I wanted to go check in on Mom down below, but I couldn’t take my focus away from the fight – it was just too thrilling, frightening, and exciting all at once; plus I was really hoping that they would make it to the fortress in one piece. The anxiety of not knowing their fates would gnaw at me if I didn't remain on the roof, so I stayed despite the constant drain on my mental energy from the astral travel.
The soldiers were maintaining a perimeter around the civilians, encouraging them to move as swiftly as they could. The warhammer-wielding soldier had shifted to a single-handed grip and was carrying the man whose leg had been savaged, blood dripping behind them as he hurried up the street.
More of the soldiers moved to the rear of the group, and the woman with the wild pink hair continued to discharge bolts of lightning as she cleared the path in front of them.
Quite a few people continually turned to glance back in the direction they had come from, as if they were waiting for someone to join them... or they were worried something was catching up.
The sun was still rising, and I noticed that there were fewer shadow wolves on the streets. It was odd, and their new numbers didn't match up with the losses the wolves had suffered so far; the soldiers had killed dozens of wolves since I began watching them, and perhaps a few hundred since they first entered the village, but there were thousands of wolves missing. When I had first arrived on the roof it had still been pretty dark, but the village had been swarming with them.
The mystery was solved when I noticed a large pack dart into the opened doors (or broken windows) of a big house, and then saw the same thing happen again and again. When the sun fully broke over the horizon, there were only a few packs of relatively pathetic-looking, scrawny wolf-like creatures roaming the village. They were also seeking shelter, but when they attempted to enter a house they were rebuffed by the wolves that had already claimed it.
The monsters looked a lot less like 'shadow-wolves' and a lot more like 'starved-heyenas' by the light of the day, and it wasn't long before the few remaining attackers were slain. There was a cheer from the people standing near me on the roof, and I felt a similar sense of relief.
The soldiers and their charges didn't slow down to rest, however, and the way they kept looking back down the street made me wonder if there was more going on than I realized. But, I thought, surely they would be safe now that the beasts were weakened by the sunlight!
A blur of movement off in the distance was the first sign the danger wasn't over yet. Soon, I was able to make out the shape of one of the monster wolves running along the street, but something about it set alarm bells ringing in my mind. First of all, I noticed that the buildings around it seemed much too small in comparison, which meant either the mental fatigue was finally catching up with me, or it was considerably larger than it should have been.
The second point of concern was that the monster was holding something in its jaws, which I hadn't identified at first because the proportions were off - it was the torso of a person wearing bright red armor. I quickly judged that the wolf must have been more than twice as long and tall as the other wolves, which made it nearly the size of a small car!
Three red armored figures were chasing after the body-snatching monster, but it seemed to be outpacing them easily. Something was off about them as well, and my focus started drifting, my mind going blank, as I figured out what was wrong: Each of the three soldiers was missing a limb, and it was the same limb for all of them - their right arms were missing at the shoulder. It was astonishing they were even able to stand in that condition, let alone chase after the beast, but what bothered me was what it might mean if it wasn't a coincidence...
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Two of the soldiers in the original group broke off and moved to intercept the incoming giant wolf, while the rest finally left the street behind and entered the courtyard surrounding the fortress. It was the pink-haired woman and the soldier with the sword who ignored gravity, and they both kept their weapons raised as they spread out to either side of the street.
A fearful curse brought my attention back to the rooftop as the green-haired bonfire tender let out a hoarse command in a shaky voice. It snapped the rest of them out of their terror-induced paralysis, and they all turned away from the battle and began sprinting towards the cage in the center of the roof, stumbling in their haste. One dropped her crossbow, but none of them even looked back or took so much as a glance at the piles of wood they were leaving behind. I considered fleeing myself, but felt a desperate need to learn more about this new world, and exactly how much of a threat these monsters were.
Both of the soldiers attacked once the wolf was close enough. The man yelled something in a harsh voice and swung his sword at empty air, somehow shooting a stream of fire out of his blade. The beast deftly shifted its body, leaping to the side to avoid the flames... which took it right into the path of the woman's spear, that she had thrown just a fraction of a second after the man attacked. The spear struck the wolf in the side, causing it to drop the dismembered body it was carrying, but didn't penetrate nearly as far as I expected.
The woman raised her left hand, revealing a thin chain connected to the spear stuck in the giant wolf, and a crackling bolt of lightning shot through the weapon and into its body. The beast barely twitched before lunging at her in a blur, and then suddenly the three of them started moving so fast it was difficult for me to determine exactly how the fight was going, except that it was a chaotic melee of claws, fangs, lightning, and fire.
I wasn't able to see the main gates down below due to the edge of the roof getting in the way, so I could only hope that the civilians were being let inside. The reason for the separate safe rooms also made a lot more sense to me after seeing the giant wolf. We were able to risk bringing new people into the fort, opening the gates to stragglers, without endangering everyone else if something was strong enough to force its way past the defenders. It was like a two-staged floodgate system.
Without warning, the shape of the sword-wielding man smashed into the front of a house, and I saw the pink-haired woman pinned down beneath the giant wolf. Her spear was gone, and the beast had its jaws clamped tightly around her arm... her right arm. She didn't scream as the terrifying jaws clamped down, yanking back and forth until her shoulder split open, separating her arm from the rest of her body. The giant wolf jumped away and bit down like a dog with a bone, but the elaborate metal armor she had been wearing made the arm too tough for it to chew through and swallow quickly.
The pink-haired woman lay on the ground, unmoving, and I thought she was dead until the other soldier ran over and pulled her back onto her feet.
The wolf would have been able to finish her off easily, but it hadn't... The damn thing wasn’t fighting the soldiers in red armor… it was playing with its food!
At that point the other three soldiers had finally caught up, and they threw themselves at the giant wolf while raining down fire and lightning. It was clearly a hopeless struggle, but they were sacrificing themselves to distract the beast, not even flinching when it struck another of them down.
I was both terrified and inspired by their bravery, and I felt myself wishing that I could go down there and help them. I knew it was foolish, at least as I was now, but the desire was there regardless. It was hard to describe… something about facing an unbeatable foe, refusing to back down.
I had a sudden flashback – two friends, usually pretty goofy and fun, staring down certain death and choosing to go all in. Everything was abruptly surreal to me, images of the last few months overlaid on top of my previous life: Was I even really here? Would I suddenly wake up from a coma, having had one of the most screwed-up dreams in the history of mankind?
Abruptly something changed, bringing me back to reality (and back into focus) as the soldiers scattered, fleeing from the giant wolf. There were only three of them left now, with yet another one-armed soldier lying motionless at the monster's feet. The survivors included the pink-haired woman (her long tresses now weighed down by blood) and the man with the sword, who still miraculously had both arms.
Enough time had passed that everyone else must have already made it inside the fortress, meaning the soldiers had completed their heroic task and saved over a hundred lives. Killing the giant wolf was clearly impossible, so now they needed to focus on a new mission: Survive.