My planet is infested with Goblins

Chapter 87: The Road to the Center

The western Viridian force expected another battle the moment it moved beyond the positions abandoned by Caldris, but the streets ahead remained strangely quiet.

Shield-bearers advanced at the front of the column with their weapons ready while crossbowmen moved behind them and scouts spread through adjoining roads, yet no organized human formation appeared to meet them.

The western commander had grown accustomed to fighting for every intersection, every barricade, and every section of battlement.

The absence of resistance made him more cautious rather than less. He ordered the first companies to halt at the edge of a broad street while scouts moved farther ahead, checking windows, alleys, courtyards, and connecting roads for signs of an ambush.

The reports returned one after another, and every one said nearly the same thing. Caldris soldiers had passed through the area recently, but they had not stayed.

Abandoned wagons blocked parts of the road. Blood marked several doorways where wounded men had apparently been treated before being moved again.

Weapons, broken shields, and bundles of supplies lay scattered across the street, but there were no large formations waiting behind them. A few distant soldiers had been seen retreating eastward or toward the deeper districts of Eastwatch, yet none appeared willing to establish another defensive line.

The commander frowned at the empty road and looked toward one of his officers. "Check the parallel streets again. If they want us to run into something, I want to know before half the column is inside it."

"We already double checked."

"Then check them again."

The officer salute and moved away. The commander had already seen too many positions that looked weak until Caldris crossbowmen appeared from upper windows or professional infantry struck from behind barricades.

He had no intention of losing hundreds of soldiers because the humans had suddenly emerges from their hiding spots.

The third reconnaissance produced nothing different.

Only then did he order the advance resumed.

Viridian formations moved deeper into western Eastwatch in disciplined columns. The first major intersection they reached had once been prepared for defense. Two wagons had been overturned across one side of the road, and timber had been stacked beside them, but the barricade was incomplete.

Tools remained on the ground where laborers had apparently abandoned their work. No soldiers guarded it.

Goblin engineers dragged the unfinished obstruction aside.

The army continued.

The next street was empty as well.

Then the next.

After hours in which every few yards of ground had demanded blood, the western force was suddenly marching through a city that seemed to be withdrawing ahead of them faster than they could reach it.

The commander began to understand what had happened. Caldris had not prepared a proper second western front after abandoning the outer defenses. The troops that might have built one were being shifted elsewhere.

To the north, the original breakthrough had pushed large Viridian formations toward the center, forcing Caldris to gather troops against them. To the south, another gate had fallen, and thousands of goblins were entering Eastwatch from a completely different direction.

The eastern front, which had consumed much of the city’s attention since dawn, had finally collapsed under pressure from outside, north, and south. Every crisis seemed greater than the western retreat because the western defenders had at least withdrawn in an organized manner.

That very assumption had created a corridor.

The western commander did not announce the realization to the entire army, but he changed his orders. "Increase the pace. Keep formations intact. Every major intersection gets a holding company, but the main body does not stop."

The movement accelerated.

Shield-bearing infantry still led, but the spacing between companies tightened. Crossbowmen remained alert for windows and rooftops. Small detachments peeled away at crossroads, occupying stone buildings or broad intersections so the route behind the main force remained open. Supply carriers followed later, marking the path back toward the western wall.

The column passed an abandoned Caldris supply station not long afterward. Barrels of water remained stacked beneath canvas coverings. Bundles of crossbow bolts had been left beside a wagon missing one wheel.

Medical cloth, grain sacks, and several crates filled a nearby courtyard. The western commander ordered a small detachment to secure the position, but the rest of the force continued without slowing.

"We take what is useful after the road is secure," he told the officer responsible for the rear formations. "I do not want two thousand soldiers stopping because someone found a warehouse."

The officer laughed briefly. "They will complain."

"They can complain while marching."

Farther ahead, the scouts finally reported human soldiers.

The western commander immediately slowed the front companies and moved forward to see the situation himself. Several dozen Caldris troops were standing near another intersection, some wounded, others carrying mismatched shields and weapons.

They did not resemble a properly organized company. They looked like remnants of several units that had collided while withdrawing.

The humans saw the Viridian column emerging from the street.

They looked behind themselves.

Then they hurriedly retreated.

One goblin officer started to order pursuit, but the commander stopped him. "Leave them. We will meet them again. They have Nowhere to go."

The column continued.

The deeper they moved, the clearer the signs of Caldris’s retreat became. Some homes stood open because their occupants had fled in a hurry. Market stalls had been abandoned with goods still inside.

Wounded soldiers rested against walls until companions dragged them away after hearing Viridian horns approaching. Civilians carrying sacks, children, or whatever possessions they could manage hurried eastward and southward whenever the goblins appeared.

The commander repeatedly ordered his soldiers not to break formation.

Nobody was to chase civilians.

Nobody was to enter houses unless the buildings controlled a strategically useful position.

Nobody was to loot.

The western force had been given something far more valuable than abandoned property: an open road toward the heart of Eastwatch.

Their progress soon became almost unnerving.

Another unfinished barricade was bypassed.

A defensive post built around a stone fountain stood empty.

A small watch station had been abandoned so recently that food still sat on a table.

The commander began receiving reports from messengers sent between the western force and the broader Viridian command. The news confirmed what he was already seeing.

The northern central formation was still encountering organized resistance.

The southern troops were expanding from their newly opened gate.

Rakhar’s eastern army was occupying the collapsed eastern sector and beginning its own inward movement.

The western formation had moved farther than all of them.

The commander stopped briefly at a broad intersection where four roads met and studied the crude city map his officers had assembled from captured signs, local markings, and observations made during the advance. The streets ahead widened noticeably. Larger stone buildings appeared beyond the residential blocks. Rooflines became higher and more regular.

"We are close," one officer said.

"To the center?"

"At least the outer central district."

The commander folded the map. "Then we do not assume it stays empty."

The first real delaying position appeared shortly afterward.

Caldris soldiers had constructed a barricade across one of the broad roads using carts and heavy tables dragged from nearby buildings. Crossbowmen occupied windows above it, and perhaps a hundred defenders stood behind the obstruction.

Compared with earlier battles, it was a small force, but it was the first organized resistance the western column had encountered in some time.

Viridian shield-bearers formed immediately.

Crossbowmen moved to cover.

The commander watched the humans carefully.

They looked exhausted.

Several wore bandages. Others carried shields bearing markings from different units. Whatever force had gathered there had been assembled from survivors rather than prepared reserves.

A human officer shouted something down the line, and the crossbowmen fired.

Viridian shields rose.

Bolts struck wood.

Goblin crossbowmen answered.

The exchange lasted less than a minute before the human officer looked toward the side streets and apparently reached the same conclusion the western commander had. His force was too small. Viridian could simply move around them.

The Caldris defenders withdrew before the goblins launched a full assault.

A few remained long enough to fire another volley and then followed his comrades.

The western commander ordered engineers to open enough space in the barricade for the column.

"No pursuit."

An officer beside him glanced toward the retreating humans. "They are giving us free reign."

"Their soldiers cannot hold these roads."

The army moved through.

By then, the character of Eastwatch had changed around them. The cramped residential streets of the outer western district began opening into wider avenues. Administrative buildings appeared between fortified compounds.

Storehouses gave way to stone offices, military structures, and larger plazas. Statues and public fountains stood in spaces meant for crowds rather than defense.

Viridian scouts returned with increasingly important reports.

One had found a government records building abandoned except for clerks fleeing through a rear entrance.

Another had spotted a large military compound but only a small rear guard remained there.

A third reported that the broad road ahead continued directly into what appeared to be Eastwatch’s central administrative district.

Still no army stood across it.

The western commander finally understood just how far his formation had advanced.

"We are ahead of the north?"

"Yes."

"The south?"

"By a large margin."

"Rakhar’s eastern force?"

"They only recently started moving inward."

The commander looked down the broad road.

For the first time that day, Viridian was not merely responding to a defensive line or exploiting a breach. His force was approaching the heart of Eastwatch before the humans had properly decided who should defend it.

A messenger was dispatched immediately toward Rakhar.

The western army continued moving while the report traveled.

At each important intersection, another company remained behind. Crossbowmen occupied upper floors overlooking the road. Engineers marked routes suitable for wagons and supply carts. The main body grew slightly smaller with every position secured, but thousands still marched toward the center.

The messenger reached Rakhar while the Grand Marshal was overseeing the occupation of the eastern approaches. He listened silently as the runner reported that the western force had encountered almost no organized resistance and had already reached the outer central districts.

Varek looked surprised. "They are farther inward than us?"

"Much farther," the messenger replied.

Rakhar studied Eastwatch for a moment before answering. "Tell them to continue. No reckless chase, no scattering, and no unsupported rush toward important buildings. Secure the road behind them as they advance."

The messenger saluted and departed.

Rakhar looked toward the city. "Caldris looked like they are lost."

The western commander received Rakhar’s reply near the edge of a broad plaza.

Ahead stood larger buildings than any his soldiers had passed since entering the city. Some carried official banners. Others were surrounded by walls and courtyards. Roads from several directions converged through the district, making it obvious that this was no ordinary neighborhood.

His scouts returned again.

"No major formation on the western approach."

"Nothing?"

"Scattered defenders. Officials. Wounded. Some soldiers withdrawing deeper. No proper line."

The commander looked toward the center of Eastwatch.

Behind him stretched a long corridor of streets, intersections, and captured positions all the way back toward the western wall. Viridian banners marked the route. Supply detachments were already beginning to move along it.

The north was still fighting its way inward.

The south was still expanding from its gate.

The east had only recently collapsed.

Yet the western army had reached the center first.

The commander raised his hand and pointed forward.

"Keep moving. We take the road while it is still empty."

Thousands of goblins marched into central Eastwatch beneath Viridian banners, passing government buildings and broad stone avenues without encountering the army they had expected to fight. Caldris had concentrated its strength against the loudest threats around the city, and the gap left in the west had become the fastest route toward its heart.

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