“Oi, kid. Wake up.”

Malt forced his eyes open to be greeted by the pale morning sun. The crisp air burned his lungs and washed the sleep from his eyes almost immediately.

Huh… must’ve fallen asleep at some point.

During their little party last night, Geld had brought out a flask of liquor. Being seventeen, Malt hadn’t drank before but considering how he didn’t remember much after the first swig, it was probably safe to say that he couldn’t handle his alcohol very well.

“Look there, kid.”

Stromund pointed toward something in the distance. Everyone else in the wagon was looking in the same direction, mouths slightly agape.

Malt pushed himself off the wagon floor, brushing the dirt off his clothing. Down the dirt path lie a fort made up hastily cut timber and frayed rope.

Although large, the fort seemed as if it would collapse at any moment. The trunks forming its walls were rotting and damaged, much like the area surrounding it. A vast expanse of trodden mud stretched out in every direction. Signs of conflict were scattered about the battlefield. Debris, broken weapons, and of course, corpses.

Malt averted his eyes, overtaken with instinctual fear. It was his first time seeing a human corpse, after all. It didn’t help that the corpses weren’t exactly in good condition either, with many partially rotted and torn open.

Stromund scrunched his nose, concerned.

“Fuck...I knew that it was bad, but to think they didn’t even bury the corpses.”

Geldfre was pinching his nostrils together, attempting to block out the malodor.

“The soldiers have to be plagued to shit, all the water around the area’s probably contaminated.”

The wagon rolled down the beaten path until it reached the fort’s entrance. As they approached, a soldier patrolling along the wall’s top spotted the wagon, gesturing at another guard to open the gates.

The beaten wooden gates pried open to reveal a large courtyard of sorts. The floor consisted of the same sticky mud that surrounded the fort and there were just as many corpses laying upon it.

Only, they weren’t corpses.

The soldiers; gaunt, dirty, fatigued, dead or dying, layed about the place. Some rested within tents, others on the mud. Some were maintaining their equipment, others tending to their putrid wounds. All shared the same expression, hopelessness. It was as if they’d already given up hope, empty shells of men.

There were maybe only fifty of them, and considering that the entire fort consisted of this opening and it’s surrounding walls, there were only that many soldiers maintaining the front.

Malt couldn’t believe what he was seeing. This wasn’t what he expected when he imagined fantasy battles in another world. This was simply horrifying.

After the wagon rolled to a stop, the four hopped onto the mud, stretching their sore muscles.

Much to their surprise, a young girl wearing priestly robes came running toward them.

It was almost comical how badly she fit into the overall feel of the place. Although her elaborate robes and slender hands were dirty, her delicate features still radiated innocence and youth.

She stumbled to a stop in front of them and spent a couple moments catching her breath before speaking in a nervous tone,

“W-welcome to Dagridge, I’m this fort’s commander currently.”

Malt’s eyes nearly fell from his head, from the corner of his eye he could see the other three had similar expressions. After several seconds of surprised silence, Stromund was the first to recover.

“...you’re kidding, right?”

She shook her head,

“Sadly not, I understand why you’re so surprised though.”

Malt thought to himself, she couldn’t have been much older than himself. No, she looked even younger, maybe fifteen at most.

“How did this happen?”

Melancholy washed over her expression.

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“The previous commander died in the latest raid, you see. And because I was the only person with any authority...being a priestess and all…”

“The soldiers pushed it onto you because they didn’t want to deal with the loss.”

Everyone but Stromund looked at Geld in surprise.

“I’m right aren’t I?”

She looked down, knowing herself that it was the truth.

Stromund interjected,

“Oi Geld, no need to make her feel bad.”

He turned to the girl, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“The fact that you still agreed means you’ve got good character, it's something you can take pride in.”

She returned his slight smile, seemingly feeling better.

“So? What's your name?”

She took of her religious cap, bowing deeply,

“My name is Allysa Emlin, priestess of the Astoundrian church.”

Stromund placed his hand on his chest in a humble bow, the other three did the same.

“The name’s Stromund.”

He pointed to each of the other three men individually.

“That's Geld, Henry, and Malt. I guess we’ll all be in your care as of now.”

She looked a little nervous, but she donned the most confident face she could.

“Leave it to me, sir!”

After the introductions she led the four to a large wooden table situated in the center of the yard. Various maps and documents lay littered across it.

According to her, the Khods, or the nation of Khodor, had pushed them back several miles into Astoundrian territory. The only thing that stopped them from marching into the countryside was this ramshackle fort.

They’d only held off the last few pushes because they had a good number of experienced veterans that compensated for their lack of numbers.

“In last week’s push we lost more than a hundred men, most of whom were veterans. It's safe to say that we won’t survive the next one.”

Stromund was stroking his chin, running through his vast experience to find a way to turn the tables, or at least to survive the coming push.

“How many soldiers usually come in a push and from where?”

The girl shuffled through the papers, pulling out countless reports scrambled on wrinkled parchment. “Uhm...they come in contingents of at least five hundred, all though the numbers are increasing with every push. They’ve made a base of one of our garrisons a few miles to the south.”

“That outnumber us ten to one...is there a pattern in their attacks?

“The only saving grace is that their attacks are routine. They seem to attack on the same day every other week.”

“Damn, that means there's a little less than a week before the next push, yeah?”

She nodded solemnly.

Stromund ran through some possible strategies. With a small force, their choices were severely limited. Flanking wasn’t an option considering the open landscape, so the only option was to take the push head on.

Hit and run tactics were also a no go because the enemy could just punch through and enter the countryside. There was really only one advantage they had, they were the defenders.

He heaved a heavy, woe filled sigh.

“There’s really only one thing we can do in this situation.”

Stromund had commanded dozens of battles and fought in countless more. Even through all this experience, the current situation was probably one of the worst he’d been in.

“We board up and make a last stand.”

Alyss looked at him questioningly, “But that’s what we’ve been doing for the past couple battles.”

“That’s not what I mean. Don’t even send the men out to meet the enemy. Concentrate all defences and manpower at the walls.”

She looked concerned. Even though she was still young and inexperienced, she still had a rudimentary grasp of the battlefield because of her short career as a commander.

“But that means the enemy only needs to topple the walls and we’re finished. Wouldn’t it be smarter to send out a group to cull their members before letting the men defending the fort finish off the rest?”

Everyone looked at her, impressed by this unexpected show of wisdom.

Stromund shook his head, “It would be a better idea if we had men to spare, but at this point we don’t have enough numbers or experienced fighters to go against a force of five hundred head on. By concentrating our men at the walls, we’ve a better chance at holding the fort.”

After processing it in her head, she nodded a few times in understanding.

“I see. Then I’ll get the men to reinforce the walls and gather polearms”

This time Geld interjected, shaking his head.

“That’s not enough.”

She ran through some calculations, “There isn’t enough time to build any more fortifications, ideally I’d like to make some armaments but we simply don’t have the time.”

“We don’t need ballistas or catapults, we’ll just do it the old fashioned way.”

She tilted her head in curiosity.

“Tell the men to start gathering waste, rocks, corpses.”

She seemed horrified by his suggestion.

“W-why would we need corpses and waste?”

His lips curved into a sly smirk, “For exactly the reason you’re thinking of.”

She was obviously opposed to the idea, desecrating corpses went against the teaching of the church, it was considered vile and disrespectful. A taboo so to speak.

“We can’t! If the church catches whiff of this we’ll all be arrested!”

“The church won’t exist anymore if we don’t defend the fort.”

She was about to say something in response, but realised that what he was saying was completely correct. She hesitantly loosened her shoulders, nodding in agreement.

Malt and Henry, the greenhorns, finally caught a hint of what Geld was suggesting. Their faces morphed into ones of horror and disgust.

“Tell the men to dig water reservoirs and fill them with piss and shit. Add some corpses in there for good measure. By the time the Khods attack we’ll have a nice little plague soup to pour onto them.”