As soon as she saw the Agmagon, she called the remainder of the team into formation. Only those that heard responded, but Zoel couldn’t make out their responces anyway. It didn’t matter; all but Nami and Yol’Jung joined her. The team knew what to do as soon as they saw the Agmagon. Yol’Jung was still helping Nami and would defend her if necessary, not that the Agmagon should get through their defensive line.
They grew closer, and as they did, their condition could be better seen. Their fur was matted, and their bodies were covered from head to toe in little wounds. Still, their injuries were nothing compared to her teams; the beasts had been lucky.
Zoel drew her crossbow from the holster on the hip. The others did the same. No one fired; not yet. The beasts would stumble and charge as soon as the volley was released.
They would wait until they were closer. Close enough that when they stumbled, they were close enough to overwhelm with melee.
Zoel looked ahead, eyes peeled, her hand moved to check her hip. From it hung her Bonguk, a light single-edged blade of vorpal-sharpness, a coming-of-age gift from her parents. The Agmagon reached the engagement threshold, and the whole unit fired.
The crossbows were almost silent, like a whisper or heavy breath. The bolts flew true, and the Agmagon dropped. Six people, six bolts, six Agmagon down. All but one with a bolt through the heart; the last fell from a bolt through the eye, a stupid stunt by Yol’Philippe.
With a number of the beasts dead, they did exactly as expected; they stumbled in their advance. When the opportunity presented itself, they took the initiative.
Zoel’s Bonguk slid from its sheath, its metallic sound a promise of violence. Sword in hand, she fell upon her prey as any predictor would, with unchecked ferocity. The rest of the team followed her lead.
The Agmagon were tough; their dense fur and tough leathery skin absorbed slashes with minimal damage. Their claws were the length of her fingers, long and sharp. A single connected swipe could leave a person with sliced flesh and severed tendons.
A blocked slash exposed her only momentarily but just long enough for her adversary to strike her offhand with a blow from its club.
The blow was light. Most of the force had been removed when it blocked her strike. She glanced away, just in time to see another head towards her.
The new attacker snarled as it neared; its thin lips turned up, baring its long pointed teeth and hairless muzzle dripping with saliva. This one had almost no hair on its head, and the rest of its body was covered in only short khaki fur. The fur did little to conceal the thick frame and highly muscled limbs beneath.
It was the biggest she’d seen, and certainly the leader of the group. It charged. Following was a small group or similarly large Agmagon. She didn’t have time to react.
The charge landed.
Like the wind sweeping away leaves, it sent everything in its path tumbling. Both they and the Agmagon were scattered, and their formation was broken.
Zoel quelled her fear and steadied herself. She was split from the group. Two of the Agamgon headed towards hear; the rest of the team intercepted the others. Fortunately, this included the big one.
The first Agmangon reached her and swung its club.
She parried but, in her disorientation, missed the swipe from its offhand. Its claws raked across her front.
She felt the air driven out from her lungs and stumbled back. Her Kiko was gouged but not penetrated. Several of the micarta tiles had been ripped free. Rather her armour than her flesh.
Se retaliated, slashing at it its prone wrist. She cut deep but not through.
The second beast reached her. With two to manage, she was vulnerable. Taking on two attackers simultaneously in the open was not ideal. However, she knew what she needed to do.
She needed to align her current adversary with the new one. Keeping them in line meant she only had to fight one at once; the first would obstruct the second.
With her Bonguk, she constantly parried, slashed and thrust at the first beast. It wasn’t effective. Despite its injury, it had learnt from its last mistake and was as dangerous as ever.
She was thankful for at least being in the clearing during the attack. The terrain did little to hamper her movements. Between a parry and thrust, she pivoted around the new attacker.
The dumb beast reacted to her movements with another blow but didn’t comprehend her intention. The terrain was advantageous to her and her team but not to the heavy-set Agmagon.
The Agmagon again moved as expected; the beasts didn’t have the intelligence to counter her manoeuvring. As she held them in line, the rearmost attacker became increasingly agitated, frequently reaching for her and clashing with the one in front.
She scanned the area and saw the other unit members in similar situations. A shared look was all it took; she and the team had a plan.
She continued her manoeuvres while going on the defensive. Sidestepping and leading her attackers by the nose.
She formed them into a line with her at the point. Then, aligned herself towards the centre of her team’s formation.
She moved slowly backwards, all the while holding off her attackers. Her teammates did the same.
When she reached her goal the whole team, Zoel included, pulled backwards simultaneously. It gave her the time and space she needed to get back into position.
Zoel took up her position as the rightmost member of the defensive line. The Agmagon had clumped together and were approaching them again. She relaxed for a moment and wiped the stinging sweat from her eyes.
Their formation was effective yet simple. A line; perpendicular to their attackers and slightly concave. They were safer in the formation; every person could cover and be covered by another.
They were slower than before, but with the largest one in the lead, the Agmagon approached.
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When they reached them, the team responded. Zoel and the rest of her team, weapons in hand, thrust at them. Stepping into their attack, the team pressed forwards forcing the Agmagon back into a tighter bunch.
By the third time the team had pressed forwards, the Agmagon were left with so little space they couldn’t help but jostle with one another while trying to attack. Every swing of a club or slash of a claw an Agmagon made injured or unbalanced the beast next to it.
Zoel and the team continued to throw probing attack after attack at the beasts. Each attack the beasts made was easily blocked. With the Agmagon impeded it significantly reduced the energy the team expended in defence. The beasts were tiring but still far from defeated.
Zoel parried a particularly telegraphed strike. While the Agmagon was still unbalanced, she thrust at the beast in front. Her sharp blade bit into the flesh of the beast’s now hunched torso.
The thrust, although connecting, did nothing in terms of debilitating damage. The beast’s thick fur still impeded any severe damage. Her attacks were still too light, yet she didn’t want to overextend herself and fall within reach of the beast’s powerful limbs.
The myriad of small punctures and cuts that had built up would undoubtedly kill some of the beasts, but they would only grow more aggressive, tired and reckless in their aggravated state. It would only take one mistake for another member of her team to become injured or worse.
A member of her team, centremost in the formation, began squeezing in tighter still. Realising what was happening, she refrained from pressing another attack and followed the other’s lead.
She fulfilled her role, and as the centre of their formation tightened, Zoel followed. This was a tactic they were all this well-rehearsed in. She moved in, and when their formation tightened one of the central defenders broke out for formation.
She glanced down the line just in time to see the freed defender skirt the back of the defensive line and head towards her. It was Hanju.
Realising that it would be her and Hanju pressing the advantage, she felt relieved of tension she didn’t know she had. Reinvigorated, she redoubled her efforts and with a flash of steel from her Bonguk, she parried another heavy swipe from the beast’s long claws.
Now thrown off balance by her parry, the beast opened itself up for a counterattack. Without time enough to bring her sword back around, Hanju made it to her position.
He stepped into the edge of her vision, flanking the attacking beast. With his own sharp Bonguk, he took the beast’s whole arm off, leaving nothing below its shoulder.
Already off balance and now with a missing limb, the beast reeled back, clashing with its pack member as it stumbled and fell to the floor. Not sparing another moment, she pivoted left, and with Hanju on her right, they continued to flank and attack the beasts.
The beast in front of her now was the largest of the pack. However, its situation had changed. Despite its size, it was now outnumbered two-to-one and was tiring. Without the intelligence to understand its predicament, Zoel and Hanju overwhelmed it quickly.
The beast seemed to panic, and with increasingly aggressive swipes, it overreached. Taking the opportunity, Zoel advanced on it and launched, thrusting at the beats now exposed underarm. Hanju, the target of its attack, also countered with a riposte. The soft flesh of the beast’s underarm gave her strike little resistance; her blade easily slipped between its ribs.
It fell dead; its organs ruptured. The other beasts seeing their leader defeated, didn’t cower or flee but howled and whimpered, and became even more reckless still.
Before moving on to the next and putting distance between them, she moved to finished-off the downed but still live beast. With its attention on its already severed arm, a downward slash across the neck finished it quickly.
The slash parted its small head from its oversized body so quickly she would be surprised if it even noticed its own death. Although culling the local population was the very thing they’d been tasked with, even considering leaving the beast to linger half-dead disgusted her. It would have been an unnecessary cruelty.
Stepping across several dead beasts, she returned to continue the flanking attacks. At this point, other team members had also been relieved and had joined the counterattack. One had moved to the opposing flank to aid her counterpart as Hanju had initially aided her.
She rejoined Hanju and Yol’Phillippe, pressing at the cluster of Agmagon from the right. Before long, there was one attacker on the left flank and two, including herself, attackers on the right. With three people, each had significantly less pressure on them than before, and they began dispatching them with ruthless mechanical efficiency.
As Hanju baited the beast into attacking, she or Phillippe would follow with a deadly strike to whatever was left vulnerable, usually the beast’s neck or underarm. The method quickly became their primary way of dealing with the beasts.
Before long, other team members were relieved from their defence and the cycle cascaded until the situation was completely reversed, with the beasts grossly outnumbered.
Eventually, all the beasts were killed, granting her and the other four members of the unit some much-needed reprieve. Now no longer under threat, she relaxed her focus and took in the larger picture. With her mind less focused and attention less singular, she became more aware of her immediate surroundings. Although the team had been caught somewhat unprepared, it was far better than being caught by the ambush tactics the Agmagon usually employed in the forest.
The dead now littered the floor. Standing amongst the bodies of the slain beasts, Zoel was almost overwhelmed by the smell of blood.
Her sword was starting to feel heavy in her hand. Most in Gojoson were given swords, a reminder of her heritage and tool of violence if ever she needed it. Today she’d needed it.
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The aftermath was severe. Zoel limped across the battlefield; her feet ached as she stumbled on the loose stone and the debris blown into the clearing. She looked across to where the rest of her team rested and continued to find a place to sit alone. Her teammates had been injured; she had walked them straight into an ambush and had been Nami crippled. The broken bones of her legs had been reset and splinted, and her eye was covered. She wouldn’t be walking out of here. She wouldn’t walk until she got professional help back in the city.
Zoel slumped to the ground and dragged her backpack from her shoulders. With some rummaging, she managed to find what she was looking for; her box of flare heads. Red for contact with the target and blue for retreating. She drew two bolts from the quiver and attached the flares. She lit and fired them into the air; red first, then blue. The other teams would see it, not that they could have missed the impact.
Zoel knew that her team had been the closest to the impact; no one else should be in this section of the forest. However, that didn’t stop her from worrying. She returned her pack to her shoulders, laid back on it, and closed her eyes. It wasn’t comfy, but better than the cold hard ground. They’d have to leave again soon, no matter how exhausted they were, injuries or not. It was simply too dangerous to stay here. The impact may have scared off the smaller animals, but it could have drawn the attention of the larger, more territorial ones. Not to mention the smell of the dead. They usually would burn or bury them, but forest fire was risky now, and there was no digging this section of forest.
She opened her eyes and rolled to her feet. “Prepare to move. Gather your gear and shoulder your packs. Hanju, grab as much as you think we need for going all the way back to the city.”
Hopefully, they wouldn’t have to walk back to the city alone. Hopefully, the other teams have seen their flare and will intercept their route back. It should be safe to cover the same ground again, but they would have to take turns carrying Nami. Someone had already fashioned a makeshift litter, but it would still take two to carry her, and the terrain wasn’t conducive.
The team was almost ready; Zhao was in front, and Nami carried between Yol’Philippe and Jung. Hanju finished what he was doing and strode over.
“Stop being so glum. You did nothing wrong. No one could have seen that coming, we’re all still here, and no one lost any arms.”
Zoel gave him a half smile, the best she could do. With a thump to the shoulder, he turned and headed towards the rest of the group. As he strode away, a hairy arm flopped around from the top of his open pack, limp at the elbow and wrist. She couldn’t help but fully smile then.
She followed him over to the rest of the team. They hobbled forwards as they set off on their return journey. Zoel looked back to the destruction in their wake.
They would have to find out who caused this, but for now, she had injured people to care for.