"Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head."

  Euripides, Greek Poet

  Rain curled up in the sand, cradling her satchel of potions against her stomach, trying to be as small as possible. She felt the arrows fall around her, wincing in pain as one ripped through the edge of her apron and carved a shallow cut across her calf.

  As the final arrow fell, she heard Calista and Milly’s frantic screams. She lifted her head in time to see Milly scramble clumsily across the sand and crouch over Calista. Healing light billowed around Milly in an uncontrolled torrent as dread fueled her power. The edge of Milly’s light reached Rain’s calf, and a few moments later the cut was gone, leaving behind only a tiny, tender inflammation.

  “Hang on Calista. Just hang on…. just hang on, damn you!” Milly shouted through tears, trying to grab the arrow embedded in Calista’s chest. But her hands were trembling so much that she could not get a grip. “Calista, I can’t…”

  “Milly, it’s… let me… get this…” Calista wheezed, struggling to breathe. The arrow had pierced her lung. Calista’s hands wrapped around the shaft and, before Milly could stop her, she yanked the arrow out herself.

  “Fuck!” Calista tried to scream, though it came as a mere whimper. She coughed, blood erupting from her mouth. Droplets landed on Milly’s cheeks, and Calista’s eyes rolled back in her head as she collapsed, overwhelmed by the pain.

  Milly pressed her hands against Calista’s cruel wound. Her elevated magical power, further enhanced by Salem’s Fury, let her feel every torn organ, every broken rib, and every bit of split skin and muscle in her mind. She also felt a fraction of Calista’s pain, a backlash from sensing her injuries, and Milly felt like she wanted to throw up. But she held it down.

  The healing light around Milly condensed into bright, precise pinpoints at the tips of her fingers. She ran her fingers across Calista’s bloody wound, feeling for the life-threatening wounds. She targeted severed blood vessels, snapped ribs, and torn muscles with incredible precision. Milly’s hands were soon caked in Calista’s blood as she felt her way along Calista’s chest.

  “You need to stop doing this to me, Calista,” Milly cried desperately. “I can’t lose you.”

  Rain wanted to rush over and comfort her. But Elmer’s shout dashed any hope of that.

  “Freelancers! Stay together. We have incoming!” Elmer shouted, voice betraying his terror. “Oh god.”

  Rain followed Elmer’s gaze towards the jungle, the ground rumbling beneath them. And her heart fell.

  An army of green and brown goblins erupted from the jungle, running at full speed across the sand towards the disheveled Freelances. They held clubs and spears and were clad in rough hides and bones. Saliva dripped from their teeth as they shrieked and hollered with excitement, sensing a slaughter.

  “There must be over two hundred of them,” whispered Rain, and then she saw what was behind them. “Oh no…”

  The last goblin straggler to leave the jungle did not make it far. A giant club smashed into its body, sending it flying across the terrain and breaking it against a jungle trunk. Three ogres strolled out of the jungle, each identical to the one Milly had killed on her first day, as if the creatures had been duplicated for this battle.

  Rain scrambled to her feet, leaving Milly behind to heal Calista. She started digging through her satchel as she rushed over to Elmer, her mind racing.

  “Everyone, get into a semi-circle, backs to the tower wall,” Elmer ordered, watching the Freelancers scramble, “Surround the wounded and the healers. Melee up front, spears behind short-range weapons as we practiced. Naomi, Aaron, Mohammad, fire your bows, for fuck sakes. What the hell are you waiting for, an invitation?” The three archers looked shocked, then quickly raised their bows and started firing into the oncoming goblins. Rain watched a few goblins fall dead to the ground, but it barely put a small dent in their numbers.

  “Rain, this isn’t good,” Elmer hissed, watching the Freelancers stumble into place, driven by desperation more than bravery. There were only about forty of them left, half that number again wounded and dying behind them, facing a horde five times larger and far more vicious. Rain watched one woman shaking so hard her spear rattled out of her hand and dropped into the sand. “They are going to overwhelm us. If we get out of this, I’m going to fucking kill Stone.”

  Rain pulled two bottles from her satchel. The first was bottled darkness. The second glowed with swirling crimson and gold. The horde goblin horde was growing close, the ogres not far behind.

  “Please tell me that is a bottled miracle,” Elmer asked, holding his giant rusted axe out as the goblins closed within thirty paces.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “Just a little bit of chaos,” Rain answered. She gripped the bottled darkness tightly and hurled it into the middle of the goblin horde.

  The bottle smashed against the chest of an oncoming goblin, knocking it to the ground as the darkness billowed out in all directions, covering the goblins in thick night. Their shouts of slaughter were transformed into howls of surprise, and Rain and Elmer could hear confusion spread in their ranks.

  “Archers, fire into that darkness!” Elmer shouted, and three arrows flew. Rain did not know if they struck home, but a moment later the sound of goblin weapons colliding with each other erupted from within the darkness. It had confused them enough to buy them some time. But not much.

  The first wave of goblins escaped the edge of the darkness. It was time for Rain’s trump card.

  She lifted the crimson and gold bottle in her hand. “I really hope I got this recipe right. Lugh Samildànach, this had better deliver as the recipe promised,” she whispered, then hurled the bottle forward at the ongoing goblins. She did not watch it land. She grabbed Elmer by his torn shirt and spun them so their backs were to the advancing goblins.

  The bottle struck another goblin, and the resulting explosion blew Elmer and Rain off their feet. They landed hard on their backs, sand and tiny stones creating clouds in the air. Rain sat up, her ornamental dagger clutched in her hand, ready to defend herself. Only to have a severed goblin head, the back of its skull blown away, land at her feet.

  Fragments of dozens of goblins rolled across the beach in every direction and there was a small crater at the epicenter of the explosion. A few had survived, limbs blown off and crawling along the sand in desperation. Rain felt a moment of guilt, but she had no time to dwell on it.

  It bought them only a few seconds’ more reprieve. Goblins streamed out of the darkness, stampeding over the remains of their fallen comrades. There were still so many. Rain’s explosion had only put a dent in their numbers.

  Rain held up another bottle of crimson and gold explosive. “I only have one more, Elmer. And we still have the ogres…”

  “Throw it Rain,” exclaimed Elmer, then turned to the Freelancers, huddled in a tight semi-circle. “Everyone, be brave. Fight smart. If we break our line, we die. Fight like Spartans!”

  Elmer turned back to the goblins, his axe clutched in his white knuckled hands. He stepped backwards, joining the centre of formation. “After all, it’s just a bunch of goblins, right?” he murmured to Rain, eyes filled with fear.

  Rain held her dagger at her side, stepping in beside him. “You are a good leader, Elmer.”

  “Yah, well, I watch a lot of movies.”

  Rain hurled the bottle as the first line of goblins collided with their formation. The resulting explosion took out another swath of oncoming goblins, as the weapons of the forty remaining Freelancers collided with the first wave of goblin club and spear. The Freelancer’s shouts of fear and desperation merged with the guttural growls of the goblins. They were outnumbered four to one.

  Rain’s dagger flashed as the first goblin struck her position. Her dagger twirled in her palm, deflecting the goblin’s clumsy blow into the sand and slashing across its throat a heartbeat later. The Dagger of Lugh Samildànach carved through its flesh and bone as if it were butter, its unnatural sharpness and her enhanced strength hardly feeling any resistance at all. The shocked goblin dropped the club, hands moving desperately to its throat. Rain kicked out, sending the goblin backwards into the one behind it, leaving it to bleed out on the sand.

  It was immediately replaced, another goblin stepping over the first’s body without concern. The line of goblins was four rows deep, each pushing forward frantically, eager to fill the space.

  Rain dispatched this one with a flick of her wrist, severing four of the goblin’s fingers mid-swing so it could not longer hold its weapon, then thrusting her dagger quickly into its eye. The goblin shuttered and was dead before it hit the ground.

  Another two goblins fell to Rain in short succession, the Dagger of Lugh Samildànach and her dagger specialization talent a lethal combination in close quarters combat. As the fourth goblin fell, Rain snapped her fingers to channel her new fire magic, enveloping her off-hand in dull red flames. She set the dying goblin’s hide armor and body hair aflame, then pushed hard to send it backward into the goblin ranks. The goblins scattered in fear as they saw the burning flesh, and Rain suddenly had a moment of reprieve.

  “We can do this Elmer!” Rain shouted, glancing to her side. And her heart dropped.

  Elmer was struggling to wield his axe in such close quarters. His arms were bloody from numerous wounds he had suffered. The bodies of three goblin lay at his feet, but the fourth was gaining an upper hand on him until the Freelancer behind him thrust a spear forward through the goblin’s eye.

  All down the line, Freelancers were covered in blood and gore. They did not have the advantages Rain had. Their levels were lower. They had fewer talents, and worse equipment. Many had barely grown since day one, too afraid to leave the beach.

  “Elmer, hang in there. We…”

  Rain watched in horror as a large, skull-decorated goblin thrust its spear viciously through the throat of the Freelancer fighting beside Elmer.

  Veronica. She liked Rain’s tea first thing in the morning. She was a single mother with two kids at home, working a dead-end job to make enough to keep them in school. She had a heart condition, and Rain had spent an afternoon designing a replacement for her mediation when she had run out. And Rain watched as her body was pulled forward by the skull-decorated goblin as it wrenched his spear out of her throat. Her body collapsed on top of the pile of goblin corpses, her final contribution to the Contest.

  Elmer’s axe and Rain’s angry blast of fire caught the skull-decorated goblin at the same time, sending its head flying backwards and its body launched into another pack of enemies. Rain felt tears flowing down her cheeks, and she wiped them away stiffly with the back of her hand before turning back towards the enemy, dagger ready and hands aflame.

  Another four fell to Rain’s dagger and two to her flames as she poured her anger and sorrow into the fight. But it was not enough. For every four goblins they killed, a Freelancer fell. Everyone was forced backward two steps to close the line and prevent the goblins from breaking through to the wounded.

  Rain’s eyes glanced behind the thinned goblin horde as she beheaded another goblin and shoved its body onto the growing pile at her feet.

  The three monstrous ogres strolled out of the cloud of darkness, slowly walking towards the goblin lines. They stepped over goblin corpses, licking their lips at the sight before them.

  "Well... shit..."