Chapter 155 - The Other Thing In Their Way

The groaning crash of the collapsed siege tower was still echoing across the field when the next wave surged forward. I turned and spotted another tower creeping in from the west. Orcs dragged it forward on thick, creaking wheels, shouting in their guttural tongue as they strained to close the distance before we could regroup.

Behind me, the defenders struggled to pull themselves together. One soldier checked the bandage on his arm, then stepped into line beside me. Another wiped blood from her face and raised a pike. A third just stared at the wreckage, then got back to his feet and took a defensive stance alongside us.

“Form ranks!” I called. “You’ve got bows? Use them. You’ve got spears? Hold the gaps! They’re coming again.”

A few heads turned toward me, still unsure. But someone near the back barked, “You heard her, PFC Dunn! Don’t just stand there, get it together. Let’s move!”

“Yes, Sergeant!” one of the soldiers barked, joining others in the fighting line. Just like that, order snapped back into place.

The siege tower rumbled forward, closer all the time. We needed some backup, and I knew precisely where to get it. I reached through my link to Sue.

A moment later, a blast of fire roared from the tree line. The Fireball struck the oncoming tower right on a wheel, exploding in a blossom of heat and flame. Orcs scattered in every direction, howling as the impact blew panels loose and scorched the support beams. It didn’t destroy the tower outright—but it sure as hell stopped it cold. The wheels locked up and the whole thing skewed at an angle, listing slightly as smoke poured from its front-facing boards.

That bought us time. Maybe not much, but I’d take whatever we could get. More towers creaked forward in the distance, but they were coming at us slower now. The orcs were hesitating. I could see the confusion in their ranks, their heads snapping between the wreckage of the first tower, the crippled second, and the flaming dinosaur still lurking in the trees.

I turned back to the defenders. “They're not invincible,” I said. “You can hold this wall.”

This time, no one asked who I was.

One soldier marched up and extended a hand, which I shook. “Sergeant Bates, ma’am. I’m guessing you’re Selena Serrano?”

I blinked. I’d never even been up this way before, not once, and they knew my name? “Yeah, that’s me.”

“Good to have you here, ma’am. We’ve got this spot. Go where you’re needed most,” he told me. “And thanks. We’d have been goners if you hadn’t shown up.”

“No thanks needed, Sergeant. We’ll stop these assholes.”

“Yes, we will!” He turned and went back to shouting orders to his squad, and I glanced around the battlefield, looking for where else I could make a difference. I glanced across the battlefield, scanning for the next weak point, the next place we might lose the line.

Turner’s force had reached the southern gate. Even with much of the western orc force distracted by my troops, the fighting had been brutal, but they were pushing through. Jefferson’s soldiers fought like hell to clear the path, and then the gate cracked open just enough to let the first squad inside. Turner led from the front, sword raised, his coat scorched and blood-spattered, shouting orders as they passed through the gates and shut them again, closing off the enemy in pursuit.

The reinforcements moved quickly to take up positions along the inner ramparts and help rally the battered defenders. I was feeling good, like we had this one in the bag. I should have avoided those sorts of thoughts…!

Because then the roar came.

The thing prowling along the north end of the battlefield wasn’t human, and it wasn’t an orc, either. It howled, the sound deep, primal, and laced with fury. My skin went cold the moment I heard it. It was a monstrous thing, like a massive wolf, but warped by magic into a horrific creature. Its back bristled with bone spikes and its paws were the size of trash can lids. Muscles bulged beneath its matted fur, and its eyes glowed red with unnatural power. A twisted saddle was strapped to its spine, and sitting astride it was the biggest orc I’d ever seen.

The orc warchief stood nearly eight feet tall, wrapped in dark, thickly layered armor. A massive axe rested across his lap, but it was the raw power rolling off him that made my stomach tighten. This wasn’t a typical orc. Most of them were tier four or five, with a few hitting tier six. This one was a tier eight monstrosity, and the creature it rode was tier six, making both of them significant threats.

“Shit,” I muttered. I took off from the wall, flying toward the north end of the base. “Here we go.”

The warchief raised his axe high and roared again as the beast beneath him pawed at the earth, snarling and snapping. All across the battlefield, the orcs rallied. Those who’d been falling back found their nerve again, and the wounded howled with new fury. 

The beast's howl hadn’t even faded before the orcs began to move again, this time toward the northern wall. The warchief pointed his axe, and the orcs surged in response. The enemy formations tightened back up, their crude standards raised, orc leaders bellowing orders as their ranks fell in. They were way more organized than most of the foes I’d fought in the past. This wasn’t going to be an easy fight.

Still, I wasn’t too worried. The wall between us and them was high and built of heavy stone. It could take a pounding. The defenders were still battered, but they weren’t broken, and now we had fresh troops moving to reinforce from the inside. We’d hold.

Then the orc leader released his next wave, but it wasn’t what I expected. Instead of a mass assault with their entire force, dozens of orcs broke from the main force and sprinted toward the base of the wall. There were maybe fifty of them in all, lean and fast—these were not the usual brawler type of orc. These were something different.

Each of them carried a bulky pack strapped across their back. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, but I kept flying toward the wall while the defenders aimed arrows and spells at the attackers, trying to take them down. Just before I reached the wall, a well-placed arrow from one of our archers hit high, piercing one of the packs.

The explosion was instant.

A rolling blast of heat and blue fire ripped outward, flinging the orc’s remains across the field and leaving a blackened crater behind.

My blood ran cold. I knew what those had to be. I’d seen Carver using them before. The enemy had alchemy bombs. If even a handful of those orcs reached the base of the wall and detonated, we wouldn’t have a wall anymore.

“Light them up!” I shouted as loud as I could over the crashing sounds of battle. Arrows flew, but the bombers were already halfway across the field, sprinting with terrifying speed and single-minded fury, and the defenders were still trying to understand what they were seeing.

I flew as fast as I could, speeding my way toward the north wall—but I was just too far. Camp Johnson was huge, and this new front was too far from where I’d been fighting before. The sappers were moving fast, and they were almost there.

Another sapper went down with an arrow in the leg, tumbling it forward. It landed hard, and the jostling was enough to detonate the alchemy mix inside its pack. The blast tore apart the orc and sent two more flying in bloody arcs. That cut their numbers a little, but there were still too many.

Two more went down, one hit by a firebolt, the other caught in a volley of crossbow bolts. Both packs cooked off, throwing debris and flame across the field, cratering ground and flinging bodies. I could tell it wasn’t going to be enough.

The rest reached the wall.

The moment their boots touched stone, they dropped to their knees, howling something guttural as they smashed their fists down on their packs.

The north wall erupted in fire and light. The explosion ripped through the stone wall like it was paper, flames and a massive shock wave cascading outward in a wave of destruction. The concussive force hit me midair and swatted me out of the sky.

I hit the ground like a sack of bricks, tumbling through dust and debris until I skidded to a stop in the mud. Pain exploded through my ribs and my vision narrowed to a pinprick before widening again. My ears rang. My limbs felt like lead. I was alive, albeit in rough shape. That could be fixed with a Drain Life or two. We had bigger problems, though.

I staggered to my feet just in time to see the smoke starting to clear from the wall—or what was left of it, anyway. A jagged breach gaped where stone should’ve been, the gap about as wide as a football field. Rubble littered the ground. Bodies, too. There had been a lot of defenders on that wall, fighting to keep the orcs at bay. Most of them were likely dead now.

The walls had been the one thing keeping those inside relatively safe from the orc horde. Now that they’d been breached, the horde advanced. Hundreds of orcs, rallying behind the warchief and his monstrous mount, streamed forward like a flood through a broken dam.

We hadn’t just lost the wall. We’d lost the only thing keeping these monsters from walking straight into Camp Johnson.

I looked around, seeing the interior of the place up close for the first time. One of the buildings nearest the wall was damaged, and as I watched soldiers in armor helped guide unarmed civilians from the ruined building, guiding them south toward other, more secure structures. I recalled Jefferson saying they had a lot of civilians, many of them with few or even no crystals. These people were helpless against this sort of attack. If the orcs reached them, they’d be slaughtered.

Fortunately, the walls were not the only thing keeping the orcs from entering Camp Johnson. There was one other thing in their way.

Me. I stood up, brushed the dirt from my armor, and readied myself for what was about to become an extremely target-rich environment!