Chapter 104: The Fall of Post Six

⚠️ WARNING: This chapter includes graphic violence, blood, severe injuries, and character deaths. Reader discretion is advised.

....

Officer Silas's eyes moved slowly across the room, and stopped at Reynold, then at Nymeria, then at the rest of the group.

"Did they teach you how to fight Golems in the academy?" he asked quickly.

Nobody answered immediately as they exchanged quick looks with each other.

Then Evan gave a small nod. "Yeah... i was taught."

Nymeria's eyes stayed steady on Silas. "We were taught too."

Silas let out a short nod back, and he started running through what they needed to do, with his hand moving in the air as he spoke fast and clear.

"Golems do not die easily. You have to go for the core rune. It is always hidden somewhere in the torso or the head, and it is not easy to spot. Whatever you do, do not hit the limbs, because it will just piss it off more. We hold the line here, and you all will be..."

BOOM!

The wooden wall at the end of the bunk corridor exploded.

Splinters and dust filled the air as a massive stone hand punched through the wood.

A Golem stepped through the broken wall, the whole body wascarved from stone and iron. The joints were grinding and crackling with arcane light every time it moved.

"GOLEMS! THEY ARE INSIDE!" someone screamed from the corridor.

Everyone in the room snapped their eyes to the fallen door of Reynold's room.

Nyx was up and moving fast towards Bobby as she grabbed the sword lying beside Bobby's headless corpse and shoved it into Reynold's hands.

"Take it!" she yelled.

Then she turn toward Cormac's body near the doorway and ripped the blade on his hip off. She gripped the handle tight in her fist.

Nymeria grabbed Reynold by the shoulders and shook him.

"Reynold! Look at me! Are you okay?!"

Reynold blinked, his eyes were still not clear from everything that just happened. "I'm okay... yeah... I'm okay."

He shut his eyes for a second, and muttered under his breath. "Snap out of it Starweaver. Or you might just be good as dead this time..."

Suddenly, deep roars were sounding through the night sky outside, and shaking the wooden beams above their heads.

West let out a short laugh despite, with his fists still glowing with orange flame.

"Well, thank the flame for that. The dragons are here now. Maybe our chances of not dying just went up a little."

​"Don't get comfortable!" Silas shouted and West just swallowed.

Two more Golem moved past the broken wall outside, and their footsteps cracking the ice under them.

Three were now inside the corridor and already closing in on the small room.

Lyra stumbled back against the far wall and threw her hand up. Immediately, shimmering dome of white light bloomed around her, as it seal her off.

She stand right there, not moving from the spot. Her eyes were shifting across the room.

Silas and Gideon were standing at the front of the room.

"Hold!" Silas shouted. "Wait for them to come to you!"

The first Golem ducked the head under the broken beam and stepped fully into the room.

Gideon quickly threw his hand out and thick roots sprang out through the wooden floorboards, and snapped around the Golem's ankle and yanked it off balance. He is a nature mage.

Silas then moved in fast with his sword swinging as he drove it into the stone chest, with his eyes already scanning to spot the rune.

The Golem's fist came down.

And Silas rolled clear, and this time his eyes landed on the rune and he quickly stabbed it with his blade.

The rune split with a crack of blue-white light, and the stone body froze mid-swing before crumbling into rubble across the floor.

"One down!" Silas shouted, already turning toward the second one.

The second Golem entered through the first wall, and swing wide at Gideon.

Gideon dived and rolled between the legs, he then wrapped a thick vine around the ankle from behind while Reynold rushed in from the side, and drove his blade into the seam along the ribs.

The rune was not there.

"Not there!" Reynold yelled and yanked the blade away just before a the Golem's fist nearly caught him in the head.

Silas came in from the other side with his sword arcing up under the Golem's jaw and into the base of the skull.

The rune cracked open, and the second Golem dropped to the floor. The arms were still twitching before going still.

Two Golems down.

Lyra's light kept flickering across the room, as she was closing the cut on Evan's forearm, then a scrape along Gideon's temple. She was healing their cut from where she was standing.

"Last one," Gideon yelled, turning toward the breach.

The Golem was already inside. This one was faster than the other two.

The arm swing right towards Silas.

"Silas, watch out!" Gideon screamed.

But it was late.

The arm caught Silas in the chest and sent him flying across the room. He slammed into the wooden support beam with a crack and slid down to the floor without moving.

"SILAS!" Lyra scream. Her hands pressed to the inside of her shield as she tried to reach him.

"Kill it! Kill it now!" Nymeria shouted, already moving.

Reynold and Gideon closed in from both sides. Reynold slid low and sliced across the back of the knee to drop it forward, while Gideon drove a hardened wooden spike straight up under the chin.

The rune inside cracked and shattered, and the third Golem toppled sideways and fell.

The room went quiet instantly.

Lyra let her shield drop and ran to Silas. She dropped to her knees beside him, her hands already glowing as she pressed them against his chest.

"Come on... come on, stay with me..." Her voice cracked as the light poured into him, but his chest did not even rise.

His eyes just stared up at the broken ceiling.

"No, no, no, come on..." Lyra's hands were shaking as light pour uselessly from her fingers.

Niya grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back with everything she had. "He is gone, Lyra! He is already gone! We have to move, now!"

Lyra let out a broken sound, but she Niya dragged toward the door.

Outside, the whole outpost had turned into chaos.

Dragons roars were mixed with the screams of officers below.

Most of the dragons were breathing Ice-Fire and pressurized air mixed with superheated mineral dust instead of the normal orange fire.

More golems were entering through the perimeter.

The snow was no longer white. Dark red blood soaked the wide patches.

A soldier's severed arm was laying near the icy steps. The fingers still curled around the handle of a broken sword.

Another man was pinned under a fallen watchtower beam, his lower half was already crushed flat.

A Golem swept the arm sideways towards the three soldiers retreating, and three of them went down at once.

Their bodies crumpled and skidded across the ice, with one of them missing most of his skull.

Soldiers fell one after another with most of their chests and skulls open against the frozen ground. Blood sprayed hot against the ice.

"Nymeria, with me!" Reynold shouted with his sword raised as a Golem turned toward them.

Nymeria's palm shot out and a mix of shadow mist and earth magic burst forward, wrapping around the Golem's legs and yanking it down onto one knee.

Reynold darted in, and slide low across the ice, he then drive his sword straight up into the exposed neck joint.

The Golem's arm swung wide and Reynold dived, and the Golem's fist passed so close that Reynold felt the wind of it against his hair.

"Left side, now!" Nymeria yelled.

Reynold turned and drove the blade in from the left, and this time the sword touched something softer than stone.

It was the rune. Blue-white light burst from the seam, and the Golem's whole body froze, then crumbled into a pile of broken rock.

They barely had the time to breathe before another one turned toward them.

Nyx moved in from the side, and sliced at the joints to slow it down, buying Reynold and Nymeria the seconds they needed.

"On your six!" Nyx shouted, and Nymeria turn just as a second Golem's fist came down, with shadow mist catching the strike and slowing it just enough for Nymeria to roll clear.

Nearby, Gideon was fighting alone. Vines and roots were tearing up from the frozen ground, and wrapping around a Golem's arms and holding it in place while he searched for an opening.

"A little help!" Gideon shouted, his voice strained as the Golem tore one arm free.

Nobody could reach him in time.

He gritted his teeth, picked a spike of hardened wood and drove a spike of it straight into the Golem's chest, and this time it landed on the rune.

The body split apart and dropped.

Gideon staggered back as he breathed hard. He then turned toward the next one.

Evan was fighting beside Niya, his sword clashing against a Golem's forearm.

Niya's voice sounded through the air in a high piercing note, and the sound alone rattled the Golem's frame, and threw off balance. She is a sound mage.

But a second Golem came from behind her.

"Niya, move!" Evan screamed.

She turned too late and the strike clipped her shoulder, sending her crashing down into the snow.

Evan threw himself in front of her, with his sword raised.

"Get up! I've got you covered!" he shouted, gritting his teeth as he pushed the Golem's arm back.

Lyra crouched low nearby with her shimmering shield of light wrapped tightly around her body. It was blocking every strike that came near her.

Through the shield, she reached out with her healing magic, trying heal a fallen soldier's leg, but there was too much damage, and her hands were shaking as she worked.

All around them, soldiers kept falling.

One by one, the defenders of the outpost were being crushed and torn apart or buried under the falling ice as the Golems pushed more deep into the camp.

A man near the watchtower was lifted clean off his feet by a Golem hand around his throat, and was thrashed for a second before his neck snapped with a sound.

Another soldier tried to crawl away with half his leg gone below the knee, leaving red blood trail across the ice before a Golem fist smash him.

The smell of blood and burnt flesh from the dragonfire filled the air.

Reynold's arms were already burning from the strain of holding his sword. There was a long cut bleeding freely down his ribs.

Beside him, Nymeria was breathing hard too, with bruise already forming across her cheek, and blood trickling from a split lip.

"You good?" Reynold asked, glancing at her.

"Yeah," Nymeria said, raising her hand again as another Golem came out.

"Behind you."

Reynold turned and cut down the Golem as he reached for his back.

Above them, one of the dragons let out a furious roar as it clashed with something massive in the sky.

Then, a Golem was turning straight toward Nymeria's back while her attention was locked on the one in front of her.

"Nymeria, look out!"

Reynold did not even think as he just moved. He slammed himself into her, and shove her out of the Golem's strike.

The Golem's fist crashed into the ice where she was standing before.

Reynold and Nymeria hit the ground together, and they tumbled once across the snow before stopping.

Reynold ended up over her, his arms braced on either side of her head, and his chest already heaving from the fall and from the fight.

For one strange second, the chaos around them seemed to stopped.

Reynold's eyes found were on her face before it then moved down to her lips.