War waits for no one, not even the divine. Shortly after the Grace Mother retracted her presence, the laborers on the left finished their wall and stepped back to regain mana before they had to fight with the goblin [Clerics] for control over the stone. Now absent half the sound, the goblin instruments loomed over the fort like the wail of a banshee. Bran continued to be the only person on our side actively trying to be loud. His hammer banged against his shield in time with his war hymn.

  It was a relief to watch some of the tension leave his shoulders, but it also saddened Maggie to realize how adept Bran was at cooling pre-battle nerves.

  Maggie watched her party close as the goblin neared. Each had their own way to cope, which she was glad for. Ellen bounced from toe-to-toe. Nora had a tiny figure she hadn’t seen before locked in a white knuckled grip. Bran banged his hammer against his shield while he hummed. Mika, however, didn’t have that. All of his attention had to be focused on his work. She could see the stress of the goblins approaching get to him. His hands shook, his shoulders tensed up to his ears, and even standing, he tapped his heel rapidly against the ground.

  All that tension culminated when a final note sounded and the rapid boom of hundreds of people charging made Mika flinch. His hand slipped, and he broke a rune he’d just finished. His hair fluttered back slightly, singed as the slip broke a rune series he’d just completed and resulted in a blow back.

  Bran screamed, something she’d heard time and again growing up as people psyched themselves up for a dance with death.

  The goblin charge hit and the first attackers got culled like wheat before a scythe. Maggie watched as three species she’d never even seen spar before clashed. Mostly, the kills were mundane, no different than she’d seen on any battlefield in the empire. Though there was the occasional difference.

  At the edge of the frontline, the smallest of the [Brood Guard] impaled both of her front legs through the thighs of the goblin opposite her. The hoblite collapsed in pain and got trampled by the crush of the charge. The woman should have died with her legs stuck in the goblin, but the warrior behind her stepped up and killed the next goblin to give her time.

  “Stupid.” Gunilla spat.

  Maggie didn’t respond as the goblins now at the front hesitated to engage with the people who so quickly cut down their peers. Their fear meant nothing in the face of an entire charge and all who were at the front got pushed into the gap. Now off-balance, the goblins who waited died in short order.

  The whole tactic left Maggie slightly uneasy. From an officer’s point of view, it was viable when they had this great of a numerical advantage. Yet, the waste of lives was terrible and the goblins being cut down could have had their lives spent in far more nuanced assaults.

  “What do you think?” Maggie asked.

  “They’re culling.” Gunilla dismissed.

  “Meaning?”

  “Goblins might breed slow, but far more of their children reach maturity than ours.” Gunilla said with a respect Maggie wouldn’t have expected from someone who’d probably spent her whole life fighting them. “Alas, the Tunnels, as you call them, are not infinite and resources eventually grow scarce.”

  Gunilla paused long enough that Maggie thought she was done, but the woman eventually continued.

  “Their solution is to send their children out for trophies. The weak get culled and the strong get stronger. An elegant solution. It is exactly why there are so many goblins here. The First Oracles have spent months subtly marketing this siege to other tribes as an excellent opportunity to cull the young.”

  Watching as the bodies piled up, Maggie couldn’t stop herself from wondering what the parents of these culled children must think when their child never returns home.

  ~~~***~~~

  Maggie flooded her eyes with mana as Nora’s mist filled the gap between walls. It was always a pleasure to observe as Nora took strands of mana and folded them into high-powered beams to drag through the mist. The constructs tearing flesh and armor, ripping tendons as she passed feet and legs.

  Nora didn’t focus the brunt of her spell on the front line and instead worked it three or four deep. Again, Maggie was impressed both by the skills and the skills her party possessed. Since she’d known Nora, they’d talked extensively about how Nora wanted to develop her spells in the future.

  She’d said she wanted her mist spells to become signatures, and she’d clearly worked her ass off in pursuit of that. Maggie smiled as memories of private lessons given to Nora to help her integrate System designed skills and spells into her own custom-made mist spells.

  ~~~***~~~

  Bodies piled up faster than the support staff on either side could clear them. While an obstacle, the corpses wouldn’t have impeded the goblins too much if it wasn’t for the ranks upon ranks of them pushing to get to the front. The press was quickly turning the gap between walls into a charnel house. The ten who held it executing any and all who stumbled into their new domain.

  Ellen, along with the other [Brood Guard] who made up the second line, stalked along its length looking for any opening that would allow her to attack. She was like one of the water hammers tier one [Smiths] used, brutal and repetitive.

  Bran was like the willow tree that gave his style its name. Since the battle begun, he not moved more than a step or two away from his original position. No matter how tight the press of bodies became, it couldn’t force him back. He swayed and bent, blocking with his shield what he couldn’t dodge.

  The prolonged combat allowed Maggie to confirm some things about the two she hadn’t up until now. Every one of Ellen’s devastated her opponents and was often more brutal than Bran. However, she lacked his efficiency. Ellen was a water hammer; Bran was a scalpel. Every, single, attack, sought to cripple his opponent.

  If he attacked a leg, it was at a joint or an artery. If it aimed at the torso, it always aimed at where a human vital organ would be. Watching them fight side by side drove home for Maggie that while Ellen was talented and had the potential to become an incredible killer; Bran already was. And that realization both excited and broke her heart in equal measure.

  ~~~***~~~

  Maggie side eyed Gunilla as the pair watched teams of laborers hurry to erect the corpses of goblins and aranae alike into a small wall.

  “Clever Helle. Clever.” Gunilla murmured.

  “A little grim for my tastes.”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Exactly.”

  ~~~***~~~

  Maggie’s professional interest piqued as she watched the lanklatts charge. While she’d never seen the beasts in combat before, she’d read of them in several bestiaries. The animal’s loping gait forced the other members of the charge to give each animal a wide berth. It forced the charge to be wider than would have been ideal with horses. It was also far slower than a horse charge. To Maggie it seemed less than ideal considering their task, but maybe the lanklatts were heavy enough to make up for the lack of speed.

  She never found out what facing a lanklatt charge on foot looked like because just as they approached the corpse wall, earthen spikes shot up from just behind it and impaled the first four in the wedge. What she learned, however, was just how impressive the lanklatt ability to turn on a coin was. Within a meter, all lanklatts wheeled to the side to run along the base of the fresh walls.

  As impressive as the animals were, the strategy bothered her. Why were the goblins continuing to send bodies into the meat grinder?

  “Surely they have better stratagems for taking the wall than just charging the thing.”

  “They do. But you must remember those are children we are watching.” Gunilla went silent for a second. “Impatient children at that.”

  “Impatient how?”

  Gunilla turned to look at Maggie, her inhuman eyes sending a shiver down Maggie’s spine before she turned back to the battle.

  “The goblins have been building siege equipment for months now, the taking of this fort a forgone conclusion in their minds. This foolish wall Sylvie has chosen to build is an insult to that. It matters not that the wall will fall as soon as they choose to use their equipment. What we watch today are the actions of children who refuse to take so grievous an insult without reprisal.”

  As soon as the rear of the charge swung wide of the gap, the next stage of the assault came. Stone rods the size of her forearm fired from a cluster of three hoblite [Clerics] riding behind cavalry members. Bran did an excellent job of blocking or redirecting the rods away from himself and his allies, but that wasn’t a surprise considering what she’d seen of this skill with the shield.

  What surprised her was that the [Brood Guard] beside him did the same. Almost none of the bolts got past the five of them on the front line, and those that did lost all their momentum.

  A cloud of dust settled into the still churning mists as the volley ended. Its calm dissent interrupted by the largest goblin Maggie’d ever seen or heard of.

  “They’re a big one, huh?” Maggie asked, hoping Gunilla would know and reveal something about the unusual size.

  “The child is cursed.” Was her reply, her tone laced with pity. “The Mistress of the Depths can be cruel. Thankfully, their suffering will end today either way.”

  “Cruel?” Maggie pressed, but she got no answer.

  They treated the cursed goblin like a wild boar, carefully prodded and tested. The enormous sword they carried, while impressive and intimidating, was easy to predict. Truthfully, the goblin stood no chance of breaking through all the elites in their path. The fight was over as soon as they lost their momentum and got mobbed like a [Merchant Lord] amidst a horde of starving peasants.

  The goblins who followed behind their massive peer expected them to open up a hole in the line that they could exploit. But with the massive orc slain, not only was there no clear gap for them to enter, but they had to move around the large body to enter combat. After more deaths, whatever officer led the goblins called the retreat, and they rebuilt the corpse wall, this time with the much larger orc as support.

  Maggie thought it would be a repeat of the first and serve only as a grim distraction, but when Helle called her casters to action, Maggie flooded her eyes with mana again to watch what the aranae did. She regretted that choice as soon as she’d made it, and the first tendril of stone entered the eye socket of a crushed goblin corpse. It popped the eye and carved open the thin bone at the back of the socket to fill the rest of the body.

  She’d seen horrors during her time as a mercenary and was, if not accustomed, then numb to the cruelty inflicted during war. Her party were children, however, so she turned her sense from the wall to them.

  Blessedly, Mika was too focused on his runes and didn’t see what was happening fifty feet from him. His friends weren’t so lucky, however. Nora was still, not even breathing, her mouth open in slack jaw horror as she watched stone defile the bodies of the goblins. Ellen was putting on a brave face, but Maggie’s skills were screaming at her that Ellen was in immense distress.

  Sense Mood was an incredibly useful skill for telling Maggie, who was struggling or needed more attention and help. She could feel echoes of what Nora and Ellen were when she focused on the pair, and knew she would have to take each of them aside to further decide if they would need counselling.

  It was that insight that distressed her so much when she turned her focus to Bran, only to get slight hints of nostalgia and the barest sense of disgust. As if he was watching a deer be field dressed instead of bodies infilled with stone. She knew the Cult of Weeping Grace had a reputation for cruelty to their enemies, but what exactly had they put this child through that all he felt at the sight of stone drilled through crushed and piled corpses was nostalgia.

  ~~~***~~~

  Maggie was almost relieved when the next charge was more coherent. They’d actually brought ladders with them. Before they even tried to gap this time, they set their ladders and begun the costly process of claiming space on a contested wall.

  Of course, that went as well for the first goblins up the ladder as it always does. It wasn’t until the lanklatts climbed the walls that the goblins gained a footing. They left the gap alone during this which cause Helle to redistribute the casters into the areas on the wall that were buckling first. Nora was a part of this group and rather than recast a mist spell, she fired off basic bolts and blasts that were the staple for all low tier [Mages].

  That left Bran and Ellen as the only ones of her party that weren’t involved where the fighting was heaviest. Maggie could tell from the way they both looked towards the combat that they wanted to abandon the gap and join, but Helle commanded their presence there to guard against any sudden attacks.

  The fighting wasn’t pretty and soon the first cracks in the aranae defense revealed themselves. People died and Helle simply didn’t have the numbers to fill each of the new gaps in the line. It wasn’t until the goblins gained their first true foothold that the force held in reserve behind their lines attacked the gap.

  It was a small squad comprising only five lanklatts and their riders, along with twenty members of the goblin infantry. However, every single person in this contingent wore better made armor decorated with gems and fine paints. The goblins managed to, again, waste their cavalry in the charge, the defenders killing them quickly.

  Maggie could think of a hundred different ways to better use and spend the beasts’ lives.

  The infantry members were a different story, and the very first of their members to reach Bran was the best combatant she’d seen him fight all day.

  The hoblite was incredible with her spear and perhaps more crucially, good enough at hiding her mistakes and slips that they might as well not have happened. Maggie herself might not have noticed she even made mistakes had it not been for Teaching Moment and the slight quiver in her aura each time.

  By thirty seconds, Maggie knew Bran needed a lucky break if he wanted to survive. The woman across from him simply countered him too well. Part of her wanted to intervene and stop the fight before he could get killed. Her remembrance of the Grace Mother crushed that impulse, however.

  Watching Bran work, Maggie felt a sudden surety that if she spared the boy from death, she’d make an enemy of a divinity; and as much as she liked the kid, that wasn’t something she was prepared to do.

  As the fight continued, Maggie grew more and more worried she was going to watch the first death of one of her charges. Attacks now slipped through Bran’s defenses and although his newly repaired armor did well to stop them, that could only hold true for so long.

  Maggie felt her heart sink and throat tighten as Bran just barely slipped out from a thrust to the heart, instead having his shoulder impaled, the metal of his armor digging painfully into the wound. Maggie’s fingers sank into the stone of the wall as she gripped. Dust spread out from beneath her touch as she watched Bran grab hold of the hoblite’s spear hand.

  Maggie’d seen it before. It was the desperate grab the dying make when they see their doom approach. She’s seen friends and family perform it before and watching, she knew in her heart she was going to see it again. Maggie clenched her eyes shut and tried to look away when Gunilla’s hand shot out to grip her chin and force her gaze back onto the field.

  Maggie forced one of her eyes open. Gunilla was right. If Bran was going to fall, she could at least do him the honor of witnessing it.

  His weak hold on the woman’s hand had shifted to the back of her neck. She cringed the first time Bran brought the woman’s head down upon his own.

  She was equally hopeful and impressed both at his pain tolerance and his brutality as he brought his head forward, and the goblin’s down, over and over and over until there was nothing left of their face except a bloody puddle Maggie felt her heart sink again when the woman collapsed. Bran stuck underneath the half ton corpse.

  Laborers quickly grabbed Bran by the shoulders, however, and dragged his howling form away from the fighting.

  With Bran gone from the line, a hole opened in the middle of the aranae defense, something Ellen filled without hesitation, having just killed her own opponent. It was around then that Mika’s rune series went off for the first time and sent an unlucky cavalry member skyward, only to become mush upon landing.

  Maggie wanted to focus on the venting of mana happening all across the wall as [Clerics] finally overwhelmed the runes. However, her attention had to be focused on Ellen, who was in the most danger and had just had her thigh impaled in the time it took for her to look away and then back again.

  Maggie had no hesitation in leaping forward to save Ellen. If she pushed, she might get to the wall fast enough to stop a killing stroke from landing. A hand jerked her back into place and wrenched her shoulder, her momentum snuffed like a candle before a hurricane. Furious, Maggie turned to Gunilla ready to lash out of that’s what it took to be set free, but the woman wasn’t even looking at her and instead had a hand pointed at the battle.

  Following Gunilla’s gaze, Maggie saw Bran interposed between Ellen and a sword stroke that would have bisected her. A part of her mind instantly thought of how she might spin that moment in her saga for this campaign. It was romantic in a twisted sort of way that audiences right now loved, and she might have pushed that angle if she hadn’t spent the entire campaign writing about Mika and Ellen’s love for each other.

  The romance was also ruined by the fact she’d already seen Bran’s worrying habit of returning or continuing to fight after he’d already been severely injured. First the hamstring and now his shoulder. The boy needed to learn when to stay down. Maggie half suspected she’d have to beat the lesson into him one of these days.

  ~~~***~~~

  Maggie was unsure which event was the final straw to break the mule’s back and was even more unsure it mattered. The goblins were retreating and this time; it was honest. Gunilla, who’d been standing next to her in silence for half an hour now, wasn’t even watching the retreat. Instead, she was twisted to stare up at the spire that held the map room. Gunilla suddenly broke position, moving from her spot for the first time in hours, and strode over to a young aranae scholar to snatch a piece of paper from her hands.

  “Wasteful.” Gunilla muttered under her breath.

  She felt a tiny flare in the woman’s aura, pointed towards the forward wall, and saw Helle perk up. Maggie strained and heard the girl start to give a speech about victory. Maggie turned her attention from the empty words to ask what Gunilla was doing, only to see the elder’s back as she marched towards one of the spires. As she listened, Maggie could hear Gunilla muttering about ‘wastefulness and the folly of youth’ as she went.