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Pointing my sword at the goblin king’s feet, I triggered another Compression Sphere. Nothing happened. “What’s going on, Gladdy?”
“I cannot cast Compression Sphere for another five minutes. Runes don’t ignore cooldowns.”
“Great. I’m learning something every day.”
However clever it might be, my sword missed the sarcasm. “I quite agree. I’m happy to have helped.”
While Rezan righted himself, I cast Compression Sphere myself. After a few seconds, the blast vaulted the goblin into a thicket of tall grass and bushes. The Cursed Band of Life Ascendence shimmered as it fell off his head before disappearing into the tangle of leaves and weeds.
I pointed in its direction. “Quick, destroy the relic! It’s off his head.”
My sword’s piercing hum conveyed its distress. “I cannot! The destruction rune calls for a direct line of sight!”
Opening my Slipstream interface, I stretched the targeting reticule to its fullest extent. The bushes hiding Rezan and the relic lay out of reach. Resetting Slipstream’s cooldown with the Cassock of Rewind would do no good.
I ran toward the thicket, but dodging jumping goblins and swinging weapons delayed my efforts to close the distance. Rezan’s eyes no longer glowed, but I could see his outreached hand wrapping around something. He pulled it, but the branch snagging the relic wouldn’t give.
“There it is, Gladdy! Destroy it!”
“Alas, I cannot! Objects in another’s possession are invalid targets!”
The distance stretched too far for Magnetize, and Move Object wasn’t strong enough. I growled and used my robe to reset Compression Sphere’s cooldown.
When the spell shockwave triggered, leaves burst in the plume of white vapor, dislodging Rezan from the bushes, but not his grasp on the relic. When Rezan slammed it on his head, his eyes regained their luminosity. Free from the foliage, he lifted inches above the ground, his wet robes dangling in the mud. As he surveyed the battlefield, he clamped one hand on his head, holding the relic in place.
My attack succeeded only in teaching him to guard the precious crown. My third and final plan of attack had failed.
Performing Whirl caught only half a dozen goblins, half of whom already had Rejuvenates, erasing the damage I caused in seconds.
Restores and Rejuvenates brought every wounded goblin back to full health—not a single foe had fallen. The Deathless improved their fighting efficiency. Instead of using their jumps to find openings around a soldier’s defense, they jumped across the battlefield behind opponents already engaged in combat. They repositioned themselves to gang up on my troops—farming backstabs and reaping critical hits. Our inflated health and multiple heals kept my militia healthy, but a quick scan of the battle showed the indestructible goblins had worn us down.
My three-pronged attack on the king had failed, and standing our ground accomplished nothing. When the Compression Sphere cooldowns returned, I fought my way to Bearnard and Blane Silverview. “I’m going to sound the retreat. Get a head start, and get out of here, now.”
The brothers feigned no heroic protests. They let me peel off the goblins, fighting them as the pair hightailed it back to Hawkhurst meadow and the safety of direct sunlight.
Rezan’s gaze followed them, but he made no move to leave or split his troops. His Zen-like acceptance of our ability to retreat made my blood boil. Didn’t he care that we’d sullied his fine linen? Didn’t it bother him I could attack and retreat with impunity? His patience seemed pointless. What did he hope to accomplish out here?
Part of me wanted to taunt him about his brother. Greenie rooted for the away team. I mulled over the idea of pointing out that his rival lived free and well, awaiting to inherit the throne—anything to get a rise out of him. Perhaps it might sow doubt in their ranks.
Instead of insulting the enemy, I sounded the retreat. “Fall back to Hawkhurst!”
Captain Jourdain and his corporals relayed the order. “Alpha Company, break contact! Rally to base! On the governor!”
A pair of Compression Spheres broke up the battle, giving everyone a chance to disentangle themselves from the struggle.
General Sturm and his goblins echoed orders to break off pursuit, though it took harsh rebukes and much shouting to control their frenzy. We left the goblins shouting at one another.
Bernard and Blane offered encouragement on our march back to Hawkhurst.
“’Twas a good try, Guv.”
“We’ll get them next time. It’s been a dog’s age since I’ve had exercise.”
I found no comfort in their platitudes, but this wasn’t the time for self-pity. I counted our number to verify that we’d lost no one. “Everyone fought well today. We might have better luck with a barbican beneath us. We learned what to expect when we face them again.”
Corporal Turan echoed my encouragement. “Did you see how undisciplined they were? That was a messy break of contact. Their general could barely keep his troops under control.”
A soldier named Ahmet walked beside me but spoke loud enough for most of the group to overhear. “Governor, sir? May I ask—Did the Pentarch mention how to defeat these guys? I heard you talked to him. What was he like?”
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It wasn’t easy to lie to them, so I gave an evasive answer. “Sune Njal got on in years, but he told me old war stories. He had a lot of them—as you can imagine.”
Everyone reacted with smiles.
“The Pentarch fought goblins smart enough to stay in the mountains—where they’re tougher—but even his opponents lacked coordination. Hawkhurst Rock neutralizes their chief asset, the ability to dig tunnels.”
The laughter died when someone asked if I thought we could beat these guys.
“Let’s put it this way. Fighting us in our territory is a mistake. The king’s mana reserves are deep, but they’re not infinite. That’s why they’re chicken about attacking. We’ll figure it out. Besides, we’ve got a goblin back home building some wicked-looking ballistas. Did you see the size of them?”
Corporal Turan asked a question that quieted everyone down. “Do you think it’ll be enough to one-shot them?”
“That’s the plan.”
The soldier’s spirits remained high, and they complimented one another on their performance. Some told jokes, and tension-relieving laughter rippled through the ranks.
My smile felt forced, but I maintained my façade of confidence. It wasn’t much of a plan, and we did not have a Plan B.
After dismissing the soldiers, Captain Jourdain took me aside for a frank talk. “Did you mean what you said about the ballistas? I’ve been through plenty of skirmishes against orcs, but I’ve never seen ballistas capable of inflicting that much damage. Maybe if both targeted the same goblin. I have my doubts. We barely caused a ripple in their health pools.”
“I honestly don’t know what’s next.” We exchanged a look. The king wanted to take Greenie away and kill or enslave us. We both knew this but saw no reason to say it out loud.
Despite the soldiers’ upbeat spirit, news of the failed assassination spread so quickly that putting a positive spin on our situation proved difficult. I spent the day talking to citizens in small groups, allowing everyone to ask questions and pitch ideas. The discussions hadn’t changed our strategy, but we bonded over them.
People responded well to a governor who listened to their concerns and thanked me for trying to keep the town safe. Returning the good vibes, I reminded them their work enabled us to take the fight to the enemy.
The barbican and my sword exemplified the outcome of our collective efforts. Introducing them to Gladius Cognitus became my go-to tactic for assuaging fear. My sword accommodated the dog-and-pony show by answering questions in his strange humming tones.
Morale
29 percent (afraid)
Factor Events
60 percent
Factor Security
80 percent
Factor Culture
69 percent
Factor Health
89 percent
Despite my efforts to hold everyone together, morale dipped to 29 percent over recent events despite the healthy state of our settlement’s long-term factors.
Because of low morale, work on the temple progressed like a melting glacier. Every combat failure stretched the timeline as morale sank. Aside from removing the scaffolding, the structure looked finished.
Building Status
Temple
Remaining Build Time
Efficiency
Workers
7.2 days
38 percent
118
I doubted unlocking the temple’s blessing, Holy Smoke, would do any good. Becoming gaseous at will gave me an extra life, but it wasn’t the game changer we needed. In no scenario could I imagine it eliminating the threat from the north.
If Blood Drinker kept reinforcements at bay, I couldn’t see what Rezan hoped to gain in harassing Hawkhurst. Even if he wanted to level his troops to a level beyond my ability to kill them in batches, I doubted they could do so without his broken healing powers. The Deathless weren’t disciplined enough to grind experience on their own.
Yula and Thaxter assured me orcs wouldn’t share siege engine technology, leaving us guessing the goblin king’s next step.
Hawkhurst’s morale slowly improved. Citizens forgot and acclimated to bad news. Unless something else happened, the next day’s event rating would rise to 64, the day after would raise four points higher, and so on, up to 100 percent.
Time healed all wounds. Yet time seemed to be the one element Rezan conceded.
One night, he and his goblins assembled in Hawkhurst Meadow earlier than usual. All four moons came out, illuminating The Deathless on the open field. Instead of scouting the grounds, they all stared at the sky.
Why did they look upward?
After Slipstreaming to the ground, I approached the army from the south. They couldn’t catch me, and Slipstream gave me relative assurance of a quick escape, but something in the evening drew me to them.
Detect Magic revealed another one of Darkstep’s Improved Eyes. I popped it with a Scorch and growled in frustration. The floating eyeballs weren’t what had captured the goblins’ attention.
Beaker spotted me searching the night sky, and he circled overhead to figure out my strange behavior. I’d happily explain to my pet why I stood here, but I didn’t understand myself. I couldn’t foil their plan until I figured it out. If I had an extra power point, perhaps Scry might yield clues, but I doubted it.
No unusual insects filled the air. No locust plagues gathered on the horizon. The sky itself seemed like a typical spring night. Storm clouds had passed, and the moons and stars seemed as abnormal as they’ve always been, swinging around one another in unpredictable paths.
Four heavenly bodies occupied the sky. Tarnen hovered directly overhead, making it unusually visible, but that hardly stood as a precedent. The only remarkable aspect about them was their close grouping.
A thought occurred that made me skip my breath. Not since I first decoded the relic positions had I felt so alarmed. And like my theory about the coordinates, I ran to the orrery to confirm my fears.
Beaker swooped around me, excited to see me running but not understanding why.
The satellites’ paths looked random, but astromancers could predict them. They obeyed the warped Miros-centric laws of gravity, slingshotting around one another.
Arlington’s astromancers enjoyed a monopoly over the ever-changing zodiac. Its orrery enabled them to control the pseudo-science—at least among humans. Shipping merchants and gambling houses lived off its celestial predictions.
Beaker nestled onto the spiral staircase when I ran into Hawkhurst’s orrery. I stumbled up the stairs, panting for breath. Fiddling with the controls, I set the orrery to the present day and watched four brass rings gliding over the giant sphere’s surface. The four moons, Laros, Nassi, Owd, and Tarnen, fell on the same side of the globe, and as I stepped the timeline controls past the present hour to midnight, the orrery projected their positions. As I fast-forwarded in time, Tarnen drifted away from the collection of other moons. But Laros, Nassi, and Owd overlapped in a lunar conjunction.
The arrangement showed a super eclipse. Three of the four moons passed directly in front of one another. Yula once described the effects of the occurrence. Orc children took great pleasure in leaping high into the air during periods of low gravity. The same powerful legs that dug so quickly also allowed goblins to jump far.
The celestial event occurred tonight, and Hawkhurst fell directly beneath it.
Somehow, Rezan foresaw the upcoming conjunction. Whether the intel came from his glowing eyes or his demon-in-residence, I couldn’t say. In a low-gravity period, the goblin army could jump onto the barbican.
The barbican provided no defense.