The rotation system was a mercy, but it was also a curse. The rest had allowed their muscles to cool and stiffen, the adrenaline fading to leave behind a deep, aching fatigue that settled in the marrow. Getting back up to speed felt less like waking up and more like trying to run through waist-deep molasses while wearing a suit of lead. Every joint protested, every scar throbbed, and the copper taste of fear and exhaustion coated the back of Josh’s throat.

  Carcan had stayed behind at the triage station. Her mana was critically low, but her hands were steady, and the ceaseless stream of wounded coming off the walls, people with crushed limbs, acid burns, and missing eyes, all needed every healer available. Josh had hesitated to leave her in that butcher’s shop of a building, but Carcan insisted they leave her.

  "Western wall," Josh said, his voice gravelly as he adjusted his shield straps, wincing as the leather bit into a fresh bruise. They jogged through the shadow of the fortifications, the stone looming high above them, vibrating with the impacts of the battle raging on the ramparts. "That’s where the horn came from and the pressure must be spiking."

  "It's spiking everywhere," Bhel grunted, his axes clanking rhythmically against his armoured hips. The dwarf looked haggard, his beard matted with dried blood that wasn't his own. "The whole damn place is a pressure cooker, and the lid is rattling."

  They rounded the corner of the inner bailey, moving past a house towards the western ramparts. The noise here shifted character. It wasn't the rhythmic, terrifying BOOM at the main gate, nor the industrial clash of steel on steel from the main wall defence. It was a chaotic, high-pitched screeching, like a thousand rats fighting in a sack.

  "Look!" Perberos pointed, his elf eyes catching movement in the gloom.

  Fifty yards ahead, at the base of the wall where the heavy stone foundations met the packed earth of the courtyard, the ground had erupted. It wasn't a magical portal or a smashed gate. It was a wound in the earth. A ragged, dark aperture roughly three feet wide, surrounded by piles of fresh, damp soil that had been displaced with frantic speed.

  From the hole, a stream of bodies was pouring out like black water from a burst pipe.

  These weren't the armoured Enforcers or the massive Scale-Breakers that were hammering the main gate. They were the smaller runts of the litter, wiry and naked save for filthy loincloths, their skin pale from living deep underground. They clutched rusted shanks, sharpened bones, and rocks. They moved with a frantic, fluid speed, tumbling over each other in their haste to exit the tunnel, eyes wide and glowing with a desperate, feral hunger.

  A squad of four guards was trying to hold them back, but they were woefully overwhelmed. The kobolds weren't fighting with honour or tactics; they were flowing. They scrambled between the guards' legs, climbed over their tower shields like insects, and bit at exposed flesh. One guard was already down, screaming as a pile of the creatures buried him, stabbing wildly with their crude shivs.

  "Sappers!" Josh yelled, the realisation hitting him like a physical blow. "They dug under the wall! It’s a breach!"

  "They're flanking the guards!" Brett shouted, pointing. "Josh! The right flank!"

  Josh saw it. While the guards were frantically stabbing at the ones in front, a dozen kobolds had circled around the back, raising their shanks to strike at the exposed hamstrings of the defenders. If those tendons were cut, the guards would drop, and the breach would be wide open to the town.

  Josh didn't think. He acted.

  His Dash skill ignited in his veins like liquid fire. The world blurred at the edges. Josh launched himself forward, fifty yards vanishing in a heartbeat. He became a projectile of steel and momentum. He hit the flanking group like a cannonball fired into a stack of porcelain plates.

  CRUNCH.

  He didn't use his sword. He used his mass. He slammed into the cluster of kobolds with his shield held high, pulverising three of them instantly against the rough stone foundation of the wall. The sound was sickening, like a watermelon being dropped from a height. The impact sent a shockwave through the rest, knocking them off their feet and sending them sprawling into the dirt.

  "Form up!" Josh roared at the startled guards, kicking a kobold that was trying to rise after his shield slam. "Shields down! Don't let them past! Tighten the circle!"

  He stomped on a kobold that was trying to bite his greave, crushing its skull with a sickening crunch, and swung his sword in a wide, flat arc. The blade sang, decapitating two more in a spray of dark blood.

  "They're leaking out!" Bhel shouted, arriving a second later, his short legs pumping. The dwarf threw himself into the fray, his low centre of gravity making him a perfect barrier against the small enemies. He chopped with his axes, efficient, brutal movements that severed limbs and silenced screams.

  "Perberos! The runners!" Josh ordered, pointing his sword at the shadows slipping towards town.

  The elf was already moving. He vaulted onto a stack of crates to get a vantage point, drawing his bow in mid-air. He scanned the courtyard behind them. Five kobolds had made it past the initial line during the confusion and were sprinting on all fours towards the alleyways that led to the residential district. If they got loose in the town, the panic would be uncontrollable.

  Thwip. Thwip. Thwip.

  Perberos fired with mechanical precision. The arrows took the runners in the back of the neck, severing the spinal cord and dropping them mid-stride. They slid across the dirt, twitching, before lying still.

  "Got them," Perberos called out, nocking another arrow. "But there's more coming! It’s endless!"

  He was right. The hole was vomiting kobolds. They were weak, first floor monsters, but there were endless numbers of them. It was like fighting a river of teeth and claws. For every one Josh smashed, two more squeezed out of the earth, slick with mud and slime.

  "We need to block it!" Josh shouted, shield-bashing a kobold back into the hole. He felt the resistance of bodies behind it; the creature was crushed between Josh’s shield and the press of its own kin, its ribs snapping audibly. "We can't kill them fast enough! They’re pushing through the dead!"

  Brett stepped up beside Josh, his face pale but determined. "I can burn them!"

  Josh grabbed the mage's shoulder, hauling him back from a lunging sapper. "Controlled bursts! Don't blow your mana, we might need it for the wall!"

  "I know!" Brett snapped, eyes focusing, shaking off the fatigue. "Just cover me!"

  He extended his hands, aiming directly at the mouth of the tunnel. His palms glowed with an angry, red light.

  "Ignite."

  A cone of fire, dense and orange, roared forward. It wasn't an explosive fireball; it was a flamethrower, a continuous stream of projected heat. The fire coated the entrance of the tunnel, filling the first ten feet of the shaft with swirling, sticky flame.

  The screeching from inside changed instantly from excitement to agony. The kobolds at the front tried to stop, terrified of the fire, scrambling backward, but the ones behind pushed them in, unaware of the danger. The scent of burning flesh filled the air instantly, thick, greasy, and sweet. It was vomit-inducing.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The flow stopped. The kobolds were clogging their own exit with panic and burning bodies.

  "Hold the line!" Josh ordered, stepping back to give Brett room. "Defensive horseshoe! Wrap around the hole! Double ranks! Don't let anything out alive!"

  The guards, rallied by Josh’s arrival and the sudden reprieve, fell into position. They formed a semi-circle around the burning, smoking tunnel mouth. Bhel and Josh took the centre, the anchors of the line, shields and axes ready.

  "It won't hold forever!" Bhel yelled over the screams coming from the earth. "They'll dig around the bodies! Or they’ll just push the corpses out!"

  "We need to close it," Josh said, looking at the towering wall above them. "We can't collapse it with force; if we crack the foundation, the whole wall comes down. We need finesse."

  He turned to the dwarf, gripping his shoulder.

  "Bhel! Find the Captain! Tell him we have a breach on the west wall. We need an Earth Mage! Or someone who can mold stone, not just break it! Go!"

  "On it!" Bhel didn't argue. He sheathed one axe, turned, and sprinted back towards the command post, his heavy boots kicking up dust, his short legs pumping like pistons.

  "Brett, cut the fire!" Josh ordered. "Save it for the surge!"

  Brett dropped the spell, gasping for air. The flames flickered and died, leaving behind a charred, smoking aperture.

  For a second, there was nothing but the sound of sizzling meat. Then, a charred, smoking hand reached out of the hole. A kobold, burned, blind, and skin sloughing off, crawled out, hissing in pain.

  Josh stepped on its neck, ending its misery with a sharp crack.

  "Here comes the backup," Josh warned, raising his shield. "Brace!"

  The flow resumed. But now the defenders were ready. They had formed a kill box. As the kobolds scrambled out, climbing over the mound of their dead and dying kin, they ran straight into a wall of steel.

  Spears stabbed downward, efficient and rhythmic. Swords chopped. Josh’s shield acted as a piston, smashing anything that tried to leap the line.

  It became a gruesome, visceral rhythm. The "trash" mobs were easy to kill individually a single solid hit was enough but the sheer volume was exhausting. It was physical labour. Lift, strike, recover. Lift, strike, recover.

  Josh felt a shank glance off his thigh plate. He ignored it, thrusting his sword into the creature's chest. Another grabbed the rim of his shield, trying to pull it down. He twisted his arm, snapping the creature's wrist, and bashed it in the face with the pommel of his sword.

  "Leak right!" Perberos shouted from his perch.

  A kobold, slippery with blood, had slipped between a guard's legs, avoiding the spears. It scrambled for freedom. Perberos dropped it with an arrow before it made three steps, the point sinking into the base of its skull.

  "Brett! Flame!" Josh shouted as the pressure grew too great, the pile of bodies threatening to spill over their line.

  WOOSH.

  Brett unleashed another burst of fire, bathing the hole in heat. The kobolds retreated, screeching. The defenders took a breath, adjusted their grips, and wiped sweat from their eyes.

  "Flame off!" Josh wanted to keep his friend's mana use to a minimum, only letting the flames burn long enough to set the passage alight and then ceasing them.

  Stab. Block. Kill.

  "Flame!"

  WOOSH.

  They held the rhythm for ten minutes. It was brutal, efficient, de-humanising work. The pile of bodies around the hole grew into a rampart of its own, a gory barricade forcing the new arrivals to climb over their dead, making them easy, slow-moving targets. The ground was slick with black ichor, making footing treacherous.

  "Josh!" Bhel’s voice bellowed from down the courtyard.

  The dwarf was running back, dragging a man in grey robes by the arm. The man looked exhausted, his face pale and smeared with dirt, stumbling as Bhel pulled him along like a sack of potatoes.

  "Found one!" Bhel panted as they arrived, shoving the man forward. "Pulled him off the north wall. He says he can do it."

  The Earth Mage looked at the hole, the pile of bodies, and the burning grease. He looked at the wall towering above it. He wiped sweat from his brow, his hands shaking. "A tunnel? Under the foundation? If I get this wrong..."

  "Can you fill it?" Josh asked, shield-bashing a kobold that lunged at the mage, sending it flying back into the pit. "Yes or no?"

  "If I collapse it, the wall might shift," the mage stammered, looking terrified of the melee. "The structural integrity..."

  "Don't collapse it," Josh said, stepping close, gripping the mage's shoulder with a bloodied gauntlet to steady him. "Fill it. Fuse the earth. Make it solid again. Like it was never dug. Can you do that?"

  The mage looked at Josh’s implacable visor, then nodded, swallowing hard. "I... I can try. I need to touch the earth near the opening. I need contact."

  "We'll get you there," Josh said. "Brett! Clear the hole! Full burn! Make a path!"

  "You got it!" Brett stepped forward, gritting his teeth. He poured more mana into the spell. The stream of fire turned white-hot, roaring into the tunnel. The screams from inside were deafening, a chorus of the damned.

  "Now!" Josh grabbed the mage by the back of his robes and hauled him into the centre of the horseshoe, shielding him with his own body. "Do it!"

  The mage fell to his knees at the edge of the burning, body-choked pit. He slammed both hands onto the bloody dirt, ignoring the heat and the gore. His eyes glowed with a dull, brown light.

  "Terra... Solidify!" he screamed, his voice cracking.

  The ground shuddered. It wasn't a violent quake; it was a deep, rolling groan, like the earth itself was settling into a comfortable bed. The loose piles of earth around the hole began to move like liquid. They flowed inward, rushing into the tunnel mouth, defying gravity.

  From deep underground, the sound changed. The screeching wasn't coming from the entrance anymore; it was coming from below.

  CRUNCH.

  It was a wet, heavy sound, like stepping on a beetle, but amplified through twenty feet of dirt. The earth rose up from the bottom of the tunnel, filling the void, crushing the kobolds trapped inside against the roof of their own excavation.

  The mage poured power into the spell, his veins bulging on his neck, sweat dripping from his nose.

  The dirt compacted. The hole shrank. Three feet. Two feet. One foot.

  A final kobold hand, clawed and desperate, thrust through the remaining gap, grasping at the air, before the earth snapped shut around it like a vice. Bones snapped audibly. The ground levelled off, leaving only a patch of disturbed, dark soil and a severed hand twitching in the dirt where the tunnel had been.

  The mage slumped forward, gasping for air, his mana drained. "It's... it's done. Fused for ten yards. It's solid rock now."

  Josh let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He looked around.

  The immediate threat was gone. The pile of dead kobolds was steaming in the cool evening air. The guards were leaning on their spears, chests heaving, looking at the mound of carnage with thousand-yard stares.

  "Good work," Josh said to the mage, offering him a hand up. "You saved the wall."

  The mage took the hand, pulling himself up shakily. He looked at the carnage with wide eyes, seemingly realising for the first time where he was. "I... I just moved some dirt."

  "You stopped a flank," Josh corrected. "You stopped them getting into the town."

  He looked at the group of adventurers who had joined the fray—a pair of rogues and a warrior who had been patrolling nearby. "We can't leave this unguarded," Josh said, thinking aloud. "They might dig again. Or they might try another spot."

  He turned to the guards. "You four. Hold this position. If you hear digging, you run for the Captain. Do not engage alone."

  "Yes, sir!" the lead guard nodded, snapping a salute.

  Josh raised an eye brow, not used to being called sir, then looked at the Earth Mage and the other adventurers. "You lot. The wall patrols are thin. We need eyes on the perimeter to stop this happening again. Join the patrol. Circle the inner bailey. If you see dirt moving, you scream."

  One of the rogues, a scar-faced human, frowned. "You're not the Captain."

  "No," Josh said, his voice dropping an octave, the weight of his armour and his level pressing down on them. He gestured to the pile of dead sappers. "Do you want to argue rank, or do you want to keep this town alive?"

  The rogue blinked, looked at the dead, then nodded. "We'll patrol."

  "Good," Josh said. "I'll clear it with the Captain when I see him. Go."

  The group dispersed, moving out to secure the perimeter.

  Josh turned back to his party. Bhel was cleaning his axe, flicking gore onto the ground. Brett was drinking a water skin, looking tired but in control. Perberos hopped down from his crate, retrieving his arrows from the corpses of the runners.

  "That's one hole plugged," Perberos said, wiping his knife on his trousers.

  "A thousand to go," Bhel grunted.

  Josh looked up at the wall, where the sounds of the main battle were still raging. The booming at the gate had started again.

  "We're done here," Josh said, sheathing his sword. "Back to the wall, I guess."

  They turned and jogged back towards the gates, leaving the silent mound of fresh earth and the twitching hand behind them.