A mass of orcs charged furiously toward the fortified hill from which Isma commanded. He himself watched with uncertainty from his single eye. Hundreds of goblins ran around in panic, driving stakes, bringing arrows, manning deep pits with spear lines — like ants who know that soon someone will dig up their anthill.
Koshia towered over his subordinates, and even the orcs barely matched the bloodthirsty hobgoblin. The old shaman saw him, with a single axe swing, separate the head from the body of one of Doirak's goblins. The central front collapsed, and only by a miracle — or rather thanks to the sacrifice of Nut and Shoma — many warriors managed to regroup at the positions prepared beforehand.
"Stinking breath from the west! Cowardly freak serving cold death from distant islands! I will kill you myself and shit on your corpse!"
The orcs roared in agreement. Gromhul bellowed, and the numerous riders bared their teeth and gripped their weapons tighter. Many of them took from pouches something like an oversized seed — a deformed pill — and swallowed it. Even Isma felt as if their auras rose into the sky like a flaring fire. In one moment, the entire orc army on boars and wolves, with a few hobgoblins on the flanks and hundreds arriving on foot, charged wildly forward — straight into the pits and stakes.
"Archers! Fire!" the cries rang out. The enemy's ferocity was uncontrollable. Arrows pierced their bodies, but they did not slow. One of them, with three arrows in his chest, roared and jumped over a trench as his boar impaled itself on a stake. "Courage! For the Queen! For Zod!"
Isma thought for a moment about what might happen. From the north no news reached him. He could not yet know the fate of Valeria's mission, and from the southern front more riders and eastern goblins were advancing. Had Borg fallen? What of Gyrd? He pondered, but for now the more important problem was to withstand the enemy's push on the hill bearing the Statue of the Sword God.
He knew one thing: If he were to fall, the battle would be lost.
Together with five other shamans of the Yellow Grass Tribe, he went to the most threatened segment of the defense. Old, tired, with one arm and one eye, he had no intention of giving up or showing weakness. The army was watching. All of them.
"Trash! Filth!" Gromhul shouted as he crushed with his bare hands the head of one of the goblins defending the second line of pits. The enemy had already penetrated so far! Moreover, masses of infantry were approaching, and morale weakened with each second. Shoma was dead, Doirak was taken to the rear, and Mago could not arrive from the other side of the battle…
"Impudent spawn! Traitor to the goblin cause!" Isma shouted, focusing a huge amount of yellow aura into the ground before him. The grass shot up high, some wrapping around the orcs and tightening as if someone was squeezing them with chains.
The aura was hard and dense. The yellow grass killed ten orcs immediately and slowed twice as many. The other shamans — younger and less powerful — did not hesitate to support him. One's grass was poisonous, another had thorns like a rose, and another sliced the skin with edges. Isma shot small hardened pieces of grass from his fingers like projectiles. One orc got an arrow in the eye — he howled, cursed, but under the effect of the strange pill he did not intend to fall. Before dying, he threw a spear and killed one of the archers, who fell into a pit and was torn apart by boars.
"Great Shaman! Retreat! We cannot withstand the assault!" one of the warriors cried desperately, with three grass marks painted on his face, but the old man silenced him with a single glance and, still shouting, continued to give orders and attack the enemies with every bit of aura he had.
When perhaps a twenty-strong enemy unit broke further past the second trench line, Isma withdrew behind the third. Numerous goblins threw stones at the advancing, fired arrows, and poured boiling water from buckets. Cries spread across the wide, uneven battlefield. Blood, mud, entrails. The crack of broken bones, clashing swords, and tearing flesh.
Isma remembered this. Once again, he had to see his race tear itself apart for scraps of what remained of its greatness. Filthy orcs. Filthy traitors who valued only strength. He knew he had to win. Crushing another enemy with thick yellow grass, he thought just of that — breathing heavily, clutching his hip wounded by an arrow, with his aura nearly exhausted.
As the enemy approached the fourth and last long line of pits, horns sounded in the distance. A huge bear running across the southern clearing announced Borg's arrival, and a falcon flying high indicated Gyrd. Isma could no longer see them, and in his weakened state he would not have been able to sense them by aura — especially at such a distance.
Two younger shamans took him under their arms and led him among shield-bearers and spearmen to a better-protected spot on a height, from which he could see the battlefield better.
He would not be lying to call the state of the battle catastrophic. The only faint hope was the arrival of the decimated forces from the southern front, through which, moreover, numerous enemy forces had already broken, with more arriving — equally battered.
The old shaman, hastily treated, still sat and did not want to lie down. For a moment, silence fell. He was alone with his thoughts. He felt pain and uncertainty. He recalled battles from past times and countless skirmishes of his tribe with others, which during times of scarcity — famine and poverty — were an unpleasant daily reality.
Grandfather once told him that long ago, a huge number of greenfolk had been united, but they were defeated by the humans of the east. After the battle on the lands where they built their cities and fortresses — lands where the Great Eastern Wilderness once stretched to the coasts. He vanished, and with him countless years of history, monuments, traditions, and tribes. Only emptiness remained.
"Borg fights Gromhul!" shouted a goblin near him. Isma looked into the distance and saw reinforcements from the southern front reaching the first line of pits. The leader of the Broken Skulls personally came out to meet him with a strong escort. No wonder the momentum of the enemy's attack lost strength…
Borg and Gyrd were still fighting! They did not run away!
The commander of the southern front plunged into battle like a battering ram, his bear roaring so powerfully that several goblins instinctively stepped back, and a fool who rushed him with a sword ended up in its massive jaws.
Gromhul stepped forward — enormous, drenched in blood, with an axe as heavy as a tree trunk, surrounded by elite troops. The ground trembled under his steps. He bared his teeth, hungry for battle.
"Come then, scum!" he roared, smashing a goblin's shield and crushing his skull in the same move. Then he charged, cursing.
Borg neither fled nor responded. He looked as if he had no strength left. There was no wildness, no enthusiasm in him. On his bear he moved forward.
The clash was brutal. Fast. Full of rage.
The bear lunged at Gromhul's boar, biting its neck. Bones cracked, blood gushed, the beast shrieked before collapsing under its weight. At the same time, two hobgoblins attacked Borg's flank — one lost an arm to the bear's paw, the other fell and was torn apart as the jaws closed on his torso. Borg struck downward and killed him instantly.
Gyrd was a shadow among the bodies. Arrow. One. Another. Every tension of the bowstring brought one death to the enemy. Her fingers were bloodied, and she barely dragged her feet after such a long fight.
"Die!" she hissed as a shaft hit Gromhul's shoulder. The orc did not slow. Another arrow bounced off his armor like stone.
Gromhul charged, roaring.
His axe cut through the air and hit the bear's side. The beast howled and staggered but did not fall. Borg dropped heavily to the ground, swaying. He had already bled — now the wound on his side opened wider.
"Stay down, weakling!" the orc roared and advanced.
Borg lifted his weapon, but his movement was too slow…
The axe struck his arm, crushing bone. Borg roared but did not retreat. He spat blood in Gromhul's face and leapt forward instead of backing down, laughing. This was his last fight!
Gyrd struck from the side, slashing the orc's tendons. Blood sprayed, but the monster only roared and kicked her several meters away, knocking her breathless.
Borg barely stood. Another strike brought him to his knee. As the axe blade shimmered above him, time slowed. Through blood, through pain, he saw his fate. He did not hesitate. With all the remaining strength he had, he threw himself at Gromhul. The orc hit his ribs, shattering them, and the axe smashed his neck. It was not enough.
Borg bit Gromhul's throat. His teeth pierced the flesh. The orc roared — furious, surprised, and for the first time — scared. He could not die here. Not killed by a lowly green creature!
Borg tore, ripped. He did not release. Blood drenched them both.
Gromhul tried to throw him off, pounding him, tearing into his body, but it was too late. The throat was torn. The windpipe crushed in Borg's jaws.
Soon both fell. Heavily. Motionless.
Gyrd rose onto her knees, coughing, blood in her mouth. Her eyes found Borg's body.
For a moment, everything went silent.
"…No… Borg… You silly fool…"
But only for a moment.
She gritted her teeth, grabbed her bow, and leapt up before the tears could fall. "Kill them!" Arrow after arrow. Short sprint. Dodge. Slash. She fought as if nothing had happened, though despair filled her soul, and anger… Anger at herself. At her weakness. At helplessness. But such feelings did not matter on the battlefield…
The old shaman saw one of the finest warriors of the young generation, the commander of a front, fall. He swallowed. He had no aura left to make a difference, while the enemy pressed forward. Hundreds more infantry pushed through defenses in growing waves.
Koshia advanced like an executioner. His axe fell again and again, and with each blow someone vanished from the world. Where he passed, only death remained.
Isma lay, breathing heavily, feeling life drain from him with every pulse of blood. The sounds of battle began to fade, as if someone submerged him in deep water, muffled and distant.
Then a horn sounded! Long. Deep. Familiar. Another. And another.
The ground shook. Not from the orcs' run — from something heavier. More powerful. Even Koshia stopped. He stared ahead, stunned.
From the north shapes emerged. First like shadows in dust, then increasingly clear — tall, scaly lizardmen, moving in tight formation, armed with spears and curved claws.
Their eyes glowed with cold light, and their roar rolled over the battlefield, piercing the hearts of all fighters.
Behind them, a second wave appeared — smaller, chaotic, but no less terrifying. Small figures — goblin children, with thin arms, clenched teeth, and eyes full of things that should not belong to children.
At their front ran a little girl — Gege.
"Attack! Don't stop!" she shouted, waving her hand, her voice cutting through the chaos like a blade. "Shoot!"
Stones rained down. They smashed skulls, knocked out eyes, shattered teeth, causing confusion among the enemy who moments ago had seemed unstoppable. An orc roared as a stone hit him in the forehead, fell to his knees, and was immediately trampled by his own comrades.
Then something else appeared. Something that made even the wildest warriors hesitate for a fraction of a second.
A three-headed Hydra. Each head full of teeth, each neck moving independently, writhing like living blades.
One head seized an orc and tore him in half. The second crushed a rider with a wolf, bones snapping like dry twigs. The third struck a tight group, scattering bodies in all directions.
Artax the Great Devourer had arrived.
Among the goblins something changed. Fear gave way to something else — something like faith. Shouts rose. Morale soared to the sky.
Koshia stepped back, his eyes narrowing as he looked at the force tearing his army apart.
"Impossible…" he growled. But it was already happening.
The lizardmen struck his flank like a raging wave, and the children did not stop throwing stones, spreading chaos across every fragment of his formation.
Isma lifted his head with his last strength. His sight blurred, blood covering his eye, but he saw enough — the hydra tearing enemies apart and the lizardmen massacring orcs.
His lips twitched. He smiled.
"Zod… did not abandon us…"
His breath left slowly. Quietly. For the last time.
His head fell lifelessly, and the battle — transformed — continued without him.