Over twenty kobolds and one human burst silently from the foliage and rushed at the flank of the unaware adventurers.
“Ack?!” The first to cry out in pain was a large female warrior in infantry armor as she took a stone spear in the shin. She was better equipped than the typical adventurer, who often opted for lighter gear both out of fiscal necessity and due to the nature of their work, but her armor still lacked greaves. For the diminutive kobolds, that made the legs an optimal target.
A nearby sorcerer took another attack in the legs and doubled over.
A long-haired adventurer with a spear took a stone axe to the face when a flax-colored kobold leapt on him, and he fell backwards, unconscious.
Shouts of shock and pain instantly shifted the relaxed atmosphere to one of panic.
The individual doing the most damage to the adventurers was a human woman in a black cloak and a brimmed cap: Darke. She wove through the kobolds and darted past her enemies with an agility belying her five-foot-nine frame, heading straight for one man. Her target was one of the group’s commanders, a knight. He was marching within the group on foot to avoid being an obvious target for arrow fire, but a discerning eye could see easily enough from his equipment that he was no simple adventurer.
Darke reached the knight before he could turn around. She pressed herself against the man’s back and wrapped her left arm around him as if in an embrace. A quick stroke of her hand flicked the visor of the knight’s helm up, just as she drew a dagger from under her cloak with her right hand and thrust it into his face.
Plunge. The blade was a stiletto, a dagger specialized for stabbing through gaps in armor. The thin, sharp, awl-like blade easily pierced the knight’s left eye and entered his skull.
Twist. Darke stirred the blade around with a heated sigh. She then let go of the knife and her victim without drawing the blade out and turned around. It took only a short moment for her target to crumple, all bodily control gone. The sheer speed at which she accomplished this made clear how extraordinary her skills were.
“The bitch got Dawson!” A nearby man with a shortspear screamed, spittle flying, and tried to grab the black-clad assassin by the neck. Darke easily avoided the man’s arm, turning her back to him and dashing off. He tried to chase her, but was hindered when a kobold leapt at him and threw an egg in his eye. Not just any egg; this was a shell filled with ashes and spices meant to blind. The adventurer yelped and fell to the ground, at which point another kobold hacked at his legs with a stone axe.
...This was all they were capable of, of course. Some adventurers paid attention and guarded against the attacks, and some were able to fend them off by just shoving back instinctively. The shields all the adventurers had been equipped with were being used in several different ways, but they proved effective in defending against the kobolds’ attack. This wasn’t the purpose Wyatt had had in mind when outfitting his troops, but the wooden boards were able to protect those without armor. Some were even being put to use as walls to prevent kobolds from escaping their ranks.
“They got meeeee!” Whether the kobold’s shout was an act or genuine was impossible to say as it immediately became a pitiful scream. Those who merely had their attacks blocked were lucky; they had a chance to weave between their enemies and make it out the other side. But those whose escapes were cut off were met with the quick reflexes of their foes and the steel they wielded. Heavy blows broke their bones and slashes cut through fur and flesh. With the screams of their dying comrades at their backs, the escaping kobolds threw down their weapons and fled into the forest.
“They’re fleeing! After them!” The eager shout came from a grey-haired warrior in leather armor who had just caved in a kobold skull with a mace. He was likely a leader of some team. Several of his companions nearby rushed into the forest at his command. Some others followed their lead, throwing down their shields and abandoning the wounded to run after them.
“This is all they’re capable of!”
“They’re nothing!”
“The guildmaster’s worrying too much!”
Their blood was pumping from the surprise attack, and they were invigorated after blocking the kobolds’ blows. They looked down on their enemies for their powerlessness. All these things encouraged the adventurers, driving them forward.
“Hey, that swordswoman in black was the one who’s worth twenty of these dogs, right?”
“Yeah! If we can get her head, we can live like kings for ten years!”
“Well, don’t just stand there! I’m going after her!”
“I’ll be right there as soon as I get the head off this dog... Hey, wait!”
Adventurers poured into the forest, not wanting to give their rivals who went in before them the chance to monopolize their prey.
“Guys, wait, we fell for that last time, and...” Of course, those who had been present for the previous battle hesitated to join them. They knew full well that they’d lost because they had been lured into the forest and led in circles. But for nine out of ten of the participants of this mission, this was their first encounter with the kobolds.
“If you’re too scared, you can just wait here in your own piss!”
“Did you get freaked out by these primitive little bastards and their rocks?!”
Once stirred up, their fervor and rage couldn’t be quieted. Worse, the only one who could order them to stop had already perished. Their colleagues’ half-hearted warnings would only be written off as petty jealousy. As a result, having lost their commander, the middle flank fell into disorder and a significant portion of its adventurers flooded into the forest. The warnings of the knights and Wyatt, who were at the front of the line, wouldn’t make it in time. There was nothing that could be done about it, but their long line of soldiers had gone to ruin.