The smell of horses reached them first.

  Karl stood at the edge of the clearing, his hand resting on a moss-covered stone. Beyond the trees, hooves pounded against wet earth. Leaves rustled in alarm. Birds exploded from the canopy like sparks from a flame.

  They were coming.

  And they were fast.

  ---

  “Scouts report a dozen riders,” said the old soldier, returning from the treeline. “Imperial colors. Looks like a forward detachment.”

  “Cavalry?” Karl asked.

  “Not just cavalry,” the man said grimly. “Mountain horses. Tall breeds. War-trained. Probably two meters at the shoulder.”

  Someone else muttered, “That’s not a patrol—that’s a hunter pack.”

  The researcher spoke next. “They’ll flank and sweep. No use running—we’ll be caught in the open.”

  A silence fell over the group.

  Then Karl turned to the players.

  “We stay.”

  ---

  It caught some of them off guard.

  “You sure, boss?” asked one. “We can sneak you out through the ravine.”

  Karl shook his head.

  “They’re not after me. They’re after all of us now.”

  He looked around at the makeshift camp.

  “They won’t stop. And if we keep running, we’ll never get a chance to fight on our terms.”

  He turned back to the soldier.

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  “We can hold them here.”

  ---

  The forest clearing became a frenzy of preparation.

  Players gathered fallen branches and sharpened them into long wooden stakes. They jammed them into the ground at waist height, forming a bristling wall of crude spears—angled forward, set firm in the soil.

  Others dug shallow trenches with pot lids and mess kits. A trio worked quickly, laying traps lined with jagged stones and bramble spikes.

  “Primitive, but painful,” one muttered.

  One player organized the barricades, dragging logs into position behind the front lines. Another broke down crates to use as makeshift shields.

  Karl walked through it all, giving orders without raising his voice.

  For once, they listened.

  ---

  By midday, they were ready.

  A curved line of sharpened stakes marked the front. Behind it, players crouched in twos and threes, armed with spears, clubs, and stolen blades. Further back, others hid in the trees, bows readied, rocks gripped tight.

  The wind shifted.

  Then they heard it.

  The thunder of hooves.

  ---

  The first rider broke through the underbrush like a god descending from stormclouds.

  Tall horse. Red-gold armor. A half-cape fluttering behind him. He carried a long sabre, curved and gleaming.

  Behind him came eleven more.

  They didn’t slow down.

  They weren’t meant to.

  ---

  The first impact was bone-rattling.

  A warhorse struck the line of stakes—and screamed.

  Its chest impaled on a sharpened trunk. It reared back, throwing the rider off into the mud. Another horse stumbled into a pit, legs snapping as it crashed down.

  But the others kept coming.

  Two players were knocked flying. One was trampled. Another stabbed upward with a spear and caught a rider under the arm.

  Chaos erupted.

  ---

  Karl shouted over the din. “Hold the flanks! Push left!”

  The soldier was already moving, rallying four players to swing around the tree line and harass the rear.

  From above, a player dropped a net of vines onto a rider, tangling his arms. Another tackled a wounded horse, forcing it into a second pit.

  Blood flew.

  A rider dismounted, screaming, and cleaved a player’s shoulder open with a short sabre.

  But the line didn’t break.

  Not this time.

  ---

  After fifteen minutes, the last of the riders was retreating—two wounded, one captured, five dead.

  Three players lay still. Another moaned, clutching his side.

  The clearing stank of sweat, smoke, and iron.

  Karl crouched beside a fallen player and helped bind his leg.

  “You stayed,” the man whispered.

  Karl nodded.

  “Good.”

  ---

  Far from the field, the surviving rider knelt before his captain.

  “Defenses were prepared. Resistance organized.”

  The officer narrowed his eyes.

  “You were driven back?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The captain turned toward the command tent.

  “Then we send real soldiers next.”

  ---

  Karl stood in the middle of the clearing.

  His coat was torn. His hands were raw.

  Around him, players were recovering weapons, replanting stakes, and bandaging wounds.

  Someone approached with two captured horses.

  “What now, boss?”

  Karl looked north.

  “Now we run again.”

  And this time, they wouldn’t stop.