TWD - Chapter 524: The Wolves’ Rout (Patreon)

The numbers looked overwhelmingly one-sided, yet the Wolves’ bodies were piling up even faster.

The man in the white skull mask met the first three Wolves head-on. He slipped past the first machete swing, drove his combat knife up through the first man’s jaw and into his brain, then ripped the blade free. In the same motion, he drove a knee into the second attacker and knocked him down before sweeping the knife across the third man’s throat.

Three enemies were dead in barely more than ten seconds.

The black moth mask and the rusted metal mask fought side by side.

One buried a dagger in an enemy’s abdomen while the other brought a short sword down across another man’s collarbone.

Blood splashed across their masks and ran slowly through the eye openings.

From a second-floor window, someone used the last pistol that still had ammunition, firing measured shots. Each crack of gunfire dropped another Wolf.

But the numbers were still too uneven. Two of the eleven died.

One man wore a mask made from some kind of animal skull. Calista had not even had time to decide whether it was a wolf or something else before three Wolves tackled him at once.

He had only a short knife. He managed to drive it into the first attacker’s chest, but the blade lodged between the man’s ribs and would not come free.

A sharpened iron pipe slammed into his side. An instant later, a machete came down across the back of his neck.

The man in the animal-skull mask collapsed.

Ten meters away, another fighter in a rusted mask was surrounded as well.

All he had left was an iron pipe he had picked up from the ground. He swung it with everything he had and crushed one Wolf’s skull, but the pipe flew from his hands.

He seized a second man by the throat with his bare hands, only for a third attacker to drive a knife into his back.

He went down too. In the blink of an eye, eleven had become nine.

But from that moment on, the battle changed completely. The Wolves had not gained the advantage. If anything, the opposite was true.

The deaths of those two men seemed to flip some hidden switch in the remaining nine. They stopped conserving their strength and began killing with absolute ferocity.

The white skull mask charged straight into the densest cluster of Wolves like a tiger. His combat knife was gone, replaced by a machete taken from one of the dead.

Every swing found a vital point. The instant one strike landed, he was already moving toward the next target, never hesitating, never breaking rhythm.

The black moth mask stayed close behind his left shoulder, guarding his flank. His dagger punched between the ribs of anyone who tried to come in from the side.

The rusted metal mask held the front line. His short sword had disappeared at some point, replaced by a steel pipe he had found somewhere. One end was soaked bright red, the opening clogged with bloody scraps of flesh.

The gunfire from the second-floor window stopped abruptly. The last man with ammunition jumped down and joined the savage melee.

Through her binoculars, Calista could see everything clearly. Nine against more than twenty. This was no longer a fight. It was a merciless slaughter.

Wolves fell in groups. The nine fighters dodged their blows, forcefully deflected them, or took them with as little damage as possible.

Every attack the Wolves made was answered by a killing blow.

Some collapsed screaming, only to take a blade through the heart. Others turned to run and were caught within seconds, cut down from behind. A few dropped to their knees and begged for mercy, only to have their throats opened without hesitation.

A dozen minutes later, the last Wolf still standing froze in terror.

He looked around and saw nothing but the bodies of his companions. Dozens of corpses lay scattered across the open ground in front of the main building, blood soaking deep into the earth. A few bodies were already beginning to twitch. They were not far from turning into walkers.

The nine fighters stood silently among the dead, drenched in blood. Fresh blood continued to drip from their masks as they stared coldly at the lone Wolf still on his feet.

Overcome with terror, he threw down his weapon and ran for his life.

No one followed.

The nine remained where they were, dragging in breath after breath. Some bent over with their hands braced on their knees. Others backed against the wall and slowly slid to the ground, too exhausted to remain standing. A few began checking the corpses around them, finishing off any that might turn.

Nearly all of them were bleeding, though some wounds were worse than others.

They had won, but the price had been so high that they no longer had the strength to pursue anyone.

And the man who fled was not the only survivor. Seven or eight other figures were scattering in different directions in blind panic.

They had witnessed the massacre of the last few minutes. They had watched dozens of their own companions get hacked down into a pile of bodies in an impossibly short time.

Whatever will the surviving Wolves had left collapsed completely. They threw away their weapons and fled toward the mountains and the highway with no thought except escape.

Three of them ran northeast, straight toward the ridge where Calista and the others were positioned.

The moment Calista caught those three fleeing figures in her binoculars, her pupils narrowed.

The man in front was tall and wore work boots, terrible footwear for running. He stumbled several times, but raw survival instinct kept him moving without pause.

It was the Wolf King.

Two other Wolves followed behind him. One was a burly man in his thirties with a face covered in stubble and terror in his eyes.

The other was much younger, barely in his early twenties. He stumbled along so badly that the burly man was practically dragging him forward.

“Cali,” Leah said quietly, “they’re coming this way.”

The nine masked fighters were still recovering in front of the main building and showed no sign of pursuing them. Calista’s group, meanwhile, had ten people, all fully armed and still undetected.

“Everyone, gather your gear and prepare to engage. Suppressors on every weapon. Nobody fires without my order.”

Calista paused, then added firmly, “Take them alive if possible.”

Five minutes later, the three men reached the gentle slope at the base of the ridge.

They clearly did not know the terrain well. They probably normally used the highway to get down. Picking their way through the rocks and brush slowed them far more than expected.

The Wolf King was still in front. Thorns had torn several new slashes through the hem of his already ragged clothing, and branches had scratched bloody lines across his face, but he clenched his teeth and never stopped running.

Behind him, the youngest Wolf finally ran out of strength. He collapsed onto the ground, gasping, tears and snot smeared across his face.

The burly man tried twice to pull him up. When he still could not move him, he cursed, “Useless bastard,” then abandoned him and kept running alone.

The burly man quickly caught up with the Wolf King. By then, they were less than a hundred meters from the ridge.

Calista raised her right hand and made a silent signal. Turner and Mike slipped out to the left while Carver and Wells circled around from the right.

The three fleeing Wolves were running straight into Calista’s trap.

The Wolf King seemed to sense that something was wrong. He suddenly stopped and snapped his head up toward the ridge.

At that exact moment, his eyes met Calista’s from sixty meters away.

Calista did not move. She simply stared back at him coldly.