Chapter 2

The sword felt alien in Flint’s hands. It annoyed him that the uniform demanded he wear one when on duty. A hammer or club would be better suited. The [Building] skill required its use often. The Iron Army had handed him a blade, but Flint didn’t receive enough training to use it due to his position. If he had picked [Swordsmanship] as the advance payment for his second term with the army, he would’ve made some headway with the weapon. Since he preferred the safety of the walls he built, Flint had picked Marksmanship instead. As a result, he left the sword locked within its sheath and held it upside down, using the iron pommel and hilt as a club.

A pair of curling horns peeked over the walls. It was another puck. Before the creature could scramble onto the platform where they stood, Flint dashed forward and bashed its skull with the improvised club. He was sure if it were the other end striking his foe, the blade would get tangled in the horns. Pucks had thick skulls anyway.

After ten years of poor maintenance, the blade was blood and rusted. Flint had taken excellent care of the hilt and pommel, though. The polished iron didn’t have any iron impurities getting in the way and didn’t just bruise the hairless skin on the puck’s face. It left dark-brown patches resembling burnt skin. Flint was relieved when his opponent bellowed and let go, falling into the chaos outside the wall. He peeked over his shoulder. The civilians were almost safe. They wouldn’t have to keep the Wyld forces out for long.

Another concussive force struck the wall-shaking it. Flint looked around. The builders still atop the walls were either helping the garrison repel puck infiltrators or had their hands pressed to the stone platform under their feet. Since Flint didn’t have any immediate opponents, he focused on addressing the cracks spreading across the walls.

“Builders!” He yelled, getting his colleagues’ attention. “Mass Reinforcement in five!” They fell to the ground in unison. “Four!” Everyone with the ability dropped whatever they had in their hands. “Three!” Over half-a-dozen pairs of hands pressed themselves to the stone platform together. They gathered around the cracks. “Two!” Orange lines lit up all around Flint. The lights came from his chest and flowed down his hands, and gathered around his palms. “One! Reinforce!”

A wave of tiredness washed over him Flint as fluorescent orange left him and spread over the stone. Not all shades were the same, but they mingled, finding cracks in the walls and filling them in. When the walls shook again, the damage didn’t spread. The gaps around Flint glowed the brighter.

“Reinforce,” he whispered, calling upon the ability granted by [Building]. A wave of tiredness washed over him, and as orange light flowed down his arms and gathered around his palms. It left him and flowed down his arms. As the skill executed and painted the cracks fluorescent orange, Flint found himself weaker than he had been minutes ago. He spotted a couple of other builders with brighter [Reinforce] skills than him. Flint recognised them as the veteran builders with more combat experience than him. He was glad they hadn’t fled to the stronghold yet.

The walls shook again. However, no new cracks formed.

The soldier standing closest to Flint lay on the ground with a dark green arrow sticking out of his eye. It didn’t have proper fletching and appeared to be made of coiling vines. It was a spell.

“Damn it!” He swore. It probably meant the attacking force had multiple mages among them. Flint prayed it was another puck and not one of the winged fae. He snatched the fallen man’s crossbow and focused on the approaching forces. Flint’s eyes scanned the rooftops and streets for any other magic users between shots. None revealed themselves to him. He focused on the war beasts pulling the battering ram. He got them to pause or falter, but none of them fell. The siege machine was almost at the gate. Once it started its work, [Reinforce] would fail within minutes.

Flint attempted [Focused Shot] once again, but Maya brushed up against his barking. He followed her eyes to find an entire platoon of armoured pucks climbing over the wall twenty feet away from him. The soldiers around the area were dead or dying, while the builders busied themselves throwing bricks at the attacking forces.

“Builders, retreat!” Flint called, directing his bolts at the pucks now charging at him. There were too many of them. For every single one he felled, two climbed over the ramparts.

Maya jumped into action. She charged at the pair trying to flank Flint. The sheepdog fell short at the last moment, avoiding the rune-covered axe swing and darted under the stone blade. She chomped down on the puck’s hairy goat leg. It bellowed and swung the axe's handle at Maya. Flint predicted the creature’s intentions and fired his crossbow from the hip. If not for [Keen Eye] and [Steady Hand] helped ensure that his bolt didn’t miss. It struck the puck’s hip, interrupting the attack.

“Back.” Maya obeyed Flint’s command, releasing the puck, and retreated to his side. Since he didn’t have the time to reload, he charged into the uninjured puck shoulder first. The attack knocked the puck off the platform into the protected side. If the fall didn’t kill it, one of the men below would.

Flint turned his attention towards the second puck. The fur around its abdomen and left leg had darkened and dripped red. It looked at them hesitantly with alarmingly human eyes. From afar, they looked bestial enough for him to fire lethal shots, but now that he saw the face up close, he wasn’t so sure. It—he—looked too much like the novice builder.

What surprised Flint the most was the fear he felt radiated off his opponent. He occasionally got similar sensations off Maya and other dogs but had never detected anything of the kind of humans. Flint shook his head. It wasn’t the time to let such thoughts cloud his judgement.

The puck didn’t let Flint’s hesitation go to waste. The goat-man bellowed and hobbled towards him, raising the stone axe. When he swung downward, Flint had the good sense to swivel to the side. He threw the crossbow at the puck and then followed up by thrusting his sword’s pommel at the horn-tipped human face. The puck’s martial abilities proved better tuned than Flint’s. A barehanded swipe knocked the weapon away. Then he received a brutal axe handle to the face.

The blow dazed Flint. The sound of weapons clashing and civilians screaming dulled not long after. Every scent cut off abruptly. When he felt liquid hotness drop over his lips, Flint knew the blow had broken his nose. He still managed to reorient himself and threw his limp body at the puck’s waist. Maya joined his desperate attack, closing her jaws around an ankle. Flint wrapped his arms around the puck’s core, and together they managed to knock him off balance.

Another pained cry left the puck, and a painful jolt shook Flint’s bones. After the day’s pain and stress, he was ready to pass out. However, Maya’s pained yelp snapped him out of his daze. When Flint regained his composure, he found blood covering more than just his lips and chin. His hands and feet were painted red too. As he sat up Flint realised, they had fallen off the wall, and the puck had cushioned his fall.

A wet tongue licked his face, forcing him to look up. Maya stood next to him, her snout covered in blood. She whined, holding her left front paw off the ground. Flint scrambled off the puck and towards her. She shied away when he reached for the injured limb. Maya’s big brown eyes looked past him at the wall above.

Pucks had flooded the platform above, and the inner wall’s gates shook fifteen feet to their left. The effects of [Reinforce] had most probably already faded. Flint estimated the defences would hold for another five minutes. While testing his leg strength, he scanned the surroundings. Half of his fellow builders were already running towards the stronghold. He failed to spot the rest. Flint prayed they were already safe within the iron-reinforced walls.

“Let’s go, Maya,” he said, struggling to his feet. Flint’s pelvis and left side ached, but he ignored the pain. It was likely something had broken from the fall—it was sheer luck that his legs were intact—but he couldn’t afford to focus on anything but reaching the stronghold. “Run, girl!”

A loud thud sounded behind Flint. Dust and tiny stone fragments rained down on him. Instead of running, Maya spun around to face the trembling stone structure. Flint had to lean down and tug on her collar to get her to move. Much to his annoyance, she didn’t speed off but stuck to his side. His chances of survival were low, and he feared dragging the beautiful sheepdog down with him. It was likely all the other local canines he fed were stuck outside the inner walls and dead to the war beasts. He didn’t want Maya to die too.

Every step sent shooting pains through Flint’s hips and up into his ribs. Yells and screams sounded behind him, followed by thuds. He knew the cries belonged to the brave souls staying behind to facilitate their retreat. Flint thanked them for their sacrifice without turning around and continued forwards.

It wasn’t just the loud thuds that sounded behind him. Flint heard horns, roars, and explosions. He wasn’t aware the Wyld armies employed bombs, but he didn’t have the time to think about it. The stronghold’s gates were closing. It wasn’t unexpected. The defences had failed, and the garrison’s shoulders were following their orders. Flint needed to speed up if he wanted to survive.

Maya stopped several feet ahead of him and looked back at Flint. She whined loudly, and Flint sensed her concern. It was a much stronger sensation when compared to what he had felt from the puck. He still wasn’t sure what had happened earlier. If he survived, Flint planned on investigating the strange occurrence. Perhaps an Iron scholar specialising in pucks could help him get to the bottom of it.

When the walls creaked, and the ground shook, Flint knew the gate had collapsed. He pushed the pain down and sped up his hobbling. Getting Maya to safety wasn’t his reason for survival anymore. Flint had other goals in life, after all. He spotted burning buildings out of the corners of his eyes and spotted large skill stones lying on the ground. Despite his two empty skill nodes and the possible richest, Flint didn’t let himself get distracted.

Breathing got harder with every step. Tightness now accompanied the pain. Flint still clung to hope. The stronghold’s gates were still open.

“Why?” He wondered out loud. He regretted it straight away. Flint’s chest burned, and breathing suddenly got several times harder. It still concerned him that the stronghold’s gates were still open. All the civilians were inside.

Please tell me the fae didn’t get through.

Flint had heard that certain high-fae races had size-altering spells. If any of them got past through the defences, the siege was over. He or his builders could do nothing against them before levelling the [Building] skill stone to the eighth rank. Then he noticed the soldiers leaning against their spears and smiling. Their eyes were staring past him at the walls and fallen gate. Flint expected fear and panic on seeing the puck warriors, not glee.

If Flint slowed or stopped, he was sure that starting up again would prove impossible. When a couple of civilians followed the guards outside, he relented. The Wyld’s forces weren’t chasing him. In fact, none of the opposing army’s living troops had made it off the walls or crossed the gate’s thresholds. Instead, they were charging into the outer city.

Another boom shook the air, and a fiery blue mushroom rose towards the sky. Flint laughed, falling onto his bottom. It hurt, of course, but relief helped him ignore the pain. It was an alchemist’s bomb, but the in-construction outpost had no one with a high enough [Alchemy] skill stone to create such a pretty blue flame. As Flint let go of his concerns and relaxed, he heard the horns, horses, and iron weapons. The reinforcements had arrived. He had bluffed earlier to give the builders hope, but the fib had turned into truth. They were going to survive.

A pair of solid hands slipped under Flint’s armpits and pulled him upright. “They’re here, sir,” said the novice builder boy. “Let’s get you inside. The healer will want to see about all the blood.”