The next day, they woke up huddled together, surprised to find themselves in such a position. Embarrassed, Alyn stammered:
"Sorry, I don't know what came over me last night... I..."
"Don't worry, I'm used to it, it brings back memories. My little sister used to come and tell me about her worries to the point that we would fall asleep together. Although now that I think about it, it was many years ago..."
"I see," Alyn murmured, unconvinced by Tolir's explanation.
They got up in shape after a pleasant night following their evening of confession. During breakfast, Tolir made some calculations before heading to the core of the cave, two steps from their now-fortified camp.
He planned to raise an army to march on the city today. No matter how long they waited, he would never accumulate enough aether to take the city in a frontal assault. Therefore, he had to be prepared to play it smart.
In total, he had almost three hundred points of aether divided between the cores and his ability. After several days of hindsight, he could now estimate precisely the daily output of his cores, which allowed him to know the growth of his daily army.
While this was acceptable in absolute terms, the initial differential was such that it would take several years to close it just for this world. Moreover, even if the aether orbs provided him with a large quantity of aether, their scarcity and unique use prevented him from counting on this source for the long term.
Thus, only the passive generation of cores was constant and infinite but weak. He could increase the number of cores to accelerate his gains, but the distance between them made it laborious to move from one to the other. However, he now feared that his fear of effort would be detrimental.
He swept away this problem which for the moment did not have any more reason to be. He would worry about it if his plan worked. If not, the question would not even arise. When he reached the core of the cave, he transferred the difference in aether needed to summon forty goblin fighters.
No sooner had his soldiers appeared than they headed back the other way to the forest core. This one, closer to the city and fortified, would be the gathering point for their attack. He walked again for a long time in the forest, complaining about these unproductive round trips.
Before leaving, he briefly hesitated to upgrade his core before holding back. For several days now, the enhancement had been appearing in both cores, but without aether to summon more creatures in the future, he preferred to save his precious resource if the assault failed.
Back in the forest, where Alyn was waiting for him, obviously eager to fight to Tolir's surprise, he completed his army with the summoning of thirty goblin archers. With his army complete, he ate a quick meal with his comrade and then they left for the city.
When they reached the edge of the forest, they preferred to stay under its cover masking their presence to walk along it. This slightly arced forest approached the eastern side of the town where the lumber camp was located.
Alyn, during his explorations, had spotted the place, to Tolir's great joy. On his instructions, he had drawn a rough map of the area that allowed him to visualize the position of his troops in advance.
After a long approach of several hours, the sun was already declining when the shouts of the foresters at work told them that they had arrived. Tolir took out five fighters and three archers from the main group. In total, the main force consisted of forty-eight fighters and thirty archers. He had left some of the archers, in addition to the workers and one fighter, at the camp to guard it in his absence.
To this small detachment, he entrusted the initial attack. He charged Alyn to report to him the evolutions of the offensive to start its various phases. She had to stay out of sight of the woodcutters and not intervene in any way. Tolir insisted on this point, fearing that the girl would intervene if ever a woodcutter was in a bad position. She swore to him that she would not, without extinguishing her doubts.
With the organization decided, Tolir launched the beginning of the hostilities. The detachment disappeared in a few seconds into the thick cover of the forest, followed at a distance by Alyn. From then on, no turning back was possible. Waiting for the news that his companion would bring him, he paced impatiently.
After several minutes, cries of fear resounded in the distance. The goblins had reached the camp. Excitement and stress overcame Tolir. Unable to stand still, he spun around trying to analyze every sound he heard.
Then the silence returned. This one lasted an eternity for him. He suffered from the lack of news, and it was only when Alyn finally appeared that he breathed a sigh of relief. At least she was alive. As soon as he saw her, he asked her about the outcome. She answered in the affirmative, relieving him of his wait.
Recovering his composure, he ordered the rest of his troops to follow him to the camp. When he first entered the camp, Tolir saw the panic of the woodcutters. Scattered about were abandoned tools, harnessed logs and even a wagon with its draft animal still in place.
The whole thing even had a comical look to it that made him smile with satisfaction. As he walked through the conquered camp, an unexpected sight surprised him. Exactly what he thought he had avoided.
In front of him, two bloody bodies lay on the ground, an axe on each side. Tolir didn't expect to find dead people and sighed. More than the idea of having caused the death of innocent people again, it was his indifference that shocked him.
Alyn saw him staring at the corpses and explained the circumstances of their death:
"I'm not saying they deserve what happened to them... But they were damn fools... They thought they were capable of holding back the goblins to let their comrade get away when all they needed to do was running. Especially since they didn't even know how to fight and hadn't developed their characteristics..."
Tolir nodded, better understanding Alyn's barely sorry look. As he was about to point out her flippancy, he refrained. Perhaps finally the way of reasoning of the goddess was not so bad... Whatever the acts as long as the pursued result is right...
He knew that this line of action could justify anything, but as long as he restricted himself to moderate violence, he found this reasoning acceptable. Cynical, yes, but acceptable.
Putting away his excuses, he turned his attention back to the deployment of the troops. Normally, it would be a while before the guards arrived, but he didn't know exactly when, so he preferred to take off the burden of this unknown right now.
He divided the goblins into five equal groups hidden all around the camp in order to ambush the guards. He was determined to send a strong message by eliminating the entire group, especially since it would take away some of the golems to fight.
He planned a patrol of about ten guards. This size seemed adequate to him to dispose of a group of eight goblins and secure the camp. In any case, even if by chance the quantity was doubled, the advantage of the position was such that he could not see how not to win the fight.
Any deployment beyond that would be a surprise that would force him to reconsider his plans, but which he believed to be highly unlikely. As he had predicted, an hour after the attack, a patrol was heading toward the lumber camp.
He smiled as he counted fifteen golems in the approaching group. Moreover, the presence of a priest to command them enchanted him even more. He did not expect one of them to jump into the lion's den! From his short experience with Father Maurias, he thought they were so cowardly as not to fight directly, but perhaps this man was more the exception than the rule...
He and Alyn retreated to a safe distance to avoid detection. He wanted the people in charge of the city to think for as long as possible that they were dealing with just a dumb goblin army without a coherent command. Thus, he hoped they would make mistakes that he could exploit.
When the patrol reached the center of the woodcutter's camp, the priest spotted the corpses of the woodcutters. He shouted orders to his golems to adopt a dispersed position. In the distance, Tolir was biting his nails, hoping that the priest would not inadvertently thwart his plan.
Indeed, if he considered the annihilation of the fifteen guards as largely within reach during an ambush, he doubted this objective in case of a pitched battle. Especially if the priest fled, he was loath to order Alyn to shoot him, with all the risks that would entail...
The guard spread all over the camp to cover the priest. This one knowing that he was now protected, bent over the bodies to check their condition. Just then, in accordance with Tolir's instructions, the group furthest from the entrance to the camp from the city came out of cover, confronting the golems.
The priest barked an order, which the golems carried out, forming a tight line against the goblins. Tolir was elated. The enemy had fallen into his trap.