Cutter stared up at the gaping maw of the ogre. The mouth was gaped in a horribly eager smile, sharp teeth winking in the light of the moon peeking through the clouds.

  Cutter felt a flutter in his heart. A moment of comprehension. It was too much in that moment for him to process. It was a swelling of fear, dread, love, sorrow, and incredible, irreparable loneliness. It might be thought that there were too many feelings in that instant, as death loomed above him, for a man to have. But that is the incredible thing about emotions. They know no limit, especially when a man is a lover, but even more when a man is a father. Yes, the feelings came too fast for him to understand them, but he did understand them. It would be days of drinking and thinking before he came to a conclusion about those feelings. But they boiled down to one simple, central expression.

  “Fuck, I’m never going to see my kids again.”

  The ogre roared, elbows spearing downward as it swung its weapon toward him.

  Then it was staggering to the side, a mist of crimson sifting through the faint moonlight, a hand snapping from the handle of its weapon, racing toward its face.

  Cutter was stunned. He blinked a few times, partly clearing the fine mist of ogre blood from his lashes, before he saw the arrow lodged in the eye socket.

  Cutter growled, “What the…”

  Then the ogre was on him again, raging ten times more than before. Cutter blanched, trying to rise, trying to protect himself, knowing he had wasted his opportunity in stunned shock.

  Instantly, a figure darted between them. The silver of a blade shone, dazzlingly bright in the darkness. The tip of the sword slid into the ogre’s throat, blood belching from the wound, and the thing was down, hands scrabbling, legs kicking. Blood geysered in horrendous gushes that mapped the beast’s heartbeat. The kicking and clutching became weaker as the blood flow ebbed.

  All around them, the sounds of the fight raged on. Somewhere Lita was roaring, “GIT SOME!” There was the endless ringing of steel on steel. The distinct, unnatural rumble of Tiller wielding his earth sigil.

  Cutter didn’t waste his second chance to find his feet. He pushed himself from the ground, lurching up.

  His savior turned to face him.

  Cutter was breathless, nearly wordless. “You…”

  Before him stood the awe-inspiring and lust-inducing form of Huntress. She was terrifying and captivating all at once. She stood before him, half shadow, half softly illuminated, her pose that of a psycho killer parading over a trophy. Her body, and all the bare skin exposed, was a hentai freak’s wet dream in the flesh.

  She dipped her helmed head. “I knew you’d have trouble.”

  Cutter stammered, “We… we can’t pay… not now anyway…”

  She scoffed a moment before her body became liquid electricity, launching like a clockwork coiled snake to stab another ogre as it charged over Cutter’s back.

  The huge beast screamed in pain and staggered back.

  Her head fixed on the ogre, Cutter heard her voice, playfully taunting, “That’s twice I’ve saved you now. You planning on taking part?”

  Cutter gripped the handle of his glaive, and that savage, terrible grin tore across his face like a ploughed furrow. His eyes flashed, widening with a glimpse of excited insanity.

  “Sure thing, babe.”

  The battle had its plus moments and minus moments in the next taut moments. On the plus side, the defenders were suddenly bolstered by a new presence. Huntress was not just in possession of a fighting class. She was experienced, a jaded veteran of too many fights. Her cool and composure made the others pale in comparison. On the plus side as well was the simple but excellent fact that one of the ogres was dead, first life’s blood drawn by Huntress, and several were wounded.

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  The minus list, sadly, was longer. The ogres had, after an awkward struggle, gained the wall. The defenders had done what they could, but in the end, they had lost the advantage of their fortifications, while a nearly full-strength team of ogres flowed toward them. The defenders had hoped to at least have thinned the numbers of their attackers more by this point. They had four fighters now: Cutter, Huntress, Lita, and Norris, but the ogres possessed a physical power and toughness that narrowed the edge significantly.

  Reader fired another log. The projectile leapt from the end of the ramp, spearing into the darkness, humming loudly as it ripped toward the sounds of the battle.

  Pod peered into the depths of the night. The moon was filtering weakly through the clouds, but the most either of them could see were the outlines of bodies, movement, and chaos.

  Reader pushed his second-last log onto the ramp. Through gritted teeth, he asked, “What’s happening? Are we winning or losing?”

  Pod responded, his own voice grim more than bleak, “I don’t know for sure. Sure looks like the backs of our crowd are getting closer. I reckon they’re driving ’em back.”

  Reader fired the log. Light flared and it ploughed into the darkness. “This would work better if they were closer and on the other side of the wall.”

  Pod said, “Then save the last one, no?”

  Reader said, “I can’t! What if I hold it and one of us dies because I could have fired?”

  Pod turned his head, brows settled in an expression of disparagement. “Doing a lot of good taking shots in the dark, are ya?”

  Reader paused, mouth frozen in a wordless ‘oh.’

  Roars and screams issued from the darkness. The impact of steel on steel, and steel on stone, and steel against dull but terrible instruments rolled to them through the darkness.

  Reader’s face fell. “Shoot. I messed up.”

  It might have been an existential kind of fear that made his face droop. It might have been the fear and knowledge that death might, even now, be battling its way toward him. But the expression seemed too guilty for that. It wasn’t a personal disappointment that Reader was feeling. It was a sadness borne of guilt.

  Pod screwed up his face watching Reader. Pod’s own expression seemed to morph, flitting from puzzlement to distaste to outright disdain, and then, suddenly, surprisingly, to empathy.

  “Hey, now, lad. You took out the yak. And you did get one good hit. The yak is what fucking matters though. If that hadn’t been put out of our misery, then we’d all be dead long ago.”

  Reader blinked, looking to Pod with a mixture of gratitude and strange suspicion. The suspicion was simply borne of the question: why is he saying something nice?

  A roar of pain from an ogre echoed across the farm. Reader saw that the defenders were backing closer, and his heart began to beat faster.

  Reader said, “So what do I do now?”

  Pod just said, “Keep the last one then. Pick your moment.”

  Norris went down hard. The goblin assassin was never meant to have been on a front line. He’d only fared so well because he was a fighting class against mostly non-fighters. The ogres were bigger and stronger and had a huge advantage in the open field.

  When a fighting-class ogre finally crossed his path, Norris was quickly overwhelmed. He got his licks in, gouging the bigger creature’s flesh with his daggers, leaving poison that would take a toll in the next minutes. The next minutes were of little help to Norris though, as a club caught him in the torso and sent him sprawling.

  Tiller roared as he saw his retainer hit the ground. He moved to intercept as the big club was raised to finish the downed assassin.

  Cutter snapped, “Don’t break formation, Tiller! We need to keep our backs covered!”

  Tiller ignored him, surging in, his shovel thrusting like a spear.

  He caught the ogre unaware and the beast staggered back, growling as a bloody furrow appeared on his brow.

  “Gonna regret that when I eat you.”

  Tiller stabbed again, but a sigil pulsed on the ogre’s wrist and his club easily knocked the attack aside. Tiller backed up, then dove to avoid a deadly swing.

  He landed on his back and scrabbled back madly as the ogre lurched again, club reeling up for another attack.

  Then Cutter was between them, his glaive devouring the flesh of the bigger fighter. The big ogre howled as the blade rammed into his chest. Tiller scrabbled to his feet, opening his mouth to thank Cutter.

  He never had the chance. An impact struck his back, he went reeling forward, the air whooshing painfully from his lungs. Even as he fell, gasping futilely for wind, he heard Cutter grunt and saw the big man hit the dirt just in front of him, writhing in agony.

  Tiller twisted to his back. Tonk stood over him, a savage grin spreading on his face. Ogre shapes stood all around them in the dark. A glance showed him Huntress fighting desperately while surrounded by three more. Stone Robot was spinning and spinning, tomahawks now a desperate defense against overwhelming numbers.

  It was spiraling.

  He turned back to Tonk. The small, by ogre standards, creature grinned. “Now I’ll find out what hoo-man steak tastes like.”

  Tiller’s heart had been hammering, but it seemed to still. A cold, dreaded realization began to dawn. It was over. The hope might be gone, yes, that was bad. But the struggle, the endless, painful, aspiring struggle would be done away with too.

  Whatever his feelings, he couldn’t imagine a way the situation could get any worse.

  Even as he thought this, staring up at the cold, cruel eyes of Tonk, a wave of roaring voices echoed from just beyond the near wall.

  Ogre voices.

  Many of them.