Chapter 48

Note: Thanks to Alex for beta reading this!

Hagane gained the west wall with Mrs. Baldwin, Smerta, and Lei, Siwang’s cyclops companion. The animated statue stared out at the battlefield.

A line of catapults firing at the wall was set up before something bigger. Mangonels. The largest of catapults that could throw boulders. Hagane tapped her arm-blade against her thigh, her body vibrating from the impact.

“Those look bad,” Mrs. Baldwin said.

“Very bad,” said Hagane.

The first of the mangonels fired.

“Get down!” Hagane shouted at the arachnes, oozes, yuki-onna, salamanders, oreads, and sirens that manned the wall. “Now!”

A massive boulder arched in the air. It seemed to move so slowly as it tumbled down at them. It grew larger and larger. Hagane ducked low beside Lei. The cyclops blinked her large, blue eye. The artillery stone struck the wall.

The battlements shook. Stone shattered as it crushed the crenelations and rolled over a group of monster girls. Sreaga, Moroz, Dongara, and Dala were all killed in a heartbeat. An arachne, yuki-onna, oread, and a siren.

“We have to take those out,” Smerta growled, the valkyrie standing back up. She held her icy blade in her hand.

“And what do we do about the army!” Mrs. Baldwin demanded, pointing down at the charging force rushing at the wall.

“They have siege ladders,” Hagane said. “They’re going to scale the wall.”

“Incoming!” Lei shouted.

Another bolder fired at the wall.

Hagane ducked behind the crenelations wondering what good hiding behind them would do. The boulder slammed into the wall. The entire structure shook from the impact. Stone exploded and rained down on the ground below.

“How long can the wall withstand that?” demanded Smerta.

“It’s to keep our heads down so the assault force can reach the wall,” Hagane said. “And if they get lucky, they’ll breach—”

BOOM!

Another boulder slammed into the wall. Hagane gasped at how much it shook. Dust rose in the air. Hagane forced herself to stand. She peered out over the battlements at the enemy forces. They were getting closer. The catapults hurled their smaller missiles. Rocks the size of watermelons slammed into the wall or arched over to crash into the village.

“Take down the siege ladders!” Hagane cried. “Now while the mangonels are reloading!”

“For Leo!” Mrs. Baldwin cried. “For Leo!”

“FOR LORD LEO!” the monster girls cried.

The arachnes scrambled up onto the battlements, risking exposure to the catapults’ fire. A stone hissed past Damhanalla’s head as she fired spider silk down at the soldiers carrying the siege ladder. She webbed them, tripping them up.

Down the wall, the other three arachnes did the same, firing their sticky webbing at the men. They gasped, falling to the ground and tripped up by the silk. Several of the ladders faltered, but only for a moment.

The yuki-onna threw daggers of ice. They slammed them down into the enemy soldiers. Their attacks struck armor, bursting into icy mist. Others found flesh, dropping the soldiers. The army came closer and closer.

We don’t have a lot of ranged firepower here, realized Hagane. That was a mistake in our deployment.

“GET DOWN!” Smerta cried.

The three mangonels fired.

Three huge boulders hurtled in the air at the wall. The arachnes scrambled off their posts. The yuki-onna ducked down. Hagane watched the three boulders falling at them. Her arm-blade tapped against her thigh.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

She gasped, staggering as the entire wall rippled. Stone ground on stone as the shock waves propagated through the structure. A loud crack rent part of the wall, a section of the teeth-like crenelations on the battlements falling away and crashing to the ground below. They were batting down the wall.

“We can’t survive these assaults much longer,” Smerta hissed.

“Doesn’t matter,” cried Lei. The cyclops pointed her silver warhammer down at the enemy. Matching armor clad her body. Her blonde hair whipped in the wind. “They’re on us.”

Siege ladders slapped up as the thousands of soldiers had reached the wall. The enemy surged up the ladders. Men climbing fast, the lead soldiers holding a shield before them. They moved fast, their comrades waiting to get on.

The yuki-onna threw their icy daggers. The arachnes fired silk. Soldiers with bows down at the wall fired arrows up at the monster girls. Hagane watched the fight, thinking. She noticed the three oozes. An idea formed in her mind.

“Cikata, Cikhala, and Philtara,” she thought, “jump down the ladders!”

The three oozes darted into action. Their gelatinous forms rippled as they reached the nearest ladders. Soldiers were nearing the top as the oozes jumped off. They formed into large balls of slime that struck the lead soldiers coming up the three ladders. Their weight knocked each one off. The poor men fell into the soldiers beneath them.

The three oozes cleared the ladders, driving the men down to the ground. It was a command Leo would never give. He hated sacrificing his monster girls, but Hagane was not him. She would hold this wall and do what it took.

The oozes and soldiers landed at the bottom in a clatter. Screams rose as men writhed. The oozes spilled off and formed into their monster girl forms. They lashed out arms as tentacles, strangling soldiers. Philtara threw herself at one, engulfing his head.

Swords and spears hacked and stabbed at the oozes, but they were not easily killed. Their bodies flowed around attacks. Or they threw themselves on the enemy, forcing soldiers to stab each other in an attempt to kill them.

“Good girls,” Smerta said. “Now get those ladders burning.”

The salamanders rushed toward the ladders and breathed fire. They engulfed the tops of them in heat. The wood caught. The twine binding the rungs in place failed. Soldiers recoiled from the heat surging down at them. One screamed as he burned and fell.

The two oreads melted into the walls. In moments, holes opened on the ground, swallowing a soldier whole, then closing back up. Hagane smiled at the oreads working their deadly magic. They had to stop this assault.

But there were so many soldiers.

And they had more ladders.

An arrow took Sukkub in the face. The yuki-onna vanished into a burst of mist. Hagane watched the battle. They were so few to stop so many. The enemy was determined, and behind them, the mangonels waited.

Mrs. Zoe Baldwin sent her roots down a ladder. The lead soldier gasped as the dryad’s tendrils wrapped about his arm. He tried to draw his sword, but she ripped him off the ladder and sent him falling thirty feet onto the waiting soldiers below.

An arrow flashed past Mrs. Baldwin as her roots rushed at the next soldier. He had his sword out and swung for her tendrils. Pain flared as he cut some, but more wrapped around his neck. With a hard jerk, she broke his vertebrae and sent his limp body crashing into the men behind him.

The arachnes fired webbing that tangled men on other siege ladders, binding them in place and stopping the assault. The sirens sang at the men who managed to get near the top. Soldiers swayed to their beautiful music.

Then jumped willingly off the ladders.

To Mrs. Baldwin’s horror, she saw rocks hurtling at the wall. The mangonels had fired during the assault. The boulders rushed towards the damaged section where none of the ladders had been placed.

“BRACE!” Mrs. Baldwin cried, pointing.

As a soldier cut at her roots, she gripped the battlements before her.

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

The three massive boulders slammed into the wall. The structure shook. The cracks worsened. More of the wall crumbled, creating a small ravine in the battlements. A gap only a few feet across, but it was the beginning of the end of the wall.

It was not going to withstand another volley.

“We’re in trouble, Hagane!” Mrs. Baldwin gasped, pointing at the section of crumbling wall.

“I know,” Hagane said and glanced up in the sky.

Alizee watched the fight at the west wall with horror. Those massive boulders hammered the wall. It was failing as thousands of soldiers gathered for the assault. She had to do something. That was her job. She was Leo’s sylph.

“Come on, girls!” Alizee cried to the harpies. “Let’s go crush those big, scary boulder throwers!”

The harpies around her screeched, “YES!”

The sylph surged forward, thrusting her arm before her like she was Supergirl, the best superhero on the CW. Alizee’s white hair streamed behind her as she soared out over the wall and the chaos below. Ladders burned. The oozes fought amid the soldiers. A hole opened and a man vanished into the earth. She caught catches of beautiful songs over the screams and shouts.

She focused on those three super-big boulder lobbers. She wasn’t sure what else to call them. Maybe catapults. She wasn’t sure. This wasn’t her thing. She didn’t watch war movies. She liked romcoms. Or just straight romance movies.

If big boulder lobbers were in a Nicolas Sparks movie, she would know what these things were. “Archers!” shouted Kaputan.

She threw out the wind before them, knocking back the arrows. They reached the weapons. Alizee sent slashing blades of wind down there as more arrows surged up into the air. The harpies screeched and dodged back and forth.