Hour four began in the belly of the beast.
Krag and Vane tore into the gaping breach left by the baker's boy, their rusted swords hacking through the freezing rain. They trampled over crumpled iron shields, putting down the stunned goblins who had been knocked into the mud.
For a fraction of a second, the four surviving humans stood inside the shattered enemy lines.
But the victory was an illusion. The sea of yellow eyes snapped toward them. The right flank of the Goblin Phalanx began to pivot, lowering their black-mana spears to cage the men in iron.
"Commander, there are too many!" Vane screamed, parrying a thrust that nearly took his eye out. The dark magic on the spear hissed as it scraped against his blade.
Kent stepped into the breach, his breathing ragged but his mind sharp. He looked at the locked iron shields of the pivoting flank, then down at the sheer drop of the bridge's edge just a few feet to their left. The goblins had bound their shields together with black mana to make an unbreakable wall.
Kent was going to use that against them.
"Do not fight them!" Kent roared, grabbing Vane by the shoulder and shoving him toward the edge of the formation. "Grab the iron! Push them to the river!"
Vane understood. He sheathed his sword, grabbed the jagged rim of the nearest goblin shield with both hands, and braced his boots against the slick cobblestones.
Krag threw his weight beside him. With his left arm hanging uselessly, he slammed his good shoulder directly into the cold iron, ignoring the toxic sting of the black mana sparking against his soaked tunic. Kent and the final, unnamed rookie crashed into the line right beside them.
"Drive!" Kent commanded.
The four men lowered their heads and pushed. Every muscle in their battered bodies screamed. Their leather boots slipped in the thick paste of mud and Greenskin blood.
On the other side, the goblins dug their clawed feet in and pushed back. For a terrifying second, the wall held. The men were locked in a grinding stalemate of physical force against dark magic.
"Push!" the rookie screamed, a blood vessel popping in his eye as he drove his knees forward.
A goblin boot slipped on the wet stone.
The wall shifted an inch. Then a foot.
Because the goblins had magically fused their shields to prevent a breakthrough, they had trapped themselves. When the first goblin was forced backward, it pulled the one next to it, who pulled the next. The unbreakable wall became a fatal liability.
"Send them to hell!" Krag roared, giving one agonizing heave.
The entire left side of the Phalanx buckled, tilting backward over the low stone railing of the bridge. The goblins realized what was happening a second too late. They shrieked, tearing at the black mana binding their shields, but the magic held strong.
Gravity took over.
With a deafening screech of scraping metal, a thirty-foot section of the interlocked shield wall tipped over the edge. Dozens of goblins were ripped from the bridge in a single, catastrophic wave. They plummeted into the pitch-black darkness. There was no splash, only the roaring rush of the river swallowing them whole.
Kent, Krag, Vane, and the rookie collapsed onto their hands and knees at the absolute edge of the bridge, gasping for air. The freezing rain pelted their backs, washing away the thick layer of blood that coated their skin.
They had cleared a massive chunk of the horde without swinging a sword. But as Kent wiped the rain from his eyes, the horror of their reality settled back in.
The bridge was wider now, but it wasn't empty.
Beyond the cleared space, standing atop the original mountain of corpses, a fresh line of goblin archers had taken position. They drew their bone-reinforced shortbows in terrifying unison. Jagged pitch-black mana crackled around the arrowheads, cutting through the night like toxic flares.
This time, the humans had no shields, no barricades, and no breath left to run.
"Move!" Kent roared, grabbing Vane by the tunic to haul him up.
Krag tried to push himself off the slick cobblestones, but his useless arm betrayed him. His boot slipped in the mud, and he fell hard onto his side, exposed to the archers above.
A goblin sniper locked its yellow eyes directly onto the crippled militiaman. The heavy bowstring snapped.
A streak of black magic tore through the rain, aimed straight for Krag's chest. Krag could only raise his right hand, bracing for the burning end.
But the final rookie didn't hesitate.
He didn't have the strength to swing a sword, and his mana was dry, but his legs still worked. With a raw scream, the boy launched himself across the wet stone, tackling Krag squarely in the ribs just a fraction of a second before the projectile hit.
Thwack.
The heavy, black-fletched arrow punched through the rookie's back, the jagged arrowhead bursting cleanly out the front of his collarbone.
The kinetic force of the shot threw the boy off Krag and sent him skidding across the cobblestones. The dark magic immediately began to sear his flesh, turning the veins in his neck a necrotic black.
"No!" Krag scrambled to his knees, ignoring his screaming muscles as he grabbed the boy by his shredded tunic.
Vane and Kent rushed over, forming a human shield around them as another scattered volley of arrows skipped harmlessly off the stone.
The rookie was choking, his eyes wide and panicked as he stared up at the stormy sky. Krag pressed his hand desperately against the gaping exit wound, but the black mana had already done its work. The boy's chest heaved once, a violent shudder wracking his small frame, and then he went still.
Krag knelt in the freezing rain, his hand stained with the boy's blood. He didn't scream. He didn't cry. He just stared at the lifeless face of the last recruit.
Six boys had followed them onto this bridge. Not a single one of them would see the sunrise.
"He saved me," Krag whispered, his voice hollow.
"He died a soldier of the Kingdom," Kent rasped, vibrating with a cold finality. He reached down, gripping Krag by the shoulder and pulling him to his feet.
Vane didn't say a word. He just picked up his chipped, rusted sword from the mud and turned to face the mountain of goblin corpses.
It was just the three of them now. Percival Kent. Krag. Vane. Three men, stripped of their armor, their magic, and their hope, staring down an endless tide of black-mana Greenskins.