Chapter 352: Hold the Line

Chapter 352: Hold the Line

The leader had come early, and the southern follower was taking a route Jin hadn’t prepared for.

Jin stood on the pump house roof with the corrugated metal flexing under his boots and made himself think in order.

Beyond the leader lay open crops and the barnyard gate. Everyone inside those buildings was trusting the boy they’d met that morning to keep three boars outside.

The east one at the orchard gate would cost Corwen crop. Jin hated that, but crop could be replanted.

The southern follower was heading for the ford, with a clear route along the channel to the bridge below Jin.

Leader first, he decided. Everything else holds until the leader’s done.

"Glitch," he said, low. "North. The ditch." He sent the direction through the bond, along with the firm urgency to intercept.

Glitch rose out of the tuber tops and went.

He reached the culvert as the leader was halfway through the fence.

In the last of the light, Jin saw a bristled beast nearly as long as Glitch, with tusks like broken spades and a plated snout.

[Stonejaw Boar]

[Combat Rank: 2 — 1-Star]

The leader tore through the remaining fence posts and charged. Glitch met it head-on.

The sound carried all the way to the pump house, a deep, flat crack of plate on plate. Glitch’s hide had gone dark with Harden, and the boar’s tusks scraped off his shoulder. He drove his horns in under its jaw, and then they were locked together, shoving, tearing up the earth at the culvert’s mouth.

Hold it, Jin urged silently. You’re stronger.

Then something came splashing through the ford.

The south follower broke through the wire where the channel left the farm and came up the channel bank at a run.

[Stonejaw Boar]

[Combat Rank: 1 — 9-Star]

It was moving fast along the narrow strip beside the channel, straight for the plank bridge. Thirty meters. Twenty-five.

Glitch was a hundred and fifty meters away with his horns locked under the leader’s jaw. If Jin called him now, the leader would be through into the field.

Workers’ boots had churned the bridge’s approach to mud. The boar would have to plant its forefeet there before crossing, and that small patch lay comfortably within Jin’s reach.

Watch the feet, not the body.

The boar’s stride lengthened as it reached the bank.

"Mine," Jin said.

He set the patch on the mud at the end of the plank.

He put more force into the pulse than he’d used on the training boar, feeling the sharp draw from his Core. The forefeet struck the softened bank and sank; its own momentum did the rest. Its hindquarters slewed sideways, one back foot went off the edge of the bank, and it slid half into the channel with a furious squeal, thrashing in the water.

It would haul itself out in seconds. Jin couldn’t waste them.

Jin released the pressure and used the delay to take his planned route down. He lowered himself over the rear edge, dropped the remaining distance, and landed harder than he meant to. Pain caught his ankle. He stumbled into a crouch behind the concrete wall, out of the boar’s direct line, and sent Glitch an urgent request to finish.

From the corner, Jin could still see the struggle at the culvert. Glitch stopped forcing the leader backward. As the boar surged, the drake turned his shoulder out from under its jaw and twisted. The leader’s own push carried it past him, off balance. Glitch brought his heavy tail round into its legs, and the boar went down on its side in the culvert mud.

Glitch pinned it and bit beneath the armored snout. Jin held his breath until the kicking stopped. When the drake lifted his head, the leader lay still.

"Glitch!" Jin shouted. "Here!" He sent the position through the bond, already backing farther behind the wall.

The follower hauled itself out, mud streaming off its flanks, and turned toward Jin’s shout.

A straight strip of tubers lay between Glitch and the bridge, clear enough for a charge.

Glitch sprinted down the open strip, then committed to Faultline Rush for the final approach. The ground cracked beneath his feet. The follower heard him coming and turned, too late. Glitch hit it at full speed at the end of the plank, and the impact threw it clear across the channel into the far bank.

It struggled once against the bank. Glitch followed across the narrow channel and finished it before it could regain its feet.

The flare went up from the barn loft.

In its hard white light, Jin saw the east follower burst out of the orchard and run straight for the barn.

[Stonejaw Boar]

[Combat Rank: 1 — 8-Star]

Glitch was at the farm’s southern end. The boar had only a hundred meters to cover before the barnyard.

Jin’s hand twitched toward it before he checked himself. He had energy left, even after the harder pulse at the bridge, but the boar was far beyond his range.

He sent Glitch toward the barn. The drake wheeled and ran diagonally across the field while Jin limped around the pump house for a better view.

Come on. Get there.

The follower reached the stock gate first. It struck low, splintering a bottom rail, then backed off to charge again. Lia had vanished from the loft window as instructed. Jin could only hope she was well away from it.

Glitch was closing. As he entered the approach to the barnyard, Jin felt the familiar gathering pressure through their bond.

"Yours," he said, sending agreement with the word.

Now within reach, Glitch cast onto a small patch directly before the gate. The charging boar planted its forefeet in it and pitched forward, its snout striking the soil. It struggled to rise as the pulse faded.

Glitch covered the remaining distance before it recovered. He hit from the side, drove it clear of the broken rail, and brought his jaws down. Jin watched until it stopped struggling, then checked the fence for any further movement.

The field went quiet.

The pump was still thumping inside the pump house. Somewhere in the dark, a night bird started calling again. Jin leaned against the concrete wall, breathing hard. Now that he could stop moving, his ankle throbbed. He cautiously put weight on it and found he could stand. Walking back to the barn was going to be unpleasant, but he could live with that.

Glitch came back up the field toward him. There was a long fresh scrape across his left shoulder plate where the leader’s tusk had caught him, and mud to his elbows, and he was breathing hard. He walked up to Jin, lowered his enormous head, and pushed it gently into Jin’s chest.

Jin put an arm around his neck and rubbed the unmarked side of his face.

"You were brilliant," Jin said. "You were brilliant." He laughed shakily as Glitch pressed closer. "Give me a second. I’m standing on one good foot here."

Glitch rumbled. Then he lifted his head and looked pointedly at the tuber strip, where his charge had torn up a long line of plants and left the tubers scattered on the soil.

The barn door opened. Corwen Pask came out first, holding a lamp, with the workers behind him, and stopped at the edge of the field to look.

Corwen looked from the leader in the culvert to the carcass by the channel, then back toward his damaged gate. For a while he said nothing.

"The pump?" Corwen asked finally.

"The pump and sheds are fine," Jin said. "There’s the gate to repair, and some of that strip." He nodded at the uprooted plants. "Sorry about the crop. He was in a hurry."

Corwen let out a long breath that was almost a laugh.

"That’s nothing," he said, rubbing his face. "I’d already started working out who I’d sell the pump to."

Lia came out behind him and stood very still beside her father, looking at the boar in the field.

"It came a different way," she said. "The south one. It never came that way before."

"No," Jin agreed. "But you were right about the leader. And your flare showed me the last one had turned toward the barn. That helped."

Lia looked at Glitch, then picked up a tuber his charge had unearthed. At her questioning glance, Jin nodded. She approached and offered it on her flat palm.

Glitch ate it in one bite, very gently, and looked hopefully for another.

Jin took out his phone, photographed all three carcasses, and attached the tags.

[Kill report submitted: Stonejaw Boar ×3]

[Contract status: Complete — pending verification]

Corwen brought him a chair while the workers began inspecting the fence. Jin sat beside Glitch and checked his ankle, listening to the pump thumping behind him. He’d chosen the job, taken it, and finished it. Tomorrow he could tell his father about all three boars.

Perhaps he’d leave out the clumsy landing until the swelling went down.