“Remember what we said! We stand! Next to each other! And we kill them! We kill them all!" Trim yelled from the top of his lungs. "These are not mountain lions, these are not bears, but they die all the same!!”

Many cheered, but some did not. Seeing doubt in their eyes, noticing some of them already taking a few steps back, he added forcefully. “Stop! Hold the line!!! If you run, you will die that much quicker! Weapons in front you! And stand your ground! Defend your lives!! Kill the beasts! And live to talk about it!!! You may not get a second chance!! Time to show the creatures of the dark what we are made of!!! The stuff people who defend their families are made off!!!”

The first drafts were sent in the air as the beasts made it to the first house, about two dozen of them. But they almost proved useless as only one iron tip made it into a pawn of a beast as the draft broke off over the back of the creature that ran ahead.

The young hunter who killed the hog made the first kill. It was on the second attempt when he kneeled down and shot an arrow straight into its mouth that was wide open, ready to bite into anything in front of it.

El grabbed both of his staffs, with the longer one in his stronger right arm, and stepped to fill the gap in the defensive wall, the part they did not finish yet.

The beasts squealed together, forming one loud monstrous shriek, Trim and others shouted louder, the cry of the people fighting for the right to live, but El, El waited patiently, taking two steps forward, just to stand a bit in front of everyone.

Alice was there right behind him holding her axe with both hands, nervously moving her feet and hands, ready to strike. “I’ll just numb them with a bit of Mana and you finish them off! But stay behind me…” he was able to say before one of the beasts jumped at him.

Then he realized his folly. Normally he would have ducked down, but he could not since Alice was behind him. So he slammed it with his staff at the last second, sideways, releasing just a single unit of Mana into it, sending it to impale itself on the sharpened wooden stake there.

“When I duck, you duck!!” he screamed to Alice who stepped closer to him over the loud cheers of defenders who saw the beast bleed right in front of their eyes.

The second beast that charged El came straight at him, going for his legs, and El again did not do what he wanted to as if he jumped, he would have left Alice again all exposed. So he thumbed it with his shorter staff, right into its nose, and gave him a good five units of Mana, enough to send it flying backward as if it got jolted by a high-voltage electric current.

The third one was right behind him, and that one he finally numbed by hitting his neck with his long staff and with two units of Mana sent him to the feats of Alice who was more than eager to strike him right around the neck, and keep on striking him till his head was almost completely chopped off.

“Duck!” El shrieked and they both ducked as one beast jumped at them, El pushed him higher by bolting its underbelly with a bit of Mana, making him flip in the air before he fell down on the ground on his back where Alice was waiting for him, chopping at his closest leg and then nailing the axe right underneath its chest as the beast tried to turn around.

Another defender, a young woman with a pitchfork in her hands, was there and she plunged the sharpened iron tips of the pitchfork inside the beast’s soft belly, holding it while Alice could strike it again.

El could see Trim waving his sword which was bloodied by now and Holgar empaling the beast with his spear. Another one jumped over the fence and bit into it before he could pull it out of the throat of the one he was killing, snapping it in half, but Trim jumped to help and sliced the beast over its eye, then hit it in the next trike under its mouth, cutting it deep inside. That gave enough time for Holgar to bend down and pick his spare spear, then use it to impale the beast that was ready to bite into Trim’s back.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

A lot of beasts ran into the wooden fence and got impaled all by themselves, but more were coming down, and El had to step forward, bolt a few dying beasts off the stakes, and send them down the road to make room on the fence for the new ones.

But it was obvious that the defensive wooden wall would not hold. Some beasts that were of the bigger side even ran through it, one even had a part of a stake still stuck in its side as it moved in to kill an older guy who fought it with a long axe before a long sword found its way inside its head. El was surprised to see it was in the hands of the shadow man who in an easy hand motion had pulled the sword out and then sliced the closest beast that made it over the fence over the face, making sure it never opened its mouth again.

Right there in the middle of that mayhem, Alice had a level upgrade.

“I’m at Level 2 now!!” she screamed all excited as the blood of the beast she just decapitated ran down her face.

“The worst possible time,” El said, knowing how it was disoriented for him every time he leveled up. But at least her health now would be able to increase and her body would be able to sustain more abuse. As long as she got to live long enough.

El moved fast, his staff faster, making the whooshing sound as it traveled through the air. And everywhere it touched, the creatures shrieked, sometimes went limping, sometimes went blind as he found it very useful to poke them in their unprotected eyes. One he poked so good that it went completely disoriented and mad, biting into its side and the body of another beast that was there. The other beast answered it by digging its claws into its leg, and as the two of them fought, Alice came from the back and knocked them out bloody.

But the onslaught of the creatures continued and soon, there was not much left of their wall, being torn down with each beast that tried to run through it or jump over it.

At one point, Trim found himself on his back, the jaws of the creature going for his face and he had only a split second to put his hand wrapped in thick leather armor into its mouth before it could bite half of his face off. His wife was desperately shooting arrows from the top, one almost going into Trim, another going into the beast's neck, not stopping it. But at that time El saw him and bolted the rest of Mana he had in his shorter staff, vaporizing the big beast before it could chop Trim’s hand off.

“Retreat!! Retreat!” Trim screamed as their preliminary parameter was no longer functional.

“Go with them!!!” El issued an order to Alice as he stepped forward, and with the force of a tornado moved among the beasts, spinning around, landing punches that sent beasts flying around, making them all suddenly turn to him, but giving defenders a chance to run into Holgar’s place.

[Warning:

Available Mana is now at 50 percent]

The message flashed in the corner of El’s vision, but he could not stop. He kept pushing his Mana inside the staff as he fought the beasts, the 80 units that were originally in there long used up.

The hunters' group made a circle among a dozen of them and slowly moved to the tavern, moving in the ordinary fashion even as the beast got hold of the leg of one of them and tried to pull him out of the line. Others who were behind jumped and pierced its head with their spears and then lifted the wounded comrade and carried him inside.

Just a few yards away, a man running from the beasts got knocked down on the ground with the beast swiftly going for his head, ripping at it while his screams filled the air with horror and made everyone run faster.

In the corner of his eye, El could see that it was too late to help him, but there was a younger guy who was grabbed by his leg and being pulled away from the Tavern, and El jumped toward the beast, not ready to shoot a little bit of Mana he still had in him.

But before he could get to him, the shadow man’s sword fell down on the neck of the beast, slicing it clean off, and then the man picked up the fallen kid and jerked him up to his feet.

El came to guard their backs, swinging his staff sideways and knocking two of the beasts in the same strike.

“El!!” Trim screamed from behind and El turned around to see a sword flying through the air, its handle pointed to the ground which made it easy for El to grab it. It was not Trim’s sword, but actually was a better one, older but sturdier, and right away, El shot it up with half of his Mana making it shine with new light and power.

But the beauty of the site was tarnished with the message that flashed again,

[Warning:

Available Mana is now at 10 percent]

At the same time, torches came flying from the top windows of the big tavern and the wooden fence soon was burning, and only then El understood that Trim had soaked it and greased it in oils and fat.

The fire raged suddenly all around El, and just like that, he was back in his hometown.