For a heartbeat, nothing moved.

  Mera’s body pitched forward, weightless for the briefest, most dramatic of moments, before gravity remembered her. She slid down the slope on her face, legs folding under her like a carelessly dropped overcoat, the arrow still quivering where it had punched through thought and memory and whatever else people kept behind their eyes.

  No scream. No last word. Her grip still white on her swirling blade. Just meat for the mire, suddenly and completely.

  Then the marsh erupted. It stretched out from the ridgeline for about a mile. The Skaggad approach was oddly picturesque, if not overtly gothic and a little kitsch. In fact, if it weren't for the jumble of armament that lay dotted across the landscape like a child's playthings of war, it would’ve made for a delightful vista.

  Nevertheless, in an instant, green bodies burst from reed beds and mud-holes and half-submerged tunnels like the land itself had decided to vomit on queue. Arrows stitched the air. Hooks whistled by with flailing trails. Nets flew, weighted and barbed. The green-skinned bastards came forward screaming, hooligans surging and hollering in a sickening cackle of battle—then went silent at the very last second before the bulk hit, jaws clamped tight as they closed in to kill.

  Someone in the Barston line shouted Mera’s name. Someone else screamed something that wasn’t a word; just a wet gargle.

  Sludge roared—biceps pulsing and arms spread wide.

  It wasn’t the sound it made when killing. Not the wet grunt of effort, not the low rumble of satisfaction. This was raw and wrong, dragged up from deep sludge-folds that didn’t care about lungs or throats. The sound hit the mob like a hammer to the spine.

  Sludge charged down the slope—swinging into the green swarm like a lumberjack to a sea of pine.

  The first wave broke against it like surf against a cliff. Axe rose and fell, rose and fell again, rose and fell once more—each swing ending something in a solid crunch. Goblins flew back in pieces; limbs lost and scattered. One of them hit Sludge square in the chest with a hooked blade and bounced off, ribs collapsing inward like a kicked basket. It was like loosing some hell-branded boar into a thicket of brittle deadwood; snapping and crunching and splitting and hacking.

  But there were too many. Too many of the greenlings dug deep underground—under the muck where they belonged, where they called home.

  They swarmed past, under, around. Nets tangled arms and legs. Weighted lines wrapped throats. A goblin leapt onto Sludge’s back, shrieking like a blood-drunk pygmy, and was smashed into the ground hard enough to leave a goblin-shaped dent in the mud. The Cold Prince inside smirked at the artistry of it.

  Behind Sludge, the Barston folk fractured.

  The butcher went down with a howl as a blade punched into his thigh. Sweat had pooled in the folds of his thick neck and the pudgy pockets above his eye sockets. Even with a dagger jutting from his limb he was trying to catch himself for a breather. The crooked-nose boy dragged him back, teeth bared, stabbing wildly at anything green that came close.

  The trapper fought like a man drowning, spear snapping out, feet never still, always angling away from being surrounded. As he saddled up the side of the ridge, someone lurched past him from the fury of the goblin fray, fell screaming into the marsh with a plop and didn’t come back up. Poor fucker, or perhaps the lucky one.

  Sludge hacked its way downslope still, trying to reach where Mera had fallen, but the goblins flowed to fill every gap it opened. They weren’t charging blindly now. They circled, darted in to strike, fell back. Hooks caught at Sludge’s axe haft, yanking it off line. A net tangled its legs, and it went down on one knee with a wet, meaty impact that sent mud splashing.

  The greenlings were snarling curses as they jostled him. Magskaf. Loggog. Taboos in their own tongue—kin eater. Murder of mothers.

  That was when the Barston folk almost broke. A fortnight out in the mire faded faster than cobwebs in a rainstorm.

  “Back!” someone shouted. “Back to the ridge!”

  Sludge didn’t hear it, or could even comprehend the shrieking sounds of retreat.

  But the bulk of the mob did. They began to pull away in clumps, dragging wounded with them, shoving past bodies. Goblins pressed, then eased, then pressed again—never committing, never chasing too far. They seemed to enjoy the jostle back and forth; the spiky waves of winning hitting like a ripe fire whiskey just at the right tick on a rager.

  They were letting them go.

  Sludge tore the net free and surged upright, black muck streaming from its limbs. It cleaved and cleaved and cleaved. The lumberjack killed until there was no one left immediately in front of it, then turned, looking for the Barston lot—for the trapper—for something it could anchor to.

  [Quest Update: Goblins slain (64/?)

  Reward Pending]

  “Smassshhh!” it roared, but the ridge was already filling with retreating figures, scampering up rock-holds as the dust kicked up and covered the mire line in a fine, grey haze.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  Sludge roared again and followed. The black pang in its deepest fold told it to be savvy. Battles are won and lost by far less.

  The goblins stopped at the marsh’s edge, shrieking insults and clashing blades against shields. Arrows flew, but wide now, careless. The message had been delivered.

  They didn’t need to win today. They just needed the Barston folk to understand. This was their home. They would fight and die and snarl and ravage.

  The ridge was a mess of blood and breath. Bodies were laid out wrong in hurry. Tarpaulin and canvas sheets flapped haphazardly in the marsh breeze. Helmets lay abandoned—some lay split clean in half, parts of skull and forehead still seared into the padding. A spear stuck upright in the mud like a marker for nothing.

  As the goblin horde heaved and huffed backwards, the Barston folk took time to brave wounds and press trauma. The boys counted heads like Mera had taught them.

  “This fucking hell-hole,” wheezed the Butcher.

  A bloody afternoon. The number was far lower than when they'd first reaved across the burrows and the mire. Twelve of them now.

  They brought Mera’s body up last. One of the Barston boys skidded down while the greenlings took turns sticking arrows by his boots. What was left of her face was slack and pale, one eye half-open, staring at nothing. The arrow had pinned her thoughts to the ground. The old trapper pulled it free and tossed it out over the ridge. The sound it made was soft and final.

  No one spoke much after that, just huffed and grimaced as they stared out at the buzzing swarm of green that had faded back.

  “Weird fuckers,” said a blonde-haired lad with a whisper of a beard on his chin. “Why aren't they storming us? Just standing there… snarling.” He spat to the gravel and the muck.

  The butcher bound his leg with shaking hands and didn’t ask for help. One of the boys—the one with the crooked-nose—sat with his back to a rock and stared at his bloody fingers until the trapper slapped him hard enough to make him blink.

  “Still there, pard,” he grunted.

  Sludge stood apart, axe planted in the mud, green-black gore dripping slow and steady from the blade’s edge.

  It did not understand the tightness in its chest. For the life of it, it could not understand why the noise inside it would not settle. Charge! Smash! The surging black sludge coursed through the fibers and sinews of the lumberjack form, but that cold stone in the pit of its gut told it otherwise.

  They camped on the ridge that night, fires small and hooded. No songs. No stories. Just the sound of whetstones and the low, constant murmur of Skaggad below—horns calling, drums answering, voices raised in something that was not panic.

  Celebration, maybe. Or perhaps even prayer.

  The goblins came again before dawn.

  Not in force. Not screaming. Were they trying to thin the herd? Snuff them out like candles? Sludge was an unstoppable horror, but alone—not entirely unflankable.

  They slipped in low and quiet, blades aimed at throats, arrows loosed from the dark. One of the boys died without waking as he slept against a rock, eyes open in surprise as blood filled his mouth. Another screamed as a goblin slipped out from a thin gully and thrust a rusty trident through his gut. The greenskin screamed back, but was silenced by a thrown knife from the trapper that punched clean through its skull and into the dirt behind it.

  “Raid!” He wheezed, the taught percussion of his chest screeching into the cool half-light.

  Sludge was on its feet in an instant, axe swinging, but by the time it reached the edge of the camp the goblins were already gone.

  They left three bodies behind. Two of the boys, and an old swineherd who'd insisted on being first in line for strapping on Halbrecht's splintmail. Three arrows had pierced it—two of them split bullseye on the other. It had pierced the heart in an instant.

  They wanted the Barston folk to see them; bled out in the morning wash.

  No one had time to bury the dead this time. No cairns or shallow graves, just a tossed strip of canvas and deeper looks.

  “They’re letting us come,” the trapper said at last, voice rough as gravel. “Seen it before—raiding party out by the Wash. They want him alone. They know they can't take him down while the rest of us watch his back.”

  The old man nodded at Sludge.

  “Hold steady, boys. All eyes on Axe.”

  No one argued.

  They pushed forward from the ridgeline; shields raised, tight and close to Sludges flank.

  The next hours were a series of violent questions, each answered with blood.

  A watchtower rose from the marsh on a crooked stone base, ladders lashed to its sides. Sludge tore it down with its bare hands while the Barston folk turtled around him, hauling at stone and timber until the whole thing leaned, then fell with a splash that sent goblins scrambling into the reeds. They didn’t try to hold it. They didn’t need to. The alarm was sounded—Skaggad knew that the red morning had come.

  Throughout the grey drizzle, arrows rained down onto the clutch of Barston shields, always from a different direction. The mob learned to heave and ho in turns, backs to each other, blades within reach. Sludge stood firm at the vanguard of them, unmoving, eyes fixed ahead, swinging in tow like some mechanical lawnmower of goblin pulp.

  A marsh crossing swallowed two men whole. The ground gave way under their weight, sucking them down into black water that stank of rot and old death. Goblins watched from platforms just out of reach, loosing arrows until Sludge waded in and smashed the supports to kindling.

  Each time they pressed, the goblins fell back.

  [Quest Update: Goblins slain (97/?)

  Reward Pending]

  Each time, the path led closer to Skaggad.

  They reached the final rise at dusk. From here, Skaggad showed itself properly for the first time.

  Stone walls reinforced with scavenged masonry ringed the heart of it, rising from the marsh like a bad idea made permanent. Smoke vented from chimneys and cracks. Walkways crisscrossed the outer works. Goblins moved in disciplined lines, hauling supplies, manning positions. Its walls were thick—not like the planky-pole watchtowers that had lined the concourse.

  Drums began to beat.

  Slow. Deep. Measured.

  Fires lit along the walls one by one, until the whole place glowed green and gold against the falling dark.

  The Barston mob finally stopped. Ten of them now; the two poor bastards that had sunk into the marsh being the only casualties. It made a change from the day-before-slaughter.

  No one said it, but they all felt it: this was different. This wasn’t another warren to collapse or flood. This was a place that would fight back all the way down. The greenskin scum had frothed and snarled at defending its walls. Heck, it was almost admirable. Scores dead; sweet, sweet meat aside.

  Sludge stepped forward.

  For the first time, the mob didn’t move with the lumberjack straight away. They hesitated. Just a step. Just long enough for it to be noticed.

  Sludge did not understand why that hurt.

  The drums rolled on, patient and unafraid. Wait, were these goblins… singing?

  Skaggad gesticulated, its palisades thundering—swaying, almost—from the fervent drums of war.

  And for the first time since the march began, Sludge felt the shape of something vast ahead of it—not meat, not work, but resistance.

  Something that would not break easily.

  Something that would have to be torn apart piece by piece.