The world had contracted to the width of a shield and the length of a sword arm.

  The air in the dungeon transformed into a physical mixture of dust, atomized stone, and the copper-tang of spilled blood. The orange sky pressed down on them like a heated skillet lid, trapping the screams and the roar of the monster horde in a pressure cooker of panic. The heat was suffocating, tasting of sulphur and ozone, stinging the eyes and drying the throat in an instant.

  Josh didn't run. He couldn't.

  Around him, the initial retreat had disintegrated into a slaughter. The queue of adventurers, so orderly moments ago, had become a terrified stampede of frantic limbs and screaming faces. Some who turned their backs to the portal died; the kobolds swarmed like vermin, a tide of frenzied, small-statured killers with rusted shanks and teeth like needles, hitting the fleeing crowd like a wave hitting a sandcastle.

  A mage in bright silk robes, barely ten feet to Josh’s left, tried to cast a flight spell, his fingers tracing desperate runes in the air. A kobold leaped from the back of another, a blur of red scales and hate, latching onto the mage’s face with clawed hands. The spell fizzled into a burst of uncontrolled sparks, blinding the man before the kobold could even land its first blow. He went down thrashing, his screams cut short by a wet, sickening crunch as a dozen more piled onto him, tearing at silk and flesh alike. Josh saw a rusted blade rise and fall, hacking into the mage's neck with the rhythm of a butcher chopping meat, spraying hot crimson across the cobblestones.

  "Don't turn your backs!" Josh roared, the sound tearing from his throat with a force that surprised even him, resonating inside his helm. "If you run, you die! Eyes front! Weapons up!"

  He slammed his shield into the face of a leaping kobold. The impact was sickeningly solid; he felt the facial bones collapse through the metal, the creature’s nose driving into its brain. He didn't check to see if it was dead; the momentum simply carried it away, a broken ragdoll tossed into the press. He stepped forward, driving his sabaton-clad boot into the chest of another that was trying to hamstring a guard. The heavy iron shattered the creature's ribcage, driving bone shards into its lungs. It spat pink froth and died with a gurgle.

  The initial chaos was a kaleidoscope of violence. There was no line, no order. Just pockets of desperate resistance amidst a sea of red scales.

  Bhel was a few yards away, a spinning top of steel and dwarven curses. He stood over the body of a fallen freelancer, his twin axes creating a perimeter of gore. He wasn't just swinging; he was butchering. He caught a kobold mid-leap, his axe burying itself deep in the creature's shoulder, cleaving through the clavicle and down to the heart. He ripped it free with a wet sucking sound and immediately decapitated the next attacker.

  "Come on then!" Bhel bellowed, spitting a mouthful of blood, whether his own or a kobold’s, Josh couldn't tell. "There's plenty of me to go around! Come and get a taste of dwarven steel!"

  Perberos was a shadow, moving through the gaps in the melee where no gap should exist. He wasn't shooting; the press was too tight for the bow. He was using his knife, the dark blade flickering like a serpent’s tongue. Every strike was a kill, a precision severing of arteries and tendons. He ducked under a rusted scimitar, sliced the attacker's hamstring, bringing the kobold to its knees, and spun to drive the blade into the kidney of a second kobold before the first had even hit the ground. But for every kobold he dropped, two more scrabbled over the corpse, their yellow eyes burning with madness.

  "Josh!" Brett’s voice cut through the din, shrill with tension. The mage was back-to-back with Carcan, holding a circle of flame around them, sweat pouring down his face. "We’re getting cut off! We need to link up!"

  "I know!" Josh gritted his teeth, catching a rusted scimitar on his pauldron. The metal sparked, leaving a deep gouge in the fresh steel. He backhanded the attacker with the edge of his shield, the tempered steel rim catching the kobold in the throat, crushing its windpipe instantly.

  He looked around, his tactical mind trying to impose order on the madness. They couldn't survive as islands. The swarm was fluid; it flowed around obstacles, drowning them one by one. They needed a wall. They needed stone and iron.

  He saw the Guard Captain. The man had lost his helmet, revealing a scalp matted with blood, but he was still standing. He was fighting with a grim, mechanical efficiency, his spear punching out again and again, holding a small, fragile circle of three other guards who were terrified but holding their ground.

  "Captain!" Josh shouted before turning to his friends. "Follow me."

  He activated Dash, abandoning his position and charging towards a halfway point between the guards. He acted as a human plough, shield held high, smashing through the line of kobolds separating them. He didn't cut them down; he simply ran them over, the sound of snapping limbs under his boots lost in the roar of battle.

  The Captain saw him. A flicker of recognition, and profound relief, crossed his bloodied face. "Rally!" the Captain screamed, his voice cracking. "Rally at the centre! Form the line!"

  Soon, Josh slammed into place beside the Captain, their shoulders locking together. The impact was grounding. Metal on metal. A connection in the chaos.

  "Shields!" Josh ordered.

  The three guards slammed their shields down, locking the rims with Josh’s and other adventurers that quickly made their way to the mass forming before the portal. It wasn't a perfect wall; it was barely fifteen feet wide, but it was solid. It was a breakwater against the tide.

  "Bhel! Get in here!" Josh yelled, shielding a guard from a leaping attack.

  The dwarf heard the call. He executed a sweeping low cut that took the legs off three kobolds in a spray of dark blood, leaving them screaming on the stumps, then scrambled backward, diving into the gap behind Josh. Perberos, Brett, and Carcan fell in behind the wall, panting, their eyes wide.

  "We have a core," Josh panted, his breath hot inside his helm, the smell of his own sweat mixing with the slaughter. "We move back. Slowly. Step by step. We pick up stragglers. If they can fight, they join the line. Shield users join the wall, rangers shoot into the mass, everyone else, kill anything behind us! Move!"

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  The retreat began.

  It was a grinder. A slow, agonising reverse march over slick cobblestones and twitching bodies. Every step was a battle. Every inch was paid for in blood.

  Suddenly, a section of the line buckled. A squad of Frenzy-Bloods—kobolds injected with alchemical rage stimulants—threw themselves at the shields, ignoring their own safety. They didn't use weapons; they used teeth and claws.

  One Frenzy-Blood leaped over the shield of a mercenary, latching onto his neck. The man screamed as the creature tore his throat out with its teeth, a fountain of bright arterial blood spraying over Brett and Carcan. The mercenary fell, leaving a gap in the wall.

  "Close it!" Josh roared, but three more Frenzy-Bloods poured into the breach.

  Bhel stepped up. "Not today, you uglies!"

  The dwarf swung his axes in a cross-cut scissor motion. The first Frenzy-Blood was bisected at the waist, its upper half tumbling to the ground while its legs remained standing for a second. The second tried to bite Bhel’s arm, but the dwarf headbutted it, the sound of the skull cracking echoing loudly, before burying an axe in its chest.

  Josh slammed his shield sideways, crushing the third Frenzy-Blood against the rim of the Captain’s shield, popping its head like a grape.

  "Gap closed!" Josh yelled, stepping over the mercenary's twitching corpse. "Keep moving!"

  CLANG.

  A heavy mace from the main horde slammed into Josh’s shield. The impact vibrated up his arm, settling deep in his shoulder socket. He absorbed the blow, and stabbed his blade over the rim, feeling it bite into leather and flesh, twisting it before ripping it back.

  Step.

  "Hold!" the Captain roared as a wave of kobolds threw themselves at the shields, clawing and biting at the metal like rabid dogs. Their claws screeched against the iron, a sound like nails on a chalkboard amplified a thousand times.

  "Burn them!" Josh shouted over his shoulder.

  Brett stepped up, thrusting his hands over Josh’s shoulders. A sheet of liquid fire washed over the attackers, turning the front rank into screaming torches. The smell of burning fur was instant and vomit-inducing. Skin bubbled and popped, and the kobolds thrashed in agony, their melting fat sizzling on the cobblestones. The pressure eased for a second as the horde recoiled from the heat.

  Step.

  They moved back. As they moved, the reality of the situation began to set in.

  High above the sounds of battle, a new sound began to toll.

  DONG... DONG... DONG...

  It wasn't the fast, frantic ringing of a fire alarm, but a call to arms, the bell in the gatehouse being rung to alert the outpost of the danger they faced. It was a sound that hadn't been heard in a long time. It vibrated in their bones. It signalled total mobilisation. It signalled war.

  Carcan, standing in the relative safety behind Josh’s back, could hear other sounds too. The fortifications were close to the residential district. She could hear the screams of civilians, the wailing of children, the frantic shouting of shopkeepers trying to board up their windows. The panic was spreading like a contagion.

  "They're panicking," Carcan whispered, her hands glowing with healing light as she sealed a gash on a guard's arm, knitting the flesh back together in seconds. "The town knows."

  "Good," Josh grunted, bracing himself as another wave hit, driving his boots back an inch. "Panic means they're running. Running means they might live."

  They picked up others as they retreated. A pair of mercenaries wielding greatswords joined the flanks, turning the shield wall into a meat grinder. A terrifyingly calm elven ranger leaped off a pile of crates and landed behind them, adding her bow to the defence.

  Soon, the pocket of resistance had grown. They were a solid block of thirty fighters, a mix of guards and adventurers, slowly backing towards the heavy iron gates of the inner fortification wall.

  But the enemy was changing.

  Josh risked a glance over the rim of his shield, looking towards the portal.

  The black void was still vomiting troops. But the chaotic swarm was thinning. In its place, organised regiments were stepping out. Armoured kobold Enforcers with black-iron shields of their own, marching in lockstep. Kobold archers taking positions on the debris of the checkpoint, nocking heavy, barbed arrows.

  And standing in the centre of it all, untouched by the chaos, was the Elite.

  The creature was magnificent in a horrific way. It stood a head taller than even the largest Enforcer. Its scales were the colour of dried blood, and its armour was a complex, articulated suit of black plate that seemed to absorb the ambient light. It wasn't fighting. It was standing perfectly still, its serrated greatsword resting point-down on the cobblestones, watching the battle with a cold, reptile intelligence.

  It raised a hand, pointing a clawed finger.

  It wasn't pointing at Josh. It was pointing at the flanks.

  "They're flanking!" Josh realised, seeing the movement in the swarm. "They're trying to encircle us! They're cutting off the gate!"

  "Archers!" the Captain screamed, looking up at the high walls of the fortification. "Cover the flanks! Fire at will!"

  The garrison had fully mobilised and others were joining them each moment on the wall.

  From the high walls above them, a rain of death began to fall on the kobolds. Arrows, crossbow bolts, and spells poured down into the crater. It wasn't precise fire, it couldn't be, not with the chaos below but it was effective.

  A volley of fire-arrows slammed into the mass of kobolds trying to flank Josh’s right, breaking their charge in a wall of flame. A massive stone block, dropped by a loader-crane on the wall, crushed a squad of Enforcers flat, turning them into paste just as they exited the portal.

  "Keep moving!" Josh yelled, encouraged by the support. "We're almost at the gate!"

  They were fifty yards away. Then forty. Then thirty.

  The ground beneath their feet was slick with blood and viscera. It was treacherous footing; intestines uncoiled like ropes, and severed limbs acted as stumbling blocks. Josh slipped once, his knee buckling on a severed arm, but the Captain grabbed his harness and hauled him up before he could be dragged down.

  "I’ve got you," the Captain grunted, his face a mask of determination.

  "Thanks," Josh gasped.

  "Save it. We're not out yet."

  They reached the bottleneck. The entrance to the town was a massive archway, fitted with heavy iron gates that were currently standing open. The retreat had funnelled everyone towards this point.

  "Get inside!" Josh ordered the stragglers behind the line. "Move! Get behind the gate!"

  The wounded and the ranged fighters scrambled through the archway, disappearing into the relative safety of the district beyond.

  Now it was just the rear-guard. The shield wall.

  "We need to hold the threshold," the Captain shouted to Josh over the din of battle. "We hold it until everyone's out, then we close the gates!"

  "Understood," Josh said. His muscles were screaming, burning with a fire that no potion could quench. His new armour felt heavy, dragging him down, but it held. It hadn't breached. He planted his feet. He activated all the skills he could, hardening his skin until he felt like a statue, fusing himself to the ground and increasing his defence as much as he could.

  "Here they come!" Bhel yelled.

  The swarm parted.

  The Elite Kobold had tired of the stalemate. It gestured with its sword and it’s eyes met Josh’s.

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