Rip it all down, lads. Once this castle is nothing but wood and stone, we’ll raise a force of Golems to replace our lost comrades and carry on!
-Memoir of Nedwin Hastings, famed [Earth Mage]
Winesap Moon Day 11
Week of the Centaur (Archery Units +1 Range)
Though I was determined to fight on until I couldn’t any longer, I knew the village was lost as I ducked beneath the swipe of a howler’s claws and thrust my blade into its side. The monster gurgled and wheezed as it died on my sword, but I didn’t have time to revel in my victory. Instead, I yanked my weapon free as fast as I could, and swung at my next enemy. There was a satisfying sound as I cut through the beast’s thick fur, severing one of its many limbs. With an animalistic roar of my own, I slew the beast with another stroke and kicked its corpse away.
“Hold firm, men!” I called as I sucked in air and readied my sword once more. My arms and chest were burning with fatigue and injury, but I had no choice but to push through the pain.
“We can stop them here!”
The bleeding and exhausted villagers behind me cheered weakly and raised their weapons. We all knew that I was lying and that it was only a matter of time before we were overrun, but like me, they were determined to die with the village.
Our fate was sealed, but we’d be damned if we went quietly.
I looked out at the death and destruction all around me, and the sight filled me with guilt, grief, and burning rage.
My worst fear had come to pass: Davion’s walls had broken under the howlers’ first attack, and the monsters now rampaged through the village as they all headed toward the shimmering dome of blue and gold light surrounding the [Champion]’s tent. According to the deal we’d struck with the gutless bastard, his [Hexgrid Sphere] should have been used to cover the entire village, but when the attack started, he’d used it only to protect his own skin.
Inside his skill, howlers battled against Davion’s stack and to be honest, it didn’t look like the [Champion] was faring much better than we were. Of the five towering avatars that had first appeared when he’d transformed the space around his tent into a hexgrid battlefield, only three remained: a short figure wearing a blue coat and hat, a stubby treant, and a suit of armor carrying a hammer. Their strength, represented by a number floating above their heads – which had all been more than ten when the fight first started – were now perilously close to zero, and though my view of Davion’s face was obscured by the shimmering light of his skill and the glowing square floating above his gauntlet, I thought he looked scared. He yelled something I couldn’t hear and pointed his massive sword at the howlers. The armor stepped forward and took a swing with its hammer.
Across from the [Champion]’s stack, there were howler avatars as well. Six of them, to be exact, and the numbers above their heads kept climbing as more and more of the vile monsters reached the dome and went inside. The highest I saw was seventeen. Unless Davion had some sort of secret plan up his sleeve that would turn the tides of battle in his favor, his fate would soon be the same as ours simply by way of sheer numbers.
“Aster, look out!”
I cursed myself for getting distracted by a fight that wasn’t my own as I spun around just in time to block another howler. There were four of them in front of me, and for the next several minutes all of my attention was focused on killing them as efficiently as possible.
Our fight didn’t end with those four. Or the three after them. Or even the five after that. The howlers were like a river, unceasingly flowing forward and crashing against our defiance. I lost myself in the desperate dance of death, striking and parrying like a madman, hacking and slashing for all I was worth. The street around me was littered with howler corpses, but it wasn’t enough. I was getting tired; my limbs were heavy as rocks, and for all their bravery the men behind me were taking wounds they couldn’t afford. Two fell and did not get up again.
They’d fought bravely, and they died bravely.
Tears flowed down my cheeks as my remaining allies and I stood back to back and waited for the end to come. I was sick to my stomach and filled with nauseous mania; I didn’t want to die, so I lashed out recklessly when the next wave of howlers came, screaming at the top of my lungs as I hacked them into pieces. My blade cut through their scraggly gray bodies with ease, but it wouldn’t be enough. The evil tide was simply too strong to stop.
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
I don’t know how long this went on. My existence was nothing more than a blur of anger and pain, but eventually I found myself staring into the hellfire eyes of the biggest howler I’d ever seen. Its fur was slick with blood and its teeth were stained red, and I knew that it was going to kill me. I’d fallen to my knees at some point, and lost my grandpa’s sword too. It was on the ground somewhere I couldn’t reach. Even if I’d had it, though, I didn’t have the energy to swing it, so it wouldn’t have done anything.
The howler approached slowly, as if my fury had earned me some modicum of respect, and when it drew near enough, I spat in its face. Or I tried to anyway. My mouth was completely dry. Closing my eyes, I waited for the end.
But it never came.
Instead, an explosion from the direction of Davion’s tent sent me flying, and the world went black as I hit the ground.
----------------------------------------
When I woke up, my everything hurt. A light rain fell from the iron gray sky, soaking the earth around me. Staring up at the thin clouds above my head, I couldn’t help but laugh.
Somehow, I’d managed to survive.
Climbing to my feet took some effort, but I stood up and stretched as I took in the swathe of destruction all around me. My village, the only home I’d ever known, was totally destroyed. Charred bits of wood and stone littered the ground, and between them were the bodies of humans and howlers both. I didn’t see any signs of movement as I limped forward, so I cupped my hands to my mouth and started yelling.
“Anybody out there? It’s Aster! Hello? Anyone alive?”
Nobody answered, but no howlers appeared either, and I coughed like mad as I trudged past the fractured shards that were all that remained of Davion’s walls, heading deeper into the ruins of my village. I wept when I reached Erwin’s lifeless body, and on two separate occasions the reek of charred flesh caused me to stop and vomit.
I pushed aside piles of debris to look for survivors and shouted until my voice was barely more than a hoarse whisper, but I didn’t find anyone until I reached the center of the village.
There, laying on the ground and bleeding profusely, was Davion. His chest moved up and down erratically, and when I got closer, I saw that he’d been impaled with a large chunk of wood. It must have struck him during the explosion. Had he been a normal man, he would have already been long since dead, but [Champions] were subject to a different set of rules and so he lived. Outside their hexgrid battlefields, the Blessed were remarkably hard to kill.
It wasn’t fair.
Davion turned toward the sound of my footsteps and smiled as his eyes met mine. “A survivor, thank the stars. Boy, come help me free myself from this damned log so that I might regain my strength, and I’ll reward you handsomely. I’ll [Recruit] you into my stack and we can leave this worthless village together.”
The [Champion]'s ancient blade lay on the ground beside him, and I knelt down to pick it up. My fingers tightened around the hilt, and a thrum of magic warmed my arms. I stood back up and looked down at Davion. I was surprised at how small he seemed.
When I spoke again, my ragged voice was hard.
“Worthless?”
“Of course it was worthless,” Davion spat, gasping for breath between words. “Nothing but [Peasants] and tier one buildings. No skills to draw on or resources to employ in its defense. Pathetic defenders that couldn’t even hold the walls I built for them. I should have just let the howlers take you all.”
“We would have been better prepared if you had,” I snarled. “If we hadn’t wasted all of our wood on your fee, we could have built better walls. Had we not given you all of our gold, we could have used [Full Muster] so that most of our men wouldn’t have had to fight with pitchforks. Had it not been for you, my friends and fellows would still be alive!”
He chuckled mirthlessly and shook his head. “You’re a fool if you believe that. The stars forsook this village the moment that the howlers made their way here. Nothing you worthless [Peasants] could have made would have stopped them. It took the sacrifice of a rare and valuable artifact to drive back the beasts, not to mention the utter destruction of my stack. Rebuilding it is going to take weeks, assuming that I can even find the appropriate buildings in the first place.”
He glared up at the sky. “What a waste of time this whole things has been.”
My eyes widened as I looked down at him in disbelief.
“A waste of time? Is that what this is to you? Don’t you feel regret or sadness for the people who lost their lives?”
Davion snorted and scratched his stomach. “Does a man feel regret or sadness for the trees he chops down so that he might burn it and stay warm during the winter? Of course not. He doesn’t even think about it, because that’s just the natural order of this world. It is the same for us. By the will of the stars, we [Champions] stand above you [Peasants].”
“Not right now you don’t.”
His eyes flickered with fear, and I realized that I’d raised his sword into the air while he’d been talking. He coughed weakly, and I felt my anger hardening into resolve. Davion’s gauntlet flickered, and something tugged at the back of my mind.
“The Texts say that the Blessed are given great power so that they might help others,” I said. “It seems to me that a man such as you is unworthy of such a gift.”
The color drained from Davion’s face and he coughed again. “Don’t be foolish, boy. Do you really think that you can carry the burden of a [Champion]’s gauntlet?”
In answer, I brought down my blade in a single, swift stroke.
“I can’t do any worse than you have.”