THE WANING SUN was the only light in an otherwise dark day of death. The mists over the field of carnage gathered, obscuring the corpses, gathering the souls lost in the day's skirmish.

Over the stretches of trampled grasses and blood, the remnants of powerful mecha and the lifeless corpses of hundreds of men and women were strewn like so many broken branches from a tree. Where hours earlier the screams of battle and rage had echoed across the plain, now only the occasional soft whimpering plea or ragged draw of breath rose.

These unlucky survivors cursed their foul luck. Death would have far more desirable than the predicament in which they now found themselves. Those with the willpower to take their own lives, did so without regret. And those without, trembled in the growing dark, afraid to make a sound lest they draw the attentions of the monstrosities that dwelled in the deep forests and mountains around them.

Already the sounds of slathering jaws and greedy gobbling along the outermost skirts of the battlefield could be heard. The rending of flesh by means of sharp teeth the length of a man's hand, and the cracking of bones in great jaws caused many an otherwise brave warrior to begin silently sobbing as they prayed for daylight to return and a quick, painless death in equal measures.

For Kensuke, the fading embers of the sun's light only served to increase the wild, panicked thumping of his heart as he pushed his legs to propel himself across the open stretch of battlefield to the awaiting hovercart. With hurried each step, he feared that the battlefield blood and gore would coalesce and stretch up from below to enfold him in a great maw, swallowing him whole.

"Shouldn't be out here!" he hissed over and over under his breath, following it up with a string of curses.

"Hurry, damn you!" From his position in the driver's seat, Riki called to his friends and fellow ashigaru footsoldiers Kensuke and Den.

"We are!" growled Kensuke, afraid that his traitorously loud heart had already betrayed their position.

"Shut up, the both of you. Idiots!" cried Den. "You'll attract muties!"

The three men were part of a work detail of Tachiyama Clan ashigaru assigned cleanup and gathering after it had been confirmed that the Sasagawa Clan, the samurai family behind the murderous atrocity of the day, had retreated in the face of Tachiyama-allied reinforcements from a city-fortress further northeast.

As if to answer Den's earlier statement, a mid-distant roar pierced the dark, followed by the galloping of heavy legs.

"Oh, fonk..." Kensuke muttered softly, all but dropping the loaded stretcher full of parts, weapons, and other items he and Den were carrying.

Den stumbled. "Wait, wait..." and dropped to a knee, holding the load nearly level with his head in a wavering semblance of balance to keep the load from spilling.

"Damnit, Den..." Kensuke forced the words through his teeth.

The footfalls stopped along with their own, and Kensuke's butt cheeks involuntarily clenched. He would have preferred the monster kept charging. At least then he would know where it was.

For the briefest moment, both men held their breath, trying to ascertain the distance and position of the monster. The dark and the mists played tricks, giving them nothing to work with though.

Den stood ever so slowly, took a quiet breath, and nodded apologies to Kensuke.

Kensuke couldn't believe it, but he was suddenly fighting the urge to laugh at his friend. Bonehead, he mouthed; just barely visible in the dark between them. Den smiled. The only way they would survive this moment was to put aside the fear.

Nodding to each other, they started out again, picking up the pace, trying desperately not to spill the items they had so painstakingly gathered. They really should have returned to the safety of the castle and its enclosed environs earlier, but it was too late to cry about that now. They would either make it back, or they wouldn't. But their deaths would create its own set of problems outside of the obvious.

The castle was in desperate need of anything that could be scavenged. Nothing on the field could be wasted, and as all their wounded had been evacuated, that left only salvage and the enemy, the latter of which the trio dutifully dispatched when found. Now the monsters would take care of the rest.

The moment they started running, the gronking returned, and footfalls closed on their position.

Kensuke spoke aloud to himself. "Almost there, Kensuke. Don't lose your nerve now."

The hovercart was less than five meters away, Riki sitting atop it, urging them on, when the beast plowed into the stretcher of items, tossing everything into the air like defensive chaff.

A flat, armored thing like a millipede, the monster ignored the two men and dove straight through the cloud of parts and swept over Riki with such speed that it was gone into the dark once more before anyone realized it.

"Riki!" Den yelled in concern, but the man, despite shaking from the close call, was fine.

Eyes wide in surprise, Riki patted himself down to make sure everything was intact, and then burst into the biggest smile of relief. "Ha!"

Kensuke was glad his friend never saw the monster rear out of the darkness behind him and bite the young man's head off before dragging the convulsing corpse away to be consumed.

Another man in the group screamed for blood, grabbed his weapon and made to charge out after Riki's killer only to be mobbed by several other men who had to physically hold him down. Several punches and a kick were dealt to the man before he came to his senses. Mad as they all were, it was a madder world. Revenge did not console the dead.

A putrid stench stronger than the corpses littering the field boldly encroached upon the hovercarts. It was a heady smell that every living human was immediately familiar with. A sickly aroma that heralded only one thing: monsters.

The ashigaru had been hopeful the battlefield corpses would keep the unnatural bastards at bay long enough for them to make it back to safety. But the prayers they had left with their ancestors before setting out had gone unheeded. The men and women of the ashigaru unit formed a ring. It was too late to return to the shelter of the castle now. Now, they fought it out or the monsters feasted.

Kensuke scrambled to join the circle, grabbing a weapon from the unit-shared stockpile. On his hip, he wore a sword, but he wasn't especially proficient with it. Nor was the weapon a particularly good one. Covered in small rust patches and nicked in several places, he was hoping to be able to score something from the battlefield. Usually the samurai and the upper echelons got first pick of weapons and parts from any salvage, so Kensuke had been hoping to simply swap out his sword when no one was looking. The chance hadn't arisen though, and so he was still stuck with his old one. If he dared to swap out now, it would be likely someone would see and report him. That would be the end of him.

He grabbed a laser matchlock. Part rifle, part cannon, it fired unstable spheres of energy that ripped apart anything in their path. They were great ranged weapons, unfortunately, that range varied more often than not, and the spheres were just as likely to unleash their power the moment they were formed in the matchlock body vaporizing the gun, the person holding it, and quite possibly the immediate vicinity.

But it was better than nothing. Kensuke would rather go down by the weapon in his own hand than in some fonking monster's jaws.

His fists tightened. Poor Riki. He'd be sure to take out a few for his friend before the hellish beasts took him.

Dropping his battlevisor, he peered out into the murk. The visors weren't enhanced with nightvision optics, but the targeting computer would outline assailants and convey the number of combatants on the field once within a certain range. Before that, they would be indistinct blue blobs, and for all the wearer knew, they could be enemy soldiers on approach, or a tree. For the time being, Kensuke's vision was clear.

A grunt and a warcry went up several soldiers to his left as the first wave of monsters hit the circled warriors, yet Kensuke dared not look to see how the battle fared. Life was measured in minutes on the battlefield, seconds if one wasn't watching where one was supposed to be. If Kensuke dared to even peek around for the briefest of moments, he became the weakest link in the chain of defense that protected all their lives. He stared forward, willing his eyes to see even the slightest of movement. Tenacity paid off as he caught sight of two goblinesque creatures rushing his position from several meters out. His skin crawled as the two sickly creatures cackled, clacking their teeth together in a rapid bloodlust crescendo. He wasted no time in calculating a firing solution and shot from the hip. An orange ball of crackling energy spat out of the weapon, striking the ground just as the two beasts reached the same stretch of land, vaporizing everything within a two-meter diameter.

The voices of the men and women of the ashigaru unit were a cacophony of battle and blood now. Not a single warrior wasn't engaged. To Kensuke's immediate right Den fought off a three-headed slitherwolf with the thick, long body of a snake and the heads of demon dogs. He'd already lopped off one head, and had scored a number of body blows, but it was no easy task. Kensuke could hear his friend's labored breathing. He considered stepping in, but knew he shouldn't. Den would be fine. He had to be. Or the chain of defense would be broken.

Another soldier didn't see it that way, and moved to help Den. Den body-checked the man, cursing at him, all the while maintaining eye contact with the slitherwolf. Less appreciative, the other man started berating Den but was cut off as the long, sticky, fat tongue of a gig-toad wrapped itself around his neck. There was a quick, strangled sound as his larynx and trachea were crushed and his eyes popped out of his head. Moments later he was abducted into the darkness as if he had never existed – no doubt swallowed whole by the amphibious monster.

Kensuke fired several more shots into the darkness each time he perceived movement. The results were far more ambiguous than his earlier shot, but he faced no more opponents, and his fellow ashigaru were able to double up on the remaining monsters, backing and tightening the circle to maintain the chain of defense.

Though the number of horrors on the battlefield still outnumbered the ashigaru hopelessly, the battle was winding down. The hellspawn had had their fill of death, choosing to munch on their dead comrades rather than have another munching on them.

The unit had lost a total of four soldiers, including Riki and the man who had broken the chain when he had tried to assist Den. It hadn't been wrong to try and assist Den, it had simply been a mistimed gesture. If the man had waited until the footsoldiers doubled up due to a thinning of the creatures' numbers, Den surely would have accepted the help. There are two types of footsoldiers on the battlefield – those who hold the line, and the dead.