The regular goblins cried in fear and despair and the first of them began to run back the way they’d come. The hobs tried to stop them, but even if they snatched some up and kicked some more, the others simply pushed past them, completely ignoring any danger their larger cousins might pose. Finally, one of the armored hobgoblins roared.

“No...” Edwin groaned. “Come on, you’re beaten! Just give up!”

The other hobgoblins took up the roar, then all five of them began rushing towards the humans, the first three discarding their unwieldy wooden shields.

“Receive charge!” Captain Vellis yelled hoarsely, stepping up to reinforce a weak point in the line. “Archers, fire! Flanks, collapse out! Reserve, reinforce!”

“Screw that!” Edwin growled, discarding his own shield as he turned around and stepped back from the line. His left hand now free, he pulled out his dagger to complement his mace, then surveyed what he had to work with. Thankfully, the area behind the line wasn’t soaked in blood and guts like the one before it, and the tall grass had already been trampled flat by many passing feet. He judged the distance to the closest hob, then shot forwards. He didn’t have much of a runup, but he concentrated on pumping his legs as quickly as he could to make the most of it. A few steps behind the soldiers, he jumped.

The first hobgoblin was in full charge, almost at the shield wall. It was one of the unarmored ones, and it was already rearing back to swing the rusty sickle that it wielded at the soldiers. When Edwin shot out from the human formation and sailed clear over their heads, the hobgoblin simply looked at him in abject surprise.

That was the last thing it did, as the combined speed of both their charges meant that it didn’t even get to finish its swing before Edwin impacted its upper body, his dagger slamming into its eye socket so hard that the cross guard broke bones. Its legs kept going for a second while its head and shoulders reversed their direction. Edwin impacted the ground hard, rolling off the corpse to shed his remaining momentum.

Edwin wasn’t crazy. While anger and hatred bubbled hotly in his mind, it was Walter’s usually cold, analytical mind that had decided this course of action. The recruits had done well against the goblins, but they were battered, wounded, and out of breath. When the hobs had begun their charge, a piece of a puzzle had clicked into place that he’d never been able to quite wrap his head around. Back in the forest at Maff, when they’d first walked into a goblin ambush, why had the hobgoblin waited so long to attack?

Now, he understood. That had been the plan. The goblins were fodder, meant only to weaken the humans, test out their capabilities and dwindle their resources. Back then, the hobgoblin had attacked because it saw that Salissa was out of mana, and all of them were busy defending themselves. They had been at their most vulnerable.

Now it was the same. Of course, they would’ve preferred it if the rest of the goblins had weakened them even further, but since that wasn’t going to happen, they attacked before the humans had a chance to regroup and recover. It was ruthless, but once you assumed that the hobs didn’t care for the lives of their smaller cousins, which this fight had shown quite decisively, it made a twisted kind of sense. Why try fighting fresh, rested soldiers when you could go up against weary and wounded ones instead?

It really made perfect sense, and it really pissed Edwin off. What was worse, it really pissed Walter off, too.

So now, they wouldn’t just go up against a bunch of tired soldiers. They’d have to deal with one fresh and very angry superhuman, built expressly for the purpose of killing monsters.

The two armored ones were a little further behind, actually slowing down when they saw Edwin rise from their fallen companion, so he put them out of his mind for now.

To his right, one of the hobgoblins was swinging at the soldiers with a hoe. In its gangly, but unnaturally strong arms, the hefty farming implement had become a deadly weapon, and the men were huddling behind their shields that rang like discordant bells under the onslaught. Several feathered shafts were already sticking out of the creature, as the few remaining marksmen were trying to take it out as quickly as they could.

To his left, the other hob was just crashing into the shield wall, trying to bowl the humans over with its weight alone. With two lines of fresh soldiers to reinforce each other, Edwin doubted that the tactic would’ve worked. As it was, the two recruits in front lost their footing and several men went down alongside the monster in a jumble of limbs. This hobgoblin didn’t have a weapon, but with its needle-like teeth and long claws it didn’t need any. Edwin turned and dashed towards it, winding up a strike as he ran. When he reached the pile of bodies, he brought his weapon down in a mighty overhead swing.

The heavy mace head impacted the creature in the back, just below the neck. Its spine broke with a sickening snap as Edwin’s weapon sank deeply into its flesh, and its movements ceased. Only its ugly head was still turning, toothy mouth snapping at a soldier just out of reach. Edwin pulled his mace out with a slurping noise, turned around and dashed towards the hoe-wielder. He stopped halfway, when the two armored brutes let out bellows and charged him.

“Come on then!” He roared, answering their challenge. “Who wants to die first!?”

These ones were definitely going to be tougher. Their armor, made from hide and wood, was very crude and probably extremely uncomfortable, but it covered most of their bodies. Edwin didn’t see any way of getting a quick kill unless he managed to go for the face again. Their shields were sizeable and better made than the large siege barricades the other ones had used to hide from the marksmen.

For a second, Edwin regretted dropping his own shield behind the line. It was heavy and unwieldy, and he’d worried it would ruin his jump over the soldiers. He’d also remembered how hard it had been to grapple with the first hob he’d killed with it still on his arm.

He'd make do.

One of the hobs was carrying a hatchet as a weapon, the other, to Edwin’s surprise, wielded an actual sword. He had no idea where the thing had gotten it, he simply hoped that it wasn’t proficient in its use.

The sword-wielder swung at him, and he stepped back to evade it. When the blade whizzed past, he charged forward again, trying to get inside its range. Immediately, the hatchet shot towards him, even before the sword reversed its course to cut him off. Jumping sideways and rolling away, he had to abandon his attack. He’d forgotten how gods damned quick these things were. Staggering to his feet, Edwin backpedaled away from another sword swing and began moving sideways, away from the shield wall. Another swing of the sword, and again he stepped back just enough to dodge.

The hobgoblin growled angrily and rushed at him, abandoning its careful stance. Edwin took half a step back as if to retreat, then dug his foot into the trampled soil and used it to propel himself forward. This time the hobs didn’t expect his speed and ferociousness, and his target brought up its weapon too late to stop him.

He crashed into the monster, trying to get close enough to reach its unprotected face or one of the gaps in its chest armor, but the damn shield got in the way. Edwin settled for ramming his knee against the hob’s calf, then stabbing his dagger through a gap between two wooden plates on its right arm when it was distracted. It hissed in pain and shoved him away with its shield, just before its companion swung at him with the hatchet.

Edwin stumbled back to evade the slash, then settled back into a defensive posture. He smiled grimly at the two hobs.

“Is that all you’ve got?” He asked mockingly. “Are you sure you’re strong enough to be this stupid?”

Sword-hob answered with an angry roar, only for its pitch to rise dramatically as it morphed into a scream of pain.

The monsters had been so focused on Edwin, they hadn’t realized that he’d managed to go all the way around them, effectively turning their backs toward his allies. Out of the corner of his eyes, Edwin had seen the adventurers at both flanks push out, flanking the unarmored monsters. The one Edwin had crippled had been dispatched quickly, while the hoe-wielder had followed soon after under the tender ministrations of the remaining marksmen and Doren’s party.

While the two hobs had been busy, the remaining adventurers as well as twenty or so of the soldiers had rushed over to help Edwin, and were now forming a half-circle absolutely bristling with spears and swords that continued to close in.

Hatchet-hob raised his shield, blocking Borm’s large sword that fell in a devastating overhead swing, lodging deeply into the primitive wooden implement. Two soldiers used the opportunity to stab with their spears, one of them finding flesh.

Sword-hob, his weapon arm hurt but still functional, slashed wildly at the encroaching humans to keep them away. Foris and his teammate, unburdened by the soldiers’ shields, used the additional range and speed they gained from wielding their spears with two hands and went for gaps in the crude armor with unerring accuracy. With each passing second, more and more spears quested out towards the hobs, and they were becoming increasingly panicked. Their wide swings were easily blocked by the soldiers, and whichever way they turned to defend themselves, they would immediately be attacked from somewhere else.

Grinning sardonically, Edwin charged back into the fray. Now busy with his companions and trying to step backwards towards him, they seemed to have completely forgotten about the man who had gotten them into this mess. Edwin took a swing and his mace crashed into sword-hob’s knee. Its leg buckled and gave out, and the monster crashed to the ground. Now without the advantage of height, spears shot towards it from all sides, seeking its exposed face, forcing it to abandon the attack and huddle under its shield.

Hatchet-hob saw its companion’s plight, as well as the one who had caused it, and it ignored the spears scrabbling at its armor to turn around and swing at Edwin. He stepped back out of its reach, the metal blade whistling by his face, and Edwin charged back in – only to stop in surprise.

The hobgoblin’s face slacked to an empty expression and the hatchet slid from a lifeless hand. Its legs gave out and the dead monster crashed to the ground. Bordan calmly pulled his spear out of the hobgoblin’s neck with a squelch. Where helmet and breastplate met, there had been a small gap. The former soldier hadn’t needed more.

All eyes turned towards sword-hob. The creature was still on the ground, bleeding from a dozen wounds as it weakly tried to fend off its attackers with blind swings.

Edwin stepped back, gesturing to the soldiers.

“Have at it, gentlemen.”

Needing no further invitation, they crowded around the downed monster. Edwin turned around to watch the tree line just in case something else decided to join the fight. Then he listened as the hobgoblin’s cries became more and more pitiful until they finally stopped.