by Rick Scott
“How far away are they, Aiko?” I say through the chat. “And what the heck tossed that log? Do they have a catapult?”
“I’ll tell you when I get inside. Close the gate! I’ll climb over the wall.”
“We’re on it!” Val Helena replies and I spot the Half-Giant along with my brother pushing together the large wooden doors to the keep. My heart thunders with adrenaline, both from my near death and my rising fear.
This is it. It’s happening.
A swirl of white light surrounds me and I regain 30% of my HP.
Becky casts Heal III
You gain +500 HP!
I look behind me and see the Halfling standing just outside the door to the Common Hall. She lifts her hand and casts the spell again.
Becky casts Heal III
You gain +500 HP!
The healing magic soothes my aches and warms me at the same time.
“Thanks, Becky. I needed that.”
“I came when I heard the commotion,” she says. “Gilly’s on her way too.”
Aiko crests the top of the wall and flips down the opposite side with her Thief variation of Wall Run. She meets up with Maxis, Val Helena and Rembrandt as they run across the courtyard, dodging through the wall debris.
“They’re right behind me,” Aiko says, out of breath when she reaches us. “Their mages cloaked them!”
My blood runs cold at the sound of that. “Cloaked them?”
She nods. “I thought they were over half a mile away still. I saw them cutting down trees and building something, but I figured that maybe they were making camp for the night. When they got close enough for me to sense them in stealth, I realized what was going and saw they were building a siege weapon.”
“A damn sneak attack,” Maxis says bitterly. “This is not a good start.”
“How big is that catapult they got?” Rembrandt says, looking at the tree trunk.
“I’ll put it this way,” Aiko says. “Giants were building it.”
Crap…no wonder. “How fast can they fire that thing?”
Aiko shrugs. “We’ll have to wait for the next one to find out, I guess.”
“We might not even survive a next one if we don’t get that wall repaired,” Val Helena says. “We need to man the Ballista too!”
“I’m on it,” Rembrandt says. He then uses his Contract ability and splits himself multiple times. Eight of his clones head for the stairways leading to the rampart and the two Ballistae above the main door on the north wall. Hopefully they should be safe there, since it seems like the western wall is the one being targeted.
For now.
“I can get the wall repaired,” Becky says.
“No wait,” I say. “I think we should maybe build the outer wall first. Check out the stone reserves.”
Our eyes light up in the twilight darkness with the green of our HUDs.
“We don’t have quite enough yet,” Val Helena says. “And even if we did, we wouldn’t have enough left to repair that damage.”
“But we’re almost there,” I say.
“Reece has a point,” Maxis says. “If we get the outer wall up, it could buy us time to repair the inner wall. Where’s Gilly? How fast can she make up that stone?”
“I’m here!” Gilly suddenly calls out, emerging from the Common Hall. She makes a bee line straight for me and gives me a quick embrace. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m fine.”
Her big green eyes widen as she surveys the damage. “Holy moly. What the heck happened?”
“Giant catapult,” Rembrandt says matter-of-factly.
“We need to get that second wall up,” Maxis says. “How quickly can you mine the rest of the stone we need?”
Gilly’s eyes light up with her own HUD. “Not soon enough, I don’t think. You said they’re coming right, Aiko?”
“Yes, they weren’t too far behind me. Five, ten minutes maybe.”
“Crap. Then we need to get that wall built now,” Gilly says. “Like right now!”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Maxis says, exasperated.
“No, you don’t understand,” Gilly says. “If we don’t build it right this instant, we might not have the chance to build it at all.”
The way she says it makes my stomach dip.
“What do you mean, Gilly?” I ask.
She sends a link and when I click it, a view of the keep comes up again. Around it is a green line portraying the footprint of the perimeter wall. “We won’t be able to build if something is standing in the footprint. If they surround us, then we won’t even have a chance to build the outer wall no matter how much stone we have.”
“Crap!” Maxis says. “We need you to get back below then, Gilly!”
Gilly shakes her head. “We need like 50 more stone. That’ll take at least 15 minutes of digging. And at least five for me to just get back down there.”
“We don’t have twenty minutes,” Aiko says.
My mouth goes dry. Crap… “Should we just repair the inner wall then?”
“No…” Val Helena says. “Reece, Aiko, position yourselves for lookout. Make sure nothing steps in that footprint.”
“Huh?”
Val Helena then turns and walks away, buffing herself with crimson flames.
Val Helena uses Warrior’s Prayer!
Strength and Vitality increased!
Val Helena uses Fury!
Strength and attack rate increased!
“What’s she doing?” Gilly asks as we all stare at her.
The giantess approaches the gargantuan log and after a second of hesitation, or perhaps concentration, she releases a primal cry and squats to grab it by its girth. Her screams continue as she hefts the enormous piece of timber into her massive arms and begins to spin with it. With a grace that seems impossible, she performs three quick turns, gaining speed with each one. She releases the log with a battle cry and tosses it towards the west wall.
It sails with tremendous speed and bounces off the damaged stone, causing blocks of rubble to fall back into the courtyard. The stone total on my HUD jumps.
Stone: 923 units
Stone: 946 units
Gilly claps and cheers. “Way to go, Val! Brains and brawn! Keep it going! A few more!”
Val Helena grimaces as she runs to retrieve the log again.
Aiko nudges me. “Let’s go.”
I give her a nod and we both sprint towards the wall. I scale up it quickly with Wall Run and join Rembrandt’s clones on the northern rampart. Below us Val Helena lifts the log again and gives it another toss against the wall. The entire structure shudders under our feet and more stone falls into the courtyard.
Stone: 964 units
“A couple more!” Gilly yells.
Becky casts Second Wind on Val Helena as the Half-Giant dashes to collect the log for a third time. Her cheeks are flushed and she’s breathing hard, but her pace doesn’t slow. She grabs it one more time, but with considerably more effort this time. She performs a quick turn and tosses it yet again.
Boom!
Stone: 987 units
Almost there…
“I’ve got something!” Rembrandt shouts in alarm.
The moment he says it, the green outline of the perimeter wall flashes red.
No!
“Where are they?” I cry.
One of Rembrandt’s clones opens fire with his twin pistols. Thunderous bellows rise up from below as a Mountain Giant drops out of stealth.
“Light up the whole area!” Aiko screams. “Make them uncloak!”
All of Rembrandt’s clones respond to her call in the same fashion, firing randomly into the area surrounding the Mountain Giant. The air fills with firecracker bursts of gunfire as a small platoon of soldiers and giants phase into existence.
My heart jumps.
I didn’t expect to see so many. There has to be at least a dozen soldiers and three giants!
“An advance party!” Aiko cries.
> The human soldiers thankfully begin to retreat from Rembrandt’s suppressive fire, but the giants stand firm. One of them hefts a chunk of broken wall from out of the snow and hurls it at one of the Rembrandt clones. I expect the clone to dodge it deftly, but it hits him dead on and the clone bursts into a cloud of nano-dust.
Mountain Giant uses Rock Throw!
Foot Soldier 13 takes 954 damage.
Foot Soldier 13 is defeated!
I look for the true Rembrandt and see him still down in the courtyard with Becky and Gilly by his side. That’s a drawback of his Negotiator class and Contract ability, I suppose. Rembrandt can be everywhere at once, but his clones truly are like remote-controlled drones. No way are they going to be capable of evading like the real Rembrandt in his Gunslinger mode.
A warhorn blows from within the small group of retreating soldiers.
A second horn answers it, coming from deep within the forest.
From the darkness between the trees, torch lights emerge.
Hundreds of them.
A strange sound fills the air, like a wave breaking against the shore. It puzzles me for a moment, until I realize it’s the roar of hundreds of voices yelling in a battle cry. My heart thunders in my chest as the shadows appear between the trees. Huge shadows of giants and mammoths lumbering forward, dwarfing the smaller shadows of the armored men swarming around them.
I’m beside myself as the wave of destruction careens through the forest, felling full-grown trees like saplings or blades of grass. This is much worse than I expected. No way is this one wall going to hold them back. They’re just a few hundred feet away and the outline of the perimeter wall is still in the red. They’re charging directly for the weakened wall and we don’t yet have a means of escape.
My heart tightens within my chest.
Once they reach it.
We’re done for.
Chapter 41: By Slight or by Might
The rampart shakes beneath my feet as Val Helena tosses the log against the wall again.
Boom!
The resources update.
Stone: 1007 units
Yes! We have the materials. Now we just need to clear those giants!
An idea flashes through my mind and I run down the rampart without thinking any further. If I do, I’m bound to lose my nerve. I hop to the top of the wall while casting Shadow Tendrils, buffing my kunai with purple-blue flames.
Here goes nothing…
I launch off the wall and target the closest giant while in midair.
“Bloody hell!” Rembrandt shouts behind me. “Reece!”
“I’ll pull them away!” I shout back. “Build the wall as soon as it’s clear.”
I activate Charge Strike and sail towards the Mountain Giant while stacking a Plunging Attack. I peg him with a hit for massive damage, removing nearly half of his health.
You hit the Mountain Giant for 845 (279) damage.
The Mountain Giant is stunned!
I stay in the air, flipping off the shoulder of the stunned giant to get a series of slashes off on its two kin as I fall to the ground. My feet touch the snow and I perform a quick roll to gain a bit of distance before blasting them with a War Cry.
“Come kill me!”
The giants share collective glances of confusion, which quickly turn into scowls of rage. The one that I stunned, unfreezes and bellows at me before lifting its huge war hammer into the air to strike. The other giants do the same and with their massive height it feels like I’m gawking up at tower cranes as I gauge the timing of their attacks. I shift left and right, using my Evasion at the last moment to avoid all three hammer falls from the massive weapons.
Thoom!
Thoom!
Thoom!
The ground shakes with each hit. One of the giants recovers from his strike and performs a quick double attack. Eesh! I pop Active Dodge at the last second and the war hammer passes through my body as I becomes a blur of nano-dust. Close one! I need to remember, as big and slow as they are, they can perform quick movements unexpectedly.
I launch back into all three of the giants with my blades, ensuring their attention is fixed on me. They grunt and roar with each hit and mutter words in a language I don’t understand, but their connotation is crystal clear.
They want to smash me to pieces!
“Come get me!” I yell and perform a Retreat.
I backflip through the snow away from them, and then turn in the opposite direction before hitting Sprint.
I come face to face with the charging army and I nearly lose my nerve. I force my legs to keep moving as every instinct in my being tells me to run away from the hundreds of soldiers and giants streaming towards me. The sound is horrendous, the ground literally trembling beneath my feet.
Please follow me, you stupid giants! Please!
Archers on the leading edge of the army must spot me, because arrows start flying my way. It’s too dark to see them, and I can barely avoid them. I lose my shadow and then an arrow lands solidly in my shoulder.
Arrg!
You take 174 damage!
Not too much damage, I guess. But by the amount of vips I hear cutting the air, I know those numbers have the possibility of adding up quickly if I ever stayed still. I dodge and weave as best I can, ducking behind trees wherever possible. I watch the minimized view of the keep overlay on my HUD, waiting for the outline of the perimeter wall to shift from red to green.
Come on, you morons!!
Finally, the three giants give chase and the line changes color.
Yes!
“Build it!” I shout through the party chat. “Build it now!”
“No, wait!” Gilly cries. “You need to get back over the line, Reece. Once it starts forming you won’t be able to cross it till it’s done.”
“What?”
“Trust me,” she says. “Just make it back.”
Crap! I wasn’t counting on having to double back so quickly. I’ll have to lead the three giants even further away, right toward the main forces. I grit my teeth as I run directly towards the front line of the charging army. They’re less than a hundred feet away now and I can see the giants and mammoths up close. They probably think I’m on some kind of suicide mission running straight at them like this.
And they’re probably right!
I need to cut this as close as possible. Give me the maximum amount of time and distance to run back. I drop out of Sprint, reserving my Stamina.
The warhorn blows again, so close that it hurts my ears.
Fifty feet away now.
Thirty!
I hit Sprint and dash up the nearest tree. I climb as high as I can, until I see the wave of mammoths and giants passing below me and meeting up with the three giants that were chasing me. The tree shakes as something hits it. I jump off right before it falls and perform a Retreat in midair, flying backwards in a somersault. I face the keep again and launch into a Charge Strike still sailing through the air.
I crash into the snow with a roll, the main forces now a good sixty feet behind me.
“Gilly,” I cry as I take off in a Sprint for my life. “Hit Build when I tell you.”
“Okay!”
I dash for the invisible finish line that is the perimeter wall, pushing with all my might.
The line on my screen flashes red as I cross it, and then green again.
“NOW!”
The build queue starts, but I don’t stop running. I take a glance over my shoulder and see a three-foot-wide strip of snow disappear in a cloud of sparkling nano-dust. The sparks turn to bolts of lightning as the wall inches off the ground, growing bit by bit. I reach the inner wall and climb up it, landing on the top.
Below me the horde surges in like a tidal wave, giants and mammoths in front. Warhorns blow frantically from the soldiers just behind them and many turn to run the other way.
I soon understand what Gilly was warning about as two mammoths cross into the forming wall. They trumpet wildly as their bodies
are literally stripped before my eyes. Tusks, flesh and wooly hide instantly transformed into gray nano-dust that soon becomes part of the wall.
“Holy crap…” I say, mesmerized. “It’s no wonder this nano stuff is so dangerous.”
Several more giants and soldiers fall prey to the inadvertent trap and I thank God that Gilly knew well enough not to start the build while I was still outside. I could only imagine what would have happened to me if I’d been crushed between that army and the forming nano-wall.
“Thanks Gilly,” I say out of breath. “You’re a life saver.”
* * *
The wall completes and Braxus’ army backs off, perhaps regrouping after the sudden complication. From my vantage atop the wall and with the trees trampled by the stampeding army, I get a view of its full size. We were expecting hundreds but this looks more like a thousand.
“Where did they all come from?” I ask perplexed.
Aside from the obvious giants and mammoths, the majority appears to be soldiers from Stormwall, but I see smatterings of other soldiers as well, dressed more like the giants in furs and Viking-looking attire.
“Did he recruit men from the mountains while we were in the labyrinth?” I ask, looking to my companions who have joined me on the rampart. No one seems to have an answer though, perhaps as taken aback by the numbers as I am.
“Where are they going?” Gilly asks.
“Back to that catapult, maybe,” Aiko says.
“No, I don’t think so, mates.” Rembrandt jerks his goatee towards something below. “Look.”
Away from the receding army, a lone horse and rider approaches the perimeter wall.
“Who’s this guy?” Val Helena says, leaning forward as she peers down.
