Griff ripped his knife from the throat of a beast, holding its still-gnashing teeth away from his face as it slowly began to die. With a heave he shoved it back over the wall, sheathing his knife in the same fluid motion then hefting his greatsword once again. He brought it down over the neck of a wolf that had breached the line, earning shouts of thanks from the soldiers who had been trying desperately to hold the beast off at spearpoint.

In his brief moment of reprieve, he spared a glance around the walls. Things did not look good, he noted grimly. Soldiers, though still numbering in the hundreds, were dying by the dozens, overwhelmed by the horde. Dragged, kicking and screaming, from the walls or killed where they stood by quills and beasts that came over them. These were soldiers trained to battle other soldiers, not monsters, especially not the Blight.

Even the few Ordained among their ranks weren’t faring much better. They were too weak, numb and exhausted from their desperate race to the keep.

He glanced towards the new gate they were guarding. The lumbering beast that had destroyed the outer gate had nearly reached them, marching slowly without care for the crossbow bolts that pelted its hide. The ballistae bolts at least seemed to hurt it, and every hit was rewarded with a rumbling groan of pain from the beast, yet never more than that.

It was likely more dangerous even than the wyvern, in that sense. They had few weapons that could even harm the beast.

A wolf lunged at him from the side, and he thrust his blade towards it abruptly. His greatsword went down its throat, sinking to the hilt as the wolf gargled and snarled in pain, struggling in its death throes. He planted his boot on its jaw, twisting his blade before ripping it back out again. The body twitched on the ground for a moment, then went still.

Next to him, a team of soldiers loaded their ballista. The bolt was half the height of a man, with a triangular metal tip that flared out into wicked barbs, designed to hook inside a creature and not come out.

“So they have beast-slaying bolts after all,” Griff muttered to himself. Good, they would need them.

“You,” Griff called out to a young soldier on the ballista, catching all of their attention.

“M-me?” The man responded.

“Stop aiming for the shoulder,” Griff said firmly. “This isn’t a bow, and you aren’t hunting deer. Blighted skin and flesh is hard to puncture, and the beast is too large. You’ll never reach the lungs or heart on something like that.”

The ballista crew looked back at the lumbering bear-beast, expressions heavy. It was nearly to the inner gate. The scraping of claws from behind him alerted Griff to the arrival of a new group of monsters climbing atop the wall.

“Aim for the eyes, if you can,” Griff commanded. “The throat, if that is too much to ask.”

One of the soldiers, a middle aged man with a thick grey beard, sneered and opened his mouth to say something, then went silent. He was staring intently at Griff, even as the young man beside him began aiming the ballista towards the bear-beast's head.

“You… you’re that bloke, aren’t ya?” The older man said, voice gravelly and low.

“I’m naught but an Ordained, soldier,” Griff responded. “Do well to remember that.”

Then Griff spun in place, hacking down the wolf that lunged at his previously exposed back. His blade split through the skull like a cleaver, and he wrenched it free using the beast’s own momentum, letting the body fall off the ramparts and down into the courtyard.

“The beasts are fast and strong,” Griff called out, knowing the soldiers behind were listening. “But they are still beasts. Driven by instinct, not training nor skill. They are predictable. Use that.”

Without another glance behind him he strode back into the fray, cutting down beasts that had gained a footing on the wall. The soldiers were thinning dramatically in numbers, yet now it was clear the Blight was as well.

The end of the horde was in sight. A glance at the outer wall showed the rear of the swarm, behind which no new beasts were arriving. Unfortunately, neither were any reinforcements of their own arriving this time. Griff tightened his grip on his greatsword.

Now it was a battle of attrition. Which would outlast the other, them, or the Blight? He scanned the walls, taking stock of what they had left, even as he cut down beasts as quickly as his blade could do so. It took a moment, but by his estimation… it wasn’t impossible.

There were just two problems.

“Grroooaah!” The ground shook with the roar of pain from the bear-beast, and Griff knew the ballista had found its mark. As tough as beast flesh could become, the eyes were always vulnerable. Still, the rumbling steps of the beast did not stop, if anything, they began to pick up pace. Griff braced himself for what he knew was coming.

The ground shook as if in an earthquake, rattling the stones of the wall worryingly. The faces of soldiers around him went white, and the shrieking howls of the beasts beyond the walls turned excited. Like the braying laugh of a hyena, the screams of the Blighted beasts seemed almost mocking.

“Oil! Pour it now, spare nothing!” Aubrey’s voice broke the air. Griff caught sight of the soldiers directly over the gate as they tended a roaring flame under a great, black pot. A man and a woman in matching armour on either side grabbed the pots handles, working together to tip the massive container over. A bubbling, steaming black liquid poured out, closer to tar in thickness than most oils.

It splashed over the back and neck of the beast, and the resulting cry from the beast could have rivalled a dragon.

“Grrrooooaaaahh!”

The smell of singed fur, hot tar and burning flesh cut through under the musky scent of rain and earth, and the metallic tang of blood.

“More oil! Refill the pot!” Aubrey shouted, right before the wall shook again as the great beast’s horned head slammed into the gate. The resulting shriek of metal against horn was painful to the ear.

“Damnit, kid, get another bolt ready! Quit your gaping!” The middle aged soldier yelled, and the younger man shook himself out of his stupor, lugging another heavy bolt up towards the ballista. Griff turned his attention back to the wall, knowing well that there was little he could do to help them anymore.

Now, he thought darkly. That’s one problem being dealt with. But where’s the other?

He made to scan the sky, but needn’t have bothered. For right in that instant, the shadow of death flew over him, and the crashing sound of cracking wood was joined by the screams of men. Griff spun about, but it was far too late.

The ballista lay in ruins, crushed under the talons of the black scaled wyvern that had silently dropped from the sky. Under one clawed wing lay the corpse of a red headed soldier, and in a single motion the wyvern threw two more men over the wall with its other wing. They screamed as they flew through the air, the bodies of the monsters below them breaking their fall. The screams got worse after they landed.

From the wyvern’s mouth protruded the broken, limp arm of the young soldier who’d been aiming the ballista. It crunched down upon the body, blood pouring from its mouth and pooling on the ground, carried away by the rain to stain the earth below.

The wyvern swallowed the young man whole, then reared its serpentine head back and shrieked.

“Kkrrrruoooah!”

The beasts below joined in the war cry, growing louder by the second. They reached a fever pitch, the dark, excited shrieks of bloodlust filling the air.

Griff ran towards the wyvern, knowing before he did so that he was too far to reach. With a single flap of its great wings the wyvern took to the air, out of reach of his blade long before he could take a strike. He watched it ascend from right next to the broken ballista, his mouth a grim line.

A hand grabbed him by the cuff of his pant leg, drawing his attention down. There on the ground, soaked through with blood, was the middle aged soldier from before.

“Y-yo-u, p-please,” the man said, gargling and spitting up blood. His chest was crushed and his left arm had been severed at the bicep, thick red pouring from seemingly every part of him. His eyes were wide and white, struggling to focus on Griff. “Pl-please… save u-us… l-last of th-the… wyrmsl-ayers...”

Then, the man stopped struggling. His body went limp, eyes staring up unseeing at the dark sky above.

Griff turned his attention skyward as well, watching as the dark shape of the wyvern disappeared into the clouds. It would return, and soon as well. He knew that with certainty.

The question was only when, and where.

Under his feet the wall shook again as the great beast rammed its horns into the gate once more. The shearing, grating sound of the metal gate giving in met his ears, and he knew the wyvern would have to wait. Beasts poured through the suddenly open gate as soldiers panicked on all sides. The lumbering steps of the great beast came through after, and it reared its ugly head inside the courtyard in triumph.

“Grrrooaaah!” It roared, shaking the very chest of every person in the keep. The fur on much of its back had been partially melted, patches of dark, blotchy, burned skin poking through where the oil spill had torched it away. A ballista bolt had punctured its eyelid, not striking the eye itself but still impeding its vision.

The soldiers unfortunate enough to be down in the courtyard at the time were instantly overrun by the horde, even before the great beast had fully emerged through the gate. From atop the walls more soldiers began pouring down the stairs, trying to rescue and support those still below. Griff growled under his breath.

If there was a third wall to fall back to, it could buy them time. But there was none, only the keep’s tower remaining, where the servants and villagers were hiding. As it was, their only option left was a melee, using the height of the walls to their advantage. And if the lumbering beast reached the keep, or attacked the walls themselves…

Griff tightened his grip on his greatsword, a low growl escaping his throat, not much different than a beast’s. A red, swelling anger surged up just beneath the surface, and his lip curled up in a dangerous snarl.

It was an old feeling, one he hadn’t experienced in years. Yet, like an old friend, he embraced it.

He ran towards the gate, just as the colossal beast was fully entering the courtyard. In a single, powerful motion he bound off the edge of the wall, black cloak flying out behind him. He landed atop the beast sword first, plunging with all of his weight into its back, sinking the massive sword in to the hilt.

“Grrrrroooaaaahhh!” The beast roared, shaking erratically to throw him off. He held onto the hilt of his sword, using the beast’s own shaking to pry his sword back and forth, widening the wound with every moment. He was already slick with a foul, violet-tinged blood that spewed from the wound with every shake.

When the beast had stopped shaking he withdrew his sword, rising carefully to his feet atop its back. He was far at the back end, just over the hind legs. He wouldn’t be able to land a decisive strike from here, not in time at least.

He would need to get to somewhere more vital. Somewhere unreachable from the ground. His dark eyes burned like coals, his face the visage of a monster in its own right. Behind him, he heard the cries of men dying as the wyvern dropped from the sky, crushing another ballista and its crew. The panicked shouts of Lord Aubrey reached him next, though it had all blurred into the background now. His mind was filled with only one thing.

Griff began to run towards the beast’s head. He would need to finish this quickly.