Mongrel
Thankfully, there were no more attacks while the chimps were away. Number Three reported good success, having harried the remaining grinner pack for miles before losing track of them.
Number One, however, had been less lucky. No sign of Will—not so much as a scrap of clothing. Mongrel was not sure if that was a bad sign or a good one. If the kid had made it out of that bind earlier with his legs still under him, he would have been here by now. Which meant that he was either incapacitated somewhere, or already dead.
Mongrel would rather believe the former. If he’d managed to drag himself into a hiding place somewhere, that would explain why Number One had been unable to find him.
For the time being, however, that meant Mongrel needed to sort this mess out by his lonesome. He’d have to stay put in Millstone until A: Sam had recovered enough to travel, B: he was back to full strength on the chimp side of things, and C: he could ascertain with relative confidence whether Will was alive or dead.
That meant at least one more day. Maybe more.
Mongrel didn’t think the grinners would dare bother them again tonight, so he risked he and Number Three getting a few hours of shut-eye while Number One kept watch, ready to wake them up if needed.
Sure enough, the night passed uneventfully.
When faced with the Ghost in his dreams, he put the three attribute points awarded at Level 12 into his derived attribute, Ideality.
In the morning, he let Number One tag out and sleep while he and Number Three set about improving the safehouse’s defenses. It was very possible that they had chased off the grinners for good, that they would not be hassled any further.
Mongrel was not feeling quite that optimistic, however. He counted on them gathering more of their kind and returning by nightfall, more enraged than ever.
That meant they had to be ready. His first trap had been a resounding success—but the decoy play wouldn’t work a second time. Grinners preferred to tear humans apart in the quickest and most straightforward way possible, but they could be frighteningly cunning if pushed to it. No doubt, the ones that returned for their fourth attempt would be wary of human trickery.
Mongrel figured he could use that against them, too.
The spike pit placed in front of the longhouse had been successful in killing several of the monsters, but it was unlikely they would fall for such a trap again, and constructing a punji moat around the entire safehouse would take much too long. Instead, he faked it; dug up the soil around the building and turned it over so it would look like they’d placed something underneath. Hopefully that would give the grinners at least a little bit of pause.
He cut arrow slits into the walls of the safehouse, and a trapdoor in the ceiling. He had Number Three Repair weld the heap of extra knives they had brought from the farm onto the ends of wooden sticks to make improvised spears.
They were forced to take a break around midday, about the time that Number One woke up, to sate their appetites. Zero was not a concern, as she could graze about the village during the day as long as he kept an eye on the old mule to make sure she didn’t stray too far. For human and chimp, however, they had little in the way of feed. The provisions they had brought from the farm were largely depleted, and they were all out of water.
The wells dotted around Millstone had run dry, so they were forced to venture further afield to find a stream. Number Three caught some reasonably sized frogs there while they were at it, and on their way back he climbed trees to harvest pine cones that they could extract the nuts from. Mongrel got handfuls of spruce tips along with a few edible mushrooms.
Combined with the bit of jerky and bread they had left, it was certainly no great feast, but at least it quieted the insistent rumbling in Mongrel’s stomach for the time being.
Sam’s fever broke that day. Number One cleaned and rebandaged her wounds, and they looked like they were beginning to heal, no sign of infection. She was well enough that Mongrel figured it was all right to take her off the anesthesia, and during her few lucid moments she managed to take some water.
He did not think she would be any use against the grinners come night, but he could hope, at least. Pulling off miracles seemed to be the girl’s speciality, after all.
As a final addition to their defenses, Mongrel unraveled the yarn from his extra socks and tied them among the trees that surrounded Millstone, Reinforced so that they would serve as solid tripwire in case a careless grinner happened to rush headlong into it. He also attached empty medicine bottles to a few of them, so that they would clink together and make noise if the tripwire happened to be disturbed, giving some warning of approaching monsters and providing some indication as to the direction of attack.
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Mongrel could not think of many other genius strategies, so he had all three of them simply rest throughout the late afternoon to recuperate their energy and allow his AP to regenerate. He imagined he would need as much of it as he could get.
It was a good thing he’d set up that tripwire, because the monsters made their move earlier than expected; at dusk. The faint clinking of glass was all the warning they got before they came swarming. From the north, the west, the south; dozens of them, all at once.
Mongrel had never seen so manyb in one place before.
They shut themselves inside the safehouse, and Number One created a Barrier coating on the outside that would hopefully keep the walls themselves from getting eaten up. With their Unceasing Hunger ability, the grinners would keep eating away at the wood if given half a chance until nothing remained to deny them entrance.
The monsters were more cautious than the previous night, which was all right by him, since his main goal was to stall them long enough to resummon his other familiars sometime in the small hours of the night.
They advanced slowly, picking their way through the buildings. Mongrel sent Number Three up on the roof via the trapdoor to take potshots at them, which gave at least a few of them some pause as arrows thudded into them. Grinners were tough bastards, meaning an arrow or two was unlikely to be lethal unless it was through the eye or the heart, but the curare-coated broadheads did their job properly, eventually downing several of the beasts before they reached the safehouse.
Just as he had hoped, the monsters fell short when they reached the circle of upended earth, wary of traps. They stalked around, stepping this way and that, poking a paw onto the dirt here and there to test its integrity. By the time they realized they could simply walk across, Number Three had scored at least five more good shots.
When they started close, Mongrel called Number Three inside and sealed the trapdoor shut behind him.
The grinners piled up around the safehouse, clawing and biting and bashing their heads against the Barrier. Number One had made it take a sort of mushroom shape, bulging out at the top to prevent any monsters from climbing onto the roof, where they would be far more difficult to displace.
Additionally, the Barrier was made up of smaller fractal patterns that increased its overall structural integrity, made possible by Mongrel’s extra points in Ideality as they trickled down to his familiars through the Kindred Spirit passive.
Number One created gaps in the Barrier where necessary so that Mongrel and Number Three could poke their spears through the arrow slits, stabbing at the snarling tide of black fur and terrible teeth on the other side.
Given the sheer weight of beasts, it was not long before they began breaking through the Barrier, but when they did Number One just created another, and another, and another. This method worked in buying them some time, but it ate through Mongrel’s AP frighteningly quick, and was extremely draining on his familiar.
When Number One had accumulated too much skill fatigue to keep going, Mongrel had Number Three take his place and manned the defenses alone. This wasn’t viable for very long, as with only one person keeping the grinners from getting too wild they quickly swarmed the Barrier and tore it down, too fast to create a new one in its place.
The monsters began crunching their way through the wooden walls like enormous termites, the sound of their teeth scraping a terrible thing to have to listen to. Zero stepped anxiously inside the enclosed space, ears streaked flat, and Mongrel had no time to offer her any consolation as he was busy stabbing away. If anything, he wished somebody was there to console him.
For once, he could have used a demon at his back.
Number Three created another Barrier on the inside of the walls to keep the monsters at bay just a little while longer, but it was a stopgap solution at best. It would be at least another hour until the other chimps were ready to pop back out, and there was no way they were lasting that long. Even if they did by some miracle, Mongrel did not think it would make much difference against so many grinners. Despite how many they had taken down, there always seemed to be more ready to step over their dead comrades for a chance at some manflesh.
There had to be some way out of this. Something he could do. But he could not think of it. Could not visualize the way forward short of a miracle. He glared accusingly at Sam lying there on the floor, but she refused to stir, sleeping soundly in blissful ignorance of the fact that they were all about to be eaten alive.
Luckily, Sam Darling was not the only person Mongrel knew with a penchant for working miracles.
All of a sudden, the grinners let up a little in their relentless aggression, seemed to grow somehow unsure. They fell away from each other, scrabbling, began to look around.
One of them turned and ran, then another, then the whole lot of them broke off. Mongrel stood panting, blood-slick spear clutched in both hands, and shared uncertain looks with the chimps.
Why were the monsters running?
It was only when the silence of the night had firmly reasserted itself, broken only by the low moaning of dying grinners piled up against the walls, that Mongrel dared to go outside and find out.
He saw the cause of the disturbance almost immediately, a dark shape coming down the south slope leading into the village in a slow, labored gait. Mongrel would have recognized him even if it weren’t for the long, silvered blade in his hand.
Will produced a terrible squeal of metal on metal as he scraped a knife along the blade, like a hundred voices screaming in agony. He repeated the motion over and over as he came down into the village, and the grinners fled at the sight of him, breaking east and west to avoid coming close to the young man.
Mongrel whistled the two chimps to his side and pounded across Millstone to meet the kid. He fell down before they got there, and Mongrel kicked away the foul blade so he wouldn’t touch it by accident before kneeling next to him.
“You’re alive,” Mongrel said.
“Obviously,” Will grunted.
“Grinners don’t seem to like you much.”
“They got more than their fill of me when I showed them my semblance. Sam…?”
“Alive. Safe.”
Will let out a relieved breath. “Good.” He fumbled his fingers across his front, pulled out a knife stuck through his belt. "Got something of yours."
"My knife!" Mongrel exclaimed. "You're all charity today, aren't you?"
Will's lips parted as though to give a reply, but his consciousness was fading, eyes sliding shut. Mongrel gave the lad's cheek a fond clap, then picked him up and carried him inside the house as the chimps set about finishing off the immobilized monsters still surrounding the place.