Small bands of Islanders were dispersed within the city. Their advance was held back by barricades and multiple ambushes coming from all sides. For them to advance the wood and junk piled on the streets needed to be removed; this costed time and more importantly stamina. Relentless jabs and arrow barrages coming from the rooftops or windows drained the mages' mana pools. Despite all this, the invading force kept their numbers while slowly taking down the city guards. However, their mana and stamina was not endless and they had to be careful about time

Suddenly, a war golem smashed through one the barricades. The Islanders were taken by surprise yet again, they did not expect the construct to help them clear the way. However, the golem was not here to help but to kill. The construct swung at armoured fighters. The heavy rock fist smashed at the armour bending it; the man inside the metal suit suffered a serious blunt trauma. Another man met the similar fate and then another.

One of the islanders lunged his axe towards the golem. The damage the fighter did was pitiful, the enchanted construct was barely chipped at its leg. The invaders soon realised that they are ill-equipped to deal with the construct. The retreat was not an option because the path leading back to the harbour was blocked by city defenders. They could beat the poorly armoured defenders but that would cost time and that they did not have, not with a golem on their backs. The Islanders could not stand there and let themselves to be killed, they had to fight back. It was their only option.

The horned men hit the golem with everything they could; the metal chipped the rock. Their mage did not idle either, he cast fire-based spells at the golem. This was not enough to defeat the enchanted rock construct; even they showed all they had it barely got damaged.

The Islanders were drenched in cold sweat. Somehow, their information network failed to mention something like that being in the city. They wondered how could they miss something so important as a war golem in their enemy ranks.

Their band was losing badly to a single golem. Half of the band was scattered on the ground. The armour suits were mangled and dent beyond recognition; men inside it - dead. The morale of the men broke and they fled away from construct leaving their back unprotected. If the golem got close it could deal with them in one hit.

The ranks broke and the mage was left exposed. He fought as best as he could, but an arrow to his back ended his life just before the golem trampled on the poor man leaving a wet puddle of blood and guts behind.

This fight went in favour of defenders but this was a small fight in a bigger battle. There were multiple bands of invaders, like this one, within the city. Cynthia knew that she cannot be everywhere at once and hoped that she will kill enough of them in time. The barricades and city guards slowed the invader approach so that the golem could take care of them. However, this was not enough to win this. A sizeable portion of invaders cut through the city defences running towards the city centre. Towards the place where merchants did their trade and many other shops were.

The cityscape changed again. The streets were no longer narrow and crammed with buildings, it was more open. And the buildings themselves were larger and more spaced out. This was a district where those who could be called wealthy lived. There were no more ambushes or barricades to break through and the Islanders could regroup into a large formation once again.

There was no such thing as a fort or a castle for the wealthy to gather. Most people barricaded themselves inside their homes and shops. They hoped that the invaders will ever make past the city guards. Actually, many believed that the Islanders will be repelled at the harbour and thought that all the effort of building barricades and placing archers in buildings were a complete waste of time and manpower. They were wrong and now they wished that they did not spare anything on improving the defences. It was too late to do anything about it; the horned devils were at their doorsteps already.

Finally, the Islanders could do what they came here for. That was to wreak havoc and reduce the wealth of the city’s rich to the ash. And they did so. The invaders barged inside the houses destroying anything that stopped them from doing so. Wooden doors or even metal reinforced gates were not enough to spot them, they had muscle and magic on their side.

Each house was invaded, the people inside killed on the spot without mercy. Anything of value was quickly taken and the rest set ablaze. More and more houses were set aflame and ever-increasing number of the wealthy killed in their own homes. The dying cursed the city guards that they were not here. The guards could not be there because they were still busy keeping away other groups of Islanders from spilling into the city centre.

The rich shop owners and half of the middle class were slaughtered, their most precious possessions taken and the rest burnt to the ground. The Islanders saw very little resistance there and whoever challenged them was quickly dealt with. Actually, the invaders were surprised how easy this was, they expected that the ones with skill and knowledge will be defended better. Of course, those with skill were quite well off but they were not the richest and most powerful people in this city. The very rich were the noble families of the Harbour Town and they lived further down away from the wealthy merchants and their shops.

The Islanders gathered their loot and headed towards the mansions where the nobles lived. There were about twelve mansions within the area. Each grand and splendid in their own way. The buildings had exquisite architecture and were made of white marble stone, a luxury here since this area was mostly swamps and plains. There were beautiful gardens and orchids around the buildings and the usual stuff the wealthy liked to surround their houses in. Once close enough the invaders understood why the rich middle class they slaughtered minutes ago was so was ill defended. It was because the nobles bought all of the men available to protect their own property, and no expense was spared.

The mansions were built not just to be beautiful, they had basic defences too. All twelve mansions were surrounded each by a short wall and had a sturdy gate to prevent anyone from coming inside. The gates were made solely of metal bars and would be extremely hard to destroy. Scaling the walls would not be easy either, despite the fact that they were short. This was because walls were guarded by hired men. The men were mercenaries and they should not be confused with the incompetent city guard. The people guarding the nobles were mostly hired beastmen. Like most people here they had little personal protection but this was compensated by their muscular and well-trained bodies. What was sparred on armour was spent on weapons and various alchemical potions to boost abilities. The beastmen were well trained and saw actual battle more than once in their life. The few humans who lined the walls were actually mages, they too were contracted individually to protect the property. The rewards differed greatly from money to rank or whatever one needed to their life at risk.

Each mansion was like a small fort on their own. The buildings were unique not just in their architecture but in the amount and type of defenders it had. Some had more beastmen some had more mages or archers defending the property. The curious thing was, that if all of the hired men came out at once and attacked the invaders the nobles would win the battle. The Islanders were well armed but few in number, they would find themselves outnumbered and would be forced to retreat. But of course, this did not happen. Each noble was adamant at keeping his hired men on his property, why would they use their men to defend someone else. So the defenders remained on the walls swearing and shouting at the Islanders from a distance. Taunting them to get in range of their arrows and spells.

The Invaders were left to do what they came here for. They knew that a single mansion stands no chance against them. They picked one at random and launched their assault. The men lining the walls found themselves overwhelmed by the organised invading force of mages and fighters. The beastmen were burnt to a crisp or decapitated one by one. Whatever resistance they mustered amounted only to a few casualties in the Islander ranks. The metal armour and the barriers the mages put soaked up the most of the damage. The noble inside was mercifully killed with all the servants inside; the wealth was plundered and the rest set ablaze.

Then the islanders moved to the next mansion. It faced the same fate. And then to the next. By the fourth mansion, the things changed slightly. This was not because Islanders found themselves fighting against some superior enemy or anything like that. This was because the constant battle tired them greatly, their stamina was low and mages had depleted their mana pools. This time they suffered enough casualties to seriously consider about continuing on the fifth mansion. After all, they did not receive much of reinforcements from within the city, meaning that half of their force was still entangled in the fight somewhere within it.

The Islanders decided to call quits while they were still ahead. After all, they will need plenty of energy to haul all this loot back to their ships. The mages shot fireballs into the air; explosion signalled the time for their retreat. Going back was a lot easier than pushing forward. The barricades had been destroyed and most of the streets were clear for them to retreat back to the harbour.

While Islanders were retreating the defenders did a similar thing. Instead of pursuing the enemy and surely charging to their death, as was demonstrated again and again, the guards moved to reinforce the nobles. They needed to keep them alive and on their side, the rich were the ones paying their wages. They would not get their reward from the dead.

Once at harbour Islanders have found a few of their ships sunk. The majority of Islander mages left with the fighters thus leaving the ships vulnerable. Apparently, human mages launched an assault led by the mages guild. The mages guild assault was a success but a limited one because they managed to sink only a few ships. They got counter attacked with fire magic and a land detachment of armoured melee fighters.

The islanders hauled themselves inside the remaining ships, moving in heavy armour tired them and they were at their limit. If not for the buffs they had they would have collapsed a long time ago. Of course, they did not forget to stuff the ship decks with loot.

All in all, for both sides this was neither a complete defeat nor a victory. Both sides suffered casualties, the city had a bigger count of dead and a significant loss of wealth and property damage. However, the Islanders could not consider as winners, they too suffered costly casualties. The greatest being the loss of almost a third of their men. The manpower is the most valuable resource for the Islanders because their numbers are few and it takes decades to train a formidable fighter. Also, they were not in a position to hire mercenaries like the nobles could so they could not replenish their forces easily.

The outcome of this battle was a bitter tie. Both sides came out only weaker from this and neither was strong enough to crush the other. The Islanders decided to keep their naval superiority blockading the city and disrupting the flow of goods. They will send a request for more fighters to completely crush the city. While the nobles seeing their neighbour mansions plundered desired to spare no expense and double the recruitment efforts. Just like before, they would pour even more men into the bloodbath in the hopes to weather the upcoming assault.

The Guardian was present to observe all of this from the shadows at a safe distance. He was glad he did not pick sides because, in the end, he would have gained very little. And as just everyone predicted the slum district was left completely unmolested. It was ironic how usually the least safe place to be now was the safest. He was glad that his home was left untouched and his wealth safe. For him it was all it mattered, he cared very little about the nobles or hundreds of people who died today. This was because they were not his family, kin or even from the same race so he had very little compaction towards them.

Guardian was still thinking on how he could turn this around so that he can profit. Probably selling his stock of healing products was a good idea; he could not do that before since the sudden attack left little time for preparations.

“That should fetch a good coin.” He decided on it as he headed back to his place. Of course, he would sell the items at an exorbitant price. After all, the demand must be huge.

He was surprised to find the prison ruins becoming some sort of a gathering spot; various people flocked there for safety. The one who gathered here knew that Guardian owned this place. They also believed that he had a considerable power, otherwise, he would have not taken care of the previous owners and numerous groups of thugs within the area. Also, the people remember the meaty feast they had here and hoped to rely on Guardian’s generosity once again. If you give a beggar a gold coin he will come to beg for more, this was the danger of generosity.

Guardian regretted not using the sewer tunnels to get home. He did not want to deal with all these people so he ignored them. No one approached or disturbed him so he reached the entrance to the dungeon without any problems. Once there he was surprised again. Two beastmen were guarding the entrance, he did not hire them to do that. Guardian faintly recognised the two belonging to the thug group he has taken over.

“What are you doing here?” Guardian asked the beastmen.

“Hello boss, long story or short?”

“Keep it short.”

“With the invasion and everything... the word spread that you are taking people in who seek protection. A lot of people turned up and one thing led to the other. There is not enough space in the dungeons for everyone so obviously, as your faithful workers, we did our job. We let the ones who work for you in, including us and our families. The rest were kept out.”

“I see. Good job, I guess.” Guardian concluded that one of the harbour girls must have spilt the beans to someone she should have not.

He went inside preparing himself to be surprised at finding the place in a state of complete chaos. However, the surprise was a pleasant one; sure there were a lot of people inside but they behaved respectfully. As he went past them they looked at him with respect and something that amounted as gratitude but no words of thanks were spoken. Guardian checked his hall and his stuff; everything was there just as he left. He let a sigh of relief and went to the dining hall.

The people there were not in a constant state of doom and gloom, as one might expect; it was the opposite. They were celebrating and drinking. The bandits hauled a lot of edibles and alcohol from their warehouse here and were having a small feast. Numerous girls from the harbour were keeping them company.

Guardian looked around trying to see someone he knows, there were a lot of strangers here. His eyes caught a small girly figure, it was Aiu. She too was participating and drinking, probably more than she should.

“Aiu, I want you to come with me and help to sell healing items.” He asked her for assistance.

“Guardian –hic- Where have you been? I missed you –hic-” She leaned towards him for a kiss.

“You reek of beer, Aiu. Pull yourself and let’s go.” He encouraged her with his hand.

“… -hic- have babies with me. Lots of them and ha –hic- and –hic-” a hiccoughing fit took over her speech.

“Right… you are wasted.” He pushed Aiu away as she tried to molest him with her hands. He needed to find someone more useful.

To do this he went around looking for a familiar face. It took a while and it was quite frustrating but he found his elves. He got the two to help him carry all of the healing stuff they had towards the battle-torn part of the city. The elves were actually glad he came and took them out and away from all this squalor. The two felt out off place as they were the only elves there.

They went straight to the plundered market district. A lot of houses were burning and the fires still had to be put out. When he let the people know that he has healing items he was swarmed with people. A horde of city folk demanded him to sell them his goods, some even begged desperately. The most of them turned around and cursed him once they found the price he asked for the items. He got called various names and he did his best to play it cool. After all, he did not have enough stuff for everyone anyway.

He peddled the items at the inflated prices; ones who needed it the most spared no expense. People complained but they did not want to pick a fight with him. They had seen enough fighting already.

“Guardian! So you showed yourself. A bit too late don’t you think?” Cynthia has found him.

“No. I think I am here just in time.”

“Mhm… So what do you have here?”

“Healing items, interested?” He asked her even if she did not look injured. She nodded her head. “It is quite expensive”. Guardian added.

The golem master gasped at the price once she had learned it. Guardian was charging 5 silver for a simple healing salve which was 20 times the usual price.

“Wow. I did not expect that. And I need a healing potion which now costs a small fortune.” She eyed the fresh potion Aiu had made yesterday, its cost now was 12gold. “Can’t you do an exception for me? We are friends are we not?”

Guardian was reminded that this friend thing went both ways.

“Of course. If it's only one you can have it free of charge. Why do you need it, you don't look injured?”

“I will have some salves with that, please. All of this is for one of my friends. He got injured quite badly.” Sadness was clear in her voice.

“I see. Here it is.” He handed her what she needed.

“Guardian…” She paused for a moment. “Come and join us this time, I fear the battle is far from over.”

Yet again she was asking him to pick sides.