Loop Two - Chapter Thirty-Four - Monster Horde

Amber wasn’t sure what to do with herself as the soldiers ran about and prepared for the worse. There was another explosion from the direction of the academy, and she found herself looking over her shoulder towards the school where smoke was rising from a new fire.

It was extinguished a moment later as a huge wave of water appeared above the school and came crashing down with a distant boom.

Magicals were fighting back there, she knew. Or at least, magicals were fighting on one side. It was possible that they were just running around and taking care of traps, but Amber had the impression that wasn’t the case.

“Amber,” Morgan said.

Amber snapped around. Not a good time for daydreaming. “Yes? Sorry.”

Morgan patted her on the shoulder. “It’s fine. Head in the game. There’s the four of us and a lot of monsters. We have the soldiers on our side. They’ll be doing more of the heavy lifting.” She was addressing all of team Svallin. There were more magicals around, but most of them had split into teams and were posted further down the defensive perimeter in groups of two or three. Svalinn was the only full team.

Can’t imagine what the others who are here with half their team are thinking.

They had the middle section of the wall, because it only made sense to put the biggest team there.

“Okay,” Amber said as she got her head in the game. “Morgan, where should we go?”

The defensive line was basically a long trench dug into the rocky hillside, with a few small concrete buildings placed at even intervals with a long fence between them. There were long coils of concertina wire spread out along a mesh fence that was about a metre tall with posts planted into the ground every ten metres or so.

Each little bunker had room for a gun emplacement, and the soldiers and engineers were quickly assembling exactly that. Machine guns were being removed from crates and ran over to each bunker while other soldiers ran over with large green boxes of ammo.

“We should stay on this side of the bunker,” Morgan said. “Getting in melee range would be ideal for most of us, except...”

“They have guns,” Amber continued. “And we’re not bullet-proof.”

“Wouldn’t want to be shot in the back,” Cassy agreed. “I can help from here. Amber, you’ve got your throwing knives. What about Jade and Morgan?”

“Right,” Amber said. “Maybe we focus on any of the monsters that make it too close to the wall, or over it?”

That made sense, and in any case, they soon lacked the time to look for alternatives.

There was a shout of “downrange!” from one of the soldiers, and everyone paused all at once to look down the hill.

It was a decent distance from the top of the slight slope to the start of the forest, a distance broken up by boulders and a few dips in the terrain. Amber squinted, and could make out what the soldier had seen.

A boogieman.

It was taller than she was by a head and a half, with a thin, emaciated body that nonetheless had strong, corded musculature. It was nude, pale grey skin standing out in the afternoon sun. And soon it wasn’t alone. More of them started to come out of the forest. First one, then another. Soon there were well over a hundred boogiemen lining the edge of the woods.

Amber heard distant barks and growls, and then noticed that the boogiemen weren’t alone. There were several large dogs with them. “Are those chupacabra?” she asked.

Morgan nodded. “Like dogs, but smarter. They can suck your blood if they bite you, steal your magic. And they can walk on two feet. Don’t underestimate them.”

More monsters appeared. They were so small that Amber couldn’t make them out well. They looked like little people, some of them were riding on the chupacabra’s backs, hanging off the spines on the dog’s scruff.

“And what are those?” Jade asked.

“Imps, or scamps. These are all low-level threats,” Morgan said. “The kind of stuff we should be covering in our first semester. The scamps can cast weak visual illusions. They have small weapons and a venomous bite. They’re pretty weak though.”

Whatever Morgan was going to say next was drowned out by a sudden cacophony of gunfire. Amber plugged her ears and winced back. It was coming from the nearest bunker, though a few of the others further down picked up the tune as well.

Streams of green tracer fire arced down towards the edge of the woods, then washed from left to right. Amber caught sight of blood exploding out of shredded bodies for just a moment before turning her gaze away.

“Will they even make it up to here?” she asked.

“They will,” Morgan said.

The surety in her voice made Amber pause and look down the hill again. There was a long way between them and the treeline. Two football fields worth, she guessed, but the monsters had still started to run.

A horn blared in the distance, echoing out of the woods and spurring the monsters on even as a slight fog rose from the ground. It swirled as bullets rammed through it, and Amber felt a chill running down her back.

“The weather’s not right for fog,” Jade said.

She was right, it was too warm, too sunny for that. If anything the day was quite beautiful if she could just pretend not to see the charging monsters, rising smoke, and angry soldiers.

The horn sounded again, and this time its effects were much clearer, much more obvious. The fog rose, swelling up the closer it came to their end of the field until it washed over their trench and buffeted the bunkers. The moment it hit them, the fog stopped, though it didn’t dissipate.

They were left with a hazy fog so thick that Amber couldn’t see the next bunker down the line from where she stood.

“Shit,” Cassy said succinctly.

The machine gun fire turned to a stutter as those manning the guns couldn’t see far enough to pick out targets.

“Form a line! Form a line!” an officer was screaming. Soldiers, some in full kit, others just hanging onto their guns, ran around for a moment while sergeants barked conflicting orders. Still, a line was formed three paced back from the fence. Men and women with assault rifles aiming down towards the oncoming enemy.

Amber grabbed two throwing knives and held them by her side, feeling incredibly useless the entire time. She noticed Jade running over to a man pushing a cart filled with haphazardly piled guns and grabbed one from the top, then a few magazines which she stuffed into her scarf.

Better late than never for that gun training, Amber supposed.

Then something hit the fence with a screech. A boogieman came rushing over the trench and crashed bodily into the fence. Amber gasped, watching wide-eyed as it was caught in the razor-wire which only tangled up more as the monster struggled against it and cut deep into its flesh.

A scamp grabbed onto the back of the boogieman’s thrashing head, then launched itself over the fence and towards a soldier.

He screamed, firing twice and missing both times before the little monster latched onto his raised arms and chomped down hard.

In an instant, Morgan had flown past Amber, her sword slicing through the air and through the scamp in a single graceful motion. “Medic!” Morgan screamed.

The soldier collapsed, hugging onto his arm where blood was welling out from the bites. There was something else there, a foamy off-white substance. The man fell back, letting go of his arm even as he started to convulse and a similar foam started pouring out of his mouth.

“Medic!” Morgan cried again. It didn’t take long for someone to rush over. Amber wasn’t sure if they were even a medic or not, but they pulled the soldier away from the scene and, hopefully, to safety.

“We... we need to help,” Amber said. Her grip kept tightening and loosening on her knives, and she could feel the sweat on her palms.

More gunfire was sounding out as monsters reached the trenches. A number of them were being hit right on the edges as they were trying to climb their way out. They made for easy targets.

Amber flicked a knife into a dog-like chupacabra as it wrestled with the fence, and she felt something twist in her gut at the sight of her knife buried in its chest. She recalled the knife, and it slapped back into her hand, bloodied.

“I’ve got an idea,” Cassy said. Then before they could protest, she jumped onto her broom and took off. Fortunately, she was heading towards the base, not the front line.

“Just focus on taking out any of the monsters that show up,” Morgan said. “It’s the best we can do.”

Amber nodded along. She wanted time to think. She doubted she would get any. More monsters threw themselves across the trench, and her heart thundered in her chest as she prepared to fight. The trenches were starting to fill.

Then she noticed that not all of the boogiemen were unprepared. Some just coming in now were bigger than the first wave, and they carried short ladders. Wooden posts with spokes between them, held together by cords.

They dropped them across the gap of the trench, then dropped more against the fences.

The fence started to fall towards them, unable to support the weight of bodies piling up against it.

She imagined that it was never supposed to support much. It was a deterrent, not a proper wall.

There was a whistle overhead, then a loud bang further out in the fog. “Mortars,” Morgan said. “From our side.”

“That’s good, right?” Amber asked.

“It’s something,” Morgan replied.

Cassy came rushing back, bursting out of the fog to come to a sudden stop next to them. She had two large sacs with her, both hanging off the end of her broom. “I’ve got grenades,” she said with an ear-to-ear grin.

“You... why?” Amber asked.

“Because none of the monsters can fly,” Cassy said. “And I can. I need someone to help me drop them.”

“I’ll go,” Jade said immediately.

Amber turned to her. “You’re afraid of heights,” she said.

“I... maybe, but I want to help,” Jade said.

And that was that.

***