plunged my force lance home, and our combined momentum drove the magical
construct deep into the troll’s chest. But I didn’t know if being stabbed through
the heart would be enough to kill it, so I dissolved the end of the lance and sent
a blast of flame roaring through it into the wound.
The troll started to fall, and I certainly wasn’t going to hold up its
weight in my current condition. I dropped the lance and backed away. A glance
around showed a couple of goblins fighting the peasants and the rest turning to
flee. Excellent.
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I took a minute to decapitate the troll, and then followed the fleeing
goblins back towards the breach.
This time it took a bit more work to get some resistance organized.
The goblins had had more time to work, leaving the street littered with bodies.
Several buildings on this road had been smashed open and their occupants
killed, while others the goblins had simply set on fire.
I put out a couple of buildings, killed another group of goblins, and
recruited a few more townspeople before we reached the next intersection.
There we found a couple of abandoned carts, and rolled them across the street
leading back towards the breach to make an improvised barricade. I conjured
enough dirt to fill the space beneath them, so the goblins on foot couldn’t just
crawl under them and attack the defenders, and paused to take stock.
I was still badly injured, but ten minutes of healing had made a
noticeable difference. I was moving a little more easily, and my broken bones
no longer felt like they were going to pop lose if I moved too fast. My right arm
was still useless, but I could probably run a little if I had to.
My scratch force included nearly twenty men, most of them
townspeople and all armed with improvised weapons. More were starting to
emerge from nearby houses as they realized someone was fighting back
effectively, and there weren’t any more trolls in sight.
Good enough. I picked the most assertive-looking man in the crowd
and put him in charge, and headed off to find the next street we needed to
block.
By now I was starting to wonder where the garrison was. I know it
takes time for men to throw their armor on and get organized, but surely the
Baron kept some of his men ready to fight? Maybe not enough to stop the attack
cold, but shouldn’t there be some sign of the town’s defenders?
I found one group of them around the next corner. A couple dozen
men, including a few knights along with the regular soldiers, were locked in a
desperate melee with two trolls and a whole lot of goblins. The battle filled an
intersection between two narrow streets, and one of the adjacent buildings was
already on fire.
“Damn it,” I muttered. “I need these guys alive. Back into the fight, I
guess.”
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There was a wrecked wagon partly blocking my approach, apparently
smashed by one of the trolls. I cut off a hefty sliver of wood and set the same
fire and force spells on it I’d used a few minutes ago. Unfortunately I didn’t
have a clear line of fire through the confused melee, and if I waited for a clear
shot we were going to be down half a dozen men first.
So I checked my shield strength, and jumped over the mass of
swordsmen around the troll. It was facing away from me, and I landed in the
middle of its broad back with a thump that made my knees ache.
I rammed the wooden spike home, and jumped away as it caught fire.
The troll roared in pain, and a guy with an axe ducked under its club and laid
its belly open. Good, a couple of seconds of distraction and it would be too
late to pull the spike out. But where was I going to land?
I almost came down in the middle of a clump of swordsmen and
goblins, but threw myself back up and sideways at the last second. Where? Ah,
a clear spot on the edge of the fight. I pushed again, angling towards my chosen
landing spot with half my attention while the rest was focused on burning that
troll.
The other troll’s club swatted me out of the air, and through a brick
wall.
Fresh pain flared up, and my shield collapsed. I sat up with a groan,
seeing double for a moment before my vision cleared. Crap, that was a bad
sign.
I was lying on the floor of some kind of shop, half-buried in broken
bricks and smashed wood. A couple of goblins peeked through the hole in the
wall in front of me with wide eyes. One of them saw me, and snickered. The
other raised his bow with a nasty grin.
I threw a force blade at them, and the snickering one lost his head. But
the one with the bow ducked aside.
Damn it, I’d lost focus on that fire spell.
I threw up a fresh shield spell using my personal reserves, and
hobbled back out of the building. As expected a goblin arrow hit me the instant
I exposed myself, but I just tossed a flurry of force blades back and headed for
the fight.
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If I thought things were confused before, now they were a dozen times
worse. The troll I’d hit was running around in circles with half its back on fire,
randomly stepping on goblins and knocking men down. Several goblins were
trying to smother the fire with their cloaks, jabbering furiously in their native
tongue.
The other troll was storming towards me with blood in its eye. One of
the soldiers took advantage of its distraction to ram his spear into its side, but
the troll just batted him away with a sweep of its club and lumbered on.
Well, at least it gave me a clear line of fire. I conjured a force lance,
and rushed it.
A couple of arrows rattled off my shield, draining a little mana but
doing no damage. Then something less tangible hit me, and a moment of intense
vertigo made me stumble.
It was a spell. Some kind of goblin curse. I could see the magic of it,
and hurriedly tore it away. But I was on my knees now, the troll towering over
me with its club raised to smash me into the pavement. No momentum from
either of us to carry a thrust into its vitals.
I dropped the lance, and tried to dive between the thing’s legs. But I
was too slow, or the troll was too fast. It smashed me back with a knee to the
face, and then brought the club down.
I threw myself aside with a burst of force magic, and hacked at its arm
with a blade of force. The blade cut deep into the tendons of its forearm, and it
dropped the club. I followed up with a little ball of fire thrown at its face. But
it blocked the flame, and kicked me away. My shield flickered, and an arrow
sank into my shoulder before I could throw it back up. Damn, I wasn’t going to
last long at this rate.
The troll bent to pick up its club with its good hand, but one of the
soldiers rushed up behind it and sank his axe into its calf. It stumbled, tried to
kick him with its other foot and fell flat on its face.
I rushed in with a fresh force blade and hacked at the monster’s neck.
More soldiers jumped in to attack it as well, and for a moment it seemed that
would be it.
The troll rose to its knees with a roar, and batted me away to land in
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the broken wagon. This time I didn’t bother restoring my shield, I just grabbed
up a chunk of wood and stumbled back into the fray.
The axeman had gotten both of the troll’s Achilles tendons, and it was
too stupid to realize why it couldn’t stand anymore. It fell to its knees again as
I reached it, and I plunged the length of wood into a wound in its side. It went
in nearly a foot, and then I set it blazing and stumbled back.