by Ivan Kal
They entered the town and Morgan looked around at the changes that had happened in just a few days. Lucius ran over first to meet with Morgan.
“You’ve been busy,” Morgan said as he looked around at the inside of the outer wall.
“We used the hearthstone—it cost us a bit of ascension crystals but it was worth it, in my opinion,” Lucius explained. “And what about you?”
“Success.” Morgan grinned. “I think they will come straight at us now.”
“How many did you get?” Lucius asked.
“A bit over four hundred,” Morgan said. He had gotten the notification for the kills about an hour after they had started their retreat, once there was no chance of them being caught by the goblins. He didn’t really get much exp for it, only about nine hundred, even with the seven shamans and eight chieftains they had killed, but Morgan was a lot higher level than the goblins. He had, however, gotten his Boon of the Blood Drinker nearly a quarter filled, so he couldn’t really complain.
“We have only a bit more time to prepare,” Lucius said with a resolute look on his face.
“It will have to be enough,” Morgan said. I hope it will be.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
After the ambush, the goblin horde advanced slowly, following the road and heading straight for Reach. It looked like his plan had worked—he had provoked the goblins enough that they would elect to attack Reach. Morgan had a few thoughts of going out with some of his forces and trying to harry them along the way, but they just didn’t have enough resources to do that. They didn’t have an endless supply of his bombs, and he didn’t want to risk the goblins catching his people. Besides, Morgan was far more comfortable fighting where he had the advantage. He had planned out this battle for a long time, going through many iterations of it inside of his head, and executing a plan was what he did best.
And so on the morning a few days after his return to Reach, Morgan stood on the battlements of Reach Town looking at the rising sun. It looked slightly different than it did on Earth; the color was just a bit off, but it still reminded him of his home planet. Had I ever even watched the sunrise on Earth? Morgan wondered. He couldn’t remember. He probably hadn’t; it was something that was always there, something he could always do later. Only now did he know he would never have a chance to do so, and he realized in turn he was good with that. Earth had never been his home, not really.
He sensed someone approach and stand next to him, but he didn’t turn as he already knew who it was. His senses had all been turned up a notch since he had become an ascended, and more and more he realized that he could tell far more about his surroundings than he could ever have on Earth.
“I’ll always loved mornings,” Ves said. “I would sneak up sometimes before my parents woke up, just to watch the day come.”
“I never really had the time to enjoy it,” Morgan said. “Life on my world was so much different than it is here… It is so strange that the day of a battle is the first time when I have the time to actually enjoy such a sight.”
Ves leaned her head on his shoulder and they watched the sun rise slowly, enjoying the moment. This was one thing that he had been missing most of all for his entire life: the quiet moments one spent with someone else. Someone one cared about. Morgan had been alone for his entire life before being brought here, and he felt deeply grateful for that to have changed.
And then the moment was over as the sound of horns and the loud growls and screams of the goblins reached them. They couldn’t be seen yet, but Morgan could feel the horde approaching through the forest and the road. A few minutes later, the first goblins came into sight. They yelled out things in their guttural tongue that Morgan couldn’t understand, banged their crude weapons against each other, and pounded their fists on their chests. Morgan turned to the side, looking at the top of the gate where Lucius was standing. He nodded at the man, and Lucius turned around and started giving out orders. The walls filled with ascended who could use bows, along with the orc hunters—a few among them were ascended—and orc warriors, who were close-combat oriented. Morgan turned to Ves and gave her a short kiss before she walked away to her position. He turned toward the gate and walked over to join Lucius.
Over on the other side of the gate, Morgan saw Titus and Ereden both ready and watching the goblins. Val was standing on the ground beneath the walls with Clara and a group of Sky Guards, ready to run and reinforce any side of the wall that might be breached. Ves walked over to the right to stand near one of the towers. He saw her get near the buckets of water there and draw on the water to form her ice armor.
On each of the four towers was a large contraption: a crude ballista. Morgan hadn’t known exactly how to make one, nor the mechanism by which it would be easier to reload, but Lucius had been familiar with the concept from his family’s guild, who’d had them. From what Morgan could tell, this world’s versions were far more deadly and complicated than their Earth counterparts, being enhanced by magic, but the two of them managed to explain to their crafters what they wanted. They had spent a while on trying to devise the mechanism that would pull back the string, but Morgan soon realized that they didn’t need it—they had people with astounding strength: ascended who could operate the ballistae with their bare hands.
So on each of the four towers there were three people: one to aim and fire, and two to pull back the string with their hands, using simple wooden catches to grab the string. They looked like abominations, crude oversized bows mounted on a wooden beam—but they would serve their purpose.
Morgan watched the goblins as they spilled into the open field in front of the town. And then a figure stepped in front of them, looking straight at Morgan with its red eyes. The Goblin King seemed to remember and recognize Morgan. The creature raised his great sword and then yelled out—what precisely Morgan could not decipher—and tall shapes moved from behind the trees. Ten ogres came into view, and with another word from the Goblin King, they charged, lumbering forward across the field. I hope the ground holds, Morgan thought to himself as he saw them stomp across the ground. And behind them, only a few moments after, the goblins surged like a green tide across the field.
Morgan took a deep breath and spoke. “Ballistae, ready! Archers!”
Lucius raised a green flag, then a blue one, and Morgan could see the already loaded ballistae aim at the ogres. Archers all the way around the walls took their aim. Morgan and Lucius had already talked with them all about what to do against the ogres—their skin was too tough to be pierced by regular arrows, so they were to aim at their eyes.
“Fire!” Morgan called out, and Lucius lowered the flags.
Morgan let an arrow fly at one of the ogres running toward the gate. His arrow flew true and hit the nearly white-skinned monster in the eye, making it stagger backward and roar in pain. Then the arrows from other archers arrived—most didn’t penetrate the skin. A few managed to stab through their hides, but they didn’t seem to hurt the ogres much.
Then a ballista bolt struck right through its chest. The ogre snapped forward, looking down at the bolt piercing its chest with its single working eye before toppling to the ground. All around the field the ogres stumbled as they were pelted with arrows and ballista bolts. Out of the four bolts fired, three found their targets, and two killed the ogres outright. One was injured and hobbling, but the archers were pelting it with arrows. Morgan’s ballistae operators quickly reloaded and fired again, taking more of them down—but one ogre reached the wall and smashed the tree trunk it was carrying from above its head onto the battlement. It wasn’t as tall as the wall, but just barely. It managed to reach over and the tree trunk hit over and cracked, splattering the unfortunate souls that hadn’t moved away in time. The trunk splintered against the battlement and sent pieces of it flying beyond the wall and into the people standing there. By then, the pieces were small; Morgan didn’t see anyone outright get killed, but there were injured.
The ogre then slammed its shoulder into the wall
, making it shudder—but then a bolt took it into the neck, killing it instantly. The ogres had all fallen.
But then the goblins were there. Morgan saw them jump to stab their claws into the walls and start climbing, and he allowed himself a small grin of satisfaction as he heard them scream as they impaled their hands on the spikes that Morgan and the others with nature alignment had grown out of the wooden planks. It wouldn’t stop them completely, but it would slow them down considerably.
Then goblins with ladders reached the walls and raised them, leaning them on the battlements. He saw Ves send a wave of ice spikes down the ladder and then push it off to the ground.
Morgan turned around before looking behind the wall and raising his hand. The non-ascended raised their bows and pulled their strings back. Lucius had gotten every non-ascended willing to fight, and each of them had been given a bow and a few days’ training with it. Some of them had elected to ascend, but most hadn’t. Among them were men and women, along with the few ascended that Morgan thought were too low a level to stand on the walls. Morgan put his hand down and they fired, sending the arrows over the walls and into the field.
Their volley landed on the goblins, killing many. Morgan looked at the field—there were only a few hundred goblins in the field at the time, and they had been stopped at the walls. His ascended were repelling their attempts to climb up and the goblins couldn’t reach up to them. A few threw their spears at the walls, but the parapets kept those attempts from being truly dangerous.
Then the goblin shamans entered the field, and began lobbing fireballs at the walls. Titus, having been waiting for them to arrive, was ready for them. He started chanting and throwing at lances of fire at their ranks, killing the first few instantly before they even realized what was happening. The arrows from inside the wall flew over their heads constantly, and Morgan and the archers on the walls fired with more precision at their targets, instead of just firing volleys. Morgan would alternate between firing his regular arrows to firing his Arrows of Decay, creating weakening clouds that sapped at the goblins’ strength.
He kept himself from using his energy arrows, even though that would let him fire faster, because he needed to conserve his energy. He knew this was only the first wave. The ballistae had fallen silent as well, waiting for more of the ogres to come.
A ball of fire headed straight for the gate, but Lucius swiped with his sword, sending a blade of air that met it and exploded it away from them. Lucius lowered his hand and watched the battle, keeping an eye on things while Morgan fired. Then another horn sounded, and Morgan saw more goblins walk out of the forest.
“Chieftains,” Lucius warned, and Morgan nodded. Now they were getting serious. He saw another ten ogres walk into the field and start running with the new goblin wave, led by the chieftains. Morgan refocused his aim on the chieftains and started firing at them from far beyond the range of his other archers. He took down three of them before the others even started firing. The ogres were again fired upon by the ballistae, but this time they ran with the tree trunks they carried as clubs in front of them, using them as primitive shields. Still, two of them went down, and Morgan managed to send an arrow through one’s eye with such power using his Piercing Arrow ability that it burrowed into its brain and killed it instantly. The others reached the walls and started hammering at it with their clubs, hoping to bring them down.
One ogre arrived at the gate, but Lucius had already given out orders, and as soon as it reached them the people around them spilled burning oil all over it, making it scream in agony. Morgan grabbed an arrow from the special pile next to him and put it in the brazier, igniting it, then fired at the ogre, setting it on fire. It wailed as it stumbled, trying to run away, but it didn’t get far before it succumbed to its injuries.
On the other side of the wall, the ballistae had taken down the other ogres, but Morgan saw a goblin chieftain successfully climb on top of the wall and push its sword into the stomach of one of Reach’s Sky Guards. Swiping his sword in a circle, he made room for the goblins behind him to climb up.
Then Ves was there, her shield bashing forward, sending icicles at the goblin chieftain. A few stabbed into its shoulder, but it didn’t seem to care as it attacked Ves. She blocked, but already by then more goblins had arrived, and she was quickly becoming overwhelmed. As Morgan began to become increasingly worried, he saw a red mist spark out of her hand, and a spirit bear manifested itself between her and the goblins. It roared silently and swiped its claws at the monsters, killing them by the score. The goblin chieftain moved back, but it didn’t have the chance as the bear ran him down and put its maw around the goblin’s head. It ripped it off and threw the chieftain’s body over the wall as Ves and the Sky Guards behind her took back the battlements and threw down the ladders, shuddering the earth beneath.
Morgan saw more and more goblins running out of the forest, and the field was now filled with the endless horde. The assault had begun in truth, and Morgan could tell that at least half of their force was now surrounding his walls. He turned to Lucius, getting his attention.
“It’s time!” Morgan yelled, and Lucius raised a red flag into the air. The archers across the walls switched their arrows and ignited them in the braziers, then pulled their strings back and aimed. Morgan himself was aiming to the side, at the patch of dark ground in the distance. He let his arrow fly, and it left a trail of black smoke behind it as it flew and landed exactly where he’d aimed. As soon as it landed, the oil soaked ground, ignited, and then fire spread to meet with the other ignition points across the field where the others had fired their own arrows. A line was drawn in the field in front of them, cleaving the goblin army in two: those still farther away in the forest now separated from those closer to Reach.
He could hear the goblins who had been unlucky enough to be standing in the patch of ground that was now an inferno scream as they caught on fire. Among those now trapped inside, confusion ran rampant. By his last count there were at least fifteen hundred goblins now trapped against the walls, with arrows falling down on them constantly.
Morgan turned to the people behind him and raised both of his arms. Orc warriors grabbed their ropes and readied themselves to put crystals into the bombs as they watched Morgan. He lowered his arms, and the orcs spun, throwing the bombs over the walls. The air was filled with hundreds of the devices, and they all fell down on the goblins. He could see them panic as some of them recognized what they were, but by then it was too late. They exploded, sending shrapnel flying and ripping them to pieces. Morgan saw blood and gore explode across the field, and then the next volley of bombs arrived.
It was a slaughter. The goblins died to the frag bombs in droves, and many of the rest died to his arrows. Some tried to escape by running back toward the horde and jumping through the flames, but it only served to send them to a fiery death. A part of Morgan felt sorry for them: the part that had grown up on Earth with far different sensibilities. But the other, more primal part of him that had awakened on this world, where only the strong survived, felt nothing for them—because he knew that if they had the chance, the goblins would’ve done the same to him.
As the last goblin in front of the walls died, Morgan’s eyes searched beyond the flames and found those of the Goblin King. He remained glaring at him, raw hatred in his eyes, and Morgan knew that this was far from over.
While the first round was Morgan’s victory to savor, now he would have to see what the Goblin King’s response would be.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The goblins didn’t return that day—instead, they retreated to the forest, but they could still be heard. They howled and chanted and made noise, which Morgan mostly tuned out as he retreated to the building he and Lucius had been using as their command center down in Reach Town. They were looking over the map of their town and discussing what to do next.
“The ogres are the biggest threat. They accounted for most of our losses,” Lucius said.
Morgan grimaced. H
e still remembered the sickening sound as the tree trunks that the ogres used as weapons smashed over the battlements and crushed the unfortunate defenders standing there. They had lost people—nowhere near the number the goblins had lost, but they had lost people nonetheless. Those who survived had gotten a lot of experience, however, or at least the ones who were lower leveled had. Many had leveled up, which only served to make them stronger. Morgan hadn’t, as the small amount of experience he got from the goblins had put him at about the halfway point to the next level, which was still more than three thousand experience points away.
The ballistae were a good solution to the ogres, but they just didn’t have enough of them. They hadn’t had the time to build more, for the same reasons that they didn’t have the time to build a few of Morgan’s and Lucius’s other ideas, such as a catapult. Unfortunately neither Morgan nor Lucius knew the details on how to construct one, and they had other alternatives, so they’d abandoned that idea.
“They can’t have many more of them. We counted only a few dozen of them with the horde,” Morgan said.
Lucius nodded. “They will come again soon, and we have spent our most powerful weapons. We only have a few more bombs.”
Morgan nodded in return. They were making them even now, but they had less than a hundred left. Morgan knew that the goblins still had the numbers. “I know, but we must work with what we have. We still have a few more cards to play.”
“I just hope that they are enough,” Lucius said.
The next morning found the people of Skyreach manning the walls and standing ready as the goblins again stepped out of the woods. The Goblin King stepped in front of his people and watched the walls. Morgan used his Inspect on the goblin—he hadn’t had the chance to do it in the middle of the battle before—and grimaced as he saw that the Goblin King was level twenty. He knew that level wasn’t everything, but that still wasn’t good. Quickly, he put that out of his mind as the goblins started running at the walls again.