

  Twelve adventurers - no, eleven adventurers and a middle-aged warrior he didn’t recognise encircled the dead and half a dozen wounded. Leaping Mist and Fodrin were still out cold, or worse.

  He struggled to get to his feet, and then a second later a hand helped him up, and he found himself looking into the sorrowful and terrified eyes of Marie.

  Wasn’t she in jail?

  With a mental shake, he tried to force his overstressed and flagging brain to focus on the situation through the ringing in his ears.

  Another flash.

  Embris leapt into the air, the skin of the genasi glowing red as she hurtled herself straight into the path of a {Fireball} heading for the centre of the group. Rather than burning up, the [Fireblade Spearwoman] caught it on the tip of her weapon and redirected it straight up into the night sky where it burst into a vibrant orange bloom that failed to even register as hot over existing summer night’s heat.

  Closer to him was a recent acquaintance, but the armoured figure of Dusty Brow was still standing resolute in defence of him and his team, or what remained of it, shoulder-to-shoulder with a barely-mobile Eldun. As his eyes scanned the mass of bodies, he watched her cover for the ailing [Sentinel], her shield coming up with enough force to knock a charging [Soldier] off his feet, and then with an audible crack the feet of the man and one just behind him were crushed by the butt of her spear.

  Roars and screams surrounded him as he felt for the hilt of his sword and found nothing.

  The defenders were pulled back into as tight a circle as they could, with the few that could stand in the centre hurling improvised missiles out into the mass of foes from the southern lands. Some of the people around him were his peers - adventurers with a solid reputation - but even in his concussed state and amidst overwhelming grief he picked out the three figures standing in defence of them, without which they would have been overrun in minutes.

  First was the unfamiliar woman, with a sword as long as he was tall. A flamberge? She seemed to have some sort of animated puppets that leapt out of her armour and darted out to fill gaps in the circle, or hurled themselves to wrap around the foe. They were made of… paper?

  The second was a familiar face, and he knew just how dangerous Chiritta could be. Even if she lacked the weapons and equipment to qualify for Gold rank the squirrel beastkin was level 37, and if she didn’t stand in the line, she was doing more than almost anyone else to keep the danger at bay as she darted around the battlefield, launching herself off her staff at soldiers’ heads, bounding off helmets with swift kicks to faces, and vaulting into gaps to lay about with rapid blows before dancing away, ruining their formations.

  Doing more than almost anyone else, because there was one person visibly more fearsome and more dangerous than her.

  [Guildmaster] Thror held down an entire section of the hilltop alone, the [Soldiers] facing him unwilling to charge in and lose more of their men, instead occupying his attention with long spears and missiles, the dangerous ones of which he batted out of the air with contemptuous ease whereas the ones too weak to register he simply allowed to bounce off his mane and armour as though they were no more than flowers thrown by adoring crowds.

  A line of [Soldiers] crashed into the adventurers behind him, and the shouts of panic brought him to his senses.

  With his mind finally beginning to clear, leaving him with just the pain of the wounds he’d taken, both physical and otherwise, he realised Marie was speaking to him.

  —

  Fire blossomed overhead and Marie covered herself as she tried to get Sirrochon’s attention, but the [Verseblade] just stared around the chaos of the battlefield as if in a trance.

  An arrow zipped past his head close enough to ruffle his hair, but he didn't even flinch.

  “Sirro. Can you still fight? Or let people know where we are? There are more coming but I do not know how long they will be.”

  A pause in the fighting to her left signalled something else was coming, and she threw herself flat and covered her head as another assault of razor-sharp streams of sand sailed over the ranks of [Soldiers] and blasted the adventurers like a miniature sandstorm. Only the sacrifice of a handful of Lady Kypria’s paper warriors protected the people around her from having their skin flayed from their bodies.

  The enemy [Mage] was terrifying.

  Scraps of shredded paper fell like snowflakes and Marie pulled herself back to her feet once more, checking Hanen wasn't mortally wounded as the harekin rushed back to stem the oncoming tide of [Soldiers], before turning back to a blank-faced Sirrochon.

  Could he hear her? Had the death of Quartz and Chuffa and Dap broken him? She hadn't had anything to cover the tabaxi [Bladesinger]’s body with. Or was he more injured than she'd first thought? Could he hear anything? Damn, there were no healing potions left.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “We need to do something Sirro. We are not going to last much longer.”

  Scrabbling around on the floor for one of the larger chunks of the paper warriors that had drifted down, she took a finger covered in blood and mud and scrawled a single word.

  Help!

  Her hands trembled as she worked, but a second later...

  “[Paperwing Courier]: Merchant Gilded Paw of Wayfarrow.”

  The origami dove made it less than twenty feet before it was caught in the wake of a warrior’s Skill and cut from the sky, an unnoticed casualty in the night.

  “Please Sirrochon. We can’t even run. There are too many of them and too many of us are wounded.”

  His head turned, uncomprehending, but just as she thought he was in shock, he finally met her gaze.

  “Marie.” His voice was cracked and hoarse. “You all came.”

  Her heart fluttered in a brief moment of relief amongst the madness.

  “And more are coming too, but we need to hold on until then, or let them know where we are. Can you fight?”

  She picked up a broken spear haft and hurled it at the head of a gaunt, toad-like [Soldier] leaping towards Algar, making the creature flinch and giving the [Hunter] enough time to adjust his spear to take it through the chest.

  It hopped back, but its place was taken by another armoured figure.

  There just weren’t enough adventurers. Not to face down these numbers. As soon as a soldier took a bad blow they retreated to the back lines and fresh faces appeared. They’d killed a few, but most were just injured.

  Sirrochon was fumbling on the ground as she turned back, and she worried he’d taken another hit in the seconds she looked away, but when he straightened up he was holding a sword he hadn’t had a moment before, and his voice was hollow.

  “I can still fight, Miss [Scout]. I’ll make them bleed before we’re through.”

  For a moment he just breathed, hands clenched to fists at his side, eyes closing, head bowed. He muttered, and once more she was sure he was concussed or worse. Then she heard him muttering almost too quiet to hear over the chaos of furious combat.

  “...or you. D…d the o… Yo….ot be f...ten. [Dirge to the Fallen]...”

  Then his head rose, and his eyes opened, and a fell light shone from them as he began to chant, his voice resonating out, threading through the din of battle.

  “Cut too soon, their blades lie broken,

  Where once they sang, words left unspoken.”

  A power gripped her as she heard the words.

  “In battle lost, 'gainst cursed foe,

  Wonder fades, giants laid low…”

  Desperate cries from amongst the adventurers began to subside, and in her heart Marie felt a steely determination resolve. Who were these bandit-soldiers to come here and kill her friends? What gave them the right to try and take some of the goodness of this world?

  “...We ride no more 'pon open plain,

  Sacrificial stands to bear our pain.

  No dawn shall break in hearts of friends,

  'Till we stand fast and make amends…”

  Hands tightened on weapon grips, and the wounded around her - Fodrin and Leaping Mist - began to rise and join in the defence once more as the motions of the [Soldiers] arrayed them almost imperceptibly slowed. Sirrochon’s voice rose, surging with fury now as he reached the end of his Skill.

  “...Rest now, sleep well, allayed of fear,

  We'll meet again, when twilight's near.”

  He leapt forwards with a roar, transformed from the pale casualty he’d been minutes before into a grim spectre of vengeance, and the circle of defending adventurers pushed back once more.

  The [Soldiers] activated their own Skills as Sirrochon and the adventurers crashed into them, and outlines blurred and shields glowed or grew as they weathered the onslaught.

  In the few minutes she had, Marie scanned the ground around, fingers frantically grasping at various detritus and discarding it before she found the scraps of paper she wanted and as fast as she could manage, more paperwing messages were flitting off to the north-east.

  This time a couple got through.

  The wren-like alati she still didn’t know the name of went tumbling past, one wing bent at an awkward angle.

  She looked up to see a wall of blades pushing forward, driving Embris and Algar and Napoleon back, and she scrambled to grab a fractured blade as she stood, swinging for a burly mace-wielding man who raised his shield in response, growling something she couldn’t make out over the din of clasing weapons.

  “[Adrenaline Rush]. [Swift Blow].”

  It felt like she’d struck a wall, and the shock of it made her drop her makeshift weapon and stumble back, but as the man swung at her head, Embris' spear flashed out and knocked his blow wide.

  A [Soldier] snarled and, too quick to fully register, his head snapped forward as he headbutted the genasi with a Skill that left her reeling, and one of his comrades leapt into the opening with a sword cut that opened up the [Fireblade Spearwoman]’s side.

  It all happened too quickly for Marie to react to, but as she processed the wound the woman had taken, she felt more than saw Napoleon respond, darting in to clamp his skeletal jaws on the swordsman’s leg, but the man was pulling back to strike again.

  Without thinking, Marie felt the burning rage churning inside her, and activated another Skill.

  [Bonebreaker Charge]

  In an instant, Marie went from reeling back, hand numb, to crashing bodily into the body of the man trying to kill Embris.

  She felt a crunch, and then a white-hot pain overwhelmed the anger in her chest.

  “[Last Minute Switch]!”

  The next thing she knew, she was falling back again, the bodies of Embris and the [Soldiers] suddenly eight and a half yards away, and the dual-wielding figure of Aelind? was there, lashing out with sword and whip, forcing the line back as Embris laid a hand on her wound, the flesh glowing cherry-red and sizzling as it cauterised.

  The fire genasi spared a glance for Marie and darted back to her, placing a hand just below her sternum.

  “[Sear Shut].”

  The sharp ache at the base of her ribs was replaced by a blistering heat. She screamed but Embris kept it up for a second longer.

  “Sorry, but at least you won’t bleed out.” As the red-skinned woman took a moment to catch her breath and check her own wound, she met Marie’s eyes. “You’re outmatched here. Thanks for the assist, but stay in the centre of us if you can; you got us to this point, it’s up to the rest of us now.” Her eyes, determined and deadly, began to glow. “[Emberflame Rage]. [Ignite]!”

  As her body and clothing and weapons began to catch alight, though she showed no reaction to it, the fiery genasi stood, turned, and sprinted back into the fray, exploding with the force of a miniature comet as she struck into the lines of [Soldiers] and crashed through.

  Marie shook from the shock and pain, gathering the scraps of her anger back up to fuel her efforts to move against the suppressing pain and terror of the situation.

  I am not strong enough, but I can help.

  Once more, improvised missiles started flying over the shoulders of her comrades as she hurled every rock she could get her hands on at the massed [Soldiers], doing little more than distracting them where they pressed against one of the weaker adventurers.

  Despite Embris’ sudden charge and Aelind? coming to aid them, Algar was still hard-pressed. The lowest-levelled person in the defensive line, and the only allagi still standing, he couldn’t do more than harass the enemy with his spear, keeping them from surrounding Aelind? on one side and Eldun on the other. Napoleon had lost a rib, and his skull was cracked, but the skeletal hound kept nipping at the heels of anyone who pushed too far in.

  Eldun stumbled, and as a scarred veteran tried to decapitate him with a flashing axe, Marie flicked out a rope she’d kept on her for one specific Skill.

  [Whipbind Pull]

  Eldun scooted back as she pulled him to safety, but the hole he left threatened their position being cracked open and overrun. It needed to be plugged.

  As the [Sentinel] reeled from the pull and sheer exhaustion, two more figures charged into the gap.

  Leaping Mist was missing one of his ears and covered with open wounds, but he sprinted past in silence and lashed out with axes that seemed to hook onto the [Soldiers]’ armour and pull them off-balance.

  Fodrin wasn’t so fast, but he advanced firing makeshift bolts from his crossbow, the few arrows still being loosed at the adventurers curving in the air to thud into the fractured pavise strapped to one arm.

  By the time the beaver-beastkin had reached the front line, Leam was already being pushed back by sheer weight of numbers, but the [Deadeye] set his arrow-ridden pavise into the gap and coughed out a Skill as Leam leapt out of the way.

  “[Quiverburst].”

  The bolts embedded in his shield exploded out in a shower of sharpened stakes, and for a brief moment, a wedge of [Soldiers] were driven back, several reeling with shafts embedded through their limbs, one falling dead as a bolt pierced through his eye and into his brain.

  But the injured simply retreated to let fresh fighters take their place.

  There are too many.

  Despair threatened to overwhelm Marie as she pulled back to the highest point of the hill and forced herself to raise her head and look beyond the immediate clash. To survey the battlefield beyond the hilltop.

  Plenty of the [Soldiers] had taken wounds, but relatively few of them had actually been killed, and they pressed all around.

  We cannot keep this up.

  Even as she watched, the hare-like Hanen that had been defending the ground between Lady Kypria and the retired Omesia took a blow to the head which shattered his Skull. A still-injured part-tabaxi she didn’t know had to throw himself back into the fray, but it was too late for the beastkin.

  And behind the ranks of [Soldiers] arrayed against them, the figure that seemed to be in charge of this army was finally making a move towards the hilltop, climbing until he was next to the [Mage] that continued to pelt them with razor-sharp streams of sand, and a shorter, mousy-looking man who was directing the troops as they entered and left the front lines.

  [Basic Level Analysis]

  Marie’s went cold, the fire of anger guttering and dying as she looked on what she now knew was the highest level person in this battle.

  The highest-levelled person I have ever seen?

  The shorter man was gesturing around to his superior, and then he pointed up to where she was standing.

  Piercing eyes above an aquiline nose and a thin mouth surrounded by a dark, neatly-trimmed beard turned her way. Even from this distance, she saw his lips quirk up, as if he knew she was watching him and was amused. Then she ducked down to break the line of sight she had, heart pounding, as the commander of the army began to move towards her.

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