Yf Split City

Chapter 10

Chapter 10 · 3,386 words

# Chapter 10: The Wall Holds

The drums stopped an hour before dawn.

Kael felt the silence before he registered it. Through Rat-2's ears (the larger rat pressed flat against a rooftop tile near the eastern gate) the absence was a physical thing. The distant thudding that had been the war-band's heartbeat for two days. Gone.

He opened his human eyes.

The eastern wall loomed in the pre-dawn light. Its inner face was a patchwork of fresh stone and packed mud, the repairs he'd made through the night holding against the settling weight of the structure. A bandage on a wound that needed surgery. But the bandage was all he had.

He was on the inner side of the wall, crouched behind a pile of rubble that had once been a storage shed. The tannery worker's clothes were stiff with dried sweat. His hands were caked in mud and old blood. Grit had ground into the cracks in his palms hours ago and stayed.

His nose was still bleeding. Thin, intermittent, the blood warm on his upper lip.

He didn't wipe it.

Rat-3 was in the drainage channel below. The small female rat had returned to her position in the sewer monitoring point after the night's work, but Kael had pulled her forward again. She was at the grate now, her body pressed against the rusted iron, her whiskers reading the air. The drainage channel was dark and wet. The smell was more than mud and standing water. It was goblins. The musk of them, sour and animal, leaching through the channel from the forest side.

The goblin-body was in the treeline south of the cleared ground. Still crouched in the undergrowth near the oldest oak, maintaining the false trail's origin point. Its yellow eyes tracked movement in the dark. Through its vision, Kael saw the world in heat-shifted colour: the warm mass of the forest floor, the cooler trunks of the trees, the faint glow of living wood. And beyond the treeline, in the drainage ditch, shapes.

The goblin-body's pulse quickened. Kael felt it in his chest, a double-beat that was not his own.

Movement in the drainage channel.

He counted. One. Himself. Against the wall. Hands bleeding. Nose bleeding. Body a wreck but still standing. Two. Rat-2. Rooftop near the eastern gate. Low-angle view of the wall and the cleared ground. Three. Rat-3. Drainage grate. Close to the action. The most dangerous position. Four. The goblin. Treeline. Maintaining the fiction.

Four bodies. One plan.

The drums had stopped. That meant the war-band was in position.

Kael's human hands found a chunk of broken stone, the edges sharp against his raw palms. He positioned it beside him, within reach. More debris in the pile behind him. Stones, broken mortar, a length of rotted timber. Enough to keep patching if the wall started to give.

He felt the goblin-body shift. Its head turned. Through its eyes, he saw the drainage ditch: a dark gash in the earth, the water shallow, the banks trampled. And in the ditch, the first goblin.

It was smaller than the scout. Leaner. Its skin was a paler shade of grey, with patches of dark lichen growing on its shoulders. It carried a rusted blade, the edge nicked and uneven, and moved with a crouched, predatory gait that was all economy. No wasted motion. Every step placed with the precision of something that had been hunting in this terrain since before it could walk.

Behind it, a second. Then a third. Then the channel filled.

Kael counted. The goblin's memories supplied the numbers: sixteen. Three crossbows. The rest blades and clubs. They came up the drainage channel in a loose file, their feet finding the same stones, the same gaps, the same shallow water. They moved like a single organism, the whole body of them flowing around obstacles, the gaps between them constant.

They were tired. Kael could see it in the droop of their shoulders, the way some of them stumbled on the uneven ground. Six days of marching. Low on supplies. Driven south by something behind them that they feared more than the wall ahead.

But they were still goblins. And there were sixteen of them.

---

The first crossbow bolt hit the wall.

It struck the outer face, the stone deflecting it at an angle, and it skittered across the cleared ground, spinning. A second followed. Then a third. The guards on the wall shouted, the alarm that had been sounding for half a day now collapsing into raw, immediate action.

Kael's human body stayed still.

Through Rat-2's eyes, he watched the guards scramble to their positions. The young guard from the watchpost was there, his face pale, his sword drawn. He was shouting something, his voice swallowed by the noise of boots on stone and the scrape of weapons being pulled from scabbards. Other guards had joined him. Six. Eight. A sergeant with a grey beard was barking orders, pointing at the drainage channel, at the treeline, at the wall's weak section.

They knew the goblins were coming. They didn't know where.

The false trail had done its work. The war-band had approached from the drainage channel, not the south. The half-day delay had been a hope, not a certainty. The guard's attention was split. They were watching the south, watching the treeline, watching the gate.

They weren't watching the foundation.

Kael's human hands closed around a chunk of stone.

The first goblin crested the drainage channel's bank and charged.

It was fast. Faster than Kael had expected. The goblin's body was built for this: short legs that ate ground in quick, powerful strides, a low center of gravity that made it hard to hit. It crossed the cleared ground in seconds, its rusted blade held low, its yellow eyes fixed on the wall's weak section.

The sergeant saw it. "East! East wall! They're on the —"

The goblin hit the wall.

The impact shuddered through the stone. Kael felt it through Rat-3's body, the small rat pressed against the grate below, the vibration passing through the iron bars and into her bones. The goblin slammed into the wall's outer face, its blade finding the crack that Kael had packed with mud hours ago, and the mud gave.

Not all of it. But enough.

A chunk of packed earth fell away. The goblin's blade bit into the gap and twisted.

Kael's human body was already moving.

He hauled the stone from the pile, his arms screaming, his hands slipping on the grit, and pressed it into the inner face of the wall. The gap was widening. The mortar that Rat-3 had packed from below was crumbling under the pressure of the goblin's assault. Kael forced the stone into the space, his palms scraping against the rough edges, and the stone held.

Below, through Rat-3's body, Kael felt the vibration of more goblins entering the drainage channel.

The rat was already moving. Kael sent her deeper into the tunnel. Her small body squeezed through gaps too tight for goblin hands, her paws finding purchase on wet stone. The tunnel curved under the wall, the ceiling low, the air thick with the smell of mud and goblin musk. She reached the point where the foundation met the packed earth (the same spot Rat-3 had reinforced through the night) and Kael felt the structure above her.

The wall was bowing.

Not visibly. Not yet. But the pressure from the outer face was transferring through the stone, and the foundation was taking the load. Rat-3's reinforcement had been a stopgap. The structural weakness remained.

Kael sent the rat forward. Her small body found the loose earth under the goblins' feet.

---

The first assault wave stumbled.

The collapse was quiet. Simple. A handspan of earth giving way. Rat-3, working from below, pulled at the packed earth that supported the drainage channel's bank (the same earth the goblins were running across). The rat's claws found the soft spots, the places where water had eroded the soil, and she dug.

The bank shifted. Not much. A handspan of earth giving way, the stones above it settling into the gap.

The goblin charging behind the first one (a leaner creature with a rusted crossbow slung across its back) put its foot on the shifting ground and stumbled. Its ankle twisted. Its momentum carried it forward, its body pitching into the mud, its crossbow clattering against the stones.

The goblin behind it stumbled too. Then the one behind that.

The gap between the first goblin and the second widened. The sergeant saw it and shouted, and two guards with spears moved to fill the space.

Kael, through Rat-2's eyes from the rooftop, watched the first goblin hit the wall again. The second assault. The blade found the same crack, twisted, and this time the mud held better. The reinforcement from above and below (Kael's stone and Rat-3's packed earth) absorbed the impact.

The goblin snarled. It pulled its blade free and struck again.

The wall held.

But the third strike, Kael saw, would find a different gap. The crack was widening. The stone he'd wedged into the inner face was shifting under the pressure, the mortar crumbling. The stopgap was holding, but the structural weakness was worsening.

He needed time.

Through the goblin-body, he moved.

---

The goblin-body rose from the treeline.

Its lopsided gait carried it forward, out of the undergrowth, into the dawn light. The guards on the wall saw a goblin emerging from the forest, moving toward the battle. The sergeant pointed. A crossbowman raised his weapon.

The goblin-body kept moving.

Kael didn't have words for what he was doing. He had intent. It was distributed across four bodies, each acting in a sequence his conscious mind couldn't have planned. The goblin-body's muscle memory supplied the gait: wrong-footed, heavy, the same dragging stride that had created the false trail. To the guards, it looked like a goblin approaching from the south, a straggler from the false trail's origin point, joining the assault.

But the goblin-body didn't join the assault.

It angled toward the wall's weak section, where the first goblin was still hammering at the crack. The guards on the wall hesitated. Two goblins. One at the wall, one approaching. The crossbowman shifted his aim.

Kael, through the goblin-body's yellow eyes, saw the first goblin turn.

The war-band goblin's face was a mask of confusion and aggression. It saw another goblin approaching: same grey-green skin, same cracked fissures, same lopsided gait. For one critical second, it didn't attack. It was trying to identify the newcomer. Trying to understand why a member of its own war-band was approaching from the south instead of the drainage channel.

The goblin-body closed the distance.

Its heavy fist caught the war-band goblin in the side of the head. The impact was wet and solid, a crunch of bone and cartilage. The war-band goblin went down, its blade clattering against the stone. The goblin-body didn't stop. It turned, its yellow eyes finding the next target: a goblin with a crossbow, raising the weapon, its finger on the trigger.

The goblin-body charged.

From the wall, a guard shouted: "What in the —"

The goblin-body slammed into the crossbow goblin, its weight carrying them both into the mud. The crossbow fired, the bolt punching into the ground a handspan from Kael's human body's position on the inner side of the wall. Kael felt the vibration through the stone.

His human hands didn't stop moving. Stone. Mud. Stone. He was packing debris into the inner face, his palms bleeding, his vision narrowing at the edges. The grey was creeping in again. He blinked it back.

The goblin-body was fighting.

Kael felt it through the link: the alien pleasure of combat, the goblin's rage-flood surging through the body's muscles, the satisfying crunch of fist against bone. It was disturbing. The goblin-body enjoyed this. The violence was an end in itself.

But the body was Kael's to direct. And he directed it toward the wall.

The goblin-body rose from the mud, its fist still wet with blood, and placed itself between the weak section and the next wave of attackers. Two goblins were coming, blades drawn, their eyes fixed on the body that had betrayed them. They didn't understand what they were seeing. A goblin fighting goblins. It was wrong. Everything about it was wrong.

The goblin-body braced.

Kael, through Rat-2's eyes, watched the battle unfold. The guards on the wall were taking advantage of the confusion. The sergeant had rallied three spearmen and was pushing toward the weak section, exploiting the gap that the goblin-body's betrayal had created. The young guard from the watchpost was beside him, his face white, his sword shaking, but he was holding the line.

Through Rat-3's body in the drainage channel, Kael felt the tunnel floor vibrating. More goblins were coming. The main body of the war-band was still in the channel, pressing forward, and Rat-3's sabotage had only bought seconds.

He sent the rat deeper. Her small body found another soft spot in the bank, another patch of earth that water had eroded. She dug.

The bank shifted again. A goblin slipped, its ankle twisting, its body falling into the shallow water. The one behind it stumbled, the file breaking apart, the momentum stalling.

Seconds. Each one precious.

Kael's human body pressed another stone into the wall. His hands were shaking. The grey at the edges of his vision was spreading. He couldn't tell if the wall was holding because of his repairs or because the goblins hadn't hit it hard enough yet.

The goblin-body took a blade to the shoulder.

Kael felt it as a sharp, alien pain. It was transmitted through the link, a hot spike that lanced through the goblin's arm and into the network. The goblin-body grunted, its fist coming up, connecting with the attacker's jaw. The goblin that had stabbed it went down, but the blade was still in the body's shoulder, embedded between the collarbone and the joint.

The goblin-body pulled it out.

The wound was deep. Black blood welled from the cut, thick and slow. The goblin-body's face was blank. It didn't feel pain the way Kael's human body did. The goblin's nervous system processed injury differently. A dull ache instead of sharp agony. A distance from the wound that Kael found deeply unsettling.

The body kept fighting.

Kael, through Rat-2's eyes, saw Captain Dren Holst arrive at the eastern wall.

---

The captain was short. He moved like someone who had spent years learning to take up space. His armour was plain leather and steel. His face was lined with the exhaustion of decades holding a line that no one thanked him for holding. He reached the wall's weak section at a run, his sword drawn, his eyes scanning the chaos.

He saw the goblin-body.

Kael felt the weight of Dren's gaze through the goblin-body's eyes. The captain was staring at the creature: a goblin fighting alongside the guard, its shoulder bleeding black blood, its yellow eyes fixed on the next target. Dren's jaw tightened. His hand moved to his sword. But he didn't strike.

He was watching.

Kael redirected the goblin-body. It turned, its lopsided gait carrying it away from the weak section, toward the smoke that was beginning to rise from the drainage channel. A guard had thrown a torch into the dry brush along the bank, and the fire was catching, the smoke thickening. The goblin-body disappeared into it.

Dren's eyes followed it until the smoke swallowed it.

Then he turned to the wall.

The weak section was holding. The repairs were holding. The stone Kael had wedged, the mud Rat-3 had packed. The goblins were retreating. The first assault wave had broken against the wall and the confusion of the "stray goblin," and the survivors were pulling back into the drainage channel.

The sergeant was shouting orders. The young guard was leaning against the wall, his sword hanging loose in his hand, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The battle was over.

Kael's human body slid down the inner face of the wall.

His legs gave out. He landed hard, his back scraping against the stone, his hands falling open in his lap. The mud and blood on his palms had dried into a stiff crust. His nose was bleeding freely now, the blood running down his chin and dripping onto his chest. His vision was a tunnel of grey, the edges black, the center swimming.

He counted.

One. Himself. Against the wall. Hands bleeding. Nose bleeding. Body failing.

Two. Rat-2. Rooftop near the gate. The rat was still, its whiskers reading the wind. The battle was over, but its alertness hadn't dropped.

Three. Rat-3. Drainage channel. The small female rat was still in the tunnel, her body pressed against the wet stone, her left forepaw throbbing from the digging. The goblins were retreating past her position, but she stayed still.

Four. The goblin-body. In the sewer system, below the drainage grate. It had slipped through the grate after the smoke had covered its retreat, and it was moving through the dark tunnels now, its wounded shoulder dragging, its gait uneven. The grate was above it. Kael could see the iron bars, the pale light filtering through, the distant sounds of the town above.

Four bodies. The wall held.

He touched the back of his left hand. The bite scar. His thumb found the ridge of raised flesh and traced it. Once. Twice. Three times.

He didn't smile.

The war-band had retreated, but they were not destroyed. Sixteen goblins had hit the wall. He'd counted twelve retreating. Four dead, maybe five. A victory. But the war-band was a probe. The Blight-driven migration was still coming. The real threat was still moving south.

He heard Dren's voice from above. The captain was at the wall's weak section, examining the damage. His voice was low, controlled, the tone of a man who was asking questions he already suspected the answers to.

"This section held," Dren said. "It shouldn't have."

The sergeant answered: "The repairs held, Captain. Someone packed mud into the foundation. Wedged stone into the gaps. It's crude work, but it's —"

"It's impossible," Dren said. "This section was failing six months ago. The Council's engineers said it would need full replacement within the year." A pause. "And the goblin. The one that fought on our side. Where did it go?"

The sergeant was silent.

Dren's voice was harder now. "Find out."

Kael's human fingers traced the bite scar again. The wall held. The plan worked. But Dren had noticed. The "stray goblin" and the impossible wall repair. Institutional suspicion had begun.

He pushed himself up. His arms shook. His legs shook. Everything shook. But he stood.

He started walking, his steps unsteady, his hands hanging at his sides, the dried blood on his palms cracking with every movement. Behind him, the eastern wall stood intact. The goblin war-band was retreating. The guard was holding.

And Dren was watching.

Kael did not look back.

The grate in the sewer below the eastern district shifted. The goblin-body's hand (grey-green, cracked, oozing black blood from the shoulder wound) pushed against the iron bars from below. The grate lifted, scraped against the stone, and the goblin-body pulled itself into the dark space beneath the town. It lay on its back in the shallow water, its yellow eyes fixed on the underside of the grate, its breathing slow and ragged.

The body was hurt. The shoulder wound was deep. The mycelial network would heal it, but not quickly. Kael felt the body's pain as a distant throb, a dull ache that pulsed in time with his human heartbeat.

He counted.

Four. The goblin-body was still alive.

The wall held. The war-band was a probe. The countdown was at approximately twenty-seven days.

And Dren was watching.