Shifting South

“This isn’t what I had in mind, damn it!”

Just a few hours ago, Medrauta had spent the entire night pushing oversized logs. Now, she was stuck in the middle of the open gate, swinging her sword incessantly for the sole purpose of fulfilling her lady’s wishes. As one of the only two individuals who could permanently lay the attacking witchspawn to rest, she was assigned to be the speartip against the invading monsters that currently flooded through the gates.

Thanks to the soldiers’ tireless efforts during the night, the garrison had managed to seal up the holes in the duchy walls with debris, planks, and just about anything large they could find. As it turns out, mud made a pretty decent substitute for cement in a pinch, and though their strength was hardly comparable, it didn’t matter much when the main objective was simply to deceive the near mindless witchspawn.

As creatures that lacked any actual sentience, simple witchspawn like the beasts Medrauta slew incessantly were only capable of following basic orders, and the only orders they had received were to overtake the duchy as quickly as possible, overrunning the defenders with sheer numbers and undying tenacity. In other words, if an open gap in the walls already existed, the witchspawn would waste no efforts in attempting to break through the walls again, opting to flood through the existing opening instead.

With the gate left unobstructed, the monsters were funneled through the narrow entrance, all according to plan. Unfortunately for Medrauta, she was placed dead center in the formation, taking the brunt of each witchspawn wave that crashed mercilessly into the shield wall that the garrison had set up. For now, the soldiers held their positions steadfastly with Medrauta by their side but it was quickly becoming clear that their strategy wouldn’t last for long. As the waves of beasts grew larger and larger, surviving witchspawn began piling up, climbing atop one another in a bid to bypass the shield wall and assault the spearmen standing behind.

“Push!” Medrauta roared, feeling her chest vibrate with the sheer volume of her shout. Her half-plate was stained completely black along with her sword, the blackened liquid mana that she extracted from her monstrous foes accumulating quicker than it could dissipate. In response to her command, the soldiers mustered their strength and shoved with all their might, ramming their tower shields into the approaching line of witchspawn and shoving them back even if only for a moment.

“Ma’am! We’re being overrun!” One of the soldiers shouted as he spotted a witchspawn leaping straight over his head, diving into the spearmen behind. Without the ability to permanently kill the beasts, the only thing the soldiers could do was delay their advance by removing the creatures’ limbs and forcing them to regenerate before continuing their attack or holding them back using thick and heavy war spears, impaling them and preventing them from moving.

Medrauta clicked her tongue in annoyance as she whirled around for a quick look. Things were going south already as she counted over seven witchspawn currently engaging the soldiers. Had the beasts not been stupid enough to try and flood through the narrow but tall opening, the soldiers most likely would have been overwhelmed already. The only reason why they were capable of lasting so long before Medrauta and Viviane arrived was due to their purely defensive tactics which centered on holding multiple fortified positions instead of attempting to push the creatures back from the gates.

Medrauta’s endless symphony of violence paused for a moment as she weighed the risks of leaving the front lines momentarily to dispatch the witchspawn that had infiltrated the rear lines. She could return within seconds, but leaving for even a moment left the shield wall extremely vulnerable with no way to actually reduce the number of beasts bearing down upon them. While Medrauta could clear out around five or six witchspawn with a single horizontal swing of her sword, it was clear that the rate at which the monsters were arriving far outstripped the rate at which she could slay them.

As Medrauta continued to weigh her options, two spearmen fell at the claws of a large beast that took the form of a malformed horse crossed with a tiger. In a heartbeat, Medrauta had made her decision to abandon the shield wall for a moment, but before she could take off from her position, seven arrows arced through the air, sunlight glinting off their silver heads as they descended from the sky like falling stars.

“Medrauta!” Viviane called from atop the wall, not even bothering to watch her arrows hit their marks. The noblewoman dashed down from the ramparts, her golden hair trailing behind like rays of sunlight.

“Viviane! Great timing!” Medrauta shouted in reply. With the witchspawn in the rear vanquished, she was now free to focus her attention toward the stream of monsters attempting to thrust their way through the gate once more. “Did you get what you needed!?”

“Yeah!” Viviane replied as she aided Medrauta in holding the line. With her steady storm of arrows combined with Medrauta’s lightning-fast sword strokes, the witchspawn fell in droves. Those who survived bashed themselves against the shield wall like waves breaking against the shore. The soldiers buckled momentarily with each torrent of beasts but pushed back twice as fierce.

“When are they arriving!?”

“Tonight!” Viviane grinned. Despite the difficulties they were facing, their plans were slowly coming to fruition. During the night, Viviane had spent her time planning out their next move while she helped Medrauta and the soldiers seal up the walls. Although they were loath to allow a noblewoman anywhere near such menial labor, Viviane’s enhanced constitution made her stronger than the average soldier and hardier to boot. With her heightened strength and stamina, it was difficult to reject her help despite her ducal heritage.

That said, the physical exercise didn’t disrupt her thoughts at all. As the duchy’s border wall ran along the territory’s entire border, it provided what was essentially a paved road that cut straight across the outskirts of the region. Because of this, Viviane had devised a plan that would allow for the garrison to call for and receive help in a far more expedient manner than sending couriers across the hilly terrain of the duchy’s borders.

Thanks to the thickness of the walls, the top of the ramparts were constructed with such width that even four horses could walk comfortably abreast. This extra room was usually used to store munitions or other gear that defenders might need, but the walls remained largely unstocked at this time seeing as the garrison had brought everything of value to their fortified positions.

Viviane’s plan had been simple: send a mounted courier along the length of the wall to the first sizable city built next to it which happened to be Spinel, a mid-sized city in Margot fief. From there, they would be able to use the ramparts as something of an elevated highway that allowed them to transport supplies and men to the garrison far quicker than across the undulating landscape. Of course, the only issue was getting the horses on top of the walls, but that actually proved a lot simpler than expected.

Not too far from the gates was what looked like a large iron cage attached to a secure winch system. While this lift was normally used for transporting significant amounts of supplies to the top of the wall, it was strong enough to hoist a horse as well. Such systems were installed intermittently throughout the length of the wall, and there was one close to Spinel as well. Although Viviane originally thought that was simply a stroke of luck, it actually made perfect sense that a city built next to the wall would be expected to provide large quantities of supplies to defenders in times of need.

“How many knights?” Medrauta asked, pausing briefly to catch her breath as Viviane continued unloading arrow after arrow into the deluge of witchspawn that struggled against the shield wall and the spearmen behind it.

“Five tomorrow. Seven more in two days.” Viviane replied, the relief evident in her voice. “We’ll be safe to move out and assault that tower tonight.”

“Just the two of us?” Medrauta asked as she began to chop away at the swarm that had quickly built up in front of her once more. Her arm was slowly beginning to tire from the incessant numbers of witchspawn that continued to drive themselves against her blade, hopelessly but relentlessly challenging her stamina and that of the soldiers’.

“Just the two of us! The knights will remain here with the garrison and wait for morn—” Viviane stopped mid-sentence, her eyes fraught with surprise as she stared at the horde of black-red monsters that she’d just been shooting at. “H-Hold on! What’re they doing!?”

Medrauta was similarly stunned, staring at the rapidly retreating witchspawn in shock. Had these creatures been capable of thinking for themselves, the knight might’ve considered that the shield wall’s steadfast hold had demoralized or even struck fear into the beasts, but as it currently stood, there was absolutely no logical reason for their sudden retreat. After all, Medrauta, Viviane, and the whole garrison had fully expected to be fighting the monsters until nightfall.

“Wait, they’re not retreating...! They’re changing course! The witchspawn are heading south!” Medrauta realized.

“What...? But why would they...?” Viviane frowned. Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t figure out a concrete reason for the monsters’ sudden change in behavior. “Perhaps Amelia saw how fruitless this endeavor was...?”

Medrauta shook her head, lowering her sword slightly to rest. Despite the waves of witchspawn finally pausing, she hadn’t fully relaxed her guard yet. “Doubt it. Something must’ve happened down south.”

“That’s where Dame Leticia and Lady Rosaline are, right...?” Viviane asked as she hopped down from her vantage point, a set of stairs that led up to the top of the walls. “Do you think they’ll be alright?”

Medrauta observed the droves of witchspawn before responding. They were well and truly ignoring the open gate and heading southward. “I don’t know about you, but this sounds like the perfect time to bust down that supply tower so we can head south and find out.”