The gate was starting to give. I spun around and took in the haphazard force that had gathered around me. There were less than a hundred of us, and we had to be careful of arrows from the barracks. However, they seemed to be focusing mostly on Anders’ forces that were trying to take them down rather than on us.

Most of the troops were either mine or Anders’, but there were also some in a red uniform that reminded me of Theo’s troopers and one who had a blue and yellow uniform. It was the same four uniforms that the dead and wounded around us wore.

Raising my voice to be heard over the painful moans of the wounded around us and the ram thumping at the gate, I started barking orders, “We need to form into three ranks. I want a rank with swords at the ready, followed by a rank of my troops with their spears. The last rank will be those with a bow. First two rows will stay low to allow the archers to shoot through any openings in the gate.”

Immediately, squad leaders started manoeuvring their troops into the ranks I had ordered. Looking around I spotted something else that needed to be taken care of. “I want ten men to get the wounded to safety. The eastern gate tower will do. While we got time, first and second rank will take all these fucking harpy corpses and make some obstacles for the fuckers knocking on the front door.”

I went to the back of the formation, casting a wary eye on the roof of the barracks. It seemed that Anders’ troops had the harpies there pinned, because they only popped up a few at a time to fire arrows at his troops. He had also managed to make a couple of walls.

“Anders,” I shouted and when I saw I had his attention, I continued, “We could use one of your platoons here for fire support, and if you got the situation under control get another platoon to the roof of the tower. To prevent more harpies from joining the battle.”

I did not wait for acknowledgement, because at the same time a loud crack could be heard from the gate. Looking over, I could see that the gate was bulging inward. They had almost broken through the giant bars across the gate.

“Well, this is going to be fun,” I said sarcastically to Kiril as I readied my musket. I had left the two rifles inside the tower. No reason to be hampered by the extra rifles, since I would doubtfully get the chance to use them.

It felt like an eternity, but it was most likely only a single minute, before the gate to burst open and we could see the elves beyond. Twenty metres separated us. The elves, all dryads as far as I could see, were carrying swords and shields. The blades looked to be shorter than the ones carried by the harpies.

The five muskets belonging to me, the senior squad leader of First Platoon, and my bodyguards roared at the same time. They punched right through the shields and three elves fell, some of us had targeted the same person. Moments later the roughly two dozen archers let loose their arrows.

From behind, I heard someone call out, “Archers, stagger line.”

Looking back, I saw that one of Anders’ platoon was coming up behind us. Staggering our line would allow enough space for them to fire between us, so I repeated his order, “Third rank, stagger line, now!”

All down the line, everyone made room for the newcomers to be able to shoot. It might have allowed a second or two to pass without suppressive fire on the elves, but it was not the end of the world, because they were still forming up their shield wall. Arrows whooshed by on either side of my head, which was a little disconcerting, but I tamped down on my nerves and focused on what was in front of me.

Having finished reloading, I looked around for a target, noticing an elf barking orders at his fellow elves, so he was my target. Catching a glimpse of his leather armoured chest as two shields in front of him moved and thus creating a small crack, I created a link that should ensure that the guy died. I waited for a moment longer, and a direct line to him opened up. When I fired my musket, his shield was up and in the way, but the ball still ripped through it and the elf fell to the ground.

The arrows we fired however, had little effect after the initial few volleys. The elves had finished getting their shield wall together. Only one or two elves fell per volley, and they were starting to move up. I managed to squeeze off another shot, dropping another elf before the ranks in front of us had to stand up to receive the elves.

With a defiant roar, our first rank met the elves but they were outclassed both in skill and the fact that they were equipped with shortswords only. It helped a little that the rank behind them had spears and they were able to harass and wound the elves whenever they left an opening to strike on the first rank.

“Switch to melee,” I ordered the archers around us. My bodyguards and the senior squad leader were about to do the same, but I shook my head. The muskets were almost a guaranteed kill at this distance, and it could punch through the shields.

I looked at Kiril, “I want the four of you to shoot as many of those bastards as you can.”

“What about you, Milord?” he asked.

“I’m going to see if I can make a little havoc,” I said with a feral grin. I knew it was potentially a stupid idea, but I was simply enjoying the rush of melee combat too much. The archers were making their way through the rank of spearmen, whenever someone in first rank fell, taking their place.

“Milord!” I heard someone shout, though it was hard to make out in the din around me, as I finished reloading my musket. I might go in for melee in a moment, but it was always good to have a loaded firearm if you needed it. I looked around to see if I could spot whoever had called. There was a one in three chance that the shout was meant for me.

“Lord Karth, up on the wall,” the voice called and I recognized Hrothgar’s voice. Looking up I saw that they had retaken the wall, and they were busy shooting the elves in the back. However, even from this distance, I could see his worry.

“What?” I shouted as loud as I could, but it was hard to hear over the ringing of steel against steel and the shouts of pain and anger around me.

He had to repeat what he was shouting several times for me to get the message, but the message was harrowing. There were large numbers of elves on the way up the ramp. Not just the elves under the shielded wagons, which we already suspected were a thousand elves strong, but a force numbering at least ten thousand.

We would never be able to hold against that large a force, we were already hardpressed holding against the elves we were already fighting. Adding even more to that number would certainly mean we were doomed. Cursing, I moved forward a bit, standing between two of my troops just behind the front rank. I concentrated on gathering mana, transforming it into fire magic, but not giving it form just yet.

I concentrated on a spot on the ground I could see inside the elven formation. I forced my magic to channel to that spot and erupt in a pillar of flames. For a second nothing happened, but then I felt lightheaded as the mana rushed out to give my magic physical form. The spot I had concentrated on exploded into a pillar of flames, setting two elves ablaze, singeing and wounding several others.

It also distracted the elves, allowing the troopers to kill several more, leaving a bit of a breathing room. A couple of the more inspired troopers managed to snatch shields from the fallen elves. One of Theo’s men and one of mine that had lost his spear. I slipped back, drew my sabre and went to look for another spot to do some carnage and test out fire magic in a combat situation. Since they were using shields, I decided that one of my hatchets would be a better choice for my secondary weapon than the shortsword would be.

Finding the perfect opportunity after one of the troopers in first rank was cut down, I stepped forward, taking his place and started gathering some mana for what I wanted to try out. The shields carried by the elves reminded me of the classic roman shields, just a bit smaller. I slashed low with my sabre, and the elf moved the shield to protect his leg.

Before he could counter with a thrust of his blade, I slashed down with my hatchet at the rim of his shield. The beard caught the back of his shield and with a yank, I managed to pull the shield down and away, revealing the elf’s startled face. I opened my mouth and released the air in my lungs and my mana at the same time.

A gout of flames sprang forward and burned his face, but I could not enjoy that little moment of pure awesomeness. My mouth hurt like nothing I had ever felt before, it was almost worse than being castrated over and over again. Trying to scream in pain, but unable to with my parched throat, I fell back, quickly swallowed by our ranks.

My instincts kicked in and started blocking the pain and healing the damage I had done to myself. As the pain receded I felt foolish. Sure it had been a cool move, who would not love to breathe fire, but it had been incredibly stupid as well. I should have known from the heat given off when casting fireballs that I was not totally immune to the effects of the fire myself. Some of the heat would be directed away from myself, but not all of it.

I grabbed the waterskin hanging at my side and rehydrated my parched throat and mouth. I would not be doing that again any time soon unless I had no other choice. I wondered if I had both healing, fire, and water magic if the trick would be viable.

I noticed that the ranks of archers had been diminished quite a bit. They had to take over people who fell in the front rank, which meant our troopers were dying too fast. Even with half my Seventh Platoon firing muskets at the elves from the wall, the elves would be able to shrug off the attrition.

We needed those shields. It seemed everyone had equipped their men for mostly ranged combat, which made sense in a siege. I thought about the problem while unslinging my musket and killing an elf. While reloading I came upon an idea that might work.

I turned to the squad leaders still with the archers. “I’m going to create a distraction and punch a hole in their formation. I need you guys to rush in and fill that hole. Grab as many shields as you can.”

“How are you going to do that?” one of them asked.

“Wait and see,” I replied with a wink. I went down the line looking for a good spot and a strong back. I spotted one of my men who were a bit larger and more robust than the rest. I tapped him on the shoulder and laid out what I needed him to do.

When all was in place, I gave the sign to all parties to get ready, while backing up and gathering my mana in three separate bundles. The spearman I had selected for my entry point knelt and braced himself. With a roar, more to steel myself to do what was most likely a harebrained scheme than to scare the enemies, I started running at my kneeling trooper.

Timing was everything and could seriously fuck us up if we got it wrong, but we managed to pull it off. As soon as my foot landed on his shoulder he exploded upwards, boosting my jump enough to set me up and above our front rank and into their second and third rank.

I released the first bundle of mana beneath me in a great fiery blast that knocked elves down and to the side, killing a few at the same time. I landed with a roll and got to my knees between third and fourth rank. I spun around cutting elves at their ankles with my sabre and shortsword.

It was time to release the second and third bundle of mana. The first to be released was a roaring ring of fire around me that blasted outwards, passing over a couple of elves and setting them ablaze before stopping. The second was a wall of flame that lined the area that my blasts of fire had created. It was formed like a horseshoe starting in front of me, with the open end pointing towards my troopers.

I concentrated on killing the elves around me that were on fire, blocking a few feeble stabs and slashes from the distracted elves. I got hit a few times. For example, a slash on the calf, a stab in the stomach that went a few centimetres deep, a slash across my back that would have been much worse if the musket had not stopped it. It mattered little to me, I was blocking the pain and healing the damage on instinct, though my mana reserves were running low.

Parry, slash, parry, kick, parry, slash. Everything became a blur as I fought against the elves that made their way through the flame walls. In the distance, I heard someone shouting my name, “Karth!”

A little light-headed from the intense mana use and lost in the rhythm of the battle, I looked back and saw a couple of elves had moved through the flame walls to separate me from my troopers. I also noticed that Kiril was waving for me to come back.

Pain shot through me, as someone stabbed me through the calf. The pain of it going out almost as bad as it going in. With a snarl, I spun to my right, using the sabre to bash his shield aside, spinning him a bit. My shortsword found the spot between his cervical and thoracic vertebrae. Ripping it out to the side, I had cut the elf’s neck in half, it was dangling to the left side.

Only a bit of flesh, muscle, and tendons prevented it from being a full decapitation. A fountain of blood spurted up in the air from the severed carotid arteries, as the body slumped to the ground.

Limping back towards my own formation, while working on healing my busted right leg, I had to fend off a few attacks through the walls of fire. It was a great relief when I got back behind friendly lines and could cut off the supply of mana to my fire magic. Even with the fatigue from the mana strain, I noticed that most of the troopers in the front rank were now armed with shields.

I collapsed to my knees, Kiril and Alan grabbing me and dragging me backwards. Kiril appeared worried. “Are you okay, Milord?”

“Just give me a moment,” I mumbled, closing my eyes. I had to fight to stay awake, the rest of my mana exhausted by healing my calf as well as I could. Despite my sleepiness, I managed to fumble my uniform jacket open and retrieve a pouch I had around my neck. Inside were some of the mana crystals that the Cardinal had donated, as well as some of my own.

I grabbed one and absorbed it. The first bit of magic I did was using healing magic to refresh myself and push away my fatigue. Sitting up, I directed my magic to finish healing my leg. I looked at the two bodyguards. “Shouldn’t you be firing your muskets?”

Alan immediately went back to the firing line, while Kiril looked at me. “Will you be okay, Milord?”

I gave him a wink and a grin. “Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, don’t worry. I got these to juice me up.”

I patted the pouch with the mana crystals and pulled out another to refill the void in my mana pool. He looked doubtful but picked up his musket anyway. “As you command, Milord.”

After I had refilled my mana pool I grabbed my waterskin and emptied it. I looked wearily at the battle in front of me. My excitement had abated, mostly because refreshing myself had the side-effect of removing a lot of the adrenaline from my system.

However, I knew I could not just sit around while my men were dying, it would be wrong. Unslinging my musket, I decided to get some shooting done. At least until another display of magic or chaos was needed.

Four shots later, I had killed four more elves. It was definitely easier than going mano-a-mano with them, but it was also less exciting. I knew I was becoming a battle junkie. Not that I was losing myself to bloodlust, I just liked the exhilarating feeling of putting my life on the line. It was so at odds with how I had been back on Earth that it worried me.

Nevertheless, I felt the need to do more damage with my magic, so I switched to melee and started up and down the line, occasionally firing a fireball at an unsuspecting elf. I was looking for the perfect opportunity to create maximum havoc.

I noticed the trooper I had used as a springboard was not in the line anymore, and I felt a pang of regret. I did not know his name. In fact, I hardly knew any of the names of all the men that had just died under my command. If we lived through this, it was something that would need to be rectified. Somehow. However, that was for much later. First I had a few thousand elves to kill.

Two elves next to each other were killed almost at the same time, creating the opportunity I had been looking for. I burst through our own ranks, fired off two fireballs at head height at the two elves that were moving up to close the shield wall. Predictably they raised their shields to block the fireballs, which I had expected.

With their vision blocked, I rammed into them shoulder first, knocking them aside, surprising the elves behind them. Even as I was slashing at the elves around me, I sent out a wave of fire around me, burning and disrupting the formation around me. I followed that up by creating an L-shaped wall of fire, blocking off the elves to my left and in front of me.

Behind me, I could hear the troopers pushing forward a little, taking care of some of the distracted elven soldiers. With a snarl, I attacked the closest elf with a flurry of slashes, quickly overwhelming him and slipping the shortsword around to stab him in the chest through the armpit. Tearing my shortsword out, I cast a brief glance at the havoc behind me and saw that the ranks were starting to close in.

I quickly made my way back towards my own troopers, having to parry and deflect more than a few attacks, only able to lightly wound in response. Soon I was back at my own front rank, having dismissed the wall of fire and holding my own against a couple of elves. I had just cut down an elf on my left when suddenly I had to defend myself against a flurry of attacks from two attackers that seemed more skilled than the others. They also wore black leather armour instead of the normal brown.

After four attacks they were starting to overpower me and got me in a deadlock. It was a bit straining holding two weapons at bay at the same time. None of us could retract our weapon without opening ourselves to an attack that would be difficult to parry.

The two elves managed to move a bit to the side without breaking the stalemate, leaving a big enough opening between them for the elf, another black leather armoured one, behind them to stab me. Being wide open, the press of bodies behind me, there was nothing I could do but stare at the incoming blade that seemed to be moving in slow motion, directly towards my heart.

A loud boom next to my head, burst my eardrum, but I was more focused on the elf that was trying to stab me. As I felt the blade starting to pierce me, I ramped up my healing magic. However, the next moment the back of the elf’s head snapped back in a fountain of blood and brain matter, yanking the rest of the body backwards and retracting the blade from my chest.

A second later a sabre slashed out at the elf on my right, breaking the stranglehold he had on my own sabre. With a twist, I broke free and cut down the elf on my left, before spinning around to finish the one on my right, but she was already down.

A hand grabbed the musket on my back and dragged me backwards, the front rank closing in front of me, protecting me. I looked at the person who had dragged me and saw it was Kiril, his musket still smoking from being discharged, while Alan stood next to him, with a bloody sabre.

“Are you alright, Milord?” Kiril asked loudly, “I saw you get stabbed in the chest.”

“You saved my life, thank you,” I said just as loudly and focused on healing the wound. “And yeah, already healing. Will be alright in a moment.”

“Just doing my job, Milord,” he replied with a grim smile.

“Hell of a job,” I said and patted him on the shoulder. I looked at the number of our troopers holding the area in front of the gate, we were down to around two scores. Maybe around fifteen of them were mine.

Alan must have seen my concerned look because while reloading he said, “Mostly wounded, Milord. A couple of troopers are taking them to safety.”

Looking up at the wall above the gate, I noticed that my men were no longer firing at the elves at the gate. They were being harassed by scores of harpies. They had to retreat. Looking back to where Anders was fighting the harpies on the barrack roofs, I saw no sign of him or his men.

Kiril was the one to answer my unasked question, “The High Commander ordered them into the western gate tower, having them help retake it. Farnsworth went in with them, while Ballard went into the eastern one.”

“Fuck me, we need to get some help here soon,” I cursed. Looking back at the fighting going on just a few steps away. With a wry smile, I said, “Well, the elves aren’t going to kill themselves. Shall we help them with that?”

“Would be the polite thing to do, Milord,” Kiril replied with a straight face.

I laughed and fished out another mana crystal, refilling my mana pool. I went back to shooting. Niska and Alan had been firing the entire time, while Kiril had been reloading his musket and talking with me. While they could certainly help by replacing the tiring men in the ranks, every time they fired their musket, it was almost a certain kill, and they could fire one and a half to two rounds per minute.

I started moving up and down the line again, disrupting the elves with small fireballs and the occasional shot. Mixed in a pillar of flame or two. I kept an eye on the harpies flying around outside the gate, looking for coloured wings. I could see none.

After a couple of minutes of that, I could see that the front rank was starting to waver. It would be bad if we broke. Deciding to alleviate the pressure a bit, I looked for an opportunity but did not find any.

Since there were no opportunities to alleviate the pressure, I decided to make one. Palming a mana crystal in my right hand, it made it uncomfortable to hold my sabre, but I could bear with a bit of pain and discomfort.

Moving forward, I made my way to the front rank, parrying a slash. I created a large pillar of flames directly behind the front rank of the elves. The sudden presence of the flames burning their butts had them stumbling forward. With a slash and a stab, I dispatched two of them, while the men on either side of me killed the one in front of them.

The flames died out two seconds after bursting into existence, leaving a clear spot for me to step into. I released a blast of fire in a 180-degree arc in front of me. Sending elves stumbling back, a few of them with burning clothes.

I followed that up with a wall of fire four metres around me, still in a 180-degree arc. It left me with eleven hurt, distracted, and off-balanced elves. They quickly became dead elves, I moved through them like a farmer through a field of wheat with a scythe. Before I had killed the seventh elf, I had to absorb the mana crystal to maintain the wall of fire, because I had used more mana than usual on the first two attacks.

Suddenly my flame wall started dying out, despite my mana pool being over half full. Dispatching the last elf, I looked around frantically. With the walls down, I could see beyond the fire and saw that a wide area had been cleared, and a new circle of flames sprang up there. Spinning around, I saw that my retreat had been cut off. Even from two metres away I could feel how hot the fire was, much more powerful than what I had managed. Going through that would hurt like a motherfucker.

The ground started to tremble beneath me, my mind flashed to the training we had been doing with the stone mages, innovating different ways they could use their magic offensively. I threw myself forward and to the left, going into a roll as I heard the stone behind me erupting. I got a quick glance at a large stone spike where I had stood.

The ground was still trembling, so instead of getting my bearings, I immediately ran to the right, then zigged, ran straight, doubled back for a second, a sideways roll before jumping to my feet when the ground finally stopped trembling. Looking around I saw stone spikes grumbling and disappearing as if they had never been there.

The ring of fire was still burning hot, and for the first time, I noticed I was not alone. A tall elf, still half a head shorter than me, stood inside the ring that took up a diameter of eight metres. Almost half the width of the space between the two towers. Harpies raced overhead, heading towards my troopers.

In elvish, I said, “Should I thank you for this little bit of exercise? Really got the heart pumping.”

He looked surprised and I took a moment to take in his armament. He was carrying some kind of polearm, almost looked like someone had put a longsword at the end of a staff. He was also dressed in the black leather armour some of the better warriors I had faced had been wearing.

“You speak our tongue?” he asked incredulously, breathing hard. Probably strain from heavy mana use.

“Sure, it’s not that hard, sounds like animals rutting really,” I said, sheathing my shortsword and unholstering an axe, but still keeping it behind my back. It really did not sound like that, it was a beautiful and almost musical language.

“Your pathetic attempt to enrage me reveals your slow wits,” he countered haughtily. While he spoke I started pooling my mana for an attack. “What’s your name, so I can add it to the list of pathetic human mancers that I have killed?”

“Oh, we’re doing the whole pre-combat posturing thing? And the one on one battle? So cliché. Well, let me get with the program. The name is Karth, Lord Karth of You’re Dead in A Moment because I wasn’t trying to enrage you, I just needed to distract you for a moment,” I replied with a large smile, and whipped out the hatchet and threw it at him. I followed right behind it, covering the distance as quickly as possible.

With a sneer, he swung his staff deflecting the hatchet.

“Pat—ARGH!” Whatever he was trying to say transformed into a scream of pain, as a pillar of fire erupted beneath him, catching him by surprise. I was halfway to him when something out of the corner of my eye made me slide to a stop, like a baseball player sliding to the base. A fireball was hurtling down at me from up on high. It landed next to me, if I had not gone into the slide, I would have been hit by it.

Tugging the musket in a bit, I rolled to the side, managing to dodge another fireball. I quickly scrambled to my feet and started running, but the earth erupted right in front of me. Not a stone spike, just a small protrusion that caught my foot and sent me sprawling. The impact with the stone made me gasp as the air was forced from my lungs and the sabre skittered across the ground.

I wondered why I was not dead by the time it took me to gather my wits and get some air back into my lungs. Whoever threw the fireball should have had plenty of time to nail me with another.

Rolling onto my back, I saw a red-winged harpy hovering in the air, over the shoulder of the stone mage. He was standing above me, half his face burnt, more concerningly he was swinging that sword-staff of his around, obviously preparing to kill me. Reacting instantly, I threw gathered my mana for a fireball, but as soon as it formed, it was extinguished.

I tried again, with the same result. The stone mage laughed. “You might be strong, but Vulan is much more skilled than you. Goodbye, Lord Karth the Dead.”

At the moment of my impending doom, I was saved by a fiery angel. Someone had jumped through the fire, uniform ablaze, screaming in pain as he swung a sabre in the general direction of the stone mage. Surprised the stone mage took a step back to dodge the attack, he spun around and forward, and with a clean backstroke cut the head of my fiery saviour.

However, the spin had brought him inside my attack radius. Spinning on the ground, I kicked the legs out from under him. As he landed face-first on the ground, I rolled on top of him. I grabbed the back of his head and slammed it into the ground again. Next, I got my arm around his neck, and rolled onto my back, with him on top of me. A fireball hit the space we just rolled away from.

Keeping him secured with one arm, I quickly drew my dagger and punched it into his ear, all the way into the brain. He stopped struggling immediately.

Fireballs started raining down on me, and I kept my meat shield in front of me. Snaking my left arm under his arms, I managed to struggle to my feet, holding him up in front of me while shielding me against the harpy’s fireballs. I had to use a considerable amount of mana to block the pain from my left arm and heal it, as the fireballs scorched it.

Unslinging my musket one-handed while carrying a dead body and dodging fireballs was not an easy task. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw that the flame walls had been dropped. Meaning I would be swarmed in a moment. I might die here, but I would take down that fucker that arranged it.

Using the stone mage’s shoulder I stabilized the musket, following the harpy that started flying away. As soon as the link informed me I had the right trajectory, I fired, watching with glee as the harpy fell from the sky.

Only for a moment though, before he recovered a bit of height. Though his right wing seemed to be badly injured, he still maintained altitude. A pang of regret went through my mind, as I let go of the dead stone mage. Automatically I drew my shortsword as I saw the elves around me closing in.

A loud shout from behind me had the elves stopping and straightening their lines as if to receive an attack. Suddenly blue, red, green, yellow, orange, black, brown, and all sorts of uniforms rushed around me, as troopers poured into the open space around me, surprising me and knocking me off balance. A pair of hands grabbed me from behind.

“Thanks, Kiril,” I said without looking back. Taking in the fighting around me. The new troopers looked fresher than those I had been commanding.

“I’m sorry, Milord,” I heard Alan say.

I looked over my shoulder and saw Alan and Niska standing there. No Kiril. With a heavy heart, I knew that Kiril had saved me one last time, and paid the ultimate price. My mind flashed to his wife and son who was at the moment travelling to the Hold to join him.

Steeling myself against the regret, and maybe a bit of grief, I turned my attention back to the battle that we were finally winning. We were pushing back the elves, but another ten thousand was on the way up the ramp. How we should defeat them, I did not know.

Just as I finished that thought, a massive explosion happened just outside the gate where the ramp started sloping down. A geyser of what looked like lava poured out and down the side of the mountain. I realized they could have done that from the start of the battle, and the gate would never have fallen.

“Fuck them,” I shouted and pushed my way over to where Kiril had fallen. I bent down and picked up his body. Niska looked sad and a little green around the gills as she picked up his head. I turned my back to the battle happening and made my way back to the tower. I had nothing left in me.