Chapter 18:

The Storm Rises

The Wolf Among Rats (Old)


At the same time Naz called to his troops. Randomly throughout the western gate,
holes had erupted in the ground and small green creatures were pouring out.
Goblins? They’re about as tall as dwarves with elven ears and a hideous green or
brown skin. And those smiles. Every part of my being is telling me that these beasts need purged. These creatures are a failed creation of the Lords.

My sword easily runs through a good number of them. Even their blood is an unholy black. My men are able to impale them on their spears long before the creatures are able to reach them. The ones that get close are crushed by the dwarves. Soon after
their invasion, the goblins retreat back through their holes as Karvithians role out.
“Dwarf legs! Encircle them!” I call out to surrounding elves.

Naz taps me with his shield to signal that he’s leaving this to me. Elves form a wide
circle around the hole with dwarves guarding their feet. “Advance!”
Each pair of solders marches towards the hole in unison, all while preventing
anything from escaping. I was still inside the circle.

When they see me giving out commands, a group of five Karvithians rush to silence me. None of them are coordinated, almost as if they have no training. I’ll not fall to
someone so unskilled. The first reaches me with sword arm drawn back. His
weapon crashes into my shield and sends a thrill through my hand. I push forward,
throwing his poor footing even further off balance and use my shield to shove him
aside. He falls unto a spear. The other four are more careful.

My unit slowly marches forward and I precede them. The four in front of me attack
together. But they’re sloppy. I jolt back slightly, avoiding the brunt of their attacks.
My sword slashes through the sword arm of the person on my right. He drops his
weapon and reels back, holding his barely attached hand while screaming. The
others attack my shield and one manages to get past! And scratch my surcoat. I
throw their weapons back and they toss their shields up in a desperate defense as
my sword flies through their thighs and lands on the fifth’s shield. I punch him with
my shield and he stumbles back. In the instant he lost his footing, my sword drove
through his stomach. He lets out a groan and stares at the object pierced through
him as he falls off my blade. I can’t help but feel wrong.

I don’t have time to dwell on that as the other enemy is screaming with his sword
arm raised. His blade falls onto my shield and slides off, so I push it down into the
ground. A metallic screech fills the air as my shield scraps along his sword and up
into his head. Once again, my sword drives through the man’s abdomen and my
pang of guilt overcomes me. Why can I feel every drop of blood as it flows out of him and onto my sword? Why can I feel his guts swirling around my sword as his life
fades? I feel like puking.

The last enemy is desperately trying to run away through the ever-growing crowd of Karvithians. It’s them or my family. My shield is raised. My sword arm poised. I’m
ready for this. These humans deserve no sympathy. My unit advances.

As I fought forward, I earned some cuts, but nothing to be concerned over.
Eventually my unit closed in on the hole, but there’s too many of us to all fit in
formation. I tap one out of every three people in formation until I’ve made my way
all the way around. “Group one! Detach!”
The Karvithians were retreating as much as they were coming so we didn’t need
everyone on the hole at all times. Each elf I tapped and his dwarven partner step out of the line and towards the city, awaiting more instructions.

“Hang back here and rest up! Switch out with the others as you see fit! Others need my help, so you’re on your own. I’m counting on you!”
They shout acknowledgment and I run off to help the others. To the right I see Naz
and Wal driving the Karvithians back through their holes, so I head to the left where a wind of death was passing through named Maheed. Wherever he went, a
Karvithian fell all the while grouping our men up. He was shifting the tide in our
favour but not quick enough.

It was chaos. The stench of blood and steel filled the air and the sound of metal on metal and screams polluted my ears. It was the sight of death and goblins that
plagued my sight. This was the only place where goblins still roamed, and they
made me just as sick as all the death. They were laughing. I rushed into the fray.

These untrained Karvithians and goblins make an easy target for my sword, but their sheer numbers are enough to tire anyone out. Anyone I managed to save, I sent
back to the line Maheed and I were forming. Our standard full race line. Elves sat
their spears over top a dwarven shield line while saurians covered the flanks. Elves
or jarcoba hid behind them and waited to strike their unfortunate victims.
When they formed enough people they charged back into the fighting. The
formations greatly improved combat effectiveness and the Goblins were fleeing at
the sight of an organized force. A shame. They were the ones I really wanted to kill.

With the enemy and our troops clearly separated, the archers from atop the wall
slaughtered the preoccupied Karvithians. Toross himself with a squad of elven
archers appeared on the slums houses and rained arrows on them from another
angle. With our victory basically assured, Maheed fell to his knees between the gate
hole and the others on the left, panting. I’ll check back with him after we’re rid of the
invaders.

I pull some elves and dwarves out of the formation to form a circle formation
around the holes as we pass over them. The rest of us are cornering the few
remaining invaders. “Spike wall!”
Elves crouched down into a protective barrier of dwarven shields with their spears
sticking out through the front while saurian loomed behind them. “March!”

I ordered the jarcoba to round up any survivors and finish off any stray invaders
while this line advanced towards the cowering invaders. When the spears reached
the first layer, it only took a few quick jabs to get past their defenses. The first layer
was dead. The wall took another step forward. Some of the cornered didn’t wait for
death. They charged at the line only to get impaled by spikes. The very few who
made it past either tried to topple the wall or jump over it. Either way, they were
crushed by the hulking lizards or me.

I had to cut down some sorry soldier who managed to jump clean over the dwarven wall only to find a boot on his head and a sword plunged through his back. He let
out a scream as I pulled my sword from his body. Then another escaped only to
meet the same fate. And another. And another. Each tried something different to
fare better than the last but each time it failed. They tried rolling out of the way or
even swiping at me. The last layer jumped over the wall. Finally, this would be over.

He rolled to a crouch with a wide sweep of his sword only to have it crash on a
metallic kite and a different sword leave a lethal slash in his throat. Both his hands
shot up to stop the bleeding as blood poured from his mouth. He looked at one of
his hands in a panic and lost all hope when he saw that his glove was drenched in
blood. Then his brown eyes move directly into mine as they pleaded.
‘Please save me.’
His eyes faded. He was gone. This boy. Was my age. I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I turned around and puked an entire weeks’ worth of food onto the blood-soaked
grass. These aren’t soldiers! These aren’t even men! These are slaves!

I tried to see his death as necessary and just, but his eyes begged me for salvation.
The one who took his life. It weighs on me, but I can’t stop here. There are more I
have. I shudder at the thought. More I must kill. I was looking forward to seeing
humans die, but to feel their life fade at my own hands was something horrific. I
wanted to show them my power but… Not like this. These boys did nothing to me
or my family.

When I stood back up the troops were waiting for orders. “Orders, sir?”

I thought for a second before wiping my mouth with the sleeve of my bloody
surcoat. “Saurians, gather up any survivors and bring them to the medical buildings. Elves and dwarves, reinforce the guards at the holes.”

They all chant at me 'Yes, sir' before marching off. I need to check on Maheed. I find him sitting amidst some corpses, resting on his hands looking towards the sky. He
was still panting, although he seems to have recovered a little.

“Feeling better?” He looks up at me from behind his veil of hair.

“Little more rest. Thanks for assist.” Each word came between pants.

“Any injuries?” He waved his hand to suggest he was fine before he stood straight
up.

He returned the question. “You?”
I had some more cuts from all the fights, my shield arm was trembling from all the
attacks I had endured, but neither of those bothered me.

“I feel disgusting. Like a murderer.”
I gestured to the countless; mostly Karvithian, corpses behind me. “These weren’t
even solders.”

He lowers his head. Even with his dog-like face, I can feel the regret from his
expression. “Agreed. I almost feel ashamed to return to my family but.”
His panting stops a moment to ponder. “I don’t want to get used to this.”
The amount of worry in his voice made me wonder if I could get used to this. What
would I become if I did? But it also filled me with a bit of reassurance. I wasn’t the
only one. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I just put my hand on his shoulder to say more than I could put into words. He looked up at me with a sad rat-like smile and a nod.

After a quiet moment, fire erupts from the hole in front of the gate. A wizard!