My planet is infested with Goblins

The eastern gate shook hard enough to send splinters across the road.

Captain Roland Mercer turned just as another impact struck the damaged timbers from outside. The entire gate bowed inward before settling back into place, but one of the supporting beams had already split near the center.

Men on the nearby wall shouted down warnings while arrows and bolts continued passing over the palisade. Mercer had only been inside Brackenford for minutes, yet it was already clear that reaching the village had not ended the battle. Second Company had merely exchanged one battlefield for another.

Captain Edric Vane stood beside him with blood drying across one sleeve.

"That gate won’t survive another few hits."

Mercer looked toward the eastern road. Villagers were still moving wounded defenders away while guards dragged carts and barrels toward the entrance in a desperate attempt to reinforce it.

"Then stop trying to save it."

Edric looked at him.

Mercer raised his voice.

"Spears across the eastern road! Shields in front! Crossbows behind them! Everyone else moves civilians toward the center!"

Orders spread immediately.

Second Company soldiers who had barely survived the ambush on the road formed around the eastern street. Their armor was dirty, several shields were cracked, and far too many men had fresh bandages wrapped around arms and legs. Even so, professional training took over. Heavy shield bearers formed the first rank while spearmen positioned themselves directly behind them.

Another crash struck the gate.

The broken support gave way.

The wooden doors burst inward.

A cloud of dust, smoke, and splintered timber filled the opening.

For a heartbeat, Mercer could see nothing beyond it.

Then the goblins came through.

The first attackers charged over the wreckage carrying short shields and spears. They were small enough that several could move through the broken entrance at once, but the narrow road worked against them. The Caldris spear line lowered its weapons.

"Hold!"

The first goblin hit the formation and died almost immediately. A spear punched through its chest before a second weapon struck another behind it. The next few suffered the same fate as they tried to force their way through the broken gateway.

The defenders had increased their morale.

Mercer did not share the same feelings.

"Keep your line!"

Goblin bolts began flying through the opening from outside. One struck the top of a shield. Another found a soldier’s exposed arm. A third passed between two men and entered the throat of a crossbowman behind them.

The cheering stopped.

Caldris crossbows fired back.

For several minutes, the gate became a killing ground. The defenders’ longer weapons gave them an enormous advantage as long as the goblins were forced to approach from the front. Bodies began piling near the shattered entrance, and Mercer briefly thought they might actually contain the breach.

Then shouting erupted farther along the wall.

"They’re climbing!"

Mercer turned his head.

Goblin figures were already appearing over the damaged palisade north of the gate. Some had used ladders, while others climbed sections weakened by the fighting. A few slipped through spaces between broken timbers that would have been too narrow for an armored human.

Edric swore on this sight.

"They’re inside."

A squad of village guards rushed toward them.

Mercer grabbed the nearest lieutenant.

"Take twenty men and stop that group before they reach the houses."

"Yes, Captain."

The lieutenant ran.

Another shout came from the south.

More goblins had crossed there.

Mercer looked back toward the eastern gate and understood the problem immediately. The spear wall could hold one entrance, but Brackenford no longer had one entrance.

The wall itself was failing.

"Pull half the crossbows back! Cover the streets!"

The battle changed almost instantly.

Goblin groups began appearing in alleys, gardens, and narrow gaps between buildings. They moved with far more freedom inside the village than the heavier Caldris soldiers. Some climbed fences instead of using roads. Others squeezed through animal pens or cut through thin wooden walls.

Mercer saw three goblins appear from behind a house and attack the rear of a guard squad that had been facing east.

"Behind you!"

The warning came too late for one man.

A curved blade struck behind his knee. When he fell, another goblin stabbed through the opening beneath his arm.

The remaining guards turned and killed both attackers, but their formation was already gone.

Mercer pushed through the confusion.

"Do not fight alone! Stay in groups!"

The eastern road had become useless as a fixed defensive position. Goblins continued entering through the broken gate, but now others were appearing from side streets as well.

A screaming woman ran past carrying a child while an older man followed with a woodcutting axe.

"Town center!" Edric shouted. "Everyone who isn’t fighting goes to the square!"

The village bell continued ringing overhead.

Not long ago, it served as a warning.

Now it was a retreat signal.

Mercer moved toward a nearby intersection where six Second Company soldiers were fighting nearly twice as many goblins. The humans still possessed the physical advantage, but the narrow street prevented them from forming a proper spear line.

One goblin darted beneath a shield and stabbed upward. The soldier screamed and fell backward.

Mercer reached the intersection and drove his sword into the attacker’s side.

"Back to the next street!"

One of his men looked toward him.

"We can hold here!"

"No, you can die here. Move!"

They withdrew their forces.

The goblins pursued but slowed when crossbow bolts came from a nearby window. Mercer glanced upward and saw two villagers firing from the second floor of a house.

That gave him an idea.

"Use the buildings! Put ranged men above the streets!"

Messengers carried the order farther into the village.

The defenders began turning houses into temporary strongpoints. Crossbowmen climbed onto upper floors. Furniture was pushed into streets. Wagons were overturned to block narrow approaches.

For several minutes, the resistance stabilized.

Then more goblins appeared.

Mercer had no idea how many were entering through the eastern side, but every time one group was stopped, another appeared somewhere else.

Edric found him near the central lane.

"They’re on the southern wall now too."

"How many?"

Edric looked toward the smoke rising behind the houses.

"I stopped counting."

Mercer remembered asking him that same question upon reaching the village. The situation is worse than before.

A nearby roof caught fire.

Villagers formed a bucket line from a well, but arrows forced them away before they could control it. Flames spread into the wooden beams.

Lieutenant Doss appeared on foot with several surviving mounted scouts behind him.

"The horses are useless."

"Leave them."

"We lready did."

Doss pointed east.

"They’re opening sections of the wall from inside."

Mercer’s expression hardened.

"Then we are not getting the eastern quarter back."

Edric stared at him.

"You’re giving it up?"

"I’m saying we stop losing men trying to defend streets they already control."

The words clearly hurt Edric, but he did not argue.

Mercer pointed toward the center of the village.

"The square. How defensible?"

"Better than anything else left. Village hall on one side, temple on another. Narrow roads from east and south."

"A well?"

"In the center."

Mercer nodded.

"That is where we hold."

Edric hesitated.

"And the rest of Brackenford?"

Mercer looked toward the smoke.

"The rest is already gone. Preserve what we can."

They began organizing the withdrawal.

It was not a rout.

Mercer refused to allow that.

One squad held each intersection while another moved back. Once the second line was established, the first squad withdrew behind it. Crossbowmen fired from windows to slow pursuit.

The retreat was measured in streets.

A dozen houses.

Then another intersection.

Then another.

At one point, Mercer saw three goblins chasing civilians toward the square. He pulled six soldiers from the line and sent them after the attackers.

His lieutenant protested.

"We need those men here."

"We need those people alive too."

The squad reached the civilians just before the goblins did.

A heavy crash echoed somewhere behind them.

One of the eastern buildings collapsed into the road, sending sparks upward.

Edric looked around at the spreading flames.

"If this keeps going, the whole eastern quarter burns."

"It might."

"We can’t fight a fire and an army."

"Then we fight the army."

Another group of goblins appeared from a narrow lane. They screamed in their unfamiliar language and rushed toward the retreating soldiers.

The Caldris line turned.

Spears struck forward.

Two goblins fell.

A third jumped onto a barrel and launched itself over the spearpoints. It landed against a shield bearer and stabbed wildly until Doss struck it across the head.

"Fall back!" Mercer ordered.

They moved again.

By the time the defenders reached the central square, the village had changed beyond recognition.

The temple doors were open, and wounded soldiers lay across the floor inside. The village hall had been turned into a makeshift shelter for families. Children cried beneath tables while healers moved between injured guards and civilians.

Mercer immediately began reorganizing the remaining forces.

"Wagons across the eastern approach. Tables, carts, anything heavy on the southern road. Crossbows in upper windows. Spears behind every barricade."

Villagers obeyed without needing further explanation.

Furniture was dragged from nearby houses.

A grain cart was overturned across one street.

Another wagon blocked the road leading toward the well.

Doss gathered his surviving scouts and placed them near the northern approach.

Edric moved among the village guards, forcing men who had fought for hours to stand again.

Mercer found him near the temple.

"If this line breaks, we may have to evacuate."

Edric looked toward the civilians crowded inside.

"Through where?"

Mercer did not answer.

The eastern gate was gone.

The southern side was under attack.

The road back toward Eastwatch had been infested with goblins before they even reached Brackenford.

Edric looked back at him.

"Then we hold here."

Mercer nodded once.

"For as long as we can."

The final squads began arriving from the eastern streets.

Some carried wounded men between them.

Others arrived with only half the soldiers who had been assigned to their position.

The last group came running around a burning house with goblins visible behind them.

"Inside the barricade!"

The soldiers crossed.

Villagers dragged a heavy cart into place behind them.

Goblin figures appeared at the far end of the street but did not immediately charge.

More emerged from nearby alleys.

Then more appeared on rooftops.

The noise of the fighting across Brackenford gradually changed. Instead of scattered clashes, Mercer began hearing the same harsh voices gathering around the central district.

He climbed onto an overturned wagon and looked beyond the barricade.

Goblins occupied most of the eastern streets.

The palisade that was supposed to protect the village now stood behind them.

Smoke moved between the buildings.

Edric climbed beside him.

"How many men do you still have?"

Mercer looked at the soldiers forming around the square.

"A few but most have sustainedvaryi degree of injuries."

Behind them waited the wounded, the elderly, children, and families who had nowhere else to go.

Ahead, the goblins were gathering.

Brackenford had once been defended by an entire wall.

Now its remaining defenders held only the town center, surrounded by burning streets and an enemy that had pushed them back one block at a time.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!