An iron-gray sky slowly gave way to pale blues and faint touches of orange and pink as the sun started setting. The goblins had shown up in the early afternoon, as though they were waging some sort of psychological warfare. They hadn’t proceeded to attack, merely lurking about in the forest and watching the village from within the treeline. The nervous anticipation lasted for hours, until the sun was nearly set and the goblins finally started showing themselves.

  The confident smirk on Reeve Branson’s face disappeared with each five-goblin group carrying a ladder. They formed up in the half-harvested wheat field outside the walls, just beyond bow range. While it was a warband rather than a true horde, they moved in a loose but deliberate formation—far too organized for what was supposed to be a mass of mindless creatures.

  “What are they waiting for?” asked one of the Reeve’s men, voicing the question on everybody’s mind.

  Reeve Branson didn’t have an answer. No one seemed to know, and everyone was stuck waiting until a horn was blown somewhere out near the forest and the goblins started meandering forward, inching closer and closer to effective bow range. Everyone’s anticipation spiked, and the question of what the goblins were waiting for was answered not by anyone on the eastern wall, but by a lone militiaman posted to watch the western wall.

  He came running in from behind, out of breath and yelling, “Goblins! West! Wall! Fifty!”

  The Reeve’s wide-eyed gaze locked onto the man before flicking up toward the western wall, then back to the goblins massing at the east.

  “Should we start firing?” asked one of the archers, causing the Reeve’s gaze to land on him for just a moment before flicking back to the western wall, then back to the goblins. The cycle repeated a couple more times, his mouth slightly open and moving as though his body were trying to form words that his brain couldn’t find. Ryan felt like he’d been here before, watching the same tableau play out in the same scenario.

  The Reeve grunted. “Someone…” he started, causing his wide-eyed glance to lock onto another person. Then someone else finally started shouting orders.

  “Archers, fire! You four stay and help the Reeve. The rest of you, with me!” Ryan turned and started bolting for the western wall, no one more surprised by his own words than he was. He didn’t bother looking behind him to see if anybody was actually following. He just booked it straight for the western side of the village. His crude wooden shield weighed him down almost as much as the spear. His smithing hammer, belted on as a backup weapon, smacked against his leg as it bounced in its makeshift sheath.

  Ryan thanked all the gods in this fantasy world that he’d had the foresight to put his level-two stat point into Stamina.

  ***

  A second ladder had hit the wall by the time Ryan made it onto the wooden parapet beside the stone wall. Goblins were already coming over the edge. They were sickly green, with beady black eyes and mouths that were way too wide, filled with pointed teeth. They seemed to grin as they made it onto the wall, their eyes tracking and locking onto him. Two of the goblins started forward at Ryan, while another fell down onto the rampart. More goblins were coming up the other ladder.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Ryan, in all his battle-hardened wisdom, threw his spear—which promptly missed. To make matters worse—or better, depending on perspective—the people behind Ryan also threw their spears. Two of them struck the same goblin, sending it tumbling, though it was still not dead. Another spear bounced off a goblin’s shoulder without penetrating, and two more flew wildly, missing their targets and clattering over the edge of the rampart. The surviving goblins charged, brandishing their small, rusted, cleaver?looking knife?things and screeching.

  Ryan held up his makeshift shield and pushed forward, attempting to bash the shit out of the first one that came near. The shoddy construction of his wooden shield rattled but didn’t fall apart as it slammed into one of the smaller humanoids. The villagers behind him swore as they realized they’d already thrown their only weapons. Ryan was desperately trying to get his hammer off his belt as the goblin in front of him started hacking wildly at the shield, trying to get around the crude wooden object.

  Behind him, some spear points jabbed forward, passing far too close to Ryan’s face for comfort before ineffectually waving around at the goblins ahead. The goblin ducked beneath a shaft and tried to take out Ryan’s foot. He yelled as he fell backward, but finally managed to get the hammer into his hand and swing it at the goblin’s head as though its skull were heated metal. The hammer connected and the creature crumpled, hitting the deck before turning to dust, its small cleaver clattering against the wooden planks below.

  Shocked, Ryan took a half-step back and stared at the pile of what appeared to be ashes—too focused on the odd reality in front of him to notice the goblin to his right slashing at his arm. Someone shoved him, or bumped him, or possibly interposed a shield before the blow could land, and Ryan shook himself out of his daze.

  Another goblin dissolved into ashes, someone having finally managed to get a spear into one of the fuckers. Militia were now pouring onto the ramparts, and so too were the goblins. Fortunately, the little green monsters seemed content to attack the armed militia rather than dropping down into the village itself and causing mayhem.

  Ryan took a step back and shoved somebody forward into his position. Surveying the chaos, he started pushing people around so they were more heavily positioned on the village side, a desperate attempt to keep the goblins from spilling over into the non-combatants below.

  Emboldened by the fact that they were actually succeeding at driving back the little beasties, the villagers pressed forward. Ryan pulled three men back to deal with a ladder that had just clattered against the wall behind them. He glanced over the edge and saw far too many ladders coming in.

  He started organizing people into groups of three, assigning each group to a ladder. When someone screamed, he ordered the wounded man pulled back, had someone put pressure on the wound, and told the rest to keep pressing forward. The wooden deck of the rampart was covered in ash. It wasn’t long before the militia had driven back the goblins that had made it onto the wall and were stabbing at anything that tried to climb the ladders. After a few tense minutes, all was silent.

  They hadn’t lost a single person. Several were injured, but everything had worked so surprisingly well that Ryan was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  “All right. You two, get to the northwest corner. You two to the southwest. You guys stay here. Pull the ladders up so they can’t be used again. The rest of you, carry the wounded to the town square for the Priestess. Then go to the eastern wall.”

  Ryan stood there, practically out of breath, staring out at the now-empty western plain. He ran a hand through his sweaty hair, feeling the bite of cold against his skin. He took a deep breath and started following his own damn orders. He tried to catch his breath as he helped an injured man toward the town square. Everyone would survive, so long as infection didn’t set in. The whole thing seemed entirely too easy, as if the goblins didn’t really have any overriding intelligence to them. They just ran up the walls and attacked the nearest thing. It was odd, and didn’t quite mesh with the fact that they had been smart enough to flank the village.

  Ryan gave one last look at the town square, now full of wounded, and couldn’t shake the strange feeling of déjà vu—though he couldn’t place which movie he’d watched or video game he’d played that was giving it to him.

  With a dozen men at his back, Ryan jogged his way over to the eastern wall, feeling oddly confident. That confidence shattered when he saw the flood of small green monsters pouring over the walls in waves.

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