When I finally collected myself enough to look up, the vague blurs had gotten closer. I estimated it would only be minutes now until our lines met. Ever so faintly, I could hear shouts in a language I’d never heard before over the stone being shaped. When a loud snap followed by a gruesome crunch echoed around me, I looked over to see a piece of stone had snapped off from the wall. And a team of ten laborers now worked to get the stone back in place and off the corpse of one of their fellows.

  Behind the laborers, I could see Mika working on his runes. Half of the right wall shone with an azure light from the freshly imprinted runes. Looking away from the walls, I turned to see both Ellena and Nora caught up in their own pre-battle traditions.

  Nora had a small carving I couldn’t see clearly held in front of her and whispered to it. Ellen, just a line behind me, somberly stared into an open locket she’d pulled from beneath her armor. Neither of them looked like they were on the verge of a panic attack, which was I good sign. I still had minutes before the goblins reached us, so I bowed my head to perform my own pre-battle ritual.

  Grace Mother, hallowed be your name. Your child beseeches you in your Endless Grace to hear his words.

  I have been away from the Great Home for some weeks now, and my grace has faltered. In hubris and anger, I have acted, and in recompense the Great Cycle has brought me pain. May my follies be observed so that those who come after will learn from my mistakes.

  I regret that my prayer today is not selfless. I stand on the edge of battle and invite You and your daughters to look through my eyes so you may know in full what it is I face.

  As soon as I invited Ylena and her daughters through, I felt her presence surround me. The stinging cold of winter and the gentle reprise of spring tinged the feeling, so I knew Iona and Delia had come as well.

  We face a foe many times our number, a hastily constructed wall our only aid, and my party and I lead the defensive effort. I ask that you grant me the courage to stand tall and the wisdom to know when to bend.

  Should I fall here today…

  Even though I wasn’t speaking, my next words caused a lump to form in my throat and I had to swallow before I could continue.

  I beg that Helena be taken care of, and I beg that should I fall she be told stories of her dad. If I cannot be there for her in person, please, let me be there for her in story.

  Grace Mother, hallowed be your name, your child thanks you for your endless Grace.

  With the ritualistic goodbye, I closed the prayer and connection to Ylena. Now was the time she could actually respond should she choose to do so. I only wondered if she would briefly because within seconds, I saw the leaves and vines carved into the interior of my helmet’s eye mask manifest with actual leaves of brilliant gold and purple. I knew that if I looked at myself, similar manifestations of her presence would surround me.

  Ylena’s first reaction to my prayer wasn’t an answer. Instead, I felt spiritual projections of her hands lovingly grab onto my chin. Like a mother grabs onto her child to look at them. A phantasmal thumb wiped away a tear I hadn’t known I shed.

  “Know that you will always have my guidance, know that no matter your follies I am proud of you, my child.”

  Ylena was hundreds of kilometers away from here, but even still I could hear her voice as if she stood next to me. In the pause between her words, I almost asked about Helena again, but a kiss against my forehead interrupted me.

  “Helena is not only my second chosen, but the first-born daughter of my very first chosen. She is like a granddaughter to me. No matter what happens on this field today, she will always know love. However, should you fall, I will ensure the sapling knows how much her father loved her.”

  Ylena’s reassurance was a balm that calmed me considerably and I smiled towards where I felt her presence to be. Once more swallowing a lump that had formed in my throat.

  “Thank you.” I said out loud.

  I felt her hand on my face recede, and a colder presence ruffle my hair before it too was gone.

  “Make me proud.”

  With that, Ylena’s presence fade fully and I looked up to the approaching hoard of goblins. I was wrong about how long it would take for them to reach us, because they’d closed enough for me to make out the details of their forms and see that each member along the frontline wore the same uniform. Though they were still minutes away from reaching a safe distance to charge us.

  Their slowness saved our lives because the laborers to my right still had a single carriage to cover in stone and Mika still worked his way down the wall, carving runes as he went. My best guess was that by the time the goblins reached us, Mika would only have eighty percent of the left wall covered. I had to hope that either Mika sped up his work or the spiress’ casters could hold off the goblins long enough for him to finish.

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  The thought of one of our walls being destroyed before Mika finished reinforcing it caused some nerves to return. To calm down, I started the War Hymn early, letting the wordless song wash over me, the slow melody helping to even out my breathing.

  ~~~***~~~

  By the time the laborers finished the last wall, Mika and his helpers were the only people on our side still moving about. The rest of the people here had fallen into a pre-battle stillness. It was suffocating. The silence echoed off the cavern walls. Even Helle finished screaming every order she could.

  The only sounds to break the stillness were the breathing of a hundred and seventy-five people, the melodic rhythm of my humming, and the tapping of Mika’s chisel.

  ~~~***~~~

  The goblins were close enough now for me to make out the detail of their armor. Filigree and heraldry now visible. This was it, the quiet before the storm. In maybe a minute, the goblins would close enough to charge and the battle would finally begin.

  What puzzled me was the lack of anxiety on any of the faces I could see through their open-faced helms. All of them were stoic, no one in their line shook or trembled, none looked even close to breaking. What’s worse was that like the aranae around me, the goblins seemed content to wage their war in silence. Even their terrible instrument fell silent as they drew near.

  Whether they were small raids or massive open field assaults, battles in my experience were always loud. Each side screaming or singing to motivate themselves. The sight of the goblins approach in almost complete silence grated on my nerves so I did something to combat that.

  Picking up my shield from where it rested against my leg, I beat my hammer against the wood in a slow but insistent rhythm in time with the War Hymn. As I focused on the beat, I let the world fall away. Slowly my worries and fears subsided, but even those that remained were scoured from me when I felt an impossibly cold hand latch itself onto the back of my neck.

  Heat drained from my body, the ache in my tailbone, the soreness in my feet, the slight blister from one of the new armor plates; all sensation fell victim to the Howling Winds as they swept through me. All that remained to me was my gap in the wall and the hundreds strong army in front.

  All of them wore the same armor dyed a specific shade of black, and though their weapons varied, they tended towards bladed weapons.

  I focused on the sound of my hammer and tried to replace the silent surroundings with memories of standing in formation with thousands of people, all of us humming the War Hymn as we slammed our weapons into our shields. The rhythm was always infectious and when multiplied by thousands of people, in became insatiable. It was a hound pulling at its leash during a hunt, a pride of lions stymied by the forest, a pack of wolves circling an injured bison. It called for violence and, surrounded by tension and silence as I was, I heard the call clearly.

  More of those terrible string instruments rang out as the goblins called their charge. They neared, ever closer, ever faster. This was it.

  The first goblin neared, a young hoblite, the kind who pierced their chests. He smiled at me as he charged, his posture open and guard down. My hammer collapsed his throat before he even raised his sword. I stepped slightly to the side to allow the overconfident fool to fall without impeding my movement and the sound of a skull being crushed and a body dragged rewarded me.

  The next was more cautious. Her long arms allowed her to dart her short spear into places a human could never reach. I traded blows with her briefly, forced to allow her several stabs at my shield. But the charge must continue. When her comrades pushed forwards, she took a corrective step.

  I capitalized on the slight error and drove the spike of my hammer through her armor and into the side of her knee. She dropped in a ragged scream of agony that was silenced by the eight-inch dent I left in the top of her helmet.

  An orc so fat he’d outgrown what must have been standard issue armor replaced the unfortunate. Half of his rotund stomach left completely exposed. A thin silk gambeson its only protection. To give the fool some credit, he carried a massive tower shield the size of an inn door.

  I taught the orc the value of proper armor when I side stepped a shield bash, spikes of mana protruding from the shield face, barely missing the [Brood Guard] to my left, and slammed the hammer spike into his stomach. I felt the spike of my hammer pierce several layers of resistance, some magical. Several more broke when I tore the hammer out in an arc.

  My shoulder screamed in protest at the motion, but when my hammer re-emerged from the orc’s stomach, it carried dozens of feet of intestine. I ended the brief fight by driving the spike back into the collapsed orc’s neck, planting his intestines back into the fresh wound.

  The scent of the massive man’s offal should have brought me to my knees gagging, but Iona’s grip on my neck kept me from any revulsion at either the scent of the orc’s gruesome death. By the time the orc finished dying, a mist gathered around the people, constantly being pushed about by the stirring of feet.

  The occasional goblin had some skill or spell that kept the mist at bay, but whenever they died, the mist rushed to fill the gap. I saw the first of Nora’s mist constructs when the next goblin to run at me had a chunk of his shin, armor and all, torn from the bone. The pale white of his leg exposed to the Under Tunnel’s stale air.

  The initial clash continued for several minutes. Bodies piled up in the gap in front of our line. Laborers constantly dashing in, some using skills to get there faster. Whenever they could, they grabbed a body and cleared the space for the combatants.

  The goblins hesitated when the pile of bodies turned into a macabre barricade, but the press of bodies was too much. Those at the front constantly pushed forwards even though the charge stalled. It was a meat grinder for the thirteen of us charged to hold this gap. Ellen and I switched several times, both of us only getting a minute’s rest before our lines swapped back in. I thought the fools might continue to throw themselves at us, but it wasn’t to be.

  That terrible instrument pulled a long, sorrowful cord, and sounded the goblin retreat.

  Not all fled. A dozen of them, not clad in armor but textiles, stayed and hesitated briefly as they approached the corpse piles and tried to drag away the dead. I didn’t stop them, having no idea what arrangements were in place for the collection of the deceased.

  I learned there was no such agreement when Helle called something in her native language and the casters behind us launched spells at the scavengers. They killed three during the hasty retreat, the other nine all having skills of some kind that kept their hides intact.

  At the sight of their retreating backs, Helle called something different, and the casters stopped. The teams of laborers who’d dashed in and out of the fray to drag off corpses, both goblin and aranae, rushed back out.

  Each of them dragged behind them a corpse and set about organizing the bodies into a horrific dry-stone wall. When the laborers rushed back out, their carapaces stained a dull brown with blood and shit, a chest-high wall of bodies bridged the gap. [Brood Guard] corpses topped the bloody display, the laborers having artfully set their legs to keep the rest of the corpses from falling out of place.

  While the laborers built the wall, the black hand transforming the sight into nothing more than a curiosity, I took the time to inspect a tear in the right shoulder of my armor. One goblin managed to slip past my defense with a spear and had it not been for the craftsmanship of the people back home, I’d have a bone deep gash.

  Instead, a deep line gash and several destroyed scales on the shoulder of my armor were the battle’s only casualty for me. While I worked my shoulder trying to find how much the new injury limited my range of motion, I manually took stock of the other minor injuries I’d taken.

  None of them registered to me as anything other than a dull ache where pain should be through Iona’s touch, so I doubted I’d need healing any time soon. While I wanted to inspect all of them in detail for anything that might jeopardize my duty, I didn’t have time.

  Beasts I’d never seen before that emerged from within the reorganizing goblin lines. Fully armored riders sat regally upon their backs.