Chapter 118: Unsustainable

Chapter 118: Unsustainable

Two planetary months had passed since Rakhar Veyr ordered the first coordinated assaults against the northern, central, and southern defensive lines of Caldris.

The fortifications still stood, but little remained unchanged from the defenses that had faced the goblins on the first morning of the campaign. Trenches had been widened and rebuilt, palisades had been replaced several times, and secondary defensive positions had become front lines after earlier works were damaged beyond repair.

The battlefield surrounding them had changed even more. Broken siege engines, abandoned shields, shattered wagons, and thousands of arrow shafts littered stretches of ground that had been fought over repeatedly.

Burial pits expanded behind both armies while roads connecting the front to the rear carried wounded soldiers away and replacements toward the fighting.

Rakhar had never allowed Caldris enough time to recover completely. Some days brought enormous assaults involving tens of thousands of goblins, while others were dominated by bombardment, smaller attacks, engineering operations, and raids against weakened positions.

The intensity varied from one direction to another, but pressure remained constant enough that the defenders could never assume a quiet day meant genuine rest.

In the north, Skargrim and Viridian formations continued attacking fortified hills and narrow approaches. The center remained the bloodiest part of the line as goblin siege engines repeatedly hammered rebuilt defenses before infantry attempted to force new breaches, while in the south the decline of Caldris cavalry allowed attacking formations to reach the defensive works more consistently than during the opening stages of the battle.

King Aldren’s Imperial Edict of Conscription had prevented the Caldris army from simply disappearing beneath those attacks. Thousands of newly raised soldiers had arrived every week, filling spaces created by the dead and wounded while allowing depleted formations to remain operational.

The appearance of the line had therefore become deceptive. In some areas, there were more soldiers standing behind the fortifications than there had been several weeks earlier because regiments had been rebuilt, secondary trenches filled, and reserve camps replenished with newly arrived formations.

The problem was that the soldiers filling those positions were increasingly different from the army that had originally defended them.

A professional regiment that had entered the campaign with experienced infantry might now contain only a few hundred veterans surrounded by conscripts who had received several weeks of hurried training.

Sergeants who had once commanded troops familiar with battlefield signals now spent much of their time correcting men who had never fought before arriving at the defensive line.

The difference first became impossible to ignore in the northern sector. A fortified slope overlooking one of the important approaches had endured repeated goblin attacks throughout the previous month, and veteran Caldris troops had learned exactly when to abandon the forward obstacles and withdraw toward the stronger second position.

Their timing forced attackers to continue climbing under missile fire without allowing the defenders to become trapped.

When another Skargrim assault began during the second month, most of the formation holding the forward works consisted of newly conscripted infantry. Crossbowmen initially maintained the expected rate of fire while spearmen remained behind the palisade, but the situation deteriorated once Skargrim engineers cleared enough obstacles for infantry to approach.

The Caldris officer responsible for the forward company received orders to withdraw but hesitated because many of his recruits were already showing signs of panic. He feared that movement toward the rear would turn into an uncontrolled rout, yet the delay allowed Skargrim troops to reach both sides of the position before the command was finally given.

The withdrawal immediately became close combat along the narrow path leading uphill.

Experienced soldiers formed small groups around the rear and attempted to slow the pursuit, while frightened conscripts pushed against one another in their effort to reach the second position. Hundreds died or became trapped below before Caldris reinforcements stabilized the hill.

The humans ultimately retained the position, but keeping it had cost far more soldiers than similar attacks during the opening weeks of the campaign. The fortification had performed its function, yet the inexperienced men occupying it had failed to use its advantages efficiently.

Comparable reports began appearing elsewhere along the defensive belt. In the central sector, the weakness became especially dangerous because repairing a breach under attack required precise coordination from reserves.

During the opening month, royal professional troops had developed a disciplined routine whenever goblin bombardment destroyed part of the line. Missile troops concentrated fire on the opening while infantry reserves remained behind cover until the attacking goblins were compressed into the damaged section, after which an organized counterattack could drive them out.

The newer formations struggled to reproduce that discipline. When a section of earthwork collapsed during a major Viridian assault, several conscript companies rushed toward the opening before the order was given, while other units remained behind because their officers could not order them to move quickly enough through the confusion.

Instead of striking together, the counterattack arrived in fragments. Viridian infantry overwhelmed the first groups before supporting companies reached them, allowing hundreds more goblins through the defenses and forcing Caldris to commit veteran reserves that had originally been held farther behind the line.

The breach was eventually sealed, but the humans paid considerably more than they would have during the first month.

Every veteran formation used to correct the mistakes of inexperienced soldiers also reduced the number of trained troops available for the next emergency.

The southern sector suffered from a related problem. During the opening weeks, experienced cavalry had repeatedly disrupted goblin formations before they reached the main defenses, reducing the amount of close combat required from infantry stationed behind the fortifications.

Two months of fighting had killed horses and riders faster than Caldris could replace them, forcing commanders to preserve what remained of the cavalry for particularly dangerous situations.

That change meant conscripts increasingly faced goblin infantry directly along trenches, palisades, and road defenses. They could hold spears and obey simple commands while the fighting remained orderly, but once attackers reached the fortifications their lack of experience became costly.

Veterans understood how to rotate exhausted fighters away from narrow breaches, maintain spacing, and prevent isolated soldiers from being surrounded. Conscripts often crowded toward whatever portion of the defenses appeared most threatened, creating gaps elsewhere and forcing officers to waste time restoring formations while the battle continued.

By the end of the second month, casualty reports from all three directions revealed the same trend. Senior officers compared dozens of recent engagements with the opening weeks and discovered that the defensive advantage Caldris once enjoyed had deteriorated sharply as conscripts replaced professional soldiers.

The latest averages approached approximately two dead goblins for every human soldier killed.

The figure sounded favorable when considered without context. Killing twice as many enemies as were lost would have been acceptable in many ordinary wars, and several provincial officials initially saw the numbers as proof that the line remained effective.

The senior military command understood the danger immediately. Noah already possessed millions of goblin soldiers on Edras, and formations from Varkesh, Skargrim, and Luminous were still entering through the Gate Beyond Heaven.

Caldris was drawing replacements from a kingdom that had already endured nearly two years of continuous warfare.

If ten thousand Caldris soldiers died while killing twenty thousand goblins, the defenders technically won the exchange but weakened themselves strategically.

Rakhar could replace the twenty thousand from armies still waiting behind the front, whereas replacing ten thousand humans required another round of conscription, training, equipment, officers, and transportation.

For the defensive strategy to remain sustainable, Caldris needed every human death to remove far more than two goblins from Noah’s army. The fortifications had originally produced that advantage when experienced soldiers occupied them, but the growing number of conscripts was steadily eroding it.

King Aldren received the revised casualty reports together with recommendations from the royal commanders. His Imperial Edict had succeeded in preventing an immediate shortage of bodies because trenches remained occupied and depleted regiments continued receiving replacements, yet the new soldiers were dying quickly enough that conscription alone could not solve the underlying problem.

The army responded by changing how recruits were distributed. Remaining veterans were spread more aggressively among new formations, experienced sergeants received responsibility for larger groups, and professional troops were concentrated around locations where breaches were most likely rather than being distributed evenly across the line.

Conscripts increasingly occupied secondary trenches, carried ammunition, supported missile units, reinforced established positions, and fought under officers who had already survived goblin assaults.

These measures helped some formations, but Caldris no longer possessed enough experienced soldiers to provide every newly raised regiment with the leadership it needed.

Rakhar’s commanders began noticing the uneven quality of the defenses. Some Caldris positions still reacted quickly to probes and maintained disciplined formations under pressure, while others committed reserves too early, hesitated during withdrawals, or lost cohesion once goblin infantry reached close combat.

The goblins adjusted by testing the troops rather than only the fortifications. Smaller assaults were launched against selected positions to observe how defenders reacted, and stronger forces were committed whenever hesitation or confusion revealed inexperienced units.

Caldris commanders attempted to conceal those weaknesses by shifting veterans between threatened positions, but every transfer left another part of the line more dependent on recruits.

The defensive network still possessed manpower, yet its remaining experience was being stretched across a front too large for the shrinking professional core to control completely.

Behind the line, the training system struggled to keep pace. Men who might have become competent soldiers after several months were being sent east after only weeks because casualty reports demanded replacements faster than camps could prepare them.

That created a dangerous cycle. Heavy losses forced recruits to the front sooner, shorter training produced less capable soldiers, and those soldiers suffered heavier casualties once they entered battle.

The resulting losses then created demand for another round of inexperienced replacements.

Provincial authorities soon received new manpower requirements as training camps expanded and increasingly old weapons were removed from local armories.

Caldris could continue filling trenches with conscripts, but every veteran death reduced the ability of those new soldiers to survive long enough to become experienced themselves.

Noah reviewed Rakhar’s reports and saw that the balance of the battle was beginning to change even though the defensive line remained standing. The goblins were still losing more soldiers in absolute numbers, but the exchange was no longer favorable enough for Caldris to sustain indefinitely.

The line contained more bodies than it had before the conscription edict, yet it possessed fewer veterans, experienced officers, and disciplined formations. King Aldren had prevented the defenses from becoming empty, but the army filling them was gradually becoming easier to kill.

Near the end of the second month, another major attack struck the central defenses and demonstrated the problem clearly. Goblin siege engines opened a breach after hours of bombardment, allowing several Varkesh formations to push into the damaged earthworks before Caldris reserves counterattacked.

The defenders eventually forced the goblins back and rebuilt a temporary barrier across the opening before nightfall. Hundreds of goblin bodies remained around the breach, but the casualty officers examining the field found no reason to celebrate because their own losses had risen alongside them.

For approximately every Caldris soldier killed, only two goblins had died. Behind the repaired fortifications, another column of newly conscripted troops was already arriving to replace the dead, while beyond the battlefield fresh goblin formations were preparing to continue the pressure.

After two planetary months, the defensive line remained intact, but the arithmetic sustaining it was turning against Caldris. If each human life removed only two goblins from a force numbering in the millions, the kingdom could continue winning individual battles until there were no longer enough humans left to defend the next one.