NOVEL SIMPLE Ch. 20 Rearguard
“There’s a tarp in the way!” Someone yelled as they got to the corner of the brick wall. It was the only way to enter the hideout, and Santi had tied a tarp around the crumbling corner to keep anything out. He wanted to roll his eyes, but was to busy avoiding a club that was headed towards his knee.
“CUT THE DAMN TARP!” Santi screamed, his throat ripping at the effort as his saber took a diseased goblins head from its shoulders.
Their convoy was bunched up, people milling around as they waited to get in. Chloe was fighting against the press of people trying to get back to the fighting. Tank was stuck somewhere in the middle with the wounded, and Daniel had snuck off as the latest wave of goblins descended on them.
With a bit of breathing room, Santi looked over the sea of red skinned goblins and felt his heart sink. Four hobgoblins were at the end of the street barking out orders as they directed the horde of lesser goblins. With the hobgoblins here, there wasn’t much chance of making the goblins flee, not without slaughtering them.
Paulie was next to him, laying about with his lead pipe. He was moving smoothly, lashing one way then the next, the pipe an instrument of carnage. Santi thought it was a skill, likely a passive weapons skill. That or Paulie had a much more exciting night life than Santi had expected.
There were a handful of others, mostly fellow freshmen from the dorms, all engaged in bitter fighting. A nine iron was being put to good work, clubbing skulls and driving goblins back. The girl wielding it was one of Chloe’s friends who’s name Santi hadn’t gotten yet.
The flashing silver of the club caused him to look at her, which is why he was staring when a dart of bone punched through her chest. Red blood misted about as the girl froze, golf club held over her head. She teetered for a moment, her white blouse stained by a blooming cloud of red, then fell back. The goblins she had been fighting pounced, leaping at her to finish her off.
Santi was moving instantly, his air sense giving him a split second warning. He twitched his head, another bone spike flashing by his cheek, as he lunged and stabbed the closest goblin. The curved blade slid under the goblins ribs and up, shearing apart internal organs. Black blood bubbled over its thin lips as it paused, perched with a flint dagger ready to finish the girl off, then collapsed as Santi withdrew the saber.
“MEDIC!” Santi’s scream was hoarse, his throat nothing more than shredded vocal chords as he hacked back and forth wildly to keep the press of goblins back. His blade cut everything it touched, clubs, knives, and limbs, but the goblins kept pushing closer.
Another instance of warning, this time though he felt where it was coming from. He dropped to a crouch, the bone dart whistling over his head, and heard the crack of bone hitting pavement. Santi looked into the deep shadows of a house, one whose door and windows lay in shattered ruin.
“Daniel, in there!” Santi pointed his bloody sword at the door, but that was all the time he had as he was forced to slash wildly at a pair of courageous goblins. He split one’s belly open; black organs sliding out as it screamed, and knocked the plank of wood out of the others hand in one fast movement.
He finished the second goblin off just as Chloe barreled into the goblin lines. The girl was on a warpath. Tears streamed down her face as she screamed a wordless cry of rage, her axe a blur of movement as she hacked apart the horde. Anything that got in her way died, bodies falling around her as she headed toward the hobgoblins.
“Follow!” Santi cried, leaping behind Chloe to protect her flanks. For a few minutes, the battle turned into a blur as the rearguard attacked. It was driven by fear and rage, the scared college students banding together to launch themselves at the weak monsters.
Black blood ran like a river as Chloe kept up her momentum. The silver sheen around the axe head was growing brighter, clearly visible even in the bright afternoon sun. Santi’s magic senses were overwhelmed, there was simply too much movement for him to properly interpret. His blade never stopped moving, the myriad of notifications muted as they crashed into the four hobgoblins.
The two that Santi and Daniel had killed had been wounded already, their blood mixing with their victims. These four stood in gleaming armor, no sign of injury at all. They spread out a bit, allowing themselves room to maneuver, while still protecting each other.
Fifteen or so people had followed and Santi prayed that it was enough. Chloe was aiming for the middle two, her axe faster than it should be. Both hobgoblins attacked as one, but in an impressive display of flexibility, Chloe twisted and bent backwards, Both spears flashed through where she had been, her axe came up in an arcing blow, starting close to the ground and whipping around as Chloe snapped upright.
The hobs dodged the blow, but then Santi was engaging one on his own and he couldn’t pay attention to her anymore. He didn’t have any type of skill to help for melee combat, but he had nearly a decade of experience.
He feinted left, rolled right, and slashed at his opponent's neck. The hob fell for the feint, but dodged backward, the sabers tip barely brushing its throat. Black blood still flowed over its brown scale armor, but it wasn’t fatal. Or even debilitating.
Santi kept himself tucked in close to the hob, not letting it get distance to use its spear. His attack was swift and sudden, a barrage of blows that the hob couldn’t escape. Its bronze armor was split as Santi finally landed a clean blow. Santi carved the hobgoblin nearly in half and turned to see who else needed help.
Chloe was bleeding and dragging her leg, but the remaining hob she fought was in worse shape. Its arm was missing and its chest was pulsing blood. Santi knew it was a fatal wound, but Chloe wasn’t waiting for the inevitable. She chased and hacked it down, caring little for her own wounds.
With that, all four hobgoblins were dead. So were three of those who had followed Chloe’s crazed charge. Santi didn’t know their names, but he memorized their faces.
Paulie grabbed at his arm, snapping Santi out of his temporary stupor. He was tired, his body aching from the running fight. He had picked up scratches and cuts and, only as the fight ended, did he finally become aware of them.
“Come on man, it’s over. Let’s get you and her to Tank and the other healers.”
“We can’t leave their bodies. We need to burn them. Sickness, plague, it can, it can spread.” Santi stumbled over the words as he swayed on his feet.
“Shit, man, you got stabbed!” Paulie grabbed at his side, and Santi became aware of a piece of flint wedged into his side right by his hip. Fire raced through him, the pain waking him up and forcing him to bite back a scream.
“Fuck, I got stabbed!”
“I just said that. Ok, let’s get you to Tank. I’ll grab some of the others, we will burn all of these little fucks. Throw em into a fat fire, some gas, and whoosh. Flambe monster.”
“I got stabbed.”
“Santi, I think you’re in shock bud, you keep repeating the same damn thing,”: Paulie groused, but he was pulling Santi away from the scene of the fighting. Chloe was being helped by her two remaining friends, and some others were limping back with help.
Santi was in disbelief. He had been gouged, bitten, burned, slashed, broken, electrocuted, and once been drown. He had never been stabbed though. Eight years of fighting and surviving the apocalypse, and one of the weakest monsters possible had done what nothing else had.
They climbed over the crumbling wall, having to go one at a time, and Tank immediately grabbed Chloe. She was white as a sheet, a sheet of sweat on her face, eyes half closed as she collapsed into Tank’s arms. They had set up an infirmary right there on the lawn, and Santi let himself be led a little ways away.
“Paulie?”
“If you tell me you got stabbed again, I’m going to hit you.”
“You have a terrible bedside manner”
“Thank god I’m not a doctor then. What?”
“My bag, the keys to all the locks in the building are in my bag. Back pocket.”
“You have the keys to the place? How’d you do that?” Paulie asked as he searched the backpack and pulled out a ring of keys from Santi’s bag.
“I wrapped chains around all the doors and locked them with the biggest padlocks I could find. Give the keys to Tank when he’s done with Chloe. Food and water are inside. Listen, I’m going to take a nap. Don’t wake me up.” Santi used his pack as a pillow and let himself pass out, trusting Tank and the other’s to care for his wounds.