The new tactic turned out to be surprisingly effective as several waves hundred corpses have already piled up behind the front line causing the 3rd legion to be very busy with cleaning up the corpses and shooting down anything that passes or through or jumps over the wall.

The battle seemed to be going very well and at this rate we would win eventually without taking any heavy casualties from now on. But the fate wouldn't have us win this so easily, just as we had fortified our formations and got a good flow of battle an earth shaking roar echoed from deep inside the enemy lines, which was soon followed by a 6 meter tall grey skinned creature that was charging fiercely at the shield wall.

Facing such a creature for the first time soldiers were unsure what to do, but the third general reacted quickly by ordering a squad of archers to shoot it down, however even as the creature was shoot by over a hundred arrows it only screamed out in anger as it charged faster, its skin must be as hard as stone to resist a hail of arrows.

The moment it crashed into the shield wall the soldiers in its way were scattered like dry leaves, wherever it went none could even slow it down properly.

Unable to watch it any longer the third general and me charged down the hill with a sword and bow in hand but the first general was even faster as he mounted his horse and charged down the hill with a lance in hand. If nothing it formed an awe inspiring image as a knight in silver armor charged down the hill towards a towering beast.

Failing to notice the first general as it was too focused on slaughtering our men the first general thoroughly impaled it with his lance causing it to scream out loudly in pain for the first time. Not giving it a chance to recover the first general leaped off the horse as he slashed at its leg tendons causing it to cry out in pain once more.

Unfortunately the great beast wasn't some docile sheep either, as it was dying it lashed out with its arm causing the general to fly over 10 meters through air before crushing down heavily causing the whole camp to fall silent, the only thing that could be heard was the shrill screams from the front line as my remaining soldiers did their best to push back whatever passed through the hole created by the creature.

Running towards the first general i kneeled down beside him as the medic informed me of his state. He definitely wouldn't live, his chest bones were pulverized and internal organs ruptured. Looking at him with a crestfallen gaze i spoke.

"Bards will surely sing of your battle against a great beast!"

Chuckling the first general spoke while looking at me.

"Gh..ahaa you fool... there will..be none to sing of this battle...if we don't live through it! Make sure...that the king manages to go back to his throne..alive and well. That is our sacred duty! or else we have failed as his generals"

As he spoke out his final words the light in his eyes faded away as he slumped down lifelessly.

Turning back resolutely i look towards the third general who only nodded slightly in acknowledgement, he knew what had to be done. It was time for the generals to join the fray, the first general sacrificed himself to save kill the beast, and we had a duty to take care of the rest.

The third general and i quickly ran back to the hole in the shield wall that the colossal beast created, currently the enemy was swarming through it causing the back lines to be an utter mess. The shield wall was barely holding together from the pressure on both sides. Only when i engaged in melee with these creatures did i understand just how hard it was to fight against them, they just swung whatever they held in hand wildly around them paying no heed to the injuries they sustain, even with ranged support from 3rd general i could at most hold off 5 of them.

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But with the help of 1st legion spear men we managed to kill off most of the enemies that passed through and patch up the hole, unfortunately the colossal beast had already weakened our formation and we were taking a lot more casualties than before, soon a change of plans was needed.

As soon as the 3rd legions engineers finished building fortifications on kings hill we would try and retreat towards it, at this moment we could only win if we exploited everything we had. Running around and helping stop any breach in the shield wall has raised the moralle of my men significantly, but i was just as exhausted and couldn't keep that up for any longer so i retreated to the fortified hilltop where we would hold our last stand.

By the time the fortifications were fully finished the shield wall had already broken apart and the battlefield had turned into a bloody melee, even though i had ordered a retreat none was able to, everyone was tied down by 2 or more creatures. Luckily my infantry had heavy armor which was perfect against these mindless creatures so they could to some extent ignore blows an group together.

Seeing that at this rate the 2nd legion would be massacred the 3rd general ordered archers without arrows to switch to light infantry division, they would be taxed with helping my men get into the make shift fort. This proved to be very effective but the light infantry suffered heavy loses while holding the enemy back, when everyone managed to retreat into the fort the creatures finally ceased their attacks as the fell back for the first time, showing some form of organization.

Finally receiving a brief break from the tireless enemies almost every member collapsed on ground breathing heavily, most barely even staying awake from exhaustion. Even though they were all very tired the squad commanders still gave me detailed description of their squads an their status.

The end result is that we had about.

642 heavy infantry

280 archers (that had arrows left)

754 light infantry

326 spear men

1500+ various non combat

Totally we had around 2000 soldiers ready for combat, while the enemy had 5000 at first glance maybe even more. Even though odds seemed to be heavily in their favor this was still a battle that could be won, considering that we already had a ratio of 3 enemies killed for each of our own. But that was at start of the battle.. all the soldiers were heavily exhausted and it would be hard for most to best the enemy in 1v1 situation. Our only hope was that the makeshift wooden fort would be able to make the enemy fight us without number advantage.

This is where we would make our final stand, this is the battle that would decide if the bards sang tales of our heroic victory, or if we would be extinguished beneath the enemy.

Climbing onto a wooden platform i observed the enemy that had surrounded the hill on all four sides,even if we wanted to retreat it was impossible from now on. The light of dawn had already illuminated us for a while but their horde did not seem to show any intention of attacking us, it looked like they would wait for the night since they seemed to slow down during the day.

I would love to take advantage of this situation to fight them in their weakened state, but we were even worse than them at this moment. Many soldiers that were a part of the shield wall even had muscle spasms from constant exertion of holding a shield against the enemy that kept slamming on it.

While the enemy may not know of our exhaustion we had to take advantage of this situation to mend our wounds and recover our stamina this night would be a long one....