As the enemy charged in, they continued to fall in droves to all the traps we’d laid out in the fields surrounding the village. Despite their losses, the horde of reavers kept coming. Interspersed among the almost human-looking reavers were other creatures, more gnolls, a couple of large ogres, and a few packs of kobolds.
The enemy was bringing everything they had to the fight, ignoring the losses. As the distance closed, our archers began to fire, scoring hit after hit among the tightly packed enemy forces. I also added to the mix, firing a magic missile every time the wand was off cooldown. Our efforts seemed to have no effect, and for every foe we killed, two more appeared from the forest to take their place.
“Ready on the javelins,” Saul shouted. I only had a few charges left on the wand, so I joined the others in picking up a javelin. My skills were definitely not up to par on throwing these things, but with the mass of attackers, it would be hard for me to miss.
“Throw!” Saul shouted. Our first wave of javelins hit the approaching horde dropping the lead attackers and causing even more to trip over the bodies. It was a domino effect that slowed the enemy attack for a moment. A second, then a third volley went out before the enemy got their act together and continued their push toward the wall.
Saul had half the defenders on the wall continue to hurl javelins while the rest of us waited for the enemy to try and scale the walls. Down below, in the gateway I could hear a commotion as the enemy began to hack and pry at the wagon blocking the entrance to the village. They would have to hold on their own for now, we hand more than enough troubles here atop the walls.
A ladder dropped into place near me, and I joined another villager to try and push it over when the head of a climbing reaver appeared. I hammered the reaver with my mace, and while it might be a poor substitute for the magic gnomish warhammer that I normally carried, it was more than capable of dealing with the unarmored skull of a reaver.
The reaver fell, and the villager began to push the ladder to the side. I helped to give it a shove, sending the ladder crashing into the reavers gathered at the base of the wall. Looking for where I was needed the most, I could see other ladders land atop the wall. Unfortunately, they weren’t close to any defenders.
The reavers may have been bloodthirsty barbarians, but they knew that there was no way we could defend the entire length of the wall with the limited numbers we had. I looked over to Saul, and he had just finished running his blade through the throat of a reaver climbing his way up onto the wall. Catching his eye, I pointed toward the ladders further down the wall, reavers and even a few gnolls were already climbing up.
“Fall back to the barricade, everyone move back now!” Saul shouted. I commanded my minions to follow and climbed down to join the others at the barricade.
“What now?” I asked as Saul joined me. The enemy was pouring over the walls and the barricade was constructed to defend the gate, not defend against enemies coming from all directions.
“Wall detail, fall back to your final defensive positions. Barricade defenders, hold them back and buy us some time to get ready,” Saul ordered. I could see pain in his eye as he realized that he was giving the defenders at the barricade a fatal order. They were all going to be doomed in the end, but they needed to buy time and bleed the enemy, not be overrun in minutes.
“Saul, send everyone back, my minions and I will hold the line,” I said.
“Are you sure?” Saul asked.
“Of course, there’s no time to discuss it, get everyone moving,” I replied, already pulling new figurines from my pouch.
“You heard Rico, everyone, fall back!” Saul shouted before joining the others as they retreated to their final positions. Just before he moved out of sight, Saul stopped and gave me a salute. I didn’t get a chance to return his salute before Saul was gone, and I had more pressing matters to attend to.
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The enemy was coming at us from three directions, and it wouldn’t be long before we were completely surrounded. I had Lillia, Rupert, my hound, and a total of three Grulnok’s with me. All three Grulnok’s were duplicates, but two had gelatinous armor equipped. The final Grulnok was one I had used my Duplicate spell on earlier, and he just had the standard, but quite good, orcish veteran gear.
To bolster our numbers, I pulled out consumables and pushed mana into them as quickly as I could. First out was the zombie pair. The stench was a horrible and familiar one by this time, but zombies were tough and would stay in the fight for a while.
On the tails of the zombie, I summoned the gnome technician. It looked like a skinnier version of Fitzfazzle, complete with an with oversized wrench he used as a weapon. Not wasting any time, the gnome moved to man the ballista, which had been cranked back and only needed a bolt loaded before it was ready to fire.
Next up were the three orc commoner figurines I had. Each arrived without any weapons or armor, but there was still a pile of javelins near the barricade, which made for decent spears. Last out was the razor boar. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the beast and was pleasantly surprised to see a rather large boar with steel-tipped tusks appear. His coarse fur was as sharp as needles, and he didn’t hesitate to charge the nearest foes.
I only had one figurine left, the deadspore fungal patch. The figurine didn’t appear to be a mobile creature, and I figured anything named deadspore fungus had to be more like a trap and something I didn’t want anywhere near me. I summoned it in the path of the nearest reaver. A sickly-looking brown growth quickly covered the ground. It created a large rectangular patch of the stuff, and the reaver didn’t seem to notice it.
When the reaver hit the fungus a small cloud of spores erupted and filled the air around it. The reaver began to choke and tried to brush something off his skin. In only a few moments, the reaver fell dead to the ground, his body already growing more of the deadly fungus. More of the enemy blundered into the deadly patch before someone in command ordered them to avoid it. A dozen spore-covered enemies lay around the fungal patch, blocking the any approach from that side.
As my minions formed up around me, the enemy pressed the attack. The three Grulnok’s were tearing up the nearest attackers, but my other minions were somewhat less successful. I dropped a Health Bloom over most of us and readied my weapons for the fight. Rupert went down in front of me, and I stepped up to take his place, swinging my mace for all it was worth.
My blow was slightly off the mark, crushing the reaver’s jaw rather than his skull, but the results were the same, and he went down hard. Next up was a reaver with small spikes growing out of the flesh on his face. It was just like Saul had explained, these guys were like mutants of some sort from the exposure to the blighted lands.
He blocked my blow and swung a cleaver-like blade at me. I almost dodged it, and my armor absorbed some of the blow, but the weapon still dug deep into my side, and I thought I could feel a rib crack. The hit also knocked me back, the hound lunging forward to protect me as I fumbled for a healing potion. I found the potion right at the same time the pain hit, almost causing me to drop it.
The potion tasted horrible, but I could feel it take the edge off the pain of my wounds. It left behind a bad menthol medicine taste, but that was the least of my worries. Our small knot of defenders was being picked apart by the enemy. Already, most of our foes were pushing past our defense and charging deeper into the village.
I didn’t know if we had won Saul enough time yet, so I stumbled to my feet. The mace was gone, lost somewhere in the mass of people and monsters fighting each other. I pulled the magic missile wand, and blasted a kobold that was about to stab the hound with a wooden spear. The kobold went down, but a reaver took his place, chopping with his axe and turning the poor canine into mana vapor.
I could see half of my forces were already gone, and my wand was still on cooldown. Grabbing a javelin in one hand, I thrust it forward into the nearest enemy. The reaver took the javelin in his shoulder, ignoring my blow as he raised his axe to strike. My wand was off cooldown now, so I triggered a blast into my opponent’s face.
More enemies pushed in to replace the fallen reaver. Before I could launch another attack or trigger a blast from my wand, I felt something hit me from behind.
An axe has crushed your skull. The terms of your summoning contract have been completed.
Your performance rating is calculated as Exceptional.
Your rewards will reflect the summoning tier of 1, rank 5, and your performance rating of Exceptional.
Additional rewards are granted due to the duration and performance rating of this extended summoning contract.
You have earned 44 experience points.
You have earned 97 summoning points.
Congratulations on reaching Tier 1, Rank 6.
You have gained 1 point in Mind.
Your updated status is as follows:
Rico Kline, Summoned Being.
Tier 1, Rank 6.
Experience/experience needed for next rank: 19/30.
Summoning points: 97.
Prepare to return to your personal space.