All around him, men and women lay dying, their voices drowned out by the chaos that seemed to have encompassed all. It reminded him so much of that trip to the forest, during which they had been ambushed and had suffered so many deaths. His mace glowed blue with power.

Florian crashed into the horde of Hellwolves that had stormed the walls, scampering over the bodies of their brethren to climb Leeds’ high wall. His mace exploded one of their skulls, Bludgeon creating a path of destruction as he moved. Fortunately, there were a lot of the monsters to plow through before he reached the nearest beleaguered Warrior.

Then the world seemed to grow a bit lighter, and a fireball sailed past his shoulder and into the tangle of three or four Hellwolves in front of him. The devastating attack seemed to have no effect on the beasts, and they leapt through the fire and at Florian. With a powerful swing of his weapon, Florian turned the monsters into impromptu baseballs, sending them right back off the fortifications and into the night. In the rapidly receding light of the fire, Florian noticed that the remaining spikes on Bludgeon had just about all broken off at this point. And yet, it was still coated in a thick film of black.

Blessed with a moment of reprieve, Florian turned to find Kayla. She was hot on his tail, but he could hear her erratic breathing and knew that the fireball had taken entirely too much out of her. “Don’t use such wasteful magic, Kayla. If you’re going to do something like that, make sure it’s water or ice or something.”

No sooner than he finished giving his sage advice did another Hellwolf leap up past the wall, landing on the stone with a heavy thud. It took a step, its paws leaving deep scratches as it started towards them. A spear sailed into its side, skewering the thing to the stone even as it took its final breath. With a shadow the size of a mountain, Hornbeck approached them, reclaiming his lost spear.

“Thanks for covering us, Florian. Had that breach been any worse, we’d be even more screwed than we already are,” the giant man clasped Florian’s shoulders.

“Where are the rest of the wizards?”

“Were they supposed to be here?” Hornbeck shrugged. “First I’m hearing about any wizards.” Hornbeck, using some kind of sixth sense, punctured a Hellwolf’s throat as it peaked its head over the battlements. Florian thought he saw some mana surrounding the weapon; it didn’t surprise him that the Warrior was using every card he had left to play.

The Hellwolves below them were numerous as ants, and the Warriors were not even half as strong as they were a couple months ago. Off on the opposite end of the wall, Florian saw another blue-glowing spear tip striking down the monsters as they climbed up: Anna. The Warriors seemed to surround either Hornbeck or Anna, trying their best to poke wolves off the wall before they could land among the Warriors. Green-caped men were among the Warriors, fighting with manic movements fueled entirely by adrenaline.

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Florian – and Kayla – joined the defenders as they defended Leeds, Florian picking up a fallen Warrior’s spear to utilize the weapon’s long reach to toss the Hellwolves away. Killing them was not the goal; all the defenders had to do was drag this out until the morning, when the monsters would retreat to whatever hell they came from. Kayla, for her part, mimicked that same general strategy, though to lesser effect.

Falling into routine, Florian quickly found his stride. Unable to breach their defensive line again, the Hellwolves were repulsed with relative ease. The Warriors’ screams had turned instead into grunts of effort and indignant yells. But then, he heard a sound that he had never imagined he’d ever have to hear. Wood splintered on a scale he could have hardly expected, and just like that, the gate had fallen.

“Florian, Anna, to the gate!” Hornbeck screamed from somewhere down the line.

Leaving his post and letting the Warriors around him adjust for his absence, Florian picked Bludgeon up once more as he made haste to the gate. A few of Jones’ former guards were already down there, prepared for just this eventuality. No amount of preparation, however, could have gotten those men ready for the unstoppable force that rushed them.

By the time Florian got to them, the last of them was making his final stand against six or seven of the monsters. One of them launched itself at the green-caped man’s throat, its teeth closing tight around his neck as it decapitated him. The beast regarded him with its maw wide open. A bullet of water ripped past him and into the thing’s mouth, traveling down into its furnace-like glowing insides.

It spasmed and collapsed with hardly a whimper. Florian enhanced Bludgeon with mana again, and the blue motes clung to the misshapen mace in far greater number than they would have the tip of a spear. Bludgeon, more of a club at this point, turned into an instrument of brutality. Florian stood as the lone defender of the gate, Bludgeon striking at any Hellwolf that dared step through the wide-open gate.

Though Kayla covered for any beasts that made it past him, her water spells more than capable of taking out the occasional wolf, Florian was flagging quickly. Finishing his ninth wolf, Florian stepped aside as Anna arrived.

The embodiment of a barbarian goddess, Anna swung her spear in ways that seemed hardly economical. And yet, even without the constant use of mana that Florian could manage at this point, Anna was able to strike the monsters in the vulnerable flesh of their throats with deadly precision. They fell around her as they had fallen around him, and more of Jones’ former guards had rallied from elsewhere around the wall to help them hold back the tide of Hellwolves.

Just when it seemed that they could find a new albeit deadly routine, the ground began to shake with the impact of massive footsteps. Fuck fuck fuck. Sweat ran down Florian’s body, and exhaustion had begun to set in as he had made the switch to the more mana-economical spear. He had liberally applied mana to Bludgeon earlier, and he had nothing left in reserve for the giants.

And yet, here they were.

It was just as well that Theo had chosen that moment to make his entrance.