AN: I want to remind everyone of the tags for this story, gore and violence, especially of those done to people. Otherwise, please enjoy.
Chapter 24: The Gates
Even when the sun dipped down below the waves, Astera was still in a frenzy. The lighting of the sconces were a pock-marked illumination to the scurrying of the city, like roaches dancing between the lights in a darkened kitchen. Blake huffed as she set down the end of an ammo box, giving a nod to Octavia who set her own end down on the floor.
"Thanks." Blake said, wiping the sheen of the sweat from her brow. "You want to take these empty cartridges and I'll fill up the rest?"
"Sounds good to me." The other woman said, stacking two empty crates on one another and hoisting them off into the night. One by itself was heavy enough, Blake thought, and so she couldn't help but be mildly impressed at the feat. Octavia was a nice enough huntress, she was cheerful and brash in the kind of way that huntresses were. She and Blake were situated along the main wall, just left of the gates. They were the fourth ballistas down leading towards the seaside, nestled in between other ballistas and cannons that were aimed directly down the corridor.
The corridor of hasty walls seemed more like a ladder to Blake, with its five short battlements running perpendicular to the outside wall like rungs. Each one was similarly being worked upon by hunters and soldiers, hastily lifting siege engines into defined spots that aimed towards the forest. The forest itself had been hewed back by several hundred meters, its trees and trunks being cut, sharpened and bound together in whichever way possible. Each layer of the walls had a trench dug out in front of it, and inside each trench were rows of spikes facing outwards, spaced evenly enough so that a person could wiggle through them if they were careful, but not far enough apart that a monster could miss their points.
Blake supposed she was lucky in that she was far from the front lines, being cast as an auxiliary gunner to Octavia, who was to man the ballista for the coming fight. As she began the task of filling the ballista magazine with arrows, her eyes drifted down into the corridor itself, to the fourth wall, where she knew Yang was stationed. The fact of which Blake had several ugly reservations about. She couldn't see the girl right now, from up here on the main wall, and her heart panged at the missed proximity of her.
When she had found out about Yang's station, Blake had come hissing and swearing to her, the huntress of course had shrugged it off like it was no big deal.
This isn't a joke Blakey, it's gonna come down to a real fight this time. And who better than to put your best girl down in the trenches? She had smiled so easily when she had said it.
"Who better…" Blake mumbled.
Anyone, anyone would be better she thought, and that thought made her queasy with the ease that she admitted it. Did that make her bad? Callous? That she would so willingly sacrifice someone else just for Yang? Maybe it did, but right now she couldn't find herself to care. There were few people who Blake had let into her life and she'd be damned if she lost anymore.
She nicked her finger on the arrowhead of a missile, and hissed as she stuck the appendage in her mouth.
"Do you need a potion?" Weiss stepped from the shadows, in full gear with her bow across her back. She set her things to the side with Blake's. The huntress moved over to Blake and began to assist with the loading of the missiles.
"Weiss." Blake looked up at her. "You don't need to help, this is just busy work."
"It's not a problem, I finished with all of my things as well." The girl spoke wistfully. "And busy work is exactly what I need, keeps my mind busy."
"You too huh?" Blake gave her a smile, but it wasn't a very good one. Weiss knitted her brow together and began to load a separate magazine.
"Yes. This just all feels so sudden. Or maybe it doesn't, maybe I've been ignoring everything for my own sanity. Just a few weeks ago it felt like everything was perfect…"
Blake nodded, "I know what you mean. It's hard to grasp sometimes. I've just been trying to focus on the important things."
"Yes, yes. The important things…" Weiss gave her a coy look, "Like big biceps and golden curls."
Blake's throat caught on her breath and she choked a little, shooting a glare at Weiss. "So you noticed… What gave it away?"
Weiss was inspecting a ballista arrow closely, "Noticed what?" Blake rolled her eyes.
"Fine, despite my better judgement, it seems that I have utterly been taken by Yang Xiao Long. I spend every waking moment thinking of when I'll see her again, and every night I dream of her at my side. When I'm alone, I hold onto a rag she gave me to dress a wound, and look at it dreamily while I think about her. Is that what you wanted to hear? That I'm some hopelessly smitten maiden?" Blake's cheeks colored at the faux confession, even if it was hyperbole, there was truth wormed into the statement. She cleverly hid the rag she had joked about in her pocket, and hoped Weiss didn't notice.
"Hey, you're the one who said it. But yes, that's what I wanted to hear." Weiss said, flashing a cheeky smile.
Blake couldn't stop the grin forming on her face, "And what about you and Ruby hm? What did you two do the entire time we were gone? I bet the neighbors complained about all the noise."
It was Weiss's turn to blush now, the girl getting caught in her own words as she tried to be indignant. "W-well… That's besides the point. And no one made any complaints!" Blake chuckled.
"I'm sure they just nicely asked you to quiet down." Blake said. Weiss smiled a little more earnestly before letting out a long sigh.
"Oh Blake. What did we do to get tangled up with these sisters?" Blake smiled back at her and continued with her work.
"I'm not entirely sure myself. Maybe it's some sick karmic joke." Blake rolled her neck. "That's too harsh. They aren't that bad, maybe I'm just pinning the circumstances on their eccentricity. I'm sure if some world ending plague hadn't happened, we would still find ourselves in some bizarre situation with those two."
Weiss laughed, "You make it sound like destiny."
Blake finished her magazine and set it to the side, "Destiny. At the very least they feel like a silver lining to it."
"Quite." Weiss said, setting her own magazine to the side, the two continued their work.
"Do you regret it? Coming to the New World?" Blake asked suddenly.
Weiss paused for a moment, but continued to load her arrows. "I don't think so. This situation notwithstanding, joining the sixth fleet has been a positive in my life. Well, if you disregard the several times I, my friends and my girlfriend have almost died."
"Understandable." Blake shook her head and smiled. "It's nice though… When we have people to come home to. Once upon a time I didn't think I had anyone, and now…"
"Now you have us." Weiss smiled at her. "You have me, and Ruby and Yang. You have all of us. I feel the same, you know? I left everything I had behind but now I've found something to care for." Weiss shifted, and Blake could see a small blush on her cheeks.
"And boy do you have Yang." Weiss said, inflecting her voice cartoonishly.
"I know, I know." Blake had her own blush growing on her face.
"She's in love with you. Like, bad."
"I know!" Blake laughed, setting another magazine cartridge to the side. "You know when we first met, at the library, she came in absolutely reeking. I wanted to turn her away immediately. Full of roguish smiles and bad pick up lines. She was the type I typically avoided, but that was only her on the surface. She's… So heroic and kind, I had initially invited her on the research missions because I understood her strength and skill, but I've found that she's much, much more than that. To think I might've told her to leave that day... But she just had to go and shove something new and interesting into my life."
"There's a double entendre in there somewhere…" Weiss mumbled.
"Shut up." Blake rolled her eyes. "New isn't exactly something I wanted in my life at that moment… But she was there, and I'm happy she was."
"Sometimes life has a way of doing that. Giving us things when we least expect it, no matter how hard we try to avoid it." Weiss said.
"I'm coming to understand that." Blake said, setting another magazine to the side. "But if i'm being honest I wish that-"
A red glow caught the corner of her eye, a crimson snake trail lifted itself deep from within the abyss of the forest. The glow hung in the air for a moment before popping, and illuminating the black of the night. The city exploded with noise and movement renewed, the fury of its machinations expedited by the signal from the forest. Another flare wormed its way from the canopy, but this time a step closer. Blake leapt to her feet and Weiss mirrored her.
"Weiss! Good luck out there, and be safe." Blake gave her a smile. "We have a pair of sisters to return to." Weiss shot her a smile back, said her goodbyes and dashed off back down the battlement. Blake swiftly finished loading the last of the ballista ammo cartridges, organizing them briefly while she watched the flares continue their steady trail back towards Astera.
The older members of the fleet had suggested this tactic, in the event of a night invasion like this. Scouts had been sent deep into the forest for reconnaissance, and had set signal flares along a path back towards Astera. This accomplished both a warning system for the army, but also as a way to congregate any fleeting monsters. It was the hope that the concentrated light would funnel the horde towards the corridor, and eliminate a full swarm of Astera from all sides.
Another flare snaked its way up and into the sky, but when it exploded, Blake saw deep shadows beating in the sky. Nebulous pairs of wings and long snaking bodies were sharp against each flare, and Blake saw that they were far more numerous than anyone cared to look at the moment. Blake grabbed her dual blades from her bag and strapped them to her back, shifting nervously as she watched the hunters and soldiers down below.
Octavia sprinted up to her, red faced and out of breath. Blake let her rest as she loaded the first cartridge into the side of the ballista, closing the hatch and locking it tight. She moved back towards the cartridges to the side, setting up a set of long tubes that she rested in between the tines of the battlement wall. Octavia climbed onto the ballista and rotated it around, testing to see if it was operating appropriately before pointing it directly at the edge of the forest.
The flares were getting closer now, and Blake could even see them being lit within the forest. The rockets cast deep shadows back towards Astera as they shot off into the air. Blake's heart was hammering and she took a deep breath to steady herself. She peaked down at the fourth wall again, and saw Yang loading a cannon with another hunter. She rubbed at the rag in her pocket and said a quick prayer before turning back to the forest edge.
The last flare shot from just before the dirt of the cleared area, and Blake saw hunters and huntresses spill out into the light. They were haggard, covered in sweat, and some red with blood. They sprinted and scrambled past the first trench before they wirebugged onto the first wall. The whole line was tense with anticipation, Blake shot a glance to the center of the wall, above where the gates rested, and saw the Commander flanked by the General. The two men were stone faced as they observed the forest.
"Hold!" Someone called from on top of the gates. The command was passed down the line. Blake could see Octavia's grip twitching at the trigger of the ballista. She unintentionally clenched her gut as she waited crouched behind the wall. There was only the cold breath of morbid anticipation with the defenders of Astera, and they hung onto it desperately.
The first monster came barrelling out of the forest so fast that no one had time to even shout a warning. The Barioth impaled itself onto a spike in the first trench and screamed. Another monster followed suit, and before she could even think, two, then three more followed it.
"FIRE!"
The first salvo was deafening, lines of cannons erupting in murderous tempo as they spat iron and fire onto the beasts. Blake could feel each shot as it slammed into the earth. When the cannons emptied, and the lines began to reload, Blake could see their devastation. The trench was packed with offal and bones, creating an oily river that stained the earth. More monsters approached, their companions forming a corpse bridge over the trench which they crossed and slammed into the first wall.
"NOW!" Blake turned to the center of the gates again, an officer threw their body onto a switch, and another line of fire erupted from the ground. Monster bodies littered the sky, and they dripped down a black rain that blighted the earth. Gods! She could smell it from here. The relief was short lived however, and the horde pressed into the first wall, cloaked in the flesh of those that went before them. Blake could see the wooden structure struggle against the press of bodies, and not long into their bout the wall began to give.
The call rang out and the line of defenders began their retreat, bodies jumping to the ground opposite, hitting earth and running towards the second line. Some still stood along the top of the wall, lashing out with weapons or continuing the assault with their machines, but they fell victim to snatching claws and hungry maws. When it finally collapsed, it was with a terrible moaning that the beasts spilled forward, tangled and caught up in wood and flesh, only to have their brethren push their skulls into the ground as they marched forward.
Another cry went up along the wall, and when Blake snapped her head towards the gates she saw people scrambling around another lever. With a gasp she looked back towards the battlefield, at the hunters and huntresses still making their way towards the second wall, and watched them swallowed in an inferno. The second row of trenches erupted in a fantastic premature show, rocketing its hewed spikes forward like fiery rockets. While effective in its own way, it did not abate the horde like the first, and the scorched trench was once again filled, and its occupants used as a makeshift path towards the second line.
Blake swallowed the scream that had threatened to leave her throat, watching as the second line hastily accepted those that had made it past the trenches. There was a deafening blast from behind, and a brief moment of stillness before a hungry explosion blanketed the encroaching mass. Blake turned and watched the majestic Wyvernshot Cannon reload, a litany of engineers and attendants required to shift its gargantuan ammo from a mechanical belt into its barrel. The machine rotated along its massive dial and after a moment, shot again, the line of fire that spewed from its muzzle a brief sun in the pitch of the night.
When Blake turned around she found that the second wall could not hold as long as the first, and already people began to leak off its battlements and rushed further back into the defenses. A hunter jumped from the top but was swiftly taken by a pair of black talons, his screams carrying off into the night. The ballista next to her head let out a deep k-thunk as Octavia began to fire, its mechanism shifting back into position with a snap before offloading another missile that screamed into the night. Blake scrambled forward and attempted to strike flint against coal underneath one of the tubes she had positioned against the wall. She failed to light it thrice before finally striking the fuse. The rocket screamed up into the sky, and when it popped illuminated the mass of wings that hung there.
"OPEN FIRE!"
Now all ordinance was set free, and more flares chased Blake's, their illumination the only chance for the defenders to peer past the ugly shadow of night and see the abyss of the Grimm above. Octavia shouted a curse as the ballista came to a rest, sending Blake hurriedly to her waiting stockpile of ammo. She hauled the box over as the other huntress threw open the small door to the spent cartridge. Blake removed it, then fumbled her way through jamming the replacement in, her fingers trembling with adrenaline and dread. With a slam she shut the clasp, and before she could move away Octavia was already firing back into the sky.
Blake retreated back towards her position by the wall and set light to another flare that screeched into the sky, its expulsion leaving thick trails of smoke and ash that flooded her mouth and eyes. While she hacked and coughed she heard what she thought was another command. When she finally was able to clear her eyes she saw Octavia yelling to her, the huntress already prying open the ballista door again.
"Reload!" She was yelling.
Blake dashed back and was much more successful with her second attempt at loading the machine. When she threw the door closed Octavia resumed with her onslaught, the ballista rotating fiercely as she traced a shadow through the sky.
Numbness. Numbness began to take over her senses. It started in her hands and wormed its way to her ears. The carnage below and above marked oily stains on the ground and dripping puddles of crimson along the walls. The only sure thing she could feel was the hammering of her heart and the roaring of blood in her ears. She reloaded the ballista again. A Rathian swooped by and unleashed a ball of fire, the blast of which scorched the wall in front of her and coated it in licking flames that dripped down it like slime. Blake subconsciously patted her body and found it whole, and looked out back towards the fight and wondered when the third wall fell.
"RELOAD!" Octavia howled. Blake rushed forward and loaded swiftly. When she returned to her spot and lit another flare she counted their remaining ammunition. Weren't they going through these too fast?
There was a commotion at the head of the gates, and Blake could see two men waving torches frantically towards the sea. Blake turned and saw pinpricks of light mimicking the movements before a rolling salvo ripped from atop the waves. The devastation of the Atlesian ships tore through the horde, the battlefield becoming so caked with gore that the explosions began to sound wet in their impact. The skies of wyverns turned towards the new threat and flew out towards the sea, Blake saw a Bazelguese dive straight into the deck of one of the ships, a line of fire erupting into the sky as it crashed into a stockpile.
The artillery from their navy bought them a brief moment, and Blake could see the scrambling of the survivors from the third wall as they made their way towards the fourth. Some realized that they would not escape before the mass would press on them, and foolishly turned to strike. They were met by teeth and claws that shredded and pressed them into the ground, their meager strikes little more than kindling to the black flames of the horde.
The third row of trenches went off, and the horde paused. The wiggling limbs and lolling heads now dipping in exhaustion, mouths dripping with ichor and blood. The faintest of hopes drifted from Blake's chest that the tide had finally turned.
From within the horde white lightning struck, and a meteor rose from its ranks. The luminescent mass spun in the air furiously before rocketing towards the fourth wall and blowing a hole clean off the top of the battlement. From within the smoldering hole rose two twisted horns, a long face ending in protruding teeth and a set of furious eyes burning in the middle. The Rajang rose onto its hind feet and beat its chest hard as it roared into the night, its hair on end as lightning crackled from its body.
Blake gaped in horror as the beast spun on top of the battlement, its fist striking and catching those unlucky enough to be within its range. A man charged the beast, his lance at the ready and his shield up, only for the Rajang to push its fist through the metal and liquify his torso in one smooth motion. The beast grabbed the still standing legs and flung the lower body towards the main gate, his corpse slapping wetly against the wood and coating it in blood. There was a mechanical roaring and the twin machine cannons spit in tandem on top of the gate, unleashing into the beast. The monster threw its forearms up in defense as it bobbed and weaved away.
Octavia swivelled the ballista and set on firing at the monster, a wordless scream ripping from her mouth as she shot. One of the missiles struck the side of the Rajang's face and sheared away the left half, its eerie skull looking upon her with malice as it roared in response.
"HAH! Take that you fucker!" The huntress crowed, her ballista chasing as the Rajang sowed more mayhem along the fourth wall. The horde began to press again, and the battlements shook against their weight. Blake saw Yang fall off the wall and roll into the ground, the girl kicking up to her feet and sprinting towards the fifth. Blake's heart beat so hard that it was painful, and she wanted to shout to Octavia to cover Yang, but knew she could not be heard above the beating of the cannons and the deafening murmur of the horde.
Just then the ballista emptied, and Blake moved over again to reload the contraption. However as she stood with the cartridge in hand, she saw a Tobi-kadachi mount the shuddering fourth wall. Before she could even blink the monster flicked its tail, and sharp barbs rocketed their way towards them. Blake heard a wet noise behind her, and when she turned she saw Octavia frozen in place and wide eyed, a barb in her throat muting her forcefully. The woman sprayed blood as her hands trembled to her neck, feebly inching towards the foreign object, so mercilessly stuck in her throat. She collapsed onto her back with a heavy thud, her blood pooling in an unholy halo while her eyes drifted onto Blake. She sputtered one last time before falling still.
"No!" Blake screamed, diving towards the body, frantically putting her hands on the girl, only to realize that it had been too late the moment the barb had hit her. Tears stung at her eyes as she rushed back towards the ammo box and reloaded the ballista herself. She launched herself onto the swivelling dial and aimed back towards the fray.
The line had shrunk in the brief moments she took to mourn the huntress, and the fifth wall was beginning to be pressed by the horde. Blake yanked at the trigger and needed to steady herself as she fired into the mass. There couldn't be more than three dozen or so monsters left on the battlefield, their bodies slipping and skidding across the black and red field as they scrambled maddeningly forward. When she emptied her clip Blake leapt from the ballista and found only two more ammo boxes waiting for her, she yelled in frustration and grabbed one, loading the machine again and hurrying back to her perch.
Up high on the ballista she could see the Atlesian ships in flames, bodies of drakes draped across their decks as sailors dove into the waves below, coated in fire that did not extinguish as they hit the water. She turned her ballista upwards and fired into the side of a Paolumu above, the monster careened down and crashed onto the fifth battlement, wiping away a line of defenders with its body.
She heard the Rajang roar again, the beast charging straight down the middle of the field towards the fourth trench, the machine cannons barreling away with their bullets as it made a line forward. The Rajang stopped and wrenched two of the great spikes free from the ground, hurling the makeshift spears towards the wall and decimating each cannon in turn. Blake flinched as she watched one of the spikes break straight through the wall, removing a huntress's legs as it careened through the sky. The trench was set off and the explosion toppled the Rajang to the ground, only for it to be swarmed by the remaining horde as they crashed into the fifth wall.
Blake emptied her ballista again, and as she turned for her last set of ammo a rending pain screamed across her back. She felt talons sink into her muscle and she spun in reaction, whipping her dual blades free and cleaning the head of some small monster from its winged body. It collapsed to the floor like a shit, its body leaking across the battlement. Blake fell to the side and breathed heavy breaths, the lines across her back staining her clothes red. With a half limp she made it to her bag and downed two potions, the fiery pain across her back softening as they worked their magic. She pulled her bag onto her back before sheathing her weapons, and with a mighty effort she loaded the last of her ammo into the ballista.
The fifth wall did not fall, and would not in the days after the battle, but instead was rendered with holes and splits that the last of the horde wormed their way through. Blake could see that the remaining defenders were caught in physical combat, scattered along the battlement or brawling in the trenches below. A few zipped up and onto the main gate, some sporting serious injuries and others with madness in their eyes. The cannon to Blake's left emptied itself and its defenders moved further down the wall, assisting others who soon ran short of ammunition themselves. Blake was determined to make each shot caught, and took careful aim to assist as many as she could below her.
There was another terrible scream and the Rajang barreled through the fifth wall, its body twisted and mangled through its previous trampling as it careened forward. The monster grabbed a nearby Dodogama, the creature screeching as it was carried forward. The Rajang took the beast and rammed its face into the main gate, a disgusting squelch echoing in the night.
"Take it down! DOWN! Protect the gates!" Someone shouted from along the line. Blake turned her ballista and fired off a shot, the missile sinking into the makeshift battering ram instead of the Rajang. The beast drove the Dodogama forward again, crushing its skull as it splintered and shattered the gate. With each thrust, the Dodogama seemed to shrink further and further, its body compacting into itself while its oily blood leaked through the rows of the wood.
Blake fired one last shot, the ballista arrow sinking into the Rajang's shoulder, but the monster continued its relentless task, its madness and fury leaving it blind to all harm. Blake heard shouting behind the gates, and saw lines of soldiers and hunters forming, the Commander and General guiding them. Her ballista useless, Blake fell back to the wall and wirebugged down to the ground below, quickly moving in tandem with others who hurried to form a defense perimeter against the falling gates. Blake saw many covered in black, and some painted in red, their faces haggard and their bodies worn. Blake could only suck in staggered breaths, draw her blades and stand at the ready.
The hammering of the gates ended with a deafening roar, the wood and metal spitting out angrily with blood and brains as the corpse of the Dodogama was hurled through the shattered barrier. The body flattened a few, and the Rajang leapt from behind it, its fist flying out in blind rage as it decimated the defenders. Blake hardly had time to react as more of the horde slithered through the gaping hole. There was a call from behind, and the defenders of Astera charged forward.
Her body was cold even when it was so hot. Like someone had lit a furnace at the bottom of an ocean. She moved but she did not realize that she was moving, as though she was removed from her body and placed outside as the observer. She had no control, but that didn't scare her. In fact she was glad that her body moved without her willing it, for she couldn't trust her mind to keep up with the primal instinct required to escape her death in this situation. She had remembered reading a book about this once, that hunters and soldiers might enter a fugue state when faced with great trauma. She finally recalled it as dissociation.
She was vaguely aware of the warm trickle of something creeping down her arms, but in the pitch of the night ,so feebly aided by flickering sconces, she couldn't tell if it was hers, or someone's red, or theirs or something's black. All she could see as her blade dipped into flesh was the spray and the blurring of movement to run, to hide, to survive as she feebled her way from one fight to the next. She wished she knew what horrid horror she had just slain, assisted by those still moving and those who had stopped, but it was still so hard to see where she was, and who was beside her.
The roaring in her ears faded to one that originated from in front of her somewhere, past the raised lances and axes of the defenders. The weapons and people fell like wheat at the harvest, and they were stacked unceremoniously as the deviled Rajang pushed forward. Its body slivered and cut and ragged with a dozen weapons of felled defenders sticking into it. The monster pushed its way toward her, and that other worldly floating snapped away from her and she was back in her mind, and in her body.
The cold equally rushed from her, and the lactic burn grew unbearably throughout her body. She wheezed air through her mouth and nose in turn, and her legs carried her to the side into a feeble roll past the fist of the great beast. She lashed out from within the roll, some energy willing her to get behind the beast, past its murderous gaze and forward to safety. She couldn't run for long, there was the unabated thirst for blood in the Grimm, and she was but a swollen, hot pustule waiting to be popped.
Blake stumbled to the ground as a scaffolding was shattered above her, her eyes hazed as she observed weakly at the devastation of Astera. Roiling fires burned along the gates, into the trade yard. People were congregating in tight groups towards the shipyard and their last fleeting salvation. The few Grimmblight monsters who were left, and there really were only a few who had made it past the defenses, were all that were needed to rip chaotically through the settlement. Blake could only blink through the haze of fatigue and the smoke, she coughed something wet onto the ground, whether it was blood or bile she couldn't know.
Wheezing breaths rolled a miasmic stench towards her, the Rajang limping towards her with its shattered wrists. Blake could only roll onto her back and stare weakly at her coming death, too tired and battered to continue the farce of living in this hell.
There was a noise, maybe a scream or a cry and the Rajang flinched away from a great crash of shield against flesh. Yang, beautiful, brave Yang, was there and she was fighting most arduously for Blake. The huntress wove in and out of the strikes in a limp bob, her bad leg faltering and skidding across the bloodied ground. Blake felt the weariness drift away from her and she struggled to her feet, a growing panic coming to her mind as she realized that Yang couldn't win.
Just as Blake made it to her knees, she watched Yang overextend with a thrust of her sword, the tip running a sick line down the Rajang's side. Even though the blade met flesh, it was held there by the Rajang's grip, the monster's hand engulfing Yang's arm entirely. Yang was only allowed a muted yell before she was lifted up into the air and then slammed into the ground on the opposite side. The Rajang did not release its grip, and she was lifted and slammed twice more before Blake could let out a scream.
On the third and final terrible slam there was a crack and the wet pop of flesh at the arc of the bludgeoning, and Yang flew through the air and crashed somewhere out of sight. The Rajang looked around in confusion before opening its hand and observing the severed limb, which it tossed aside like trash.
Blake was screaming, or crying, she couldn't know, when she finally got to her feet, her arms miraculously still holding her blades. The monster turned towards her, but whined as it fell to the ground, a huntress behind it driving her short sword deep into its back leg.
"Go!" Pyrrha screamed at her. The woman leapt back in a practised fashion and charged forward with the momentum, a beautiful dance of sword and shield that flashed sickenly in the night. With a vault over the Rajang's back she soared into the air, angling her shield down below her as she fell like judgment upon the butcher. A resounding crunch dented the Rajang's skull, and its other horn snapped clean off as Pyrrha struck the ground hard.
And Blake ran, she ran past her savior, past the litterings of bodies and limbs into the trade yard where she had seen Yang fall.
In the collapsed rubble of a stall she found her, unconscious and twisted amongst the splinters of wood. Blake vomited when she saw Yang's arm, the Rajang having snapped it messily at the upper half. Tendrils of Yang's bicep hung naked outside her skin and a persistent leak of blood colored her body completely.
"Nonononono-" Blake sobbed, her whole body growing hot.
Blake dove onto the girl, forcing potion after potion into her mouth while simultaneously wrapping her limb in anything that might control the bleeding. When she had exhausted her supply of healing items, the leak had subsided to a drip that staind its way through the makeshift tourniquet she had applied, a belt and the shredded end of her jerkin hastily cut clean by one of her dual blades. She tightened them one more time and hasted the woman onto her shoulder.
Stumbling on her weak legs and dragging Yang beside her, the stuttered cadence of her steps was drowned by the shrill cries of the terrible around her. The blood soaked light of fire and death colored them as assuredly as Yang's life blood, staining down her side as she was dragged by Blake.
Blake couldn't stop the sniffling that caught in her throat and burned in her nose. She could only move forward and choke on the tears and the soot as she made her way towards the docks. There was a smattering of defenders hurrying the soon to be refugees to the last remaining ship, its crew working tirelessly to subdue the encroaching monsters that hovered around its last defense. Blake quickened her step, stumbling forward on exhaustion. There was a weight lifted from her and she turned and saw her mother take Yang's stumped arm behind her shoulder. Kali wore a grim expression, and a nasty cut came across her forehead and dripped down her face.
"Mom-" Blake started, but Kali shushed her.
"Don't talk, just get her to the ship. Just concentrate on walking Blake. Don't look at anything." A scream punctuated her sentence from somewhere, but Blake moved forward, she didn't look for the sound. The time it took to move to the ship crawled in her mind but it only took a few moments, her mind foggy as she tripped through the remainder of her nightmare. Before she could think Kali was helping her lower Yang onto the deck of the ship, propping the huntress against a set of barrels. Her mother wiped at her brow, clearing the sweat and blood that had settled there, the side of her armor stained deep from Yang's ruined appendage.
"A medic?" Blake stuttered, looking around at the new chaos of the packed ship.
"There are just as many who are as bad, if not worse than Yang. What you did will have to suffice for now Blake, stay with her, make sure she keeps breathing until someone can help." Kali withdrew her dual blades from her waist. "I'm going back out there, we need to get everyone else on board before we leave." Blake gave her a shaky nod, sitting next to Yang and taking her hand as she watched her mother go.
She sat and watched as more people began to shuttle onto the ship, many bleeding, some sans appendages like Yang. She caught the eyes of Sun as he hurried members of his clan aboard the deck, the man locking sunken eyes on her before turning back to his charges. She watched the General and a few of his entourage, the man appearing crazed as he shouted and directed, the Commander's assistant by his side, tattered and dirty.
Blake could only watch as it unfolded around her, her body weary as she lay. At some point a man came by with some stray potions, dropping a few at Blake's feet while he hurried to care for others. She slowly drip fed their contents into Yang's mouth, fully concentrated on her and her alone. She had grown pale since her maiming, but the errant breath that washed against Blake's fingers told her she was still alive somehow. The fury and chaos of the battle continued somewhere far away, and the hustle of the sailors and survivors continued around her, but Blake could only sit and watch while the last of her tears burned down her cheeks.
AN: Thank you for your patience. A lot has happened since my hiatus, the one year anniversary of this fic, 100 follows, so all I have to say is thank you. I will post the next chapter within a few days, because I hate to leave you on a cliffhanger. Like I said, thanks, and please enjoy.