Novak reloaded her rifle and dumped the rest of the paper cases into one of her pockets. It wasn’t until her toes squished into the warm puddles of blood that she realized she was still barefoot, but she followed after Cleasby anyway. The Storm Knight lieutenant hadn’t waited to see if anyone was going to follow him. A leader like that didn’t need to.
As Cleasby entered the fray, it was obvious everything had gone to hell. Several of the wolf creatures rampaged through the interior of the fort. They were deadly, but they were only a deliberate distraction from the bigger threat. The men he’d position on the walls had their attention turned inward, unaware that they were about to be attacked from behind. “Rains!” There was no sign of his second in command.
Cleasby saw Pangborn gesturing wildly, giving directions to Headhunter. One of the creatures had charged their mighty Stormclad, and now all that was left of the creature was a blackened hole in the ground decorated with bits of armor and hairy stump limbs. The blade of a polearm was embedded in Headhunter’s hip joint. With his free hand, the warjack reached down, tore it out in a spray of hydraulic oil, and tossed it into the dirt.
“No! Now you’ll have a worse leak!” Pangborn shouted at his ’jack. But Headhunter had already gone tearing off after his next target. Plumes of black smoke shot from his stacks as he charged. The wolf beast was smart enough to keep running.
Even with all the commotion going on around him, Cleasby was able to detach himself from the madness long enough to assess the situation. The gate was unlocked. The chains that held the gate in place at night were snapped and the crossbeam had been hacked in two. One of the beasts must have smashed it first thing. This hole in their perimeter needed to be plugged immediately or they were done for.
“Pangborn, get Headhunter to block that gate!”
“They’re already here,” Pangborn shouted back, but then he realized what Cleasby meant. “Headhunter!” The big man whistled and pointed at the gate. Surprisingly, Headhunter listened this time and obeyed. Still, the way the giant, expressionless killing machine responded to the order somehow suggested it was a tad depressed to give up the chase. The lieutenant was thankful for Pangborn’s ’jack marshaling skills because if Cleasby had given that order, he was pretty sure Headhunter would have, at best, ignored him or, at worst, kicked him over the fence.
Satisfied that their most vulnerable entrance was now secured, Cleasby followed the flashes of lightning until he saw blue armor. Rains and a few of the Malcontents were firing on a retreating monster. It disappeared behind one corner of the stable as the Storm Knights blew the logs into splinters.
The few monsters inside the fort were already promising to be deadly but allowing more over the palisade would be much worse.
“Sixth Platoon! Listen up!” Cleasby shouted so loudly, it burned his throat—he was unsure which of them could hear him or who was still alive. Once he had their attention, he gestured. “Get shooters back on the walls. We’re about to get hit from all sides.”
Even in the face of immediate danger, Sergeant Rains broke off to make sure his officer’s orders were carried out. He shouted at the Storm Knights in view. “Bevy, cover the north wall. Langston, south. Younger, east. Gather volunteers on the way. Move!”
The hardest command to obey wasn’t to charge headfirst into danger but rather to ignore danger and leave it unresolved, for someone else to deal with—and yet, without hesitating, his Storm Knights ran off in different directions.
Cleasby moved closer to Rains. “We killed one in the bunkhouse. How many more are inside?”
“Two, I think,” Rains said. “It’s hard to tell. They’re quick.”
As much as Cleasby wanted to go charging after the wolf beasts himself, it was his responsibility to coordinate the defense, which would be a bit of challenge while in a sword fight. “Hunt those things down before they cause too much harm.”
Rains looked around for more help. “I could use some backup.”
There was a blue flash and a boom from the other side of the stable, followed by the shouts of a familiar voice. “Come, hideous beast! Come and fight Savio Montero Acosta!”
“There’s your backup,” Cleasby said.
“Damn it,” Rains muttered as he ran toward the lightning.
Cleasby turned back to the gate. Their ’jack marshal was peering through the gaps between the logs.
“Lieutenant! We’ve got incoming!” Pangborn shouted. “Something big!” He got out of the way as Headhunter lumbered up to the gate, extended his buckler arm, and placed it against the wood. A moment later something huge hit the other side. Ropes snapped and chains popped. The impact was so great that even Headhunter slid back a foot.
The palisade was twelve feet high there, but whatever was on the other side was so tall that a mass of dark fur could be seen above the spikes. The giant beast let out an incredible bellow of rage, bringing people to their knees, their hands covering their ears as they grimaced in pain. The noise went on and on, drowning out every other sound in the world. So angry, so belligerent, that when it finally tapered off, everyone, man and beast alike, stood there, weak-kneed and dumbfounded.
Now that was a challenge.
“You gonna let him talk to you like that?” Pangborn shouted at his ’jack.
Headhunter didn’t take kindly to such insults; it dipped one shoulder and placed it against the wood. Another massive hit shook the entire fort, but this time, Headhunter didn’t budge.
Clemency Horner had been near the gate and had taken cover behind some crates when the great scream had begun. The archeologist looked at Cleasby wide-eyed and shouted, “Now that might be a warpwolf!”
“We’ve got to hold that gate.” For the first time Cleasby looked back to see who had come with him from the bunkhouse. He had an injured, barefoot ranger, an old laborer with an antique pistol, and a dwarf with a pickaxe. They would have to do. “Novak, climb up that wall and see if you can get an angle on the big one.”
The military rifle in her hands wasn’t particular impressive. “I don’t know if it’ll notice.”
“Try to shoot it in the soft bits.”
As Novak ran off, Cleasby tried to take in the situation. Based on the noise, sending his men back to the walls had been a good call. They were firing on targets in the surrounding woods, and from the volume of fire, there seemed to be a lot of targets to choose from. It looked as if Langston was the last to reach his position on the south wall, but thankfully he made it up the ladder just as a hairy grey arm appeared over the top of the palisade. One panicked swing later, a bloody claw was lying in the dirt, and the wounded monster dropped down the other side. Langston grinned almost maniacally.
When the gigantic creature hit the gate again, it shook the west wall so badly that the workers who’d been climbing up it to shoot were flung back into the compound. If they didn’t stop that thing quickly, it would make a hole they wouldn’t be able to plug. Headhunter was their most powerful weapon, but the warjack couldn’t engage the beast without opening the gate, and if they did that, more of the wolf monsters would probably swarm in around it. Luckily, Cleasby had spent much of the journey pondering various ways to kill dire trolls. Thorny’s inventory had some interesting things on it for such an occasion, and although this wasn’t a dire troll, it seemed close enough in Cleasby’s mind. He turned to the workers. “You brought some blasting powder charges to clear rubble. Where are they?”
“Locked up safe in a chest,” the older man said. “Raus has the key.”
Cleasby glanced around but didn’t see the ogrun. He pointed at the dwarf’s pickaxe. “That looks like a key to me. Get those charges now.” They headed for the wagons while Cleasby went to the gate to help Pangborn. He still had a couple of Storm Knights unaccounted for. If they were alive, they were pitching in somewhere—but in the moment, Cleasby couldn’t afford to worry about them.
Pangborn had tossed aside his equipment to work on Headhunter. His storm thrower and pack were on
the ground next to him, and now free of his gauntlets, his hands were nimbly working on the ’jack. Despite having been sprayed with hot oil, he’d managed to get a rubber patch onto the ruptured hydraulic cylinder. Now Pangborn was trying to hold the patch in place with one hand while he tried to free a tube of alchemical sealer from the leather apron he wore around the front of his armor. The mechanic was so lost in concentration that he seemed to Cleasby as if he were oblivious to his vulnerability—if the monster bowled Headhunter over, Pangborn would be crushed.
“Got to fix the damage before he loses power to this leg!” Pangborn shouted,
The beast hit the gate again, and as the logs splintered and came apart, Headhunter slid across the packed dirt. Pangborn grimaced when he crashed against a metal leg, but he kept hold of the patch.
Cleasby rushed in and shoved his armored palms against the rubber patch. Pangborn let go, pulled out the tube of sealer, bit the cap off with his teeth, and began squirting the mixture along the edge. The rubber melted as the alchemical mixture hissed and bubbled. Cleasby started and quickly moved his fingers out of the way—the last thing he wanted to do was weld his hands to Headhunter.
“Almost there,” Pangborn mumbled around the cap that rested on his lips like a cigar. His focus was on his work. Cleasby glanced nervously toward the gate. Through the widening cracks between the logs, he could see the vast black shape retreating to get another running start at them. “Almost there—”
“Pangborn!”
The beast charged.
“Got it!”
Cleasby let go of the patch and desperately tackled Pangborn. The two Storm Knights tumbled to the ground just as the monster landed. Headhunter’s damaged leg buckled—its knee slammed deep into the earth where Pangborn had just been standing. With a whistle of angry steam, Headhunter surged back up and shoved the failing gate back into place.
Pangborn looked at the hole in the earth, picturing the wet earth dripping from Headhunter’s knee as if it were his intestines, and then at Cleasby. “Good shove.”
“Thank me when this thing is dead,” he said as he struggled to his feet. Storm armor was heavy, but when properly motivated, a Storm Knight could still get up in a hurry. Cleasby could feel the vibrations in the earth as the beast stomped back to rush the gate once more. The barricades, especially the gate itself, had never been designed to take this kind of abuse, and it wasn’t going to last much longer. “Retrieve your storm thrower.”
Pangborn hurried to his weapon. He hoisted the heavy pack and got one strap over his shoulder. The storm thrower dangled from its insulated hose. “Charging. Let’s fry this thing.”
“Gauntlets, Pangborn,” Cleasby warned, “Forget your protective equipment in the heat of the moment, you’ll blow your hands off when you try to fire.”
“Safety first, lieutenant,” Pangborn said with a grin as he pulled his gauntlets from his apron. Cleasby didn’t know how he did it, but the big man always seemed to be enjoying himself at times like this. Some men were just born to fight.
“Army! We got your charges!” The dwarf was running toward Cleasby, his stubby legs pumping, a big canvas satchel in his arms. He looked nervous about his cargo.
“Distract that beast,” Cleasby shouted to whoever could hear. It was going to be close. Some of the workers had managed to climb back up the west palisade when a handful of gunshots suddenly rang out. Horner demonstrated she was far braver than the average scholar by shoving the muzzle of her scattergun through a gap between the logs and firing at the monster’s legs. None of her rounds seemed large enough to fell the beast, but luckily, she bought them some time. Unluckily, the beast reached up and swatted one of the shooters from the top of the wall. There was a flash of black fur, yellow claws, and then a man went flying into the night.
“Careful, careful,” The dwarf’s voice got higher and higher as he pushed the satchel toward Cleasby. “That’s just two big pouches of blastin’ powder. As soon as they mix, they’ll go off.”
Cleasby looked inside the satchel; two bags were resting on top of each other, one black, the other red. It would probably have been smarter to carry one in each hand while running across a compound menaced by wolf monsters, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. “How do you detonate it?”
“Burning fuse.”
“Where’s the fuse?”
“Uh—” The dwarf looked back toward the wagons. “—you didn’t say to get no fuse!”
“Damn it.” There wasn’t time to go look for it. Cleasby took the satchel and hauled it toward the gate. Maybe if they were lucky, the sacks would rupture on impact. He looked at the height of the fence, took a guess at the size of the beast, and realized he wasn’t strong enough to land it on the other side of the monster. If it landed too close, the blast would not only destroy the wall but, more than likely, kill them all with shrapnel. He needed some muscle. “Pangborn, take this.”
Pangborn took the satchel by the straps. “What is it?”
“A bomb.”
The mechanic’s eyes widened. “Thanks?”
“Wait for the beast to hit, then I need you to throw this behind it. We need its body to shield us from the blast. Got it?”
“Got it.” Pangborn dropped his storm thrower and took the improvised bomb in both hands, trying to determine the most efficient way to toss the awkward package.
“You have one shot. Make it count.” Cleasby turned back toward the failing gate. The beast was coming at them again. Headhunter was propping up a pile of broken sticks and wood pulp at this point. Cleasby flipped down his visor in the hope that if this didn’t go according to plan, splinters wouldn’t shred his eyes. “Wait…”
The beast roared another terrible, awful, piercing scream of primal hate right before impact.
“Now!”
Pangborn hurled the bomb.
The wall shuddered again under the beast’s attack. Headhunter took the impact with his buckler arm and shoved back. And as all this happened, the canvas bag sailed awkwardly through the air, end over end, slowly hurtling over Headhunter and over the hairy, snarling monstrosity and landed perfectly somewhere on the other side. Cleasby braced for impact.
It didn’t go off.
“Bloody hell.” Cleasby had to think of something fast. He couldn’t see the monster from here, so he didn’t have a shot at it with his glaive. Most of the workers had been knocked off the crumbling palisade, but then he spied one person still hanging on. At the far end of the wall, perched precariously on the corner, was none other than the ranger.
“Novak! Shoot the bag! Shoot the bag!” He couldn’t even tell if she’d heard him. The ranger was leaning dangerously far over the side of the wall. She was vulnerable, her rifle was shouldered, and her elbow was resting against a sharpened log. She seemed far too still and calm, all things considered. “Shoot the—”
She fired but the noise of her gunshot was nothing compared to the horrendous explosion on the other side of the fence. A wave of pressure rolled across them, shredding bark from logs and threatening to bend the fence to the point of breaking. The blast hurled Cleasby backward while debris rained from the sky to ping against his armor and swirls of dust replaced the clouds in the sky.
The beast roared anew, but this time from pain and surprise.
“Headhunter, move the gate and open fire on that thing!”
For once, their warjack responded to him or, more likely, Headhunter was tired of waiting and wanted its own piece of the monster. It didn’t so much open the gate as move its shield arm away and let the gate fall.
The monster was tough. It had been practically standing on top of the bomb, and yet it was still, remarkably, in one piece. It was hard to get a good look at the monster in the dim light, through the dust and the smoke. Like the other creatures trying to climb the walls, it was vaguely lupine in form—with long arms ending in claws and great jaws that could snap a man in half—except for its posture. Standing upright, the beast had what appeared to be spikes
of bone poking through its bristling hair and great shaggy mane.
“Warpwolf!” Horner confirmed Cleasby’s worst fears.
Cleasby shouted, “Pangborn, fire!”
The storm thrower ignited, blasting a crackling blue line into the beast. Glaives would track the more potent blast of the storm thrower, giving the Storm Knights easier targets. Cleasby aimed his glaive and pushed the firing stud. His arc followed the same blinding path as the first. Another Storm Knight came from around Headhunter and fired as well. Three blue lines rapidly leapt through the open gate, tearing and burning through the beast, yet they all paled compared to what came next.
Headhunter pointed his massive generator blade at the now-illuminated beast. They could all feel the energy building in the air, gathering along the length of deadly, alchemically treated steel. Blue lines hissed down the blade as Headhunter fired.
The generator blast put their glaives to shame. It hit with a mighty roar, and for just an instant the beast was highlighted as if ringed in fire. The gagging stench of burned hair filled the space between them, and smoke suddenly burst from the monster’s ears as if a fire burned in its skull. The beast twitched and jerked as the lightning ripped through its muscles, but it didn’t stop there. The energy arced outward, deliberately and hungrily burning into other nearby wolf men who’d thought they were safe behind their beast.
Charred and smoking, the beast hit the ground and rolled away. The foul stench of burning flesh surrounded them all as if it had physical form. Headhunter took one thunderous step forward and violently banged his generator blade against his shield, as if to say “challenge accepted.”
Clawing at the earth, the beast scrambled away from the gate, got to its feet, and fled into the trees.
“Don’t pursue,” Cleasby ordered. Though he knew the aggressive warjack would want to chase the beast down, the fort was still under siege. “Hold this position.”
Pangborn did everything he could—hand signals and vocal instructions both—to command the ’jack to stay. But nothing registered with it. It turned to face the forest. Finally, Pangborn bravely put his body directly in Headhunter’s path. “Easy, boy. I promise, there’s more where that came from, but the Malcontents need you here right now.”
Into the Wild Page 18