*** Chapter Fourteen Day 16 Santos - Solfrid ***

“Ha!” The line of three warriors pushed as one knocking back the horde a few paces, before they opened up the line and cut down as many of the creatures as they could before they had to reclose the line.

The horde had come in strength this night, it had been nearly a fortnight since the last time they had been forced to fight so hard. After the fighting had died down the warriors had set up some guards and kept a force ready to fight at any time. Most nights they would only have to face a couple dozen of the creatures, a drastically reduced number from before, but tonight was different. The horde had rushed at them with a considerable size, not as much like in the first days, but the horde only kept on growing. They were slowly being overwhelmed, though no defensive line had been broken yet.

Solfrid and Santos were fighting side by side, they had another warrior at their flank aiding them to keep their hold on one of the entrances to the encampment.

“Tired?” Solfrid asked, as they braced the formation, with a wide grin on her face.

“Not as much as you,” Santos replied. He had grown used to her and her character. His blade flashed out and sliced the arm of one of the creatures that aimed to take grasp of her leg. “Getting careless?”

“I was testing you,” she said, burying her sword in the shoulder cavity piercing through several of its internal organs. She kicked its dying body away and continued her killing spree.

“Time to switch out lads,” Brynjar said, as he and two other young warriors stepped forward.

The three that formed the front line slowly stepped backwards killing the creatures that approached as they went, they did not commit to the kill as the purpose for the moment was retreat. Instead, those that moved forward killed the wounded as they slowly recreated the front line until those retreating could fully pull away.

Immediately, younger children started helping them strip and disarm, the entire encampment had at least two hundred people, a quarter of them were warriors. Once they stripped and disarmed they drank ale and rested on the ground, while the children cleaned their leather armor of the blood and gore as well as resharpened their blades. Santos was no stranger to the taste of alcohol, so he wasn’t bothered that it was the common drink served to the warriors during the night battles.

Santos downed the ale, while he was no stranger to the taste, it was far too bitter for his taste so he’d rather chug it in one go.

“Slow down,” Solfrid sighed, after a long haul of her own mug. “You’ll be drunk before morning comes.”

“Better drunk than sober for these nights,” Santos grimaced. He wasn’t used to the fighting, and though it was not his first time doing so, this night was relentless.

A child quickly rushed over to take Santos’ mug and refilled it, this one he took in sips.

“Well don’t get too drunk,” she warned. “You still need a somewhat clear mind to fight well.”

“This is just a bloodbath,” he replied, motioning to the field before them. It was full of dead pale bodies that they would be burning in the morning. It was the same routine and in the last days there were fewer injuries and no deaths, it was just a one sided mindless massacre of rabid creatures.

“I heard that they ate the ones they would take during the first days we arrived here,” she said. “A few who went hunting found fingers and other body parts strewn around. I would rather us kill them than die that way.”

“It can’t be helped then,” he nodded, taking a longer swing of his mug. “Better them than us.”

A few moments passed and the children returned with cleaned armor that they helped strap onto the three warriors. Their swords and shields were left nearby and the warriors were allowed to continue resting until it was their time to take over the front line again.

Fwooooo….

A horn blared.

“What is that?” Santos asked, looking around alert.

“They have broken through somewhere!” Solfrid replied, rushing towards her shield and sword. Santos quickly went for his own and started to follow her as they both searched to find the breach.

It didn’t take much effort to spot the breach, it was the eastern gate, it was usually the most heavily attacked and most defended of the entrances. Some beast, much akin to the pale beasts, but more than three times the size and mass of the smaller creatures, had plowed through. It had scattered the warriors there as if they were leaves and started killing one after the other, some he would toss over the defenses so that its kin would tear them apart.

They had been assigned to the southernmost entrance and could not join the battle in time to help keep the rushing horde from flooding in. With the entrance no longer protected dozens of the creatures flooded in, they were easy to manage at choke points, but now out in the open several of them could now overwhelm each warrior at a time destroying any chance of restoring the defenses there.

More horns began to sound.

“What does that mean?” Santos asked her. She froze in place and for a moment she seemed to have a dazed look.

“Its...its retreat,” she replied, her eyes watering. “We are abandoning the encampment…”

Abandoning? Santos’ own mind could hardly believe what she was saying. It was barely past midnight, the peak hour of fighting, abandoning the encampment was synonymous with death. His eyes went back to the breach, the warrior chief was facing the creature and for a moment some hope lit within him that they could reform the line with enough warriors, but the creature was ferocious.

The chief stood his ground and kept the monster at bay as other warriors formed a half circle attempting to contain the line, but they were retreating, it was clear that they were only buying time. His eyes shifted to the north entrance, it was usually attacked the lightest, there the elderly shepherded the young and wounded out of the encampment.

The encampment used the natural rocky geography and pointed defenses to keep the creatures from breaching anywhere else except through the entrances.

“Go!” a voice from behind them shouted, it was Brynjar. “We will hold here, go and protect those who are retreating!”

Solfrid looked towards her master and back towards her chief that continued to fight fiercely against the grotesque monstrosity. She was like a deer caught in headlights.

Santos could tell it was a losing battle.

“Come!” he grabbed her by the shoulder and pushed her to the west entrance. “We have to protect the children from the monsters still lurking in the west!”

She moved, but there was no spirit in her steps.

They joined the retreating group, there were still a number of pale beasts on that side, though as they started to cut through and retreat it was clear that most of the monsters were still focused on the encampment.

The horror of retreating is that there is no way to defend, with the lines of defense crumbled, only the strong and quick would survive. As they ran they watched as the elderly were overwhelmed, as women were pinned and killed as their children would fall behind or could not keep to their feet among the difficult terrain and they would be forced to defend their children or watch them die.

“We have to survive!” Santos said, speaking to himself. The girl had given up, her spirit breaking with every scream of a child.

“Over here!” A voice shouted, someone had lit torches and had set fire to a dead tree. He stood in front of a cave.

Several people ran towards him rushing into the potential safety of the cave, with the creatures bottle necked several of the older warriors could hold the line until morning. Santos dragged the girl there, but as they got closer he heard the sudden screams of those who entered the cave, the creatures came pouring out from within.

This effectively trapped them, with the creatures behind them and with the creatures before them as well as the geography that surrounded them, there was no direction they could escape into. Seeing no way out he dragged the girl over towards the burning tree before they could be seen, the things actively avoided fire, this was their only chance.

As he got close he noticed a clay jar shattered across the tree and the fire appeared splashed on, he needed it to keep going so he started tossing into the fire the driest deadest things his hands could get a hold off. The fire began to burn brightly and fill the surrounding area.

He stayed so close to the fire that he felt the heat nearly overwhelming his skin, the girl so numb did not move away from wherever he placed her. Expecting death at any moment, Santos continued to feed the fire and forced it to grow until it enveloped a tree the trunk of the dead tree crossed over. It was like a pyre.

Over the course of the night several other survivors began to appear and gathered around the fire helping bring in branches and whatever else they could find to fuel the fire. Once the creatures got brave and started circling the burning tree, it became a war of many small battles as those who could fight would surge out and cut down the creatures while those who could not fight would rush to gather resources.

Over the course of the night Solfrid regained her spirit defending the many children that had managed to survive and gather around the fire. She became ferociously overprotective of them recklessly entering the fray whenever a child was in danger. Santos spent most of the night keeping her from killing herself.

Living was the only thought in his mind.