Cheese and his battered group moved as fast as their injuries allowed, their breaths coming in ragged gasps as they crossed the fields toward the mill. The distance couldn’t have been more than a few hundred meters, but every step felt like an eternity. The flag of Fairhaven, a beacon of hope amid the carnage, beckoned them forward.

Behind them, chaos reigned. The goblins and their larger orc kin were still locked in a vicious melee with the remnants of the reserve. The reserve force, pinned between the goblin tide and the collapsing walls of the city, fought with desperate ferocity. It was this struggle that bought Cheese and his men their slim window of opportunity. The greenskins were too consumed with the massacre to notice the crippled group limping across the ruined fields.

But the reprieve was short-lived. As they neared the mill, the first goblin head turned in their direction, its guttural shout cutting through the din. Others followed, snarling and pointing as the small party became a new target.

“Run!” Cheese bellowed, though his own body protested the command. The men obeyed, their fear overriding pain and fatigue as they stumbled forward.

The first arrows came before they reached the last stretch. Wicked, black-fletched shafts hissed through the air, thudding into the ground and striking the wounded. One buried itself into the back of Fjorn . He crumpled with a cry, dragging Hald and the other warrior carrying him down to the ground.

“No!” Cheese screamed, skidding to a stop. He turned, his hand outstretched toward the fallen man.

Cheese hesitated, his heart wrenching as his gaze locked with Halds` broken form. Then another arrow streaked past his face, forcing him to stagger back. Tears burned his eyes as he turned and limped toward the mill.

The last few meters were a blur of motion and pain. The arrows came faster, driving them forward. One of the men opened the gate just enough to let them squeeze through, and the survivors scrambled inside, gasping and bleeding.

“Close it!” someone yelled, but the goblins were already upon them.

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The weight of bodies pressing against the gate stalled its movement, and the creatures began clawing through the gap. Cheese, still unsteady on his shattered leg, forced himself upright. Summoning his axe, he staggered forward and shoved his men aside.

“I’ll hold them!” he growled, his voice raw with fury.

Cheese planted himself in the gap, his injured leg trembling beneath him as he raised his axe. The first goblin to squeeze through met the blade with a sickening crunch, its body collapsing to the ground. Another followed, and another, and each time Cheese struck, his weapon moved with unnatural precision.

He felt the force of his power coursing through him. His axe became an extension of his will, a tool of destruction that chopped through flesh and bone with ease. The goblins snarled and screamed as they fell, their blood soaking the ground at Cheese’s feet.

The System dinged faintly in his ears, barely audible over the roar of combat. He ignored it, his focus entirely on the next enemy. Time blurred as he stood there, an unyielding wall of fury, hacking and cutting until the press of goblin bodies began to thin.

[Axeman 27 → 28]

[Axeman 28 → 30]

His leg gave a sharp throb of protest, but Cheese stood firm, leaning into his strikes. His breathing was ragged, his muscles trembling from exertion. The goblins hesitated now, their momentum faltering as the pile of their dead grew higher. Then he heard it, the sickly scream of goblins at the gate, Cheese glanced up and saw the men on the walls, they were overturning burning oil onto the invaders. Cheese went back to his work as the thrum of bows began above him, joining into the layers of defense. His skills pinged again.

[Axeman 30 → 31]

With one final, savage strike, Cheese cleaved through an orc’s torso, sending its upper half tumbling to the ground. The remaining goblins shrieked in terror, scattering back out into the darkness, the sick pop of burning flesh followed them as they ran.

Cheese sagged back, barely catching himself on the gate as the men rushed forward to close it. The sound of the heavy wood slamming shut was a relief he hadn’t known he needed.

He collapsed against the wall, his axe slipping from his blood-slicked hand. His chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath, the scent of death and smoke heavy in the air.

“We made it,” someone whispered, though their tone carried no triumph, only disbelief.

Cheese nodded faintly, his body trembling as the adrenaline ebbed away. They had made it to the mill, but at what cost? His mind lingered on Hald on his father, and on the horrors yet to come.

As he breathed heavily he slowly sank to the ground, his destroyed leg finally surrendering under the weight of his body.