Chapter: First Wave

Erik reached the wall, with two large jumps he was at the top, looking out over the layered defenses and the first wave, the boars had grown from a mere fifty to some two hundred, wolves were pouring out from the forest, smelling the blood from the boars, the half starved beasts were sent into a frenzy.

Alva Village had spent their time thinning out the numbers of boars. It was one of the reasons that they had been able to quickly raise their level, it had also led to the wolves and other beasts finding that they didn’t have enough food to eat.

Erik looked over the wall at the incoming boars, there wasn’t anything he could do but watch, they were out of crossbow range at this point.

Instead of focusing on the boars that had appeared, he looked into the forest and looked to see if there were anymore boars coming out of the trees.

Storbon and Yao Meng ran over to Erik, their crossbows ready.

Erik glanced over at them and then continued to look over the battlefield.

“What do you want us to do sir?” Storbon asked, the two of them saluting.

“No need to salute now that the battle has started, if the enemy saw that then they would look to kill me to screw up our chain of command,” Erik said in a calm voice as he studied how the boars were running into the first layer of defenses, the traps.

They ran forward blindly, stepping on top of the flimsy coverings and dropping into the spike filled pit, squeals came from the pits as the wolves behind them weren’t able to stop themselves and fell in as well.

“Yes sir,” Storbon said.

“Report to the sergeants of the archery groups, make sure that they know the situation. I want to have them spaced out along the wall and make sure that they keep an eye out for any other breaks in the treeline,” Erik said.

“Sir!” Storbon and Yao Meng said at the same time, stopping themselves from saluting at the last minute before they turned on their heels and rushed off to meet the archery groups that were moving up to the wall.

Erik contacted Rugrat.

“How are things looking from up there?”

“I’ve got clear sight all around the village, we’ve got waves coming in from several different directions, if north was the twelve o’clock we’ve got groups coming in from the five till 8 movement at the one to two, I’ve pushed out the first group of archers, and held back eight groups. I’ve got the cooks making up food, they’ll feed the people that are holding in the village square, as we rotate people out we can get them fed,” Rugrat said.

“Sounds good to me, I…” Erik didnt’ get out his next word as there was a howl from within the forest, a massive wolf walked out of the trees, around him were all different kinds of elites, their eyes were on the boars but they showed greater intelligence than the first group that had rushed forward.

The other wolves all seemed to pause what they were doing, looking to the wolf king for permission.

“That’s one ugly damn mutt,” Erik said.

“I don’t know, I’m a dog guy,” Rugrat said.

“You got it sighted?” Erik asked.

“Yup, ready to go when you need it,” Rugrat confirmed.

“Hold off, we’ll bleed them a bit, time that our people got some experience with holding the walls,” Erik said.

“Got it, I’ll keep my eyes peeled for any other groups.”

The wolf king let out a roar, the forest seemed to boil as squeals filled the air, boars rushed out of the tree line as wolves rushed out, the true first wave had begun.

Erik could feel the nervousness of everyone on the wall.

“Hold your fire,” he said, his calm voice cut through the air as people grit their weapons tighter. “Breathe, let them come to us, no sense in shooting at them before they get into range.”

The sharpshooters and sergeants of the different archer groups looked over their people.

The wolves had made it through the first line of defenses in places, the second defenses were meant to injure and push the beasts into killing corridors.

They got packed together, running straight towards the village’s walls.

Like fish in a barrel.

“Prepare to fire!” Erik yelled out.

Everyone checked their weapons and sighted their targets the sergeants picking out areas for them to aim at.

The beasts threw one another off, cutting themselves on the spiked defenses.

Erik saw the beasts come into range.

“Fire!” He yelled, the archers fired, raining down arrows on the beasts.

The archers started to reload as the arrows came down like a rain on top of the beasts. They were cut down, some of the archers were stunned with how effective their shots had been.

“Do you think we have all morning reload!” Sergeants yelled out instructions to their people, motivating them and pushing them to be faster.

“Fire in groups, sergeants you have fire control!” Erik ordered as he fired on a beast, he saw it crumpled under the powerful arrow and loaded another arrow with quick precise actions, looking up and over the wall.

There looks to be a lot of them but we’ve got plenty of people and crossbows. As long as we have ammunition and there’s not a big jump in numbers then we should be able to bleed them white.

Erik quickly looked over the situation as he loaded an arrow, sighted a wolf and fired.

It crumpled as Erik reloaded once again.

Now that they were into the rhythm of things, death came quickly for these beasts.

“We’ve got incoming at the ten o’clock,” Rugrat’s voice sounded in Erik’s ear. “Just wolves, it looks like the wolf king is directing them, they’re trying to come in quietly.”

Erik frowned, this showed that the beast horde had some tactics, dealing with beasts was one thing, dealing with smart beasts was another thing totally.

“Archers will bring them under fire as soon as they get into range.”

“Got it,” Erik said.

Across the battlefield arrows continued to fall like a black rain on top of the beasts, whittling down their numbers. More were coming out of the forests, seemingly endless as they pushed around the areas they’d made progress, finding new routes to the walls.

So it went on for twenty minutes, the wolf king seemed to be annoyed as it pawed the ground and let out another howl.

The wolves seemed to resist for a second before they began turning back.

“Take the wolf king,” Erik said.

“On it,” Rugrat said.

Erik heard the familiar crack of a rifle, others looked around in shock as the wolf king was hit in the chest, dropping to the ground in a pool of blood.

The other wolves all looked around in alarm, they didn’t know what had happened, but they seemed to realize that the noise had come from the village.

Their retreat was cancelled as the elites rushed forwards as well, the wolves charged forwards again.

“Bring up three of the archer groups, have them on the Five to six o’clock wall.” Erik ordered Blaze who was still in the village square.

“On their way!” Blaze said.

The village wasn’t all that big and the archers quickly crossed the distance. The archers on the wall were pressured but with the reinforcements they once again pushed the wolves back.

“Sharpshooters target the elites,” Erik ordered.

Armed with the advanced crossbows and with their higher marksman skill, the sharpshooters quickly brought down a large number of elites.

They were the fastest and strongest, without them the wolves were being torn apart.

After ten minutes the wolves broke and started fleeing, seeing the losses even if they were feeling the loss of their wolf king, they weren’t willing to just throw all of their lives away.

The crossbows slowed their rate of fire as the wolves got out of range, finally the sergeants started to stop them from shooting.

Jasper’s people came around with arrows and food.

People reloaded and ate their meals, their hands still shaking, the peaceful morning was broken, the beast horde had arrived.

The pits were opened with many beasts falling into them, the killing corridors that had been created with different obstacles were filled with bodies.

They hadn’t made it to the third layer of defenses.

We need to patch the hole in our defenses to the West.

“Have the heavy infantry prepare to move out and clear the battlefield,” Erik ordered Blaze.

“Will move two groups to the southern gate with another moving to the Eastern,” Blaze replied.

“See to it,” Erik wasn’t jealous of the men doing the task as they’d need to pull down the wolf carcasses so that they wouldn’t affect the defenses and make it easier for those that attacked later.

Erik felt like there were dozens of eyes watching him from the forest. Erik looked back, tapping his finger on the side of the crossbow.

A screen appeared in Erik’s vision.

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Quest Updated: Beast Mountain Trial

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Requirements:

Defeat the beast horde (4/6 Waves remaining)

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Rewards:

Dependent upon results

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“It’s just started,” Erik muttered.