It took them another day to prepare for the road.
They assigned new people in defense groups, and healed heavily injured, so they at least could move themselves. Those who was unable to walk, and who was taken by the Spell, soldiers were already placing in the trucks. Most of the time they spent fixing as many vehicles and kinetic weapons as they could and calculating how much supplies and ammo they might be able to squeeze in the transport.
Which was not a lot, considering that even for this amount, people would be sitting on each other's heads. At least they managed to salvage two trucks, civilians came on, which were used exactly for food storage purposes. So even if they wouldn't get into the Siege Capital, convoy won't starve for couple days.
Question with ammunition was easier, as they decided to clip it mostly on vehicles' roofs and sides. Except explosive types, obviously, they learnt their lessons. So now, trucks, armored PTVs, and APCs looked like highly technological mules.
Repaired and loaded vehicles were standing in clean rows and people should have been seated soon. They were almost ready, people started exiting the buildings following to designated cars, road was cleared, and route chosen. Only half an hour, and they would have hit the road.
If it weren't for the last parting gift, this damned mountain pit presented them with.
Brail just knocked down another one of these monstrous bats, which had been circling around the town for the past several days periodically, and aimed at the next. With a sudden meow, came the sense of danger from his companion, and explorer refocused his sight behind the creature, trying to discern anything in the blocked by a dense snowfall sky.
Squinting, he saw a dot. Black dot, between countless white flakes. Then another one showed from behind the snow. And then more. They were far, but the direction, swarm was flying in, was crystal clear.
'No. No, no, no…'
Slowly lowering the bow, he pressed on the bracelet.
"Lith, is Tei with you?"
"Yes, why?"
"Sky. Northeast. Tell him to raise the alarm."
***
Each minute of what came next was a pure chaos.
Couple days ago, Samara told him, that Master Sunless was able to control the chaos of the battle, and apparently this skill was required to survive what Central Antarctica was throwing at him. And what this Nightmare was throwing at Brail.
Unfortunately, even though he took fearless Master's place, such an ability was not the part of explorer's repertoire. So chaos was both created and controlled by the enemy.
In several minutes, Devouring Cloud covered almost the entire visible sky. Creatures was descending on the town in big waves, first like the swarm of locusts, then diving down as giant tentacles, with cooperation of a single merciless entity.
Defenders opened fire even before it happened, without sparing bullets. After all they had literal tons of ammunition, gathered during the days of staying here. Though, no matter how many shells they launched in the air it seemed like not enough.
Batlike leeches were dropping down constantly, but many were rising to attack again. Without a precise hit, explosion, or awakened weapons, even weak Nightmare Creatures were hard to kill. But no matter how much of them were dying, the Cloud wasn't diminishing in size. And was striking back.
They quickly decided what to do after the deflection of the first massive attack. All civilians before the departure were gathered in several administrative buildings, so defenders shoved them back inside, and created a protective dome, circling survived MWPs and APCs around them and placing Awakened on the roofs.
For a while it was working perfectly.
Then, as another flying tentacle descended on the human formation and was repelled, something changed. Apparently, leader of abominable fleet decided to switch tactics, and movements of the swarm became more precise. Creatures stopped randomly diving or coming in large flocks and tried to bite them down slowly and carefully.
The main mass of batlike monsters took a certain altitude and started sending down small packs. Each time, from twenty to thirty monsters were descending and targeting specific spots in human formations.
Such mini raids were mostly repelled quite easily, but for an army consisting of the myriad of winged leeches, such numbers were insignificant. And even if only few of these attacks were successful, each one wearied defenders both physically and mentally. People were dying slowly, but nevertheless, with each passing hour more and more lives were lost, and that was bringing Nightmare Creatures' closer to the victory.
The only time they sent significantly bigger part of the swarm down, was when group of desperate civilians took one of their trucks and tried to slip away, hoping that horde will not pay them any attention. As soon as poor bastards drove on the mountain road, another tentacle descended, tearing apart the transport and all the passengers inside in mere seconds.
From this point it was clear that driving in the open was a bad idea. Armored carriers, war platforms, and awakened probably would be able to fight back, but on the road, they will expose civilians to even greater danger and won't be able to protect them as efficiently.
Here, on the other hand, they had much better defensive positions, and a huge stock of ammunition. So, the only way out for them was to somehow survive the assault and scare Devouring Cloud away. It would be much better to grind the swarm down, but no one had any false hopes.
After almost fifteen hours of relentless defense, several hundreds, if not thousands, dead creatures, and indefined amount of spent ammo, Brail discerned new patterns in their tactics. Most of the defenders did see regularities, and that was the reason why they all were not dead yet, but Ascended noticed what others didn't.
'Up until now the battle was bearable, but if it continues this way, we all will be eaten soon.'
Simultaneously with the small attacks, something else was happening. Brail turned to Lith, who was lazily leaning on his sword, as he was not exposed to any type of danger, staying on the roof of the tallest building.
"What?"
Shooting down another stray abomination, who was desperately searching for easy target to bite, he pointed up.
"The swarm is slowly lowering the altitude, trying to cover us with their own dome. We need to find their leader. Or run."
Swordsman slowly scratched his nose and start searching for something in the skies.
"Well, to run is a nice one. But I would prefer others to survive, so the question is how exactly will we find our target?"
"Don't know. I can't sense him in the swarm. I just want you to be ready to engage when it shows up."
Lith chuckled.
"I'm always ready to chop down the thing, but only if it comes down."
The thing didn't keep them waiting long, because in couple minutes it became visible even through the swarm. And as he descended too low, intensified scent of human souls drove him mad.
Despite Lith's readiness, all happened too quickly.
Two-headed horror crushed right through the roof of the town administration, they were standing at, throwing almost all awakened down. Brail and Lith fell at different sides of the building, but both, not thinking much, immediately rushed back.
The sight inside was terrifying. Two out of five floors were thoroughly destroyed, blood and debris were everywhere. Survivors were shouting in panic. Some were trying to jump of the windows, some tried to hide. And some were frozen in shock, silently waiting until the thrashing everything monstrosity will finally take their lives.
Brail was running on the sounds of crushing walls and monstrous wails, with the saber in hand. Before he could reach the floor, Tyrant was rampaging at, he saw leaning on the staircase railing Obel, panting heavily, and terrified Beth who clenched to his arm with trembling hands, trying to lead him away from the abomination.
Brail grabbed Beth and forced her to look at him.
"You both okay? Okay. To the Rhino, now!"
She started nodding franticly and was about to go downstairs, but as soon as he let her shoulder go, she grabbed him instead. Frightened assistant struggled to hold back tears and could barely speak, squeezing each word out of her throat.
"Wheaa-a… where are… you going?"
"Stop talking, and drag him down, I'll deal with the…"
With a loud rumble ceiling near the central room collapsed, and two-headed winged silhouette appeared behind the clouds of dust.
"…Tyrant. Fuck."
Before Brail could manage to do something, it started tearing scientists, who didn't escape yet, apart. The same moment Lith rushed on the floor, eyes darting between the three and the massacre.
"Stop it, I'll help you soon."
Lith nodded, never hesitating, raised the sword, and charged right onto the ravaging Tyrant. Explorer turned back to Obel and his assistant and started coalescing winds around his weapon.
"Hold each other tight. And don't scream."
With a swing of the Vulture, staircase window exploded, and Brail lifted both scientists. Professor had no strength to scream, but Beth flying down was yelling loudly. With a more or less soft landing, Brail dragged recearchers to their APC, shoved them inside and turned to Sam, who was peeking from the hatch on the roof with her rifle.
"Check them on injuries. And gather others. Be ready to depart."
Irregulars weren't with Professor, as they previously agreed, as Obel persuaded them, that it was not efficient during the battle. So, they were somewhere out there, fighting the swarm.
Sam throwed him a very intense gaze, and he returned it.
"What was your orders? Direct threat. Is Tyrant not enough of a threat for them? What about thousands of flying bloodsuckers? Mmm?"
She bit her lip but said nothing, somberly looking up. Brail lowered his voice and tried to speak calmly.
"If we won't manage to finish it, we run. It's the best option."
Looking down in the cabin, Sam nodded reluctantly and got inside. Brail turned to the half-destroyed administration and rushed back.
As he got inside, there was even more destructions, and fight was going already at the lower floor. Civilians were still trying to run, limp, or crawl outside, away from the monstrosity, injured and with mad gazes. Dust and smoke from eventually catching in fire devices crept across the ceiling into broken windows and giant hole in the center of the building.
Approaching the sounds of battle, Brail finally could have a good look at what they were dealing with.
Folded leathery wings were the same as minions of the swarm had, just bigger, but otherwise it was completely different in appearance. If small monsters reminded more of a winged leech, this horror was like a giant flying scorpion with two worm-like heads on long necks.
Lith was weaving before the creature, evading heavy blows and falling debris, and trying to draw all attention away from escaping scientists.
Ascended managed to hurt abomination well, but it was nowhere close to dying. Its front leg was cut off, there were many deep bleeding cuts throughout segmented body, but nefarious winged scorpion was still as vivid as ever. Tyrant was thrashing around, trying to simultaneously catch a nimble swordsman, and any unfortunate civilian who wouldn't run in time.
Rampaging fiend clearly didn't notice another enemy, so Brail decided to use the opportunity and strike from behind. Making the winds around the Vulture as thin and dense as possible and accelerating himself to the maximum, he made a couple silent steps, sneaking behind the Tyrant.
Lith saw what explorer was doing, so he tried to lock abomination in place.
As leader of the Devouring Cloud received another painful cut, it focused all the rage on the warrior, ignoring escaping food. Both heads of the winged fiend clung to the greatsword, trying to snatch this dangerous stick away. Creature quickly realized that enemy won't let a weapon go, so it dropped heads low and pulled, dragging sword down. At the same time long tail with a sting raised high to pierce the human without metal hindrance.
Suddenly for the Tyrant, another metal hindrance came from the opposite side. Brail made the last step up close and put in his swing as much power and speed as he could muster. With a sharp thin whistle, segmented tail was severed and thrown aside, and shrill, unholy cry resounded from both heads.
Explorer instantly ducked lower and with another powerful swing cut off one of back legs, before the winged scorpion could retaliate. His partner reacted with almost similar speed and cut upwards right after abomination let go of his weapon. Short and loud metallic swoop thundered and one of the heads finally fell on the ground.
With the next strike, Vulture tore through the right wing of the horrifying fiend, and would cut it off fully, if only Tyrant didn't move. After Lith beheaded one neck, he tried in consecutive motion make the same with the other, but creature was faster.
Fallen abomination had nowhere to go, it trapped itself inside the walls and was surrounded, so if it tried to fly in the hole it made before, humans would catch it. Thus, it chose to make another exit. And take one of the attackers with it.
Before severed parts of its body touched the floor, Tyrant threw its last head forward, biting into warrior's arm. It quickly managed to tear through the armor, and rushed forward, crashing through the wall. Getting outside, segmented fiend spread and flapped its wings, flying away, closer to the swarm.
Only the flight was not exactly possible with one working wing, so instead it jumped with full force and crushed into the next building, holding roaring Lith in its circular maw.
Getting through the breach, Brail faltered for a long second from what he saw. Building, Tyrant crashed into, wasn't empty, so the sight was similar to the previous one. A lot of debris, panicked shouts.
Only right behind the outer wall was a big hall, full of civilians. Elderly, children, and everyone in between. Unarmed people, trying to find shelter and safety. Be away from the danger.
And danger was now slowly rising above lots and lots of flattened corpses, blood flowing down its body.
He saw many deaths. Real ones. If something can be called real in the realm of dreams.
He saw even more here, in this cursed Nightmare. But they all were only creations of the Spell. Yes, humans, but only temporal.
So why then Brail was feeling such hatred he never felt before?
He didn't know.
He didn't really register how exactly happened what happened further, but everything around him except the Tyrant just evaporated, and all he could think at the moment was to grind the monstrosity down to smallest pieces. He lunged inside and started ferociously cutting already half-dead fiend.
He saw every move, every twitch of creature's body. He predicted what it will do, and when he was wrong, he just reacted faster. He didn't care about the danger. He didn't feel, didn't hesitate, didn't think about anything.
Except for one little but certain thought.
'This thing dies. Now.'
***
Usually, Lith was the one who lead the fight, but seeing as Brail was relentlessly tearing Tyrant down, with determined expression and maybe a little bit too mad eyes, he decided to play support for his raging friend. The speed of the saber was constantly changing, and overall growing, so he needed to adjust to his movements. Lith tried to find the opening, and even though he couldn't use his abilities with full efficiency, swordsman still managed to cut two more legs and pin the bastard down.
Winged scorpion tried to fight back, evade, escape, but it was injured and slow, and enemy wasn't letting it go. Each Tyrant's attack was dodged, deflected, and punished for. Without several legs, one head, one wing, and with second enemy trying to get his revenge, it was cornered.
Less than in minute, horrifying screeches halted with another thin whistle, and second wormlike head hit the ground with disgusting splash.
Now Lith had one last task, before patching his barely functioning arm. He needed to stop the psycho, who was now trying to kill a corpse even more.
"Brain! Stop! Ah, shit…"
He tried to drag him away, grabbing his hand, but was too rough and almost got his fingers cut off, as a barely perceptive windy aura lashed out silently. Still, he needed madman to snap out, so he caught him between steps and tripped carefully, not letting strange armor to trigger, tilting him backwards.
His new body was significantly bigger, so pushing him away from the corpse wasn't too difficult. With a working arm Lith pressed him against the wall, and didn't let explorer move, until Brail's gaze not focused on the warrior. His usual strategy was almost always a good choice, but knocking one of two Ascended out during this battle was not a very bright idea. So, restriction and waiting were the only available options to wake a heavily breathing explorer from his battle trance.
'…or whatever shit this was.'
"Calm down, will you?"
Brail finally snapped out and looked at Lith with lost eyes.
"He… he's…"
"It's dead, you cut it into pieces, congratulations, now please, calm the fuck down."
Explorer take a long inhale, trying to calm himself down.
"Okay. Okay. Let's… go to the carrier."
"Why carrier?"
"Let me go, you… I don't want to be here."
Removing his arm, Lith clumsily walked back and took the sword, heading to the Tyrant. Brail leaned off the wall, still panting a little, and immediately headed out, trying not to look on the insides of the wrecked room. Warrior glanced at ripped apart Tyrant, shook his head bewildered, picked up carved Soul Shards, and caught up with his friend.
"Hey."
"What?"
"Was it your flaw again?"
"How…"
Man stopped for a second, but then resumed walking.
"So, you figured."
"Well, it wasn't that difficult, honestly. But I didn't know for sure, is that this, or you are just insane and tripping periodically."
"Haaaa… I don't know. It's not always working in the same way. More like it dependent on how I feel currently. And to start as you say 'tripping', my flaw should be in specific state too. Now this wasn't the case. Probably."
Lith whistled.
"Hah, probably. You know, usually people don't have such complicated flaws. Like mine for example. Simple as hell."
Brail glanced back at his cohort member for a second.
"You can fight only on the ground, right? It's quite dangerous."
Warrior didn't even wanted to make a surprised face.
"Not exactly, but close. And no if you as strong as I am. You just need to bring… What's wrong?"
Lith learned to trust Brail's and his cloudy cat's senses, so when he saw them both freeze and peer to a single spot in the distance, ignoring an all-out battle around them, he felt unease. Brail didn't explain, but with even more somber expression motioned him to move quicker.
Approaching the vehicle, they saw as Irregulars were standing around. Bloodied, injured, but alive. Dorn was battered more than others, sitting on the footstep of the door, pressing darkened from red cloth to a stump of missing arm.
All of them simultaneously raised their questioning gazes, seriously worried about something. Sam was one who asked.
"Did you do it?"
"Tyrant is dead, yes. We can gather everyone and go, they won't be so organized anymore. Where is Quentin?"
There was a second of strangely somber silence, as nobody was particularly glad that leader of the Nightmare Creatures' army is dead. After a bit, his new giant friend spoke in heavy voice.
"I have two news for you. Quentin is inside the Rhino, but if you ask that for healing, he won't do this. As you can see."
Dorn motioned on his absent limb.
"He's unconscious, that's one. And the second is both about why he's in that state, and why you are wrong about swarm being disorganized, Master Lith."
Brail wasn't really focused on what Dorn was saying, as he was still watching something in the distance, focused on the mountain path they took to arrive in this town. Lith frowned and turned his eyes from his friend back to Irregulars.
"What do you mean?"
Short unassuming girl answered for her colleague, wincing from pain in ribs she was holding.
"He means, there was a second one. We were fighting another damned Tyrant but wasn't as successful as you two. Thus, we, hopefully temporary, lost our healer, and swarm will continue doing what it's doing. So, unless you somehow manage to bring him down…"
Brail finally spoke, cutting Kimmy off.
"Doesn't matter. We need to drive now."
"How, may I ask? Those thing are still above us."
"Doesn't matter either. They caught up. Give me your radio."
Everyone looked in the direction of the eastern mountain slopes, seeing exactly nothing. Sam was moving her riffle from side to side, trying to discern what he was talking about, and then she finally noticed. Faint, barely perceptible silhouettes on the far edge of the settlement. She managed to see them only because of the strange subtle gaps in the snowfall. With widened eyes she turned to the cohort.
"He's right, get inside. Luster, start the engine."
Not taking his eyes from the east, Brail pressed the button.
"Tei we are going. Now. Tell all the soldiers to cover civilians and get them ready to retreat. We are either front part of the battle formation, or we are going without you."
Distorted heavily breathing voice answered him from the device.
"Did you go completely insane, or this is your paranoia speaking again? We can't leave. Your group either, especially alone. They will target you."
"They are already targeting all of us. We will manage to break through on Rhino. But it would be better if everyone departs. We wasted a whole day fighting the Cloud and a lot of lives. And will waste more, if not leave now. Old friends finally caught up."
"The hell are you talking about? What friends?"
"Ones from the mountains. Ghosts found us."
***
As Irregulars loaded in the APC, ready to finally escape this cursed place, nervous voice from the comms began shouting retreating orders. Under the distorted commands from the speakers and noises of the cannonade, Brail went to check on passengers.
He found sitting with dead eyes Obel, and beside him still trembling Beth, who was trying to fish out something from the first aid bag. He made sure they were not injured and helped her fetch sedatives from the kit.
He found bandaged from head-to-toe Quentin inside the sleeping pod. He had nothing to help him with.
He checked on all others, and apparently everyone was injured and exhausted. Except him and Sam, who were only lacking essence. So, his best help here was to join her on the roof and shoot as much flying abominations as he could, protecting the crew and people outside.
In a span of only several minutes, all survived awakened, mundane soldiers, and civilian evacuees gathered around parked transport, loading in. Batlike abomination never ceased their assault, but at least their attacks become less controlled, so it was easier to defend themselves.
But as soon as they drove off, a familiar dense fog covered everything around. Brail saw with own eyes how Catchers were entering the opposite side of the town only minutes ago, but now visibility became even worse than it was in the mountains. And as suddenly as fog descended, shrieks of the winged leeches, previously sounding from afar, now filled the air around them.
Devouring Cloud didn't want to give up its prey.