The command hung in the air, heavy and suffocating, vibrating against the iron of the gates like a physical weight.

  "Open."

  Josh stood his ground, shield raised, breath hissing through his clenched teeth. Beside him, the Captain of the Guard wiped a mixture of sweat and blood from his eyes, his grip on his spear white-knuckled.

  For a moment, there was silence. Then came the retort.

  BOOM.

  It wasn't a hammer this time. It was a fist. A single, concentrated blow struck the centre of the massive gates. The iron groaned in protest, metal screaming against metal, and the massive timber beam, a trunk of seasoned oak thick as a man’s torso that held the doors shut, shuddered violently. A spiderweb fracture appeared in the wood with a sound like a gunshot. Dust rained down from the archway, coating Josh’s shoulders in grey powder.

  "He's trying to batter it down by hand," Bhel whispered, staring at the fracture. "That's... that's not natural strength."

  "Reinforce the bar!" the Captain roared, snapping out of his momentary shock. "Get shoring timbers! Now!"

  The gatehouse erupted into organised chaos. The initial panic of the retreat was hardening into the grim determination of a siege. Reinforcements were pouring in from the district streets, a steady stream of men and women answering the toll of the alarm bell.

  They were a motley army. There were guards in their blue and gold, moving with drilled precision. There were dwarves from the smithing district, aprons still on, wielding heavy hammers and tongs as if they were weapons of war. There were elven rangers finding perches on the rooftops, beastkin mercenaries checking their jagged blades, and gnomes hauling crates of volatile alchemical flasks.

  "You lot!" The Captain pointed at a group of burly warriors who had just arrived. "Get those crates against the gate! Brace it! Make it so heavy a dragon couldn't push it open!"

  He turned to a squad of mages who were frantically drinking mana potions. "I need barriers on that timber! Reinforce the structure! If that bar snaps, we're all dead!"

  Then he turned to their party. His eyes were hard, the look of a man who was spending lives like currency because he had no other choice.

  The Captain's voice was level. "Your team hold the line here. You bought us time. Now I need you to kill."

  "Where do you need us?" Josh asked, sheathing his sword and adjusting his shield straps.

  "Topside," the Captain pointed a bloodied finger towards the stone stairs leading to the ramparts. "The gate will hold for now, but they're swarming the walls. I need heavy hitters up there to thin the tide before they breach the parapet. Go!"

  "On it," Josh nodded. He turned to the group. "You heard him. Move out!"

  They sprinted for the stairs. The sound of pounding against the gate followed them, a rhythmic, terrifying drumbeat. CRACK. BOOM. CRACK. With every blow, the fracture in the timber beam grew a fraction wider.

  They took the stairs two at a time, lungs burning, emerging onto the high stone walkway of the fortification.

  If the gate below was chaotic, the wall was a slaughterhouse.

  The walkway was narrow, barely ten feet wide, bounded by crenellations on the inside and a low rail on the outside. It was choked with defenders fighting a desperate melee against kobolds that were climbing and clawing over the edge.

  "Perberos!" Carcan shouted, spotting the elf perched on top of a gatehouse tower.

  The rogue waved them over, firing an arrow straight down as he did so. He looked untouched, though his quiver was dangerously low.

  "About time," Perberos said as they reached him. "I was starting to think you'd decided to nap down there."

  "We got busy," Josh grunted, looking over the edge.

  He stopped. The breath left his lungs.

  From the ground level, the horde had been a wall of bodies. From up here, thirty feet in the air, the true scale of the nightmare was revealed.

  The floor around the portal was no longer visible. The cobblestones, the checkpoint, the debris, it was all gone, buried under a shifting, writhing carpet of red and black. It looked like an overturned anthill. Hundreds of kobolds were packed into the space between the portal and the wall. They were so dense that they were moving like a fluid, waves of scales crashing against the stone fortifications.

  Arrows and spells were raining down from the walls, exploding into the mass. Fireballs detonated, lightning arcs chained between bodies, ice spikes skewered three at a time. But it didn't matter. For every ten kobolds that died, dissolving into golden dust, fifteen more poured out of the bleeding black void of the portal.

  They were absorbing the damage like a sponge.

  "Ancestors save us," Bhel breathed, gripping the stone parapet. "There's an army down there."

  "And they're all looking up," Perberos noted grimly.

  Down in the crush, kobold mages and archers were returning fire. Green bolts of poison magic and crude black arrows zipped up towards the battlements, forcing defenders to duck behind the merlons.

  "We need a spot!" Josh yelled over the roar of the crowd below. "Captain said to thin the herd!"

  "There!" Brett pointed. Fifty yards down the wall to the east, there was a gap in the defensive line. A section of the walkway was empty save for the corpse of a guard and a pile of dead kobolds that were slowly dissolving. The defenders on either side were too pressed to cover it, though had apparently dealt with the initial breach.

  "Move!" Josh ordered.

  They pushed through the press of fighting men, Josh clearing a path. They reached the empty section just as a grappling hook clattered over the wall, digging into the stone.

  Bhel didn't break stride. He severed the rope with a downward chop of his axe. A screech faded away as the climber fell forty feet back into the press.

  "Set up!" Josh commanded. "Bhel, me, we hold the wall. Brett, Perberos, you rain hell. Carcan, keep us standing!"

  "I have a good angle here," Brett said, stepping up to a gap between the crenellations. He looked down.

  For a fire mage, the sight was both terrifying and intoxicating. It was a target-rich environment unlike anything he had ever seen. He didn't need to aim. He didn't need to calculate trajectories or worry about splash damage. The entire world below was enemy.

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  "Brett," Carcan warned, seeing the look in the mage's eyes. "Pace yourself."

  "I'm fine," Brett whispered. A flame ignited in his palm, not the usual orange, but a white-hot plasma that hissed in the air. "I'll just... be efficient."

  He thrust his hand out.

  WOOSH.

  A beam of concentrated fire erupted from his palm. It wasn't a fireball; it was a continuous stream, like water from a high-pressure hose, but made of liquid heat. He swept it across the mass of kobolds below like a scythe. Brett was thinking about napalm, and its effectiveness in open areas.

  The effect was horrific. The beam cut a swath through the horde. Kobolds didn't just burn; they melted. Their armour fused, their weapons collapsed. A trench of clear cobblestone appeared in the wake of the beam for a split second before the horde collapsed back into it.

  "Reloading," Brett muttered, pulling his hand back. He didn't look tired. He looked energised. He grabbed the heat radiating from the stone wall, sucking it into his own mana pool, recycling the energy of the battle.

  "Incoming!" Josh shouted, raising his shield.

  A volley of dark arrows rattled against the stonework. One struck Josh’s shield, shattering. Another whizzed past Brett’s ear.

  "My turn," Perberos said calmly.

  He fired. The arrow punched through the eye of a kobold shaman down below who was charging a lightning spell. The spell backfired, electrocuting the five warriors standing in a puddle next to him.

  "Nice shot," Bhel grunted, kicking a kobold in the face just as it scaled over the wall, sending it tumbling back down.

  But Brett was the artillery. The mage stepped back up to the ledge, raised his hands and shouted "Ignite!"

  Below them, a twenty-foot circle of the courtyard simply erupted. The stone beneath the kobolds turned to molten slag instantly. Dozens of creatures sank into the glowing rock, thrashing as they were consumed.

  "More!" Brett laughed, a sound that was a little too manic. "Burn!"

  He began to weave his hands, pulling strands of fire from the air. He created floating orbs of fire and dropped them like stones. He condensed heat into needles and sprayed them like a shotgun blast.

  "Brett!" Carcan shouted, stepping forward. "Watch your mana!"

  "I have plenty!" Brett yelled back, his eyes glowing with reflected light. "I can feel it! The heat! It's everywhere!"

  He was feeding. The sheer amount of thermal energy rising from the burning horde below was recharging him, acting as an external battery. But his body wasn't a perfect conduit. He was running hot. Smoke was starting to curl from the sleeves of his robe.

  "He's overheating," Josh realized, glancing back while he shield-bashed a kobold that had vaulted the wall. "Carcan!"

  "I see it!"

  Brett raised both hands high. "Let's make a tornado!"

  He began to spin the mana, twisting the rising heat currents from his magma pool. Below, the air began to rotate. Dust, smoke, and sparks were sucked into a vortex. The fire caught the wind. A pillar of spinning flame, thirty feet high, began to form in the centre of the crush, sucking kobolds into its fiery maw.

  "Burn! Burn them all!" Brett screamed, his voice cracking.

  The mana cost was astronomical. His mana bar, which had been fluctuating, suddenly plummeted. "Brett, stop!" Carcan lunged forward, grabbing the back of his robe. She cast a spell, sending a shock of cold, calming mana into his system.

  Brett gasped, his eyes rolling back in his head as the connection was severed. The fire tornado below wobbled and dissipated, sending a wave of hot air washing over the wall. Brett slumped against the parapet, coughing.

  "You idiot!" Carcan scolded, slapping the back of his head. "You almost burned out your core! Look at your mana!"

  Brett blinked, the manic light fading from his eyes. He looked at his hands, which were trembling and red. "I... I didn't feel it drop. It felt infinite."

  "Adrenaline is a liar," Carcan snapped, handing him a mana potion. "Drink. And sit down for a minute. You're no good to us unconscious."

  "We're not done!" Bhel roared.

  The respite was over. While Brett had been clearing the courtyard, the kobolds had been climbing.

  A section of the wall to their left was overrun. Several kobolds, shielded by magic, had scurried up and were spilling over the crenellations.

  Josh charged down the walkway, shield raised. A kobold warrior, this one wearing heavier chainmail, lunged at him with a spear. Josh caught the tip on his shield, slid inside the guard, and rammed the edge of his shield into the creature's neck, before driving it sideways and back over the wall.

  Bhel was right beside him. The narrow walkway was the dwarf’s element. He was a buzzsaw. He hooked an axe behind a kobold’s knee, pulled it down, and stamped on its head as soon as it hit the ground.

  "They're getting thicker!" Bhel shouted, ducking a swinging mace. "These aren't the trash mobs."

  He was right. The climbers were elites, likely beasts from the third floor.

  One of them, a dual-wielding berserker, managed to parry Bhel’s axe and slashed at the dwarf’s face. Bhel leaned back, the blade scoring a line across his nose, and retaliated with a headbutt that cracked the kobold’s skull.

  "Protect the casters!" Josh ordered, holding the line against three attackers.

  Perberos had switched fully to melee. He was dancing on the railing, using his superior balance to strike from above. He stabbed a kobold in the eye, vaulted over its falling body, and kicked another one in the chest, sending it tumbling into the courtyard.

  CLANG-THUD.

  A heavy sound echoed from behind them.

  A kobold had made it over the wall right next to Brett, who was still sitting, drinking his potion. It was a Sapper, carrying a satchel of glowing alchemical bombs.

  "Brett!" Carcan screamed.

  Brett looked up, eyes wide.

  The Sapper raised a rusted pickaxe, aiming for the mage’s skull.

  THWACK.

  An arrow materialized in the Sapper's throat. It gagged, dropping the pickaxe, and fell backward off the wall.

  Josh looked up to the tower. Another ranger had covered them.

  "Thanks!" Brett gasped, scrambling to his feet.

  "Get back in the fight!" Josh yelled, shield-bashing a kobold so hard it knocked two kobolds off the wall below it.

  Bhel fought his way to the crenellation. He leaned over, ignoring the spears stabbing at him, and hacked at the heavy iron hooks that were being used as ladders. It took three strikes, sparks flying, but the metal snapped.

  "Clear!" Bhel cheered, raising his axe.

  "Not clear!" Josh panted, wiping blood from his visor. "Look!"

  He pointed to the right. More hooks. More kobolds. The wall was being swarmed along its entire length.

  They fought for what felt like hours, but was likely only twenty minutes. It was a blur of repetitive, brutal motion. Strike, block, push, kill. Drink a potion. Repeat. Every few minutes, runners would scramble up the slick stone stairs, teenagers too young for the fight or retired adventurers too old to swing a weapon. They were the lifeline of the defence, darting between the fighters with crates strapped to their backs. They didn't ask what was needed; they just shoved bundles of arrows into empty quivers and slid water skins across the blood-slicked stones, their eyes wide with terror as they tried to keep out of the way.

  Brett recovered enough mana to start firing again, though Carcan kept a hand on his shoulder, regulating his output. He switched to smaller, precise shots, picking off the climbers before they could reach the top.

  The sun began to dip lower, obscured by the orange smog of the breach. The heat was relentless.

  Finally, there was a lull. The wave of climbers thinned out. The defenders on the wall slumped against the stone, gasping for air.

  Josh walked to the edge of the parapet. He looked down into the courtyard.

  He expected to see a dent. He expected to see that their efforts, the untold amounts of damage Brett had poured into the hole, the hundreds of arrows, the falling stones, had made a difference.

  His heart sank.

  The courtyard was still full. The living swarmed over them like ants. There were hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. And from the black portal, the stream continued.

  "It doesn't end," Bhel said quietly, coming up beside Josh. The dwarf’s beard was matted with blood, his armour chipped and scarred. "We're killing them by the score, and it doesn't matter."

  "It matters," Josh said, though his own voice sounded hollow. "Every one we kill is one that doesn't get into the town."

  He looked at the gate below. It was still holding, but the timber bar was splintered. The pounding had stopped for now, but the General was still down there, waiting.

  Josh looked up at the sky. The cracks in the blue were widening. The orange corruption was spreading. He turned back to his party. They were alive. They were tired, battered, and low on resources, but they were alive.

  "Check your gear," Josh ordered, his voice returning to the command tone. "Drink water. Get something to eat. We’re going to be here for a while."

  "And when they come again?" Carcan asked, looking at her nearly empty mana potion belt.

  Josh looked back at the portal, at the endless tide of red and black.

  "Then we kill them again."

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