POV : FAITH SETTLEMENT
Nadir watched the battle unfold from the walls, a wide grin spreading across his face. His eyes glinted with malice as the sound of Major Cromwell's men screaming echoed through the air. The trap had worked perfectly. Below, the pit was now filled with writhing bodies, and blood seeped into the sand around the deadly spikes.
Capturing the French army had been easy when they had first portaled in, and getting the information on what signals to use to indicate a friendly settlement was even easier. After that, all he had to do was follow through with his plan.
“Everyone head out,” he ordered, his voice carrying over the chaos. His troop of battle-hardened warriors, roughly one hundred and fifty strong, poured out of the fort, joining the French forces that had only pretended to be allies. Some of those French uniforms still had visible crossbow bolt holes in it, but all were clad in armor.
He turned to his lieutenant Sameer, a hulking brute of a man with scars criss crossing his face. "Prepare the rest of the ambush. We’ll give those runners something to remember."
The lieutenant nodded and barked orders to the archers along the walls. As Nadir gazed at the battlefield, his laughter grew louder. He loved the carnage, loved watching armies crumble under his schemes.
A rain of arrows fell upon the pitiful dregs of Cromwell’s once proud army, as they tried to escape. The mass of projectiles, a harbinger of death seeking its prey.
“Run! Fall back to the settlement!” one of the officers shouted, trying to rally the survivors. The arrows made short work of him, punching into him from behind.
“Nooooo……”
Nadir, watching the devastation unfold. "They'll never make it back in time. This battle’s already won."
A small squadron of ten soldiers escaped running as fast as their battered bodies would allow, wounded, breath ragged, and hearts pounding in their chests. The sound of their footsteps echoed in the hot air, their panic written on their faces. They were barely holding it together,
Nadir’s army showed no mercy and continued to chase down the fleeing squadron of ten.
One of the soldiers, looking back at the advancing army, turned to his comrade. “I’ll hold them back. You go.”
“There’s no way, Baba. You won’t be able to stop one hundred and fifty men. You’ll be crushed like an ant. Come with us.”
“I can’t. My leg’s fucked.” Baba dropped to one knee, unholstering his crossbow from his back and starting to fire. The bolts flew through the air, but the approaching army raised their shields and continued their relentless pursuit.
Clunk, clunk, clunk.
The bolts bounced off the shields, barely making an impact on the speed of the advancing army.
The other nine soldiers kept running, fear and adrenaline acting as Mother Nature’s supercharged fuel. The army continued their chase, making only a brief stop as they overwhelmed the unfortunate Baba. He went down fast. A hero at the end, but ultimately not slowing the enemy.
The small squadron of men kept running, but the army of Nadir’s soldiers was closing in fast. Though they ran with all their might, it was hard—many were wounded, and some seriously injured. Their sergeant, McCaffrey, called out, "Follow me!" and led them towards an even more dangerous territory.
Back towards where their army had initially fought the mutant rhinoceroses.
Charging back into the mutant rhinoceros territory, the squad pushed on, desperate.
There they found a horde of ghouls which had been attracted by the overwhelming smell of blood and death from the morning’s battle. They had descended on the field for a feast on the corpses left behind. Their twisted, decaying forms moved with unnatural speed, eyes glowing with hunger as they ravaged both the bodies of the corpses of the soldiers and fallen mutant rhinos.
The ghouls, meal interrupted, shrieked in anger, strings of tendon and meat still clinging to their teeth.
McCaffrey shouted, “Spread out! Move, damn it!”
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They ran away in different directions. After a while of being chased through the area, they heard heavy stomps behind them. A group of mutant rhinoceros, armored and massive, appeared—enraged. Some of their herd had been killed earlier, and now, seeing more intruders, their fury was unstoppable.
The battlefield descended into a confused melee as the mutant rhinoceroses charged forward, their heavy armored bodies plowing through soldiers like a wrecking ball through glass. Screams filled the air as men were flung aside or crushed beneath the beasts’ hooves.
One of the mutant rhinoceroses barreled into the group, sending two men flying. Bones cracked as the soldiers hit the ground, lifeless.
Nadir’s soldiers chasing them fared no better. The mutant rhinoceroses tore into their ranks, tossing men aside with their massive horns, indifferent to armor or weapons.
One of the remaining soldiers from the original squad of ten, clutching a bleeding arm, turned to McCaffrey, his voice shaking, “What do we do now, Sarge?”
McCaffrey, panting and wide-eyed, scanned the scene. “We survive. We find cover and hope they kill each other.”
Another rhinoceros bellowed in the distance, and the ground trembled as more of the herd closed in, their rage unquenched.
“Fuck! Change of plan!”
McCaffrey, his eyes darting wildly across the scene, counted the surviving men with a sharp, quick breath. “We keep moving,” he muttered to himself before shouting to the squad. “Use the chaos! Go, go, go!”
They pushed through, limping and staggering, weaving between the carnage. The battlefield was a mess of bodies, crushed armor, and dust, but they kept moving, driven by sheer desperation. Just when it seemed like they were close to escaping, a new terror appeared.
More ghouls. They tore into everything in sight—mutant rhinoceroses, Nadir’s soldiers, anyone in their path. The ghouls didn’t care who was friend or foe; to them, everything was food.
McCaffrey’s heart pounded as he saw the ghouls crash into the army like a wave of death. “Stay together!” he roared. “We need to get out—now!”
The squad fought through the chaos, dodging ghouls and charging rhinoceroses alike. Swords swung, blood flew. The battlefield had become a living nightmare—a storm of beasts, soldiers, and the undead, all locked in a deadly dance of survival.
Dust kicked up around the soldiers as they ran, weaving between fallen trees and half-buried rocks. The earth trembled under the thundering hooves of the charging mutant rhinos, their massive forms plowing through anyone unlucky enough to be caught in their path.
"Bloody hell!" second lieutenant Stevens shouted, narrowly dodging a rhino's horn as it bulldozed past him. "This is worse than the bloody ghouls!"
"Shut up and keep running!" Private Ryan snapped, his face smeared with grime and sweat. The ghouls were fast, but the mutant rhinos were worse—monstrous creatures with thick armor-like skin, relentless and blind with fury.
The three soldiers had been part of the squad of ten, but that was before the new horde of ghouls descended on the scene, and separated everyone. The creatures had arrived like a swarm of locusts, attracted to the smell of blood and death. What remained of the army had scattered, and soon enough, so did the ghouls' attention, ripping apart anyone too slow to get away.
Private Thompson, bringing up the rear, chanced a glance over his shoulder. "We’re not gonna make it, man! They’re closing in!"
"We’ll make it!" Ryan grunted, leaping over a fallen log and nearly losing his footing. Behind him, the ghouls were gaining, their gaunt, rotting forms moving unnaturally fast, jaws open wide, teeth bared.
Suddenly, another soldier from the squad darted past them, heading straight for a group of rhinos. "Oi, you idiot!" Ryan yelled, but it was too late. One of the beasts lowered its horn and sent the soldier flying, his scream cut short as he was crushed beneath its feet.
"Jesus Christ!" Thompson’s eyes were wide, panic setting in as the ghouls reached the body, tearing into it before it could even cool. "What the hell do we do now? They're everywhere!"
Stevens, breathing heavily, scanned the terrain, his mind racing. "We gotta use the mutant rhinos! They're smashing through everything—ghouls too! If we time it right, we can slip past while they clear a path!"
"That’s your big plan?" Thompson panted, dodging a low-hanging branch. "Run ‘towards‘ the death machines?"
"Unless you’ve got a better idea!" Stevens shot back, gripping his rifle tighter.
Ryan didn’t wait for more debate. "He’s right. We either die here or get creative." He veered left, leading them toward the stampeding rhinos. The ground shook beneath their feet, the cacophony of battle nearly drowning out the deafening roars of the ghouls and the thuds of rhino hooves.
One of the ghouls lunged at Stevens, its long arms reaching for his throat. He swung his sword up, smashing the creature’s jaw with the blade of his sword. It let out a grotesque howl and fell back, but another took its place, clawing at him. "Ryan! A little help here!" Stevens shouted, struggling to push the creature off.
Ryan whirled around and fired a crossbow bolt straight into the ghoul’s head, the creature crumpling to the ground. "Don’t slow down!" he yelled, "We’re almost through!"
The ghouls shrieked in anger as the mutant rhinos barreled closer, catching the predators in their charge. Bones crunched beneath the beasts’ hooves, and a few of the ghouls turned their focus on the rhinos instead of the soldiers.
"This is it!" Stevens yelled over the chaos, diving between two rhinos that were fighting a pack of ghouls. Ryan and Thompson followed close behind, narrowly dodging one rhino’s horn as it smashed into a tree.
***
On the other side, the sounds of the massacre slowly faded behind them. For a moment, the three men paused to catch their breath, blood pounding in their ears.
"I can't believe we made it," Thompson gasped, his hands on his knees, still in shock.
Ryan gave him a hard look. "Don’t celebrate yet. We still have to make it out of this cursed place alive."
Second lieutenant Stevens glanced back at the chaos, the ghouls still swarming, the rhinos rampaging. "For now, though, that’s someone else’s problem."