Chapter 121: The Flood Through the North

Chapter 121: The Flood Through the North

The first month after the northern defenses cracked was spent fighting in the field rather than fortified cities.

Skargrim formations had crossed the broken line in strength, but Caldris still possessed enough organized troops to make every mile beyond it dangerous.

Retreating human commanders gathered whatever units they could around bridges, crossroads, villages, and narrow stretches of road, building temporary barriers wherever the terrain allowed them to delay the goblin advance.

Those positions lacked the deep trenches and layered fortifications that had stalled Rakhar for months, yet they accomplished their purpose for several days at a time.

Felled trees blocked roads, wagons were overturned between stone buildings, and conscript companies dug shallow earthworks outside towns while surviving veterans organized missile troops behind them.

Each delay gave Caldris another opportunity to gather soldiers farther west.

Skargrim commanders responded by widening their routes instead of repeatedly forcing the same obstacles. Scouts moved through farm tracks, forest paths, and abandoned villages, identifying ways around positions that controlled the main roads.

Engineers followed close behind, cutting new passages where wagons could move and repairing small bridges that Caldris troops had damaged during their retreat.

A blocking position that appeared formidable from the east could suddenly become useless when goblin scouts appeared several miles behind it. Human commanders increasingly faced the choice of withdrawing early or remaining long enough to risk losing the chance to retreat behind them.

The first major attempt to contain the breakthrough came near the end of the third week. Caldris assembled several battered regiments and thousands of new conscripts around a road junction connecting three important northern routes.

The soldiers received several days to dig trenches and strengthen nearby buildings, while carts filled with stone and timber were dragged into the approaches.

Skargrim formations attacked the eastern side for two days without forcing a decisive result. The human defenders held the junction despite heavy casualties, and additional conscripts arrived during the second night to replace depleted companies.

On the third day, Viridian formations appeared along another road to the southeast while Skargrim scouts began threatening the western approach. The Caldris commander understood that remaining at the junction would eventually allow the goblins to surround the entire position, so he ordered an organized withdrawal before the final road could be cut.

Rakhar did not waste troops pursuing every retreating company. Engineers immediately moved into the captured junction and began converting it into a supply point, while fresh formations spread through the newly opened roads.

By the end of the first month, goblin armies were no longer dependent on one narrow passage through the shattered defenses.

That was when Rakhar divided the northern campaign.

The largest force continued toward the northern interior under Skargrim leadership. Its orders were straightforward: seize the roads, towns, bridges, granaries, and administrative centers required to turn the breakthrough into permanent occupation.

A second army moved west before bending gradually south toward the rear of the central front, while a third column continued farther northwest through roads that carried it deeper into the kingdom.

During the second month, the northern conquest force encountered resistance around nearly every important settlement.

Some garrisons abandoned smaller towns after learning that nearby field armies had already withdrawn, while others chose to remain behind walls and barricades.

The goblins did not stop their main columns for every fortified town. Garrisons capable of threatening important roads were surrounded by detachments, leaving the larger formations free to move toward the next junction or river crossing.

Occupation units followed behind them.

Existing local officials who cooperated were kept under supervision where they could still perform useful work, while military officers assumed control over supplies and transportation.

Strict orders against uncontrolled looting remained in force. Rakhar needed roads filled with supply wagons rather than refugees blocking every route, and grain stored in captured warehouses was more useful than grain burned by soldiers looking for plunder.

The advancing northern army therefore left behind an expanding chain of occupied settlements instead of a trail of destroyed ones.

Caldris resisted by moving from one position to another. River crossings became temporary fronts, and several towns delayed the Skargrim advance for days while nearby forces evacuated supplies farther west.

One fortified settlement resisted long enough that Rakhar permitted a containment force to remain around it while the main army crossed the river several miles away.

By the end of the second month, control of northern Caldris had become fragmented.

Goblin-held roads connected several occupied towns and depots, while human forts and settlements remained scattered between them. Some Caldris strongholds still possessed thousands of soldiers, though their ability to support one another declined as goblin patrols controlled more of the roads separating them.

The second army had spent the same period moving west before gradually turning south.

Its advance attracted less attention at first because Caldris commanders assumed the force was supporting the northern occupation.

That assumption changed during the third month when goblin scouts began appearing along routes that supplied the northern portion of the central defensive sector.

The first losses were small. A wagon convoy disappeared on a secondary road, followed several days later by a messenger station being overrun during the night.

A bridge farther south was captured before its defenders could destroy it, giving the goblins another route toward the central rear.

Caldris responded by assigning escorts to supply columns and posting new troops around important junctions.

Every company moved to protect the rear was one that could no longer reinforce the eastern-facing trenches, forcing central commanders to distribute their soldiers between threats coming from different directions.

Rakhar kept the direct assaults against the central front active throughout the maneuver. Siege engines continued striking repaired defenses while Viridian and Varkesh formations launched enough attacks to prevent the humans from emptying their eastern positions.

The southern-turning army did not rush into a large battle behind the line. Its commanders focused on roads, bridges, depots, and messenger routes, gradually making the northern half of the central front harder to supply.

By the middle of the third month, several Caldris formations were receiving provisions through longer western routes. Ammunition wagons that once traveled along protected roads now required military escorts, and orders between northern central positions took longer to arrive because couriers avoided areas where goblin scouts had been seen.

Requests for permission to reposition began reaching the royal command. The officers sending them understood that their fortifications could become traps if the road to retreat behind them disappeared while goblin armies continued pressing from the east.

Caldris did not authorize a general withdrawal. The central line still contained some of the strongest prepared positions remaining in the kingdom, and abandoning them would expose a wide route toward the interior.

Farther northwest, the third goblin army continued its own campaign without turning south. Its columns captured crossroads and bridges while leaving detachments around strongholds that could not be taken quickly.

Several towns changed hands after brief resistance, giving the army access to additional storage sites and roads leading toward the center of the kingdom.

The movement lasted for weeks, carrying the army far enough west that Caldris initially treated it as another attempt to secure northern territory.

Royal commanders began shifting local troops to protect provincial centers and major road junctions, forcing the northwestern force to fight several significant actions before it could continue.

The purpose of the movement became clear at the beginning of the fourth month.

Rakhar ordered the entire northwestern army to turn south.

What had appeared to be a broad conquest route immediately became a threat to the central heartland.

Goblin columns began following roads that connected northern settlements to central Caldris, placing them well west of the defensive armies still facing east.

Reports reached the capital as scouts traced the possible routes ahead of the goblin advance. None of the formations were close enough to threaten the royal city directly, yet several roads leading south eventually joined the wider network surrounding the capital.

King Aldren responded by retaining more newly raised soldiers in the central provinces.

Important bridges received garrisons, road junctions were fortified, and towns along likely approaches began storing food and preparing defenses.

Those troops had been expected elsewhere.

The central front continued requesting replacements while commanders in the north demanded soldiers to slow the occupation. The southern defensive sector still required enough manpower to resist the attacks continuing against it, and now the interior needed its own armies.

During the same fourth month, the northern conquest force expanded its occupied territory considerably. Goblin-controlled roads connected a growing number of towns, granaries, and depots, allowing supply wagons to operate far beyond the original breach.

Several human forts remained inside those territories, though many had become isolated pockets surrounded by roads controlled by Skargrim patrols.

The southern-turning army also moved farther behind the central sector. Raids against supply roads became permanent positions at several junctions, forcing Caldris to abandon routes that had supported the line since the campaign began.

A few central formations received orders to pull back from exposed northern positions and shorten their supply routes. Other commanders remained in place while waiting for the royal command to decide whether the entire sector could still be held.

By then, the danger no longer existed only around the original defensive belt. The southern-turning army threatened the rear of the central front from the north, while the northwestern force was descending toward the central provinces from a much wider direction.

Rakhar continued feeding men and supplies into all three movements. New formations crossed through the northern corridor, passed the occupied junctions, and separated according to their destinations without requiring the entire army to gather in one place.

After four planetary months, the northern campaign no longer resembled a breakthrough at all. A broad region of Caldris contained goblin garrisons, supply depots, captured roads, moving armies, and isolated human strongholds surrounded by territory they could no longer freely cross.

To the north, Skargrim-led forces continued expanding the occupation. Farther south, another army was tightening its hold over the routes behind the central defensive sector, while the northwestern force continued descending toward the central interior and the roads that eventually led toward the capital.

Caldris still held substantial territory and fielded armies capable of resisting each advance, yet one broken section of the eastern defenses had developed into three sustained campaigns over four months.

The goblin flood had spread far beyond the place where it first entered, and the kingdom now had to fight it across the north, behind the central front, and along the approaches to its own heartland.