"Maaaac!" Ramon cries out in panic as he opens fire from the bell tower at the bandits storming into the church.
The ones who have made it into the chapel begin fanning out in an attempt to surround me, swords and pistols at the ready. The odds are bad, but its not a problem I can't handle. Because I'm a magic knight. And a single knight is worth an army of mundanes.
OK. Maybe that was an exaggeration. But I should be able to handle simple bandits, as long as I don't get careless. I move an index finger across my throat, sword outstretched toward the bandits in my other hand. Magic begins to weave its way through my bones and muscles, anchoring itself securely like a thousand needles piercing through linen. My body wells with barely suppressed force as my physical strength increases beyond the bounds of normal men.
"You want to die?" I roar in defiance, "Come on then!"
Like a tidal wave, the bandits swarm forward, crashing into the bulwark of my defense. My arms move at lightning speed, swinging the Springvale Sword in practiced motions. The first wave of bandits falls easily enough, unprepared for the ferocity of my blows. Their comrades press forward in abandon, not even hesitating at the sight of the hacked apart corpses piling around my feet. I barely have time to draw a breath before the next wave of attackers throw themselves at me.
"They're still coming Mac!" Ramon shouts from his perch, firing away doggedly at the marauders. How much shot and gunpowder would he have left?
"Keep blasting away!" I yell back, sending a powerful kick straight into the torso of a charging bandit, "If they trap us here, its over!"
The bandit I had kicked flies backward, plowing a line into the mob and smashes right through the wall, leaving a man sized hole in his wake. From the rent in the stone, I see the fires in the village spreading as the rest of the bandit pack does their bloody work on Springvale.
"Animals!" I shout, "All of you! Animals!"
There's a baying laugh from the mob and the next wave hurls themselves at me, right into the edge of my sword. The bandits may be depraved, but they're no cowards. If anything, the easy manner in which I slaughtered their comrades has incited the rest of the mob to even greater heights of suicidal courage. The wave of bandits I'm facing now is absolutely massive, for every enemy that's downed, two immediately take his place.
"How many of you are there?" I curse as my sword slashes a bandit's artery open, drenching me in the warm blood spray.
"More and more bandits are outside!" Ramon barks in reply, even though I wasn't talking to him.
Before I can shout back my response, a series of blows impact against my back, causing me to stumble. I grit my teeth in annoyance, realizing that the rear ranks of the mob had taken the opportunity to circle around me. I reinforce the rhino skin enchantment, just in time for the next volley of chops and stabs to descend upon me. This time, I barely feel the attacks, hearing only the very gratifying sound of steel shattering impotently against my back.
My hand snaps out, grabbing the collar of the bandit directly in front of me. I then heave him over my shoulder, piledriving the man into the attackers vainly pounding away at my back with the stumps of their swords. There's a solid thump as bones shatter and several bandits are reduced to spineless heaps on the floor. I take advantage of the gap in the encirclement to dodge to the side, into the row of pews.
A deluge of pistol shots slap ineffectually against my augmented body and I slice open another offending bandit horizontally from head to toe. As the wretch watches his organs splat on to the floor, I pick up one of the wooden pews with one hand and begin swinging it like a long club, driving back the bandits toward the church's broken front door. Dual wielding both my sword and the pew, I begin to make gradual progress against the mob, forcing them back inch by inch.
"Mac!" Ramon hollers again from the bell tower, "Something's wrong!"
"No shit!" I snap, "Tell me something I don't know!"
"Its the bandits!" Ramon shrieks, his voice wavering with fear, "They are pouring out of every corner of the village! Even from places that haven't been attacked yet!"
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
"How?" I cry out, but Ramon is silent, too occupied gunning down the incoming hostiles. My friend is right though. None of this makes sense. The number of bandits I've killed in the church alone probably outnumbers the horde that we met at the village entrance.
Just where are these guys coming from?
A particularly hearty swing of the pew causes it to explode into fragments as it pulps the head of an attacker. I throw the remaining length of the pew in my hand like a javelin, annihilating the torso of another bandit in a single motion. With the entire mob neatly corralled by the church's entrance, I sprint forward, lashing out with my sword. The impetus of my charge sends the mob reeling backward, allowing me to hold them down, the broken door serving as a chokepoint.
The bandits remain unbowed, constantly challenging my sword which has by now become slick with their blood and gristle. But as long as the mob doesn't have a way of outflanking me, I can keep this up all day. The corpses begin piling up again as the Springvale Sword reaps a heavy toll from anyone trying to bully their way past.
Everything is going well, but my stomach suddenly lurches as an invisible pressure weighs down on me. The same pressure that obliterated my double without a trace.
"MAAAAC!" Ramon shrieks like a girl thanks to unadulterated panic, "BANDITS ARE FALLING FROM THE SKY!"
"WHAT?" I bellow as I spit out a wad of bile like a bullet, punching a hole in an attacker's forehead, "TALK SENSE MAN!"
The roof of the church is torn away by that invisible force, revealing the night sky. And I see it.
Bandits are falling from the sky.
"Impossible. Impossible!" I cry out as the air dropped bandits land easily on their feet all around me, packing the church's interior like sardines. I see the flash of gunfire from the bell tower as Ramon vainly fires at the sky bandits to no avail. I note with some dissatisfaction that none of the bandits seem interested in Ramon, all of the incoming attackers mobbing me the moment they make their appearance.
I'm completely surrounded, with swords, fists and feet pummeling me from every direction. And what's worse is that the sky keeps shitting out more and more bandits. It doesn't matter how many I take down. The mob attacking me gets progressively larger as the fight continues. My magic begins to waver from the strain of resisting a near constant barrage of attacks. There's a flash of steel and a hot pain spreads along my sword arm, causing me to drop the Springvale Sword.
A shallow slash, with blood welling up in the wound. A sign that my reserves of magic are starting to empty out.
I grab one of the bandits in a desperate embrace, using him as a shield as I push my way to the pulpit. Its the only way I can avoid being surrounded in this situation. My unwilling protector screams in agony as the other bandits stab relentlessly at him in their quest to do me in. But I manage to survive the worst of the onslaught and make it to my destination, with only a few cuts and other light wounds.
Dumping the corpse of my meat shield to the floor with a wet thump, I reach out for the nearest makeshift weapon I can get my hands on. The painting of Enn, the first human, descending to earth.
"Eat it! Eat it!" I howl, grabbing the painting by the frame and slamming it into the rabid faces baying for my blood. The painting of Enn is surprisingly solid, scoring several good whacks on the bandits. But with more bandits falling from the sky, I'm just delaying the inevitable here.
Who cares though?
I'm not going to go quietly into the night.
"Bastard. Bastard. Bastard." I growl as I keep pulverizing bodies with the painting. A bandit throws up a glut of blood, staining Enn's featureless face. A blade glides towards me, scoring another gash in my side. A heavy swing of the painting nearly decapitates this attacker, his head hanging on to its body by a sliver of muscle, at the cost of a long jagged tear erupting on the canvas of the painting.
The ground suddenly begins to shake, as if the earth itself had been stricken by a fever. The mob and I collectively struggle to keep our balance, a blessed respite from the non stop attacks thrown my way. There's the sound of rock cracking and several large chunks of masonry crash into the mob, adding a few more corpses to the already impressive pile I've amassed.
"HEEELLLLPPP!" Ramon cries out and I lift my head in alarm.
Just in time to see the entire bell tower detach from the church and blast off into the sky like a firework. Before I can even register what is happening, the bell tower is nothing more than a speck in the night sky.
And the mob is back to hacking away at me again.
"Fuck you all!" I grit out, whipping the painting about, this time the force of impact tearing the canvas into two, with the frame lying in ruins. Another quake rocks Springvale and I feel that invisible force beginning to pull.
The entire church rises from the ground, racing for the sky as well. Parts of the floor begin to give way as well, causing several bandits to plummet to their deaths. Wails of distress overwhelm the bandits as they struggle to save their comrades from the gaps opening up on the church's floor. But I can't be bothered about that.
Not when I can see the foundation of the church, now that we're flying so high above it.
Though foundation is not the right word. Its a pit, housing a replica of the chapel we are fighting in. And right in the middle of the pit, is a veritable ant hill made out of corpses, with the body of an Order Knight right at the top. Several blades have been wedged into his mummified body and his face is frozen in a rictus of terror.
The terror of fighting a never ending enemy.
"Save yourselves." that was the Knight's warning to anyone who came after him. But Ramon and I could not do it. We tarried too long in this purgatory.
And we will probably be its next victims.