Everyone in the formation bore a shield of the same shape, but their weapons were all different. The situation had unfolded so quickly that some didn’t even have proper armor on. Indeed, the canton’s Watch was far too inexperienced. Even taking this out of the equation, adventurers were simply not suited to a head-on assault. Although the enemy’s number was chipped away with each blazing pillar of fire as their sacrifices cleared the way, their number remained undaunted.
“Remember the faces of your parents, wives, kids! If ya don’t have family, then I don’t care who ya think of! Maybe it’s a barmaid in your favorite tavern, a cute girl you saw on a street corner once, or someone who broke up with you and you’re still pissed about it! I want you to remember their face!”
“Yeah!”
The men were putting on a brave front, but through the gaps in their helmets it was evident that they had troubled expressions. This applied even to the Fellows, who had already braved a number of battles and stained their swords with blood. It was laudable that none present had soiled their trousers already.
It was all Siegfried could do to draw his voice from deep within his belly, to make sure it didn’t come out weedy and high-pitched. When he was a boy, he had envisioned an adult as someone who was smart, brave, who would do whatever needed doing without hesitation, who would confidently live their life as they poured everything they had into whatever they wanted to do. He was nowhere near that.
At his core, he was the same as back then. He had enjoyed the tales of heroes that his parents told him to get him to go to sleep and the adventurers’ tales that the bard sang when they came through the canton. What had changed was that he had learned how to pretend to be an adult.
“Imagine those bastards’ cold, dead hands on those you love if we fall here! Picture it! The people you’ve devoted your lives to protecting, ripped apart! If you lose your cool and run home, that’s what’ll be waiting for you! Is that what you want?!”
A chorus of nos filled the air. No way! Screw that! I’ll never let that happen! Their words were filled with their devotion to their job, transforming fear into morale. Goldilocks had said once that the pain of defeat was nothing compared to letting someone die. With these thoughts in mind, they could valiantly take to battle and defeat the enemy.
“Then do what needs doing!” Siegfried continued. “Get your heads screwed on! Steel your resolve! When we’re done tonight, you may be dead! But if you run away now, you’ll regret every second of the life you save. Spit in the face of the possibility!”
The image of Goldilocks blowing out a puff of smoke as he said, “Being the leader is a terrible job,” appeared vividly in Siegfried’s mind. The young adventurer had decided that it didn’t matter whether he liked or hated the job; with the situation in front of him, he needed to do it. In all honesty, Siegfried didn’t like what he was saying. Although it roused people’s morale, it was akin to cutting off any escape route for them.
In Siegfried’s mind, an adult didn’t need to say this kind of stuff. They were kind. They stood with the vanguard and confronted every threat without fail. But Siegfried still needed these emotional crutches. In his mind, despite having turned eighteen, despite earning money, despite learning about the fairer sex, the thing at the controls inside was barely out of short pants.
“We ain’t completely helpless!”
A crack cut through the air, and a moment later, a bright flash bloomed.
It was one of the potions Kaya had cooked up through the long nights leading up to this moment. She had worked hard to affix little parachutes to them by stitching scraps of fabric together, letting them float through the air gently. All the while, they could shine blinding light onto the ground below, as if it were high noon on a cloudless day.
After two or three more lifted into the air, the men let out a cheer. Darkness on the battlefield incensed fear and made it difficult for those without decent night vision to move about. Kaya’s latest invention had left them unburdened by such troubles.
The next potion launched into the fray crashed into a trench before suddenly coming alight. It wasn’t quite as powerful as the mines, which continued to incinerate any approaching skirmishers, but it was still deadly and wouldn’t simply fizzle out on the ground.
These were oil-based potions that Kaya herself had come up with; they would burn for a long time. She had been inspired by Goldilocks’s instantaneous immolating catalyst and had realized that she might have had the means to create a wall of flame that would halt the enemy’s approach. It had been evident to her that although the trenches would slow down the enemy, they wouldn’t completely stop them—but if they could gush flame, that would be a different story. Zombies were tough, but crossing a trench would take time. With a literal wall of flame in the way, crossing the trench would take more than enough time to melt away their armor and weapons and wear away at their bodies in the process.
The herbalist often complained to herself that she was growing talented at making awful, terrible potions, but it was clear why she had arrived at the idea of her own accord. Thanks to the mobile abatises and the flaming trenches, the enemy’s path was limited. With this defensive strategy, she had been able to limit the number of enemies who could approach at a single time, rendering the strength of their numbers nearly irrelevant.
“Look!” Siegfried shouted. “There are only a few who can approach us at once! If you still wanna bail, then chop your balls off right now! Women hate wimps, so it’s not like you’ll need ’em anymore!”
The crowd of men found themselves genuinely laughing at Siegfried’s vulgar jibe. They knew laughter did wonders for quelling fear.
“They’re on their way, so get those shields in formation! Get those spears up! On this Bloodsoaked Lane of our own, we’ll become the Sir Knapfstein of Mottenheim!”
Siegfried’s final comments, likening themselves to a bona fide hero, were to rile up the men’s faint desire for honor. He raised up his spear, and the fellow men raised their own in answer, letting the spearheads clang together. He hoped the heartening echo of iron would keep their fear at bay.
“Let’s do this valiantly! If we keep this up, you won’t be getting just a song out of this, you’ll be getting a whole damn festival! Kids in Mottenheim hundreds of years from now are gonna hear about us in nursery tales and sing our praises! Now, who’s with me?!”
“YEAH!”
Everyone thudded their shields and stamped their feet. Here stood a formation of soldiers who had forgotten the possibility of death.
Siegfried thought that he was still far from being the kind of adult he had looked up to. There was only one reason that he continued to stand here. One that had been in his heart even back during his first-ever battle, when every little thing he saw atop Goldilocks’s horse had made him soil his trousers. His cheap, stupid pride that asked him: If he bowed out here, how uncool would that be?
But to the men before him, Siegfried cut the figure of a trustworthy and valiant leader. An incredible adventurer who went into battle to protect their canton and who had the power to crush their fear. Most people would call him a stalwart adult.
✦ ✦ ✦
