Chapter Seventeen: Collapse

Early Evening, 1st September

Bells could be heard ringing out across the city from anywhere that contained them. Churches, chapels, the main cathedral, guard towers, barracks and some of the larger houses were all sounding out. To the unprepared, it would have sounded like a disorganised wall of sound, but most of Sarthe's inhabitants knew what it meant. No one could be quite sure if it was real, however, as this had happened once before. The warning system had been initiated for what turned out to be one of the more usual smaller parties of monsters testing the defences. The guards on the wall at the time that set the alert off were promptly punished by their superiors.

It had to be treated as the real thing, however. The city was suddenly buzzing with activity as everyone went through their practiced routines. Off-duty soldiers and guards rushed to the barracks to don their armour and weapons with incredible speed while myself and my friends quickly returned to our rooms where we had safely stashed everything that we needed, including my sword, amulet and diamonds. The civilians of the city did what they had to do depending on their relative wealth and bravery; some geared up for a fight while others made themselves as safe as they could by retreating to the inner-most wall. The Queen kept a small contingent of her personal guard in the castle with her but otherwise every able-bodied fighter was to be hurrying to the outer wall. Fires had been lit in the northernmost gatehouse which showed where the army was attacking from, but soldiers were still being sent to the other gates to be safe.

Our central goal was to find Edward. If he was controlling the monsters, we assumed that he would have to be nearby, if only to direct them to weak points in the city's defences. Along the way we were going to help where we could, but we didn't want to prolong this any more than we had to.

As us and roughly fifteen soldiers passed through the second wall's gates, we could hear explosions coming from the north wall. The city's inner gates all closed once it seemed that every non-combatant was as safe as they could be. The soldiers rushed off to their designated positions but we carried on our own course.

We approached the shouting and fires of the main gate. As we were psyching ourselves up for the fight, a set of explosions sounded out at a nearby section of wall. The night sky briefly lit up as the wall completely collapsed and exposed the city. We made a beeline for it in the hopes of at least stemming the tide of monsters. We had expected that this sort of thing would happen, but it was nigh-on-impossible to defend against.

The sounds of fighting grew louder. The shouting, screaming and occasional creeper detonation. We moved down one path towards the collapsed wall and found the captain of the guard directing his men. A group of four or five soldiers were in front of him and holding off the wave of spiders that had rushed through the wall and into the streets.

The captain turned to us and instructed, "Check the other streets! There may be some undefended!"

We obeyed the man and moved from street to street, checking every possible route through. Most were covered by the soldiers and guards that were just about holding their own, but one narrow cobbled street jumped out to me. Nothing had touched it yet, but I felt like that was about to change. It seemed oddly familiar.

I led our small party down the street. It was barely wide enough for two people between the flanking white buildings. I readied my sword, checked my diamonds, and pushed on.

It was hard to tell whether this was planned or a coincidence, but as I saw a large group of zombies begin to pour into our street, Sam at the back called out, "Monsters! Behind us!"

I huffed and shouted, "Fuck!" in aggravation. "You guys focus on the rear, I'll soften these guys up!"

It seemed as though one of the frontlines had buckled and let monsters flood into the city. Kate, David and Sam quickly found themselves fending off against the clumsy army, fortunately so tightly packed that the monsters seemed fairly ineffectual. The real danger would have been if skeletons could get a decent shot off.

I used my anger at the whole situation to my advantage and immediately felt the diamonds' power within me. It seemed that I didn't even need to look at or focus on them anymore, it just happened. I pointed my sword at the approaching horde and let loose a bolt of lightning, only then realising why this felt so familiar. My latest vision!

Not a second after the lightning had left my sword and I started to feel its draining effects, David leapt to my back and forced his small shield in front of my face to protect me from a tightly packed volley of arrows heading straight for me.

I let out an exasperated breath and thanked him profusely before we turned our attention to the remaining zombies ahead of us. My sword had removed most of them, but the rest were still bearing down on us fast.

We decided to take the initiative and keep some semblance of a gap between the front and rear attackers. I led our small charge, hoping that the skeletons wouldn't fire at us once we were among their allies. Finally having some idea of how to tackle these creatures, I confidently slashed my sword across a couple of the zombies before pushing my sword into one to deliver a killing blow. David finished off the other one as we moved onto the next.

A spider pushed past a few monsters in the crowd and clambered over the dying zombies. I couldn't react fast enough to the encroaching horror. It pounced on David and I and slammed us into the floor.

I found myself mid-stab against the zombie I had just killed a moment ago. Realising what had happened, I yanked my sword out as quickly as I could and turned my attention to the spider already beginning to push its hideous legs over its fellow monsters. As it put its weight on the leg closest to me and began to pull itself across, I brought my sword down on it, chopping it cleanly off. The spider stumbled and fell toward me a little before regaining its balance. I wasted no time in readying myself again and stabbing my sword straight into its head.

The spider collapsed as David finished off another zombie next to me. The monsters were beginning to have a hard time getting over their fallen ranks but they were still determined. We managed to remain on one side of the bodies and attack our foes in relative safety for the most part.

A few arrows flew towards us, the skeletons firing them apparently seeing an opportunity. One of them landed squarely in the back of an approaching zombie, a couple bounced harmlessly off the brickwork of the nearby buildings, but one struck me in my free arm. My light armour softened the blow, but the pain was still enough to knock me off balance. Surprised, I stumbled back as the arrow, having not penetrated too deep, fell to the floor.

I fought to ignore my suffering and tried to refocus on the task at hand. David, having glanced in my direction when the arrow struck, seemed about to be overwhelmed. He had just killed a spider and was drawing his sword out of the corpse to attack the zombie with the arrow still sticking out of its back. I could see another spider pushing through its allies to get to him next as visible panic started to take over from within him. He couldn't even see the creeper rushing towards him in the spider's wake either.

I set my priorities and rushed back to our front line. As David ran his sword through the zombie, I reached the spider and cleanly cut off one of its back legs, giving David precious seconds as it recovered. I hadn't initially noticed another zombie coming up from my side but soon saw it in my periphery. It clutched onto my sword arm as I was pulling my weapon away from the spider. I tried to break free but resorted to pushing my elbow towards the monstrosity. I caught it in the sternum as hard as I could, releasing its grip on me and knocking it back several paces. Trying to prioritise my precious time, I glanced back at the advancing creeper. The creature began to hiss and its green skin started to pulse white as it neared.

I didn't have the time. Aware that the zombie was only a step or two away and likely already recovered, I steadied myself as best as I could and booted the green creature as hard as possible. The thankfully lightweight creature flew a couple of feet backwards, but its countdown didn't seem to stop. I stepped back but brought my sword around to slash across the zombie trying to grab me again. The creeper ended up in amongst more approaching monsters as its hissing grew ever louder. The zombie didn't die from my attack and barely slowed as it successfully grasped my clothes.

The creeper exploded. The heat was intense as the shockwave threw everything nearby to the ground. Stone bricks fell from the building next to it and threatened to knock the whole wall down as dust erupted into the street.

I hit the cobbled path hard, shortly followed by the zombie next to me, the explosion having finally finished it off. I couldn't hear anything and all I could think about was the agony running through my aching body.

I looked over to David, who was struggling to push a deceased spider – missing one of its back legs – off his dazed form. Sam appeared in my vision and started to help him up while I was still struggling to make sense of anything.

Forgetting that I was still potentially in danger from any of the surviving mob, I tried to take a deep breath. I immediately choked on the kicked up dust that filled my throat. In a panic, I flipped myself over and started to dry heave to evacuate what I could. Little more than a string of spit leaked out of my mouth.

A zombie corpse dropped next to me and brought coherent thoughts back to my mind. The fight wasn't over; I had to get up. Still coughing and spitting a little, I found the handle of my sword protruding from underneath the zombie and grasped it as two hands gripped my other arm. I managed to release the sword from under the body and brought it around to react to the figure pulling me away from it. Once I was nearly standing, I looked at my target.

A bloodied David was just releasing me, having pulled me to my feet. I quickly stopped my attack as he yelled into my whining ears, "Are you ok? Can you walk?!"

Slightly dazed, I just nodded my head quickly. He clearly wasn't convinced but gave me a determined nod regardless before rushing to join the fray. I attempted to find the fighting once I was sure that I could stand up properly. Kate and Sam had already finished off the monsters attacking our rear, leaving little but a mess of them on the floor, and they had moved to the other side to help out David and myself. David was up against a wall just behind our fighting friends and trying to get his bearings as well but rubbing his eyes and blinking heavily. There wasn't much left to do; Kate had apparently already dealt with the skeleton archers and they were now just finishing off the two or three remaining zombies. By the time David and I were in any fit state, they had cut down the final danger.

They got David and I together and checked us over. We were generally ok; a little bruised and mildly burnt in some places but nothing too serious. We had just been in shock for the most part. The arrow had left a small wound on my arm, but it was little to be concerned about now.

Not giving ourselves a moment's rest, we charged through the corpse-ridden street towards one of the collapsed sections of wall. This fighting couldn't go on for much longer, they would be approaching the second wall at any moment. We had to find and neutralise Edward soon.