What Rayne expected soon turned to reality.

  Edran gave them marching orders alongside the other squads as the threat of the trolls kept making everyone nervous. Day by day, more trolls attacked, and more of them died.

  Bran told him that a few squads sent more scouts down in the caves, but none of them returned. But with the trolls behaving so strangely, they had to accept Edran's orders and the existence of the warlord.

  Unfortunately, it wasn't going to be much of a siege.

  Fort Algar stood more as a garrison hub than an actual fort despite its name. Edran didn't want to risk it falling, and Rayne agreed with his fears. The few trolls that attacked were already able to make a dent in it.

  If they faced the warlord behind the walls, it would simply be able to rush right at the gates and crack them open.

  It didn't mean Rayne liked a battle in the plains. But he wasn't privy to the countless meetings Axel had attended alongside the different squad leaders.

  The man also didn't convey anything to anyone other than Hobbs and Ander.

  But everyone knew what was coming, and none looked too happy as they marched and planted their banners right outside the forests.

  The trolls didn't attack right away even as they camped on the low hills overlooking the entrance to the forests. And Rayne took that opportunity to train more.

  Swiftwind style felt beyond him when he had so little time to train with it, and it wouldn't do him any good against goblins and trolls.

  So he focused on getting used to the armour and halfway through the march, he managed to move in it far better than when he had first worn it.

  Bran had been right. Not focusing on the weight was the key.

  Two days passed like that.

  The anxiety he felt in his heart never lessened. He barely slept even if he tried to get as much rest as possible. He simply lay down or overlooked their army camping on the hills and the plains, feeling—

  “You seem lost.” Kesh's voice made him stir and he glanced to his left.

  Rayne blinked his eyes. “How so?”

  “Like you are already seeing your death in front of you. It's hard to explain. Your eyes are all glossy like shrouded by a cloud.”

  “I'm just looking over at the other squads,” said Rayne, turning his eyes back to the scene he had been witnessing.

  The army spread across the hills and plains like a sea of steel and leather. Shields glinted under the pale morning sun, banners stood everywhere, each squad having their own.

  Captain Edran’s stood the tallest, sword and shield in red held by a knight. Behind them, Axel's squad banner snapped in the wind. He had seen it before, but didn't like it much. An old lion growling at you.

  It felt too exaggerated for his taste.

  He turned his gaze to the forest’s jagged edge, dark and silent in the distance.

  “Do you think a lot of them will be dead once the troll army appears?” Kesh asked, and this time Rayne took a better look at him.

  Despite the calm expression on his face, he exhibited fear. He wasn't the only one. Rayne had taken a walk through the camp. It was as if everyone was taken over by a plague of fear. There had already been a couple deserters who had been punished by having to take the charge when everything would begin.

  “Some of them at least,” he replied. He didn't like talking about it, but knew Kesh needed it. “Are you worried?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Aren't you?”

  “I am,” he said honestly. “I'm scared enough to not be able to piss for two days. These people haven't even seen the warlord. We have. Once they see it, they will spoil their pants.”

  Kesh chuckled. “Was it the same when you took part in that raid?”

  Rayne paused, thinking back to his first minute in this world, looking over all those mangled and bloodied corpses.

  “It was terrifying,’’ he admitted. “I vomited when I woke up alive. Memories before that are a blur.”

  “Yet you survived.”

  Rayne nodded, then grinned. “I'm called the gravewalker, right? Can't die until the nickname hangs around for it to give me a title.”

  Nate moved over to them. “What do you think that title will give you? Immortality?”

  “We can use him as a meat shield if it does that,” Bran said from the back. “Would help with the warlord for sure. It would get frustrated by not being able to kill him.”

  “We can buff him up for that job. I'm pretty sure Hobbs will share his food with him,” added John.

  Kesh laughed. “Should I just call you gravewalker from now on?”

  Rayne shook his head at the jokes, but couldn't help notice that the atmosphere was a bit brighter now. Kesh didn't seem as pale as before, and even the others were smiling, talking about the power of such a title.

  It was a good redirection from all the heaviness of the coming war.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  He let them talk, his eyes moving back to the camps sprawling across the grasslands. He noticed someone right in front of Captain Edran's camp. Mage Casper stood there.

  He hadn't seen her for a while. He had glanced upon her on the walls in the initial troll attack, but they hadn't shared a conversation since his first day as Rayne.

  He kept watching her, following her gaze at the opening of the forest. The rustle of leaves caught his eyes there. His stomach tensed.

  A few men burst through the forests and just at a glance, he knew they were scouts sent by Captain Edran to track the movement of the trolls. They climbed up the hill, straight towards Mage Casper.

  They didn't even bother saluting as the lead scout started talking. Rayne didn't hear anything, but the faces of the men revealed everything. Casper moved back into the tent with the scouts.

  He turned back to his party members, and one look at his face made the conversation die.

  Bran got up off the ground. “What happened?”

  “I think it's going to begin soon,” he said simply, eyes turning back to the forest.

  A jolt of unease spread through each of them as they moved to join Rayne in looking over Edran's tent. As they watched, the scouts moved out of it, heading towards each squad in urgency.

  One of them ran right to their left, entering Axel's tent. Rayne gripped the hilt of his sword.

  The next half an hour passed by a blur. Murmurs spread through all the squads like sparks through a grassy field. He heard everyone whispering among themselves as deputies walked through their lines, shouting to check gear, sharpen blades, and ready shields.

  The usual banter of camp had died away, replaced by the heavy clank of iron, the rustle of banners in the wind, and the sound of men trying to steady their breaths.

  “Eyes front! Get into formations! Remember what you have learned till now. Don't break lines. It's going to be a piece of bread for all of us. We are going to chew those bastards and spit them out,” Axel shouted over his lungs.

  Rayne and the others followed the command, getting down the hills one by one as they stood in massive lines, shields held in their hands. All of it reminded him of his first day of fighting goblins. Standing in formations, waiting for them to burst out of the nest.

  He just hoped it would go the same way it had that day.

  Even as the squad leaders shouted, the murmurs didn't stop. The unease felt like a living thing crawling over his skin. Nate and Kesh flanked him from both sides, the former looking calm and the latter praying to gods.

  A guttural voice suddenly sounded in his ears. He didn't get the meaning, but his whole body tensed. Rayne raised his eyes, looking straight at the forest. The ground trembled beneath their feet.

  All the whispers and murmurs died. The rhythm of hundreds of feet walking at the same time spooked them all. Guttural roars rolled across the plain, making everyone expect what was going to come out of the treeline.

  “Steady!” The leaders shouted, though their voices cracked with the strain. “Hold the line!”

  Rayne raised his shield and just then, his eyes caught the sight of Casper, standing behind Captain Edran, still on top of a small hill. Her eyes overlooked the forest and he felt something thrum in her gloved hands.

  As he watched, lines weaved through the air in front of her. Burning lines carving straight through reality itself and he instinctively knew what the energy he felt was. Mana. Large amounts of it gushed out through her hand, forming a structure he couldn't understand.

  A roar of flame surged forward, racing across the plain to the treeline. In an instant, the forest edge ignited. Branches snapped and popped as fire spread, leaping from tree to tree, rolling upward in plumes of smoke that blotted the sky.

  The heat blasted across the human lines, soldiers lifting shields to guard their faces.

  For a breath, there was nothing but fire. And then the screams echoed through it all.

  Goblins screamed and Rayne understood every bit of it as the flames spread far and wide every second.

  Their cries carried like howls and the soldiers cheered. Even Kesh and Nate raised their hands in the air, wishing the goblins to burn, choke, and die right in the inferno.

  He wanted to believe that. That the fire would consume them all.

  But hope died quickly.

  Something burst out of the flames, followed by more. The flames split apart as goblins, blackened and still burning, came out. Each of them held weapons as they shrieked, rolling on the ground to get the flames off their back.

  The initial ones looked weak and already done. But what came next made everyone gasp.

  Hundreds of goblins suddenly poured out of the forest, then hundreds more behind them. Their conditions looked far better than the first few. They raised the weapons in their hands in the sky as a war cry echoed out of each of them.

  “Shields up! Shields fucking up!” came the roar from the squad leaders.

  The front lines slammed together, shields overlapping, spears and swords thrust forward like a bristling wall. The archers in the rear raised their bows, waiting for the call.

  The goblins rushed at them, heedless of flame or death, their screeches drowning the sound of the fire. Some staggered in the run, hurling themselves with suicidal frenzy as the first tide of them hit the shields.

  Rayne braced for impact as the goblins lunged at them, trying to fit their crude weapons through the narrow gaps. The impact sent a jolt of pain through his shoulders. A group of them snarled in front of him, cursing as they swung their chipped daggers.

  He caught their blows on the shield, thrusting out with his sword. One of them fell as he slashed through its neck vein.

  Another got slammed by the shield. The goblins shrieked, cried and died, but their bodies simply got trampled on by their own brethren, used for height. More and more kept coming and Rayne kept his wits, slashing and thrusting.

  He took out a goblin with every swing of his sword and notifications buzzed in the back of his head. Unfortunately, the others didn't do as well.

  Even while he killed and kept his position, several among the formation got pushed back. Swarms of goblins climbed up the shields, soldiers falling to their claws. Some of the monsters got hit by arrows, but that didn't help much as the frontlines thinned.

  The soldiers from the back covered the fallen, but the goblins' assault never stopped.

  Unfortunately, they didn't only have to worry about them.

  As his sword took the head of one goblin and he stomped over the chest of another, ichor spraying on top of him, another stream of guttural roars echoed through the plains.

  They were louder, heavier, and had almost a primal feeling to them.

  Rayne immediately understood who it belonged to.

  “Fucking hell,” said Kesh beside him.

  The next second, trees got smashed as dozens of trolls charged right out of the forest. Some of their skin burned, but it didn't seem to impact them as they roared at the humans.

  Without even giving them a chance, several of them charged through the goblin swarm, crushing some of their own as they jumped right at the soldiers.

  Rayne widened his eyes as one such troll bolted towards them.

  “Raise your shields!”

  He shouted, just as the troll jumped and landed right in front of him, its heavy hand hitting the shield in the next second as he felt himself tumbling through the dirt.

  He heard another roar as the ground shook and the troll was upon him.

  ***