S24, The Battle at The Summit of The Kobold Settlement

I was on the ground. Things had been so sudden that for a split moment, I didn’t comprehend what had happened.

We had been cheering at Instructor Marcus that had appeared to fight the dungeon wolf. The two of them had battled for some time, and despite some close calls, the instructor was finally able to repel the beast.

Then the dungeon wolf had tried to escape. The monster wasn’t any less imposing during its retreat and viciously lashed at any adventurer that came near it.

It was then that I realized that we were in the monster’s erratic path. “Get behind me!” Instructor Remme had shouted as he put up his guard.

The beast clashed against us and I had been sent flying.

“Falnid!” I shouted in panic, remembering what had happened.

Turning around I saw the maw of the dungeon wolf approaching Falnid’s neck. The Vesturke child had lost all its equipment when he fell. Even his helmet rolled out from his head as I watched. I tried to extend my hand toward him, knowing that it wouldn’t reach.

Cries of despair sounded around me. Instructor Remme had already stood up after the clash, but even he was too late to hinder the beast. In my head, I could already picture the blood of our companion spilling out of his throat when the dungeon wolf suddenly staggered. It was like it had come to an unexpected realization. The monster stayed there with its jaws sunk into Falnid’s throat.

It was then that the Grey Hound adventurers arrived and thrust their weapons into the beast with ragging expressions. They had come to avenge their fallen comrades and repeatedly stabbed the wolf until it plunged to the ground.

As the monster fell its fangs retracted from Falnid’s neck and I rushed to the Vesturke’s side. “Falnid! Don’t move.” I told him as he tried to raise his head and prayed that the wounds weren’t too deep.

With unsteady hands, I rummaged through my pouch in search of a blood potion, but Instructor Remme suddenly pushed me aside and poured a stream of red liquid into his injuries.

I looked at his face and for the first time, I saw an anxious expression on it. “Vesturke, don’t talk, just tell me with your hand. Can you drink this?”

Weakly, Falnid raised his thumb in an affirmative gesture and instructor Remme fed him the bright red liquid.

A bit relieved, I took a look at the dungeon wolf’s corpse beside them. Its dark brown fur had been stabbed several times and a couple of broken spears were stuck on its back. Streams of blood were still flowing from its multiple wounds and nurtured the pool that had formed around its enormous figure.

‘One is already dead.’ This monster had been one of the most powerful targets. Now only the kobolds remained.

After some rest, Falnid stood up with some difficulty helped by Instructor Remme. He looked a bit unsteady and almost fell down when he tried to recover his equipment from the ground. I helped him get back his spear and the contents of his pouch that had been scattered on the cavern’s floor.

I thought that nothing was missing, but the Vesturke was still looking around with a troubled expression.

“Did you lose something?” I asked him.

Falnid looked at me, trying to say something, but instructor Remme interrupted him. “Stop. You shouldn’t be moving so much yet,” he told Falnid grabbing his shoulder. Then he pointed at two of the other trainees. “You two, bring the Vesturke to the entrance of the lair. Tell Gardner to take a look at him.”

“No-” Hearing him, Falnid tried to protest, but as soon as he raised his voice he started to cough. He put his hand on his mouth and when the fit ended I saw he had spitted some droplets of blood.

“Vesturke, you can’t keep going. If you stay here you will only be a burden for everyone.” Instructor Remme told him in a serious tone. Falnid was visibly upset by his words, but after furrowing his brows he handed me his pouch.

“Thank you. I will put it to good use.” I told him as the two trainees grabbed him by his armpits.

After their departure, Instructor Remme looked at the burning slope with a serious face. From his gestures, I could see he was still restless after the wolf’s attack. “I will go ahead to scout,” he said turning to us. “All of you have to keep this position. Don’t move from here unless you have a good reason.” With those words and a stern look, he left us behind. I watched him slowly make his way up the ascending path.

“Did you see his face?”

“It was pale.” While Terence, Bolton, and I silently stood guard, the other two trainees started talking.

The banter went on for some time until one of them suddenly pointed at the flames close to us. “What’s that?” He asked with a fearful expression.

Following his finger, I squinted my eyes and was able to discern something moving inside the blaze. “What is th-” I was about to ask the others if they knew what it was when a figure emerged from the raging fire.

It was a kobold, but not the kind of kobold we had seen until now. He was as tall as an adult man, and unlike the hunters, we had fought before he was incredibly muscular.

“Be careful, that’s a kobold soldier,” Terence said seriously next to me.

The monster looked around as if trying to figure out where it was. He had some nasty wounds on his body and big patches of his fur had been charred by the fire. He inspected his armor, which had been torn in some parts, and his weapon, a crude ax with an obsidian head. Then, after a couple of swings to test it, he focused on us.

“Fuck, what do we do?”

“That thing looks dangerous. We have to run away!”

The other trainees were wary of the monster. They had been especially nervous since our dangerous encounter with the dungeon wolf.

With a purposeful expression, the kobold soldier took big strides toward us. He was here to fight and we were the only people left in this place. The Grey Hound adventurers had gone up the slope’s middle path or had retreated from the battlefield while carrying their wounded.

“We won’t be able to run away. We have to face him,” Terence said as he readied his shield.

“Impossible!” Besides us, the other trainees were shaking with fearful expressions. It looked like they would start to run at any time.

“Terence, guard my left. Bolton, at my right.” I shouted. “We will go to him!” I said taking a step forward. If we fought here the scared trainees would only get in our way.

The three of us surrounded the monster and harassed him with our spears. I tried to thrust my weapon at his legs, where his armor had been ripped, but the kobold soldier easily deflected it with his axe.

It was clear that this monster had lots of combat experience, he moved around while trying to keep the three of us in sight, evading our lances and blocking them with his weapon and even his legs and arms.

Thankfully we had the upper hand. The reach of his axe couldn’t compare with our spears, so the kobold soldier could only defend himself from our strikes.

As I was thinking about a way to pass through the stubborn monster’s defenses, a sudden strike deflected Terence’s weapon and make him lose his balance for an instant. The kobold soldier took that opportunity to rush out of our encirclement. For a moment I feared he would escape and attack the other trainees, but he rolled on the ground and came up with a spear in his hands.

With his new weapon, the kobold soldier charged at us.

“Oh, shit!” Bolton swore. It was uncommon for him to be so vocal, but there was a good reason for him to behave like that at this time. The monster’s first strike had slipped through his raised shield and made a shallow cut on his arm.

We redoubled our efforts to fight against the kobold’s new weapon, but little by little we were pushed back. The monster was really apt with his recently acquired spear. His swings and thrusts seemed to change like a ragging serpent in his hands.

“Terence, Bolton, cover me!” I shouted after one of his hits pierced my pants close to my knee. We couldn’t keep things like this. I had to use anything in our arsenal.

Taking a step back I reached for Falnid’s pouch that I had attached to my belt. My nervous hand felt a few small sacks inside, and also several items that I couldn’t identify. ‘Ugh, why did you put so many things in here!’ I wailed, thinking of Falnid. If the Vesturke was here things wouldn’t be so troublesome at the moment. He would have quickly handed me whatever I asked for and I wouldn’t have needed to rummage through an unfamiliar bag filled with unknown contents.

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While I was desperately searching, Terence and Bolton were having problems keeping up with the monster by themselves. Bolton could barely cover himself from the flurry of attacks and Terence began unfolding lighting-fast strikes, he was using mana to compensate for my absence.

‘Damn! They won’t last long.’

After a few tense moments, I finally found the items I was looking for at the bottom of the pouch and took the caltrops out. I rushed to throw them on the ground, at the feet of the kobold soldier. With suspicious eyes, the monster took a couple of steps back, but after recognizing the spikes, he attacked us again while carefully avoiding them.

We weren’t thinking about this kind of opponent when we bought the caltrops, unlike a mindless beast this cunning monster quickly thought of a way to deal with them. He avoided moving his feet too much and instead of taking big steps, he dragged his feet across the floor to sweep away the spikes. Even so, we had managed to limit his movements. I was sure his boots weren’t sturdy enough to step on them. If he made a mistake it would hurt him a lot.

“Let pressure him!” I shouted to my companions. The three of us stormed at the kobold while trying to keep him inside the area of the spikes. For a few breaths, it seemed that the monster could defend from us and even strike back, but after deflecting a lunge from Bolton he tripped on a caltrop.

“Rargh!” The monster loudly roared with a pained expression. He lost his posture and was struck by Terence's spear. I thought that the fight could end there, but before any of us could deliver the final strike, the kobold took a sack from his own belt and threw its contents at us.

“Damn! What’s this?” Terence swore covering his nose.

“I think it’s repellent,” Bolton guessed as he retreated away from the dark dust.

I also took a couple of steps back. This small trick had allowed the monster to escape from our formation. He was already running up the slope with a slight limp.

“We can’t let him get away,” I shouted and circled the caltrops to pursue him. If he kept going that way he would encounter Instructor Remme, who was fighting some kobolds near the summit.

We rushed at him and caught up in the middle of the incline. Sensing our approach the monster did a powerful horizontal sweep.

“Ugh, so persistent!” Terence shouted, trying to end the fight before the kobold completely recovered from the pain of the spike.

I also thrust my weapon right at his wounded foot, but seemingly foreseeing my movement the kobold brandished his axe with his other hand and split its shaft in two.

“Drat!” I swore at the splintered remains of my weapon. Without it, I couldn’t really contribute to the fight.

Having one less opponent once again, the kobold soldier started to overwhelm my companions and Terence began to display mana-reinforced strikes one more time. It was the only way for them to keep the monster at bay, but the exhaustion was starting to take a toll on the blonde boy. His face was flushed and strikes of sweat trickled down it.

‘I have to do something!’

Unlike us, the monster wasn’t showing any signs of tiring. If I hadn’t seen his wounds at the start of the fight I would have thought he had been idling on the back lines until now. I had to admit that his stamina was really admirable.

‘At this rate, we are going to lose.’ The somber thoughts assailed my mind while I tried to find a way to turn around the fight.

“Agh!” While I was thinking Bolton was cut again by the kobold’s lance.

‘Shit! There is only one way.’ I decided, grasping my fingers around the handle of my dagger. I started gathering mana in my stomach. As the current grew, the swirls of the powerful stream seemed to stimulate my mind. It felt as if a drowsiness I hadn’t noticed had been lifted.

I glanced at Terence and he acknowledged my gaze with an almost imperceptible nod of his head. “Take this, son of a bitch!” With a powerful shout, he unleashed a powerful slash at the enemy.

Timing my movement with the start of his motion, I guided the mana I had gathered across my leg, and a flex of my muscles launched me forward at an incredible speed.

“Take this!” The kobold saw me coming, but he couldn’t react in time. My mana swept across my torso and I forced it toward my arm. Then, with an instinct born from thousands of repetitions, I freed it as I extended the limb. In front of me, my dagger became a blur and shot forward, I barely felt any resistance as it tore through the kobold’s left hand.

Blood splashed, and a long gash appeared on the kobold’s forearm. “Rargh!” The monster yelled in pain and his obsidian axe fell out of his hand. Then, an instant later, I crashed against him in the middle of my dash.

In an incredible display of strength, the monster was able to stand, he tried to bite me and I defended myself with the knife. Next, I tried to grab his spear, but he punched me in the gut before taking a step back.

“Damn you!” I shouted while trying to cut the distance again, but before I could take a step, two sudden thrusts reached the kobold’s body. Terence's spear had sunk in his calf, while Bolton’s weapon pierced his stomach.

“Graah!” With a coarse groan, the monster fell on his back.

“Yes!” Exhaling his breath Terence celebrated our success. Then focused on pinning the kobold soldier down as Bolton finished him. The blonde boy looked like he could barely stand, it was the accumulated exhaustion from his multiple mana-empowered strikes.

He rested for a few moments before asking us, “So, what should we do now?”

I looked around and saw the other trainees cheering at us from the base of the hill. They hadn’t run away in the end and were excitedly waving their arms at us.

“Hmm, we-” Bolton started.

“We should go up,” I stated, cutting him. Not far from us Instructor Remme was still in the middle of a skirmish. The kobolds were holding him with the help of an improvised barricade. “Since we are here we should help Instructor Remme.”

Bolton gave me an unconvinced glance, but Terence nodded at me and started walking. “There should be no problem. Anyway, we are almost there,” he said.

We joined the instructor in his fight against the monsters and soon the few kobolds that were left on this side were dispatched. At the end of the fight, Instructor Remme threw us a stare. “What the hell are you doing here? Didn’t I tell you to hold your position?”

“We tried, but a kobold soldier suddenly appeared,” I told him.

“We fought him, and ended up chasing him here,” Terence added pointing at the dead kobold’s body.

With a single glance, the instructor confirmed our words. “Well, never mind then,” he said with a sigh. “Since you are here, let’s go ahead.” During his fight with the monsters he had suffered a few injuries, but none of them seemed too worrisome. There were some cuts here and there, and his breastplate had a long cut from the right left shoulder to the waist.

Setting aside the debris of the roadblock, we followed the instructor to the summit. It seemed that we were the first group to reach the place. The deserted top hadn’t been affected by the flames and a big open space was in front of us.

“Should we search that tent?” I proposed pointing at the only structure that was there.

“No, let’s wait for everyone else,” Instructor Remme said.

A multitude of sounds was coming from another of the paths that led up the hill. From between the dying fires, the silhouette of a battle could be seen. It looked like the kobolds had mounted there their last stand.

Once again I turned my gaze toward Instructor Remme, but before I could ask the question he answered. “I don’t think that will be necessary, you should focus on healing your wounds.”

I was about to complain, to tell him that we could mark a difference if we attacked the monsters from the back when two figures sprang from the flames near the path. It looked like they had rushed up in the middle of their fight. Both of them landed on the summit and stared at each other from a few meters away.

“Ye damn humans! “Ye dare come ‘ere without provocation!” An enormous kobold shouted. He was even bigger than the soldier we had fought before. He had to be the kobold warrior that lead the tribe, another of our main targets.

The monster wore armor made of dark brown scales, reinforced with deep dark fur around its shoulders and neck. I was sure before the battle it had had an impressive aspect, but now it was full of cuts, smeared and charred. On a wide leather belt, there were a couple of holstered daggers and on his hands, he brandished a long spear decorated with lustrous green feathers.

“Ye think ye are the rightful owners of this place. Ye who haf forgotten everything ‘bout our two races after a few generations!” The monster roared.

“I didn’t come here to talk with a monster,” in front of him, Uncle answered calmly. “Shut up and fight.”

As the guildmaster, Uncle was dressed in leather armor, with steel pauldrons, arm braces, and leg guards. All of them had been shiny before the raid, but now they had blood stains, dust, and some weapon marks. Uncle was also wielding a spear, decorated by a red piece of fabric, but on his left arm there was a battered metallic shield, and on his waist rested his long sword inside its scabbard.

As the two of them measured each other, more adventurers arrived from the same road, Uncle gestured for them to keep their distance and they started surrounding the summit. Glaring at them, the kobold warrior spat on the ground before charging at Uncle.

He fiercely swung his spear with both hands, and a metallic sound echoed in the cavern as Uncle parried. I could feel the enormous strength behind the monster’s each strike, at first he seemed to have the upper hand and Uncle slowly retreated in the direction of the only intact house.

“Not so strong now?” The monster roared with a mocking tone, trying to taunt Uncle into committing a blunder.

But Uncle didn’t answer at all, with a neutral expression, he kept calmly fending off the kobold strikes. Then, as he approached the wall of the building he raised his shield, and with its rim, he shattered the monster’s spear.

“Damn ye!” Stepping back the kobold warrior unsheathed two white-bladed curved daggers.

Uncle thrust at him with flashing speed, and his spear seemed to multiply. Under the flurry of attacks the monster could only backtrack, and in the process, he was cut several times. It looked like Uncle was about to win, but suddenly the kobold warrior crossed his weapons in front of him and the tip of Uncle’s weapon was sent flying.

The monster took that chance to jump at Uncle like a raging beast. He stopped one dagger with his shield, but the second one slid on his arm brace and left a cut on the leather of his armor. With a gesture of pain, he kicked at the kobold to gain some space. Then he unsheathed his sword with a wide horizontal motion aimed at the monster.

After the move, the blade of the weapon reflected the orange flames and a thick liquid dripped from its tip. Uncle had drawn blood with the first swipe! It was a pity I couldn’t see the blue hue of the blade due to the fire.

After a moment of stillness, both fighters started exchanging blows again and once more the kobold warrior seemed to have some advantage. Every time one of his strikes was stopped by Uncle’s buckler the ground shook as if an enormous boulder had fallen.

“Damn!” The monster cursed as his breath became ragged. His many attacks felt like an avalanche, but such a bout was taking a toll on his body.

Uncle had endured the downpour with gritted teeth, and after deflecting one of the gradually weakening hits with his shield, he prepared a stance. His sword came down like a beam of light and the kobold warrior raised his daggers.

Clack!

After the attack, only one noise was heard at the summit. Everyone held their breath as they witnessed the outcome of the battle. Half of a white dagger blade rested on the ground and Uncle’s sword was embedded in the kobold’s body.

“Argh!” With a muted cry, the muscular kobold warrior fell to his knees. He looked Uncle in the eye for a fleeting moment before tumbling on his side.

A last thud was heard as his weight hit the floor and the adventurers congregated burst into cheers of victory.