Chapter 166
The first one through the small gap of cars didn't even get a swing in.
Leo's blade caught it mid-stride, the Sarren cutting clean through where neck met shoulder, and he was already turning for the next one before the first hit the ground. Kai took the one beside it, sword and momentum doing the work, no wasted movement anywhere. Between them, the gap stayed shut, one body after another meeting the same end before it could widen into anything the horde could actually push through.
"Two on your left," Kai said, not even looking.
Leo saw them a half second later, goblins breaking off from the press and angling wide, trying to get round rather than through. He met the first with the flat of his blade, knocking it into the second, and Kai finished them both before either found their footing again.
It didn't stop. That was the thing nobody had properly warned him about, not really, not in a way that meant anything until he was standing in it. There wasn't a lull, wasn't a moment to breathe and take stock. Something came through, you killed it, and something else was already there to take its place.
His arms had started to ache somewhere in the last stretch of it, a dull, building weight he was choosing not to think about yet.
"Doing alright?" Kai asked, between one kill and the next.
"Yeah."
"Don't lie to me on the battlefield."
"Arms are tired. Everything else is fine."
Kai nodded and turned to meet the next one coming through, close enough now that Leo could see its eyes, wide and blank.
"This is the part you can't train for. You can make it easier with fitness, but a lot of what you're feeling is pressure playing on everything else. You're fit enough to last; you just need to be strong enough mentally."
Leo knew he was right. I've been far more worn out after training before. He knew they had to win here, there was no other option, so he knuckled down and fought on.
Somewhere off to his left, a boom rolled across the field. He smiled despite his current situation. Phil's plan was working out nicely.
***
Parmo put an arrow through a kobold's throat before it finished drawing its bow. It had been aiming for one of the spear trainees, and he knew he couldn't let that happen.
"Twenty-three," he called, already turning for the next one.
***
Ronan moved through the churned ground near the car line like it wasn't slowing him down at all, his scimitar finding goblins the second they cleared the last of the pit traps, each cut fast enough that most of them never got a chance to register they'd made it through for nothing.
One of the trainees standing further back, spear gripped tight in both hands, watched him cut down three in the time it took to process the first.
"That's mental," she said.
"Yeah." The lad next to her didn't take his eyes off it either. "Glad he's on our side."
Another boom went up somewhere behind him, distant enough now that it barely registered over the sound of his own blade. Whatever Phil was doing over there, he clearly wasn't done yet.
***
Bram's hammer came down and something didn't get up again. His shield followed a half second later, catching the next one mid-charge and throwing it sideways into the mud, where it stayed. He wasn't graceful about any of it. He didn't need to be.
Beside him, Aldric's spear moved faster than anything that size should, short jabs finding throats and eyes with a precision that looked almost bored, like the goblins coming at him were barely worth the effort of aiming properly.
"Keep it tight," Aldric said to the trainee beside him, his voice level even as he put down another. "Don't lunge past your reach."
The trainee nodded and adjusted his footing without breaking rhythm.
***
Luka's maul came down in the same motion as the shield dropping away, timed close enough that the goblin never saw the opening close. He raised the shield again before the next one reached him, blocked, swung, blocked again, the rhythm of it holding steady even as the numbers pushing at his line kept climbing.
It was getting harder. He didn't need anyone to tell him that.
Torren was close by, close enough that Luka could see him properly between swings, and what he saw didn't look like the Torren he knew. The ground in front of him was a ruin of gore and broken bodies, and Torren himself was soaked in it, dark and drying across his arms and chest. His face had gone somewhere Luka hadn't seen it go before, the warmth stripped out of it entirely, nothing left but the swing of the maul and the next thing in front of him.
Luka turned back to his own line before he could think too hard about that.
That was when he noticed the line starting to give.
It happened to his left, fast enough that Luka almost missed the start of it.
One of the trainees went down hard, his boot catching on something buried in the mud, and the man beside him grabbed for his arm on instinct, only to lose his own footing doing it. Both of them hit the ground in a tangle right as three goblins broke through the gap their bodies had left in the line, blades already swinging for anything within reach.
There wasn't time to think it through.
Luka shoved the goblin in front of him backwards and stepped into the breach. Casting Gravitas and Bastion Dome at the same time was hard, the drain feeling like a kick to the stomach, but he managed it. The taunt spell caught every goblin close enough to matter, yanking their attention off the two men on the ground and onto him instead. He watched five sets of eyes swing his way at once, confusion and fury both, and didn't wait to see what they'd do about it.
The first blow landed against his defensive dome before it was quickly followed by four more like it.
The shield held. He knew it would; these goblins and their terrible excuse for weapons were nothing compared to the power of the other lads' magic. I managed to keep the dome up while blocking three spells at once before, he reminded himself. It kept holding, blow after blow raining down against the shield from every side, their persistent attacks, weak as they may be, still managing to send a jolt through him that he felt in his teeth. He couldn't see past the dome properly, not with things hammering at it from every angle, with more joining the barrage every second, but he didn't need to. He just needed to stay standing with the focus on him while the rest of the line cleaned up.
Behind him, the two trainees scrambled back to their feet.
"Get up, get up," one of them was saying, hauling the other by the arm, both of them stumbling back into formation the second they had their footing again.
Luka held the dome a moment longer than he needed to, just to be sure, the goblins outside it still swinging uselessly against something they couldn't break through.
Then Torren's maul came down on the nearest one from behind, and the others didn't last much longer after that.
The dome dropped. Luka's legs gave slightly, and he caught himself before it turned into a stumble.
"Alright?" Torren asked, already pulling him back before moving to cover him.
"Fine." He put weight back on his feet properly. "Just need my breath back."
He got two before the next one came at him.
***
Ben hadn't said anything in a while.
He'd meant to keep narrating, the way he had at the start, filling the silence for the people watching who couldn't see everything he could. But somewhere in the last stretch of it, watching Leo and the guard beside him cut down anything that came near without either of them so much as slowing down, he'd stopped finding things to say.
[DanO] This is horrible. Why is this happening?
[CJ] the way they're just cutting through everything...
He'd tried to answer, got halfway through a sentence about how they were right next to the border, and lost the thread of it watching Ronan move through the battle like he was running a quick errand, three kills in the time it took Ben to process the first.
[Ste] who's that with the curved sword
[MattyG] he's not even using magic is he
"No," Ben managed. "Just skill. From what I hear, him and the wolf guy near Leo are incredibly skilled. They're known by pretty much everyone in this part of their country."
Then the shield had gone up, the big glowing dome around one of the lads, Luka, and Ben had actually stood up out of his crouch without meaning to, forgetting for a second that he wasn't supposed to be visible.
[Poppy_R] OH MY GOD
[DanO] is he okay?? they're all just hitting it
[CJ] IT'S HOLDING THOUGH LOOK
"Luka's strong," Ben said, mostly to himself. "They're lucky him and Torren are there."
[DanO] Torren?
"That huge orc guy next to him. He looks scary covered in blood like that, but he's usually going on about pie recipes. He's a gentle giant most of the time."
He watched it take blow after blow, watched Luka standing dead centre of it looking like it was costing him everything to stay upright, and his own hands had curled into the windowsill without him noticing, gripping hard enough to hurt.
[Ste] these are actual people we know doing this
[MattyG] yeah
Nobody in chat had anything clever to say for a moment. Ben didn't either.
When the dome finally dropped and Luka was still standing, still moving, chat exploded all at once, relief and disbelief tangled together at the fact he wasn't dead.
He let himself breathe out slowly before he spoke again.