I got off five or six shots before all hell broke loose. Things got pretty hectic after that. 

For whatever reason, my measly 5.56mm bullets were hitting much harder than they had any right to. Judging by the damage, they packed as much energy as .338 Lapua at the very least, and when they hit a target, it went down and stayed down. 

At 200 meters, there’s not much in the way of appreciable bullet drop with 5.56, so it was hard to tell if they were going any faster than normal, but that would have been my guess. And since the bolt carrier group wasn’t slamming rearward any harder than normal, I didn’t think increased pressure was the cause. Even stranger, each successive shot seemed to be more powerful than the last, and I couldn’t feel the gun heating up in my hands. 

I didn’t get time to really think about it before the whole damn herd charged at once. Even with military grade hearing loss, the noise of thousands of hooves stamping into the earth was tremendous. Just how the hell had they managed to sneak up so close without being noticed?

I kept firing as fast as I could, but it felt like I was barely making a dent. The distance closed to 150 meters, then 100. At 75, the archers and the mages opened up. Those little recurve bows of theirs were clearly magic. Each time an archer drew back, the string and the arrow glowed a brilliant cyan, and when they released, the arrow was accompanied by an orb of energy about the size of a basketball. The effects on target varied. Some exploded with the force of a hand grenade. Others melted through the target, passing through like it wasn’t even there. Still others created glowing balls of plasma the size of a small car on impact that reduced everything within its bounds to ash. 

The mages were no less impressive. There were the usual RPG mainstays, like fireballs, lightning, and ice spears. Those crashed into the mass of hungry bovine fury like runaway freight trains, leaving carnage in their wake. One launched balls of what looked like acid up into the air like mortars. The balls came down in a fine mist that dissolved everything they touched, with appropriately gruesome results. I saw one guy slash wildly at the air with his staff, firing off what I took to be invisible blades of wind, judging by the aftermath. Cow after cow fell apart into neat little cubes of meat and gristle. 

All the while, I kept up a steady, staccato beat of gunfire, each bullet felling a beast, each gunshot more destructive than the last. By the time I polished off my third magazine, I learned to aim low, towards the stomach. The impact on soft tissue was like a bomb going off, and if I hit too high, the whole damn cow exploded. I didn’t even want to think about how much energy was being released on impact. 

The archers and the mages must have claimed at least two or three hundred of the beasts with their opening salvoes, and they still didn’t manage to thin the herd to any appreciable extent. I was able to focus my fire more efficiently, but the best I could do was buy some breathing room for the boys behind the shields. 

Speaking of shields, the shield bearers were arrayed in a wedge, the tip aimed at the heart of the swarm. As the tauri drew closer, they planted their shields into the ground and cried out in unison. I wish I knew what they said so I could record it faithfully, because it was impressive as hell. 

A wall of argent light sprang forth from each shield, and where two walls met, they connected to form a cohesive whole. In an instant, the town was guarded by a wall of actinic fire. I focused my fire on the tip of the formation, where the pressure would be the greatest. 

Here was where the melee fighters earned their keep. As the herd crashed into the shield wall, those further away were diverted harmlessly around it. Those closest, however, had nowhere to go. They could either jump over the wall, or be crushed against it. 

The axe bearers were smart about their work. Two or three in every party worked directly behind the shield bearers, slashing at snouts and necks as demonic cattle reared and tried to leap over the wall. Others worked low, slashing and legs and dropping the beasts to the ground. The dead and maimed quickly piled up into a secondary wall in front of the shield wall, adding further mass to the protective weight of magic. 

Someone in the center of the formation bellowed out a command. The shield bearers repeated it once, twice, and on the third time, they took a step back. They repeated this process several times, until they were no longer in danger of being crushed by the sheer weight of the beef pressing down upon them. 

I realized it was a mistake to think of adventurers as a ragtag group of explorers. These guys were clearly drilled and disciplined. They might work in smaller bands most of the time, but I had the feeling that they could form a makeshift army in the time it would take to get my old battery out of bed in the morning. 

It didn’t take long at all to burn through my combat load of 210 rounds. True to her word, Hani refilled my magazines almost as soon as I emptied them. I was on my sixth refilled magazine, for a total of 390 bullets expended on the day, by the time the last stragglers of the herd thundered past. 

By then, my rifle should have been too hot to hold. At some point, whatever blessing was turning thermal energy into kinetic (my best guess as to how the Goddess managed to increase its power to such a ridiculous extent) must have reached its limit, because it had started to heat up, but no more than if I’d ripped a few magazines off at the firing range.

No assault rifle on planet Earth is designed to fire more than a couple hundred rounds in a firefight. Despite what the movies tell you, spraying bullets in full automatic is usually a waste of time and ammunition, and only really useful as a last resort. Unless you’re actively trying to suppress the enemy, most firefights consist of short, controlled bursts of aimed, semiautomatic fire. Anything else burns them up, and fast.

After about the 300 round mark, if you don’t let them cool off, things start to break. Barrels warp, gas tubes rupture, locking lugs break, handguards catch fire. I had fully expected to have to take a break after expending the 210 bullets preloaded into my magazines. If the fighting was too intense, I could always dunk the thing in the bathtub to cool it down in a hurry, though it’s not recommended that you try that too often. Does horrible things to the crystal structure of the metal. Instead, I was able to keep up a steady stream of fire the whole time, and it only got more effective as the battle continued, not less. 

Someone on the line shouted a command, which was repeated up and down the formation. I guess it was the signal that the battle was over, because the exhausted adventurers broke formation and started trudging back down the road, towards the town. There didn’t seem to be any serious injuries, which was a minor miracle in and of itself, and everyone seemed to be in good spirits. 

I checked my watch. Barely 15 minutes had passed since the first taurus was spotted. 

“Well, what do we do now?” I asked Hani. 

My female companion had a distinctly excited look on her face, and judging by the way she was biting her lip and looking at me like I was a nice juicy steak, she had several enticing suggestions on that front. Unfortunately, my stomach rumbled so loudly, we both heard it, even over the sound of retreating hoofbeats in the distance. 

Hani sighed loudly.

“I suppose we should eat breakfast,” she said, crestfallen. 

“Would it make you feel better if I let you wear the helmet?” I asked. 

“Yes. Yes it would.”