Chapter 122: The Central Pocket

Chapter 122: The Central Pocket

The goblin army that had turned south from the northern breakthrough did not advance as a single column. Over the weeks following the northern campaign, its leading formations spread across several parallel roads while scouts ranged ahead through villages, wooded hills, and minor crossings.

Each route brought them farther behind the northern edge of Caldris’s central defensive sector.

Rakhar Veyr allowed the movement to develop gradually. The army facing the central defenses from the east continued maintaining pressure, while the force behind the line advanced south without committing itself to an immediate battle.

His intention was not to throw another army against fortifications from the opposite side. He wanted enough territory behind the central front that the defenders would eventually have nowhere safe to move.

Viridian formations led much of the southern advance, supported by Skargrim units that had crossed through the northern corridor after the breakthrough.

Their first objectives were the roads immediately behind the northernmost central positions. Goblin scouts moved ahead of the infantry and marked bridges, villages, crossroads, and hills capable of controlling movement through the region.

Caldris detachments attempted to contest those approaches wherever they could. Several villages changed hands during short engagements, and human cavalry occasionally struck exposed scouts before withdrawing toward stronger positions.

Within two weeks, the southern-turning army had extended across a broad strip of countryside behind the central front.

The goblins did not yet possess an unbroken line of troops. Instead, they controlled important points from which they could move quickly between routes.

Crossroads became camps, bridges received permanent guards, and nearby hills were occupied by scouts who watched human movement across the surrounding roads.

Caldris responded by sending troops north from the central rear.

The first serious clash came around a stone bridge that connected several central positions with the territories farther west.

A Caldris force reached it before the goblins could fully fortify the eastern bank and drove the first Viridian detachment away after hours of fighting.

The humans remained there for two days.

On the third morning, scouts reported Skargrim infantry approaching from the north while another Viridian formation appeared several miles downstream. The Caldris commander realized that defending the bridge would allow the goblins to move around both flanks and threaten the road behind him.

The humans withdrew before nightfall.

Goblin engineers crossed shortly afterward and immediately strengthened the position. More infantry followed, and the bridge became one of several permanent crossing points supporting the southward advance.

Rakhar watched these movements through the reports arriving from his commanders. Each captured road extended the army’s reach, while every Caldris unit sent to stop them weakened the forces available elsewhere.

He therefore ordered the eastern army to increase its activity.

Viridian and Varkesh formations struck several sections of the central defensive line over the following days.

Siege engines resumed heavier bombardment against damaged works, infantry tested weakened sections, and engineers moved against obstacles that Caldris had repaired repeatedly.

The attacks forced the central defenders to remain facing east while goblin formations continued moving through their rear.

The southern-turning army widened again during the third week.

One column continued directly south toward the northern rear of the central defenses. Another moved farther west before bending south, preventing Caldris from forming a single blocking force across the most obvious approach.

A third group remained farther north to secure the territory already crossed.

The movement began creating a curved goblin-controlled zone behind the central sector.

Human commanders could still travel west, but their safe routes were being compressed between the advancing goblins and the armies holding the original defensive line. Several Caldris positions near the northern end became increasingly exposed as Viridian scouts appeared behind roads their defenders had once considered secure.

The first withdrawal came before a battle could begin.

A northern central fortification was abandoned after goblin columns appeared on two roads behind it. Its garrison moved southwest during the night, carrying weapons and whatever equipment could be transported quickly.

Viridian scouts entered the fort the following morning.

Rakhar did not stop the southern advance to occupy every abandoned position heavily. Enough soldiers were left behind to secure useful roads, while the leading formations continued searching for the next route around the central rear.

The retreat of one Caldris position exposed another farther south.

Within days, the northern edge of the central defensive front had begun bending backward. Human formations moved from exposed fortifications into new positions facing north and northeast, creating a front that was no longer pointed in a single direction.

The goblins continued pressing that bend.

By the beginning of the following month, the southern-turning army had advanced far enough that several of its formations were almost directly west of positions still fighting Rakhar’s eastern armies. The human defenders could hear reports of goblin patrols behind them while continuing to watch siege crews working beyond their eastern trenches.

Rakhar still avoided closing the pocket too quickly.

He wanted the army inside it to remain concentrated long enough for the outer maneuver to develop.

The wider threat was approaching from the northwest.

The third army from the northern campaign had spent months moving through the kingdom before turning south.

Its route placed it much farther west than the troops directly circling the central front, and its leading formations were now descending through roads connecting northern Caldris with the central provinces.

Unlike the southern-turning army, this force was not aimed at the immediate rear of the defensive line.

Its movement threatened the territory beyond it.

Goblin scouts reached several major junctions used by troops traveling between central Caldris and the northern regions. Some were captured after brief fighting, while others were abandoned before the main army arrived.

Caldris now had two separate goblin movements descending from the north.

One was curling tightly behind the central front.

The other was moving along a much wider arc farther west.

The distance between them remained substantial, but the routes ahead increasingly pointed toward the same region.

Caldris attempted to prevent them from converging.

New formations were sent toward towns and road junctions between the two goblin advances. Temporary defenses appeared around bridges, while cavalry patrols searched for scouts moving ahead of the larger armies.

The effort slowed some columns but could not stop the overall momentum. The goblins possessed enough formations to bypass strong points and continue along neighboring roads, forcing Caldris to either spread its troops or allow parts of the advance to pass uncontested.

Rakhar encouraged that dispersion.

Whenever the humans gathered around one road, goblin scouts searched for another. Engineers followed with infantry and widened whatever passage they found.

The southern-turning army gradually pushed around the northern rear of the central front until its leading formations reached roads running west from the human defenses.

Several engagements followed as Caldris tried to preserve those routes.

One road junction changed hands three times during a week of fighting. Human troops recovered it after the first goblin attack, only to discover another Viridian force moving through farmland toward the southern approach.

When the goblins returned in greater strength, Caldris withdrew rather than allow the position to become surrounded.

The loss narrowed the space behind the central army.

Another route remained farther west, accompanied by several smaller roads capable of carrying infantry but not large quantities of wagons and heavy equipment. Central commanders began shifting formations toward those roads before the goblins could reach them.

The movement did not escape Rakhar’s scouts.

Instead of sending the nearest army directly against the remaining corridor, Rakhar ordered formations to continue farther west and occupy terrain controlling the approaches around it. Goblin companies appeared on hills north of the road, while another force seized a village several miles south.

The corridor remained open, but the ground surrounding it was gradually filling with enemy troops.

The central Caldris army began pulling away from its northernmost fortifications.

These withdrawals happened in stages. One position emptied during the night, followed several days later by another farther south.

Goblin forces moved into each abandoned section and advanced along the former human line from north to south.

The eastern armies increased pressure at the same time.

Caldris could not simply turn its entire formation west because thousands of goblins still stood before the trenches. The defenders were forced to maintain an eastern front while shifting more units toward their northern and western rear.

The shape of the battlefield had become like a dragon swallowing its prey.

From the east, Rakhar’s original armies kept the central defenders fixed against their fortifications. From the north, the southern-turning army continued wrapping behind them.

Farther west, the northwestern army descended toward the central provinces and threatened the routes that might otherwise provide room for a deeper retreat.

The other twoother goblin forces didn’t join.

Rakhar did not need them to.

Their positions forced Caldris to defend an expanding arc while the available space behind the central front continued shrinking.

During the following weeks, Viridian scouts pushed farther south along the rear of the defensive sector. Several abandoned camps were occupied, another road junction fell, and goblin engineers began improving captured routes so larger formations could move through the area without returning north.

Caldris commanders watched the map change every few days.

Positions once several days behind the battlefield were now occupied by goblin units. Roads that once connected the central front directly to the interior required detours around enemy-held settlements.

The northwestern army continued descending during the same period.

Its leading formations entered the outskirts of the central provinces, forcing Caldris to position troops farther inland. Those formations had previously been expected to reinforce the central defensive army, but the threat from the northwest gave them another responsibility.

By then, the central command had begun preparing for withdrawal.

The remaining western route was strengthened with infantry positions, engineers, and reserve formations. Wounded troops and unnecessary equipment started moving through first, reducing what would have to pass along the road if the entire army received permission to retreat.

Goblin scouts continued watching.

Rakhar received their reports alongside maps showing the southern-turning army almost beneath the central front’s northern rear. The northwestern army remained farther away, but its southward direction restricted how far west the humans could retreat safely without encountering another goblin advance.

He ordered the encirclement to tighten another step.

Viridian formations moved toward the hills north of the withdrawal route, while supporting units advanced around its southern approaches. The road itself remained under Caldris control, though enemy scouts could now observe sections of it from nearby ground.

The central defenders still possessed a way out.

They could no longer assume it would remain open.

The warning reached General Marcus Hale after another series of positions along the northern part of the central front were abandoned. His commanders reported that the goblins had moved farther around the sector and that the surviving army could still escape if ordered to withdraw immediately.

Waiting would allow Rakhar to continue closing the pocket.

General Marcus Hale finally authorized the retreat.

The order reached the central headquarters as goblin columns continued moving south behind the line. Officers gathered around the campaign map could see the shrinking corridor to the west, the Viridian positions above it, and the wider northwestern army descending toward the central provinces.

The central fortifications were still resisting the armies attacking from the east.

Their commanders would now have to abandon them anyway.

Before the goblin movements north and west could complete the pocket, the entire central army had been ordered to escape through the narrowing gap that remained.