The stream had turned east not long after flowing out from the gorge and following it through the forest, we’d reached the coast not half an hour after emerging from the caverns. Couching low, we stuck to the underbrush as carefully approached the edge of the woods where tree, brush and grass sharply cut away to pebbly beach.

Peering out from behind the gap between two prickly bushes I took in the small sheltered cove that lay between the stream's marshy outlet and a rocky spit that reached out into the swirling sea fog. Maybe thirty-five or forty paces end to end. And under the light of the waxing crescent moon I could make out what looked to be fifteen men and a captain in Haverhill Brown surcoats, the steel of helms and mail dimly reflecting moon and torches.

Spread out into small groups of three, the soldiers were working preparing torches and pulling away what looked to be oiled canvas sheets from five unlit bonfires that were spread out along the beach.

Signal fires.

A quiet whisper from Gael beside me confirmed my fears, “They’re planning a landing.”

“This is it,” the Merc whispered furiously. “Proof those latrine-slurry chugging spider fuckers have turned traitor and are fronting an invasion of the Duchy by foreign forces. Or at least it will be if we don’t stop them first.”

Directing us with whispers and hand gestures she assigned half the beacons to the Pirates and the other half to herself, Salt, Roxi and I. 

She had hardly finished giving her instructions as we readied our weapons, when the light of a distant lantern appeared through the fog and flashed five times as a shutter was opened and closed.

“The Torchbearers! Shoot the torch bearers first,” she hissed, as the soldiers began moving in response to the signal.

I launched an arcane bolt at one of the nearest torchbearers even as my allies opened fire with spells, musket bolts and arrows of their own. 

Stumbling and dropping the torch as the arcane bolt exploded against his back, knocking him to knees, the soldier let out a cry before attempting to pick up the dropped torch. 

With the silence now shattered, war cries, surprised yelling and yet more cries of pain began to ring out around me.

A second bolt of purple fractal arcane energy was already slicing through the night to finish him off before he could lift the torch again as I stepped out onto the beach. More violet magic again formed in my hands as I turned to unleash it on a new target. 

Still finishing off my second soldier and the bonfire’s third dove forward down into the beach’s pebbles.

The dropped torch was still alight!

Before my next arcane bolt could hit him, the soldier scooped up the torch with one hand and before even a second had passed, flung it awkwardly in the bonfire. 

It must have already been drenched in oil because the bonfire caught fire in a flash, the flames almost exploding outwards as the entire thing came alight. It wasn’t alone, by the time I had finished off my third opponent and the fighting on the beach had stilled, all but two of the bonfires had been lit in that desperate scramble.

Anxious minutes passed as we stood around on the beach, looting the dead as we waited, the bonfire’s crackling almost deafening in the silence. Waiting for whatever came next.

New lights appeared in the fog. Hovering lower down than signal lantern before, they bobbed up and down as they slowly grew closer like the will’o’wisps the kelpies from my Mamaí’s stories used to lure travelers to a watery death.

Five groupings.

Five landing craft hidden in the fog, approaching the shore.

We had to act. Fast!

Already arrows and bolts were coming down on both sides. Sheltering behind the bonfires my allies used the light to blind the aim of enemy crossbowmen as they returned fire. 

Having taken two too many lethal missiles previously on my journey, I cast my newest spell sending a faint glow cascading down my body as it activated. 

Quickly constructing new spells as I darted out of cover and down to the waterline as arrows and bolts flew past me.

The lanterns in the fog were growing ever closer. 

I felt my focus narrow as I hastily scrambled about plastering a good section of the beach with layers of spells. Draining my Capacity several times over, I found myself downing more mana potions each time I felt the burn that came with overdrawing. 

The crossbow bolts were becoming more accurate as their Landing craft grew closer and became more distinct through the fog. 

Bolts ricocheting off my shield spell, rainbow light rippled across my body and grew brighter as bolts ricocheted off my shield spell as I continued placing explosive Shimmer Barricades and newly constructed Absinthe Mines. 

Leaning forward to place another mine, my hyperfocus shattered as already clammy hands grabbed and began pulling me backwards up the beach. Ruinite animated dead Haverhill soldiers closed in around me as they dragged me back into cover as the ten puppeted corpses formed a shieldwall between two bonfires.

The landcraft were almost on the shore.

Joining the others I began launching arcane bolts from behind the corpse wall, helping pick off any soldier brave enough to stick their head above their shields.

The landing barges swung wide, then around to hit the shore side-on. Soft waves rocked the boats against the pebbles of the beach, and we all waited with bated breath. Aside from the muffled sounds of weapons being reloaded or readied, nothing moved. Over at the barges, distant sounds of preparation could also be heard escaping over the high wooden walls of the vessels.

I knew I wasn’t the only one holding my breath as the beach went quiet, save for the sounds of my allies reloading their blunderbusses in preparation or the sounds of movement behind the barges’ high walled sides.

With the discordant scraping of metal on metal the near-silence was broken. 

As latches on the barges were released, the tall barriers atop landing crafts’ sides swung down to crash into the shallow water. Air suddenly displaced by the five barriers’ swift fall carried waves of swirling fog onto the beach.

And on the mist’s tail came the Pagutum assault. 

Now revealed, several scores of red-clad soldiers rushed down the newly created ramps to disembark, trampling those already dead or wounded from earlier exchange. And with them the splashing of heavy boots landing in the shallows as officers gave shouted orders.

With a hand raised above me, I hissed for my allies to cover their eyes with as little volume as I dared. Then not waiting to see if they’d complied, I quickly clamped my eyes shut and cast [Flash].

For three seconds, searing white light that nearly made lie of my eyelids’ protection as my world turned to white.

Quickly shaking my vision clear, I began chain casting while the enemy was still blinded and disorientated. Burning through my capacity yet again I doubled, then tripled our numbers with illusionary decoys and explosive decoys.

I was not alone in taking advantage of the flash, from my comrades came a volley of spells and missiles cutting gaps in the invader’s disorientated ranks.

“Hold! Hold you worms!” cried an Officer attempting to rally and solidify their ranks. “Raise those shields damn you! Lower your shields again and by the Emperor, may he live forever, I will kill you myself!” 

Previously wavering shields clapped together, the officer’s threats working as the still blinded Pag’s clumsily closed ranks and formed a shield wall, before any more shots could be fired. 

Seconds passed as they hunched behind their shields waiting for their vision to clear, before…

“Forward!” And with that order the assault continued. 

Skolling yet another mana potion, I sent the explosive decoys down the beach to meet them.

Barely seconds later I watched mayhem unfurl as their charge reached my traps. 

Shimmer barricades began detonating like claymores, lighting up the fog with flashes of violet, pink and purple and launching soldiers back even as they were shredded by the resulting shards of shattered light.

Activating underfoot, Absinthe Mines enveloped Pags in plumes of smoke like fractal light sending them stumbling around as if drunk swinging their weapons at imagined foes. Some even hitting and wounding allies.

Adding to the death and confusion explosive decoys waded into their ranks, exploding outwards as spears and blades shattered the illusions.

Every second of that chaos was a blessing as we rained spell, arrow and bolt down on their ranks in hopes of further whittling down their number before they could lock us down in melee and overwhelm us. The cold calculus of survival trumping any concept of honorable combat.

Fog rolled in off the sea to envelop the soldiers as if pulled forward by the Pags like the tide or hungrily drawn in by the violence, adding to the confusion. My breath caught in my chest with each second that passed as fewer flashes could be seen or explosions heard through the churned up fog, as the rapidly depleted decoys, barriers and mines trails off down to a final few sporadic activations. 

Even after our exchange of fire during their approach roughly a dozen men had disembarked from each of the barges, outnumbering us nearly ten to one ignoring Roxi’s undead. We were moments away from close quarters combat and dread gripped me as I waited to see how many would be still standing when they emerged from the mist.

“We just gonna stand here and enjoy the fireworks?” asked Gael in a conversational tone, as she placed her blunderbuss down on the beach behind her and casually drew her claymore. 

Replying with a dangerous chuckle the first among our pirate reinforcements drew his saber and hand-axe, before drawing a deep breath. 

“Skeggjöld!” he shouted, banging the side of his saber against his axe’s rear.

“Skálmöld!” chorused the Bloodswell Raiders, banging weapons as they pushed forward through the undead shieldwall.

“Skildir ’ru klofnir!” came their cry as they broke into a run, charging towards the whipped up fog. The rest of us, plus Roxi’s undead and the non-explosive decoys chasing after.

Fuck.

What were we even charging into? Even if seizing the initiative and charging while they are still probably disorientated and disorganised is a good tactic, we still didn’t know how many of the fifty plus men were still alive…

Fuck.

A hand grabbed me back the cloak and hauled me back as Gael and the pirates were swallowed by the fog, bringing me to a halt several meters back.

“Bad kitty! You’re a caster!” Roxi chided me, raising her hands and drawing twisting ribbons of sickly darkness from within the fog. 

“You’re staying out of sword range!” she ordered, releasing the summoned death magic. “[Plague Wind],” Roxi invoked, dark magic becoming a foul wind that blew back the fog back past the barges, revealing the combat even as it seemed to cling and settle into the enemy soldiers.

I could now see what seconds before the sea fog had hidden.

Summoning up my own magic to join Roxi and Salt in picking off any unoccupied enemies, I could feel some of the fear tension lifting. Things weren’t quite as bad as they could have been. 

There had probably been just shy of forty before the Gale and the Raider’s charge, by my guess. Now thirty, some already paleing and beginning to stagger under Roxi’s spell, our odds had improved. Including the undead, our side of the melee was now only outnumbered two to one.

It was time to even those odds further.

Alongside Roxi’s scything missiles of death magic and tripping chains of darkness, between my arcane bolts and fresh decoys, I was also casting another new spell. 

Inspired by the state in which I’d awakened, the spell I’d constructed on hike here [Beer Battered Brains], was a targeted green haze of weaponized inebriation in the same manner as my absinthe decoys. 

The combat writhed and whorled, mirroring the mist and fog until a gap appeared in the melee allowing a trapped pocket of unengaged Pags to burst forth like pus from a sore.

Having spotted our little backline the moment they escaped the press, the seven soldiers barely wasting a breath, charged.

Arrow slamming home into an eye socket, the first fell. 

The second fell forwards face first into the pebbled beach, legs bound in necromantic chains.

Halfway. 

Passing straight through the third’s neck, an arcane bolt claimed the third even as a broadhead arrow pierced chainmail and the fourth’s heart.

Scything darkness claimed the fifth’s arm as they closed the distance.

Freezing as the six’s blade arced downwards towards me, half cast an arcane bolt dissipated in my hand.

Catching the sword’s blade, rainbow light hugged steel as it leeched and slowed its momentum.

[Reflective Revenge].

Like the whip crack of a solar flare, my rainbow sheath discharged all at once like a coronal mass ejection launching six and seven backwards head over heels.

Catching them while they were still airborne, a crescent of darkness decapitated seven as six’s neck snapped on impact with the ground.

Finishing off five with another bolt of violet magic, I watched as Salt finished off number two before they could free their legs.

Scarcely three minutes later it was done. The fight had ended, with the rest of the Pags now laying dead on the beach.

Already distributing healing potions while looting the enemy’s corpses, I counted our losses. 

Of our own, Gael and three raiders layered with lacerations and fleshwounds were still standing. 

Two of the raiders were dead, having fallen under the weight of enemy’s numbers and their many wounds. Of the ten haverhill soldiers Roxi had raised as undead, little remained. Intact that is. Owing to their relentless unthinking unfeeling tenacity, they had each been hacked into scattered pieces in an effort to make them stop attacking.

Reaching down to cut free an enemy’s coin purse, a wave of heat knocked me over as something came crashing down behind me. 

Fire.

Fire burning away our feeling of triumph.

Looking up as I scrambled to my feet, I saw countless fireballs carving through fog and night as they arced down to impact the beach. 

Cover fire.

Lanterns bobbing up and down as they approached through the fog. 

Fuck!

Losing count at fourteen, I dived to the side to avoid another fireball the size of an industrial reel of fiber optics.

Fuck! Fuck! “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”

“We need to get out of here!” someone shouted.

No shit! 

Scrambling on all fours up the beach, I darted after Gael into the treeline.

Glancing over my shoulder, I looked back towards the beach and realised Roxi wasn’t running. Throwing up layers of shimmer barriers to protect her, I watched from the trees terrified as she sought out and raised two corpses, one in brown and one in red. 

Then raising five more as a shield, fireballs slammed into the beach around her…

Roxi fled.