It was an unmitigated disaster.

  They came in numbers, more than I could count. Hundreds, maybe thousands, pouring out of the mist like a flood. The defensive line braced itself, shields raised and weapons ready, but there was no stopping that. The first wave hit with a force that sent soldiers flying. Raptors’ claws tore through armor as if it were paper, and the riders’ weapons swung with brutal precision, cutting down anyone in their path. The sound was deafening—screams, the clash of steel, the sickening crunch of bone.

  I’d banked on their skimpy armor being a weakness, but their insane regeneration slipped my mind. I watched a soldier drive his blade deep into a rider’s side—a clean, deadly strike—sending him crashing to the dirt. Mere seconds later, he was back on his feet, the gash barely a nuisance. The rider didn’t so much as glance at the wound. He just pressed forward, eyes fixed on his next prey.

  But the worst part wasn’t their numbers or their ferocity. It was the way they kept appearing through the fog. Their numbers appeared endless and giving them a mystical presence.

  Panic rippled through the surrounding soldiers. I saw it twist their faces, heard it crack their voices. In their wide, frantic eyes, these things weren’t just strong or swift—they were damn near invincible. Wounds sealed shut in a heartbeat, blows brushed off like flies. It broke them, men who’d faced grim odds without flinching now crumbling under the weight of this relentless nightmare.

  I felt it too—that creeping sense of despair. How do you fight something that won’t stay down? How do you hold a line against an enemy that doesn’t tire, doesn’t stop? The mist seemed to close in around us, the riders and their mounts emerging from it like nightmares given form. I unleashed another lightning bolt, its snap lighting the chaos, dropping another troll. At least they weren’t resistance to magic, but it still felt futile. They just kept coming, and I didn’t know how much longer we could last.

  We had to pull back. Victory was no longer possible. We’d been outmaneuvered, outmatched, and now, staying meant nothing but slaughter. The only thing left to do was salvage what we could, to retreat with some semblance of order. Without it, this would devolve into a full-blown rout in minutes, and panic would cut through us faster than their blades ever could. My chest tightened, dread clawing at my insides, but I forced my voice to stay steady, loud enough to cut through the chaos. “Fall back!” I shouted. “Regroup… live to fight another day!” The words tasted bitter, but they were all I had left to offer.

  No one was listening. The chaos was too overwhelming, too all-consuming. We’d lost the fight, but I’d be damned if we lost everything. Desperation clawed at me as I cast a spell to amplify my voice. I shouted again, louder this time, pleading for order. “Fall back! Regroup!”

  Slowly, painfully, the retreat began. Our numbers were dwindling by the second, but at least we were moving. Not that it mattered much. In minutes, they broke through the line, pouring into the gap like a flood. I expected them to surround us—they had the numbers for it—but instead, they surged deeper behind our lines, leaving us with a sliver of breathing room. It was a small mercy, but one I didn’t trust.

  With the breach formed, the battle lost all sense of cohesion. Trolls were coming from three directions now, but there was no strategy to their assault—just raw, unrelenting bloodlust. Lightning, at least, seemed to work against them. My spells struck true, and others must have noticed, because a group began to coalesce around me. The crackling energy of my magic felled enough of them but fortunatly steel started to matter again. Their regeneration was incredible, but it had limits. They could shrug off killing blows, but not indefinitely. They didn’t have nine lives, after all…maybe four or five.

  Everyone was forced to learn quickly. Soldiers doubled down on injured trolls, focusing their attacks to overwhelm the creatures’ healing. Still, our numbers were dropping at an alarming rate. Our group managed to hold, maybe because of me, or maybe because the trolls saw easier prey elsewhere. Bloodlust or not, they weren’t stupid. They bypassed us, surging toward softer targets.

  We couldn’t move to the flank—the mist was too thick, too dangerous. Behind us, the trolls were making a dash toward our leadership. We had no mounts, no way to help them. Our only chance was to form a larger group, to gather what strength we had left. Hoping I hadn’t lost my sense of direction, I shouted for us to advance toward the previous front line with Ascalon, praying it still held.

  As we retreated, the trolls became fewer in number, but soon more and more soldiers were streaming toward us, retreating from the original frontline. It seemed our advance there had stalled, likely because of the numbers forced to relocate.

  The surrounding mayhem was deafening—clashing steel, guttural roars, and the panicked shouts of soldiers trying to hold the line. My arms ached from casting spell after spell, my mind racing to keep up with the relentless tide of enemies. Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, I saw them: Elena and Jamie, cutting through the fray with grim determination. Their faces were pale, streaked with dirt and blood, and the look in their eyes told me everything I needed to know before they even spoke.

  “The leadership camp was hit,” Elena gasped as she reached me, her voice barely audible over the din. “Most of the leaders are dead. The king… he’s gone.”

  The king? Dead? My mind reeled, struggling to process the enormity of what she was saying. The leadership camp was supposed to be secure, far behind the lines. If they’d been overrun, then…

  “Both flanks are gone,” Jamie added, his voice tight with urgency. “Collapsed completely. The only place with any semblance of order left is here, in the middle. But it won’t last long.”

  I stared at them, my thoughts spinning. The leadership was gone. We were leaderless, outnumbered, and surrounded. We needed a plan—now.

  Jamie stepped closer, his eyes locking onto mine. “We need to buy time,” he said, his voice steady despite the chaos around us. “If we can hold out until nightfall—just two more hours—we might have a chance to regroup, to slip away under cover of darkness.”

  “And how do you propose we do that?” I asked, my voice sharper than I intended. “We’re barely holding as it is.”

  “The fog,” Jamie said, gesturing toward the thick, swirling mist that still clung to the edges of the battlefield. “We head into it. It’s our only chance. We can use it against them to our advantage.”

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  I hesitated, my mind racing. The fog was a double-edged sword. It had hidden the enemy’s flanking attack, but it could also hide us. If we could navigate it, if we could use it to disappear, even for a little while, it might buy us the time we needed. But it was a gamble—a huge one. Their shamans could dissipate it or cancel it. Or could they? It took a lot of juice to create that. Maybe they couldn’t just snuff it out so easily.

  Before I could respond, a roar erupted nearby. A group of Ascalon soldiers had broken through, their swords gleaming as they charged toward us. Behind them, I caught a glimpse of a troll, its painted body streaked with blood, its glowing eyes fixed on our group. We were out of time.

  “Into the fog!” I shouted with the help of my spell, my decision made. “Now!”

  We moved as one, our ragged group of survivors pushing toward the mist. The Ascalon soldiers were on us in moments, their blades flashing as they tried to cut us down. I fired off a lightning bolt, the crack of energy sending one soldier sprawling, but another took his place almost instantly. Elena was beside me, her sword a blur as she parried and struck with deadly precision while her copies provided distraction and took some of the pressure away from us. Jamie fought with a ferocity I hadn’t seen before, his movements sharp and calculated, every strike meant to kill.

  The trolls were harder to deal with but the point was to stall as much as possible. I gave everything, hurling bolt after bolt at them. We pressed on, the fog finally swallowing us as we moved deeper into its embrace. The world around us grew muffled, the sounds of battle fading into an eerie silence. The mist was thick, disorienting, but it was also our only hope. We moved as quickly as we dared, our group tightening into a defensive formation as we prepared for whatever lay ahead.

  The fog was not without it’s dangers. Trolls appeared like ghosts, their forms materializing out of the mist only to vanish again as we fought them off. Shamans lurked in the shadows, lightning bolts striking us at random. Even so, it was miles better than what we endured outside so we kept moving.

  The fog was oppressive, a suffocating blanket that swallowed sound and sight alike. At first, it was easy enough to lead the men, shouting orders and absorbing most of the spells aimed our way. But as we pressed deeper into the mist, disorientation set in. The world around us became a featureless void, and even the sounds of battle faded into a distant murmur. My sense of direction faltered, and I began to doubt every step.

  I remembered an experiment I’d read about once, conducted in a meadow with fog half as thick as this. People were told to walk in a straight line, but without any points of reference, most ended up veering diagonally. The natural bias of our limbs made us drift imperceptibly to one side. Normally, we would easily correct for it. But here, in this endless sea of white, there was nothing. No landmarks, no light, no way to orient ourselves.

  I stopped. If we kept going like this, we’d end up walking in circles, lost until the enemy found us or exhaustion took us. I turned to the group, my voice cutting through the eerie silence. “Can anyone navigate this fog?”

  At first, there was only silence. Either no one was sure, or they were too afraid to speak up. I repeated the question, louder this time, desperation creeping into my tone. Finally, a voice broke through the quiet.

  “I can’t give any guarantees,” a soldier said, stepping forward. His face was pale, his eyes wide with fear, but there was a determination in his voice that gave me hope. “But I’m almost positive this way”—he pointed into the mist—“is the direction opposite to the battle site.”

  I studied him for a moment, weighing his words. We didn’t have the luxury of certainty, but his confidence was enough. “Well, I’m sold,” I said, gesturing for him to stay close behind me. “The last thing we need is to lose our compass.”

  We trudged onward, the soldier leading us through the suffocating fog. The mist began to thin, faint patches of clarity breaking through like fragile promises of relief. I clung to that sliver of hope, but as we pressed forward, the haze lightened further, and the silence gave way to something uglier—harsh, guttural voices and the chaotic clatter of shifting gear. I tried to calm my breaths as we broke free of the fog, the scene snapping into sharp, unwelcome focus.

  We’d stumbled straight into the trolls’ baggage camp. Rows of rough-hewn tents and laden supply carts sprawled across the ground, a makeshift lifeline for their war machine. At the center stood a grim sight: a line of shamans, their bodies smeared with those familiar jagged patterns, arms raised in unison as they chanted. The fog coiled around them, dense and unnatural, a living shroud they wove with every guttural syllable. They’re the source, I realized, dread pooling in my chest. Our arrival didn’t slip by unnoticed. A guttural shout split the air—an alarm—and trolls lurched from the camp, their eyes pinning us like prey.

  “We need to move,” Jamie hissed, his voice low but edged with panic. “Now.”

  “How many are we?” I demanded, turning to him.

  He hesitated, eyes darting. “Maybe five hundred,” he muttered.

  I blinked. Five hundred? Far more than I’d dared to guess. Our ragged retreat must’ve swept up stragglers, desperate souls clinging to any hint of order. My mind raced back to my trek through troll lands—fighters were thick as flies, but shamans? Rare. Precious. This could be an opportunity, I thought. The camp’s defenders wouldn’t be their finest; the glory-hounds were out there, chasing blood and spoils. Killing these shamans could gut their momentum.

  “We fight,” I said, voice steady despite the chaos. “Target the shamans. We might still salvage something from this wreck.”

  The mist still clung to my boots gave the order. Five hundred of us—ragged, battered, but alive—surged toward the trolls’ baggage camp. My heart pounded, a mix of dread and grim resolve.

  At first, it felt like we’d caught them off guard. Our front line crashed into the camp’s edge, steel meeting flesh with brutal efficiency. My spells hit the troll guards, their crude axes too slow. They crumpled, and I pressed forward, eyes locked on the shamans. Around me, the soldiers roared, their fear twisting into fury. Nearby, a shaman fell by Jamie’s blade. The troll staggered, his chant faltering. Another shaman fell to a spear, his body slumping as the fog wavered. We were carving a path.

  The camp was chaos—tents toppled, carts splintered. Trolls lumbered out, sluggish and disorganized, clearly not their elite. I ducked a wild swing, driving a lightning bolt into his gut. He snarled, but didn’t rise again. The soldiers pressed the advantage, fanning out to encircle the shamans. Three were down now, and the air cleared enough to see their panicked faces. Shouts of triumph rose from our ranks—morale surging. For a moment, I dared to believe we’d turn this disaster into a victory.

  Then the tide shifted. More trolls poured from the camp’s depths—dozens, then scores. Where the hell are they coming from? My stomach sank as a fresh wave crashed into our left flank, axes swinging with newfound purpose. A soldier beside me screamed, cut down before I could react. The shamans rallied, forgetting about their mist now hurling spells at us.

  I fired more spells, attempting to put as much power in them as I could to overwhelm their regeneration. Damn it. Our line buckled as more pressed in, their numbers swelling beyond reason. The camp might have been better defended that I realized. This was the reason I shouldn’t have led anything. I mean how could I have known how many people the trolls leave guarding their camp. My chest tightened—we’re losing ground. Jamie shouted something, voice lost in the clamor, as a fireball grazed his shoulder. Two more shamans fell, but it wasn’t enough. The trolls were everywhere, a relentless tide of muscle and steel. I parried a blow, my arm jarring, and glanced back. Our five hundred were thinning, gaps widening. Retreat? The word clawed at my mind, bitter and heavy.

  I opened my mouth to call it—Fall back, save what’s left—when a new sound cut through the din. Horns. Sharp, urgent. My head snapped right, and through the haze, I saw them: armed figures charging from the mist, banners snapping in the wind. Soldiers—human soldiers—slamming into the trolls’ flank like a thunderclap. Their blades flashed, cutting a brutal swath, and the trolls faltered, caught between us. Reinforcements? I couldn’t tell whose, but they were disciplined.

  Hope flared, raw and desperate. “Push!” I yelled, voice hoarse.