by Dean Henegar
Behind the ruins of the gate, the Shield Brothers formed a line three ranks deep. Aristides curved his line to anchor each end to the northern wall, creating a pocket that would hold whatever foe broke through the barricade and entered the city. His line required 140 of his soldiers. The remaining sixty formed up across the main road between the first of the destroyed buildings. Directly behind the barricade was a squad of Bhurke’s mercenaries with ranged weapons. They would give the impression that the barricade was lightly defended and draw the enemy into the Shield Brothers’ spears.
“Even numbers, form up on the north wall,” Ty shouted. The enemy wasn’t pressuring the other walls yet, and he needed as much ranged firepower as he could gather. Another fifteen scouts hustled over to join his force, carrying their crossbows as well as small bundles of javelins Ty had pilfered from the nearby garrison. His scouts’ crossbows were great for long range, but they were slow to reload.
“Light ’em up,” Ty yelled as the first of the conscripts entered crossbow range. A wave of bolts streaked out, seeking the unarmored conscripts. Fifteen of the attackers fell, their bodies tripping and slowing the tightly packed formation behind them. A few more fell as the dwarves on the northern wall fired their repeater crossbows a second time and the mercenaries behind the barricade added their own fire.
The morale bar on the conscripts dropped lower, the mounting casualties overcoming their fear of their own army. Their morale was pushed over the edge when they reached the roadway a hundred yards in front of the wall, an area that was liberally strewn with traps and tripwires. The forces that had stayed behind at the crossroads had nearly a week to prepare for the enemy. Part of that preparation was a slew of small pits designed to catch and break legs as well as some larger pits lined with spikes.
A cry came from the front ranks of the conscripts as they fell prey to the traps. The larger pits swallowed six or seven at a time while the smaller pits were just large enough for a leg to fit in. The second crossbow volley sealed the conscripts’ fate. They had finally reached their limit; the constant casualties and abuse pushed them over the edge and their morale bar reached into the negative range. Their morale indicator went from the white flag of a broken unit to a white flag with a skull on it. As Ty concentrated on the symbol, the system displayed what it meant.
A morale indicator with a skull represents a shattered unit. While a broken unit may reform if rallied by strong leadership, a shattered unit cannot be reformed and will continue to flee until it reaches safety. Trying to rally a shattered unit may cause the soldiers to mutiny in their panic to escape. Over time, a shattered unit will recover, but only if it is in a safe area and has access to supplies and a place to rest.
Ty didn’t have an exact count, but it looked like over a thousand of the conscripts were fleeing from the fight. The occasional bat or lurker would chase one down for a meal, hastening their pace. He had taken out the least effective of the enemy formations, so it was time to go to work on the next. Following behind the initial attack was the block of troggs that charged through the fallen conscripts.
While the conscripts had thinned the initial layer of traps, they had only scratched the surface of what the defenders had placed. First, a few of the troggs fell, hitting the traps the conscripts had managed to miss. A few casualties became dozens as the troggs reached a fresh—and denser—layer of traps. Heedless of their losses, the troggs continued toward the barricade of old doors and wooden scraps that covered the fallen northern gate. To add to the troggs’ troubles, Ty, Quimby, and his men atop the wall continued to fire as quickly as they could reload, no longer waiting to volley their fire.
Despite their mounting casualties, the troggs pushed forward. When they closed to within fifty yards, Ty and the other soldiers reached down to grab the javelins at their feet and then hurled them at the enemy. Their range was less than that of the crossbows, but their rate of fire was nearly double. The troggs’ numbers had been cut down to half by the time they reached the makeshift barricade. Wasting no time, the troggs began to batter away with their clubs, easily smashing the flimsy defenses.
The barricade was there to entice the enemy, not stop them. As the first small section of the barricade collapsed, the Azure Blades mercenary squad fell back, the Shield Brothers opening a gap to allow them through. Ty had to admit, the Shield Brothers were good. Once their allies had passed through, shields and spears snapped back into position, closing their lines. Some of the troggs slipped through the narrow gap in the barricade as the remainder worked to clear a larger opening. Howling war cries were silenced as the troggs who had broken through saw what awaited them. A wall of heavily armored Shield Brothers stood in their path, eight-foot-long spears ready to skewer anyone foolish enough to approach. The troops of the second rank placed their spears over the shoulders of their comrades, ready to kill any that made it past the spears of the first rank.
Confusion reigned in the enemy force as the barricade came down and more troggs pushed forward, only to be met by the troggs who were trying to stay away from the wall of deadly spears. Pressure built as more and more troggs piled in, forcing their way toward an enemy they couldn’t see yet. The troggs trying to retreat were pushed inexorably toward the line of spears. As they neared, the spears thrust forward, the large bladed tips inflicting horrifying wounds. Troggs at the rear continued to push forward, oblivious to the fact that they were shoving their fellow troggs to their deaths.
It was a slaughter; the Shield Brothers didn’t take a single casualty when the last of the troggs spotted what awaited them and broke. The whole time, they were under fire from the crossbows and javelins of Ty and the others atop the wall. Of the five hundred troggs that started the assault, fewer than a hundred made it back to their lines.
“That was just brutal, Ty. Think they’ll try it again?” Quimby asked. It looked like the enemy was spreading out; formations of troops moved to envelop the ruined town. The impatient imp wasn’t going to wait for the ruins to be encircled. Ty could see another block of troggs—a thousand this time—begin to advance toward the ruined northern barricade. The troggs were backed by a line of a dozen large creatures. They looked like a tall and skinny version of an ogre, only greener and with more warts. The system informed him that they were trolls.
“Trolls coming in. Ready some torches!” Quimby shouted down.
“Why?” Ty asked.
“They’re trolls. You can take them down with weapons like normal, but they’ll regenerate quickly unless they’re burned with fire or acid. Unless you have a bunch of acid stashed somewhere, we’ll need fire,” Quimby said.
“Hey, I’m not a gamer. How was I supposed to know that?” Ty replied.
“Sorry, I forgot about that. Guess it’s good you got me hanging around to help with monster strategy,” Quimby replied.
“I was going to feed you to the troggs, but since you’re being useful, we’ll keep you around for a little bit longer,” Ty joked in reply, watching as several of the Shield Brothers brought up torches and started a few small fires behind their line.
“When they get closer, I have a surprise for the trolls, but you’ll need to keep them off my back,” Quimby said, pointing toward the last of the bats, which were now approaching the ruined town.
“Shift fire, take out the bats first!” Ty shouted. The Shield Brothers would have to hold the line without ranged support for a while. There was still a sizeable force of bats, despite the casualties they had endured in the previous skirmishes. As soon as the fliers closed to within crossbow range, they were met with a hail of fire. One of the problems with attacking from the air was the fact that there was no cover available. Every scout, every pathfinder, and a few of the Azure Blades that had ranged weapons were clear to fire. As they descended on the defenders atop the northern wall, a steady stream of dead bats dropped from the sky. Despite their casualties, the bats pressed the attack, diving at the defenders.
The wall itself was a ramshackle affair, a si
mple defensive structure created from wooden logs. While it offered the defenders an elevated firing platform, the walkway at the top of the wall was narrow and rickety, allowing for limited defensive maneuvers. Ty found himself the target of three of the man-sized bats. Hooking his crossbow to his belt, he drew his greataxe and gave it a few practice swings. Quimby and the soldier on the other side of him wisely withdrew a pace to give the fearsome weapon room to work.
Ty had recently acquired this particular axe; his grandson helped him navigate the auction house when he learned about “the pitiful state of his grandfather’s gear.” While the armor was standard Imperium gear that improved as he leveled, a benefit of his class, his weapons were way underpowered. The new axe cost most of the coin Ty had acquired in-game, but he felt it was money well spent. The axe was magically enhanced and came with a variety of gems he could place in the pommel. Depending on which gem was inserted, the axe could take on various properties ranging from enhanced weapon speed to elemental attacks. In this case, Ty inserted a large pearl in the pommel, a gem that made the axe lighter and increased his attack rate. The tradeoff was a slight damage penalty, but the bats weren’t heavily armored enough to make it matter.
The first bats arrived, clawing with their feet while hovering over Ty. He leaped vertically and at the same time activated his Cleave ability. A pair of bats screeched and flapped away, blood draining from their severed legs. They made it only a few yards before crashing to the ground, dead from blood loss. Another bat tried to get an attack in before Ty could recover. The creature had a look of shock on its face as Ty swung the huge weapon backhanded, the head of the axe digging deep into the bat’s chest. With a flick of his wrist, Ty cast the bat’s corpse off his axe and onto the swarming troggs below.
Staying clear of the axe-wielding one-armed half-orc, the bats concentrated on the soldiers. The scouts might have been specialized in ranged combat, but every Imperium soldier was a swordsman. None had shields, but the lorica segmentata armor proved too strong for bat claws to penetrate; the bats could only do damage if they went for an unarmored part of the soldier. Needing some precision in their strikes, the bats had to hover lower than was prudent. Many of them found that the steel used in legion blades was just as strong as that in legion armor.
With the ranged defenders focused on the bats, the troggs pushed past the few remaining traps and entered the city, bravely charging the wall of spears. Being unarmored, save for a thick, leathery hide, the troggs were nearly helpless against the Shield Brothers. Spears met them long before their large clubs could reach their opponents. Bodies piled up as the first ranks of troggs went down and the next rank pushed over the corpses to try and get at their foes.
Most of the time, the troggs were met by a spear from the third rank, but a few were getting through to damage and distract the spearmen. Seeing a few of the gangly trolls pushing their way through the troggs to enter the fight at the front lines, Ty decided to act. Remembering Quimby’s earlier advice, he switched out the pearl in the pommel of his axe for a dark-green emerald. The emerald was flawed and had bits of red and black running through it. Once it was inserted into the pommel, the edge of the blade took on a green color, signifying that it would inflict acid damage. Ty would suffer a small penalty to his attack, but his weapon skill was high enough that the penalty wouldn’t matter.
The bats continued to avoid him as he took a deep breath before leaping down into the mass of troggs and trolls, his axe leading the way.
Chapter 25
Ty landed atop a trogg, his steel-shod boots crushing his hapless target. Activating his Cleave ability, Ty swung his axe at the troggs in front of him. The magically enhanced axe easily cut through tough hide, flesh, and bone. The enchantment on the axe left behind a damage-over-time effect as the acid sizzled in any wound his weapon inflicted. With each swing dropping a trogg, Ty attempted to push his way toward the Shield Brothers’ defensive line. Blows rained upon him and each step was a struggle against the mass of foes. With his health dropping toward the halfway mark, Ty activated his rage ability, gaining a temporary boost to total health and strength.
Pain feedback wasn’t his friend as each enemy blow landed, but Ty continued to swing at the troggs. His momentum slowed, and he wasn’t making any headway; for every trogg that fell, another was always there to take its place. His health dropped to a quarter, and Ty activated one of his daily abilities, Final Fury. With a roar, he felt himself losing control as his fury took over. A heal-over-time effect began to counter the mounting damage as his attack speed doubled. Finally, he was making progress toward the line of spear-wielding mercenaries.
Seeing his predicament, the Shield Brothers to his front pushed hard against the foe, throwing back the troggs between Ty and the line. With a flick of his wrist, Ty decapitated the last trogg blocking him. The head bounced away, acid sizzling along the wound. The shield wall opened to allow him in, then closed right in the face of the troggs trying to exploit the gap. Ty collapsed behind the embattled line of mercenaries, waiting as a debuff from Final Fury ticked down. Powerful for a short time, the ability left him unable to do anything for thirty seconds once it had run its course.
As he waited, he surveyed the battle. The forces on the northern wall were trying to fight off the swarming bats, whose numbers were dropping by the second. Quimby knelt under the protection of two scouts and was aiming at one of the trolls pushing its way toward the front line. He released the arrow, a red glow encompassing it as it flew. The shot was true, and the arrow lodged itself in the shoulder of one of the trolls. An explosion made Ty flinch as the magically enhanced arrow unleashed a blast of fire, crisping the troll and a half dozen of the troggs around it.
One of the other trolls pointed toward Quimby and shouted a harsh command in a language Ty didn’t know. The bats all focused on the halfling, ignoring the blades of the other defenders as they followed the troll’s command. That was an interesting revelation; the trolls were some kind of leader unit, at least for the lesser creatures like bats and troggs. Quimby slung his bow over his back and drew his matching pair of shortswords, trying desperately to keep the grasping bat claws away from him. Quimby and the soldiers around him killed bat after bat, but they kept coming. Missing a thrust, one of the soldiers allowed a bat through. The sharp claws dug into Quimby’s leather armor. Enchantments on the armor kept the claws from penetrating, but they couldn’t stop the powerful grip. Flapping its wings in a blur of motion, the bat pulled the halfling into the air.
The dwarf on the other side of Quimby leaped forward and took a swing at the monster with his pick. With a meaty thump, the pick slammed home, killing the bat. Unfortunately for Quimby, the bat’s grip didn’t release when the creature died. As it dropped onto the mass of enemies below, Quimby was pulled along. Ty watched the halfling struggle and lash out with his blades as he dropped into the swarm of troggs. The troll that had pointed to Quimby earlier pushed its way in, its clawed hand ignoring the sword strikes of the halfling, who was desperately trying to keep the monster away. With a shout of triumph, the troll raised Quimby into the air and took hold of him in both hands.
“Noooo!” Quimby shouted as the troll dug in its claws and pulled. The halfling’s health pool dropped to zero as he was torn in two. The troll looked toward Ty. Realizing that he must have been a leader of the defenders, the monster grinned and ripped a big bite off Quimby’s corpse.
“Sergeant Ty, we have to move back because of the corpses. The line is going to be too thin when we do so,” Aristides advised. Ty could see that if they pulled back again, the line would extend too far, making it only a single rank deep in places. Staying put wasn’t an option, though; the corpses had piled up once again and troggs had started to leap over the top and into the mass of spearmen.
“Fall back to the street! North wall, move back and reinforce the east and west walls!” Ty shouted, his voice booming out over the din of combat. The Shield Brothers executed their withdrawal expertly. With a
final push, the enemy was forced back far enough to allow the Shield Brothers to disengage. The forces left behind opened paths for retreating soldiers who were able to outpace the slower troggs.
Atop the northern wall, Ty’s ranged troops pulled back to reinforce the eastern and western walls. The surviving dwarven pathfinders now descended from the walls, their work done; they would be the first through the escape tunnel. A dozen of the Azure Blades mercenaries ascended the walls to help in their defense. Along the main street, Aristides’s spearmen held the line. The width of the street allowed only twenty men to fight, enabling him to keep a strong force that was three ranks deep, enough to keep cycling fresh troops to the front lines.
Figures appeared over the top of the eastern wall, and Ty’s forces there battled against what looked like a band of pirates complete with cutlasses and even an eye patch or two. On the western wall, a swarm of imps scuttled over, holding small blades in each hand as they hurled themselves at the defenders there. The distinct sound of scorpions firing from the garrison let him know that the southern gate would soon be under pressure as well.
“Form up a line to the south and at each of the cross streets,” Ty said to Aristides. Half the Shield Brothers split off, most forming up to face the southern gate, which was even now shuddering with the blows of . . . something. Two small side streets were also blocked by the Shield Brothers, their numbers now stretched to the limit. Ty waited for the Shield Brothers to get into place before calling back the surviving forces on the wall. His scouts and the mercenaries who had joined in the defense of the walls climbed down and disappeared into numerous passages that had been hidden among the rubble of the town. Several of the enemy tried to follow, only to become lost in the maze of ruined buildings or find a blade in their faces as the retreating soldiers executed ambushes.
