As everyone woke up due to being woken up by the generals and commanders, they would all one by one get ready for a fight, still smelling rather bad from the day before. Taking a bath wasn’t a priority though as things seemed to be going fast. People quickly threw on clothes and grabbed their weapons to the eventually go to the valley. Having nothing better to do right now, Lucas went in the same direction. The open field was quickly filling up with Berk standing with his generals on a rock looking down the hill. Wout seemed to have a bandage around his head, one that was soaked in blood.

  Lucas being very interested right now came closer, stopping at the edge of the rock and looking up at them. “What happened to Wout?”

  “Hmmm? Oh, surprised attack.” Berk looked down to the other army, who already seemed as if they wanted to fight and were coming slowly out of the valley. “Jackson warned me that they might try something like this. Wout was in the morning patrol as they got ambushed.

  “But why not use the healing potion? Gurgen had brought around ten barrels didn’t he?” He already turned around, ready to go get some from the barrels.

  Berk quickly put a stop to that, yelling after him. “Stop! Come back!”

  He stopped, turning back around and walking back to them. “Why not? Is there a problem with the drink?”

  “Actually yes, it’s intoxicating but that’s not the reason I’m not allowing it. The problem is that we’re already running out of barrels. After one fight we already used six barrels, we need to keep it to treat the life threatening ones.”

  “If this was an ambush, why is the rest of the army down there?”

  “The ambush was meant to try and take out generals and commanders. Commanders to cause trouble if it got to leading in the heat of battle and if they killed a general and got lucky, then our next general might be on the other side of our country.”

  As they talked, Jackson and Medi came running, followed by Emma and Lily although slower.

  “Berk, orders!?” Yelled Jackson, already having his bow in his hand. He too looked down at the enemy, trying to think of something that hadn’t been thought off.

  “Same plans as we discussed yesterday.”

  While they were talking, a loud yell could be heard. At first people thought that it was another ambush, quickly looking around and holding their weapons ready. They stayed like this until someone spotted Gurgen running down the hill, holding a barrel above his head.

  Berk was stunned for a second, watching as they crazy guy went to face the enemy army all by himself. “Lucas! Get your man back!”

  “Yes sir, I’m sorry.” Lucas turned and ran through the troops, eventually squeezing through the front and starting to run after him. Gurgen was able to keep up with a horse who wasn’t going at full speed but Lucas wasn’t like that. After only a couple of step did he know that he wasn’t going to be able to stop Gurgen.

  Someone tapped him on his shoulder, standing next to him. “Get on my back Lucas, you can’t catch him.” Medi had come to stand next to him with Jackson a bit further. He had Zoala on his back, both waiting for him to get on.

  After only a short hesitation did her get on. He didn’t know how this worked even though after having seen a couple of others having gotten this honor. As soon as he started to run, he would wrap his arms around his waist as if he was a passenger on a motor bike. “Fuck fuck fuck!”

  Medi couldn’t help but smile, wanting to make a joke but knowing that this wasn’t the right moment. He had to force himself to focus once more, putting an arrow on his bow as they slowly came closer and closer to Gurgen.

  In the meantime, Gurgen had already made it to the enemy, still holding the barrel before plopping it down. It was filled with a lot of eggs, made more obvious by him grabbing a couple in his hands.

  The whole army stopped after a specific combination of drum sounds were sounded. Having the entire army stop was special but then again, it wasn’t often that a singular man would attack an entire army.

  Skeletons divided their troops up in big groups, being lead by two people. Both of these leaders came forwards, looking at who dared to stop them. Seeing Gurgen standing there with the eggs in his hands must’ve looked ridiculous as they started to laugh.

  As they laughed, both of them got a couple of eggs in their faces, the eggs breaking on impact and the inside getting smeared all over them. At first they still laughed, right up until they started to melt away.

  A sudden panic could be heard as they tried to get it off, getting acid on their hands as those too started to disappear.

  The shock was shortly lived as someone jumped in to take control. “Attack!” He and around thirty others started to run to Gurgen, having a wide different array of weapons. Most didn’t even reach him, getting an egg thrown on them and falling down either dead or missing limbs. Thanks do them being bones, the acid managed to land on multiple different spots, flying through different small openings and hitting vital parts that connected certain parts of the body.

  This was enough to stop the small assault, everyone else cowering behind their shields. With there being a shield wall of small shields, Gurgen could still easily hit them as their shields weren’t made to stop blows but to redirect them. He continued to throw eggs around, some being less effective than others but still doing some damage.

  “Ready! Aim! Fire!” Before Gurgen could react, from behind the front line suddenly came a cloud of arrows, going towards him.

  “Oh… Maybe was bad idea.” Gurgen turned around, pulling up his animal coat and trying to hide underneath it.

  While he had his face hidden, multiple things seemed to happen around him. First of all, a bunch of hooves sounded around him before the arrows landed on something like rain on a roof. He had expected pain but he felt nothing. With a lot of confusion and a little shiver in his spine did he look up. On the ground next to him was Zoala, with a stone on the ground that had casted the shield around him and the others.

  Lucas Jumped off and grabbed Gurgens arm. “Gurgen, we need to go now!”

  “Euh, guys?” Medi grabbed Lucas’ arm and pulled on it to grab his attention.

  “What?” Lucas looked up, seeing the skeletons make room for something bigger to come forwards. Now that he thought about it, he had seen something big in the back but he didn’t focus on it. Right now he saw what it was.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  In front of them was a fourteen meter high skeleton. He was unarmed since there was now weapon for a giant like him, at least not anymore. He walked straight towards the bubble shields, planning to do something.

  Zoala got as white as the skeletons in front of them, picking up the shield rock and jumping back on Jackson. “Time to go.”

  Lucas at this point wasn’t even trying to get Gurgen to follow them, instead putting his hands on Medi and lifting himself up. “Sounds like a great idea!”

  Gurgen on the other hand grabbed the barrel and lifted it above his head, throwing the entire barrel with the rest of the eggs at the giant. The barrel bursted open as the eggs stated to break as well, covering the left leg of the giant. He didn’t look how effective it was and instead turned around to run away.

  It was just in time as well because after another quick drumming sounds, a rather big group of cavalry emerged from the crowd on both the left and the right side, not underestimating their enemy anymore.

  As the small group ran away and were being chased by skeleton centaurs, a loud but dull sound and a shaking ground signaled that the eggs had done their job and at least made the giant fall. There were no happy cheering from the attackers though, all running for their lives.

  Before the skeletons could catch up, they had reached the range of the friendly archers and they knew it, stopping and turning around. They weren’t going to waste themselves without back-up, retreating back to their advancing army.

  Gurgen finally started to laugh and cheer, only to be interrupted by Berk who grabbed his beard and pulled his face down.

  “What the fuck was that? Do you want to die?”

  While Berk had a tight grip on the beard, Gurgen mostly allowed it because of how sudden it was. He stood back up and straightened his back, Berk having to let go to not be lifted up.”

  “What goat want? Goat people drink my vodka so Gurgen help. More Gurgen kill, less people hurt, more drink for Gurgen.” Gurgen didn’t seem to understand why what he did was dumb, still believing to have done well.

  “Dear Pan… go to Ninke and Demmie, help them in the front lines.” Berk shook his head, looking back to Lucas. “I keep you responsible for if anything goes wrong again, understood?”

  “Yes sir.” Lucas seemed to be rather grumpy with that, getting off Jackson and joining Gurgen in the army.

  “Good, Jackson and Medi, join Barta in the cavalry, help wherever you think it is needed, I expect you two to be able to make good decisions.” Berk looked back down at the enemy advancing, groaning as he tried to come up with something. Sadly enough, there wasn’t anything he could do but watch and hope that his people were better and kill more skeletons. In order to get out of the way of his own troops, he ran up the hill, getting to safety as the troops got closer and closer.

  As soon as the enemy got in range did his troops start to fire with their bows and arrows, having been put in the front lines to have more range. As soon as the enemy started to charge did they retreat, running through his own people to safety to let the melee infantry catch the first blow. With the battle now in full effect, he rubbed his beard, trying to look if his people would hold or not.

  Somewhere in the center were Lucas fighting with Demmie and Gurgen, Gurgen and Demmie doing most of the work. Lucas was holding his swords, wanting to help but he knew that he couldn’t fight. After not having done anything for a while now, he would just slowly pull back, trying to escape the fight.

  It was just in time as well because as soon as he emerged, Medi would grab his shoulder, pulling him to the side. “Lucas! I need you with me, jump on.”

  There was some hesitation, having just seen people die right in front of him without a single care of others. This was different than being hunted or a singular man dying. He has seen death a lot but this was making him sick. Not wanting to disappoint, he jumped on, grabbing Medi around his waist as he already regretted the decision to come with him. “I can’t fight! I’m not good at it!”

  Medi didn’t answer, continuing to run to a specific spot where the enemy had retreated. Where originally the enemy was, was now a new giant skeleton coming forwards. On his shoulders were two people, one holding knives as the other one threw small fire balls at the troops.

  They were around forty meters away, giving Medi a bit of time to explain as they stopped with Zoala, Jackson and the princesses. “Here he is!”

  Jackson saw him and gave him a warm smile. “Lucas! Welcome to hell! The enemy generals have teamed up, we need you to defeat them!”

  Before he could even talk, Jackson and Medi ran through the troops towards the front, emerging and going straight to the skeleton.

  Medi grabbed his bow and arrow, starting to aim and fired an arrow to try and hit one of the two on his shoulders but without success. “The right one throws fire! Distract him will you?” He didn’t give him time and ripped the arms away from him, throwing Lucas on the ground.

  Due to the speed, he rolled a bit further, feeling a sting in his ankle before he lost enough speed to lie still. “Oh damn it.”

  He knew that there wasn’t a lot of time so he didn’t hate Medi for it but he was still going to have a strong word with him after this, if there was an after this. He got back up, looking up at the nearing giant as he thought about what to do, eventually just yelling. “Hey! Bonehead! Looking for a target?” He waved with his arms around, hoping that it would help.

  It helped indeed, maybe even too good as he saw something else flying at him as well. Apparently the knife thrower had chosen him as a target as well which wasn’t so weird. Lucas was exposed and he had less range than the fire ball thrower so why not get the easy target.

  As if instinct took over, he let himself fall on the ground, both the fire and the knife zooming over him with the fireball exploding in a small explosion. He didn’t have time to breathe or to look, scrambling back up to his feet as he ran parallel of the friendly army, hoping to go more to the right and out of the reach of the knife thrower.

  “Whatever Medi has planned, he better do it soon because I can’t keep this up.” He talked to himself, wanting to hear it out loud as one of the thrown knives cut his leg. He didn’t yell or scream, not really feeling any pain down there. His heart pounded in his head as the blast of a fireball hitting him face first caused him to get thrown back.

  The air got knocked out of him as he heard multiple bows be fired, all going towards the giant and hitting him. Some arrows hit him but fell down, others barely scraping his bones with others drilling into the bones.

  The shooting continues as Lucas got back up, panting and once more waving with his arms to get the attention once more. The skeletons didn’t show emotions but the hesitation of the fire thrower could be seen as confusion on how this human didn’t die after being hit. Confused or not, Lucas had his attention once more.

  Wanting to keep up this game, he continued to run but now out of reach of the other one. As he kept dodging, it wasn’t obvious that he couldn’t be hurt. That didn’t matter in the end as the giant was still making progress, being much faster than Lucas. A shadow loomed over him as a hand reached out for him, trying to grab him.

  Right as he was about to be grabbed did he see the hand be pulled away, instead slamming into the ground next to him as the skeleton seemed to be falling. The ones on his shoulders sliding off and falling down. On their way down, Lucas saw that the one with the knives looked rather new while the other one seemed brittle and old.

  As they both hit the ground, the older one just snapped in multiple places, his bones not being able to withstand the energy while the other hit the ground and didn’t move. Only now did Lucas see what had happened, seeing Barta having joined the fight and hacking in on one of the legs with his axe.

  With a sigh of relief stood Lucas up, his heart racing as he finally felt the sweat on his face slowly dripping down. With the giant floored and the other generals out of the fight, the army that had made space for the three now came running up the hill towards the allies, leaving Lucas and the others stuck in between a huge fight if they didn’t move now. Jackson went to grab Zoala, lifting her up and throwing him over his back before running off.

  Lucas decided to just run on his own, running towards the allies and to get away from the danger. A sudden impact in his back made him drop as a searing pain went through his body. He didn’t yell or do anything, slowly rolling on his side and seeing what had happened. Down where the giant was still alive but on one leg and badly hurt, the knife thrower was also not dead yet, his teeth clacking on each other as he laughed at Lucas.

  His laughing stopped once Barta pulverized his skull with his axe and running towards Lucas. Before he got to him, Medi would arrive first, looking at the dagger sticking in his back. “Shit, Lucas? Stay with me okay?”

  Barta pushed Medi out of the way, grunting and huffing before grabbing Lucas and throwing him over his shoulder, running away to get him to safety. Medi followed him without hesitation, not wanting to be caught in the middle of this.