The dock district of Cliff City was very small, with dozens of ships crammed together, densely packed. Bloodstains and traces of battle could be seen on many of them.
Salian ordered the cloud sails lowered and the cabin doors locked. He squeezed the Quesser into a corner. After the crew disembarked with their packs, he used debris and trash prepared in advance to "decorate" the deck and hull.
Before long, the elven ship had turned into a tattered wreck that looked as though it had been looted many times.
Of course, this was only surface work. It would be hard to deceive anyone who was truly paying attention.
After finishing all this, the crew gathered together and rushed straight toward the castle along the road with a steep elevation difference.
No one lit a lamp. Many in the group possessed darkvision, and by helping one another, the lack of light did not affect them much.
Anser looked up and surveyed the surroundings but did not spot any trace of flying dragons. That counted as good news.
"Why is there no one around?" Kaleno asked in confusion.
"There are people, just not many." Anser pointed toward clusters of residential houses.
"They've probably all gone into the castle," Salian speculated.
Cliff City was very unusual. The top of the cliff was the castle, and it was also the only passage for entering or leaving Cliff City from the landward direction. In times of crisis, the cliff fortress would seal the road and hold the position to the death.
After advancing several hundred meters, the noise ahead gradually grew louder. Faintly, the sound of dogs barking could be heard.
Anser and Salian exchanged a glance, both thinking this was not good.
Nornoth quickened his pace, took a running start, and leapt up onto the top of the cliff.
Though it was called the cliff top, it was actually a flat stretch of land several hundred meters wide, with the castle situated upon it.
The rear gate of the castle, facing the harbor, was tightly shut, and beneath the outer walls, refugees had already crowded together—shoulder to shoulder—at least a thousand of them.
Yet these refugees were very quiet. Adults covered the mouths of their children; even the sounds of crying were heavily suppressed.
"What happened?" Anser asked in a low voice.
Hearing his standard Faerûnian Common, the panicked refugees finally regained a measure of calm.
A young man quietly pointed ahead without saying a word.
Anser rode forward, circled past the city wall, and looked out. His scalp went numb at the sight.
In front of the castle, within the dim night, there were countless small "lanterns," packed densely together in pairs—every color imaginable.
Kobolds—too many to count.
One after another, calls resembling the yelps of small dogs rang out. They sounded soft and almost cute, but the visual effect was terrifying.
Kobolds were indeed not individually strong, but their numbers were immense. They liked to bully the few with the many and were very adept at fighting in groups.
Anser's eyesight was very good. He noticed that there was a ravine more than ten meters wide in front of the castle. There should originally have been a bridge there, but it had now been completely destroyed, and the kobolds could not get across.
But they were trying to build a bridge, and within the kobold group there were also a small number of winged kobolds!
All of a sudden, a rain of arrows shot down from the city wall, mixed in with several fire arrows.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—
The kobolds who were building the bridge scattered in panic, holding their heads. Quite a few planks and round logs were set alight, but they were quickly extinguished, and the wilderness fell back into darkness.
'Isn't this a dead end?'
The cliff fortress looked very tall from the docks, but relative to the land there was almost no height difference. A ravine blocked the kobolds, but it also left the entire cliff fortress isolated and without support, with nowhere to escape.
The long night had only just begun, and time was not on humanity's side.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—
Another wave of arrows followed, and this time several alchemical fire-glue arrows were mixed in.
The log the kobolds had just pushed up burst into flame in an instant. Even covering it with earth would be hard to put out, and in the end there probably would not be much left.
Anser noticed a large pile of charred wood stacked at the bridgehead. It seemed this kind of tug-of-war had been going on for a long time already.
One side had no other method; the other side was stubborn and had locked into a standoff.
Salian and the others quietly came to Anser's side, their expressions grave.
"How about we leave?" Kaleno hesitated.
"We can't. The peninsula is very narrow—at its widest point it isn't even five kilometers." Salian said coldly.
The Claw Peninsula was long and narrow from north to south. Once it was cut off by kobolds or dragonborn, there would be no road out at all.
Right now, there were probably kobolds all over the mountains and fields. If they were blocked out in the wilderness, they would die for sure.
"Who's the lord here? How strong is he?" Anser rubbed his chin, pondering.
"A few years ago it was Sir Casanova—an elite warrior. The family's strength was decent, mainly relying on fishing and dock trade…" Salian recalled.
Cliff City was an independent city-state and did not belong to anyone, so naturally there was no formal bestowal of noble titles. For that reason, people usually addressed its ruler as 'sir.'
"Sounds like a smart man. Then why didn't he leave?" Anser asked, puzzled.
From the time something happened to Dusk City up to now, at least a day had passed. The distance between the two was not far, so there should have been enough time to flee.
"Probably… caught off guard." Salian was not in a good mood and felt somewhat guilty.
"Don't worry. At worst, we can just go back again. Visiting Giant Tail's home wouldn't be bad either—I just don't know what local delicacies the swamp has." Anser said in a joking tone.
Salian twitched the corner of his mouth but did not manage a smile.
At that moment, shouts rang out from atop the castle. The sound of arrows suddenly became denser, and the kobolds' cries also grew more urgent.
Anser focused his gaze and saw a large group of winged kobolds dragging several iron chains across the ravine. Braving the rain of arrows, they wrapped the chains around the stone foundations and wooden stakes of the broken bridge.
Although the casualties were heavy, the objective was achieved.
Several alchemical fire-glue flasks were thrown down from the top of the city wall. They barely managed to burn through a single wooden stake and snap one iron chain. Four iron chains still stretched across the ravine.
Alchemical fire-glue was a common adventuring item—useful for starting fires, but with very poor offensive power, at most good for burning wood.
The kobolds shouted excitedly. Amid the barking and hissing sounds were a few clumsy words of Draconic.
They crowded at the bridgehead and scrambled forward along the chains, climbing over one another like ants on a tree, completely fearless.
"Prepare to withdraw. I'll hold them off," Anser said urgently.
"Be careful. We'll wait for you," Salian replied without hesitation, pulling the others away.
Anser rode around the crowd and stopped at a position sixty or seventy meters from the broken bridge.
He focused and cast his spell. Magic Power surged around him. In the night, only a point of red light circled him, occasionally outlining a dark silhouette.
"ફાયરબોલકલા"
Metamagic: Empowered Spell + Fireball!
The elemental spell orb flared. An unremarkable flash shot from his fingertips, streaked across the night sky in the blink of an eye, and instantly landed at the bridgehead on the opposite side.
Boom—
A fireball nearly twenty meters in diameter erupted at the bridgehead. It was as though a red-gold sun had risen in the night sky. Everyone's vision was filled with crimson light. Even after it faded, that round red silhouette lingered on their retinas.
The flames swept across all the kobolds. Wherever they passed, charred corpses covered the ground. The kobolds did not even have time to make a sound, let alone flee.
Their bodies and the timber continued to burn. Even the slender iron chains were wrapped in a layer of flame that looked like molten lava, burning for several seconds before gradually dying down.
The battlefield fell silent in an instant. Everyone stared blankly at the scene.
Clang, clang, clang…
The iron chains turned red and softened, snapping one after another.
After a brief moment of stupor, the kobolds in front fled frantically backward. Those behind followed, and chaos erupted at once.
Kaleno, who was retreating, froze and muttered, "Do we… still need to run?"
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