by Charles Dean
“Brigid?” Lee asked, recognizing who she was talking about immediately. “No, but one of the townspeople told me that they already warned her about the upcoming battle. She should be around soon.”
“If you say so . . .” Jade looked at the townsmen and watched them as they filtered across the top of the fortified wooden wall. “I wouldn’t take her for a coward, so I’m inclined to believe she’ll be here soon.”
“Right.” Lee settled in after that and waited for Meadhbh and her army to arrive. They had an hour to kill, but he wasn’t keen on waiting until the last minute to get into place. Miller showed up again later on and took up his position on the opposite end of the wall to Lee, proudly carrying one of his new spears while commanding the men to drink to their hearts’ content before battle. Lee laughed at the sight. He normally wouldn’t encourage people to get liquored up before a fight, but he knew the effect it had on men from experience. After all, it was called liquid courage for a reason. All too often, he had seen firsthand how it calmed mens’ shaky hands and settled their fears before a fight. Miller boasted to the enraptured men and women around him about how justice would persevere, and how Satterfield would surely triumph. Even if Lee wasn’t a hundred-percent sold on their odds, he had to admit that the ultimate victory of rectitude and the deliverance of Satterfield was a pleasant thought.
As for his little trio, they just waited quietly atop the southern wall. Ling was on his left, Jade was behind him, and Lee’s eyes were on the army. He had made sure his golems had a view of every part of Meadhbh’s army at all times. When she finally broke out of the forest into the clearing in front of Satterfield’s southern gate, Lee had already familiarized himself with her numbers and the quality of her beasts. He wasn’t sure he was ready for them, but he was going to do his best.
Meadhbh’s giant tiger form swaggered across the field, baring her teeth as she outpaced her army and dashed a hundred feet ahead of her nearest soldier. She spotted Lee on the wall as if she were drawn to him, and she slowed to a halt. Smiling up at him, she roared, “I have come to rip apart your chains, my partner! I have come to kill this weak filth you cling to and free you for greatness!”
“Oh. Wow. That is definitely one creepy yandere,” Jade laughed. “I see why you built a wall between you and her. That is a next-level psycho love story. Alright, let’s kill the yandere, avenge the tsundere, and then go drink with the deredere. Did I miss someone?”
“The grandpa?” Lee asked, chuckling despite the tension he felt mounting. He couldn’t help but admire how easy it was for Jade to reduce what was about to be one of the bloodiest battles a town would ever face down to nothing more than a joke.”
“Oh, right. No, I didn’t forget him,” Jade continued. “I’m not drinking with old men. Was forced to do that too much back home before the transfer. Not going to do anything remotely similar now.”
“Meadhbh,” Lee called out to the tiger. “I think you have greatly underestimated the people you call weak and what even the most unfortunate man has to offer this world.”
“We shall see,” Maedhbh growled back. Then, she let out a louder, more guttural roar. The thunderous boom resonated off of the walls, and Lee instantly felt the tremor created by the stampeding hooves for the first time as her army charged forward. Moving as if they were one giant, gelatinous blob of squealing and bellowing troops, they all began pressing toward Satterfield and its walls.
The boar-men moved faster and soon began to outpace the others. Lee didn’t wait for them to reach either the pits or the spike-filled trench and began firing off arrows as fast as he could grab them as soon as the Phouka were within range. The first arrow sailed across the battlefield and landed perfectly in the back of a boar-man; and, to Lee’s surprise, a death notification appeared as soon as it hit. What? Are they just cannon fodder? Lee quickly notified the system to turn off all future death notifications.
He wondered if they were going to be so easy to kill, but he noticed that some of his fellow villagers required six or seven arrows in order to fell a single one, whereas others required two or three. Ah, it’s just the effect of a higher Power stat, Lee realized as he finished killing his third boar. Then, the polybolos began firing. The giant bolts darted across the field with a terrifying speed, stopping the boars in their tracks and pinning them against the ground where they landed. It took two people to operate each machine, one constantly running the crank and the other feeding bolts into the chamber since the machine could easily unload over ten a minute, but the bolts were being fired in rapid succession thanks to the automated loading process.
After getting his first few kills, Lee saw the now-familiar menu appear, letting him know that he had a buff to distribute. This one was titled True Patriot: Fury of the People, and it was accompanied by three red circles. He was tempted to give the buff out right away, but then he realized that, since it was marked with red, it was likely just a pure damage upgrade. It might help an archer kill a few more boar-men, but the smart play would be to either save it for the next twenty-eight seconds or cast it when the first wave hit the wall, whichever came first.
Things looked to be going well so far, but the inevitable problem then became even more strikingly apparent almost immediately: there were simply too many for them to fight off. The Phouka army was too large, and it was only a matter of time before the walls were struck by the horde and strained under the frenzied press of hefty animal bodies.
We need to tighten the point of impact at least. If they’re going to break through, let’s concentrate where . . . “Miller, thin the left edge first!” Lee shouted over the chaos, hoping his ally heard him. Then, he directed his instructions to the men around him. “Brothers, take out this right flank with me. Archers, spread out! Abandon the middle segment of the wall before they hit. Don’t go down with the wall!”
Everyone rushed to follow Lee’s orders, picking off the sides of the horde as fast as they could while spreading out so that they wouldn’t be on the center part of the wall when it first got hit.
“Jade, you got that golem coming up yet?” Lee asked, not seeing it anywhere on the field.
“It’s not a good time yet,” Jade said as she walked forward and leaned over the wall, looking out over the carnage. The fight hadn’t even been going on for a full minute, but dozens of the boar-men had been slaughtered. Unfortunately, another few seconds was the most they were going to get. The boar-men were faster than counterparts, and they were already two-thirds of the way across the field and rapidly approaching the small pits Miller had dug. The first of the hogs to reach the pitfalls dove into the giant holes face-first, rather effectively plugging them with their own bodies, and the onrush of boars continued unabated from behind, their sacrificial brethren becoming makeshift bridges like it wasn’t a problem at all. It was like watching giant alien bugs in a campy sci-fi movie crawling over each other, except the pigs exhibited even less empathy as they continued their crazed rush toward Satterfield.
A few dozen more died before they reached the long ditch filled with spikes, and then just like with the pits, the front line tumbled in face first. Their squeals sounded out over the din of the battle and the sound of stampeding hooves, deafening out everything else as they mercilessly impaled themselves on the spikes and then were trampled over by their brothers. It took three boars to fill the well-dug ditch, unlike the quick pits Miller had dug, but there were more than enough following behind to fill the holes left in their ranks.
Even after over a hundred of the boar-men had died on account of the spikes, the pits and wave after wave of arrows and automatic ballista fire, Meadhbh’s army seemed both endless and unstoppable. The massive force was about to hit the wall in a few seconds, and Lee had no way of stopping it
“Get off the damn center portion of wall!” Lee yelled when he saw three archers still firing from the exact section that was about to break and collapse.
“That should be enough!” Jade yelled while raising her hands.
The bloody boar-shifters strung across the field, pits and ditches all had their bodies ripped into pieces as if being moved by an unseen hand, and they were dragged into the center of the field. It was horrifying to watch, and even Lee hesitated a second between loosing arrows.
The giant ball of corpses started to accrete and coagulate, and Jade’s gruesome-looking golem was formed in the middle of Meadhbh’s army. This time, it was over twenty-five feet tall, and Lee knew that it was likely a goliath in terms of strength and power simply because so many bodies had gone into it. When he had seen the creature before, its pale, rotten flesh had hung loosely from its body. Now, however, it appeared to be as firm and as taut as a professional athlete. The stampeding boars charged into its legs headfirst, seemingly hoping to take it down, but it appeared as if they were more prone to bounce away harmlessly than they were to do any real damage. The giant golem lashed out with a few kicks, sending the creatures careening away through the herd, and then took several steps forward, crushing even more underneath its feet.
Most importantly, however, Jade’s golem had been summoned using the corpses that had piled up in the pits and ditch. When the blood golem was formed, the dead bodies were sucked up into it, effectively resetting the traps and clearing them of carcasses. Now, the mindless brutes would have to refill the traps the same way they had before. This also meant that the first wave of boars that had already cleared the ditch had absolutely no backup. There was no momentum behind their charge as they were only two or three deep now, and Lee wasted no time ordering his men to try and thin that line out even more before impact.
“I can’t hold a golem this big for long. Maybe forty-five seconds at most before I run out of juice!” Jade warned.
Lee glanced down at his True Patriot Skill.
Fury of the People (Unknown): 13 Seconds Until Expired.
Next buff - (Unknown): 13 seconds.
“Well, let’s make those 45 seconds count.” Lee threw his buff onto the golem. The Golem’s towering body glowed red and then the brute stomped forward. Each step crushed a boar in the same way that a two-and-a-half-story building might a human if it happened to topple over and land on top of him. Meadhbh dashed forward out of the backlines and lunged at one of its legs; but, surprisingly, her attack didn’t appear to have any effect. The golem retaliated with shocking speed, shifting its weight onto one foot and trying to stomp on Meadhbh with the other. Maedhbh dodged to the side, leaving a pig behind to die in her place, and the golem lashed out with its foot and kicked her instead. The giant black tiger went flying through the air, roaring in pain and anger as she flew back nearly fifty feet.
‘Damn. I don’t know what you did to my Bobby, but he’s stronger than ever!” Jade exclaimed. “It’s really helping him deal with the excess bloat.”
Lee didn’t have time to celebrate the minor victory because the first wave of boars hit the wall, and he felt the reverberation run through the wooden timbers, shaking the decking beneath him. Crap! It’s not going to take the next hit! Lee danced back even more, creating some distance between him and the targeted section of lumber. “Jade, Ling, let’s move.”
Rather than respond, however, Jade stood rooted in place. Ling retreated, leaving him and Jade as the last two people on this section of the wall.
She’s going to fall when the wall collapses! Realizing what was about to happen, Lee quickly stowed his bow into his inventory, jumped forward once again, grabbed Jade around the waist, lifted her up as gently as he could, and ran along the wall. All the while, she remained focused on controlling the demonic-looking minion of hers on the field. Lee took her silence and concentration as a sign of the amount of strain such a large golem was placing on her mentally. He set her down once they were reasonably clear, looked over at Ling and said, “Watch after her.” He then looked for Miller and found him on the opposite wall section, firing off arrows. It was weird seeing him use something other than a spear. It just felt wrong.
“‘Bout my time, is it?” Dave called up from the ground. The tremors in the wall had been distinct enough to tell him that it would likely topple soon. Even if it hadn’t lasted very long, Lee regretted nothing in terms of putting it up. It was buying him precious time, and the wave that had only just slammed into the wall was already dead, mowed down by the ballista and archers.
“About there,” Lee shouted back, once more pulling his bow back out and firing off a few shots. He, and apparently the rest of Satterfield, was still drawn to the sight of the massive blood beast. His next buff came up in the corner of his vision, this one titled Wings of Liberty, and it was modified by five white dots next to it. You’ve got to be kidding me . . . If this was as obvious of a buff as the name indicated, it would be the single luckiest draw of his life.
Fury of the People (Jade’s Golem): 17 Seconds Remaining.
Wings of Liberty - (Jade’s Golem): 30 Seconds Remaining.
Next buff - (Unknown): 29 Seconds.
Then, as if every expectation and more was met, he saw a white light highlight the golem, and two giant, white wings appeared on its back.
“What have you done to Bobby?!” Jade squealed excitedly, and then, a second later, the white light filtered down off of the golem and pressed into the ground as the golem was lifted into the air. Lee didn’t know what Jade was planning, but it soon became clear. The previously-lumbering golem hovered in the air above the wall, what must have been at least ten stories off the ground, curled into a ball and then barreled back to the ground at a tremendous speed. The white light that had made its wings retracted inward, surrounding the golem in a type of shield as the behemoth crashed down. The giant ball of bloody death ripped through a wave of boars like a gargantuan bowling ball of bloodshed only to spring out of the ball and shoot up into the air again.
Meadhbh roared furiously, but neither she nor her troops could do anything to stop it. The more humanoid shapeshifters seemed to be able to see it coming, so it never achieved more than the slaughter of boars, but it was incredibly effective in cleaning them off the battlefield.
On its third cannonball run, the wall was struck by another line of boar-men. Their lines were heavy, and the pressure of their corpulent bodies on top of the ones behind them broke through the wall. The initial surge had already shaken and fractured the main supports stabilizing the wall, and this second brought down the surrounding portions with it, toppling them inward when the center gave way.
“Run further to the sides!” Lee shouted, and the villagers responded.
Less than a third of Meadhbh’s troops remained thanks to the continuous firing of archers, but they were the more humanoid, bigger and meaner-looking ones. More importantly, they were the ones that looked like they could climb the ladders on the inside of the wall and make it up to where all the low-level villagers were without a problem. Lee had no faith in the troops’ ability to hold that side without help, especially since Miller had lost so many levels with his death. “Dave, fight your way up to Miller’s side. Get on that rampart!” Lee called out to the old man where he stood waiting, ready to intercept the beasts. “Miller, break those ladders near your troops. Don’t let those be used against us!”
“Lee, I’m . . . I’m spent,” Jade stuttered. Her golem, which was currently running amok through some of the few remaining boars that hadn’t yet reached the wall, stood up, took to the air for a brief second, and then exploded. Large chunks of bloody flesh rained down across the battlefield, bathing everything in a bright-red sheen of blood and crushing at least seven more boar-shifters under its weight as pieces of it fell across the field in its last moments. “Hold me,” she gasped and then collapsed just like the golem.
Lee reached out and grabbed her with both arms before she hit the deck, only to have her turn, hug him tightly and then hop out of his arms as fast as he had picked her up. She winked at him and said, “You’re so predictable, Mr. M.C.” She laughed merrily as she leaned against the railing. Despite her jovial attitude and hijinks, she was
clearly unable to stand properly without support.
“Keep those arrows firing!” Lee shouted when he noticed that the troops on his side of the breach had let up their barrage. The blood golem’s collapse had confused them, and the fact that there weren’t many easy boar targets left hadn’t helped. “If you can’t hit a boar, start shooting the fattest of those humanoids. The ones that look like the offspring of the largest man in Kirshtein and a cow. Those first. Small targets second. You, you, you and you, knock these ladders down. I want one point of entry!” Lee commanded as he turned around and began firing again. He couldn’t be telling them not to slack off if he was.
“Lee,” Meadhbh roared, her voice echoing over the din of war. “Lee, why are you hiding up there? Must I kill every one of your people before we fight? Would it be better for them to lose hope before their death?” Meadhbh looked slightly wounded, but for the most part, she appeared to still be in good shape. The blow from Jade’s golem had done a number on her, but it wasn’t so bad that she couldn’t recover.
“Lee, she can jump up here,” Ling warned. “I’ve seen her leap across a field. We’re not high enough to escape her reach.”
Meadhbh growled, leaping out of the way of an arrow. “So, come down and fight me here. No one will interrupt our match.”
“How about you fight me instead!” Brigid called out from Miller’s side of the ramparts. She jumped down from the wall with a two-handed sword at the ready, landing behind her portion of the defenses. The boar-shifters instantly surged toward her, but a single roar from Meadhbh stopped them. “Good! Come at me, you fiend. I have eighteen debts to settle with you!”
“What in the hell are you doing?” Lee muttered softly to himself. He was the one who was supposed to take on the Herald, not her. He was the one that was supposed to defeat the crazy woman. He checked the available buff from True Patriot to see what he could help her with. The newly available buff was Defend the Homeland, and it was accompanied by three white circles, so Lee assumed it had a good effect.