The battlefield held its breath for a heartbeat, the cacophony of the slaughter dimming as the heavy infantry emerged from the back of the horde. These weren't normal kobolds. They were abominations of alchemy and dark magic. They stood roughly six feet tall, not towering giants, but unnaturally wide, especially in comparison to their brethren. Their upper bodies were swollen with muscle mass that defied biology, the skin stretched so tight it looked ready to tear, revealing veins that pulsed with a sickening, bioluminescent orange light. They didn't wear standard armour; plates of crude iron had been bolted directly into their flesh, fused with the scales. In their hands, they dragged massive two-handed mauls made of stone and iron, weapons that belonged on a siege tower, not in the hands of infantry. They were Scale-Breakers, beasts from the third floor.

  There were six of them. They charged, and the ground shook with each step, a rhythmic tremor that rattled the teeth of the defenders. They moved with the density of boulders rolling downhill.

  "Brace!" Josh screamed, sinking into a low stance and locking his shield arm. "Hold the line!"

  The impact was tectonic.

  CRUNCH.

  The first Scale-Breaker didn't slow down. It slammed its maul into the centre of the shield wall with the force of a wrecking ball. The guard standing next to Josh didn't stand a chance. His tower shield, reinforced oak and steel, shattered like spun sugar. The wood splintered into a thousand jagged pieces, exploding inward.

  The maul continued through the debris, striking the guard's chest plate with a sound like a car crash. The breastplate caved in, crushing the ribs and lungs instantly. The guard was thrown backward into the archway, a crumpled heap of metal and flesh, dead before he hit the ground.

  "The line is broken!" a mercenary screamed, his voice pitching up in terror.

  "Hold!" Josh roared, stepping into the bloody gap before the monsters could exploit it. "Fill the gap!"

  A maul swung at his head, displacing the air with a terrifying whoosh. Josh knew he couldn't block it directly; the force would shatter his arm. He stepped inside the arc, taking the wooden haft on his shoulder.

  The impact drove him down an inch, cracking the pavement under his boots. Pain exploded in his shoulder, a white-hot lance of agony that threatened to black out his vision, but he held rigid and his armour absorbed the shock, distributing it through his entire skeletal structure.

  Josh gritted his teeth, tasting blood. He thrust Fang of the Dawn upward, driving the point through the creature's jaw. The blade pierced the soft palate and entered the brain. He ripped the blade free with a savage twist and shoulder-checked the corpse, knocking the massive weight back into the second attacker.

  But the weight was too much. The Scale-Breakers were pushing them back, driving them into the dark tunnel of the archway by sheer mass.

  "We're losing the line!" a mercenary screamed as he was bludgeoned to his knees, his sword shattering under a hammer blow. The follow-up strike turned his helmet into a ruined can, silencing him forever.

  "Fall back!" the Captain ordered, stabbing his spear into a Scale-Breaker's knee to buy time. "Through the gate! Everyone inside! Now!"

  The shield wall dissolved into a fighting retreat. Men and women scrambled backward through the archway, abandoning dignity for survival.

  Bhel was fighting like a demon, a blur of motion around the legs of the wide beasts. He ducked under a swing that would have decapitated him, the wind of the passage ruffling his beard. "They’re too dense!" he yelled, hacking at a hamstring. "It's like hitting a mountain!"

  "Brett! Carcan! Get inside!" Josh yelled, shoving a Scale-Breaker back with a shield bash that rang like a church bell.

  "We're not leaving you!" Brett shouted from the other side of the gate, his face pale, hands trembling as he held a ball of fire.

  "Go!" Josh bellowed, never looking back. "Get to the gate! Prepare to close it! Do it now!"

  Brett hesitated, looking at the wall of monsters pressing down on his friend, then grabbed Carcan and ran for the winch room inside the gatehouse.

  The tunnel under the archway became a slaughterhouse. The narrow confines worked both ways; it stopped the kobolds from swarming around the sides, but it concentrated the force of the heavy hitters into a piston of violence.

  Guards fell, their armour tearing like paper. Adventurers were dragged down into the press, their screams cut short. The ground was carpeted in bodies, making footing treacherous. Josh slipped on a severed arm, recovering his balance just in time to deflect a claw-strike from his face.

  Finally, only a handful remained on the wrong side of the threshold. They stepped backward, fighting for every inch, trading blood for seconds.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  "Close it!" the Captain screamed at the gatehouse, his voice raw. "Start closing it!"

  The massive iron gates began to groan. Slowly, painfully slowly, they started to swing shut from the walls, grinding against the stone floor with a screech that set teeth on edge.

  "Get in!" Josh grabbed a stumbling ranger by her harness and threw her through the narrowing gap.

  More guards scrambled through, diving for safety. Bhel and Perberos slipped through the gap, turning immediately to fire back into the mass, covering the retreat.

  Then there were three.

  Josh. The Captain. And a young guard, his tabard shredded, wielding a broken spear. He couldn't have been more than eighteen, his face a mask of absolute terror, tears cutting tracks through the soot on his cheeks.

  They were standing in the mouth of the gate. The doors were closing behind them, the gap narrowing to five feet. Four feet. The horde was a wall of teeth and iron in front of them.

  "Go, lad!" the Captain shouted at the young guard, parrying a blow that nearly snapped his wrist. "Move!"

  The guard turned to run through the gap. He saw safety. He saw the courtyard.

  He made a mistake. He turned his back.

  From the mass of bodies in front of them, a smaller, stealth-kobold lunged out from under the legs of a Scale-Breaker. It carried a wicked hook-blade on a heavy chain, swinging it like a lasso.

  The hook lashed out, catching the young guard around the ankle just as he stepped towards safety. The barb tore through the leather boot and bit deep into the bone.

  "No!" Josh lunged, trying to grab the boy's outstretched hand.

  The chain went taut. The kobold pulled. The guard screamed as his legs were yanked out from under him. He hit the stone face-first, his fingers slipping through Josh’s sweat-slicked gauntlet.

  "Help me!" the boy shrieked, clawing at the stone, his fingernails breaking on the granite.

  The guard was dragged backward, away from the gate, into the sea of monsters. He looked at Josh one last time, his eyes wide with betrayal and horror. His screams lasted for two seconds before they were drowned out by the snarling of the horde and the wet, tearing sound of a feeding frenzy.

  Three Scale-Breakers surged forward, seeing the opening. They swung their mauls in a synchronized wall of death. Josh let out a roar of pure, impotent fury. He slammed his shield edge into the face of the nearest kobold, pulping it instantly in a spray of bone and brain matter. He wanted to charge in. He wanted to kill them all.

  "He's gone!" the Captain shouted, grabbing Josh’s shoulder and hauling him back. "He's gone! We have to seal the gate!"

  They were the last two.

  The gap in the gate was now three feet wide. The doors were heavy iron, grinding against the stone, fighting the bodies piled in the way.

  The horde pressed in. They were standing in the V-shape of the closing doors, shields locked, holding back a literal wall of muscle and teeth. A forest of spears and claws stabbed at them through the opening.

  "We can't disengage!" Josh shouted, blocking a hammer blow that numbed his entire arm. "If we turn to squeeze through, they'll follow us in! We're pinned!"

  It was a dilemma. To retreat, you had to stop blocking. To stop blocking meant death.

  Behind them, through the narrow gap, Brett’s voice rang out, desperate and loud. "Get down!"

  Josh didn't ask questions, grabbing the captain and dragging him down. They dropped to one knee instinctively, tucking their heads behind their shields.

  A stream of white-hot fire roared over their heads, passing through the gap in the gates like a dragon's breath. The heat was intense, singing the plumes on the Captain's helmet.

  Josh heard a noise like a whistle being blown, as Brett released his magic. Plasma slammed into the chest of the lead Scale-Breaker. It didn't just burn; it detonated. The creature roared and staggered back, blinded, its chest armour glowing cherry-red and fusing to its flesh. The kobolds behind it shrieked and scrambled away from the magical fire.

  "Now!" the Captain yelled.

  They scrambled backward, sliding on the blood-slicked stone. They squeezed through the gap, Josh’s broad shoulders scraping sparks against the iron, and tumbled into the courtyard beyond.

  CLANG.

  The gates slammed shut.

  But they didn't latch.

  The pressure on the other side was immense. The horde was throwing itself against the iron. The gates shuddered, groaning, inching open a crack. A clawed hand reached through, grasping blindly.

  "Hold the gate!" Josh screamed, scrambling to his feet, slipping in the mud. He threw his shoulder against the iron. Bhel joined him, adding his dense weight. Then the Captain. Then a dozen others.

  They pushed against the weight of the army on the other side. Muscles strained, boots slipped, veins bulged in necks.

  "Drop the bar!" the Captain bellowed at the men in the gatehouse. "Drop it now!"

  A massive timber beam dropped from the mechanism above, slamming into the stone brackets with a sound like a thunderclap.

  The gates held.

  The pounding on the other side continued, rhythmic and terrifying. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. Dust fell from the archway.

  Josh slid down the gate, his chest heaving. He ripped his helmet off, gasping for air that didn't taste of copper. His face was grey with exhaustion, sweat matting his hair to his forehead. He looked at his hands; they were shaking uncontrollably.

  "We... we made it," a guard whispered, staring at the gate, clutching a holy symbol.

  "Not yet," a voice called from above.

  Perberos was standing on the battlements of the gatehouse, his bow drawn. He wasn't looking down at the courtyard. He was looking out, over the wall.

  "They're not stopping!" Perberos shouted down, his voice cutting through the momentary relief. "They're jamming their blades into the mortar! They're climbing the walls like insects!"

  "They're climbing!" The Captain screamed. "Get to the walls! Archers, up! Melee, kill anything that gets to the top!" The Captain grabbed his spear, wiping blood from his eyes. He looked at Josh, a grim respect in his gaze.

  Josh looked at the gate. The booming continued. But now, screams were starting to come from the top of the wall.

  But then, abruptly, the pounding on the gate stopped.

  The silence was worse than the noise. It was heavy, pregnant with threat.

  "Why did they stop?" Bhel asked, gripping his axe, his eyes darting to the door. "Did they give up?"

  Josh pressed his ear to the cold iron of the gate. He listened.

  He heard heavy, metallic footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. The crunch of boots on glass. The shifting of armour plates that weighed more than a man.

  A voice, deep and guttural, spoke from the other side. It spoke in Common, though the words sounded like they were being chewed by rocks.

  "Open."

  Josh stepped back, his blood running cold.

  "It's the big one," Josh whispered.

  "Open," the voice repeated, calm and terrifying. "Or I break."

  Josh looked at the Captain. He looked at his party. They were battered, bleeding, and exhausted. And the enemy was just getting started.

  Josh turned to face the gate, raising his shield one last time.

  "Let him try."

  Thanks for reading!

  If you enjoyed the chapter, please consider dropping a Follow or Favourite so you don't miss the next update.

  And if you have a moment, leaving a Rating helps the story climb the rankings and reach new readers (and gives me a pretty good dopamine hit)!

  Thanks again and see you in the next one!