East Gate

“All right! It’s one PM!” Clock shouted loud enough to be heard by all. “Strike Team One! Get to the staging area!”

The five members of the strike team immediately stopped what they were doing and walked toward the part of the gatehouse closest to the portcullis. They roughly arranged themselves in a line while Mozaic handed out ammunition and hand grenades to the strike team.

“Sound off!” Clock shouted from the back of the line.

“One!” shouted Tantalus.

“Two!” shouted Ashcroft.

“Three!” shouted Mozaic.

“Four!” shouted FullDan.

“Five!” shouted ScaryClock.

“We’ll be using the battle-language from the old days,” ScaryClock continued. “Do you all still remember the old commands?”

In response, Ashcroft pinched his lips together and produced a bird call. It was a single long trill. In the Scions’ battle-cant, it meant “all clear.” This command would also frequently be used as an affirmative response to a separate command.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes,’” Clock said.

“A-ffirm, sarge,” Ashcroft said.

“Just in case, I’ll briefly go through the commands we might use. One long trill means ‘all clear’ or ‘affirmative.’ Two short trills mean ‘help needed’ or ‘negative.’ Two long trills mean ‘status report.’ Four short trills means ‘enemy spotted.’ A long fluttering trill means ‘retreat to the staging area.’” Clock said.

Clock continued speaking. “I’m making Tantalus my second-in-command. Now, I don’t plan for us to be split up at any time during this mission, but anything can happen out there.

There was a moment of silence broken only by the periodic sound of the soldiers checking their weapons.

“All right! Star-formation! Let’s move!”

The five soldiers moved through the gate as they spread out into a large pentagon formation. They made sure to place about thirty feet between each person. Tantalus, Ashcroft, and Mozaic made up the front of the pentagon while FullDan and Clock comprised the rear of the pentagon.

Several minutes passed without incident. At one point, Tantalus looked to his right to see that one of Ashcroft’s eyes was glowing yellow.

“Hey, Ashcroft. What’s up with your eye?” Tantalus asked conversationally.

“Oh, yeah. I took the ability Future Sight. I can keep the ability activated indefinitely without mana use, but the eye I use the ability with sees ten seconds into the future. That eye cannot see the present. If I activate Future Sight in both eyes, I’m basically blind.”

“Neat work around,” Tantalus said.

“You’d be surprised by how difficult it is to use,” Ashcroft muttered.

Slowly, the soldiers Strike Team One traveled more than a mile away from the city behind them. They had expected to make contact with the enemy almost immediately, but more than ten minutes had passed without them coming into contact with anything.

“Contact in ten seconds!” Ashcroft suddenly shouted as he raised his rifle.

The rest of the strike team dove for cover. When Tantalus looked up a moment later, he saw that Ashcroft was aiming his rifle at the corner of a building about a hundred yards away. Tantalus could not see an enemy there, but he raised his shotgun just the same.

A moment after Tantalus had raised his shotgun, an unsuspecting Goblin appeared from behind the corner. It barely had time to see the fuzzy blue figures that had just come into sight before Ashcroft shot it in the chest.

“...of five Goblins!” Ashcroft shouted. Tantalus could not hear the whole call-out over the sound of the gunshot.

Four more Goblins swarmed out from behind the building. They were out of range of either of Tantalus’s weapons, so he didn’t bother firing. The Goblins dove for cover, each wielding a rifle of some kind. Two of the four fell to the ground, bleeding from gunshot wounds, before they could get to cover.

The Goblins didn’t seem to know when they were beaten. Each of them peaked out of cover a moment after they had managed to hide themselves. FullDan and Mozaic had tracked the two goblins with their rifles throughout all of this. Half a second after the Goblins stuck their snouts out, their heads popped like grapes.

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“Dig in!” ScaryClock shouted. “They’re attracted to the sound of gunfire.”

There was a nearby four-story building made of concrete. Strike Team One swiftly ducked into that building.

“Ready for the show, everybody!?” Ashcroft cackled as he passed by Tantalus in the doorway.

“You three,” Clock gestured to Tantalus, Ashcroft, and Mozaic, “stay on the first floor and prepare for short-range combat. Dan and I will take overwatch on the second floor.”

“Aye, aye!” Ashcroft enthusiastically saluted Clock.

The building they had taken cover in seemed to be an abandoned office building. The center of the floors was dominated by grey cubicles, and the edges of the building contained much larger offices. The building was a mess, and unfastened electric lights hung from the ceiling. There were cracks in the concrete walls, and none of the lights could turn on.

“Expect an assault from the east,” Tantalus reminded the two Knights with him.

“That way, right?” Mozaic pointed to the direction away from the East Gate.

“Yes,” Tantalus said, trying not to sound annoyed.

Ashcroft and Mozaic took cover in an office on the east side of the building. Tantalus heard the loud sound of glass breaking as the two Knights shattered the windows in their respective offices. Tantalus, on the other hand, took cover near the entrance to the office building.

For a while, nothing happened. To keep his mind busy, Tantalus looked around at the cubicles and offices around him. The scene was uncanny. Every office contained a phone and a typewriter, but no computers. A number of pneumatic tubes could be seen attached to a far wall. There was a bulletin board near the tubes filled with unreadable text.

Tantalus heard a bird call from above. Enemy spotted. He quickly kneeled down and poked his head out of cover. Tantalus saw a wave of green and grey approaching down the boulevard. They must have been about two football fields away. None of their rifles had an effective range long enough to hit them, except maybe FullDan’s. He also noticed that some of the green blobs in the distance towered over the others. He remembered the report from Riemann he had read earlier. Ogres. If Ogres were there, then they could expect to run into Wendigos as well.

Tantalus closed his eyes and quickly navigated to the BloodNet. He checked the forums to find the thread ScaryClock had created for the purpose of communication during the operation. As he was looking through the forums, he saw the list of Revenants that he had contact with. Usually, this list contained everyone in Osiris. However, when Tantalus looked at it that time, he saw that he was only connected with the four others in the strike team. Tantalus sent a message.

[Tantalus45: New type of enemy. Big guys are ogres. If it has antlers, it’s a wendigo. It can use magic.]

A moment later, Tantalus received another message.

[ScaryClock: How do we kill?]

[Tantalus45: Same as goblins.]

[ScaryClock: They don’t know where we are. Engage at 100ft.]

Tantalus received three messages a few seconds later. All were an identical [Rec] from the three other members of the strike team. This message was short-hand for “message received.”

One hundred tense seconds of inaction followed as the horde of Deluvians approached Strike Team One’s position. Tantalus stood in the shadow of the doorframe with the barrel of his shotgun aimed at the center of the horde now approaching.

About one-tenth of the horde was composed of Orcs. None of the soldiers had anointed their ammunition. It was far more effective for them to only anoint their melee weapons. Anointing a magazine or clip cost five blood points, same as anointing a melee weapon. It was even worse for shotguns or revolvers because anointing individual bullets cost two blood points each. If they were to anoint all of their bullets, they would soon run out of blood.

Tantalus had switched the shells of his shotgun for slugs. This way, he would be able to engage at a much longer range. His shotgun carried five slugs, and he intended to switch to his pistol as soon as he was out.

At a glance, Tantalus could tell that there must have been about a hundred Deluvians present in the horde that now approached their location. In the center of the approaching horde was a large mass of grey-skinned Orcs.

A rifle's gunshot sounded from the second floor: FullDan. Less than half a second later, four other gunshots called out in a chorus.

Half a dozen Goblins immediately fell to the ground dead. They were marching in a tight formation, so a few of them had been killed by bullets which had already passed through another Deluvian. None of the Revenants had bothered to shoot at the ten Orcs in the center. They would have to be dealt with in melee.

The air was immediately filled with the sound of deafening gunshots and the war call of ten barbarians charging into battle. Tantalus’s attention immediately narrowed to his own little part of the battle. A goal was set automatically in his head. I just need to kill twenty of them.

Within seconds, Tantalus was out of slugs, and five Goblins were dead. The action of a shotgun operated by a skilled soldier was much faster than that of a bolt-action rifle. Many of the Goblins jumped to cover, but many more simply dove to the ground and started shooting while prone. This strategy might have worked if their opponents weren’t expert marksmen.

Tantalus dropped his shotgun to the ground as the remaining horde of Deluvians charged forward. The grey tide of Orcs quickly turned into a shield against the Revenants' withering fire. Tantalus drew his pistol and began firing into the group of Goblins to the sides of the Orcs. He heard the telltale sound of the gunshots suddenly increasing in speed as his squad mates switched to their sidearms.

The Orcs reached the entrance to the building within seconds. Tantalus took a few steps back away from the door. He drew his knife as Ashcroft and Mozaic appeared at his side. The Knights had drawn their Damascus swords. They waited for the assault with their swords raised in anticipation. Each Knight carried a wolfish grin upon his face.