The Rifleman - Bk1 - Ch.54

Chapter Fifty-Four

The Ravening Horde

“Hold!” Malia called as the charging creatures hit the base of the rise. Every second, they got closer. Malia stared, unblinking, until the lead one drew back its long, thin arm to launch the spear. “FIRE!”

The archers fired, sending a hail of arrows at their attackers, while Wesley picked targets, taking them out one at a time. He fired five times before the first arrow struck, the front lines of the attacking force falling, but there were so many more behind. 

The hills around them were swarming with the figures, a relentless horde, all charging ahead, straight into the range of their arrows. 

“Second rank!” Malia called, and the front row of archers dropped to a knee. “Fire!”

Five more shots, four kills, and one injured as dozens fell to the arrows, their fellows clambering over the corpses and trampling them into the ground.

The first of the pits opened, almost a dozen of the creatures dropping inside before the flow parted. 

“Third rank!” Malia called, “Fire!”

The second rank dropped as the first scrambled round to stand behind the first. They didn’t waver or hesitate, but, in the end, they only had thirty archers, and their enemy seemed endless. 

“Calling them!” Wesley yelled to Malia, and she nodded.

Wesley called his sims, who seemed to step out of the air to take their place beside him.

“First rank!” Malia called. “Fire!”

Wesley and his sims took a section of the wall each, emptying clip after clip into the enemies charging their walls. This allowed the archers to close ranks and concentrate their fire. 

Trap after trap was triggered, and arrows flew until Malia barely had time to call the changes, and still, they came. Every row was a step closer than the first, and the spears began to fly.

They whistled through the air, thrown much harder and faster than Wesley could believe possible by those long arms. 

“Archers!” Malia called as the leading wave closed to within feet of the walls. “Free fire, long range!” The archers split into small teams, aiming to fire into the distance.

“Melee!” Malia roared as she summoned her mecha-sword and elongated it. “On me!”

Wesley joined her at the wall, his summons continuing to fire from behind him as he fought.

Parry, stab, duck, parry, block, fire. 

It went on and on until Wesley lost track of time, seeing only the spray of blood and hearing only the cry of their enemy as he fought. A whistle caught his attention, and Wesley stepped back from the wall, firing as fast as he could to keep the horde at bay before hurrying over to find a man with his shoulder laid open, blood pumping from the wound.

Emergency Heal, and a bandage later, he returned to the wall, fighting until the next whistle. 

From his position on the wall, it was clear where Malia was. Her massive sword cut a swathe through their attackers. The woman to his right fell, a spear lodged in her skull, and Wesley swore. 

No healing spell could fix that. 

As suddenly as the attack started, it stopped. 

A wailing yodel from the distant rise sounded through the air, and the creatures turned as one, fleeing back as quickly as they had come. 

Wesley didn’t watch them go, immediately shifting over to healing. His last charge of Emergency Heal was added to an Improved Flare and fired over the entire camp while he and his simulacrums moved from place to place, doing what they could. 

Often, a bandage was all he had at the time, but it was enough to keep people alive until he or one of the sims had a real heal to use on them.

To his surprise, Joy was an incredibly effective triage nurse, darting about to keep an eye on everyone and directing them to the head of the line if needed. 

That first attack cost them six lives, including the woman who had fallen next to him at the wall. All but one were melee fighters. A single archer had fallen to a spear thrown, but it was more bad luck than good aim. The melee fighter in front of him had ducked, and the archer didn’t see it coming until it was too late. 

No sooner had Wesley sat down to rest than the call went out that movement had been sighted again.

Wesley unslung his rifle, checked the breach, and moved toward the call. 

A much smaller group than before came at them from one side. Fifty in all, they carried the bodies of the dead before them like a shield. Malia had the archers fire in a high arc, raining death from above, while Wesley and his sims opened fire on their legs. 

The attack failed, but another came, this time from the opposite side. A tightly packed group rushed up the western rise, several bodies strapped together and held in front of them. Once they got in range, they crouched and began to throw spears from behind the cover. 

Wesley put an Armor-Piercing Round through their improvised shield on the off chance. To his surprise, it worked. The system obviously recognized how the bodies were being used, which was something to think about later. 

The improvised shield was blown apart, and Malia had the archers decimate the enemy before they could run away. 

And so it went, all night.

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The enemy vanished with the first light and seemed to be staying away this time. 

“What the hell are those things?” Wesley asked as he tried to stay awake long enough to eat some breakfast. An entire night of fighting had worn everyone out, especially Wesley, who had only seen a second charge on any of his healing spells once the light returned. 

“Those despicable creatures,” Rupert said as he tried to appear unruffled despite the bandages on both arms, “Are called the ‘Ravening Horde.’ There are no trusted reports of where they come from, but the most common story is that they are an entire race that became corrupted during their transport to this world or shortly after. As for the name itself, it has nothing to do with their appetite, you understand, but merely their appearance.”

“Do they have any known weaknesses?” Wesley asked hopefully.

“No two groups are the same, so who can say? You noticed how quickly they changed tactics?” Rupert seemed somewhat settled by talking as if it returned some sanity to the world. 

“I did,” Wesley grimaced. “Not a great sign, in an enemy.”

“Quite.” Rupert nodded. “Despite their unkempt appearance, they are known to be clever, even devious. Reports have them using every kind of weapon and tactic, depending on who they have fought before encountering the one lucky enough to survive and report the incident.”

“They avoid daylight?” Malia asked, cutting to the most important matter, as always. 

“Studiously so,” Rupert nodded. “It is the sole consistent thing about them.”

“Then we have the day to rest and prepare?” Wesley asked.

“We do,” Rupert wiped his mouth carefully. “But I must warn everyone: The ones we face tonight will have completely different tactics from those we faced last night. It is their greatest strength.”

“Ma’am?” Justin rushed into the tent and stood at attention next to Malia.

“Yes?” She asked, stifling a yawn.

“The ones in the pits, Ma’am?” Justin wavered.

“How do they seem?” Wesley cut in. “Weak, disorientated? Anything?”

“Unchanged from what we can tell,” Justin answered quickly. “They even threw their spears at the looters.”

“Any injuries?” Wesley asked, half out of his chair.

“None,” Justin added apologetically. “I merely wished to know if we are taking prisoners?”

“No!” All three answered the young man, who gulped and ran off again. 

Despite being exhausted, Wesley took the first shift, sending Malia and Rupert to sleep. He needed to keep cycling his healing spells on the injured for a few hours more anyway, so it made sense. 

“Joy? You should get some sleep as well,” Wesley said when he found the squirrel-kin crouched over one of the injured. 

“I can’t,” Joy squeaked, and Wesley saw that she was crying. 

He came closer and saw she was stroking the hair of a corpse. The man had seemed fine the last time Wes checked on him, but he was learning that sometimes, that was just the way it went. Someone who looked like they only needed a Lesser Regenerate actually had a severe internal injury, and no one knew until they fell over dead.

“I said he could wait,” Joy rocked back and forth on her heels, tears flowing down her cheeks. “I thought he was okay.”

“Joy, it wasn’t your fault,” Wesley gave the woman a gentle hug, feeling her stiffen for a second before throwing her arms around him, gripping tightly as she sobbed. “We do our best, but sometimes, we miss something,” Wesley said soothingly. “I checked him over as well. He was laughing. There was no way for us to know.”

Wesley held her for a few more minutes, unsure if anything he said helped or just the hug, but slowly, the tears stopped, and Joy agreed to go and sleep. Wes tucked her into an alcove close to the fire and made sure she went to sleep before returning to the healing tent and continuing his vigil over the patients, praying they hadn’t missed anything else. 

Almost four hours later, Malia came and sent him off to sleep. It was not exactly a pleasant rest, full of nightmares. Blood and screams seemed to follow him into the waking world.

Realizing it wasn’t a dream, Wesley shot upright, almost braining himself on the top of the alcove, before running out into the early evening. There was still light about, and it took him a moment to realize that the blood and screams were centered on the eastern wall. 

Hurrying over, Wesley found Malia yelling for someone to wake him up.

“I’m here,” Wesley ran over, “What happened.”

“A spider!” Malia yelled. “A fucking spider came over the wall and tried to drag him off!

Wesley looked around, seeing the curled-up legs of a pale white spider off to one side. The body was barely larger than the average dog, but the legs were easily five times longer than the body. At least.

He turned his attention to his patient. The man had four long, deep wounds on him. The worst had nearly severed one hand. The skin was torn and ripped; multiple arteries seemed to have been severed. One in the leg and one at the wrist, plus Wesley didn’t like the amount of blood pouring from the back wound. 

“Okay, back up!” Wesley yelled at the gathered crowd.

He shifted into wisp form, casting two charges of Emergency Heal and funneling one into each hand. He pressed them against the two severed arteries. “Hold his hand in place,” Wesley told Malia, and she did, ignoring the man's failing screams of pain. Wesley added a couple of charges of Lesser Regenerate and then moved on to the chest wound. Another charge of Emergency Heal went into the chest, Wesley pushing the energy deep inside. 

The bleeding slowed but didn’t stop.

“You and you!” Wesley pointed at a couple of gawking soldiers. “I need you to roll him, CAREFULLY, onto his side. Then hold him still, okay?”

They nodded and did as he asked. 

Wesley saw the broken-off piece of spider leg poking out of the back and grimaced.

“Hold him tight!” Wesley cautioned the men. “He’s going to fight this.”

Before they could argue, Wesley grabbed his bayonet, cutting away at the flesh around the leg. He had seen the tiny barbs on the curled-up spider. If he just pulled it out, the man was probably dead, no matter how many spells he pumped into him.

Finally, he cut deep enough to find the tip, lodged between two ribs and pressed against the heart. 

“Fuck,” Wesley readied his last charge of Emergency Heal and pulled out the leg. He watched in real-time as the hidden hook on the end of the leg ripped a ragged hole in the side of the heart.

Wesley shifted back to wisp form, pushing every bit of healing into his hand as he drenched the heart in the vital energy. 

The heart stuttered and then stopped.

Wesley felt his mouth go dry, and a second stretched into eternity. With no other idea, Wesley fired a Jolt into it, and it started beating again.

//////////////////

Wesley threw up vigorously. Feeling as if his whole body was convulsing.

“Are you okay?” Malia asked, rubbing his back.

“No,” Wesley chuckled weakly. “I just… for a second there, he was dead.”  

“Yeah,” Malia sighed. “That was pretty incredible.”

“Let’s never do that again,” Wesley rinsed his mouth and leaned against the stone wall behind the healing tent as he chewed some of the last of his toothpaste herbs. He really needed to remember to get more of these if he survived all this. 

Wesley had only just made it behind the tent before he threw up but figured it was close enough. The recently saved didn’t need to see the healer freaking out. That could not possibly be good for morale. 

“Think that thing came from the Ravening?” Wesley asked.

“No,” Malia sighed. “The Sundering starts in a couple of hours; I think that was just an early arrival.”

“Oh, great,” Wesley chuckled a little manically. “More to worry about.”

“Hey, maybe all the spiders will hit those other bastards instead,” Malia smiled weakly.

“We are so in over our heads,” Wesley laughed.

“Completely,” Malia smiled. “Hey, what do you want to do if we survive all of this?”

“No idea,” Wesley grinned. “But I know it starts with one of Joy’s cookies.”