Given a choice, fighting downhill is megatons easier than fighting uphill.
And it's not just the fatigue of trying to work your way up the slope, although that, of course, is a major factor. If you're a skinny little green turd carrying weapons on your back, and you've been fast marching across the countryside to even get to the fucking battle, running up a steep incline is a bit of a stretch.
So, yeah. Knackered warriors are rarely the most effective.
But the key advantage is reach.
What had, a few moments before, been the reasonably inevitable slaughter of a plucky circle of spears just waiting for a goblin wave to wash over them was now something quite different.
At Arthur's command, the front row of spearmen planted their shields into the ground and braced behind them. In doing so, they abandoned their other weapons; their sole role in the battle to come was to hold the line. Whereas in a usual shield wall, they could expect to cycle in and out of position when exhaustion told, Arthur's plan for defending this hill was a bit different.
All of the fighting was going to take place above them.
I'd carefully positioned myself as far away from the Hobgoblin as possible. I'd be launched
"Hold!" Arthur shouted, circling Llameri behind the firm row of shields separating him from the goblins. They were finding running up the hill a bit of a ballache. And things would not become sunshine and rainbows when they finally reached us.
The rest of our mounted men were positioned at key positions, ready to stop any attempts to climb over the shield wall. Lancelot, for reasons that passeth understanding, stood five feet in front of the rest of us.
Then I saw the bobbing head of the Hobgoblin opposite him. Ah, he was a barbarian with a plan.
"Men of Briton!" Arthur's voice carried easily across my newly constructed hilltop. "I feel it is time for these creatures to find out what it means to oppose us. What you say you?"
There was a satisfyingly unified roar of ascent.
"For Briton!" he yelled, lowering his helm and raising his spear.
I'm sure I was not the only one who heard the reply, 'For Arthur!' from a large majority of the troops. I had a second to wonder what the other kings would make of that, but then the green tide hit our shields, and I was suddenly pretty busy.
*
Lancelot had long understood that he didn't see the world in the same way as others.
He'd realised, whilst barely out of his crib, that he was different. But it wasn't until he had his first sword in his hand - a wooden toy made for him by an uncle - that he made that difference count.
Apparently, the rest of the world didn't perceive others in terms of how quickly you could kill them. When he'd mentioned to his mother that there were areas of people that seemed to call to him when armed, she had cackled madly.
Now he was thinking about it, he realised she did that disturbingly often.
After years and years of fighting, his ability to see to the heart of the matter - as it were - had been honed to such an extent that it often seemed that only he was moving in real-time. His opponents had long become all these flashing points of weakness, slowly arranging themselves into an easy-cutting position.
It had turned him into the terror of the group of islands around where they had lived. By his fifteenth birthday, his mother was the de facto leader of a whole heap of subjugated people, and he needed to explore the mainland for new challenges. The only time his extraordinary precognition in battle had failed him was in his fight against the cultivator in charge of the Saxons. He didn't know how that man had defeated him, but he was committing everything to ensure the rematch went another way.
It turned out Lancelot had quite a lot to commit to.
He didn't much care for fighting goblins, though. They were too fragile for proper training, and their bodies were essentially one big weak spot. It felt like he only had to look at them for them to fall down dead.
He'd positioned himself in front of the shield wall because he didn't believe there'd be anything left for him to do otherwise. His mother had explained to him that not everyone was as capable as he, but he simply could not believe anyone would have a problem slaughtering these squishy things.
He was, though, much more interested in the Hobgoblin.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
That the creature had taken a full-on blast from pretty hair and returned it with interest was a very good sign. That suggested he might get a decent workout from fighting it. Maybe nothing to match the Shriket - that had been a good fight! He planned to have its head mounted and given to the other pretty hair back at Tintagel - but better than wasting energy scrapping with these other pathetic things.
Lancelot glanced back at Arthur, waiting for the signal he could attack. His greatest fear was that something would happen to the Hobgoblin before he had a chance to get at it . . .
*
It was going to be tight, Arthur knew.
Thanks to the wizard, they had a chance, which certainly had not been the case before the hill appeared. The roots exploding from the ground had further closed the equation, but it was all still on a knife-edge. Despite the confidence he was projecting to the men, it would not take much for the thin circle they'd salvaged to be overwhelmed.
It was his experience that quality often could overcome quantity. But there were limits. When you were this outmanned - or outgoblined, he guessed - it did not need too many things to go wrong for that to be that.
Looking down the hill, Arthur met Lancelot's beseeching expression and - with a sigh - nodded his ascent. The barbarian careened down the slope like a released arrow, aiming directly at the Hobgoblin.
They needed that commander down if they were to have any chance at all. Merlin had made clear, via the wizard, that the goblins would not rout while that mutant spawn still lived. Arthur sent a little prayer to gods he was not sure he believed in to speed Lancelot on his mission.
And then the two forces met.
*
I'd blown a couple of waves of goblins away fairly easily before I realised I was making things harder for the rest of the formation.
With so few battle Kermits willing to step into my cone of fiery death - even under the mental pressure of their Hobgoblin commander - it was adding pressure to those holding the line in the rest of the circle.
Puffing out my cheeks, I pulled back towards the middle of the circle to see if there was a different way I could support. It looked to me that Mark's men just to my left were struggling a little, so I joined their ranks.
The press of goblins here was so tight that the little buggers were able to climb over each other to get above the men holding the shields. As I watched, more than a few men were hauled bodily out of the line and back into the horde to be ripped apart.
I didn't think there was much even my strongest elixir could do in that situation.
To be honest, I wasn't feeling being in the middle of Mark's men - considering all the stabby action that happened last time - but if that portion of the circle gave way, we'd all be up shit creek in a chocolate teapot.
There's a chance the stress of battle is affecting my metaphor game.
Bracing myself for imminent betrayal, I muscled my way to the very front of the defenders.
What confronted me was an acrobat's wet dream. There was a leaning tower of goblins, six green bodies high, letting a constant stream of goblins clamber up and leap over the top of the shields. As I watched, more and more of them were avoiding being skewered by the defenders, jumping on top of the men, savaging anything they could get their teeth and claws into.
Little known fact about goblins, Merlin muttered as I slashed one through with Drynwyn, pivoting to boot one back over the shield wall and down the hill, they are absolutely terrified of snakes. I believe it is some sort of primaeval, evolutionary thing.
"Awesome." I ripped one of them off my forearm - on to which it had clamped down its gnashers whilst simultaneously jamming its sword into my guts - and used it to beat a few of its fellows to death before it fell apart in my hand. "Was that just some general trivia? Or was it the start of a plan?"
It just occurs to me that, when in a battle frenzy, I imagine you may be able to slip in a suggestion or two.
I stepped back through the thin line, allowing one of Mark's men to take over my position, and concentrated on the whispy strings - millions upon millions of them - that connected me to the goblin horde.
I decided subtlety would not be the order of the day here. Visualising that scene from the opening of the Last Crusade where Indy falls into the circus wagon, I pushed out the biggest 'Hiss!' I could make.
The impact was fairly immediate.
If you've never seen several hundred goblins shit themselves and run for it at the same time, it's going to be difficult to describe. But let's give it a go. Try imagining a mass of writhing squid blasting out ink in order to escape, and you still wouldn't come close.
The entire section of the battlefield I was facing cleared like someone had announced a sale at Primark.
I took the reprieve to check out how Lancelot was doing.
*
Lancelot was bored.
The Hobgoblin was built for absorbing punishment and had some decent mental attacks - it was how it kept the army in line, after all - but there was nothing of interest here.
He was pleased to see the rest of the defenders were getting a decent workout, though. How else could you hone the edge of a weapon without thinning it a little? Anyone who died fighting goblins was not someone he wanted around his king. Arthur deserved only the best. He was just toying with the Hobgoblin until he judged the war band had taken as much experience from the exercise as they could.
Lancelot focused on one of the glowing weak spots in the creature's leg and stomped his foot down on it. As expected, this caused the Hobgoblin to lose its footing, Lancelot spinning his blade to lop off its left hand.
That gave him plenty of time to spot the mass of green pressing upon the pretty hair's position to suddenly lose their shit and run away.
He laughed at the joke - they'd shit themselves. He was a pretty funny guy.
This was over.
He let his blade complete its outswing and leaned into its weight, spinning around in a circle and coming back with interest to chop the Hobgoblin in two. He thought about taking its head as a trophy for a moment, but the other pretty hair wouldn't like this one. It didn't have lovely feathers.
As soon as the creature fell into two separate piles of viscera, the spell it had over the other goblins broke. With a unified shriek, the little green monsters went into full retreat.
*
Llameri reared upwards and whinnied.
Arthur raised his sword to the sky, conscious that the sun was bound to flash off both his horse's armour and his own. It didn't hurt to take such moments to reinforce his image. One of the things he loved about his horses was her understanding of the importance of visual branding.
"Britain!" he bellowed.
He was pretty damned gratified to hear "Arthur!" came as a response.
Only Morgan took the time to glance at the expressions on the rest of the kings' faces as their own men acclaimed the leadership of the man who would be Pendragon.
They did not look especially pleased.