Akira walked out of the cramped temporary wooden building that he was sharing with several other officers.

The cold morning wind slammed into him and filled his lungs making sure that he was fully awake by trying to freeze him.

The officer's and soldiers' temporary housing was not that far away from the outer city wall and gates. This was to allow them the ability to quickly react to an enemy attack.

A small campfire was burning in front of the building, sending up unpleasant smoke. Atop the fire was a large metal pot that was spewing large white puffs of steam. As the Guard-turned-cook scooped the slop out of the large pot, the white steam shrouded the ladle as the cold temperature tried to freeze the boiling slop.

Several officers and guards stood in line near the pot waiting with their metal and wooden cups.

Shhhlop!

When Akira reached the front of the line he received the thick substance in his large wooden cup. It was a thick oatmeal with milk added to thicken it. There were even a few chunks of meat inside.

Akira quickly started to drink down the slimy breakfast while it was warm making sure to chew the rare pieces of meat.

The meals were not as healthy as one would want it to be but with the entire population of Kodria holed up inside the walls and the fact that they were cut off from the other cities and towns, they were no longer able to safely buy and transport the remaining surplus from the northern towns. So now Kodria was having to ration their food until the crisis was dealt with.

With a belly full of warm slop, Akira walked to the walls of the outer city to watch the enemy camp to see what the coming day would be like.

As he walked down the several short side streets created by the many new wooden buildings, the sounds of soldiers finishing eating and cursing at the rations they had been given could be heard everywhere.

When Akira reached the top of one of the towers he looked to the south and in the dim gray morning light he was able to see a large gathering of storm clouds on the horizon far to the south.

“Great more problems. I hope that storm doesn't reach us before the day is over,” muttered Akira.

He took a deep breath to help refresh and clear his mind that was filled with worry. The constant pressure of daily attacks was weighing heavily on him. Each day they lost many people either being killed on the battlefield or by being infected.

If this kept up they would be in serious trouble.

“BURRUUUU!”

The west fort sentries blew on the warhorn letting everyone know the enemy was once again on the move!

Akira hurried down the stairs to join the gathering army that was forming near the gates to once again meet the enemy on the snowy battlefield that was now trampled and bloody and in many places icy after being frozen the night before.

***

From his flagship, Captain Walcott watched the activity on land start to heat up as the two sides marched out to clash once again.

“Be ready to help if anything tries to cross again,” said Captain Walcott, his attention on the unfolding ground battle.

Movement near the east fort's shore took his attention away from the land battle.

“What are those Ratmen doing now?” asked Captain Walcott, as he brought up a collapsible telescope to his eye.

“Signaler!” shouted Captain Walcott after a few seconds.

“Yes, captain?”

“Quickly send the orders for all ballistas to target those Ratmen!”

“Aye captain!”

The signaller began climbing up the rope net until he reached the crow's nest and grabbed onto the signal flags that were stored in a wooden box.

He started to wave the different flags in different poses and directions to relay the orders to the many other ships on the lake. Those with their own signaler communicated back that they understood.

Seconds later several loud thuds coming from the ships with ballistas installed could be heard echoing across the calm winter lake.

Captain Walcott watched for the impacts through his collapsible telescope.

“What are you guys aiming at! Hit the large group of Ratmen, not the fort!”

“Sorry captain, but we only had one week to train on these!”

“Stop making excuses and just stop them from dragging those rafts into the river!”

The ratmen on the east shore were cowering close to the wet shoreline trying to use the wooden rafts as cover.

Captain Walcott could see several heads pop up to look over at the ships that were silent as they loaded the ballistas with the large bolts.

Movement on the top of the east fort's walls caught Captain Walcott's attention. It was a person in a black hooded robe and they looked to be shouting at the cowering ratmen while pointing towards the river.

The several hundreds of ratman reluctantly grabbed their large rafts and once again started dragging them towards the river.

A second volley of large bolts launched towards the ratmen. This time the west fort joined in and started to shoot arrows and ballista bolts at the enemy on the other shore.

“Better,” said Captain Walcott, as he watched several of the wooden rafts drop to the ground as the ratmen were pierced and knocked away by the force of the large flying bolts.

The surviving ratmen all dropped their rafts as well and started to run towards the fort...

...but their escape route was blocked by a swarm of Molten onyx infected that spilled out of the fort to stop them. The dark-hooded-robed figure once again shouted something and pointed towards the river.

The ratmen were forced to weather the hail of arrows and bolts from both the west fort and ships as they picked up the rafts and started to drag them.

When the first raft reached the water the infected that had been waiting behind the ratmen silently moved forward and boarded the raft with several of the ratmen crowded at the front of the raft to guide the raft.

“Get us closer to those rafts! Shoot them off or just shoot the rafts to destroy them!” ordered Captain Walcott.

Several other rafts reached the river, some were full of ratmen, while others had a mixture of infected and ratmen.

As Kodria's ships were moving closer to stop the rafts, a black swarm of bats flew out of the fort and headed towards them. At the center of the mass of bats was a large humanoid bat that had piercing red eyes.

“You weaklings! I will not let you attack anymore! Become infected and turn into my minions!” shouted the flying humanoid bat in a high-pitched voice.

“You idiot, why did you tell them what we were going to do?” said the humanoid bat in a flat tone.

“It does not matter! They are weak! Now is our time to get our revenge!” said the humanoid bat in a high-pitched voice.

“What is that thing?” asked the first mate as he looked high into the sky at the flying bats coming towards them.

“I have no idea... wait... could that be what infected the soldiers that one time?” asked captain Walcott.

“Signaler! Quickly send this order! Avoid being bitten by those creatures!”

“Aye captain!”

“Shoot them down!”

Arrows from each of the ship's marines started to fly into the air piercing hundreds of the swarming bats. The dead bodies rained down into the lake to sizzle as they disintegrated inside.

“You weaklings dare to throw twigs at me!” screeched the humanoid bat in a high-pitched voice as it tried to dodge the arrows.

“Ow! Now you've done it! Attack them!”

The humanoid bat along with the swarm of smaller bats started to dive down towards the nearest ship.

“Piii!”

A swift blur dived from high above the swarm and plowed through it before slamming into the humanoid bat sending it twirling out of control towards the lake.

“Who dares interrupt my most graceful dive!!” shouted the humanoid bat as he thrust out his wings and flapped them fiercely to regain control.

“Pii!” shouted Pii'per as she again swooped down and grabbed onto the humanoid bat's wing arms.

Pii'per flapped her wings to stay hovering while repeatedly whipping the head of the humanoid bat with her armored tail.

“LET ME GO!” the humanoid bat struggled fiercely to get out of Pii'pers grasp but the bone claws had bit deep into his winged arms causing him to start bleeding heavily and grow numb in his arms.

“Ha, you dumb creature! You have my blood on you! You will be my minion soon enough!”

Pii'per grew angry at begin called dumb stretched her claws out as far as she could to the side and began flapping her wings harder to start flying even higher.

“Stop! You're going to tear me apart! ...wait, why are you still flying?”

The two shot up into the air and turned into a dark speck in the dull gray winter sky.

The dark spec once again started to grow bigger as it raced towards the river below.

BAM!

The frost-covered and torn body of the humanoid bat slammed into one of the front rafts that had been trying to cross the river. All the ratmen and infected that had been on the raft were knocked into the river as the raft broke into large chunks of wood.

The bat swarm that was attacking the ships grew disorganized and they started to fly all over the place not caring about the people they had been attacking moments before.

“Keep shooting them down!” ordered captain Walcott.

Captain Walcott turned his attention to the rafts still trying to cross the river. They had not even reached the halfway point and were all in a sorry shape.

Many had no surviving ratman and only had several infected which milled about on the unsteady rafts as they floated away from the forts. Several of the infected fell off the raft into the river and started to melt.

Captain Walcott turned his attention to one of the rafts that was just entering the river and saw a chubby puffer jump onto the raft and started to puff out its purple smog.

The ratman controlling the raft jumped off and tried to swim away from the raft and back to shore but they were too slow and were lost in the purple poisoned cloud.

The other nearby rafts that were full of ratmen quickly used all their might to move away from the infected no longer caring about getting across the river.

Another volley of fire arrows from the west fort rained down on the escaping rafts. Several of them caught on fire and engulfed the ratmen roasting them alive.

The river battle only lasted for another ten minutes ending when Pii'per helped by sinking the remaining rafts with medium-sized boulders.