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CH 57: Splinters
🕑 Added 2024-12-17 15:00:00 +0000 UTCReid watched with horror as the elites, not paralyzed by the Crimson Titan's roar, shot up onto the wall.
The frozen defenders were completely helpless. Locked in a painting of a battle with the smaller creatures as the elites tore through it all. People split into vaguely human pieces as long claws with longer reach sliced through defenders and salamanders alike. Every attack, every flail and flick they made took lives.
Reid shouted and swore. On the left, squads 3, 4, and 5 were wiped out entirely. To the right, squad 14 and 15, and their replacements, were shredded. Near the end of the wall, squads 17 through 20 were ground down to half their members.
When time resumed for everyone, vast sections of Sanctuary's broken and crippled defenses crumbled away. Residents that had expected themselves tough and ready had helplessness thrown in their faces, and they recoiled at the true promise of death. Some jumped straight off the back side of the walls and ran. Pickup and van transport drivers honked horns and shifted into low gear in attempts to hasten the defender's retreat.
Walt shouted into his radio for everyone to fall back, and then told the secondary wall defenders to hold.
Their evacuation column wasn't done clearing out of the rear gate, and wouldn't be for a while longer. If the next wall fell now, they'd be massacred. Reid wasn't even sure if all the defenders could make it there, but they couldn't stay on the first wall. Elites and level 10s sliced their way through the defenders. Reid willed Danny to heal him faster. He needed to get back in the fight, and was only waiting for the barest of recovery.
Off to the right, Warren fought hard against a quartet of the level 10s. The gruff old bartender's shirt was torn in two places that revealed a strongman-like torso dripping with blood, and his spear thrust out and into the creatures.
To the left, Marysa's kids had mixed reactions. Some of them were frozen in fear and shock. A few turned and ran. The majority kept up the fight, and continued to send arrows into other sections of the wall, or had melee weapons in their hands.
Many predators had a natural prey drive. If something ran, it would become an irresistible target, and the predator would chase it without thought to itself. Reid's neighbor had a dog that ran away like that once, chasing after a rabbit. The same thing happened with the salamanders. As more defenders rushed off the back of the wall, the level 10s and smaller ones chased to follow them. The elites stayed on the wall, screeching and popping at their fellow beasts, to little effect. The salamanders down off the wall died, and killed, and chased.
A pickup on the far right, where squads 17 through 20 were evacuating, started up and drove back towards the second wall - but got stuck in second gear. The thing's engine screamed and whined as the driver put the pedal to the floor in an attempt to eek out more speed. The salamanders were faster, and frenzied. They caught up with the vehicle and tore into its side. Tires popped under the assault of the claws. A door was ripped off its hinges, and the suspension squeaked as the truck was violently rattled by the assault. Wounded men and women in the bed were carved through by tooth and claw. By the time it was over, the pickup looked like it had been put through a paper shredder.
Reid shuddered and tapped Danny on the arm to tell him he was done. He couldn't stay sitting where he was while people were dying around him. And the truck was a sobering realization. The evacuation column, by all accounts, was moving slower than that pickup had been. If the salamanders won, they'd catch up to the vehicles and tear them to shreds.
On the left, Mark and Marysa were fighting together against an elite while she shouted at the kids to flee. Her leg was bleeding profusely, but she fired arrow after arrow into the beast. Mark crafted new spears as quickly as he could throw them, and peppered the elite and surrounding beasts to slow them down. A lucky shot from Mark slammed into the elite's eyesocket and killed it. The remaining beasts were frenzied by the kill - just like they had been when Reid killed the two in front of the gate. Mark's restraining spears kept them back long enough for the kids to evacuate down off the wall on a freshly-crafted wooden ladder.
Mark's kill left a single elite on the left side, and three to the right. Reid needed to thin their numbers - so the choice was simple. He sprinted down the right battlement and lashed out with his mace. His muscles ached and complained, but they worked - and that was enough.
Further down the wall, blue light glowed. Warren had graduated from fighting level 10s to contending with elites. As Reid got closer, he realized the man was not in good shape. His armor was reduced to splinters at his feet, and deep gouges bled all across his body. Most of the defenders that had attempted to come to his aid were dead, and the rest were barely holding the attention of two of the elites.
They had gotten past Warren in the midst of the fighting, and stood between Reid and the old bartender. Warren's focus and fight was with one elite out towards the end of the wall. The first elite Reid came to was facing away from him. Requiem lashed out in a rising swing that shoved the salamander's lower right jaw up into the top of its head.
You have defeated Salamander - lvl 17. Bonus Experience Awarded.
Ahead, the next elite in line was facing towards Reid's direction, and it charged through wounded and bleeding defenders to meet him. It swung out with calculated strikes, and Reid found himself unable to get past or in close with the limited space he had to dodge and run. He cursed himself for not figuring out how to increase his dexterity, and fought on while looking for the right moment to land the kill.
Reid slowly pushed the cautious elite back with his attacks, and heard something entirely unexpected.
Deep bass notes wafted through the air as a voice like gravel and cigarettes sang out softly in the midst of the fight.
"Hope you are quite prepared to die. Looks like, we're in for nasty weather."
Warren punctuated each line of the song with spear thrusts that took the elite in the legs. He swore in pain as the elite twisted with the spear still lodged in its knee, and sliced off his leg in response. It put a crystal claw through the downed man's shoulder to pin him to the wall.
Reid fought harder against the elite holding him, but couldn't get around its crystal claws in the limited space. His armor suffered gouges and chips as he focused on doing everything he could to push the beast back.
Warren fumbled with something in his free arm as the elite glowed with the blue light of its healing skill. When it was done, the elite reared back its head and opened its maw above the bartender.
Reid furiously traded blows with the salamander holding him back. Requiem's flanges chipped as they met the crystal claws. Pieces of his bone armor splintered off. Reid's elite was forced further back, closer to the gruff old man and the beast that had maimed him.
Warren coughed, then growled out the next line of the song.
"One eye is taken for an eye."
The man Raised a grenade up to his face as the elite bit down into him. The salamander lifted the bartender up and started to shake his body - then the battlement itself shook as the grenade went off.
The elite's eyeball shot out of its socket like a comet with a tail made of brain matter. Warren's mangled body slipped and fell out of a broken mouth.
Reid's elite was distracted by the blast just long enough for him to take its left hand off at the wrist. With its blades chipped, Requiem smashed through the salamander in brutal violence. He grabbed its other arm with his free hand, and thrust Requiem up under its jaw.
You have defeated Salamander - lvl 18. Bonus Experience Awarded.
The elites body slumped to the floor, and Reid realized the salamanders that had been chasing down the defenders were turned back towards him on the wall. More frenzied behavior after their commanders went down.
Reid wearily dropped to a knee, and rolled Warren's dead body onto his back. His face was blackened and contorted, unrecognizable. He didn't even have eyes to close. Reid hesitantly tore a scrap of the man's shirt off and covered his face with it.
He panted with exertion and fatigue. His muscles felt entirely spent again, and threatened to give out on him. He groaned as he stood back up, and looked between Warren and the creature he'd killed.
"Good fight."
#
From inside Sanctuary, beasts that had chased getaway vehicles swarmed back to take down the humans that dared kill an elite. Outside, the main force of salamanders had finally begun to advance. A guardian had reinforced the remaining attacking elite and its group, and tore through anyone that dared stay and fight. It screeched and popped, and any salamanders down inside Sanctuary on the left flank turned around to regroup at the outer wall.
Marysa was missing a leg and half a hand, but Danny's frantic healing seemed to have stopped her bleeding. Reid could only watch on in horror as the regrouping level 10s took opportunistic swipes at the concentrating healer and his charge. Lowell and Mark furiously battered them back and did what they could to push the salamanders away from the healer. Most of the salamander's strikes missed. One didn't.
The blow took off Danny's outstretched arms, and split through the therapist's skull and neck. She died in an instant, and the healer wailed.
Lowell grabbed Danny by the collar and then around the waist as he swapped focus from defending to retreating. Mark ran alongside him, sending wooden spears out to slow any beasts that were too close. He was crafting new ones far slower than he had at the start of the fight.
Walt's shouting from below brought Reid's attention back to his own section of the fight. He was on a three wheeler, and already had two wounded strapped to the back, with another riding behind him on the seat. She was bleeding through a mass of bandages over her left bicep. Reid recognized the machine they were on as a "big red" honda. He knew someone that owned one of those once. They always said it was actually pretty hard to tip over sideways, and-
"Come on! We need to get back, now!"
Reid shook himself, and felt his weary legs complaining as he eyed the drop. He forced himself to jump, and crumpled when he hit the ground. He had let his strengthening skill lapse - and his body was showing him just how far he'd pushed himself. A swearing Walt grabbed him by the elbow and led him over to the three wheeler.
"Sit over the front tire - we need to go, now."
Reid moved his eyes between the wall, Marysa's dead body, and the amassing salamanders. Bits of Mark's wooden armor littered the ground and the wall, like splintered wood chips. The blood made them look like they were made of cherry wood.
"Okay."
Reid sat down on the front luggage bars, and Walt quickly tied him to it with a length of rope.
"I don't think that's-"
Walt was already back on the seat, and the big red's engine hurled them forward with a throaty roar. Reid let his head loll so he didn't have to flex his neck.
His head slammed down into the plastic and metal, but he didn't care. The fatigue of the fight was really hitting him now, and and it made him feel like the bumpy journey was putting him to sleep. Reid couldn't fight an entire army. He'd struggled to win because of environmental restrictions that hurt his technique - or lack thereof. As he slipped towards sleep, Reid started to hatch a plan. He needed to heal, quickly. He needed to get back in the fight, and then force the situation to make things to his advantage.
They would not lose their second line of defense.
