The sound of the gate holding was worse than the sound of it breaking.

  The massive oak timbers screamed, a high-pitched, agonizing whine that vibrated through the muddy ground and up into the bones of my legs. Dust rained down from the archway in a choking gray curtain, coating my tongue with the taste of dry rot and old iron.

  "Hold it!" I roared, my voice ragged, barely audible over the groaning wood.

  Faelar didn't answer. He couldn't.

  The dwarf was buried waist-deep in the churned earth of the courtyard, his boots digging furrows in the stone pavers as he was pushed backward, inch by agonizing inch. His shoulder was jammed against the center beam, his helmet scraped against the rough wood. I could see the veins in his neck bulging like steel cables, pulsing with a terrifying, violet intensity.

  "He's... heavy..." Faelar wheezed, the air whistling through his clenched teeth.

  On the other side of the wood, the Siege Ogre roared—a wet, guttural sound—and slammed its bulk against the door again.

  BOOM.

  The impact shook my vision, blurring the world for a heartbeat. Faelar grunted, a sharp expulsion of air, as his armor shrieked under the compression.

  Then, the pushing stopped.

  The Ogre went silent. The rhythmic thudding ceased.

  For a second, the only sound in the valley was the crackling of the burning garden outside and Faelar’s ragged, heaving breath.

  "It stopped," Faelar gasped, not moving, sweat dripping from his chin guard. "Why did it stop?"

  I felt it before I heard it. A vibration. A low, resonant hum that started in the earth and travelled up my spine, making my teeth ache.

  "Move," I whispered, the Soldier’s Instinct screaming in the back of my skull. "Faelar, move!"

  "I've got it..."

  "MOVE!"

  I lunged forward, grabbing the back of his breastplate, but I was too late.

  The Juggernaut didn't push. It struck.

  The world turned white.

  There was no sound of wood splintering, only a singular, deafening CRACK that felt like a thunderclap inside my head. The massive oak gate didn't swing open; it disintegrated.

  Thousands of razor-sharp splinters exploded inward like shrapnel. A shockwave of dust and pressure hit me like a physical hammer, lifting me off my feet and throwing me backward.

  I hit the ground hard, the air driven from my lungs. I rolled, tumbling through the mud, my armor scraping against stone, until I slammed into the base of the inner wall.

  For a long moment, I couldn't breathe. I couldn't see. My ears were ringing with a high, piercing whine that drowned out the battle. I tried to push myself up, but my arms felt like rubber. I vomited bile onto the dirt, my equilibrium shattered.

  "Faelar..." I coughed, spitting grit.

  I wiped my eyes, smearing mud across my face, and looked at the gate.

  It was gone. In its place was a jagged hole filled with smoke and ruin. And buried beneath a mountain of shattered beams, twisted iron hinges, and stone rubble was Faelar. The dwarf was nowhere to be seen.

  From the swirling dust, a shadow emerged.

  It was twelve feet tall. Plates of black steel were fused directly into necrotic, purple flesh, weeping a glowing ichor that hissed when it hit the ground. It didn't walk; it stomped, each step shaking the foundations of the courtyard.

  The Void-Juggernaut.

  In its right hand, it dragged a flail with a head the size of a boulder, glowing with green fel-fire. The heat radiating from it was intense, blistering my skin from thirty feet away, smelling of ozone and seared meat.

  Two rebel soldiers, terrified and brave, charged the breach from the side, screaming war cries.

  The Juggernaut didn't even look at them. It simply walked through them.

  It swung its free arm—a massive gauntlet of spiked steel—in a lazy backhand arc. The impact misted the first soldier. The second was caught by the heat of the passing armor; his tabard ignited instantly, and he fell back, screaming, batting at the green flames consuming his chest.

  The monster stepped into the courtyard. It stopped. It turned its helm—a visor of burning violet light—toward me.

  It knew I was the only thing left standing.

  I scrambled to my feet, my boots slipping in the slick mud. My spear was lying ten feet away. I was weaponless.

  "Come on then!" I yelled, my voice cracking. I banged my fist against my breastplate, trying to draw its attention away from the civilians hiding in the caves behind me. "Over here, you ugly bastard!"

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  It worked. The Juggernaut turned its torso, the metal grinding like stripped gears.

  It raised the flail.

  I dove.

  I didn't dodge with the grace of a Celestial Guard. I threw myself face-first into the mud, scrambling on my hands and knees like a panicked animal.

  CRUNCH.

  The flail smashed into the stone pavers where I had been standing. The impact sent a spray of granite shards into my side, cutting through the leather gaps in my armor. The shockwave lifted me slightly, slamming me back down.

  I rolled, gasping as the heat of the weapon scorched my eyebrows.

  I tried to stand, but my legs wouldn't cooperate. Lactic acid burned in my thighs. I stumbled, my hand slipping on a patch of oil, and went down to one knee.

  The Juggernaut raised the flail for a second strike. I looked up at the green fire. I couldn't move fast enough. This was it.

  "Heads up!"

  A crate, heavy with iron rations, plummeted from the sky.

  Liam, standing on the jagged remains of the walkway above, had shoved it off the edge. It crashed directly onto the Juggernaut’s helmet, shattering into splinters and showering the monster with dried biscuits.

  It didn't hurt the beast, but it confused it. The Juggernaut stumbled back a step, shaking its head.

  Liam didn't stop there. The elf leaped from the wall.

  He landed on the monster's broad, armored back, grabbing the spikes on its shoulder plates to anchor himself.

  "Die! Die! Die!" Liam screamed, stabbing wildly with a broken arrow shaft he had scavenged.

  He drove the wood into the gap between the helmet and the pauldron. It was like attacking a tank with a toothpick. The wood snapped.

  The Juggernaut roared—a sound that vibrated in my chest cavity. It reached back with a hand huge enough to crush a skull like a grape.

  It grabbed Liam by the back of his leather armor.

  "Liam, let go!" I screamed.

  The monster ripped him free. It didn't crush him; it threw him.

  Liam sailed across the courtyard, his limbs flailing, until he slammed into the stone wall of the supply shed. I heard the sickening crack of bone. He slid down the wall and crumpled into a heap, unmoving.

  "No..." I whispered.

  The Juggernaut turned back to me. It stepped over the debris of the gate.

  Behind it, through the breach, I saw the true end.

  The Red Tide was waiting. Thousands of demons were pouring toward the gap. And rolling toward us was a massive wooden Siege Tower, its upper deck teeming with archers, ready to rain death into our sanctuary.

  We had failed.

  Then, a small, golden blur moved on the western wall.

  Nugget.

  The chicken was hopping frantically along the parapet, his wings flapping to keep balance. In his beak, dragging his head down with its weight, was a glass flask glowing with angry orange light.

  Elmsworth’s Unstable Alchemist Fire.

  Nugget reached the edge of the broken wall. The gap between the wall and the rolling Siege Tower was ten feet.

  The chicken paused. He looked at the flask. He looked at the tower.

  He jumped.

  It was the clumsiest flight in history. He flapped wildly, losing altitude, his feet scrabbling for purchase as he hit the railing of the Siege Tower. He tumbled onto the deck, amidst the confused enemy archers.

  He dropped the flask.

  Smash.

  Nugget squawked and threw himself off the back of the tower, plummeting toward the mud below.

  WHUMPH.

  The sound wasn't an explosion; it was the roar of a waking dragon.

  The alchemist fire ignited the oil reserves on the deck. A pillar of blinding white flame shot into the sky. The wooden structure groaned, the supports melting instantly.

  Slowly, terrifyingly, the massive tower tipped.

  It fell sideways.

  With a crash that shook the entire valley, the burning wreckage slammed down across the breach in the gate. It blocked the entrance completely, creating a wall of roaring white fire between us and the army outside.

  The Juggernaut stopped. It looked at the fire. It looked at us.

  It was trapped.

  From the pile of shattered timber near the gate, the debris shifted.

  A log the size of a man’s torso was shoved aside with a grunt of pure, unadulterated rage.

  Faelar erupted from the wood pile.

  He was broken. His helmet was gone, revealing a face masked in blood and dust. His left eye was swollen shut, purple and angry. His beard was matted with gore. His armor was dented in a dozen places.

  He didn't look like a smith. He looked like a revenant.

  "HEY!" Faelar bellowed, spitting a broken tooth onto the stones.

  The Juggernaut turned toward the dwarf.

  Faelar didn't have a weapon. He didn't care. He charged.

  He ducked under the swing of the flail—a clumsy, desperate stumble that nearly saw him crushed—and slammed his shoulder into the Juggernaut’s knee.

  He wrapped his thick arms around the joint. He found a piece of the shattered iron hinge from the gate and jammed it into the armor gap.

  "BRING... IT... DOWN!" Faelar screamed, the veins in his neck threatening to burst.

  He heaved. He used the iron hinge as a lever.

  The Juggernaut’s leg armor groaned. The knee joint buckled. The monster stumbled, dropping to one knee with a crash that shook the ground.

  It raised its fist to hammer Faelar into paste.

  "Now! Kaelen!" Willow’s voice shrieked from the side.

  The gnome was crawling out of the rubble, her nose bleeding, her hands trembling so hard they blurred. She slammed her palms into the stone.

  Old, dry roots from beneath the courtyard burst through the pavers. They were brittle, but there were hundreds of them. They wrapped around the Juggernaut’s raised arm, binding it.

  Willow screamed as the magic tore at her own stamina, her back arching with the effort.

  "I can't... hold it!"

  I saw my spear lying in the mud. I grabbed it. The shaft was slick with oil and blood.

  I ran.

  I didn't run with speed; I ran with desperation. My lungs burned. My legs felt like lead.

  I vaulted off Faelar’s back. I grabbed the lip of the Juggernaut’s breastplate.

  The metal was hot enough to cook meat. I screamed as the heat seared through my gloves, burning my palms. The smell of cooking leather filled my nose.

  I didn't let go. I pulled myself up.

  The monster thrashed, ripping its arm free of Willow’s vines. It reached for me.

  I scrambled up its chest. I planted my boots on its shoulders.

  I reversed the spear, pointing the tip down into the gap between the neck and the clavicle—the only spot where the purple flesh pulsed exposed.

  "Sit. Down."

  I drove the spear down.

  It hit bone. It stopped.

  The Juggernaut’s hand closed around my waist, squeezing. My ribs groaned.

  I let go of the spear shaft with one hand. I made a fist. I hammered the butt of the spear like a nail.

  THUD. THUD.

  With a wet pop, the spear punched through.

  I shoved it deep, twisting the blade, feeling it severe the spine and churn the necrotic organs.

  The Juggernaut stiffened. The hand around my waist spasmed, then went limp. The green fire on the flail flickered and died.

  Slowly, like a collapsing building, the monster fell forward.

  I rode it down, rolling off at the last second to avoid being crushed, landing hard in the mud.

  Silence fell over the courtyard.

  The only sound was the roar of the burning tower and the wet, ragged breathing of four broken people.

  I lay on my back, staring up at the smoke. I couldn't move my hands. They were curled into claws, cramped and burned.

  "Is it... dead?" Faelar wheezed.

  I rolled my head. The dwarf was lying spread-eagled in the dirt, staring at the sky with his one good eye.

  "It's dead," I whispered.

  I sat up. The world spun sickeningly.

  I looked at the crate pile. Liam was there. He raised a hand—shaking, weak—and gave a thumbs up. Then his hand dropped.

  I looked at the gate.

  The Siege Tower was a wall of fire. But through the flames, I could see shadows. Thousands of them. They were waiting.

  We had killed the monster. But the fire wouldn't last forever. And when it went out, the Red Tide would be waiting for us.