My planet is infested with Goblins

Chapter 61: The News Reaches Eastwatch

Eastwatch had not been quiet since Colonel Alaric Veyne marched east with eight hundred soldiers, but the fortress-city had changed in the days since his departure.

The roads beneath the walls were crowded with carts carrying grain, livestock, barrels, timber, and families arriving from settlements closer to the spreading violence.

Militia companies drilled in courtyards that had previously been used for markets, while smiths worked from before sunrise until late in the evening repairing old helmets and fitting spearheads to newly cut shafts.

Along the walls, engineers inspected towers that had not faced a serious attack in generations.

Lord Governor Marcellan Rusk had ordered preparation before knowing whether Alaric would succeed, and every day without a message made those preparations feel less like caution and more like necessity.

General Cedric Halvern stood over a large map inside the command hall while Marcellan watched an officer move markers between eastern settlements.

Alaric’s column had been expected to send riders whenever circumstances allowed, yet the most recent messages had stopped before the force reached its deepest advance.

Halvern had spent most of the morning refusing to speculate about what that silence meant.

Marcellan had suggested that Alaric might simply be pressing farther east and unwilling to weaken his mounted scouts by sending messengers backward.

Halvern had answered that Alaric was too experienced to disappear without reason.

"If he were winning, he would want us to know where he was," Halvern said as he moved one wooden marker representing Alaric’s force.

"If he were withdrawing, he would want us to prepare the road and receive wounded."

Marcellan folded his arms. "You believe something happened?"

"I believe something happens when an army stops returning our messages."

The doors of the command hall opened before Marcellan could respond. A guardsman entered quickly, stopped before the table, and bowed.

"My lord, General, a rider has arrived from the east. Military messenger. His horse nearly collapsed at the gate."

Halvern straightened immediately. "Bring him here."

The messenger entered several minutes later supported by a guardsman. Dust covered his cloak and face, and his boots were stained with dried mud.

He still wore the insignia of Alaric’s column. More importantly, a leather case had been secured beneath his tunic rather than tied to his saddle. He saluted Halvern with an unsteady hand.

"Colonel Veyne ordered this delivered to Eastwatch."

Halvern took the case personally and opened it on the map table. Several folded sheets had been protected inside. Alaric’s handwriting filled most of them, supplemented by brief notes from officers and crude sketches of the battlefield. Halvern read quickly at first, then returned to the beginning and slowed down.

Marcellan watched his expression. "What does it say?"

Halvern placed one hand on the table. "They fought the enemy army."

"How large?"

"Approximately fifteen hundred in the force that offered battle."

Marcellan’s eyes moved to the marker representing Alaric’s eight hundred. "Nearly twice his number."

"Did he lose?"

The messenger answered before Halvern could. "Not during the day, my lord. We held until nightfall."

Halvern looked at him. "Tell us what you saw."

The messenger swallowed before speaking. "They were already waiting when we reached open ground. Not hiding in the woods. They formed openly. Infantry in blocks, ranged troops behind them, reserves farther back. Colonel Veyne formed us on a low rise. We fought for most of the day."

Marcellan stared at him. "Goblins stood against professional infantry in open ground?"

"Yes, my lord."

Halvern continued reading. The casualty estimates were preliminary, but they were severe. More than a hundred confirmed dead, nearly two hundred wounded, and additional soldiers missing. The cavalry had lost horses. Crossbow ammunition had fallen dangerously low. The report described goblin formations absorbing human attacks, rotating tired soldiers, and sending fresh ranks forward while Alaric’s smaller force exhausted itself.

Marcellan moved closer. "What does he recommend?"

"He does not recommend another advance in this report. He intended to withdraw."

Marcellan looked toward the messenger. "When did you leave?"

"Before the withdrawal began. Colonel Veyne ordered me west with the report."

Halvern tapped the paper with one finger. "This force of fifteen hundred cannot be everything the enemy had."

Marcellan frowned. "Why?"

"Because Alaric saw reserves even after hours of fighting. The earlier attacks happened across several parts of the province at the same time. Brackenford was occupied. Patrols were hit elsewhere. If fifteen hundred stood against Alaric openly, there must be additional forces supporting them."

"How many?"

Halvern shook his head. "I have no idea."

The uncertainty settled heavily over the room. Marcellan had been prepared to hear that Alaric had met several hundred goblins. He had even been prepared to hear that the counteroffensive had suffered a difficult battle.

What stood before him now was proof that the enemy had enough troops to commit fifteen hundred soldiers to one open engagement without abandoning everything else happening across the east.

A second disturbance outside the command hall interrupted them. Voices rose, followed by boots approaching at a hurried pace. Another guardsman entered.

"There is another rider from Colonel Veyne’s column."

Halvern and Marcellan exchanged a look.

"Bring him."

The second messenger looked worse than the first. One sleeve had been cut away and replaced by a blood-stained bandage, while a shallow wound crossed his forehead. He refused a chair until Halvern ordered him to sit.

"Where is Colonel Veyne?" Halvern asked.

The messenger lowered his eyes. "I do not know, General."

The room became completely still.

"When did you last see him?"

"During the night. We were preparing to withdraw before dawn."

Halvern’s expression tightened. "Preparing?"

"The goblins attacked before we could leave."

Marcellan stepped forward. "The same force from the day’s battle?"

"No, my lord. Some may have been, but there were fresh soldiers. Hundreds of them. They came into the camp while most of our men were resting or reorganizing for the withdrawal."

The first messenger looked toward him in disbelief.

Halvern did not move. "Continue."

"Our sentries warned us before they reached the tents, so they did not catch everyone sleeping. We formed lines on the eastern and northern sides. We held at first, but the camp was already being packed.

Companies were mixed. Wounded men had been loaded into wagons. Ammunition had been redistributed. The goblins kept attacking different sections before we could form one complete line."

"Was the camp lost before you departed?"

"Parts of it. The eastern line had begun falling back. The north was worse. Colonel Veyne was preparing to get the wounded west."

Marcellan asked quietly, "Why were you sent away?"

"The colonel ordered messages carried separately. I left before the entire camp was lost."

Halvern placed both hands on the table and looked down at the map. He had commanded men long enough to understand what the messenger had not seen.

An exhausted force, already carrying hundreds of casualties, attacked in darkness while preparing to retreat was in exactly the condition where discipline could disappear rapidly. Alaric might have restored order.

Halvern wanted to believe he had. Nothing in the second messenger’s account justified that belief.

He was about to question the rider further when another officer entered the command hall. "General, the eastern gate is reporting soldiers returning from the column."

Halvern looked up immediately. "How many?"

The officer hesitated. "Seven so far."

"Seven hundred?"

"Seven men."

Marcellan stared at him.

"They did not arrive together," the officer continued. "Two came first. Three followed from another road. Another pair reached the wall less than an hour later. One has no weapon. Several are wounded."

Halvern closed his eyes briefly before giving his next order. "Bring anyone capable of speaking into the lower hall. Record names, units, where they last saw the main force, and what direction they traveled. Feed them before questioning if they need it."

The picture worsened through the afternoon.

More survivors reached Eastwatch, but never as a company, platoon, or even organized squad. They arrived in twos and threes. Some had walked for days.

One cavalryman came without a horse and could not explain where he had lost it. A spearman had discarded almost every piece of equipment except a knife and water flask. Their accounts varied in detail, but they repeated the same sequence.

The camp collapsed. Men fled toward the western road. Goblin troops pursued. Wagons became separated. Some soldiers ran into the fields. Others disappeared into the woods. Nobody had seen a large organized Caldris formation after the retreat began.

By evening, Marcellan stood beside Halvern again while a clerk added another handful of survivors to a growing list. "How many have returned?"

"Thirty-four confirmed from Alaric’s column."

"Out of eight hundred."

"So far."

"You believe more will come."

"I believe some will."

Marcellan looked at the marker on the map. "Alaric?"

"No confirmed sighting after the rout began."

"Joren Bale?"

"Missing as well."

Marcellan’s expression hardened. "Do we declare them dead?"

"No. We have no bodies and no witnesses. They remain missing. But we stop expecting as though Alaric will arrive tomorrow with five hundred men behind him."

Halvern removed Alaric’s marker from the eastern road.

Marcellan watched him. "How many professional troops can we still concentrate around Eastwatch without stripping every other position?"

"Not enough for another expedition of this size unless we weaken the places we are supposed to defend."

"Give me an answer."

Halvern named the available forces from memory, subtracting garrisons that could not safely move, men already lost, wounded soldiers, and units guarding roads and crossings. The result was far below what Marcellan had hoped.

"We cannot send another eight hundred east," Halvern finished. "Not now, and certainly not to fight them on open ground."

Marcellan walked toward the map. "Then what do you recommend?"

"We stop meeting them where they choose. Fortified towns, rivers, narrow crossings, walls, prepared positions. We concentrate men instead of scattering them through every village. Settlements that cannot be defended evacuate west. Food and livestock move with them. Bridges we cannot hold are prepared for destruction."

"And the smaller posts?"

"Withdraw the professionals. Militia can delay refugees long enough to evacuate, but I will not leave trained soldiers isolated where a thousand goblins can surround fifty men."

Marcellan nodded slowly. "Issue it."

Halvern began immediately. Orders went to the eastern settlements still reachable. Granaries were to transfer reserve grain toward defended towns. Smiths received priority contracts for weapons and armor. Militia companies were ordered toward predetermined strongpoints instead of remaining dispersed.

Engineers were sent to inspect bridges and river crossings. Another warning was prepared for neighboring provinces, this one no longer describing raids or an uncertain incursion. It stated plainly that a major Caldris counteroffensive had likely been destroyed and that organized hostile forces were operating in strength across the eastern province.

Marcellan eventually walked with Halvern to the eastern wall as daylight began fading. Below them, another group of refugees approached the gate alongside three limping soldiers.

Beyond those figures stretched the same road Alaric had used when marching east with eight hundred men.

Now almost nobody returned along it.

Marcellan rested both hands on the stone parapet. "The king may not even have received our first complete warning yet."

"And even if he has, royal troops are still weeks away."

"So we hold without them."

Halvern watched the eastern horizon for a long moment before answering. "We hold with whatever we have."

Another wagon passed beneath the gate carrying wounded civilians. Behind it came a soldier without a helmet, leaning on a farmer’s cart to remain upright.

Marcellan looked east again. "Do you think the goblins will come here?"

Halvern’s gaze remained fixed on the road.

"It is no longer whether they can."

He pointed toward the refugees and scattered survivors approaching the walls.

"The next organized army we see coming from that direction may not be ours."

As night settled over Eastwatch, bells called militia units to another round of preparations.

Men carried supplies into storage, engineers worked by torchlight along the walls, and messengers departed toward every defensible position still connected to the provincial capital.

Far to the east, Alaric Veyne and the last men who had remained with him were already dead, though Eastwatch did not yet know of it.

What Marcellan and Halvern did know was enough: the counteroffensive had vanished, the eastern road stood open, and the province now had to prepare for the army that had destroyed it.

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