Chapter: 569 Bonus - Dire Straits (Patreon)

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“Circle the caravan!”

Paul twisted on his horse, confused at the command as they’d just barely started out for the day’s travels. Even so, the head driver’s voice was unmistakable, as was the restrained panic within it.

Paul, along with the other mounted guards, came back inward for their orders, even as the six large wagons were drawn into a tight circle where Jani directed, the various workers already scrambling to unhitch the oxen and get them safely inside. They would soon be linking the tongues to the back of the next wagon to create a rigid defensive line.

He was meant to be the guard in charge of the outriders, so he called up to the head driver. “Oi! Jani! What’s going on? What do you need from us?”

The older woman had a frenetic air about her, even as she moved with steady assurance. “Leshkin surge, less than two minutes out. Dismount, get inside the circle, and get ready. Possible human fleeing before the beasts.”

Paul immediately conveyed the orders to the other mounted guards and did as she said, taking Pip—his horse—inside the wagon circle and handing his reins off to one of the workers. That done, he rushed over to the barracks wagon.

He’d only brought a sidesword and cavalry shield with him for his rotation as a mounted guard.

Against the Leshkin in a rush?

Yeah, he wanted something more.

Thankfully, Mathis was already at the door to the barracks, handing out the needed weaponry.

Tower shields and lances. His cavalry shield clicked into the back of the tower shield, which was more of a mostly mobile wall than anything else. It was both heavier and sturdier than what they’d use out in the field on foot.

The lances were heavy wood and steel, and Mathis had even broken out the construct ones. Stars bless the man.

Paul’s side sword would work if their formation was broken, but until then, he’d be filling in one of the gaps between the wagons.

No, don’t be pessimistic, it isn’t ‘until then.’ We’ll be fine.

He formed up between James and Fraxis, while Katrin and Jamie were behind with extra lances and other items with which to provide support, and that’s when he saw her.

A Mage, clad in black, somehow seeming to ride the shadows, slammed down in the center of their caravan. “Succor! I need protection and time to rest.”

Their lead Mage Protector called down to her. “You have it. Any aid in return would be welcome. It looks like a lot of them.”

The woman grunted. “There are. Expect up through juggernauts.”

Everyone heard that, and everyone paled at least slightly at the announcement. “Noted. Thank you for the forewarning.”

The ground was already rumbling, and Paul turned his gaze back outward.

The lance in his hand, as well as those held by his compatriots, were precious, and he blessed Mathis again for passing them out.

Each was a construct weapon, arcanous harvest at the core. They were designed to bleed the enemy of power while drawing from the wielder as well. It would then release anti-Leshkin magics from the point of impact.

Each was a one-engagement type of armament. The type no guard ever wanted to have to use. The type every guard thanked the stars to have at need.

A swarm of lesser Leshkin poured forth from around the nearest trees, coming over a rise before dropping into the dip around the wagons.

Jani had picked their position well, especially given their time constraints, setting them on a rise. That would give them the high ground, and they’d need every advantage they could have.

Oh, let the Mages have sent for reinforcements… We’ll need them.

A great rattling thump resounded as the wagons dropped armored skirts to dig into the ground, sealing off the path underneath the high vehicles.

The guards on the wagon roofs were already methodically putting quarrels into the oncoming rush, causing pockets of vegetation to drop among the all-too-close enemies.

The tongues were already latched in place, and Paul moved to be just behind that obstruction. It would break up the enemy’s charge just a bit, slowing their advance.

“Set!” Paul, as the middle-man, was in charge of this gap. He, James, and Fraxis dropped their tower-shields’ lower edge, driving the set-spikes into the forest floor, keeping their sides barely overlapping.

Fraxis—who was on Paul’s right—was a lefty, and Paul was glad for that. Fraxis wouldn’t be knocking against the wagon, then, and they’d be able to better defend the middle.

Paul took a deep breath, centering himself in the moments before the first impact.

The mass of lessers roiled forward, a hard-to-discern tumble of bodies all trying to get at them as quickly as possible.

“Thrust!”

Three lances thrust forward, hitting the front line of oncoming lessers.

Magic burst outward from each point of impact, radiating back through the lines of oncoming foes, dispersing their bodies and creating a bit more space.

Paul bore through the mild weakness as the lance pulled from him as well. Thankfully, he was well practiced enough that the feeling passed almost instantly.

“Pull!”

Three lances pulled back, resetting for the next thrust.

James yelled out a fierce exhalation of triumph and released tension.

Paul echoed the sentiment, if silently.

They could do this. They could protect this gap.

The next minutes turned into a blur of thrust and pull.

Lessers gave way to soldiers, but they fell just as easily to their well-timed, well-executed attacks.

Soldiers gave way to knights, and those were harder to deal with. Fewer died even on successful hits, and they were better at dodging and deflecting.

Katrin and Jamie came in as absolutely essential, thrusting lances through the gaps at enemies who thought that they’d made it past the danger, taking full advantage of the wagon tongue that hampered the path.

Paul’s entire world shrunk to this one little section of the caravan’s defense.

The magics flying out in all directions didn’t distract him. He didn’t even spare more than a passing thought to the fact that it was in all directions, indicating that they had been fully surrounded.

When the juggernauts started to show up in the distance, among the incoming lessers, soldiers, and knights however, that’s when he started to get concerned.

Before he knew it, one had advanced on his little position.

A halberd with a shaft the size of a wagon-tongue smashed into his shield, driving him back despite the anchoring spikes, and all his weight pressing downward.

The hit knocked his shield-bearing comrades to the side as well, throwing them back and away.

He didn’t know how he kept his feet, but he had, even as he’d plowed backward through Katrin and Jamie who were now on their backs.

He didn’t have time for ‘how’ in the moment.

His gap was open, and he was the only guard in a state to do something about it.

With a twist and a jerk, he pulled his large cavalry shield free from the back of the tower shield once more, leaving the bulk of the weight behind, planted once more as a fall-back defense.

He threw his lance forward, sending one last pulse of disrupting magic through the oncoming tide, even as he lashed out with his sidesword at those already within the lances reach.

He just needed to give time for his companions to recover.

Slash.

Stab.

They’d come to help him soon. He knew that they would.

Thrust and twist.

Block and stagger backward.

Gasp for air.

Surely one of them was fit to come… They’d come.

Soon.

They would come.

Bash the shield forward.

Wrap cut.

A fountain of pain drew a scream from his lips as one of the rusting Leshkin drove something into his foot despite the armored boot.

He didn’t know how long he’d held the gap by himself—and he didn’t know why the juggernaut or some knight hadn’t come forward to take him down—but he was at his end.

No. I have more to give.

Paul lashed out, severing the spiked limb that had impaled his foot. He yelled in defiance as he saw a juggernaut finally reorient on his position.

This was it.

He could flee—hobbling toward safety—but that would leave the caravan exposed. That would leave his downed companions to their fate.

If it was his time, he would meet the end in such a way that his comrades gained another moment.

He yelled again—though he was unsure if it was in anger or agony—hunkering down behind his shield and bracing, even as he slashed out to the side, beheading another lesser.

He couldn’t protect everyone.

He couldn’t turn back the tide alone.

But he could do this.

                            *

Veronica cursed internally, even as she drove her blade through the heart of a greater lioness.

The strike hadn’t been easy, and it had come at the cost of a slash across her own thigh, but she had eliminated one of their attackers.

More than that, though, the attack had allowed her to activate her construct weapon.

The hammered lines of power in the weapon drew strength and agility from the beast even as it died, and dumped it into her. Only her years of dedicated training let her instantly adapt to the increase as she lunged away, laying into another of the massive pack hunters before it could chomp down on one of her companions.

The tide was turning, but her Mage was not making it easier.

Take a job guarding a research Mage, Veronica.

She chopped outward in a one-two combination, deflecting incoming swipes, but not drawing blood this time. These large felines could reinforce their paws to nigh indestructibility when attacking, making it similar to clashing with forged weaponry.

It’ll be fun and relaxing, Veronica.

Three of her fellow guards lay moaning on the ground, the three who had been on watch near the mouth of this little dell, when this pack attacked.

The beasts were smart, disabling the watchers quickly. Only Mistress Astena’s precaution—tying some sort of magic to the health of the three men—allowed the alarm to be raised.

The clanging cacophony had been enough of a distraction to the beasts that Veronica and the other guards had been able to get to the watchers before they were slain outright.

They were now executing a fighting retreat, back toward the protection of their Mage… their Mage who was fending off giant nightwing ravens.

The rusted woman hadn’t wanted to wait until daylight to test her theory, and all Veronica and the other guards had accomplished by arguing with her was to have the Mage go and activate the device anyway when most of them were asleep.

When this was all done, there would be words.

Veronica's blade licked out again and again, only occasionally drawing blood and stealing a bit more strength.

It was only those influxes—short-lived though they were—that let her move across the whole width of their little clash, shoring up the weakness of the other guards.

No, that wasn’t really fair. The other guards weren’t weak, they were simply facing something they shouldn’t have had to fight at all.

The ten of them were meant to be a token guard for this Mage. None of their superiors had expected the rusting woman to have a ‘breakthrough’ in arcanous beast behavior and want to test it out.

In the clarity of battle, Veronica now suspected that the Mage hadn’t gotten permission for this little expedition into the Wilds, and she cursed herself for not checking before they departed.

She was supposed to be taking it easy, relaxing on an easy assignment. Why would she do the extra work of checking on something so trivial?

Stupid.

A set of claws barely got around her slashing defense, cutting lines of fire into her left shoulder as she protected a stumbling guard.

She was the most senior here, but she wasn’t in charge. She hadn’t wanted to be.

Her eyes burned with fury as she glanced back at Chellis, the one who was in charge, standing beside the Mage in a guarding position.

She cursed the woman for not coming out to help in their fighting retreat. She cursed herself, knowing that Chellis was doing her job and protecting the Mage.

They were all still alive… for the moment.

Veronica panted and sweat as she battled.

Three cats were down and six more were bloodied, seeming to reconsider their attack.

The cawing of ravens above was not comforting, but she couldn’t focus on that in the moment.

She had to trust that their Mage was doing something useful, or she was dead regardless.

Only another few dozen feet and her people would be safely within the camp's defenses.

She didn’t let herself consider that she’d only helped them retreat a few dozen so far…

The last few should be easier.

They had to be.

After all, she barely had anything left to give.

                            *

Nalac was laughing with a guardsman, deep in one of the outer tunnels of the mining district, when things began to go sideways.

Master Balin had sensed fluctuation in the defensive grid deep in the tunnels, near the sections that the miners had already mostly fully harvested.

Still, there were patches of metallic growth, where the spell forms continued to congeal precious metals into latticeworks of crystalline structures.

They weren’t easy to harvest, but the results were bountiful. Nalac had no doubt why so many people risked the mines during this phase of each cycling city.

No matter how dangerous.

And speaking of dangers, they’d found the reason for the fluctuations.

A powerful… something was disrupting the human magics, allowing a flood of six-legged spider-like things to swarm through the tunnels.

They were going fast enough that none of the miners in this section seemed to have been able to sound the alarm.

Nalac hadn’t even sensed them before Illie screamed, drawing everyone’s attention.

A midnight-black creature had latched onto her arm, biting deeply, even as her magic flared, pulling at it strongly enough to tear it in half, leaving the front attached to her shoulder.

Master Ori was at Illie’s side immediately, healing her with his meager skill in that department, even as one of their guards pried the beast's remains from her.

Only then—like the removal of a silencing working—did they hear the skittering.

Master Balin roared, sending waves of force down the tunnel, purposely made inefficient to give them a blue glow as they flew. “Nalac! The alarm!”

Nalac jerked himself out of his horror and pulled the device from his belt. With a powerful pulse of his magic, the thing activated. It not only began a blaring alarm that was magically empowered to carry far, so that it didn’t have to be painfully loud, but it also was connected to the Archive and would alert the whole city to a breach.

They now only had to hold out.

Nalac had fought a few times, but mostly it was against one-off creatures that he was allowed to face to gain skill.

This was something else entirely.

Each guard was crushing cat-sized spider-things left and right, but they seemed to be unending.

Masters Balin and Ori were wielding their magics to great effect within the passage, warding off the larger clusters of creatures, but something was stalking in the dark.

“Magical beast!” Nalac had been the first to spot it, so he raised the alarm.

Somehow, a creature had established itself down here, and grown in power without being detected.

This was a worst case scenario.

Nalac shook himself. No, no. Worst case would be an arcane attack, or something like that.

He knew more than he really should because of Tala’s stories, after all. Oh the ‘benefits’ of having such a sister.

Illie was healed, but the venom had muddled her mind, making her magic sluggish. Master Ori didn’t seem to have the time—or maybe he lacked the ability—to heal her completely.

Nalac had to keep her safe.

Toward that end, he reached out with his magics, not attacking directly, but altering reality around the guards. “Enhancing!”

His warning was needed as their attacks suddenly seemed to have far more power, and they might have been thrown off if they hadn’t known it was coming.

This they’d practiced seemingly endlessly.

His magic prevented material from ‘pushing back’ on what hit it, allowing far more force to be applied and making every strike a killing blow. At least, that was the easiest way for him to describe it to others. He conceived of it differently, but it was hardly the time to contemplate that.

Nalac’s inscriptions blazed with light and power as he continued his workings, allowing the guards to be ever more effective.

Still, the spiders—Not spiders, only six legs—spider-like things seemed endless, and it took Nalac a moment to realize why.

No blood. No internals save the venom. They’re… rock?

Master Balin called it out before Nalac put the clues together. “Construct spawns! We have a spawner here.”

Well… that was a class of monster that Nalac hadn’t expected to come across. They were usually fairly easy to deal with, as all a Mage had to do was kill the creator or queen and all the constructs would collapse, but in the tight tunnels? They would have to fight through the spawns to get to the actual threat.

Lovely.

Still, they only had to hold out until a higher level defender could be diverted down here.

There should be several in the city, so it shouldn’t be more than a few minutes more.

His inscriptions were beginning to burn as he used them more and in quicker succession than they’d been intended, as he was trying to maintain the edge that he’d given the guards.

Finally, he knew he needed to change tactics. “Cycling!”

As soon as the guard leader responded, “Cycling!” Nalac let his magics fade. “Off!”

“Off!”

He only let his inscriptions rest for a slow count of ten. “On!”

His workings flared to life once more, and the guards acknowledged. “On!”

Off and on they worked as the minutes dragged on.

Illie had recovered enough to throw in here and there, her workings acting as last-ditch protections for the guards, pulling attackers slightly one way or another, spoiling attacks, or just slowing them down for a moment.

She still couldn’t do much, but it helped the men keep from minor wounds that would have begun to slow them down.

Still, help hadn’t come.

Nalac didn’t know how long it had been, but it felt like it had been long enough.

Right?

Regardless, all they could do was keep fighting, keep trying, keep working together.

All in the hopes of survival.

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