Lanek forced himself to stop firing on the gaunts on the riverbanks. While the horde of lesser gaunts were a threat, the amount of damage they would do if they made it across the river would be negligible compared to the devastation caused by even a single Evoker.

  Suddenly, a streak of light blasted toward the camp from the north, bypassing Cithrel’s barrier entirely. A moment later, the northern wall exploded alongside the handful of sentries tasked with keeping an eye out for any flanking operations. Spinning to face the new front, Lanek spotted an Evoker floating just above the tree line, hands beginning to glow in preparation for a new attack.

  The dranrid unleashed a torrent of projectiles at the creature, digging into his supply of shards. Every variant of shard that Lanek possessed was launched at the Evoker, attempting to overwhelm the monster. However, no shard was able to penetrate the shield raised by the Evoker, the shards shattering on impact.

  The gaunt caster appeared completely unbothered and unharmed by the barrage, but at least the attacks had forced the creature to defend itself and abandon its casting. Gritting his teeth, Lanek aimed one of his metal spheres at the monster, launching it with as much power as Mass Driver could deliver. The creature chose to meet the projectile head on, the sheer force of the attack sending the Evoker flying, but otherwise unharmed. As for the sphere, the speed and power behind the projectile caused it to vaporize on impact with the shield.

  Lanek swore as he saw the creature float toward the camp once again, its defenses still in place. Fuck it, Lanek thought, Let’s try that again.

  The Evoker cackled as it watched Lanek’s line up another sphere, fully confident in the power of its shields against Mass Driver. The next sphere fired away, streaking toward the gaunt. The gaunt’s shield destroyed the sphere, only to have its torso blown apart as a second sphere annihilated what remained of its shield and continued onto its target.

  Atop the firing platform, Lanek struggled to stay on his feet. Nausea and pain assailed him, the focus and mana required to launch two projectiles with a single Mass Driver proved to be much costlier than he had expected.

  It wouldn’t have been so difficult if I didn’t need the targeting and timing to be so precise. If the two attacks had hit different points, the shield may not have been penetrated. If the timing had been off, the shield may have recovered before the second attack. Lanek knew that this was pure conjecture at this point, but he hadn’t had the time to test out multiple theories, so he went with the first idea that came to mind.

  As the world stopped spinning and Lanek’s vision stabilized, he saw a new threat approaching from the north. The Evoker had been eliminated, but it had still achieved its goal, clearing a path for its minions. From the northern treeline, dozens of horned figures raced toward the river on four legs, their speed far beyond that of the lesser gaunts. A quick cast of Identify showed the creatures as gaunt Chargers.

  Lanek shouted a warning to the defenders on the ground as the Chargers built up speed and leapt across the river and into the ruined mess of his wall. The archers turned and began unleashing their volleys at the Chargers, but these creatures proved to have much thicker armor than those of their lesser brethren.

  Meanwhile, the warriors at the main barricade could not respond to the new threat, their attention focused on the lesser gaunts that had managed to force their way across the river despite their losses. The defenders desperately stabbed and chopped over the barricade, most of them completely unaware of the monsters coming at them from the rear.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  A roar echoed through the camp, followed by a crash as two thousand pounds of angry, armored bear slammed into the flank of the Chargers. While the Chargers could shrug off attacks from novice archers, they found themselves unable to do the same with an enraged Cave Bear. Yuri’s massive paws shattered bones with every strike as his jaws crushed the life out of every foe that had the misfortune of being in his path.

  Although Yuri was more than a match for several Chargers, the sheer number of enemies meant that some attacks still made it through, especially when the Chargers focused their attacks on the solitary bear. Within seconds, Yuri was surrounded by foes, wounds accumulating across his flanks despite his armor.

  Yuri’s attack did more than blunt the charge of the gaunts, it also served to distract them. So focused on the cave bear, the gaunts failed to notice two of the orcs racing toward the battle, Cagan the Monk and Malaga the Shade.

  Cagan struck the first Charger in his path with a blow to the base of its skull from his staff, the metal studs ending the monster’s life instantly. Once among the throng of enemies, the monk seemed to flow around his foes, narrowly dodging horn and claw while delivering devastatingly precise blows. Malaga, on the other hand, focused on striking to immobilize and debilitate, his Shade class excelling in the chaotic melee.

  For every foe in his immediate vicinity, the greater the chances that Malaga’s attacks would inflict a greater debuff on his targets. In addition, his allies also had a chance to inflict a debuff with him present. Malaga alone left a trail of crippled, broken, and maimed bodies behind as he fought to reach Yuri. Meanwhile, Cagan and Yuri both found their foes becoming stunned more often after receiving even glancing blows, allowing the pair to follow up and put the unfortunate Charger down quickly.

  The Charger advance slowed to a standstill, confusion and chaos reigning as the Shade’s debuffs caused Yuri, Cagan, and Malaga to do far more damage than should have been possible with the disparity in numbers. More importantly, these debuffs bought enough time for reinforcements to finally arrive as Liv, filled with fury as the sight of Yuri’s wounds, finally broke free of the crowd at the gate.

  Liv had left her shield and spear behind with another defender, her rage making her forego defense in favor of sheer aggression with her short sword in her right hand and a bearded axe in her left. She struck the remnants of the Chargers and forced them back, each strike finding purchase in the flesh of a gaunt. The small group mopped up the Chargers and prepared to return to the front line when another shout of warning came from above, this time from Athas, who was waving toward the remnants of the northern wall.

  Liv and her fellow defenders turned in time to see numerous gaunt figures scurrying up the trees on the far side of the river before launching themselves into the air, their wings unfurling and as they glided into the camp. Liv yelled a warning, but it was too late as one of the Gliders landed on a firing platform, disemboweling an archer before launching itself at another platform. Some of the archers managed to avoid a similar fate by abandoning the platforms, but many were not so lucky.

  With the archer threat neutralized, the front lines faced an even more frenzied push from the lesser gaunts, the monsters no longer having to worry about the volleys picking them off before they crossed the river. Even Athas and Alanah could no longer provide fire support, they were too busy shooting at the Gliders that were launching themselves at Cithrel’s platform.

  Meanwhile, the surviving archers had joined up with Liv and her party, letting them meet the Gliders in melee combat while they regrouped. Before long, the archers began to take shots at the Gliders, but their numbers were too few to fire an effective volley. However, those that survived were some of the more talented members of the archer group, such as Kinat, which meant that those shots were almost always lethal. Unfortunately for the defenders, the Gliders were continuing to launch themselves from the forest to the north, rapidly reinforcing their brethren.

  At the same time, Cithrel’s mana reserves were falling rapidly from the constant Evoker attacks. He desperately wanted to aid his new allies at the front, but he could not cast any spells while maintaining his barrier. Without that barrier, he knew that this fight would be over in a matter of seconds as the Evokers would be more than capable of leveling the camp in just a few volleys. Even worse, a single Evoker blast could wipe out the defenders clustered at the entrance. While Duristor and some of the orcs might survive a single blast, the rest simply did not have the levels.

  Frustration gripped Lanek as the Evokers continued to elude him, forcing him to take action. Reaching into his pouch, Lanek withdrew a handful of small spheres, roughly the size of marbles. Each of the small projectiles had runes etched into them. With a thought, Lanek fired them in a wide arc toward the forest, triggering the runes as they disappeared into the forest behind the charging gaunts. Loud explosions sounded from the forest as the Shockwave spells blasted out in all directions. For a brief moment, the Evokers stopped firing their spells, but Lanek knew full well that there was no way that these marbles would have killed an Evoker unless their shields were fully down. Even then, Lanek had his doubts, so he did the next best thing. He laid down suppressing fire.

  Cithrel, seeing incoming fire from the Evokers dwindle and cease as Lanek fired at the forest, dropped his shield and started casting. As his incantation reached its peak, a torrent of mana shot over to the gaunt side of the river and carved an intricate sigil upon the ground. Seconds later, a tear formed in the air above the sigil, a blast of heat radiating out from the opaque surface of the rift.