47.

  “Buy me a few minutes, Santi. I’ll get everyone stabilized as soon as I can and back to the wall,” Tank said as he split off from the main group. Santi grunted and headed toward the wall as the rest of his friends and family fanned out behind him. The walls had been hastily made but the skill of the dwarves was on display as the construct was sturdy, thick, and had good fighting platforms to stand on top.

  Chad and his hunters were spaced out across the ledge, quivers of arrows or javelins were stacked everywhere around the hunters as they looked down the long road leading into the town. Santi leapt up with ease, landing lightly as he looked down the road to see where the horde of cursed would be coming from.

  “Mom, you think you could go to the pillar and get a rough estimate on enemy numbers? Need you to stay there until Duncan’s people come into range too. Everyone, the line must hold until Duncan’s people get here. The minute Duncan’s people get here we collapse backward and draw them in,” Santi said, reminding everyone of the plan.

  Affirmations came from everyone as they all climbed atop of the wall, Mom peeling off without a word and heading toward the pillar. Santi peered down the road and saw the first of the cursed coming toward them. He [Identified] them immediately and felt his heart hitch for a second.

  Cursed Wall-Breaker lvl. 43

  Then a second and a third wall-breaker came around the corner. More and more of them were coming around the corner, soon filling out the road in a wave of people that started slowly moving forward. Santi looked behind the three wall-breakers and cursed as he saw them.

  Cursed Blood-Guardian lvl. 46

  “Chad, send a skill shot toward them,” Santi ordered. The hunter nodded and pulled his bow back and fired in an instant, sending a bolt of energy toward the crowd. Santi watched placidly as the golden bolt raced toward the first wall-breaker like a falling star.

  The guardian behind the wall breaker tossed a vial outward and it exploded in a red mist instantly, happening in a second right as the golden bolt hit the mist. The glow around the bolt thinned from a bolt of lighting until it was only an arrow that moved at mortal speeds. The wall-breaker slapped it out of the air contemptuously as the horde continued forward.

  “Much more disciplined than the last group,” Santi murmured. Cam stationed himself next to Santi nodded while he watched closely as Bianca tucked herself into the wall, her head under the ledge.

  “Makes sense. Can’t be crushing all these cities and settlements like they’re supposed to be running around like a bunch of savages. There has to be some semblance of discipline in them,” Cam reasoned.

  “Yeah, just sucks. Would have made it a lot easier if they were a bunch of running around savages rather than a disciplined group.” Santi whispered back. The haze of blood drifted in front of the group as if a gentle win pushed it.

  [Air Manipulation] reinforced three [Wind Blades] that hit the red mist. The mist burst apart like a rotten melon, dispersing around to drift along the ground as the magic raced through and sliced into the first wall-breaker. The woman split apart as she was cut in half, her eyes widening in surprise as the powerful spell connected.

  Three more blood guardians raced to the front and the thin mist Santi had just dispersed became a fog that raced forward. Santi hit it with a [Gust] but the fog resisted against him. If he supercharged a spell he could work bull through the combined strength of the four guardians, but it would just be temporary.

  “Alright. Chad, you’re up.” Santi looked at the hunter and the man nodded and looked over to two of the hunters. Claire and Heather, both of them mid twenty year olds who had joined his crew with little hunting experience. But plenty of mechanical engineering. It wasn’t hard to translate that to traps and snares and other less obvious ways of killing.

  “Fire ‘em up girls,” Chad said. Both of them nodded and closed their eyes for a second and Santi had to suppress a smile as along both sides of the road spears lanced out to spear through the middle of the pack, who were looking relaxed as they walked forward.

  The small javelins that fired from hidden skill built snares punched into the tightly packed crowds. A wire snapped across at shin level, cloaked in shimmering light, and legs were sheared off at ankle level. A pitfall released and a half dozen of them fell into it, the stakes inside of it killing the men as soon as they hit it.

  “Not bad,” Santi said. Days of work had been expended in seconds but the results were good. The entire interior of the block of cursed warriors collapsed inward, screams of pain rising up to mingle in the heavens as blood flowed across pavement. The blood guardians whirled around as their charges were massacred, but they were far too late to react.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Chad and his other more traditional hunters took the momentary distraction and capitalized on it. Arrows, javelins, and even a sling, all of it sent rocketing out to crash into the defensive mist. Most of the energy around the skills were stripped away, the mist burning as it absorbed the skills. Some of the attacks slipped through. The wall breakers weren’t as unprepared this time.

  Chad’s arrow dug into one man’s thigh, but other than that the skills and attacks were deflected or dodged. Santi’s follow up blitz of [Wind Blades] weren’t. Bodies burst apart as Santi’s spells hit and the guardian’s turned around to watch as the wall-breakers died.

  The hunters second volley burned through them too. Santi not needing to do anything as the entire mess of bloodlust cursed warriors milled about for a moment. Nearly half their number were dead and many more were injured, but they stood there like sheep as Chad and the others kept firing skill after skill into them.

  For minutes it dragged on, blood running into the sides of the road to create mud. Clinging to the passing air and bringing the iron scent to tickle at Santi’s nose. The cries of the dying rose up, pain and incoherent words mixed together. He couldn’t help but feel uneasy. It was too easy.

  His fears were answered moments later as a second brick of cursed turned the corner and started marching toward them. As they got close to the massacre site Santi could see the curse’s influence begin to spread, strengthened by the slaughter. Veins bulged and the lethargic movements began to pick up pace as they broke out into a trot.

  Behind the second block a third turned the corner.

  “Oh, shit,” Santi muttered. He began to cast as fast as he could, [Wind Blades] scything into their lines, multiple of their guardians working together to keep the blades from screaming through them. The levels were roughly equivalent, low forties, but this second group was definitely feeling the effects of the spilled blood they had marched through. The ragged remnant of the first block joined the rear of the group and they pushed through under the fire of the hunters and Santi.

  “Where the hell are those rangers!” Santi yelled, not risking turning his head to look back over the town.

  “It’s only been a few minutes, just hold on,” Bianca said. Her eyes were fastened to where Tank had run off to. They moved in a march, more and more blood mist welling around as they picked up speed. Santi’s [Wind Blades] couldn’t pierce the dense fog and he cursed as they got closer.

  “Save your skills and power till they start up the wall,” Santi ordered, having to repeat himself twice before the burst of skills and attacks stopped. They watched as the group covered the last of the distance and Santi ordered the second of the traps they’d organized.

  “Grimvr! Now!” The dwarf smiled a toothy grin and a haze of energy surrounded him. Pieces of the low wall, the trash heaped at the base of it, snapped together and rose up.

  Scrap Golem lvl. 28

  Six of the golems came to attention and launched themselves into the crowds without hesitation. The mist parted for them, the physical build allowing them to bypass the energy sapping effect the mist provided. The golems were massively underleveled to be attacking the cursed, but they still had weight as they crashed into the front line, slowing the impetus. Grimvr had a thin sheet of sweat on his face and Santi watched as the six golems ignited with energy, their power level spiking as they focused on the guardians. Blows landed on the golems, shearing metal and ripping limbs free, but they continued forward without hesitation.

  They closed the distance and then flashed away in a burst of energy, exploding outward in impromptu bombs. Six golden-red lights that flashed so bright that Santi’s eyes burned. He blinked tears away and frowned as he saw that all the guardians were still alive. Singed, but alive.

  “Chad?”

  “Yeah, I got it,” Chad said. His bow became infused with energy as he pulled a long arrow free. The metal arrow was obsidian black and glittered like crushed diamonds as he drew it back. More skills overlaid it and he fired instantly, the arrow ignited as it crossed the distance. Torin’s ingenuity and Chad’s skills mixing together to blast right through the mists and hit the lead guardian’s chest.

  The arrow sank all the way through the man’s chest, erupting from his back and freezing him. Then it detonated. Scraps of flesh flew out and the man died instantly.

  “That was supposed to be for heavy hitters,” Chad groused as he panted softly.

  “Shit’s going pear shaped fast. We need to keep holding till we get weight on these walls,” Santi said. He looked back over the wall and was dismayed as the first of the wall-breakers got close to the walls. Black energy welled over the man’s hands and he shoved both palms forward in a burst of motion.

  Three black pillars formed from the wall of energy, each of them four feet in circumference. They slammed into the wall of welded together cars, stone, wood, and anything else that the dwarves had managed to get their hands on. The wall shuddered, one of the hunters falling backward and off the wall to hit the ground. Corrosive energy sizzled on the wall, burning and rusting away the metal of the wall.

  The next wall-breaker got closer sheathed in bloody red, her hands whirled and an eagle was summoned over her shoulder before it came rocketing towards the wall. Santi cast [Gust] at it trying to dispel the magic, but the eagle barreled through the wind spell without slowing. It hit twenty feet away from where the pillars were burning the wall with a squelch.

  Blood soaked up and down the walls, from crenellations to base. Fire erupted where the blood was at, metal dissolving under the unnatural flames. Santi cursed and tossed a [Wind Blade] toward them, but the thick blood fog absorbed his magic and dispersed it.

  “We’re not going to have time. The wall’s going to melt under us. Get ready to retreat.”

  “Didn’t even get to have a chance to fight,” Bianca complained.

  “Everyone, second defensive position!” Santi ordered, ignoring his sister’s complaining. He hopped down even as part of the wall slumped inward, collapsing under its own weight. The rest of the group followed, beating a hasty retreat towards the second much smaller wall the dwarves had constructed.

  “Yessi’s turn I guess,” Bianca continued to complain as she landed next to him and broke into a sprint, matching him step by step.