My planet is infested with Goblins

By the time the eastern horizon began to pale, the Caldris camp no longer belonged to Caldris.

The last organized pockets of resistance had been broken during the night, and whatever remained of the human counteroffensive had fled west in fragments.

A few isolated soldiers were still being dragged from beneath overturned wagons or found hiding among collapsed tents, but there was no battle line left to fight. Viridian soldiers moved through the captured position in disciplined groups, extinguishing dangerous fires, checking abandoned shelters, and clearing the pathways between wagons.

The ground itself showed how violently the human army had come apart. Shields had been dropped wherever their owners decided they were too heavy to carry. Spears lay across trampled bedding. Crossbows had been abandoned beside empty ammunition cases. Packs, helmets, belts, tools, and pieces of armor formed an uneven trail toward the western road, as though the army had been shedding everything that slowed its escape.

Grand Marshal Rakhar Veyr entered the captured camp without ceremony.

He had changed neither his armor nor his expression since issuing the midnight assault.

Mud covered his boots, and dried blood marked the lower edge of one sleeve, though none of it appeared to be his. Officers followed him through the eastern perimeter where some of the hardest fighting had occurred. Several dead goblins still lay between the wagons while healers worked nearby on those who had survived.

Rakhar looked west.

"How many escaped?"

Field Commander Varek walked beside him.

"We do not know yet. The retreat broke apart once they reached the road. Some stayed with wagons. Others ran through the fields. Scouts saw groups entering the woods."

"How many remained together?"

"None large enough to call a formation by the time our forward troops stopped pressing."

Rakhar gave a slight nod.

That was the result he had wanted.

The human force had marched east as an army. It had fought as an army during the daylight battle. Even after suffering heavy casualties, its officers had still been able to form defensive lines during the first minutes of the night assault.

By the end, that army no longer existed.

Rakhar continued walking.

"Casualties."

"Still being counted."

"Preliminary."

Varek unfolded a small slate.

"Midnight assault only, seventy-one confirmed dead so far. One hundred and twelve wounded. Several units have not finished reporting."

Rakhar studied the numbers.

"Seriously wounded?"

"Twenty-six at present."

"Missing?"

"Fourteen. Most are probably in the outer camp or along the road."

Those losses were not insignificant, but they were far below what another full daylight engagement might have cost. The humans had been dangerous when standing behind complete spear formations with crossbows supporting them. During the night, those strengths had rarely existed for more than a few minutes at a time.

Rakhar glanced toward one section where dead humans and goblins lay mixed between two wagons.

"If we had waited until morning?"

Varek understood the question.

"They would have been gone."

"Or formed again before leaving."

"Yes."

Rakhar looked toward the whitening sky.

"Then the timing was just correct."

There was no satisfaction in his voice.

A correct decision did not restore dead soldiers.

He turned toward another officer.

"Recover our people first. Every unit accounts for its dead and wounded before noon. No body left in a ditch because someone was too tired to search properly."

"Yes, Grand Marshal."

"Humans?"

"Separate the living from the dead. Keep the prisoners guarded. The wounded who can survive without draining our medical stores can be treated."

The officer nodded.

Rakhar had no interest in turning the battlefield into needless slaughter after resistance had ended. A soldier with a spear trying to kill Viridian troops was an enemy. A man unconscious beneath a wagon was no longer changing the battle.

Ahead, the Reclamation Corps had already begun arriving.

Their appearance was almost as organized as a military deployment. Quartermasters marked sections of the captured camp while teams moved from wagon to wagon. Appraisers examined weapons before sorting them into piles. Salvage crews inspected damaged carts. Animal handlers approached frightened horses carefully, cutting away broken harnesses and leading surviving animals toward an improvised enclosure.

The Corps was carefully sorting important items to be scavenged.

Everything had a place.

Weapons went together.

Armor was separated by condition.

Food was counted.

Tools were catalogued.

Wagons were marked as usable, repairable, or worthless.

Rakhar passed one large pile where dozens of Caldris shields had already been stacked.

A Reclamation officer saluted.

"Grand Marshal."

"How much?"

"Too early for a complete count."

"Estimate."

"Enough supplies to support several thousand troops for days, assuming much of the food remains usable. More if their reserve wagons farther west were also abandoned."

Rakhar looked toward rows of captured carts.

"Wagons?"

"Twenty-three immediately usable. Eleven damaged but probably repairable. We are still searching."

"Horses?"

"Thirty-four recovered alive so far. Some are injured. At least twenty should remain useful after rest."

Rakhar’s gaze moved toward the animals.

The daylight cavalry charge had killed enough goblins that nobody in his army underestimated horses anymore.

"Keep every healthy one."

"Yes, Grand Marshal."

"Saddles and harnesses too."

The officer smiled faintly.

"We already separated them."

Rakhar nodded and moved on.

Another Reclamation team was cutting open supply crates. Dried food, medical cloth, tools, replacement leather, spare bowstrings, tent stakes, cooking equipment, and several barrels were being sorted into neat groups.

The irony was difficult to miss.

The Caldris counteroffensive had marched east carrying enough resources to sustain itself.

Now those same resources would sustain Viridian.

Rakhar stopped beside one captured wagon where several goblin soldiers were eating human bread while waiting for orders.

One immediately stood.

Rakhar waved him down.

"Eat."

The soldier sat again.

A campaign became easier when the enemy carried supplies directly into your territory.

Further into the camp, captured humans had been gathered under guard.

Most were wounded.

Several sat silently with bandages around limbs. Others stared at the goblins moving through what had been their army’s camp only hours earlier.

Rakhar gave them only a brief look.

Varek followed his gaze.

"About forty prisoners so far. More may be found."

"Keep them together."

"Interrogation?"

"Not now."

Varek glanced toward him.

Rakhar continued.

"We already know enough to fight them. I need my officers rebuilding units, not spending half the morning asking frightened prisoners questions."

Varek nodded.

"What about officers among them?"

"If someone obvious is important, keep him guarded. Otherwise they wait."

The campaign had passed the point where every scrap of human knowledge seemed precious.

Rakhar walked toward the western edge of the camp.

The evidence of the rout became clearer there.

The road was littered with discarded equipment.

A helmet lay crushed in the mud.

Several shields had been thrown into the ditch.

An empty crossbow rested beside a torn pack.

Farther away, one abandoned wagon had overturned partially off the road, its contents scattered across the grass.

A scout officer approached from the west.

"Grand Marshal."

"Report."

"We followed the road for roughly three miles."

"And?"

"They are everywhere."

Rakhar waited.

"Small groups. Some twenty. Some ten. Some fewer. Most are still moving west. We saw one larger concentration, perhaps sixty or seventy, around two wagons. Another group disappeared north into woodland."

"Any formation?"

"Not a proper one."

"Banners?"

"One. We lost sight of it after the group moved beyond a low ridge."

Rakhar looked farther west.

"How fast?"

"The groups without wounded are moving quickly. The wagons are slower."

"Any attempt to stop?"

"Not yet."

Rakhar nodded.

Varek stepped beside him.

"That should be enough."

Rakhar turned.

"Enough for what?"

"To end the pursuit. Their force is finished."

Rakhar looked back toward the road.

"They are finished here."

"They routed."

"Yes."

"They abandoned their camp."

"Yes."

Varek understood where the conversation was going and frowned slightly.

"You think they can reform?"

"Of course they can."

"They have no formation."

"They still have soldiers."

Rakhar pointed west.

"Give them a fortified town, an officer with authority, food, weapons, and a day to sleep, and some of those men become soldiers again."

Varek said nothing.

Rakhar continued.

"Broken is not destroyed."

The phrase spread quietly among the officers around him.

One younger commander stepped forward.

"Then we continue after them."

"With which troops?"

"My battalion can move."

"Your battalion fought yesterday afternoon and again tonight."

"We can still march."

Rakhar looked at him.

"That is not the same as being fit for pursuit."

The commander stiffened.

Rakhar did not raise his voice.

"I will not turn victory into stupidity because the enemy is running."

He gestured toward the captured camp.

"The men who fought need food, treatment, ammunition, and sleep. If I send exhausted troops chasing frightened humans through unknown ground, I create another problem."

The officer lowered his head.

"Yes, Grand Marshal."

Rakhar turned toward Varek.

"How many fresh troops remain near enough to move immediately?"

Varek considered.

"Several hundred who were held out of the heaviest fighting. More can be pulled from nearby forward elements."

"I want a mobile force."

"How large?"

"Large enough to break their will, small enough to move quickly."

Varek nodded.

"Light infantry. Scouts. Ranged units."

"And a professional infantry core in case something tries to stand."

"How many?"

Rakhar looked west once more.

"Five hundred."

Varek hesitated.

"That should be enough against the remnants."

"It is not being sent to fight another army."

Rakhar turned back toward him.

"It is being sent to make sure this one does not become an army again."

Preparation began immediately.

The selected units were pulled from reserve positions and nearby formations that had seen little or no combat during the night. They arrived at the captured camp with clean weapons, full ammunition, and the alert posture of soldiers who had spent the previous hours waiting rather than fighting.

Rakhar watched them assemble near the western road.

There was a visible difference between them and the troops cleaning the camp behind them.

The veterans of the night moved with exhaustion in their shoulders.

The fresh force moved quickly.

Scouts checked equipment.

Ranged troops inspected ammunition.

Light infantry carried fewer supplies than a normal march required.

They were not going west to occupy a city.

They were hunting something already wounded.

The pursuit commander, Captain Dravik Sorn, approached Rakhar.

"Orders?"

Rakhar looked at the road.

"Follow the western route and every major trail branching from it."

"Yes."

"Do not waste half a company chasing three humans through a forest."

Dravik nodded.

"If they scatter?"

"Let the smallest groups scatter."

Rakhar pointed toward the distance.

"If they gather, break them. If they form around wagons, break them. If they rally under a banner, break them. If an officer collects enough men to make a line, kill the line."

"Prisoners?"

"If taking them does not slow you."

"Pursuit limit?"

"If you meet a fortified position or another major enemy force, stop and report. You are not beginning another campaign by yourself."

Dravik saluted.

Rakhar studied the fresh formation.

Behind them, the Reclamation Corps continued stripping useful material from the captured camp. Viridian banners were already being raised where Caldris standards had stood. Human food was being moved into Viridian stores. Captured wagons were being repaired. Horses were being led away under new handlers.

The defeat had cost Viridian lives.

It had also given them ground, supplies, and momentum.

Rakhar looked west one final time.

The road disappeared between low hills, marked by abandoned equipment and the tracks of fleeing soldiers.

He had no interest in allowing those soldiers enough time to remember that they had once been an army.

"Captain."

Dravik faced him.

"Grand Marshal."

Rakhar’s expression remained flat.

"Whatever is left of that army, finish it."

Dravik saluted and turned.

Moments later, five hundred fresh Viridian soldiers began marching west, following the trail left by the routed Caldris force while the captured camp behind them was cleared, stripped, and absorbed into Viridian’s advancing war machine.

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