The army marched on. The road ahead promised more battles, more loss, but also more chances to fight, to endure, and maybe, to win.
By late afternoon, the column slowed. The banners drooped as the wind died, and a low murmur ran down the line of soldiers. Ahead, another village lay in ruin.
What had once been neat rows of cottages and barns was now blackened husks. Gegnburg’s palisade wall sagged in places, charred timbers collapsing inward. Ash clung to every surface, and the faint smell of smoke still lingered in the air, though the fires had long since died.
Fredric leaned forward from the wagon, his eyes wide. “Gods above.” He shook his head. “They didn’t even leave the walls standing.”
Sibrek spat over the side. “Aye. Goblins don’t build; they only take. Strip a place bare, burn what’s left, and feast on the carrion.” His jaw tightened as his gaze swept the wreckage. “Not even a battlefield worth the name. Just slaughter.”
The convoy ground to a halt, soldiers fanning out in disciplined ranks. Commander Veylan raised a gauntleted fist, his voice carrying. “Scouts! Check the fields and woods. Find me survivors.”
William climbed down from the wagon with the others, his boots—already caked in the dried mud of Brindlecross—sank into a fresh layer, slick with the ash and blood of Gegnburg. The silence pressed in; there were no cries for help, or sobs of the grieving, only the creak of armour and the lazy flap of ravens’ wings as they tore at what scraps remained.
Marie knelt by a doorway where the blackened beams had collapsed inward. She touched the scorched wood and shook her head. “They didn’t even give them a chance. Everyone’s gone.”
“Not everyone,” Pip called from the treeline. Her cat ears twitched, and her voice filled with urgency. “Over here!”
The soldiers rushed to her, William and the adventurers close behind. Half-hidden among the roots of a massive oak, a hollow yawned dark and deep. It had been loosely covered by cut branches. From within came the faint whimper of a child followed by an even fainter ‘ssh’ sound.
A soldier removed the cut branches and reached in carefully, drawing out a soot-streaked boy no older than seven. At first, the boy struggled until he saw the soldiers. More children were pulled from the hole. When at last they were all brought into the fading daylight, a dozen children stood in a shivering cluster, clutching one another with wide, terrified eyes. Two nursing mothers followed, pale and gaunt, with babes cradled against their breasts.
One of the women stumbled. Carl stepped forward, steadying her with an arm. Her lips trembled. “We hid… when they came. They took everything. Even the dead.” Her voice cracked. “They took the bodies.”
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“Daddy. Where’s Daddy?” a little girl around five years of age asked as she tried to look past the soldiers and survivors of Brindlecross.
The children began to cry in earnest, thin wails piercing the silence. A soldier knelt, offering a water flask, while another draped his cloak around the weakest mother.
Fredric swallowed hard, his freckles stark against his pale face. “They’d have eaten them. Gods, they’d have eaten them.”
“Better the children don’t hear that.” Marie pulled him back. “Go check on your family.”
Fredric gave a grim nod and ran towards a wagon where Sir Bobby was sticking his head out to see what all the commotion was about.
The Commander’s expression was granite, but his voice was low and tender as he spoke to the two women. “You did well to hide them. You saved their lives.” Veylan gestured to his soldiers. “Get them food, water, and blankets. We cannot waste time here. Every hour means another village falls. We march within the hour.”
The survivors of Brindlecross took charge of the new additions to the convoy. They were loaded onto wagons; those too weak to walk were carried. The search for survivors continued, but no more were found. In under an hour, the army gathered itself, leaving the ruins of a once thriving village to the crows and ravens.
As the column began to move eastward towards the next village, William looked back one last time. The black husks of Gegnburg still smoked, a ghost of what had been. That could’ve been us. His jaw clenched in anger.
Brindlecross was not the only scar left on this land, and there would be more before this march was done.
The convoy pressed on through the fading light, the wagons rocking in ruts and the banners of Mercia sagging in the windless dusk. By the time the sun dipped low, painting the horizon in blood-red streaks, the column slowed again. Murmurs spread down the line of soldiers. The air grew thicker, heavy with the acrid stench of smoke and the distant clamour of battle.
The next village came into view—Dunholme, larger than Brindlecross, fortified with stone walls half again as tall. Or what was left of them. Flames licked at timber reinforcements where fire had eaten through. The stone beneath was cracked and blackened, and before those battered walls, a sea of goblins writhed like ants around a flailing carcass. The sounds of steel on steel carried through the night. Screams, howls, and the guttural bellow of goblins echoed from within.
William climbed down from the wagon with Fredric and the adventurers close behind. His boots sank into the churned mud of the road as he gazed at the chaos unfolding in the distance. Orange flames licked along the rooftops inside the walls, casting the silhouettes of defenders fighting against a tide that threatened to drown them.
“Gods above.” Fredric’s eyes were wide with fear. “There has to be thousands of them.”
Goblins shrieked and pressed against the breaches; five thousand, at least. War orcs moved among them, swinging spiked clubs to batter the wall. Trolls hammered their massive fists against the gates, shaking them on their hinges. From within Dunholme came the clash of steel and the cries of its defenders.
“Aye,” Sibrek growled, hefting his axe. “And from the sound of it, they’re not far from overrunning ‘em.”
Chapter 041 [Optional Quest: Save the People of Dunholme]
