“Mage!” someone yelled.

  Ryan had been watching an exceptionally tall goblinoid standing out in the field beyond bow range, a staff clutched in its hands as it waved its arms. A small point of red light gathered at the tip of the staff.

  He tore his eyes away from the goblin—already thinking of it as a hobgoblin due to its larger stature—and looked back at the men on the wall. They were diving off the rampart, pressing their backs to the inside of the wall as if hiding from something.

  Ryan snapped his gaze back to the supposed mage just in time to see a rapidly expanding fireball hurtling straight toward him. He dropped behind the wall, throwing his shield up over his head. A loud ‘gwump’ echoed out, followed by a compression wave that made his ears ring. A wash of heat rolled over him a heartbeat later—hot, but not nearly as bad as the forge.

  Ryan cautiously poked his head up, peering between his shield and the wall as he tried to piece together what had just happened. He realized a little too late that if the ramparts had been the actual target, he wouldn’t be alive right now. No, the target had been the brush piled against the wall to prevent ladders. Ryan had originally wanted a ditch lined with spikes, but the Reeve had pointed out they didn’t have the time or manpower to dig one. That had been a fair point, and Ryan had conceded, agreeing to the brush plan—including the part where they’d set it on fire once ladders were in place.

  What neither he nor anyone else had calculated was that the goblins might set the damn thing on fire themselves, blinding the village to what the enemy was doing. In the words of Sun Tzu, the general who makes many calculations comes out the victor. Ryan clearly had not made enough calculations.

  The fire spread outward, slowly circling the village of Ern in a choking ring of smoke that blocked the view on all sides. People kept their heads down in case the goblins began loosing arrows. For a long while, nothing happened. Maybe an hour passed. It was hard to tell, considering Ryan no longer had a clock to base his guesses on. Then came the horrible ‘whomp,’ sending a chill down his spine and screams echoing from somewhere in the village.

  Fortunately, the goblins couldn’t see Ern very well either, and the building they’d hit was mostly stone. Still, plenty of nearby wood and straw caught alight. People began rushing with buckets. But as long as the enemy kept firing blindly into the town, it looked like the whole place might burn.

  Ryan grabbed one of the archers and told him to climb onto one of the taller buildings and shout down if he could spot the mage. It took a while for the man to get up there, and even longer for him to actually find the target. Unfortunately, instead of calling out directions to where the hell the mage was, the man knocked an arrow and loosed it.

  Ryan cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Cease fire!” hoping the man could hear him. It was already too late. The archer panicked, hesitating at the edge of the building as if weighing whether or not he could survive a jump that would almost certainly kill him.

  Another streak of red cut through the smoke, slamming into the building. A ‘whomp’ followed, punctuated by a single scream that ended abruptly with a dull thud. Ryan gritted his teeth and moved over to the remaining archers. “I need someone to get somewhere high—preferably stay hidden—and call out where the damn mage is,” he said, practically growling.

  The archers tore their eyes away from the village inn, now fully engulfed in flames and beyond any hope of being saved. “It’d be nice if we could get up there,” one of the men said, nodding toward the hill Ryan stubbornly refused to call a mountain—it was far too small compared to everything else. It was where the mine was located, and also where Ryan had once imagined a fortress might go, if he’d had the manpower and budget. Ryan nodded. “Yeah. But we don’t have that option.”

  The archers shifted nervously. Ryan made a mental note that he really needed to start memorizing some of their names. “Well, I suppose the next tallest building would be the Lord’s Hall,” one of them said.

  “If you think you can get up there and pick things out without being seen, that’d be ideal.”

  The man held Ryan’s gaze for a moment, as if checking whether he was joking. Then he nodded and headed off.

  Ryan turned and went to find one of his runners, sending him to help Bjorn pull any important documents out of anywhere that might catch fire. It wasn’t long before they had a man up on the roof of the Lord’s Hall, crouched low and keeping an eye out for the mage. Archers were repositioned along the side of the wall, while the spotter began calling out directions in paces once he caught sight of the target.

  The information was relayed down in a crude, shouted telephone line. It wasn’t ideal—but with only three people in the chain, all of them screaming at the top of their lungs, it was enough to give the archers a rough sense of where to aim.

  The archers loosed their arrows. From atop the Lord’s Hall, the spotter let out a quiet chuckle. “Not even close—but he looks confused,” the spotter called down.

  “What’s he doing now?” Ryan shouted back.

  “He’s moving. I’ll call directions when he stops.”

  Ryan nodded. A few minutes passed before the spotter’s voice rang out again, calling distances and angles. “It looks like he’s about to cast!”

  The archers fired. From the roof, the spotter laughed again.

  “What’s going on?” Ryan shouted.

  “Our friend seems rather displeased,” the spotter replied.

  “What is he doing?”

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  “He’s moving. I’ll tell you when he stops.”

  A brief pause. Shouted Directions, and the loosing of arrows.

  From the roof, the spotter laughed once more. Though this time, the laughter edged toward manic. “He’s throwing a temper tantrum,” the spotter said.

  At the moment, they were just playing with a lone goblin who could burn them from a distance. Eventually, the whole horde would attack. They toyed with the lone goblin mage for most of the afternoon. Arrow conservation became the primary concern. Sometimes they fired a single arrow. Occasionally, they loosed a full volley. All the while, they inched their aim closer as the smoke slowly began to thin. Still, the mage managed to get a couple of shots off at the village, giving Ryan one of those déjà vu moments—wishing he had somewhere safe he could put the women and children.

  And then came dusk.

  ***

  A horn sounded from the southern wall, followed shortly by one from the western wall. Ryan looked at his runners and gave them a sharp nod that said, “go.” The two boys sprinted off toward their respective walls—old enough to hold a spear but too young for anyone to be comfortable with them fighting.

  Most of Ryan’s runners fell into that same narrow age band: eager to help, while the rest of the village was equally eager to keep them hidden. The whole lot of them looked disappointed to be used as runners, yet Ryan saw them as worth their weight in silver. He waited a few moments, then scanned the wall—men and a few women alike—and picked several to peel off and reinforce the south and west.

  “Shouldn’t we send more?” the Reeve asked.

  Ryan answered with a shrug. “It didn’t take many of us to take them out last time. This feels more like a tactic to pull us away from this side,” he said, tapping the rampart beneath his feet.

  The Reeve considered that, then nodded. One of the archers loosed an arrow. With ammunition limited, their sole job was to harass the spellcaster. Now that darkness was settling in, no one could actually see the mage—except when he tried to cast. Each time, a small red glow bloomed, a beacon as if from a lighthouse, warning everyone of what was coming.

  The little red light vanished.

  Ryan could only imagine how furious that goblin must have been. Under different circumstances, he might have smiled—or even chuckled—but the blare of a horn from the north wall cut the thought short.

  He turned toward the sound, his expression tightening into a frown. That was the last place he’d expected an attack. The terrain there was steep and difficult to traverse, which was exactly why it was the most lightly guarded wall. With a sigh, Ryan looked over his quick reaction force—the small group he’d intended to keep in reserve. He tried to take them all in, but his eyes kept landing on the baker, the only one of the group he actually knew by name.

  “Go help the north wall,” Ryan said. “Get back here as soon as possible.”

  He received several nods and murmured acknowledgments before the group turned and hurried off. Just as the group was leaving, the two runners from the south and west walls arrived.

  “Fifty goblins attacking the south wall,” reported the runner from the south.

  The one from the west just pointed at him and said, “Yeah. Same.”

  Ryan nodded and told them to stay close.

  An arrow clattered onto the rampart among them, prompting several shouted warnings of “Heads up!” as—quite literally—everyone, Ryan included, threw their shields over their heads.

  Unlike last time, the sky was clouded over, and he couldn’t quite make out the mass of goblins that were no doubt charging the walls beneath that cover. With the archers forced to conserve their arrows for harassing the lone mage, the defenders had little choice but to wait for the goblins to set their ladders and start climbing.

  If only they’d had more bows—but bows took time. Too much time. Maybe javelins. Or slings. Ryan nearly facepalmed right there on the rampart. How hard was it to make a fucking sling? And while he was at it, how hard would it have been to pile up rocks on top of the wall to hurl down at anything trying to climb a ladder? Damn it. Apparently, he was not as good at this as he’d thought.

  Ladders slammed against the walls in far greater numbers than during the first battle. Fortunately, the villagers had learned. This time, a single person would rush forward to shove goblins back and haul the ladder up, while two others braced beside them—shields raised—to block arrows and intercept anything that managed to crest the wall. The tactic was working. Unfortunately, there were just so many damn ladders.

  Ryan did his part, holding his shield steady and guarding one of the ladder pullers. Between clashes, he kept glancing back over the village, trying to see the western and southern walls past the clustered buildings—and wondering what the hell was taking them so long. On a similar note, where the hell were the runners who were supposed to tell him what was going on? The waiting was almost worse than the fighting.

  A sudden rain of arrows made him look up, the points of several small tips jutting out from the wood on his side of the shield. Ryan gritted his teeth and held his position until the ladder puller finished hauling the ladder up and the two others moved on while he fell back and shouted down at the runners, “Get to your walls and find out what the fuck is going on!”

  He let out a sigh of relief as the quick reaction force he’d sent to the north wall began trickling back.

  “Twenty-five goblins,” one of them reported.

  “That’s all?”

  “Yeah, Kell’s injured, but he should be patched up pretty quick and sent back over here.”

  Ryan nodded and climbed back up to survey his wall. Unfortunately, in the time he’d spent yelling at runners and checking in with the quick reaction force, everything had pretty much gone to shit. More ladders slammed against the walls, forcing the defenders to split into teams of one or two. They no longer had the time to haul the ladders up. Instead, all their effort went into stabbing downward at the goblins climbing over, the press of bodies now spilling onto the rampart. The numbers were still small, but not for long.

  A couple of human screams of pain rang out. Ryan hesitated, his gaze snapping between the section of wall being overrun and the southern and western ends. No one was coming.

  He scanned what remained of his quick reaction force, his eyes landing again on Hearne, the baker. Not because Hearne stood out, but because he was the only person Ryan could reliably put a name to.

  “Open the gate,” Ryan said. His voice sounded grim, even to his own ears.

  Hearne’s eyes went wide. “You want us to what?”

  “There are too many, spread over too wide an area,” Ryan said, fully committing to the decision. “We need to funnel them in. I’ll take half the crew and clear the walls, send you reinforcements. Open the gate.”

  Hearne looked sick and confused.

  “Get the gate open and I can send reinforcements, okay?” Ryan said, keeping his voice as calm and firm as he could.

  Hearne met his eyes, then gave a slight nod. “Aye. Okay.”

  “Gate open,” Ryan echoed, already stepping backward. “You lot with me.”

  He pointed, then repeated, “Get the gate open, and I’ll start sending you reinforcements.”

  Hearne nodded again, his uncertainty hardening into determination. “Aye. Okay.” He turned and headed for the gate.

  Ryan broke into a full run, hoping that the people behind him had fallen into line as he charged toward the wall to flank the goblins. As he put one foot in front of the other, a single sickening thought echoed through his head.

  Goodbye, Hearne.

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