A flash of a greathelm with horns caught her attention.
The soldier had just finished cleaning blood from her shashka when she saw him—taller than any man moving against the tide of battle rather than with it. The Ironhold cape marked him unmistakably even in the chaos, its colours dulled by night. Her breath caught.
"Isn't that—" The words never left her lips.
A shriek cut the air, followed by the heavy thunk of bolts slamming into the wagon beside her. Wood exploded outward in splinters and she threw herself down instinctively, heart hammering, pressing into the mud as another volley screamed overhead. When the noise faded and she dared to look again, the horned knight was gone.
Ventren and Martin did not look back.
They slipped into the thickets as branches clawed at Ventren's armour, leaves scraping against steel but he moved carefully, placing each step with deliberate restraint. The Ironhold cape was wrapped close around him, its dark fabric pulled tight to break up his outline, black swallowing black beneath the canopy.
Ordinarily, his armour would have betrayed him—the creak of plate, the whisper of mail and the heavy strides he took but the siege drowned everything. Catapult stones thundered, goblins shrieked, soldiers shouted and died. The forest floor trembled faintly with distant impacts. Within that in mind Ventren became almost a shadow.
Martin led.
The boy moved with the confidence of someone who had lived among roots and brambles all his life. He ducked beneath low branches, skirted nettle patches and chose paths that barely existed at all—game trails, half-forgotten hunting routes, lines only the experienced would notice.
They encountered a goblin less than two dozen metres in.
It crouched behind a tree, gnawing at something indistinct as its yellow eyes reflecting faint torchlight. Ventren halted Martin with a raised hand—the boy froze instantly.
Ventren stepped forward.
The axe never rose high as he took the goblin from behind, one massive gauntleted hand clamping over its mouth while the other drove the axe head sideways into its neck. There was a dull crunch, a brief spasm then nothing. Ventren eased the corpse down to prevent even the sound of its fall.
Another goblin wandered close moments later, sniffing and suspicious. Ventren used his legs this time, pivoting sharply and driving the metal above it, crushing and killing the greenskin.
Martin stared pale and wide-eyed but said nothing.
They pressed on. Two more goblins died the same way as Ventren moved like an executioner rather than a warrior with every movement measured to conserve effort and sound alike. The siege masked everything and no alarm was raised.
Then Martin slipped.
It was a small thing—his foot caught on a root, snapping a twig louder than it should have. A goblin turned immediately then shrieking as it lunged forward with a jagged spear. Martin tried to react.
He raised his sword—a crude thing, hammered by some village smith, with its edge uneven and grip wrapped in worn leather—met the charge head-on. His kettle helmet rang as the spear glanced off, staggering him backward. He slashed wildly, blade scraping off bone and hide but failing to bite deep.
The goblin cackled and pressed in.
Martin's gambeson absorbed a shallow cut but the impact drove the air from his lungs. Panic set in as he hacked again, overextending and clumsy.
Ventren turned too late to stop it from becoming a fight.
The goblin feinted low then drove its spear upward. Martin barely twisted aside as its point tore through cloth, drawing blood along his ribs. He cried out, pain and fear breaking his discipline entirely.
"Martin!" Ventren hissed.
The goblin raised its weapon for the killing thrust.
Ventren crossed the distance in two strides.
His axe came down from above with merciless force splitting the goblin from shoulder to hip in a wet, final stroke. The body collapsed at Martin's feet, twitching.
Ventren seized the boy by the collar and dragged him back into cover, voice low and furious.
"Are you trying to fucking die?" he snarled. "I told you to stay behind me!"
Martin's breath came in ragged gasps. "I—I thought—I could handle one—"
"You can't," Ventren cut in. "Not yet. And if you rush off again, you will get yourself killed. I don't need that shit on my conscience."
Martin bowed his head. "I'm sorry," he said, voice shaking. "I won't do it again. I swear."
Was I too harsh and crude for a knight?
Ventren held him a moment longer, then released him. He exhaled slowly, forcing his anger down. The boy was alive and that was what mattered now.
"Lead," Ventren said. "And don't leave my sight again."
They moved more cautiously after that.
The trees thinned as they approached the base of a rocky rise as the smell changed—damp stone, rot and something acrid beneath it all. Martin slowed and pointed ahead.
"There," he whispered. "The cave."
The entrance yawned between two jagged stones with crude symbols smeared around it in something dark and oily. Two hobgoblins stood guard—larger than the others, broader in the chest, their armour scavenged and mismatched. One carried a cleaver-like blade, the other a heavy spiked club.
Ventren surged forward, silent until the last moment. The first hobgoblin barely had time to grunt before Ventren's axe tore him across the collarbone, the blow shattering bone and driving it to the ground. The second swung its club in a wide arc, roaring, but Ventren stepped inside the strike and drove his horned helm forward, smashing the creature's faceplate inward. A follow-up punch crushed its throat as it gurgled once and went limp. Ventren then dragged the bodies aside.
"Inside," he murmured.
The cave's darkness closed in almost immediately, broken only by faint green light deeper within. The walls were slick with moisture, the floor uneven and strewn with bones—animal, human and goblin alike.
They advanced carefully, steps echoing softly despite their efforts. After several minutes, the passage widened into a crude chamber.
At its centre stood the shaman who was taller than the goblins Ventren had seen, its frame hunched but powerful, skin marked with spiralling glyphs that pulsed faintly. Around it swirled a haze of green mist, curling and drifting like something alive. It was almost certainly a type of poisonous mist magic.
Ventren knew instinctively that to breathe it deeply would be deadly.
The shaman croaked something in its guttural tongue, staff tapping against the stone as the mist thickened.
Ventren raised a hand to halt Martin—Too late.
With a cry torn from fear and fury alike, Martin charged.
—/—/—
Gwendolyn saw him only for a moment.
A towering silhouette crowned with two winged horns, cloaked in black and orange, marching towards the thickets. For a heartbeat she forgot the pain in her shoulder, forgot the blood crusted at the edge of her vision.
Isn't that the horned warrior…? Sir Ventren who won the qualifiers. He saved me.
A shrill cry snapped her back to reality as goblin bolts screamed through the air, slamming into shields and wagons alike. Gwen threw herself behind a splintered barricade just as a quarrel buried itself where her head had been a breath earlier. Her helmet was dented so she discarded it, though dirt and wood sprayed over her braid.
The line was collapsing.
She lifted her shield and looked out across the field. The goblin catapults continued to hurl stones and burning pitch with merciless rhythm. Crossbowmen behind crude mantlets fired volley after volley into the militia and royal retinue ranks. Soldiers were breaking—some retreating, some frozen and others screaming as they burned.
The defence force captain stumbled toward her, his helm dented and eyes wild.
"What should we do?" he shouted over the din. "We're losing!"
Gwen opened her mouth to answer.
A fire bolt struck the captain square in the face.
The impact threw him backward, flame blossoming across his visor. He collapsed without a sound, burning where he lay. Gwen stared for a fraction of a second longer than necessary, her breath catching—not in horror, but in anger.
And beneath it a spark of exhilaration.
The weight of command settled on her shoulders. She ran further back and yelled.
"Sergeants!" she shouted. "To me—now!"
Her voice cut through the chaos with command-honed clarity. One by one, battered sergeants broke from their positions and gathered around her behind the wagons with their shields raised and breaths ragged. Gwen crouched and used her shield to block incoming fire as she spoke quickly and decisively.
"The catapults are killing us," she said. "We gotta cut them down or we die here."
One sergeant frowned. "They're guarded on all sides."
"I know," Gwen replied. "That's why we don't go around. We go through."
She traced a sharp wedge in the dirt with her sword tip.
"Arrowhead formation with pavises on the outside. Short swords only as we push straight in, cut the tension ropes and burn what we can. It's suicide if we hesitate."
Silence followed. Then one sergeant nodded. Another followed. Fear was there, yes—but so was desperation. They would be dead either way, it is all or nothing.
"I'll lead," she said. No one argued.
As the sergeants dispersed to rally their men, Gwen felt it—an unwelcome memory surfacing. Faces of soldiers she had commanded before. Her camp was wiped out because of her own idiotic placement.
This time will be different... I hope.
The arrowhead punched forward with shields locked tight and pavises overlapping like the scales of a great turtle beast. Bolts slammed into wood and iron with some punching through and others glancing away. Men screamed as arrows found gaps but the formation held.
Gwen ran at the point.
Her shashka flashed as she cut down the first goblin that leapt at her. She smashed another aside with her shield as her boots slipping in blood and mud as she pressed onward. Fire splashed across the pavises, oil igniting briefly before being smothered.
They reached the first catapult.
"Ropes!" Gwen shouted.
Axes and blades hacked at twisted fibres under constant fire. A stone launched wildly as a rope snapped, crashing harmlessly into the ground. The frame collapsed in on itself with a shriek of splintering wood.
They surged to the next.
More men fell. One tripped and vanished beneath goblin blades while another burned screaming, tackled by a goblin drenched in pitch. Gwen did not stop, she could not stop.
By the time the third catapult fell nearly half the arrowhead was gone but the siege engines were silent.
A roar went up from the surviving soldiers and Gwen seized the moment.
"Oil barrels!" she shouted. "Take what you can!"
They dragged several crude barrels free before the goblins could react retreating under covering fire from the remaining pavise-bearers. Gwen hurled a torch as they withdrew, flames racing across spilled oil, engulfing the wreckage.
They reached friendly lines battered and bloodied—victorious in their goal.
Only less than a quarter of men returned though it was worth it, as many more soldiers and villagers were spared.
The battlefield shifted almost immediately with the catapults destroyed. The goblin formation faltered and their crossbowmen attempted to reposition.
That was when the cavalry struck.
Ironhold reinforcements on horseback thundered into the goblin flank with lances and sabres tearing through the exposed ranks. Goblins raised shields in panic, some crushed beneath hooves while others cut down as they turned too slowly.
The crossbowmen were annihilated and cheers erupted among the soldiers.
Exhausted and blood-soaked men laughed and shouted with some falling to their knees in disbelief. Gwen stood among them chest heaving, shield dented and her blade slick with gore. Pride swelled in her chest. She had done this. She had turned the tide. Though still, many men lie dead under her command. The guilt was eating her up and a cold thought crept in.
"Where are the hobgoblins?" she murmured.
No hulking shapes had charged the line nor shaman had emerged to command.
"They must still be alive," Gwen said aloud. "And they're not here."
She gathered a small squad—volunteers, who still had strength left—and turned toward the forest.