Chapter IV: Besieged

Olivia could still smell the burnt flesh and hides even as she fled the settlement. The thick smoke had taken its toll on her lungs as well. She coughed painfully, when the city’s stone walls, fifteen meters tall, came into view.

The ground trembled beneath her feet as the mutant army approached, surrounding the capital from every side.

There were so many. Her mind raced.

How did this happen? Were the generals defeated on the field while she was driving back to lick her wounds? Was it because... she failed?

Olivia swallowed.

Now she was trapped outside her own city, which waited to be assaulted by a battle-hardened horde of mutants.

Where was General Constantino and his army? He was known to be a raider and a rogue, but to leave the capital undefended at humanity’s darkest hour, that was beyond despicable.

She turned to the noise when a war horn boomed across the plain, reaching her on top of the hill.

It began.

He led the assault. The elders summoned him, but this time Kai had no excuses to give. And after what happened back in the settlement, something deep inside him didn’t feel like making excuses now.

Walls high as hills. They had the upper hand in the open, but walls...

These were the bane of his people.

Climbing them was easy. Not getting shot before reaching the summit was not.

But the elders were hellbent on capitalizing on their recent decisive victory against the humans.

So, at the sound of the war horn, Kai grabbed his glaive and rushed ahead of the formation.

He gritted his teeth, before his lips parted.

“Let us go! Onto the foe, warriors!”

The crowded plains echoed back with a cacophony of war cries. The ground trembled as the army lunged forwards towards the city in unison.

Climbing figures darkened the gray walls in the distance, like ants swallowing the city. Her heart pounded inside her chest, faster by the second, when engines rumbled beside her. Olivia turned.

Jeeps. Someone was poking from the back of the foremost car. Her eyes widened.

“Paris! What are you doing here?”

He ripped the bandages off to reveal a swollen, purple face.

“We sneaked out before the bastards arrived. We’re useless behind walls. But never mind, Olivia.” The heavy machine gun let out a metallic clack as Paris cocked it. “Someone messed up good for us to be in this situation.”

“I-I...”

She didn’t know what to say. He was right. Olivia lowered her head in silence.

“Fucking Constantino,” Paris said. “Who does he think he is?”

“What?” she muttered.

“That’s right. Here we stand alone against legions of abominations, and where is he?”

The others nodded behind him, grumbling in agreement.

Olivia sighed internally. She wasn’t the only who failed.

But that didn’t matter now.

She looked at the capital, getting assaulted from every side, smoke rising from the battlements.

Smoke...

“Paris.” she said.

He turned to her.

“Yeah? It seems you have an idea.”

She nodded.

“Do you have flares?”

He frowned.

“We can’t call in artillery, Olivia. All the rocket launchers are inside the city. It’s too close.”

“I know.” She lowered her goggles. “But do they?”

Paris eyebrows arched.

“Oh.”

Guns cracked above him, as warriors plummeted from the heights beneath. Kai could see the battlements already, human faces and fuming rifles poking through the crevices. He grabbed the rocks and swung himself upwards.

Eyes followed him as he rose above the battlements like a red eagle.

His glaive sunk between the blocks they used as cover, passing through a chest, then lodging itself within a poor soul’s ribcage. The soldiers around his choking victim opened fire against him.

Kai dove back behind the battlement, dodging the bullets that whistled past his face, using the man attached to his weapon as a grappling hook to keep himself on the wall. Then jumped again once the volley ended.

They froze in fear as Kai landed. Like back in the trenches, there was no space for firearms here on top of the battlements.

“I’m sorry,” he said and swung his glaive.

As their guns fell, more warriors landed beside him.

The battle for the walls had truly begun now in its most horrific form.

There was very little space here, even for blade work. So, they used teeth and the spikes of their bodies. Fingers pressing against eyes, skulls bashing against skulls.

Men and mutant warrior hurled each other from the walls, screaming as they plummeted to their death.

But somehow, the more the men died the tighter it got atop of the walls, as if both sides just kept multiplying.

It was the end of world.

Pressed by bodies that could either belong to friend or foe, he didn’t know, Kai pushed himself upwards above the crowd, gasping for air.

The sprawling human city came into view.

So many homes. What would’ve happened to these people if they won the battle?

He knew what Orion would’ve said. It wasn’t his problem.

Maybe he was right.

I’m just one man, he told himself.

Something strangely familiar at the corner of his sight.

Kai frowned, twisting above the crowd to look at it.

Red smoke. There were dozens of spots, their numbers growing by the second, scattered among the mass of warriors that waited their turn to climb, which meant most of them.

He remembered Kade, then the girl with the flares and how desperate she was to mark the settlement with them.

Oh no.

The army would be annihilated.

Kai filled his lungs and shouted.

“Retreat! Get away from the red smoke!”

The warriors around him looked at each other in confusion for a second, before they disengaged as best they could, swinging themselves back over the battlements. They echoed his order throughout the wall. Soon, the horn sounded, and to his relief, the army below drifted away from the walls.

Guns cracked around him. As most of the warriors left, the humans reclaimed their shooting positions, mowing down the fleeing men. The casualties mounted quickly, bodies piling at the foot of the wall.

The pole of his glaive groaned as he squeezed it.

They are retreating...

He glanced down again.

The smoke was starting to dissipate, but not a single bomb fell yet...

Was he... tricked?

But it was too late. The army was already in disarray.

Humans closed in on them.

One of his warriors spoke.

“Kai! We must go!”

“No. Take everyone you can and go. I’ll bring down as many shooters as I can, to spare our men from further pain.”

It was his fault, after all.

The few warriors who remained on the wall gathered around him.

“No. We rather die alongside you, than with bullets in our backs.”

Kai exhaled.

“I see. That’s your choice.” He braced to charge, raising his glaive. “Let us go! Unto the foe, warriors!”

It worked. The battle was over. Olivia couldn’t believe her eyes.

She drove slowly towards the gates, followed by Paris jeep, the only one that survived her strategy. Yes, she took a risk, and they paid the price covering for her.

It was a gut-wrenching sensation. Maybe that’s how generals felt.

Bodies dressed the earth around the city like a bloody carpet.

Olivia passed under the open gateway. Soldiers everywhere; collecting the wounded, recovering weapons, finishing mutants on ground.

Her jaw dropped as she stopped the bike.

Ahead, there was a chained figure on its knees, surrounded by armed man.

Paris voice from behind.

“The son of a bitch is alive!”

The red-skinned mutant slowly lifted his bloodied, battered face, staring at her with a soul-piercing gaze.

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