My planet is infested with Goblins

Captain Roland Mercer stood on the temple steps and counted the people who could still fight. The number was so small that he did not need a clerk, a roster, or even much time. Six soldiers of Second Company remained on their feet with him.

Two Brackenford guards leaned against the barricade despite wounds that should already have put them among the men inside the temple. Five villagers held axes, hunting spears, or weapons taken from the dead.

Behind them, the temple contained the wounded, the elderly, children, and civilians who had survived the retreat through Brackenford’s burning streets. Mercer had marched out of Eastwatch with one hundred and twenty professional soldiers, supported by Lieutenant Doss’s mounted scouts and the two guides who had originally carried Brackenford’s warning west. Doss was dead.

Tomas and Gareth were dead. Captain Edric had disappeared beneath the fighting in the southern street. Second Company had been reduced to a handful of exhausted men guarding a stone doorway while goblins occupied everything beyond it.

Across the square, the goblins were reorganizing. They no longer rushed forward in scattered groups. Small shield formations appeared at the mouths of the surrounding streets while ranged fighters climbed into the upper floors of buildings that had survived the fires.

Mercer watched officers moving between them, identifiable not because he understood their insignia but because other goblins responded immediately whenever they gestured.

The enemy knew that the defenders had nowhere left to retreat. There was no need for another reckless assault when a deliberate attack would finish what hours of fighting had already begun.

One of Mercer’s soldiers, a young spearman with half of his shield missing, looked toward the northern street.

"We could try to break through before they close completely."

Mercer shook his head.

"With the wounded, shluld we leave them behind?"

The soldier glanced toward the temple.

"No, Captain."

"What about the families?"

The man could not say anything.

Mercer tightened the strap around his damaged shield.

"Then we stay together. No one dies alone somewhere in these streets because we pretended there was still a road out."

The remaining soldiers quietly adjusted their positions. Nobody asked whether Eastwatch reinforcements were coming. After everything they had seen, even the most hopeful understood that another company could not possibly reach them before the goblins made their final move.

Mercer ordered the remaining crossbow bolts gathered and distributed to the two men who could still use them accurately. Several captured goblin weapons were passed to villagers whose own tools had broken.

The surviving shields were placed along the narrowest part of the approach, and the wounded guards were told to stand behind the first rank where they could thrust spears without placing weight on their injured legs.

The goblins began with ranged fire.

Bolts struck the carts and benches forming the barricade. Arrows shattered against the temple’s stone facade or disappeared through the doorway behind Mercer.

One civilian cried out when a projectile entered his shoulder and knocked him backward, but he dragged himself away from the opening rather than calling for help. The Caldris crossbowmen waited until the goblins advanced within clear range before firing. One attacker dropped immediately.

A second stumbled after a bolt entered its thigh, and another goblin pulled it toward cover.

Mercer watched the enemy line continue moving.

"Do not waste the rest."

The crossbowmen lowered their weapons.

The goblin infantry advanced behind small shields, their formation too loose to resemble Caldris troops but organized enough to protect the fighters behind them.

They approached the barricade without the screaming rush Mercer had seen earlier. Those carrying spears stayed slightly behind the shield bearers, while other goblins moved along the edges of the street looking for ways around the obstruction.

Mercer lifted his sword.

"Hold until they reach us."

The first shield struck the barricade.

The Caldris spears answered.

A goblin collapsed with a spearpoint through its throat. Another climbed onto an overturned bench and was smashed backward by a human shield. The narrow approach once again favored the larger defenders, and for several moments Mercer allowed himself to believe they might make the enemy pay an impossible price for the final few steps.

Then bolts began coming from the windows above them.

One of the six remaining Second Company soldiers jerked backward as a projectile entered the side of his neck. His spear slipped from his hands, and he fell against the temple wall without another sound.

Five soldiers remained.

The goblins pressed harder.

One crawled beneath the barricade and grabbed a defender’s ankle. The soldier stabbed downward, but another goblin reached through the opening and drove a blade into his leg. When he stumbled, three attackers forced their way through before Mercer and one of the Brackenford guards killed them.

The wounded soldier tried to stand.

His leg collapsed beneath him.

"Inside," Mercer ordered.

The man shook his head.

"If I go inside, somebody has to replace my position."

"You can’t stand already."

"I can sit and fight."

He dragged himself against the broken cart, braced his spear across his knees, and continued stabbing through the gap. Mercer did not waste breath arguing. There were no replacements.

The next attack came against the southern side of the barricade. Several goblins hooked ropes around one of the overturned carts while others fired continuously at the defenders. Mercer understood their plan too late.

"Cut the ropes!"

A villager rushed forward with an axe, but a bolt struck his chest before he reached them.

The goblins pulled the ropes.

The cart then shifted.

Another pull dragged it far enough to create a gap.

The attackers surged through.

The remaining defenders met them in a collision of shields, blades, and bodies. Mercer killed one goblin with a thrust beneath the chin and struck another across the face with his shield. Beside him, one of Second Company’s soldiers lost his spear and drew his sword, fighting at such close range that neither side could use longer weapons properly.

The goblin numbers decided the exchange.

The soldier disappeared beneath three attackers. A Brackenford guard tried to reach him and took a blade through the abdomen. He managed to kill the goblin responsible before another struck him from behind.

Mercer shouted for everyone to fall back toward the temple doors.

They retreated a few paces at a time, leaving the barricade to the enemy. The wounded spearman who could no longer stand remained behind. He stabbed one goblin through the stomach before another climbed over the cart and struck him repeatedly. Mercer saw the man disappear but forced himself to keep moving.

Only four Second Company soldiers remained with him by the time they reached the doorway.

The villagers dragged a heavy bench across part of the entrance, leaving enough space for two fighters to stand side by side. The temple’s stone walls prevented the goblins from surrounding them immediately, and the narrow doorway transformed the final battle into something brutally simple. The attackers had to come from the front.

The first two died.

The third forced a shield aside long enough for another goblin to stab one of Mercer’s soldiers beneath the arm.

The man collapsed inside the temple.

Three remained.

Another soldier took his place without being ordered.

Behind them, Mercer could hear wounded civilians praying, crying, or simply sitting in silence. He refused to look back. If he looked at the children gathered beneath the temple altar, he feared he would begin thinking about surrender, and he had no reason to believe surrender would be accepted.

The goblins came again.

A Brackenford guard who had been standing despite a blood-soaked bandage around his stomach drove his spear through one attacker, then another. A bolt struck the stone beside his head. The next entered his chest.

He remained upright for several seconds before sliding down the wall.

The final village guard stepped over him.

The distinction between Second Company, village guard, and civilian had almost ceased to matter. They were simply people holding the same doorway.

The next assault broke through.

One of Mercer’s soldiers was dragged outside. Another fell beside the entrance after a goblin blade entered through a split in his helmet. A farmer carrying an axe struck wildly until a spear caught him in the stomach.

Mercer retreated deeper into the temple with the final two soldiers of Second Company.

One of them looked around.

"Captain, are we the last?"

Mercer saw no other Eastwatch uniform standing.

"Yes."

The soldier breathed out.

"At least we made it to the village."

Mercer almost laughed at the absurdity of the statement.

"Yes. We did."

The goblins pushed through the doorway.

The soldier died first, struck by two spears while trying to keep the attackers away from the wounded. The final Second Company man fought beside Mercer near the center aisle until a bolt hit him in the face.

Mercer suddenly found himself alone.

He had known the moment was coming, but the silence beside him felt stranger than fear. No familiar uniform remained standing. Every man who had marched under his command from Eastwatch was dead somewhere between the forest road and the temple.

A goblin approached with a short spear.

Mercer parried it and drove his sword through the creature’s chest.

Another came from the side.

He struck it across the neck.

A third blade opened his arm.

Mercer backed against one of the stone pillars, breathing hard. His shield was gone, his sword felt impossibly heavy, and blood ran down his hand.

He remembered Second Company leaving Eastwatch in organized ranks. He remembered Halvern telling him to protect Brackenford and not become a hero. He remembered Tomas marking the forest roads on the map and warning that the goblins would see them before they saw the goblins.

Mercer raised his sword again.

The next goblin struck low, forcing him to turn. Another spear entered his side before he could recover. He killed the goblin holding it, but a second weapon struck his back. His knees finally gave way beneath him.

The last thing Mercer saw was the stone floor of Brackenford’s temple and several pairs of small armored feet moving past him.

With his death, Second Company ceased to exist.

The fighting ended soon afterward. Goblin troops searched the remaining buildings, secured the streets, and placed guards at the gates. Officers established watch positions facing west while scouts moved beyond the village to observe roads leading deeper into Caldris. Fires were extinguished wherever the buildings were considered useful, while structures already too damaged to save were allowed to burn themselves out.

Only after the military declared Brackenford secure did another Viridian organization enter.

They were known as the Reclamation Corps.

Viridian armies had learned centuries earlier that conquest accomplished little if everything taken from an enemy was destroyed, abandoned, or stolen randomly by soldiers. The Reclamation Corps followed combat formations into captured territory and determined what could be converted into military or imperial value. They were quartermasters, appraisers, record keepers, salvage specialists, and organized plunderers operating under formal authority. Ordinary soldiers were forbidden from taking valuable goods for themselves until the Corps had inspected and recorded the spoils.

Teams spread through Brackenford carrying ledgers, sacks, carts, and identification tags.

Enemy swords and spears were collected first. Caldris crossbows were separated for study. Armor was stripped from fallen soldiers if it remained usable. Coins found in the village hall, guardhouse, homes, and on the dead were counted and sealed into marked containers.

Food stores received equal attention.

Unburned grain was measured. Preserved meat was collected. Surviving livestock was gathered into pens. Tools, nails, rope, metal cookware, wagon parts, and woodworking equipment were inspected rather than dismissed as mundane objects.

Viridian could produce most of these things itself, but foreign construction methods still had value.

Written material received special treatment.

A Reclamation officer entered the village hall and found shelves containing tax records, merchant accounts, property documents, letters, and local maps. None of the goblins could read the Caldris script yet, but that made the documents more valuable rather than less.

"Anything written goes back intact," the officer ordered. "No burning and no using paper for packing."

Bundles of records were carefully placed into sealed crates.

The dead soldiers were searched for insignia, orders, keys, coins, and personal papers. Goblin casualties were handled differently. Their equipment was recovered, but identification marks were recorded so Viridian could preserve the names of those killed during the first battles on the foreign world.

By evening, Reclamation wagons stood in lines along Brackenford’s western road. They carried Caldris weapons, armor, coins, tools, preserved food, maps, letters, administrative records, and anything else judged useful enough to study or return to Viridian.

An officer checked each wagon against his ledger before allowing it to depart.

Behind them, goblin soldiers now occupied Brackenford’s walls.

Ahead, the wagons began traveling east toward the Viridian positions and, eventually, the portal leading home.

The first Caldris village taken by Viridian had resisted until no soldier remained alive to defend it. Now its weapons, wealth, supplies, and knowledge were being catalogued and carried away, becoming the first spoils of a war that had only just begun.

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