BOOK 9: CHAPTER 36: FORTS AND PROGRESSION

The drums of war beat steadily, incessantly casting their rhythmic echoes across the field. Dark clouds swirled overhead, a portent of a coming storm, and lightning lanced through the atmosphere near the horizon. Thunder rolled, and Sadie felt her stomach tighten with anticipation.

She held her sword, barely noticing the weight as she studied her surroundings. Nearly ten thousand men and women stood, arrayed to either side in neat ranks. Their armor was worn, their weapons well-used, and their faces creased in grim determination.

They all knew the stakes.

They had seen plenty of battle over the last couple of months. Most had seen friends die. All had been grievously wounded at one time or another. Even Sadie had taken a deep slash across her torso that had left a puckered scar that no amount of healing could banish.

That was the last time she’d slept outside her armor, and she’d paid the price when a surprise attack had demanded her rapid response. The ogre who’d wounded her had been a true specimen, even among his race, and he’d very nearly cleaved Sadie in two. Once, she’d brought Elijah back from such a wound, but that had been a special occasion. If he’d been cut diagonally, it never would have worked – miracle or not.

As the drums continued, a gentle rain began. Another peal of thunder rolled across the field, and the wind picked up, swaying the knee-high grass. After only a few seconds, the storm strengthened, dumping dense sheets of rain on the gathered army.

But Sadie paid it no mind.

None of them did. Not with their target so close. Less than half a mile away was a fort. It was not a beautiful thing. Instead, it was a series of squat, blocky structures composed of rough grey stone and covered in what looked like moss. Surrounding the compound was an imposing wall bristling with enemies. Sadie could see that many of those hobgoblins carried huge, curved bows. She knew from firsthand experience that those archers could fire accurately from nearly a quarter mile away.

That meant that their charge would be fraught with danger.

That wasn’t new, though. The only reason they dared attack the fort in the first place was because they’d spent the past few months killing hobgoblin patrols and repelling their attacks. From their scouts’ reports, the fort was down to the dregs.

Meanwhile, the human army had suffered only minimal losses. However, given their limited numbers, any casualty was impactful. Especially considering that there were nineteen other identical forts to conquer, and that wasn’t even considering taking the Crown itself. But the time for defense had passed. They needed to advance, or they’d be overwhelmed when the last battle commenced. The only hope was to whittle them down, conquering forts along the way and hoping they could survive that final clash.

“At your command,” said Jari from beside her. The big Finn had proven himself in battle on multiple occasions, and though he lacked Sadie’s raw levels, he made up for it in skill and reliability.

Over the course of the past couple of months, the army had slowly begun to defer to her. She hadn’t asked for leadership, but she didn’t shirk that mantle either. If it kept people alive, she had no issues taking command. In some ways, she was born for it. Certainly, she’d trained for a leadership role for most of her life.

“Charge.”

At her word, Jari raised a hand, signaling to another soldier, who hoisted a green flag. A second later, the army surged forward. The first in line bore simple ladders, while the next few ranks carried grappling hooks. Sadie had wanted to build siege engines, but the Primal Realm completely lacked trees from which to construct them. Even building the ladders was only possible because they’d brought a little wood along with them.

The ladder-bearers raced forward, followed by the hook-men, and then, last by the infantry. They started off at a trot, but quickly accelerated into a sprint. Sadie and Jari joined the third rank, largely because the idea of sitting back and directing the battle just wasn’t a viable option. They had a couple of Tacticians for that.

Sadie and Jari were both Warriors by archetype, so they needed to remain with the infantry. Behind them came the Rangers, most of whom were armed with shortbows, which they used to cover the charging infantry. And behind them were the Sorcerers, though they lagged a little. The last thing anyone wanted was for them to expose themselves to a flight of enemy arrows. They would be important for the final stretch.

The hobgoblin archers loosed their first volley, but the infantry were prepared for it. To stymie its effect, the soldiers raised their own shields. Some were more effective than others, but at such a distance, they would be adequate. As they closed on the fort, they would become more exposed.

The arrows skittered off ethereal shields, and the infantry sprinted forward. The next volley came close on the first’s heels, slamming into the next wave of shields. They’d drilled that hundreds of times, so they knew how to alternate. However, the third volley found those shields on cooldown.

That was when Sadie activated Halo of Protection. With her people so tightly bunched, she managed to shield all but those at the periphery. Those were exposed, but there was nothing to be done to protect them.

The arrows deflected off of the shields she’d conjured, but many slammed into charging soldiers. That was when the Sorcerers let loose, spraying their magical spells across the top of the wall and forcing the hobgoblins to take cover. Then, the ladder-bearers reached the wall. They planted the bases of the ladders into the now-muddy ground, then shoved them upright.

Less than a second later, men and women were climbing to the top of the wall.

Before the hobgoblins could repel the ladders, soldiers leaped onto the wall walk, where they immediately shoved the hobgoblins back. Sadie was in the second wave, and she practically flew up the ladder, reaching the top of the fifty-foot wall after only a moment. ṞáΝȎ฿ЕS̈

Then, she laid about her with Final Verdict. She didn’t bother using any abilities. She didn’t need to. The job was a brutal one, and they’d all agreed to hold skills in reserve until absolutely needed.

Thankfully, with Sadie’s attributes, she could match the hobgoblins even when they used their collective ability that boosted their power. She swung her greatsword, cutting through one hobgoblin after another.

Through some miracle, she heard a scream coming from the rear, and she turned to see the Rangers, Tacticians, and Sorcerers sprinting for the wall. And Sadie immediately saw what drove them forward.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

A horde of hobgoblins, at least a couple hundred strong, had come out of nowhere.

“Jari!” she shouted, hacking at another hobgoblin. The creature leaped backward, then stabbed one of her soldiers in the back before disappearing into the fray. Frustrated, Sadie once again shouted for her second in command.

He was there in a second, bloody and with a gash across his shoulder.

Sadie pointed with her sword, “I’m going to delay them. Take this wall, help the ranged attackers into position, and when I break away, bury them under arrows and spells.”

“Selvä!”

She understood that to mean something along the lines of understood. So, without further delay, she leaped free of the wall. After falling fifty feet, her boots squished into the now muddy ground. She kicked off, racing past the oncoming Rangers and cutting through the line of Sorcerers. Along the way, she shouted for them to mount the wall, but she didn’t stop to ensure they followed her order.

Instead, her attention was solely on the hobgoblins.

There were at least two hundred, though one stood out from all the rest. Almost as tall as an ogre, he was broad shouldered, with the exaggerated features of his race. What’s more, he had a sadistic glint in his eyes that Sadie couldn’t fail to recognize.

Knowing she didn’t have room to hesitate, she activated two abilities at the same time. The first was Faith’s Reckoning, which conjured wings of light from her back. She used them to propel her forward at unprecedented speed, but just before she hit the line of hobgoblins, the second ability took hold:

Divine Momentum

Forge ahead with the momentum of the faithful. Every victory grants a 1% increase to all physical attributes. Lasts 1.4 seconds until dissipation. Duration renewed with every defeated opponent. Maximum increase to attributes determined by core cultivation. Current: 106%. Cooldown: 62 days.

She hacked into a hobgoblin, felling it with a single blow. Then another. And another after that. A second later, she activated Bell of Faith, conjuring a glowing bell above her head. When it rang out, it stunned the entire horde. Some skidded to a stop, maintaining their feet, but many flopped over from their own momentum.

Sadie used that to add a few kills to her total, which in turn sent her attributes skyrocketing. Without hesitation, she cast one instance of Blade of Judgement after another. All around her, enormous swords erupted from the muddy earth to bisect the creatures with every cast.

Another twenty fell to her before Bell of Faith ran its course.

She killed another ten before they had a chance to full recover. But by that point, her attributes had increased so much that, when they finally mustered a resistance, they couldn’t even come close to resisting.

Still, Sadie kept going, pushing herself to kill faster and faster. She knew she wouldn’t slaughter them all. That was close to impossible with her skills. However, she did want to maintain Divine Momentum for as long as possible. If she didn’t kill anyone for a second-and-a-half, it would dissipate.

But it wasn’t meant to last forever, as she discovered when she found her swordstroke parried by an axe. Her blade bit into the muddy ground, and a moment later, Divine Momentum dissipated. Thankfully, Faith’s Reckoning still had a few seconds left, which gave her the attributes to leap free of a falling axe blade.

She rolled to her feet, yanking Final Verdict free. It erupted from the ground with a wet squelch as she faced off against the hobgoblin leader.

“You aren’t useless by your standards, human,” he spat between sharpened teeth. Upon closer inspection, Sadie saw that he had a necklace of fingerbones clinging close to his throat. They were much too large to have belonged to a human, so she had to assume he’d taken them as trophies after killing multiple ogres.

That meant he was dangerous.

Not that she needed any other hints. She could feel his power. And though she wasn’t certain if he was higher level than her, she could easily tell that he was well past ascension.

“Who said I was human?” she growled.

“What?” he asked. The remaining hobgoblins had encircled them, giving her the impression that the confrontation was ritualistic in nature. That would fit with what she knew of hobgoblins. They valued prowess more than anything else, and they liked to prove their own. There was no better way to do that than in single combat against a sworn enemy.

Or as she’d learned from her scouts, an ally. The hobgoblins fought amongst one another almost as often as they attacked their enemies. Most of those fights didn’t result in anyone’s deaths, but it wasn’t unheard of either.

“I said I’m not human. Didn’t the wings give it away?” she asked, catching her breath. Gaining such a huge boost in attributes was an enormous boon, but it took her a moment to recover when they faded. The longer she could stall, the better off she would be.

Plus, it would give her people time to finish taking the fort.

The goblin tilted his head in confusion, then squinted. That only lasted a second before his eyes widened.

“Angel.”

“Something like that.”

“Then I challenge you, angel. Single combat. If you win, my people will disperse. If I win…well, you will be dead.”

Sadie pretended to think, but she knew she couldn’t push it too far. And she certainly couldn’t fight them all at the same time. Not without Faith’s Reckoning or Divine Momentum, at least.

She opened her mouth to agree to the duel, but before the words could leave her mouth, a huge fire ball smashed into the hobgoblin leader. A second later the sound of arrows thudding into the creatures filled the air. That’s when the infantry slammed into the enemy with unmatched fury, hacking, slashing, and stabbing as they scythed through their ranks.

Sadie leaped forward, using the distraction to land a blow against the leader. Final Verdict slammed into his side, cutting deep before lodging between his ribs. He let out a roar, aiming an overhand chop at Sadie’s shoulder. She summoned her personal shield just in time to slow it down, but it shattered the small bubble of ethera and slammed into her shoulder.

A loud gong sounded across the battlefield as the axe met her armor, denting it and shattering her collarbone. Pain erupted through her torso as she absorbed the impact, but Sadie pushed through before yanking her sword free. Using a method she’d learned from Elijah, she pushed the pain into its own facet, but with that broken bone, she could do nothing to make her arm cooperate.

But she knew how to fight with one hand.

She’d done so often enough that it came second-nature, and she quickly faced off against the creature. He clutched his side, ignoring the battle raging all around them. He clearly knew he’d been caught unaware, and the likelihood of winning the fight was slim. He didn’t care, though. He was wholly focused on killing Sadie.

For her part, she kept her attention on her surroundings, using her latest ability – called Inquisitor’s Instincts – to warn her of any incoming danger. It wasn’t perfect, and it would only give her an instant of warning, but it was an invaluable ability nonetheless. In the short time since she’d acquired it, she had come to rely on it.

As she did now.

Using her sword one-handed, she circled the hobgoblin leader. He mimicked her movements, obviously wary as he clutched his side. All around, the fighting continued, though to Sadie, it felt like they were isolated on an island.

Finally, the hobgoblin, leaking blood, attacked.

Sadie activated Blade of Judgement. He had clearly expected it, and even as the giant sword exploded from the muddy ground, he leaped to the side. He didn’t let his forward momentum stop, though, and his eyes glinted with malice as he closed on Sadie.

Time seemed to slow as her sword entered his chest, ripping through it with ease as she raised her injured arm in a block. She caught his wrist on her forearm, driving her sword deeper until it erupted from his back. He went limp, his heart and lungs destroyed by her blade. She ripped the weapon free, then kicked the dying hobgoblin away just as her armor’s activated ability, Celestial Health, ran its course. It had been just enough to mend her collarbone, though not completely.

It had broken again when she’d blocked the hobgoblin’s oncoming blow.

It was worth it, though.

She looked around to see that her people had managed to get the upper hand, but even after she rejoined the battle, it took a few minutes before the rest of the hobgoblins were dead.

Looking around, she let out a sigh. They’d taken one fort, but they still had a long way to go before they conquered the Primal Realm.