Enemy dead piled up in front of the bridge, held back by the militia and the enemy’s own flames.
David braved sporadic enemy arrows. He stood upright on the bridge to survey the forces on the other side. He didn’t understand their language, but it was obvious that they called out for something to be brought up to them.
He finally spotted a tall cart wheeling up, just at the far edge of the militia’s missile range. Mor-kahls started handing things out of it.
Torches lit more of the enemy firebombs in the darkness.
Scores of the creatures came running at the bridge to hurl them.
A firebomb barrage that massive could incinerate Dirk and all of the spears in one blast.
“Archers up on the bridge with me. Aaughh!” An enemy arrow clipped his left ear. It stung horribly. He ignored it and pointed over at the bomb wagon. “Concentrate your fire over there–at that wagon of firebombs and anything near it!”
Dirk spotted the firebomb wagon as well and saw the danger they were all in. “Use fire arrows if you have them,” He commanded. “Shoot anyone carrying one of those bombs. Hit that wagon. Take them out before they burn us all!”
David and the militia archers got off one full volley before enemy arrows cut several of them down. Some grunted, slipped off the bridge, and fell into the dark river.
But the effect was almost immediate. The cloud of militia arrows cut several foes down. Those foes dropped their bombs among the charging enemy horde.
Several flaming arrows arced into the wagon at nearly the same instant.
Then the entire wagon detonated. It cooked off and became an instant, roaring bonfire.
Dirk and David led a cheer from the militia.
That broke the enemy assault. And they remained exposed to concentrated archery volleys that continued to cut many of them down.
Against such losses, and with no hope of taking the bridge, the monster horde quickly retreated back up Portage Road, and then toward the north.
Dirk and David clapped hands and embraced, while all of the militia continued to celebrate their first victory.
But the night wasn’t over. More battles were yet to come.
Word reached them by kayak messenger.
They were in danger of being cut off. From the north, another enemy horde had taken the bridges over the river on Darden Road and fought its way down 933 north of Roseland. Now all of the remaining monsters were rushing that way to pour into town from that direction.
“Listen up,” Dirk shouted. “Leave five companies to guard this bridge. Hold it the same way we did. The rest of us will fight our way back up to Angela and 933 and help defend Holy Cross and St. Mary’s. A lot of innocent people are holed up there. With the river, that’s a major safe area. We can’t let them down!”
More than a thousand more troops swelled their ranks as they marched, some of them troops that had run away at first. Dirk and David and the other commanders struggled to keep them all in good order.
Their rear guard became a skirmish line that also turned back anyone else who attempted to flee or desert.
They raced up to engage massed foes once more just past Douglas Road, 933, and Saint Mary’s–right near Toll road exit 77. Dirk brought up every archer they had for direct fire support. Pikes and spears stuck out over the advancing shield wall.
If they could hold, thousands of more militia were heading that way to support them. Dirk and David guessed that they were outnumbered five to one at the outset.
“Make the enemy pay for every foot!” Dirk shouted. “If we bleed them enough, we’ll break them. Watch out for those firebombs. Keep shooters up on buildings and up in high spots and in the trees. Pour arrows at any of these creatures carrying one of those bombs. Watch for them being lit or more of those firebomb wagons.”
Over the next two hours, the night battle raged back and forth down 933, the carnage growing.
The enemy slowly pushed and fought the defenders back toward Douglas Road, taking horrible losses. But hundreds of militia forces also fell.
Other bands of retreating defenders joined the militia on either side, swelling their ranks.
One advantage to being bunched up tighter was safety in numbers. The defenders felt stronger and more confident when they weren’t spread out so thin.
David fought beside Dirk, taking turns at the forefront. The two of them kept order and rallied more and more troops to them. Reinforcements continued to march up on both sides every moment.
If the enemy seized the schools beyond, where so many noncombatants had gone to for protection, bloodbaths would result.
The fighting grew so intense that they lost track of their militia losses in the chaos. There was nothing to do but keep fighting.
They cycled in fresh units to keep the front line troops from getting exhausted and ripped to pieces. The militia systematically kept slaying enemies wherever they fought. But more always seemed to pour in. Steadfast discipline made a huge difference for the defenders.
“Where are they getting such numbers?” David yelled.
“No telling,” Dirk said. “Bring up three new companies left and right. Prevent them from flanking us! Ram steel into those freaks and take them down!”
The rotating companies did their best to drag their wounded back with them out of the meat grinder of the battlefront. Many people weren’t used to such stress. Some fell over from heart attacks.
Yet on the whole, the defenders held. They had to.
“We’re breaking them.” Dirk shouted. “We’re finally thinning them out and wearing them down!”
Another great cheer went up and down the militia lines. The roar from almost five thousand defenders was deafening.
“We need to counterattack,” David suggested.
Dirk nodded.
“The last of our reserves are already on it. They’re racing to flank the enemy in Roseland and smash into them from the east, while our troops push north up 933. I only wish we had enough forces to cut up all the way from Cleveland Road to Darden and encircle them. Then we’d have them completely surrounded.”
Messengers came in on bicycle and on foot.
“General Blackwood, the enemy’s retreating. We held off another mass attack on the Portage and Angela bridge area.”
“Good work. How are they retreating?” Dirk demanded. “Which way are they heading?”
“Sir, Major Hammond reports that a large mass of the creatures are surging south, back through what’s left of the downtown. Others are fleeing from Portage to Olive, receding west and southwest toward Lincolnway.”
“They initially came from the deep forest where the airport used to be, sir. It looks like they’re heading southwest. Dawn is still hours away.”
Dirk sighed and removed his helmet, sucking in a few deep breaths and wiping his brow. “My brave friends, I think we’ve beaten them. At least for the moment.”
16
Mason and Blondie took shelter in another old, abandoned, three-story farmhouse with a small, attic cupola off Douglas Road that night. In the middle of nowhere, the old place sat up on a low hill, and provided a good view of the surrounding area and even back toward the parts of Michiana they had just left behind.
First they saw to their horses in a sturdy part of the old barn that did not appear to be ready to collapse, as some sections were. Each evening, they would need to unsaddle their mounts and make sure the horses didn’t stay wet.
Next came wisping the quarters, shoulders, and necks of the horses, and then give them a gentle rubdown. That could be relaxing for both the riders and their horses. Mason and Blondie always needed to find the safest, most secure place they could for their horses to bed down at night. They had to guard their mounts jealously.
Oddly enough, Blondie developed a crush on Ginger, their pack horse, and was always kind and extra good to her thereafter. She was a sweetie.
They didn’t make any fire or light any lamps, and snacked on cold rations until they wer
e full, drinking water from their canteens. The night was also partly cloudy and cold, and now that there was no longer any moon, the nights were also much darker.
Their plan at night was to take turns keeping watch for three hours at a time, so that the other one could get some solid sleep. Then two hours more for each of them, making it five hours apiece, ten hours total.
Young, strong guys in good health could get by on five hours of sleep each night for a long time. Long enough for this trip.
That way they could make good time during the day.
It was bad enough that when he did sleep, Mason had more nightmares about monsters chasing Tori, or himself being hanged once more.
But Mason quickly found that staying up alone at night was not much better. The human mind worked overtime either way. Watching out for horrid creatures that might want to kill and eat you got one to thinking.
Mason felt overwhelmed and troubled by a great deal. He seemed to go around in circles in his own mind. Nothing he had done or decided to do seemed exactly right.
Was he doing the right thing? Was he just being immature, stupid, and selfish? Were more innocent people like Howard and Tommy going to die in South Bend because the Pistolero wasn’t back there, fighting to protect them? Could he only think about himself and Tori…about one girl weighed against the lives of so many others?
Yet he loved Tori with everything he was. He needed to find out what had happened to her. His mind would not rest until he did so.
Then again, playing devil’s advocate in another direction, what did he owe Michiana or anyone else? What were they to him? If they did die…so what? Why would that be his fault? Why was he responsible for anyone else? Some of them didn’t even try to understand him. Most came to their own conclusions about what he was and what he had become. What did they know? He and his powers were now something to be feared. And fear often led to hate.
Some few people wanted him dead.
He suddenly thought about what Tori would say if they could talk about it all. What were the facts? What was the main issue at hand that no one could avoid or walk away from?
Since the Merge hit, everyone in Michiana was facing a terrible threat from these monsters who wanted to kill and eat anything and anyone that was meat. That threat was bigger than any one person–even the Pistolero and his missing girlfriend.
Even with his new powers, he couldn’t fight all of those monsters on his own. No way.
In that moment, Mason realized, that if anyone including himself or Tori, was going to survive, the remnants of what people were now calling Urth–and its humanity in that area–had to band together to save each other, or at least as much as they could save.
The threat was simply too great. None of them was going to make it on their own.
Mason still resigned himself to trying to find Tori. He and Blondie were almost halfway there.
But at some point, he would need to go back and rejoin the main fight.
And he and everyone else would be forced to become a lot less selfish and egocentric. If Urth humans were going to survive, they would need to stand and fight together. He was just as bad as anyone else.
Truth be told, he just wasn’t that great of a human being.
Throughout the night there were flames in the distance that lit the sky in small patches back toward Mishawaka and especially South Bend. They didn’t look widespread, but to Mason’s eyes, it appeared as if the enemy was back, at least to some degree. They were most likely probing for weak spots to exploit. That seemed to be their nature.
But they weren’t flooding in to be wiped out in great swaths of packed numbers by the Pistolero any longer. At least not yet.
Perhaps they finally reached a limit to the size of their forces, and needed to start being more cautious. Even the monsters apparently learned from their mistakes, and strove not to repeat them.
Mason swallowed hard while watching those flames in the distance.
He thought of the Reinerts once more and people just like them back in South Bend. Had he made the right decision to go to Elkhart, risking the lives of so many for the life of one girl?
Tori. His Tori. Not just any girl.
What would the enemy do when they figured out that the Pistolero and his blazing guns weren’t in South Bend anymore? How long would it take? Could he get back there in time to help if he tried?
Even worse, what if Tori wasn’t there in Elkhart? What if she was on the other side, with David and the Blackwoods? What if she was already–
No. Mason couldn’t go there. That was exactly why he needed to find out for himself–one way or the other. He had to know or it would drive him insane.
“Doesn’t look so bad,” Blondie said, getting up for his shift and looking out at the same patches of fire. At least Blondie seemed to have a pretty good internal clock. Mason checked his wind-up, travel pocket clock and saw that almost exactly three hours had passed.
Mason was ready for his next rest, and a break from his worries and racing thoughts.
“Any traffic?” Blondie asked.
Mason shrugged. “A few runners and refugees on the road, on foot or bike. Just stragglers, too scared to stay put or too dumb to avoid traveling at night. No monsters yet.” He handed Blondie their binoculars.
“Let’s keep it that way,” Blondie said.
Mason already snuggled down on the old musty bed mattress and yawned. He pulled the sleeping bag over himself and dozed off, while his friend kept watch in the night from the farmhouse cupola windows that looked out in all four directions.
17
Another messenger arrived and exclaimed, “General Blackwood, commanders along Edison report the enemy massing again down Eddy Street in large numbers. Many smaller groups of monsters have filtered back in quietly without attacking, moving fast in the darkness, bunching together in the center.”
Even in the dark, David saw Dirk’s eyes widen.
“The clever bastards,” Dirk yelled. “We’ve beaten them back in two key places. But they’re forming a horde in our center while the other hordes keep us busy on the outskirts.”
“Sir, heavy enemy attacks are already pushing down Jefferson Avenue from downtown,” the messenger added.
Dirk rubbed his face and thought for a moment. He snapped his head up and looked at his runners. “That’s just what I’d do if I was them. Send two messengers, call back our people from Roseland, and break off the pursuit. Get them back here!” He turned to David and the others.
“The enemy isn’t retreating at all. They’ve finally found a weak point, and they’re going to keep us all spread out while they exploit it. They’ll concentrate their remaining forces to push through that weak point into our center and break us all up. They will spend the rest of the night doing as much damage as they can to whatever we’re trying to defend. My guess is the key to their attack plans is Jefferson Avenue.”
“Makes sense,” David said. “From there they can get at us down Ironwood, Edison, Twyckenham–any direction they want. Lots of civilians in those areas to feed off of, too. But this begs another question, Dirk. Who’s really leading these creatures? None of them seem to have the brains to orchestrate a tactical plan this complex.”
Another messenger ran in. “General Blackwood. The bulk of the enemy forces are funneling toward Jefferson Avenue. They’re deliberately bypassing many of our other defenses and flooding across Main and Michigan streets where they’ve broken through. They’re trying to penetrate as far east as they can go. They’re not even stopping to attack civilians or set fires yet.”
“Just like I thought,” Dirk said. “They’re trying to crush us at our core. It’s a race, people. Get as many of us on bikes and ride like hell up Ironwood, Edison, Greenlawn, and Twyckenham.”
The militia double-timed it back to Angela to where the bikes were amassed on both sides off the sidewalks. More commanders rushed up, bunching around Dirk and David.
Dirk issued orders all along the way. “W
e cut them off, flank them, and break them up on both sides in force along Jefferson Avenue. Take your orders and go. Get to your new positions. Send word to the other commanders. Keep enough troops at the key points to protect them, and companies staggered along the way to fend off enemy skirmishers from the roads. We need to move, and move fast!”
Dirk pulled David aside for a moment. “If we get there fast enough, we can still cut them to pieces. But I want you to reach the area around the Haywards’ house. Take as many stout fighters as you can find and secure that entire area. Hold it for all you’re worth, Dave. Belle and the ladies and a lot of other people we know and care about are holed up there with their kids. They’re depending on us to keep them safe. Jerriel should be there with them!”
Dirk sent sixty troops with him, on top of the forty that still followed him from his original 2nd company. David picked up another spear on the way.
As soon as they could, troops grabbed bikes from nearby and rode as fast as they could pedal. Dave took a bike and joined the front of the second wave with his forces, spear at the ready.
He tried not to think about it, but the enemy push drove right toward the Haywards’ house in that exact area. That was going to be ground zero.
If Jerriel wasn’t at HQ, Dirk was most likely right. She must be there with Belle and Rosalyn Hayward, and many other friends’ wives and kids.
David ignored his fatigue, all of his cuts and bruises. His company joined the squads going up Ironwood. They rode for all they were worth. It only took minutes, but the time dilated into what felt like an eternity.
People cried out from time to time or crashed and flipped over. Enemy skirmishers tried to slow them down and delay them with arrows, rocks, even a few fire bombs. David and the militia went around the fallen and kept riding. Troops guarding the roads chased down any skirmishers they could find, but reacted only after an ambush revealed itself.
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