Private Resk Thornvane — Kobold, 19 years old, barely tall enough to see over the earthwork — hadn't slept in thirty-one hours.
He wasn't the only one. Third Platoon, Second Company, King's Shield Regiment, had been holding a two-hundred-meter section of the secondary line since the Accord's advance forces punched through the gap on Day 26. The advance came at dawn — Durnok's Crushist heavy infantry leading, 8,000 soldiers in a column that spread into a line that spread into a wave that hit the earthworks with the geological patience of a tide coming in.
The first assault lasted four hours. Third Platoon's section of the line held because the earthworks — packed dirt over timber frames, chest-high, with firing steps and drainage channels — did exactly what field fortifications were designed to do: slow the attacker, channel their movement into predictable approaches, and give the defenders time to do the one thing that defenders did better than attackers.
Kill.
