The third hour began with a suffocating silence.
A mountain of goblin corpses choked the narrow bridge ahead a tangled barricade of green limbs and rusted iron. Beyond it, the chittering had stopped. Only the howling wind and the violent rush of the black river below filled the air.
Percival Kent remained on one knee, his broadsword jammed into the cobblestones just to keep himself upright. His Paladin aura had burned out completely, leaving him shivering in a soaked, blood-heavy tunic. Every breath rattled.
Around him, the five surviving militiamen collapsed against the low stone railings. They were battered, bleeding, and entirely tapped of mana.
Krag slid down the wet stone, teeth bared against the throbbing in his bandaged arm. He looked across at Vane and the three remaining recruits. They looked like ghosts. Their padded tunics were shredded, their eyes hollowed out.
"How long?" one of the boys whispered, his voice cracking as he stared at his own hands. "How long until the mages get here?"
Krag tilted his head back, letting the freezing rain wash the mud from his face. "Two hours. Maybe three."
Another recruit let out a fractured, wet laugh. "Three hours. We didn't even last three minutes before..." He gestured vaguely to the carnage blocking the bridge. "I'm a baker's apprentice. I just wanted the silver to buy my mother a new hearth."
"Keep your voice down," Vane muttered, knuckles white around the hilt of his sword. His eyes were locked on the top of the corpse wall. "They're too quiet."
"They don't need to plan anything!" the baker's boy snapped, hot tears mixing with the rain on his cheeks. "Look at the Commander! He's dying! We're all dead!"
"Shut your mouth!" Krag snarled, forcing himself to his feet. "You stand your ground! You hold the line, do you hear me!?"
Kent raised a trembling hand. "Quiet."
The men froze.
Kent wasn't looking at the barricade in front of them. He was staring at the stone railings.
A wet rhythm echoed from the darkness below. Scrape. Scrape. Scrape. Claws and rusted iron gouging the wet masonry. The goblins hadn't retreated. They had crawled down the muddy riverbanks and were scaling the bridge's mossy underside to flank them.
"The railings!" Kent roared, his voice tearing through his ruined throat. "Form the circle!"
They moved on blind survival instinct. Kent, Krag, Vane, and the three rookies slammed their backs together, forming a tight, outward facing ring of jagged steel.
A dozen goblins vaulted the railings, rusted cleavers glinting in the dark.
"Let them choke on us!" Vane bellowed. He parried a cleaver, drove his boot into a goblin's knee with a sickening crack, and buried his sword in its throat.
Beside him, Krag fought like a cornered wolf. With his left arm useless from poison, he used his shoulder to absorb the goblins' momentum, hacking wildly with his right. The recruits swung their blades in frantic, desperate arcs. One screamed as a goblin tackled him, but before the creature could plunge its dagger, Kent's broadsword sheared through the rain, decapitating the beast in a single, heavy swing.
Within two agonizing minutes, the center of the bridge was a meat grinder. The flanking party was wiped out. The men stood panting in the freezing rain, surrounded by a fresh ring of mutilated bodies.
Clearing their backs had only bought them seconds.
A new sound cut through the howling wind. Not the chaotic chittering of a feral horde.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
The main horde had breached the barricade of their own dead. Hundreds of yellow eyes pierced the dark, rain swept night. But they didn't charge.
The goblins slammed heavy, interlocking iron shields together, forming an impenetrable curved wall that spanned the entire width of the bridge. As the metal locked, a jagged, tar like energy crackled to life. It webbed across the iron, visually welding the shields together into a solid wall of dark magic. From behind the barrier, two rows of rusted spears extended forwardevery tip glowing with that same toxic, supernatural black energy.
Kent narrowed his eyes. He pulled a steel dagger from his belt, squeezed his eyes shut, and forced the absolute last drop of his golden mana into the blade until it glowed faintly. With a sharp flick of his wrist, he threw it squarely at the center of the shield wall.
Ping.
The dagger didn't even scratch the iron. The dark magic flared, deflecting the blade instantly and sending it clattering to the wet stone.
Kent lowered his broadsword, his breath pluming in the air. He was empty. His men had no armor to survive a thrust from those weapons.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
The Goblin Phalanx began a slow, synchronized march forward, stepping over the corpses.
"Step back," Kent ordered, his voice hollow but steady. "We fall back. Make them fight for every inch of this bridge. We do not die until the sun comes up."
The six exhausted humans retreated inch by bloody inch.
Suddenly, the rhythmic banging stopped.
The interlocking shields parted just a fraction. Through the narrow, dark gaps, a dozen crude shortbows were thrust into the rain. The nocked arrows pulsed with concentrated black mana. At this point-blank range, they didn't aim for the men's chests. They aimed at the ground.
"Legs! Protect your"
A vicious volley of black-fletched arrows shot out, skipping wildly off the wet stone.
One of the recruits screamed as a dark arrow punched directly through his kneecap. The black magic seared his flesh, and his leg buckled. He tried desperately to hop backward, but his boot caught on a severed goblin arm.
With a heavy crunch, the boy slipped, crashing hard onto his back.
"Grab him!" Vane yelled, reaching out.
It was too late. The iron wall marched over him. Three mana-infused spears thrust downward, shearing effortlessly through his padded tunic and pinning him to the cobblestones by his shoulders and gut.
The recruit coughed up a horrific spray of dark blood. But instead of begging, he looked up at the terrifying faces looming over the shields. With a ragged roar, he reached up with his bare hands and grabbed the wooden shafts of the three spears buried in his body. The black mana burned his palms, but he locked his grip, refusing to let the creatures pull their weapons back. His dying act turned his body into a human anchor, completely stalling the left flank of the shield wall.
Watching his brother get butchered in the mud shattered what was left of the baker's apprentice. Realizing that walking backward meant they were all going to die anyway, he dropped both of his swords.
"For the Kingdom!" he shrieked.
Lowering his shoulder, eyes completely feral, he launched into a suicidal sprint directly at the stalled section of the phalanx.
"No, wait!" Krag yelled.
Two mana-infused spears plunged into the charging boy's chest, the black tips bursting out his back. But he didn't stop. Ignoring the fatal magic burning through his veins, he used his remaining physical momentum as a human battering ram.
He crashed violently into the locked shields. The sickening impact of his body weight buckled the metal. The three goblins behind the spears were thrown off balance, tumbling backward into the mud.
The perfect wall of black magic shattered, leaving a gaping, bloody hole in the left flank.
"Do not let his death be for nothing!" Kent roared, his voice cracking like thunder. "Into the breach!"
Krag and Vane didn't hesitate. Fueled by sheer grief and adrenaline, they surged forward into the gap the two boys had just torn open with their lives.
Hour four begins!