Chapter 26: No Longer The Weakest Part 1

The day was May 7 of the Guardian calendar. If Scitus used his time to determine the hour, it would be 1 pm. Scitus by this time understood that days in this world were approximately 24 hours and that the months were exactly 32 days apart or at least this has been true so far.

The clouds on this day were darkening as if to herald the coming battle.

Scitus saw them roaming towards the encampment, they seemed to be heading directly towards him, however, they, at close glance, were completely mindless. Scitus, over the course of his time with the goblins, had unintentionally become empathic towards, he no longer wanted to use them as pawns in a game, despite it being able to assure his victory much more easily. This would force Scitus to become more clever than he ever had been.

“well, at least the game just got harder” he mumbled to himself as he saw the ferocious ogres run towards them at full speed.

The ogres approached from the west side, this was completely opposite to the farmlands and heavily riddled with trees. ordinarily this would give the ogres a surprise advantage and good cover for creatures that use brute strength to win a battle but, Scitus had made heavy precautions, precautions that he had his assassin unit take care of, they would be very important to the battle, just as important the spartan unit and shield unit would.

The ogres moaned as they ran towards the encampment walls, almost as if they were zombies, but before they could even leave the forest area and enter the zone of cut trees, the handy work of several goblins whose job, for the last few weeks, had been to cut trees, 6 or so ogres were tripped by long cords of cunningly placed hemp. This would be the first trap among many to come. The secret leader paid no mind to the children's tricks, "stall all you want, it won't change the outcome."

The sun was still bright and despite their madness, they could not ignore the sunlight, in their moment of blindness and disorientation, the assassin unit used the precious few seconds they were given and tied as many fallen ogres' feet as they could. The leader, as they tied the beasts, saw Teal from the corner of his eye, he searched further into the wood going so far as to cast far sight spell. This allowed him to spot teal running back towards camp. The leader took his bow and prepared his shot, most people would find it nearly impossible to shoot so accurately in such a thick forest, but his people were experts in forest archery, his people were born in the woods and died in the woods. He took aim, cast a simple tracking spell, and shot.

The arrow flew fast and towards its target, teal, its arrowhead aimed at the goblins heart, the arrow flew past the trees seemingly dancing past them, all for a singular purpose, to kill the goblin his master ordered him to kill. The arrow would make it close to the goblin a mere inch from its target but either by fluke or miracle the arrow fell to the floor as if stopped by some kind of divine wind.

"WHAT!! " the leader couldn't believe what he saw, it was a shimmer, he could swear that he saw a shimmer before it had ceased its movement, had someone stopped it? He told himself it must have been the doing of the god, there could be no other explanation for the phenomenon.

Regardless, the goblin was now far from his range of attack and to the leader, it mattered little, at most the goblin managed to hinder the movements of the ogres.

As twenty of the ogres advanced, the leader sneaked onto the fallen ogres' tied bodies and began to free them with the blade he kept in his side pocket. He struggled to cut the first, the hemp was thick, but after another moment he easily sliced through the fabric, he went to the next ogre and just as his blade reached the fabric, he heard a whoosh sound. He looked behind him to see an arrow dug into the ground. He grinded his teeth he then angrily looked up at the walls. There he saw a goblin with a bow looking down at him and readying another shot. "just try …" before he could finish his sentence the arrow whooshed through the air and dug into his arm before he even knew what happened. He didn't scream, he simply clutched his arm in pain. The goblin was preparing another shot, the leader wouldn't be shot a second time and ran back into the forest.

"DAMM what the hell kind of aim is that." the distance wasn't far, even he could shoot her down with ease, but the fact that he was shot by a goblin angered him to no end. The leader was about to take out his bow before remembering what happened the last time he used it.

"Damn that god." He then smiled, " he is a new god maybe he can't spend enough mana to do it again" he thought as he turned to face the walls, but the goblin was already gone, he stomped his feet in a fit of rage and then turned to the 4 ogres that still remained on the ground, they were crawling towards their destination, unable to understand that their legs were tied. "well it should be fine without them anyway."

The ogres marched ever closer towards the walls, they were coming in from the left side of the entrance. from this point forward, the leader, who was too far away, did not understand why the ogres seemed to scream in rage, they became agitated from something but he could not identify what. One by one as the ogres screamed in range and began to pound against the kingdom's walls, their brute strength was certainly something to be feared thought the goblins within the walls; as they saw the pillars of safety that their god had taught them to erect, began to quake and tremble under the sheer strength of the ogre tribe. The walls would not hold forever and they were not meant to.

From his side, the leader could see several goblins 6 on each side of the ogres, closing in on them. Those fools, they will be easily crushed!! The leader thought as William stabbed his spear into the right leg of the first ogre he saw, he made sure to stab it as close to his arrow wound as possible. From the corner of his eye, he could see Cecilia and her unit closing the arrow holes. Openings in the wall, designed by Scitus, to allow for arrow volleys at a close distance. The ogre before William screamed in a furious rage as it moved its focus from the wall and towards William. The ogre attacked and William did not move he chose instead to trust Thomas who was beside him to protect him from the ogre.

William watched as he saw the typical downward thrust, one he now had imprinted into his memory after his fight with Rey, be easily moved from its target and into the air next to them. Using both Robins and Williams techniques, He and a few others he had asked to accompany him, trained in shield combat and more specifically the protection of allies in battle. Now. what took William in his entire unit to do, would be taken care of by Thomas, Williams unit would concentrate on attack and Thomas and his unit would focus on protecting.

William stabbed the ogres left leg leaving the enraged ogre in terrible agony. Bronze and silver were close behind William and began to attack their respective enemies.

Tink!! The sound of an arrow hitting wood resounded in William’s ears but he dared not look choosing instead, “Take care of the arrow attack, I’ll manage here.”

Thomas turned his head to see where the arrows were coming from, it was behind an odd long tree with a horrible bent that nearly had it touching the floor. The arrows were coming in fast 2 and sometimes 3 a time but only a single arrow ever reached him. Most of the arrows coming his way fell to the floor with a bright shimmer, "Retreat!!" William, seeing that the shield bearers were becoming tired of shifting the oncoming swings and seeing as the other ogres began to take notice of his comrades, he ordered the retreat of his unit and the shield unit. Both units heard his words and obeyed, the teams began to retreat.

From The leader's position as he controlled his volley of arrows, he was gnashing his teeth, stomping on the floor, and his face was red with rage. "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!!!".

"DAMN!!!" The leader yelled as he saw an oncoming arrow heading his way. The archer clearly did not know where he was nor did he have tracking magic, if the archer did he would have shot closer to him, the arrow was shot near a strangely bent tree several feet in front of him. "They must have seen my arrows coming from around there", he thought.

There was little more rest inside the walls than out, Scitus had trained the civilian goblins to act orderly in the case of an emergency. He had taught them the escape routes they could take in the case that the city walls fall but while the walls still stood, they would collect stones from anywhere they could find them. The Goblins line up in several columns, from the outside looking in, they looked like an army, their goal? To throw stones over the city walls, it didn't matter if these stones injured the ogres or not, the purpose of these stones were something else entirely.

"RAARH!!!!!" The ogres" screams reverberated against the goblins bones. In the past they would have cowered, in the past, they would have begged for mercy, in the fast they would have run. Times had changed, their god had given them the gift of knowledge, knowledge that empowered them to do extraordinary things. They had nothing to fear because they had their god by their side.

“Go!!” Maxwell ordered, his voice calm and yet fierce, he was a born leader, it was no mistake that he had been the elder of the tribe for so long.

The cycle of hit and run tactics continued, no ogre fell but no goblin had fallen either. Truly Scitus could have arranged for better tactics, tactics that would end the lives of the Ogres, but it wasn't the purpose of this battle. Killing the ogres would cause Rey to become a problem and Scitus thought, as he scanned the surrounding with his divine sight, "I'll need to request a favor from her."

"It looks like we'll have to run, order a retreat." Seresa nodded and began lining up the goblins up in columns in preparation for a retreat into the forest. As the last goblins were lined up she took one last look at the encampment. The tents were all abandoned, the children's toys were left scattered and the beginnings of wooden houses were left half constructed. She felt pain knowing that they had to run after they all they had done, then she looked at Scitus who bravely stood before the buckling walls and smiled, she knew it wouldn’t be the end of them yet.