Chapter 27: The Horde

Even as Zach ran for dear life, part of him wanted to laugh disdainfully at the realization that this kind of bullshit was almost becoming ordinary. Here he was, once again, panting and pumping his arms as something—or in this case, somethings—tried their absolute best to kill him. Seriously, this was like the third time in a Gods-damned week he’d had to book it for all he was worth. Only, this time around, he wasn’t on his own; now, he’d have to make sure he and his friends made it out of this alive.

For this reason, he actually had to slow down to keep pace with Rian and Lienne, who were beginning to fall behind as they scrambled away from the approaching horde of purple, razor-toothed, winged creatures. Lit by nothing but torches placed around columns, this literal dungeon did not cast enough light for Zach to see the forty-plus “Eep” creatures that he knew were on their way. But boy, he sure could hear them, all right. Their loud, shrill cries made a disturbing echo that sent chills running down Zach’s spine. They were getting closer, too; from the sound of their collective, high-pitched screeching, they were likely moving much faster than the three of them were.

“Gods they’re gaining on us,” Rian said, huffing and puffing as sweat rolled down his face. “If they catch us, we’ll be torn to shreds.”

To make things even worse, the three of them began to aggro the Eeps that were up ahead as well. The one Rian had killed a short while ago had respawned yet again, and it, along with four others that were nearby, flew up and off the low-hanging ceiling lamps upon which they’d been perched, and all flapped their serrated wings as they soared through the air at them.

“Eep!” the five creatures screeched. “Eep!”

Unlike the quickly approaching horde of Eeps that were still well off behind them but steadily gaining ground, these five were close enough that outrunning the creatures wasn’t an option—but then again, neither was stopping, either. This created a terrible dilemma, as they could neither stop to combat their nearest, imminently dangerous threats nor could they simply ignore the five Eeps, which by Zach’s estimation, would reach him and the siblings in a matter of seconds.

Zach glanced over his shoulder, watching as Lienne, now carrying her staff in one hand, extended her arm and pointed it behind herself as she ran. “Val En Flamir,” she whispered. A blue, missile-shaped flame exploded from the tip of her staff, sailing off behind the three of them and almost striking one of the Eeps in its face. A mere instant before impact, the creature swerved midair, and the flame collided with the metal bars of one of the large cages several-dozen feet back in the direction they’d come from, where it soon died out.

What were those words? Zach wondered. He’d never been so close to Lienne before while she was casting a spell, and so he hadn’t even known that she was required to speak them.

“Val En Flamir,” she whispered again, firing off another of her blue-flamed missiles at the five Eeps clustered together as they came nearer and nearer. For a brief moment, it almost looked like the Flamestrike would hit not just one, but all freaking five of them. But to Zach’s dismay, the creatures scattered right before the blueish flame reached them, with all five flying off in a different direction. Once the fire had passed harmlessly by, they once more converged into a swarm, continuing onwards towards them.

“Damn,” Lienne said, now breathing the most heavily of the three of them. Her arm drooped, her staff lowered, but then with a shake of her head, she again raised it. “Val En—”

“Don’t!” Zach called to her. She paused, shot him a brief, questioning look, and then before she could waste time questioning him, he explained, “That’s not going to work on those. You’re just wearing yourself out.”

She seemed willing to take his advice, as she began to again lower her staff down to her side. But then the first of the five Eeps reached her, and with a loud screech, Zach watched as it struck her across the shoulder with one of its serrated wings, tearing off a big piece of her blueish white vest and leaving a horrible, nasty gash in her skin. She hissed as if in pain then screamed, “Val En Flamir!”

A third blue-flamed missile shot forth from her staff, but like the first two, it did not find its mark. In two swift motions, the Eep dodged to the side, then immediately returned and took a chunk out of her opposite shoulder, this time using its razor-sharp teeth. Crying out in what was surely agony, Lienne seemed to lose her balance, stumbling several steps until finally falling forwards.

“Lienne!” both he and Rian cried at once, the two of them coming to an immediate halt.

Zach went to pull her back up, but he could no longer see her, as the persistent, fog-like mist that rose up to their ankles had grown denser. Even still, this, all on its own, would not have been such a problem, but in combination with the poor lighting, she seemed to have vanished into the floor. For all intents and purposes, she was practically invisible now—well, to him and Rian, at least. To the Eeps, however? Not so much. This, Zach could tell as all five began taking a sudden dive downwards in the general direction that Lienne had tripped. Almost certainly, they were intending to tear her to pieces.

“Taunt them!” Zach shouted as he watched the five purple, winged creatures swoop down on what was likely the precise spot that Lienne had fallen.

“I can’t!” Rian shouted, fear in his voice. “They’re moving too fast!” Swearing loudly, he threw his axe; for a reason Zach did not know, the Eeps did not seem capable of dodging this attack as they had Lienne’s. The weapon made a swishing sound in the air as it traveled only a short distance and struck Eep B for 19 damage. Then, with two powerful, lunging steps forward, Rian extended his hand and caught his axe before spinning around in a full circle and immediately throwing it again, this time vanquishing the creature.

Zach also sprang into action, throwing himself forward and blindly whirling his sword around, not even caring which of the bastards he hit. Despite striking from behind, three of the four remaining Eeps managed to again scatter, but Zach was at least able to land on one of them. To his amazement, his blade struck for 35 damage, splitting the mob into two unevenly sized chunks, which fell to the floor before vanishing out of sight and into the mist.

He wasn’t sure if it was due to being one level higher, his 5 points in strength, the creature’s natural defenses, or some combination of all three, but either way, he was pleased to learn that he could at least dispatch these things in a single strike. Unfortunately, it still didn’t look like it would be fast enough.

The three undefeated Eeps plunged down into the ankle-high mist, and Zach raced after them, thinking it was safe to assume their intent was to attack Lienne. An instant later, he was proven right, as the sound of her screams echoed even more loudly than the high-pitched screeching of the approaching horde.

As her cries reached his ears, Zach threw aside every last bit of caution and rushed in mindlessly to save her. He needed to be fast. Lienne was being torn apart! His heart raced in his chest as he dropped his blade on the floor, not even caring if he would be able to find it again. Then, blindly, he leaned forward, reached down, and felt for something, anything.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

He squeezed both of his hands around something painfully sharp, which he took to be one of the Eeps, and as he lifted it up and out of the mist, his eyes confirmed his assertion to be correct. Agony exploded in his palms and his fingers, as the writhing, thrashing, and screeching creature sliced his hands, wrists, and fingers over and over with its serrated wings.

Zach didn’t care. He ignored the pain. His adrenaline had completely taken over the moment he’d heard Lienne’s screams. And so, vengefully, even as it caused more and more blood to literally drip in a steady trickle from both his hands and onto the floor, he squeezed even more tightly around the mob’s sharp-as-knives wings, and he pulled with all his strength. A moment later, a sound similar to tearing a sheet of loose-leaf paper came from the creature, and then Zach realized he had ripped the thing in half, with two equally sized pieces in each of his hands, both of which were now bleeding profusely. Even still, he didn’t care.

Without a second thought, he dropped both pieces of the dead monster and reached down, pulled another off Lienne, and then tore that one into another two pieces while Rian, as if catching on, grabbed the third. With his higher constitution and armor, Zach doubted he’d suffer anything more than a few minor scratches.

As Zach glanced down at his own hands, he winced at the sight of so much blood. He had never bled this badly before. It was simply leaking out of his hands, which were likely too torn now to even hold a sword. An entire, thick “flap” of skin was jutting out of his right palm like an open door, and it was a miracle his left thumb was still attached. The pain was incredible.

Yet, even despite this, he bent down, forced himself to bear the intense stinging, and lifted up Lienne, putting her over his right shoulder. She too was dripping blood from so many different places at once. They both needed a heal—and badly. But for the moment, she was not conscious. Incredibly, this did not cause her to let go of the grip on her staff.

Rian, sheathing his sword and axe, reached down, felt around as if looking for something, and then retrieved his blade for him. Then, the two exchanged a brief nod, and with Lienne held snugly over his shoulder, they took off again at a run, as not only were the five Eeps they’d just killed already respawning, but the beginning of the horde was now visible, too.

Holy shit that’s so many of them!

It was no longer just forty or so of them, either. No, now there was an entire legion of the screeching, swarming creatures. Even if he wanted to be optimistic, Zach would estimate that there were no fewer than two hundred of them. The sound of their collective screeches had grown so loud that, even if Zach shouted at the top of his lungs, he doubted Rian would be able to hear a word he said. It was good, then, that the two seemed to understand one another without the need to vocalize their intentions.

Briefly glancing behind him, Zach could see the swarm coming closer and closer as he ran with Lienne over his shoulder. With his right, torn-apart hand securing her in place, he could no longer tell whether or not it was his or Lienne’s blood that was staining her blue and white vest and part of her undershirt, as well as dripping all over his own tunic.

Before he and Rian had managed to travel another fifty feet, the two aggroed another ten of the creatures as they rounded a corner at the end of the dungeon that led through another corridor. This one did not contain any cages, but it did have a massively large, garage-sized shutter door at the end of it.

“Dead end,” Zach said. “We need to get that damn thing open!”

No sooner had the two of them reached the shutter door than the ten Eeps they’d recently aggroed rounded the same corner they just had. Right on their heels, the sound of hundreds of screeching monsters joined the chorus of the initial ten, and now, in one massive, monumentally huge swarm of certain death, the two-hundred-plus mobs all took off towards him and Rian.

“Get it open!” Zach screamed.

“I’m trying!”

Rian had dropped Zach’s sword, and now he was squatting down and groaning as he struggled to force open the shutter door by grabbing the small handlebar on the bottom. This, as the mobs flew closer and closer. They were now at the halfway point between the shutter door and the opposite end of the corridor. Zach stared, transfixed, as the creatures flew so close to one another that they almost looked like a giant purple cloud. One thing was for damn sure: there would be no surviving this many of them at once. It would be more than two hundred biting, wing-slashing, and screeching creatures all rending their flesh at the exact same time. It would be such an awful way to die.

“Rian, please!” Zach shouted. “You need to hurry or we’re going to be ripped into little pieces!”

“I’m trying,” he grunted. Zach could visibly see the strain in the side of his face as he pulled up on the shutters with all his strength. His arms were trembling, and he was gritting his teeth. As the front of the swarm approached to within twenty feet, he finally, as if through a miracle, succeeded in lifting the shutter door. All at once, it slid upwards and open just as the first Eep reached Zach and chomped down on the back of his neck.

“Gahh!” Zach cried, as the teeth ripped away a chunk of his flesh. It hurt so badly that it nearly made him drop Lienne. Distantly, he wondered how much worse it would be if he had zero armor and no armor buff. Would it have punctured him deeply enough to kill him?

Rian jumped back up to his feet, then delivered a low kick to Zach’s sword, sending it skittering into what appeared to be an old, dusty, disused dining area beyond the shutter door. Then he ran inside. Zach, swatting away the Eeps that continued to slash, bite, and remove more and more of his flesh, bolted inside after him. Then Rian slammed the shutters shut as seven or eight of them flew inside.

An instant later, a series of loud bangs going off at the rate of machine-gun fire pinged relentlessly against the shutter as the horde crashed into it over and over again. Setting Lienne down upright as gently as he was able, he picked up his blade—and failed, as his fingers would no longer close on their own.

Lienne, wobbling on her feet, pointed her staff at him, nearly falling over in the process. “Val…Val En Lor,” she whispered, speaking as though she could barely manage to part the words from her lips. An instant later, Zach’s pain came to an astonishing, miraculous end, and he found himself bathed in a dark green aura of shimmering light. The blood leaking out of him dried, the wounds in his hands, neck, and back all closed, and now he saw that Lienne had a weak, exhausted smile on her face.

“Val En Lor,” she said again, and this time, she was the one who bathed in this dark green, shimmering light. Before Zach’s eyes, he saw her wounds seal and close. He saw the tightness leave her face as relief flooded her expression. “How’s that for pain medicine?” she asked with a weak laugh. And then he saw her tumble forward and face-plant onto the filthy, muddy, soot-stained, white-tiled flooring. At least there was no more mist in this area.

Once again attempting to pick up his blade—and succeeding—Zach raised it defensively as one of the Eeps came straight for him. This one, he dispatched with a single, fast, energy-efficient slice that separated it into two pieces. In the same instant, Rian, having used Axe Throw, managed to take down another, but in one hit this time around instead of two. Then, the five remaining Eeps converged into one large cluster, and unwilling to allow a repeat of what’d just taken place, Zach stepped protectively in front of Lienne as the five attempted to swarm her.

This is going to hurt bad!

He braced himself as the Eeps threw themselves at him, their mouths opened as if ready to taste flesh. Zach gritted his teeth, bent his knees—and then widened his eyes in surprise as Rian dashed in front of him less than a fraction of a second before impact and thrust out his shield, blocking all five and causing them to slam headfirst into it. Every one of them suffered 10 damage, and the numbers were clumped so close together that it looked like binary code.

1010101010.

All five of the purple bastards plopped down onto the dirty floor as if stunned. But their sharp, serrated wings began to wriggle as if attempting to quickly readjust and bring themselves back into flight. Suffice to say, neither he nor Rian were willing to allow that to happen. Rushing forward, Zach lifted his leg straight up and then began stomping on the creatures, as did Rian.

“Eep!” they shrieked as two sets of feet began smashing down on them. “Eep, Eep, Eep!”

Not until Zach saw the puff of smoke from all five did he cease his stomping. Now, panting and trying to catch his breath, he stumbled over to Lienne, who seemed to be in recovery from E-debt. This, as an endless, rapid-fire pounding came from the shutter door. For how long would that thing hold? Zach hoped they didn’t stick around to find out. Once more handing Rian his sword, he lifted up Lienne, put her over his back this time, and then he and Rian continued to flee.

I hope that damn shutter holds!