MTLNOVEL Chapter 524
The heart of the battlefield was a crater choked in blood and smoke.
The sun had lowered to a dull orange, casting long shadows over the broken trenches. In the distance, the war drums of the orcs still beat in measured cadence...a steady throb of momentum that echoed across the plains. The Threians knew what it meant. The storm had not passed. It had only paused.
Inside the crater rim, the defenders moved like men on the edge of the world.
Boomsticks were reloaded by trembling hands. Torn sandbags were hastily restacked into walls. Dead comrades became cover. Engineers shouted over the roar of fire as they lit more barricades and dumped oil into low trenches to form firepits. All sense of order had vanished, replaced by a raw instinct: survive, and slow the enemy.
Major Gresham had discarded his coat and armor plating. His sleeves were torn, his arms caked in dried blood...not all of it his. His face, once sharp with officer's calm, was now tight with grit and exhaustion. He strode along the ruined trench loop with fire in his step, issuing no grand speeches, only certainty. Even his powerful aura was gone, his battle energy flickering because of exhaustion.
"We hold this line," he said again and again. "No matter the cost."
Men nodded. They obeyed. Not because he was a major. But because he was still standing.
*****
On the southern flank, where a splintered watchtower had collapsed into the trench wall, Drae'ghanna advanced in silence.
Her twin blades gleamed with the blood of the last two sentries who had tried to stop her. She did not roar or taunt. She moved like the shade of night...measured, relentless, precise.
A Threian officer caught sight of her as she rounded the smoldering base of the tower. He stood tall, a commander's markings across his armor, sword in one hand and pistol in the other.
"Back, monster!" he shouted, leveling the pistol.
The shot rang out.
Drae'ghanna twisted aside. The bullet grazed her shoulder, shredding through leather and flesh...but her feet never stopped.
Iron clashed with iron.
The officer was no coward. He parried her first strike and returned with a powerful downswing of his blade, followed by a short jab with the blunt end of his blade. She sidestepped, spinning, cutting low then high. He backed away, defending as best he could...but she moved like water.
His second shot misfired.
Her shorter blade slipped between his ribs.
He gasped once, eyes wide, then collapsed.
Drae'ghanna stepped over his body without a word, eyes already scanning the trench beyond.
*****
On the far eastern crater lip, Aro'shanna led her warriors over a barricade shadowed by artillery.
Threian boomstick crews had repositioned a pair of Thunder Makers and three smaller cannon to the edge. Every shot they fired blasted through the lower trench defenses, creating pockets for defenders to regroup. It was delaying the orc advance...and it needed to stop.
Aro'shanna saw the flaw in their positioning...the blind rear approach of the crater wall. She charged in with eight warriors, using the chaos to mask their ascent. They hit the boomstick crews from behind like a thunderclap of iron and bone.
The first cannon was unmanned within moments.
A gunner reached for a fuse lever...Aro'shanna's axe split his arm at the shoulder.
A second turned to flee...he got an axe in the back instead.
One cannon fired at close range as she was moving. The flash and shockwave blinded her temporarily, searing across her cheek.
When the smoke cleared, Aro'shanna stood...face burned, blood running freely...but still upright.
"Next one," she growled.
*****
At the center of the crater, Captain Braedon held what remained of the inner trench loop. Fifty men. Maybe fewer. The air stank of blood, oil, and smoke. Bows fired in irregular rhythm. Spears stabbed blindly from gaps in the barricade.
They were surrounded on three sides now.
"Don't give them the center," Braedon rasped. "Don't give them the center."
His voice barely carried over the din.
He stabbed upward over the parapet, catching a goblin mid-jump. The little fella shrieked as it fell back. The man beside Braedon was felled by a bolt. Another defender to his rear managed to drop a raider with an arrow before being run through by a thrown spear.
For every inch they held, they bled two more men.
Still, they held.
*****
On the orcish side, Galum'nor pushed relentlessly through the smoke and carnage.
His weapon was chipped. His shoulder armor hung loose, half-split by a Thunder Maker blast. Blood ran down his side from a long cut...but he moved like a boulder given rage. Every strike broke shields, cracked skulls, split flesh.
The Verakhs followed him in a wedge formation, launching bolts into the narrow angles of the trench defenders. They advanced over mounds of bodies, each death marked in silence.
Galum'nor watched two Verakhs fall.
He said nothing.
But his fury deepened.
*****
In the command trench behind the main loop, Major Gresham mounted a final ridge where the torn Threian banner still fluttered. Its edges were blackened. A hole through its crest spoke of cannon fire.
Below him, the last line was still fighting.
"We are the line!" he shouted, lifting his sword. "We fall, they swarm. We bleed, they pause. We die, they stumble!"
Men cheered...raw, desperate.
And charged.
Into axes. Into spears. Into fire.
Gresham joined them.
He squeezed out every inkling of his battle energy that he had left.
*****
The duel resumed in every corner of the crater.
On the left, goblins hurled bombs into fortified positions, only to be cut down by spearmen.
On the right, Threian engineers lit more oil pits, creating temporary flame barriers that slowed the goblins.
Overhead, the sky darkened. Smoke turned red-gold in the fading light.
*****
As the moon rose, the crater trembled not from explosions...but from exhaustion.
Neither side yielded.
Neither side collapsed.
The Yohan First Horde continued pressing forward with brutal rhythm.
The Threians, battered, ragged, bleeding...stillheld.
Not because they thought they could win.
But because they refused to fall yet.
And the night was far from over.