213 Sir Stout Senior and the Ashdale Colony’s Last Stand

BANG! The aide shot the advisor.

"Was it him who said it?" Sir Stout Senior asked.

"Yes, sir." The aide answered.

"Wasn't it you?"

"No, sir." The aide said with a perfectly straight face.

Still, Sir Stout looked at him sideways suspiciously.

A trio of Wood Cougars had reached the outer perimeter. Furless and seemingly made of bark and branch, these feline forms could very well be mistaken for wooden carvings if they only kept still. Sir Stout wished they would; instead, they were darting all around at frenzied speeds, tearing into the spike barriers. Just these three alone were able to break through whole meters of the outermost perimeter, clearing the way for faster, furrier creatures to charge through.

"Fire!" the disciplined lines of Ashdale regulars triggered their rifles and gunfire rang in loud chorus. Blood and bone splattered across the outermost perimeter, but where five fell, fifteen swarmed through, and where none fell, twenty surged.

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The outermost perimeter was completely overrun. All the traps, spikes, and barriers were crushed and destroyed in less than a minute. The second layer of obstacles didn't even seem to slow down the incoming horde. Tier 5 Wilds practically trampled those measly tricks underfoot, ignoring fake scents and drugged or poisoned traps, busting right through fire traps and crushing them as they passed, oblivious to any attempt to slow them down.

Volley after volley of gunfire rang out; six shots in a row from the Ashdale regular defenders were quickly spent, and then they had to reload their revolver rifles. The 100 La Vive refugee volunteers and the 50 minutemen from the colony's pioneers took up the slack, using older firearms that would have otherwise gone unused, but only managed a single round before needing their own reloads. They couldn't possibly match the regulars' rate of fire, and in those terrible few seconds in which everyone was reloading, the Wilds poured into the third layer of defense.

"NOW!" Sir Stout shouted, and the Battle Magi triggered their runic formations.

Fire and stone burst out of the ground, forming sudden double-layered walls that the Wilds couldn't help crashing into. For a moment there, the air shook with heavy impacts and a hundred howls of pain immediately followed as the whole front row of Wilds were set aflame.

"Second cast!" the lead Battle Mage ordered, and spells chants rang out. The walls of fire shifted form, and flurries of fireballs shot out into the incoming crowd. As they were spent, more flames replaced the gaps formed in the walls of fire, two separate groups working together to maintain a steady barrage, one to launch fireballs from the walls, the other to strengthen and replenish the walls themselves.

"Fire!" the 400 Ashdale regulars had reloaded and once more sent shot after shot in rapid succession into the incoming Wilds.

"Fire!" the 150 minutemen and volunteer mix likewise added their own firepower to the carnage.

For a moment there, a single, glorious moment, the Beast Tide was pushed back.

And then the moment was over, and the Wilds were ramming into the fire-and-stone walls again. This next layer had heavier cats, some of whom seemed metallic, and… goodness, was that a stone rhinocerous?!

"Target the rhino! Artillery…!"

"Just ten more seconds!" Artillery yelped.

"There's no time! Hit that thing with whatever you've got!"

The result of that was the stone rhino was bombarded with five globs of sticky stuff that weren't lit. The Level 6 Battle Mage paused briefly and raised his hand. A fire arrow darted out and set the rhino on fire, just to complete the process.

It didn't stop the rhino. It barely even slowed it down. Now on fire, the burning stone rhino charged forward and slammed into the rock walls, causing cracks to form that were visible even on the defenders' side.

Only then did the remaining four artillery emplacements launch their own sticky blobs. Two of them actually missed but hit other Wilds coming in. The two that hit only added more fuel to the flames, but neither managed to slow down the rhino, nor harm it any more than the flames already did.

Were the flames even harming it? Sir Stout Senior had his doubts.

BOOM! Again, the burning stone rhino rammed the walls, and the cracks grew.

"Change munitions! Just fire normal shots!" Sir Stout yelled at the artillery. "Shoot them as hard and as fast as you can!"

The original plan was to use the burning sticky shots to cause fiery impediments on the horde's path. But who knew they would be so ineffective? Weren't Wilds afraid of fire? Why weren't they even slowing down with all these fire-related obstacles in their way?! On top of that, they were so strong, the sticky stuff didn't even slow them down!

To be fair, it might have worked on Tier 2 or Tier 3 Wilds, but trying to glue Tier 4 Wilds to the ground with that level of sticky substance was simply a joke. Trying to hold down Tier 5's that way… it was useless. Completely useless.

CRASH! The rhino burst through the stone walls, and various forms of wildcats poured in after it.

SPLASH! The burning stone rhino went straight into the moat and immediately started sinking. The fires on it were put out and even the sticky stuff was washing off…

Plus, the rhino started to swim.

"WHY?!" Sir Stout Senior wanted to tear at his hair. "Why isn't anything working?!"

At least it seemed to deter the wildcats a bit. Cats didn't seem to like water.

But cats weren't the only things coming at them. There were bears and lizards and snakes and all sorts of water-savvy swimmers among the Wilds. They took roughly twenty seconds to cross the moat, and on top of that, some digger-type Wilds appeared to be working hard to fill it in!

"Fire!" the Ashdale regulars fired a third volley, six shots each.

"Fire!" the minutemen and volunteers added their own volley.

The Wilds that had emerged from the moat were shot down. But more emerged immediately after and the moat itself seemed to be falling in on itself, turning muddy with the efforts of the giant moles and rat-types digging at it. Even the previously burning stone rhino was making its way out now, having been previously overtaken by faster swimmers like lizards and snakes.

"We can't keep this up much longer!" the Battle Magi were gasping, having been unleashing fireballs into the horde without pause this whole time.

"They're almost to the last line of defense!" the aide yelped.

"Prepare for hand-to-hand combat! All units, divide into forward half for melee and rear half for fire support!" There was no time for anything else. The Wilds were already ramming into the wooden walls that made up the final layer of defense.

"Fire!" the regulars fired.

"Fire!" the volunteers fired.

"Fire!" the artillery fired.

"Fire!" the Battle Magi cast their spells.

"Fire!" out of nowhere, a volley of crossbow bolts rained down from above. Magic glowed on every bolt; with its addition, the Wilds actually floundered, their front lines stumbling in their charge.

"What…?" Sir Stout looked up to see a rather drab oversized airship floating overhead. There were crossbowmen on that airship, and they appeared to be sending down rope ladders and smaller airboats.

"We came to get you out!" Song Chen shouted from the Sky Barge above. Along with the Sky Barge, ten corvettes manned with crossbow units had come to provide escort. Six Type-0 Wasps and thirty rope ladders offered the settlers of the Ashdale and La Vive colonies a chance to get on board. "Are you coming or what?"

"Evacuate! All civilians, evacuate! Soldiers, we will cover their retreat!" Sir Stout Senior shouted. "Hold the line! For as long as you can, hold the line!"

They held as the Beast Tide crashed through the final layer. They held as they rammed into the front half of the units and fought hand-to-hand. They fired off everything they had as the front half was overrun in seconds, and then threw themselves into the melee immediately after.

The minutemen and the volunteers weren't so willing to charge into the fray. They attempted to retreat, to reach the ladders and the Wasps, to maybe get to safety…

But they fared no better. The Wilds tore through the regulars, and then the minutemen too were forced to fight for their lives. After trampling the minutemen, the volunteers were next.

Sir Stout Senior drew his sword at that point. The Wilds were upon him, a hissing giant red Boa on the left, a three meter long, scaly green lizard on the right. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Battle Magi furiously casting spells under a magic barrier upheld by their Level 6 leader. A quick glance back told him that the civilians hadn't even fully evacuated yet, about half of them still couldn't so much as reach the rope ladders.

That quick glance back cost him his life. It didn't matter, he supposed. He wouldn't have lasted long in a hand-to-hand fight against the Beast Tide anyway. Did it mean anything? Did any of it even mean anything…? In the end, what was it all for?

That was the last thought of Sir Stout Senior before he died, and the Wilds overran the last vestiges of resistance from the Ashdale colony.