town? Or do we need to pack up and get the hell out?”
“There aren’t enough of them to sack the town,” I pointed out. “There
must be three or four thousand people crammed in here, and one on one a
civilian with an improvised weapon is probably about as dangerous as your
average goblin. But they’ll kill a lot of people, especially with those trolls.”
“It’s not just that, sir wizard,” one of the soldiers put in. “Goblins love
setting fires. If they get out of control they could burn the town.”
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“Oh. Damn.”
I desperately needed to sit down and fix my amulet’s enchantment. If I
could just throttle it so it would only spend half its power flow on healing me
that would leave plenty to keep the shield up and recharge my own reserves.
But a change like that could easily take twenty minutes, and by then the
outcome of this fight would probably be decided.
What could I do with what I had?
There was a tiny trickle of free power for me to use. My shield was
back up, and at this rate it could probably take a hit from a goblin weapon
every now and then. But a troll or a flurry of hits would collapse it.
My personal reserves were still mostly full, but I’d have to limit myself
to small spells or I’d run dry fast. So force blades and balls of fire, but no big
area-effect spells. Well, it was too late for that anyway. The last of the
attacking force was already moving through the breach and into the streets of
the town.
They’d caught us by surprise, and the Baron’s men were still trying to
mobilize. I was pretty sure they’d push the goblins back out of town when they
got organized, but until then there was nothing stopping them from rampaging
through the streets killing people and setting things on fire.
Alright then.
“You men, make sure the wall is secure and see what damage you can
do from up here. Cerise, follow me. Let’s see if we can rally a defense.”
I hurried down the wall as best I could. I was still limping, but at least
I could walk more or less normally now. Every passing minute was the
equivalent of several days of natural healing for me, and it was starting to add
up.
There was a street running parallel to the wall, and I kept an eye on it
as we moved. At first there were goblins on wolfback running everywhere,
along with the bodies of dead civilians. But the ones who’d gotten into town
first were busy looting the buildings nearest the breach, and only a few had
gotten as far as setting them on fire.
Further down the goblins were still beating at doors and windows,
trying to break into homes and shops whose owners had gotten enough warning
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to bar their doors. Beyond that there were still people in the street, some of
them fighting while others ran for their lives. I searched frantically, looking for
a possible center of resistance.
There. An open-air smithy, where a cluster of burly men were laying
into the goblins with hammers and iron bars. An older man and three younger
ones, probably his sons. Some of the goblins had already detoured around them
looking for easier prey, but not too many.
I opened my shield and pulled Cerise against me. “We’re jumping
again.”
She sheathed one of her knives and wrapped her arm around my waist.
“Ready!”
I stepped off the wall, and threw us across the street. A few seconds of
frantic maneuvering dropped us lightly in the middle of the goblins, between a
snarling wolf and a shaman who’d just started to wave his staff and chant.
Cerise stabbed him before our feet even touched the cobblestones.
I cut the wolf in half with a force blade. Cerise cut the shaman’s throat
just to be sure, and flicked a blob of darkness into the back of a goblin who
was trying to stab one of the blacksmiths. Then there was way too much
happening for me to keep track of it all.
I slashed madly with my force blade, hacking up goblins and trying to
dodge their little swords and spears. A snarling wolf leaped at me, and I cut it
in half. But the body kept going, smashing into my shield and sending me
stumbling back.
A sword bounced off my side in a shower of blue sparks, and my
shield failed again. I cut a goblin’s arm off and kicked another one away. A
spear sank into my side an instant before my blade found its wielder. I gasped,
and send a flurry of blades flying through the air.
Several goblins went down in pieces, and the rest fell back.
“Holy bells. What happened to your shield, master?” Cerise was at my
side in an instant, carefully extracting the spear. Fortunately goblins aren’t all
that strong, so it hadn’t penetrated far enough to perforate my intestines. The
bleeding stopped almost immediately, but it was one more injury slowing me
down.
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“It’s going to be weak until I finish healing,” I told her, and turned to
the smiths.
“Thanks for the save, sir wizard,” the older one said. “You look like
hell. You need to come in and sit down for a bit?”
I shook my head. “After we’ve beaten off this attack. Gather your
neighbors, quick. We’ll stop them here.”
I stepped into the middle of the street, and started shaping the
cobblestones beneath my feet. A proper wall capable of stopping trolls would
take more energy than I could spare, but we didn’t need anything that
ambitious. Instead I made the stones grow long spikes, turning a stretch of road
into a field of caltrops. Then I stepped back a few feet, and started making a
low barricade of earth.
A couple of the blacksmith’s sons quickly joined me, setting tables and
workbenches on their sides atop the dirt. We had a chest-high obstacle laid
across half the street in minutes, and more men began to gather.
They weren’t much to look at. Frightened peasants dressed in rags,
clutching worn-looking scythes and hoes. Townsmen, a little better dressed
and not quite as thin, armed with improvised truncheons and the occasional
kitchen implement. One man with a spear, another with what was probably a
hunting bow. Not a single scrap of armor among them.
But even the puniest man was twice the size of a goblin. They could
hold, as long as they didn’t have to deal with a troll or one of the more
powerful shamans. If they had the determination to stand together and fight,
instead of running.
The roar of a troll drew my attention back to our enemies just in time to
see them charge. Another pack of wolf-riders flanked the lumbering troll, with
a dozen or so goblins on foot bringing up the rear.
Alright, time to show these men they could fight back.
“Kill the goblins!” I shouted. “The troll is mine.”
The charging monsters hit the field of spike stones, and faltered. Some
of the wolves balked, while others stepped on spikes and began howling and
thrashing in pain. A few, either lucky or smart, managed to avoid the spikes
and make it to the wall.
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The troll’s huge feet came down on several of the spikes. The creature
stumbled, looking down in confusion, and I struck.
I’d been thinking for days about how to kill trolls more effectively.
Thrown force blades just didn’t have the momentum to do more than annoy
one, and getting within melee range of something that dangerous was a stupid