The brush dragged at armor and boots, heavy with dew, vines clinging to greaves and spear shafts as the army pushed forward. The sun was still low, filtering through the canopy in pale streaks, but the column had been moving for hours already. Harold could smell the damp earth, a scent that clung to his senses and mirrored the weight of anticipation in his chest. Each step brought a squelch of mud, a reminder of the struggle ahead and the tension tightening in his gut.
They were leaner now. The two battered Centuries had been folded into one, forming a Prime Century. By doctrine, this meant their numbers should reflect double the strength, typically around 160 soldiers, but due to attrition and casualties, they were operating with barely 120. This vulnerability weighed on them heavily. Nearly all of them now carried spears, long, solid shafts taken from fallen hobgoblins. The extra reach would matter today.
The wagons struggled as Tatanka teams snorted and strained through the undergrowth. The forest tightened, forcing the Century to halt and clear a path just wide enough for the wagons without breaking axles or panicking the beasts.
It slowed them — but no one complained. No one wanted to leave the food or potions behind.
The night had been short, but it had been a real rest.
Tatanka meat had been roasted low and slow, filling bellies that had gone too long on rations and thin stew. Soldiers ate until they were full, then slept hard — wrapped in cloaks, armor loosened, weapons within reach but hands finally still.
Harold hadn't slept much.
He'd worked instead, seated near the supply crates long into the night, sorting, measuring, preparing. He hadn't shared what he was making, and no one bothered him.
He had made sure the troll remains were secured.
"Nothing gets wasted," he'd said to Tribune Tran. "I'll need those parts when we're back at the Landing."
Hale had noticed it sometime after midnight.
He and Garrick sat near the edge of the cookfires, boots stretched out, weapons laid close. Around them, the camp had settled into that rare quiet that only came after survival.
Harold was moving through it. He knelt beside wounded men, shared meat, listened, and laughed when someone cracked a too-dark joke for anyone else to admit was funny. His presence was something remarkable. Hale watched for a long moment.
Harold stood in the center of the camp, talking with the wounded legionaries. Just there. Listening to their stories. Laughing with them and sitting on logs like one of them.
Hale paused to see the effect Harold had. Men relaxed their shoulders, a corner of despair lifted away by Harold's easy camaraderie. Garrick looked over at him.
"Man's got gravity," Garrick said. "Like something pulling people in."
Hale didn't answer right away.""He shouldn't be this good at it," he said finally. "Didn't come from command, even in his last life. Didn't train for this. But… out here? People follow him."
Garrick gave a tired smile. "Because he's in the suck with us, and the guy killed that Hobgoblin Commander. That isn't a fight I wanted."
Hale looked like he had an idea…"Think that's a perk?" he muttered conspiratorially.
Garrick didn't look away. "Nah."
Hale frowned. "You don't think so?"
Garrick shook his head. "Look at the forums. Lords everywhere. Half of them can't get their people to listen at all. If it was a Lord thing, they'd have it too."
Hale exhaled slowly. "Yeah. But we both know he's not a normal Lord."
That earned a pause.
"…Yeah," Garrick said thoughtfully. "That is true."
They reached the site just before the sun broke fully overhead.
The clearing stretched wider than thirty paces across, closer to sixty at its longest point. Enough room to maneuver, but barely enough to cover. The Prime Century, even at double strength, would be forced to thin its own line to hold it. No chance of a classic shield wall holding from flank to flank. They would need anchor points and contingencies.
But there were advantages, too.
The brush on both sides of the clearing was thick — near-impenetrable without tools or fire. The kind of tangle that made turning their flank difficult, even for creatures that preferred the trees. It wasn't a true cover, but it was close enough to secure the flanks.
The ground dipped gently in front, a shallow bowl from some long-dead streambed. Rain had carved narrow furrows, and roots ran just beneath the surface — not enough to block digging, but enough to trip someone charging in the dark.
Harold stood at the crest of the bowl, staring down into it. The air was still. Birds had gone quiet.
"It'll have to do," he said, finally.
He turned back toward the assembled soldiers. "Shovels. Get to work. We want a trench, waist-deep, full arc across the front. Wagon's back two lengths behind. He turned to Hale, I think we put more spears on the flanks to keep them from folding. Keep some in the center to make them uncomfortable."
Hale nodded in agreement, and Carter barked the relay. Garrick was acting as the centurion for the Century, while Carter joined Harold's guard and made sure his commands were relayed.
Legionaries moved fast — not with the adrenaline of battle, but the rhythm of practiced routine. They dropped packs, shrugged off cloaks, and began cutting dirt like they'd done it a hundred times. Some found broken limbs from nearby trees and began shaping them into stakes. Others dragged debris into loose walls behind the trench line — rough cover, enough to buy a breath or block an arrow.
It was quiet, save for the sounds of labor.
But all of them felt the weight in the air.
It had started before they even reached the clearing.
A flicker. A hiss. A flash of motion between trees.
Goblins, at first.The leaner, darker-skinned. Scout variants. Arrows loosed from angles too far to return fire. One bolt skipped off Garrick's shoulder plate. Another was buried in the thigh of a soldier beside Carter, who barely stumbled before being pulled out of formation.
Then came the others. Kobolds.
Roughly the same size as the goblins. Maybe a little bigger —but stronger. Their scouts didn't cackle, charge, or bait. They watched. Moved like ghosts through the underbrush. Where goblins were wild, these things were disciplined.
A legionary described one later: scaled hide, mottled green and gray, tight armor over shoulders and chest — piecemeal but well-fitted. Their bows were curved, thicker than goblin ones, and their arrows had flint heads fletched with dark feathers.
Three more soldiers were wounded before they even knew the kobolds were there.
No fatalities yet. But the message was clear. These weren't pests or a disorganized swarm.
Harold crouched at the edge of the trench line, jaw tight, eyes on the forest.
Most kobolds were nuisances. Tunnel rats. Sneak thieves. Fire-trap builders and trap-makers who scuttled off the moment anyone showed a blade.
But not these.
Only ever heard of kobolds like this in two places," Harold murmured to Hale, who was overseeing the ditch. "One in the West. One down in the Southern Range across the ocean." Both were war-zone levels of threat. The Southern ones were very mobile and had their own cavalry. Some kind of raptor they rode on. This jungle reminds me of them. They were organized."
Hale didn't look surprised. "You think we're seeing that strain of kobold?"
"I don't know," Harold admitted. "But they're better than they should be. The relics defend themselves in strange ways."
Garrick walked up, a faint limp in his step from a bruised calf. "If they've got a variant like the goblin berserkers, we're in for a real fight."
Harold nodded once.
"That's why we dig."
He glanced at the dense forest hemming them in. If anything was going to save them today, it was the funnel — the way the brush forced enemies into a tighter line. They wouldn't be able to swarm from the sides. Not easily.
He took a breath. If we had a watercrafter, we could have soaked the ground in front of us and played the fight out as the battle of Agincourt did. Or a stone crafter to help make some real fortifications. Or a fire crafter, and he could soak the ground in oil, set it on fire, and the crafter could make it a real inferno, burning away the kobolds. Or this dam forest.
It just made Harold more convinced he would need to have a section of battle crafters that he guarded as his life depended on it. He could make sure the Crafters had their own section of guards as he did. If it helped keep them alive, he would do it.
By the time the trench was halfway carved and the makeshift defenses were starting to take shape, Harold called Sarah and Vera over.
The two women approached from different angles — Vera light on her feet as always, her half-cloak now traded for a tighter wrapped scarf to keep from catching on the trees. Sarah had dirt on her boots, a fresh scab above her left eye, and a grim readiness in her posture.
"You both know your roles," Harold said quietly, once they were close enough. He didn't speak it like an order — more like a confirmation between professionals. "Find their main force. We need to know when they're coming, how many, and what they're bringing. I want you to lure them back here into a fight with us. Make them pissed off enough to give us a straight fight."
He reached into his satchel and pulled out a small pouch — worn leather, heavy for its size — and pressed it into Sarah's hand. "Your supplies."
She glanced down at it, then up at him.
He didn't elaborate, and she didn't ask. But his hand lingered.
Before she could step back, Harold leaned in and hugged her close — too long for comfort for a fiercely independent seventeen-year-old.
"Please," he said, voice low. "Be careful. Watching you fight that troll scared the hell out of me."
Sarah stiffened in the embrace. "Ew. Not here." She tried to squirm free, her face going red.
But Harold didn't let go until she gave him a quick, embarrassed hug back.
"Thank you," she whispered.
Before anything else could be said, a voice rang out across the trench line.
"I'll give you a hug, Lord Harold!" Mira shouted from a dozen paces away, one hand cupped to her mouth and a dramatic sway in her voice.
There was a beat of silence — and then laughter exploded from the nearby legionaries. A few of them whooped. One wolf-whistled. Another raised his shovel in salute.
Jace just covered his eyes in frustration while Theo smacked Mira, embarrassed by her behavior.
Harold groaned and ran a hand across his face, smearing sweat and dirt.
"Goddammit," he muttered.
But he was smiling — and for a brief, shining moment, so was everyone else.
The tension didn't disappear. But it bent and eased.