Chapter 59 - Control the Field
I slapped a magazine in the final turret and secured the release lever. With a gentle whir from the aiming arms, the turret came to life, tracking back and forth in a roughly 60 degree angle that covered a block’s worth of buildings and a long stretch of the city wall.
In front of us was a sprawling garden of rooftops, none of them exactly the same height but uniformly rimmed with ornately carved railings braided with some kind of ivy or flowering vines. As with other parts of the city, most structures were less than a couple feet apart, but that didn’t mean you could traverse the rooftops easily given how varied their heights were.
Smoke blew in from the west, giving everything a hazy, dreamlike sort of softness that belied the amount of violence that was happening in spurts and the rare gush.
The turrets were doing a good job of keeping the climbers from mounting the wall so far, but the scourge were still systematically testing the defenses.
A cluster of monsters boiled up from the interior of a building adjacent to the wall, crouching low in one of the rare blind spots of the other emplacements, but our newly deployed turret was on the job, filling the clever creatures with holes before they could even get a good look around.
Trix’s rifle barked twice behind me, two short, quiet reports followed a second later by the distinct sound of flesh hitting pavers at high velocity. That sounded close. Leaning over to my left, I looked down to street level four stories below, where two gangly figures lay broken and bloody.
Slowly, I turned and caught the little Volpa’s eye, raising a questioning eyebrow. Trix’s ears flattened in an expression I took as sheepish.
“More of the sneaky ones,” he squeaked.
I shrugged. I couldn’t fault him for letting them get so close. I hadn’t heard them either. The Returned could be very ninja-like in how little noise they made if they were ‘built’ correctly. Lucky for us that the Dark Lord didn’t bother with proportion very often when he’d made them so many years ago.
“This was the last one. Third of the triangle,” I informed him, putting a hand up to shade my eyes and surveying the battlefield. As I watched, four small, black shapes slipped onto a rooftop adjacent to the wall, prompting a double volley of fire from our main emplacement a block over. The fully automatic fire tore into the monster nearest the turrets and threw the thing’s body back into its friends, where they all went down in a tangled heap. My programming was, in a word, merciless. The monsters were down but not dead, so the turret hosed the area with a long, sustained stream of lead until everything was still.
Knife in the Dark is now level 23.
Another monster, one more clever than his dead comrades, came up on the other side of the emplacement, attempting to sneak up onto the fortified roof and maybe flip one of the turrets. However, we’d put these turrets back to back, and before the undead could get a hand on a support leg, one of the barrels tracked down and gave it a full three seconds of sustained fire directly in the chest. It fell away from the building’s roof in pieces.
“This position’s also the one I’m most concerned about getting overrun. Do you feel like you can defend this one and make sure it stays up?” I asked Trix.
He stood up tall and looked around much like I was with a hand up to shade his eyes. “Not from here. But put me on that roof over there, and I think I can provide support,” he replied, indicating a rooftop slightly deeper in the city, across the street from our current rooftop.
I shook my head. “No, I don’t like it. Hate to have something sneak up on you while you’re scratching the turrets’ backs. The cool thing about machines is how expendable they are. How about that one?” I asked, pointing at a roof almost right next to the city wall, slightly taller than the one where we stood.
Trix let out a long breath. “It’s very far away from here. I will not be able to aim as I’d like.”
I looked at him with more than a little incredulity. “Really? You’re, like, a prodigy when it comes to guns. It’s- what? A block and a half maybe two blocks away? You could make that.”
“It’s not that I can’t hit at that range, but I am running low on ammunition. I need to kill with every shot if you want me to ‘scratch their backs’ as you say. I don’t like how I will have to aim at that distance.”
“I’m confused.”
“I would need to- Alright, just hold on,” Trix replied, bowing his head, bringing his claws up to rub at his face. He looked like he was crying or maybe rubbing dust out of his eyes or something. I was about to ask if he was okay, but he finished whatever he was doing before I could interject.
Then he raised his head, looking up at me with big… black… foxy… eyes. They shined in the muted light of the morning, the picture of innocence and purity like someone crossed a kitten and a baby seal.
What the actual hell?!
I nearly fell off the roof. His eyes, while sizable before, had become massive, dominating the surface area of his head to a ridiculous degree. They were huge, deep black, shiny, and just… so damned cute.
“Not one word!” Trix commanded, his tiny fox eyebrows angling down to give me the most adorable frown there ever was.
My fingers twitched. I longed to brush the little guy’s fur, but my body tensed like an animal about to bolt. This felt so… unnatural. It was uncanny.
I froze, my brain becoming a metronome beat, wobbling back and forth between ‘run away screaming’ and ‘run forward hugging.’ I’d seen cartoons with something like these proportions, but seeing them in real life was both better and worse in every way.
My mouth engaged before the rest of me could.
“Trix. What is happening? Why do I want dress you in overalls and call you Mr. Cuddlebums?”
“I know,” Trix lamented with a sigh. He passed a clawed hand over his face and suddenly his eyes were back to normal and my cuteness reflex went back to normal too, mid-combat levels at least. Trix’s pointy Volpa ears drooped down until they were shamefully laying on the top of his head. “I told you my species’ nature is based on deception. Part of that is distorting perception.”
Still confused, I took a second to consider. “So, you magnified your eyes. It’s like you magicked up some thick glasses? Then why did I- uh- want to- You know.”
The little Volpa could no longer meet my eyes. Instead he focused hard on the roof directly across the street from us. “It is a glamor,” he explained. “an old one that enhances my perception and beguiles others. Easier to see danger, harder for said danger to hurt us. It is the first one we learn when we are but kits.”
I shrugged. “That sounds pretty awesome, actually. Telescopic vision with an… adorability shield? What’s the problem then?”
“If you could have seen your face when I used it, you would understand. I don’t just bend the light. I affect the mind. You were not yourself, and I had no right to influence you in such a way.”
“That’s fair, I guess,” I admitted tentatively. Just as his glamor had overloaded the affection section of my brain, his healing magic was much the same, tricking the subject’s body into healing itself using whatever reserves it had to hand. That probably wasn’t healthy in the long run despite the short term benefits. I still couldn’t get past seeing these things as tools as opposed to grave offenses like Trix did. Then again, I was the guy with level 5 Deception, and I’d hated every time it leveled up. If I tried to convince Trix to use his magic, I’d be a pretty big hypocrite.
“Okay,” I began, thinking of how to get around this. “We can find a different rooftop or-”
Trix tilted his head slightly, distracted. Then he snapped his rifle’s muzzle up to blast another Returned in the face. This one had climbed up the gutter nearly right next to me.
“Sneaky,” Trix pronounced, finally looking me in the eye again.
“Yeah,” I replied, drawing the word out as I thought.
*BRRRAP* *BRAP*
Two more short volleys of turret fire cut through the late morning air, and I got another triple grouping of experience messages.
There was a shout in the distance. The long formation of refugees was finally getting into range of our defenses.
“Well that’s it,” I said. “I guess the setup phase is over.”
Trix knew as well as I did we were out of time. That’s why he was already shouldering his rifle and skittering toward the edge of the roof. Before he had a chance to leap off, I crouched down and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey. You don’t have to use it. Find another roof, and we’ll deal.”
“No, it is fine,” Trix replied, shaking his head. “Perhaps it is time I use all the tools at my disposal.” His voice was full of trepidation. There was a fragility in its tone that hurt to listen to.
“You know, Trix,” I began, hoping I was doing the right thing here. “There was a famous general once, a human, probably the most famous general our planet had ever produced. He was a military genius that pretty much wrote the book on the art of war. One of his most famous quotes, probably the only one I can remember off hand, was something along the lines of ‘All warfare is based on deception.’ I know you have your reasons, but, the way I see it, if your cause is just, it’s probably worth giving it everything. Maybe there’s a very real, tangible use for tricks in times like this.”
The little Volpa turned back to give me a quizzical look, one ear up, head tilted.
I gave him my best, confident grin. “I don’t know. It’s worth considering, at least. With everything that’s at stake, I, for one, plan to fight dirty.”
Any man worth killing is worth killing in his sleep.
Barrow’s words he’d intoned just before killing my only friend in the world echoed in my mind. Where had that come from?
I suppressed a shudder. Yes, I would probably go down as the first person in Ralqir’s history to kill monsters at an industrial scale, but I wasn’t anything like Barrow. I would never be that far gone, even with the corrupting influence of the System.
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“Thank you, Ryan. I will think about what you said, maybe after this is over.” Trix said, leaning in conspiratorially. “Can we keep my methods a secret, though? If it gets out that I can- Well, I get enough unsolicited hugs as it is. While it is more than fine coming from wayward children, the adults make me uncomfortable.”
“Not one word,” I promised. I held a finger of my lips for emphasis.
—----------------------------------
The air was thick with the sound of gunfire.
So far, the plan was working, though not without some problems. Some I’d foreseen, others not so much.
The plan, on paper, was simple: A triangular formation of overlapping fire.
In practice, though, things were getting increasingly dicey.
Trix and I had set up turrets in three separate places along the route the refugees would take. Two of them, we’d placed on the tallest roof we could find as close to the wall as we could feasibly get. These were our scraper turrets. They stood back to back, angled in such a way that their fields of fire traversed along the wall’s face and the rooftops the scourge would theoretically use to jump up onto the wall.
A block away, deeper into the city was the overwatch turret that kept monsters that actually made it onto the wall in check as well as covering the other emplacements and keeping them from being attacked en masse.
Then there was the turret that covered the stairs. That one, while initially our hottest attraction had quieted down in the last few minutes. That concerned me.
Right now, the gun that was engaged the most was the far overwatch turret, taking care of scourge that the others missed and felling foes that were lucky enough to make it onto the battlements.
I’d not designed this model for long distance engagements, but it was doing a fair job. It might not hit the tiny monsters like the touched goblins on the first shot, but it almost always got them in three, no more than five. More easily, it would pick off curious scourge that decided to make the rooftops their road like Trix and I did.
The number of climbers was steadily increasing, meaning the general saturation of scourge-touched was probably getting worrisome as well. The question was: where were they? Occasionally, a Returned would stick its head out onto the rooftops where Trix and I had made the area ours, but it wasn’t nearly as often as it should have been.
If the scourge weren’t funneling over to the stairs, what were they doing?
The overwatch turret would run out of ammo first, I was sure, but until then I was staying close to the wall with Trix.
*BRRRRRRRRRRR*
Suddenly the overwatch turret went full auto. I put my hand up to shield my eyes and squinted through the ever thickening smoke to see where it was aiming.
Something dark and heavy slammed onto the rooftop a couple buildings away, crashing through ivied lattice work and sending sticks of splintered wood flying. Another something slapped wetly down on the edge of the wall behind me, and when I turned to see what it was I got a facefull of feathers as the body rebounded off the railing to come to a rest at my feet.
At first I didn’t know what I was looking at, as twisted as the thing was from its fall, but I quickly recognized it as a bird. It was a strangely built one too with a solid looking dagger-like beak, dark green, almost black feathers, a compact body attached to long, reedy legs and claw-tipped feet. The smell of it flooded my nostrils, wet fur mixed with something spicy like cinnamon.
I knew it. Flying scourge. It had to happen eventually.
We didn’t have birds on Proxis 3, not like this at least. The closest we came was kite lizards, but those tiny nomads rarely came down from the upper atmosphere except to mate. My home sky was dominated by Proxis 2 but empty of living things. The thought of flocks of birds flapping and swooping everywhere had always held a sort of magic for me, an element of myth and legend from a home I’d never set foot upon. A sort of instinctual nostalgia for a place I’d never been.
The creature at my feet was alien yet familiar. Beautiful too.
…and I’d killed it instantly. Was there any wildlife on this planet I hadn’t killed the moment I met it?
I took a moment to check my combat log.
Scourge Touched Pickur defeated.
You have been awarded 16 experience points. [10 base (-8 level, +2 nemesis, +10 group,+10 chain, -8 non-combat class)]
Scourge Touched Pickur defeated.
You have been awarded 16 experience points. [10 base (-8 level, +2 nemesis, +10 group,+10 chain, -8 non-combat class)]
Scourge Touched Pickur defeated.
You have been awarded 16 experience points. [10 base (-8 level, +2 nemesis, +10 group,+10 chain, -8 non-combat class)]
Scourge Touched Morblin defeated.
You have been awarded 34 experience points. [40 base (-2 level, +8 nemesis, +10 group,+10 chain, -32 non-combat class)]
Oh, thank Constance it was scourge-touched.
Still, I suddenly felt the need to share.
“Hey, Trix! Birds!” I shouted over my shoulder in the general direction of where I knew the little Volpa had found his perch, somewhere up on the lattice. I would have joined him up there, but I’d already broken one section of it earlier. Oh, the curse of being heavy.
“Yes, I see!” Trix replied, taking time to put two rounds into something far away only he could see. “Very worrisome!”
“We don’t have those back home! I always wanted to see one!”
“That is unfortunate!” Trix shouted back to me over the sound of the guns. “These are diving pickurs! Very dangerous! Do not let them hit you!”
“I hadn’t planned on it! They’re infected! Just saying, this is a first for me!” I wanted to share the moment with someone, but, apparently, being a local took some of the magic out of birdwatching.
“Our planet has not sent its best ambassadors, I am afraid! Keep your eyes on the sky and watch for divers! They kill by burying their beaks into your skull!”
Another rooftop exploded in shattering wood and loose feathers further down the wall.
“Noted.” I said, sparing a glance up into the sky. The smoke and the chaotic light from the aurora around the moon was making spotting anything moving up there challenging, however. At least the turrets weren’t having a problem.
Behind me, the refugees made their way forward slowly, more slowly than I’d anticipated. I’d hoped for a sort of jog to the stairwell and then a shuffle down the stairs to the street level, but that wasn’t happening. The long line of people were shuffling forward in a strange sort of inch-worm fashion, the front of the formation surging ahead then stopping while the rest of the line hurried to catch up. Meanwhile the back of the formation lagged behind everyone, having to shuffle backwards as they kept their crossbows aimed at the monsters coming up from behind to chase.
Geddon and the heavies were in front, as we’d planned, Sissa and Samila with him along with Tiba and her honor guard. Bole was there too, floating between the lot of them. However, most of their time and effort were being put into finishing downed monsters and throwing perforated corpses over the sides of the walls.
While the tall folk were in an orderly wedge, Tiba was going about her duties with an enthusiasm that was downright disturbing. She screamed at the top of her lungs and dove upon any living scourge in range, laying into them with Hunty’s spear, stabbing them over and over until they stopped moving. Then she was onto the next one. No hesitation. No mercy.
Once they were in earshot, I cupped my hands over my mouth and asked them what they needed.
“Less smoke if you can manage it!” Sissa yelled. Her sword was black with scourge blood, and her armor was stained with more of the same. “Hard to spot the clever ones until they are right upon us!”
I looked over at the former refugee camp where the fires were still raging, along with a good portion of the adjacent neighborhoods. That problem was just going to get worse, and I hadn’t bothered developing a giant fan turret.
Our scourge problem was, concurrently, going to get worse as well.
“Any way to pick up the pace?!” I asked.
“Unless you can guarantee nothing will approach us from behind, no! We can’t afford for the rear guard to turn around! Too much risk!”
Now that they were well within the overwatch turret’s field of fire, that should take care of most monsters before they could approach the back rank, but it wasn’t a one hundred percent success rate. We could be stuck in for the long haul unless something changed.
“Okay just keep coming. I’ll think of something!” I replied.
—-----------------------------------
“Ryan!”
Trix noticed it before I did. I was just re-engaging the lever on one of the two wall scraper turrets when an entire house-sized piece of the city wall ceased to be a piece of the city wall. What was once grayish black stone, wobbled and distorted, peeling away from the whole. Gray, wrinkled flesh replaced the stone camouflage, and the bumpy, pimpled skin of whatever this thing was stretched itself so thin, I could almost see the real wall through the thin membrane of flesh as it reached up toward the top of the battlements.
*BRRRRRAP*
The turret’s attacks traversed the length of the creature with withering fire now that the monster had revealed itself. There was a high-pitched keening sound as the monster shuddered, a disturbing ululation as the stone color came back to the creature’s skin, but it wasn’t a pain or fear response. The massive creature still drew itself fluidly upward toward the lip of the battlements.
Heedless of the damage it was taking, the monster flexed, reaching up to skewer a guardsman with a sharp, protruding bone appendage that poked out of the top of its body. The guard screamed as he was plucked from between the crenulations and over the side. Displaced air wooshed past me as the monster proceeded to slam the guard’s body into the wall over and over with near supernatural speed, pulping the man on the stone. Mercifully, he was probably already dead after the first blow.
The creature’s skin rippled again and changed color to blend better into its new position on the wall, but I had its number now and so did the turrets.
Maybe it had something to do with its size or mojo, but despite knowing it was there, I almost lost it again instantaneously, like my brain couldn’t handle something so large changing color and texture right in front of my eyes.
The turret wasn’t fooled. It raked the monster with damage, but the bullets weren’t finding anything vital. What holes they were making, dripped black, giving the false wall the appearance of weeping.
If gunfire was ineffectual, I’d need to implement plan B. I bounded forward, jumping from my roof to the next, sailing down one floor to crash onto the wooden surface. My foot sank into the roof slats with a crunch, but luckily that was as far down as I went. My flamer turret was in my hand before I’d even dislodged myself.
*FWOOSH*
The “wall” wailed and separated itself from its perch. Like the Returned, this thing seemed particularly flammable, the crackling yellow crawling up the thing’s skin and overloading whatever process it was using to blend its color with the wall’s. The entire thing rippled with yellow and red waves as it keened, flapping its skin to attempt to shake off the homemade napalm with little success. After only a couple heartbeats, whatever it was lost its hold on the stone, the top of the monster letting go first and peeling away, a slow motion falling from…
Oh shiiiiiiit!
I’d turned the flaming monster into a giant crushing wave of cooking meat, and I was about to get a face full of it.
Cursing, I dropped the flamer, ripped my leg out of the floor, and dove from the roof, barely ahead of the sound of snapping wood and crackling fire. Superheated air blew my cloak up and over my head, obscuring all but what was directly below me, mostly just hard, unforgiving cobblestone.
The street rushed up to meet me, but, for better or worse, I had lots of horizontal momentum.
It was worse, actually.
I slammed face first into a planter someone had set on their windowsill, smashing through the soil and terracotta pottery while shards of it sank into the flesh under my chin. The impact blinded me and flipped me over until I was falling backward.
I didn’t see the cobblestone before I hit it. On the bright side, I didn’t hit it head first.
Jumping is now level 3.
Groaning, I gasped for breath as my eyes struggled to focus.
My back felt like I’d landed on it wrong, cracking and popping as I rolled over onto my side. The sky above me was occluded by something semi-solid, draped over the rooftops of the nearest few buildings while sagging in the middle like a wet tent. Smoke billowed from the crisping creature as pieces of thin, shrinking flesh flopped onto the street like melted plastic.
“Ryan! Run! Now!”
I shook my head, panted as I got my feet under me.
Another series of pops from my spine. Oh, that felt better. Not all the way better but… I would definitely be sore later.
I cast about looking for the best direction to run, as Trix had ordered, but then the facade of one of the buildings a short way down the street exploded as an armored train plowed through its ground floor. Dust, various bits of cloth, upholstery, and shattered wood vomited out onto the cobblestones as the figure of the Bray Knight tumbled blindly over and through the ruin it had made, thumping to a stop against the corner of a building across the street.
The Bray Knight had looked better. Its body was a charred and cracked mass of rage, the once straight and functional edges of its massive armored plates warped and soot covered. Its visored eyes wept black sludge, and its hooves were just ragged sticks of exposed bone and sinew. It wobbled on its feet, shaking its head and chuffing, sending loose dirt flying in all directions.
Its head clicked as it rotated nearly all the way around, winding itself up for what was about to come.
I couldn’t be sure, but I could have sworn the thing’s visored gaze was affixed directly upon me.
Now I really had to run.