Chapter Eleven: Shattered, Scattered
The screaming continued, panicked cursing providing a harmony, “Fuck. FUCK! Help! FUCK!”
Tom jolted from his sleep. He threw off his blanket and snatched up his short sword. Another horrifying scream rang out as Tom fumbled with buckling his sheath to his belt.
He snatched glances about the camp as he finally managed to cinch it to his waist. It was chaos. People fought with their blankets, fouled each other’s movements, or frantically searched for the source of the attack.
Tom assumed the attack was coming from the south, that being the direction of the screams. He kicked his spear up into his hand, taking a brief moment to shuck his pack on too. He left his bedroll and blanket where they lay.
He began to methodically forge his way through the grey tableau towards the sounds of panicked fighting. Limbs flailed at him. People stumbled past. Faces resolved from greyness and sank back into it. Confused queries ricocheted around. Tom could barely make any sense of it all.
Something felt wrong. He could hear people crying out in pain and fear, grunting with exertion, fighting for their lives. There was nothing else though. No growls. No hissing. No thumps. Nothing.
Bronze light flashed at the far end of the camp, spears flashing into the dark.
“Light!” Elensfield yelled. Tom could barely hear him. “Clairvine, we need light!”
Tom forced his way closer to the action. More bronze spears flashed into the woods, throwing the scene into momentary relief. The colour and briefness of the light, and the shifting mass of people in front of him, made it impossible to see anything.
Suddenly, the scene burst into clarity. White petals drifted all around them, glowing harshly against his night-adjusted eyes. For a brief moment, he marvelled at the beauty.
Then someone screamed again.
Tom’s attention was ripped back to the frontline. He was less than fifty feet away. As his eyes adjusted to the new light he struggled to make sense of the chaotic scene.
The trees ahead of him were shifting. Shimmering black. Tom couldn’t figure out why his gut was screaming WRONG at him until he realised the trees shouldn’t be black, still. Not under the piercing white light of Clairvine’s petals.
Things dropped from the trees as Tom watched. Things with too many legs. They carpeted the forest floor, flowing up and around tree trunks, through branches and boughs; skittering, jittery movement becoming a coherent, mesmerising current with the sheer volume of their bodies.
Spiders. Lots of them. Lots of BIG fucking spiders, Tom thought. He had never particularly liked spiders, but he wouldn’t have called himself an arachnophobe. Big, BIG fucking spiders, was still the only lucid thought he could form. Thousands upon thousands of them, each as large as a housecat, triggered some primal, instinctual response in him. With a sudden flash of insight he realised that not all of the screams had been screams of pain.
Tom had frozen in place. The spiders were rushing ever closer, dropping ever closer. As he watched, a woman pinned one with her spear, and another swept up the shaft and busied itself with her arms. Within a breath another had fallen from above, landing on her shoulders, and more had reached her legs. It was hopeless. Her death scream jolted Tom from his horror.
Tom kept steady even as others around him backpedalled. There was little any of them could do, but they would all die, buried in spiders, if they allowed the unit to bunch up and become trapped. They needed to create space, to stem the tide for a brief while until the rest of the camp was roused and ready.
The people in front of him were fighting, desperately lashing out all around them. Tom stepped forward and thrust his spear, skewering a spider on the end of it. He retreated several steps, methodically, as more streamed around the people ahead.
He kept thrusting, again and again, and quickly realised the futility of it. The precision needed to ensure he killed a spider, while retreating over rough ground and with impaired visibility, made it a hopeless task. His one saving grace was that even a glancing hit was enough to disable them.
More people around him began to shore up, holding the line in a slow retreat. Bronze spears flashed out from Elensfield, over and over, from where he was positioned down the line. His skill-made spears were lances of energy, intangible and deadly. Each one thrust deep into the boiling mass of arachnids, killing dozens and breaking their flow. Tom saw him provide enough breathing room for several people to retreat to their more orderly line.
Not everyone was so lucky, though. A returning Idealist student threw a few completely useless plumes of smoke into the spiders before being dragged under.
“Gracefield!” Elensfield shouted.
A blast of wind gusted from behind their line, ruffling Tom’s hair as it passed overhead. Tom noted several spiders tumbling backwards into the mass in front them.
Shit, the trees! he thought. We’re fucked if they drop on us!
Tom said a quick prayer to Goddess that the Guards had kept their wits about them. The line would immediately dissolve into chaos again if any appreciable amount of spiders dropped among them. More gusts of wind burst from the backline as they steadily retreated, flinging spiders back into the night.
Kawlstone and Markhart stepped up to the front. Kawlstone, who followed Speed and Strength, a plain, but undeniably effective combination for a Guard, fought like a demon. His spear, the entire length of it made from glittering steel, flickered out like a striking snake. Each jab was as precise as a calligrapher’s penmanship, killing every spider that came within range the second it did so. A bubble of calm surrounded him.
Markhart, with his Hammer, was blunt but no less effective, as hammers go. He operated like a machine, waiting as silvery light coalesced around his hammer’s head and swinging mechanically once charged. The blows blasted ruts into the forest floor, crushing spiders and flinging others far back into the flood.
The other Idealists in the unit were pitching in where they could too. Periodic gouts of flame blossomed from the line. Flashes of different coloured light in various shapes punctuated their slow retreat. A young student with Solidarity had formed a much more cohesive knot of people around her.
Tom’s mind raced. We can’t keep this up forever; there’s just too many. Even with the three Guards manning the frontline killing dozens of spiders with each breath, more simply surged into the gaps. The odd skills thrown in by their other Idealists made no appreciable difference either. It was like watching children trying to stop the tide from rising with teaspoons.
They continued to fall back. Tom snatched a glance behind him, and saw that the entire camp was now involved in the fighting retreat. Under the white light of the petals they fought for their lives.
Gracefield stood behind their line, her face set in a feverish visage, flinging bursts of wind over their heads. Clairvine stood next to her, looking utterly exhausted. From the sheer volume of petals, and the duration of them, Tom was certain that she had used a surge skill.
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Surge skills were amongst the rarest skill types. They invariably used an enormous amount of mana to produce some kind of exaggerated result. Whether it was a huge area of effect, an incredibly long duration, a greatly increased effect, or some potent combination thereof, they always cost many, many times more than a regular skill and produced a far, far greater effect. At lower Tiers, surge skills sometimes cost more mana than the Idealist had available without overdraughts. It was no wonder Clairvine looked exhausted. She had likely used every drop of mana she had to provide their whole company with enough light to see by. It was a shame that whatever the petals’ primary effect was didn’t seem to have any bearing on the situation.
The unit fought with grim determination. Step by step, they retreated. Every foot of soil they left behind was littered with the broken corpses of spiders. Still it wasn’t enough.
The skills from the three Guards on the frontline became more sporadic. Here and there, people on the frontline were swept screaming under a rustling thicket of black legs. Occasional spiders dropped among them as Gracefield’s gusts became less frequent. Most were quickly dispatched by those behind, but a few managed to bite people before they were taken care of. Those unlucky few fell to ground, seizing, split-flecked faces slowly turning purple as they choked.
Beleaguered faces began snatching glances over their shoulders more and more often. Spears wavered. Steps back became less steady. More hasty. The mood shifted. Slowly, at first. Then faster. Faster still. Panic swelling. Adrenaline pumping, almost painful. Tensions rising, rising, rising, running riot, reaching a terminal pitch.
Then the unthinkable happened. Kawlstone missed a step and stumbled slightly. A spider bit his legs. He began lashing out around him, but his precision was no longer up to it. His prodigious speed began to lag. His muscles spasmed at the peak of a spear thrust, and he was swept under the sable tide.
Elensfield turned, shouting. Tom caught a perfect, unadulterated view of his crazed, overwrought face. Tom couldn’t hear him. He was much too far away. He could see his lips form the words though.
“GO!” he yelled. “GO! RUN!”
Elensfield turned to the oncoming swarm. And he walked straight into it.
Spiders flowed up him immediately. He simply walked forwards. They piled over him. Still, he walked. The obscene, wobbling, shiny black mass of spiders moved steadily away from their line, growing larger by the moment.
The vibe changed. The swarm seemed almost …offended by Elensfield’s defiance of them. They slackened from pressing against the line, whirling towards and around Elensfield like water around a drain.
Tom had heard that Elensfield had a fall. He followed Earth, Endurance and Spear, if the rumours were to be believed. And Tom did believe them. Only someone following Endurance could manage this. Could manage to not only resist a thousand biting fangs, but keep moving forwards.
Tom became aware that the unit was breaking. At the sudden release of the pressure on their line, people had begun to flee. Shame burning in his gut, Tom turned to join them.
A sudden, incredible flash of light flared through the night. Everything turned bronze. Tom snatched a glance over his shoulder as he ran. Elensfield knelt, alone, in the centre of a thicket of bronze spears. Hundreds of them. Each had skewered a spider. More scattered through the air, twisting and tumbling, blasted away from Elensfield by the force of the surge skill.
As Tom watched, he slumped sideways to the forest floor. The tide, temporarily thrust back, reasserted itself. As the bronze light dimmed, Elensfield was dragged under. Tom continued running.
Tom followed a cluster of people as they crashed through greenery, trying to put as much distance as they could between themselves and the swarm. As they got further from the camp and the drifting white petals it became harder to see. Their night vision had been ruined.
People tripped and fell. Tom yanked them to their feet with main strength where he could, and kept running when he couldn’t. Someone stumbled in front of him and he reached out a steadying hand, stopping them from falling. A haggard face turned to him. Clairvine.
“Cutter..?” she said. “Good. Let’s go, man.”
Tom didn’t need telling twice. Together they moved through the woods as fast as they possibly could. Eventually, their night eyes returned and they moved faster. Several others had joined them, or perhaps Clairvine and Tom had followed them. Their flight was a confused jumble of impressions.
They ran and ran, and when they couldn’t run any more, they stumbled onwards. They refused to rest. The periodic screams that sang through the night reminded them of the cost of stopping.
For hours they moved. And hours more. Eventually Tom realised he could see more than a few metres in front of him. He looked up, and saw pale yellow light dappling the upper canopy. Dawn. They’d fled through the night.
The others began to notice too. As the light came up they began to slow. By the time the sun was fully up, they came across a small clearing around a natural spring. Clairvine ordered a halt. They slurped at the water like animals and gratefully collapsed to the ground.
There were ten of them, including Clairvine and Tom. Gad was with them as well. Tom couldn’t muster up any surprise through his exhaustion.
Of course he’s survived, Tom thought. The boy’s a cockroach.
He immediately chastised himself for the sentiment. It was unworthy of him, exactly the kind of attitude he was beginning to try and root from himself, not to mention the horrific experience they had all just endured.
All of them were in varying condition. About half of them had half their gear, including Tom. The other half had nothing, and some of them weren’t even fully clothed. Everyone had a weapon, at least. They one and all looked to have just fought off a deadly attack and then run through a forest in the dark.
Aside from Clairvine and Gad, there were no other Idealists. Five of the remaining people were soldiers, and the other three were students. They had no non-student volunteers.
Eventually the group began to stir. Tom dug into his pack and passed out spare clothes to those who were lacking them. One of the soldiers who had retained their pack did the same. While they used rags to return themselves to a semblance of cleanliness, another soldier set up a small campfire and began boiling water in a pot. None of them spoke.
Bowls of boar jerky stew were passed around. They ate until, one by one, empty bowls rested in laps and empty stares followed suit.
“Fuck,” said Clairvine, breaking the reverie. A few of the group jolted in fright.
“Fuuucking fuck,” she elaborated. “First village-killer swarm i’ve ever seen, dunno ‘bout you guys.” She gave the weakest laugh Tom had ever heard, trailing off into silence as everyone stared at her.
“What… What do we do now..?” A young-looking student said hesitantly.
Probably her first Reaping from the looks of her, thought Tom. Shitty fucking luck for her.
“Well…” Clairvine said, chewing her jaw and narrowing her eyes. “I’d say we’re absolutely fucked, if I had to take a wild stab in the dark.”
This time she laughed a true belly laugh. The noise echoed about the small clearing, completely incongruous with the situation. The group stared at her like she’d grown an extra head.
She eventually subsided, taking a deep breath and wiping a tear from the corner of one eye.
“Ahhhhhh, yup. Definitely, absolutely, utterly fucked, I’d say.”