Four more waves. That was how many it took before there was no room for the frightened beasts to run away.

By the fifth wave, they were packed so tightly that the boom of thunder erupting in front of them only sent them running faster at the defenders.

"Ranged combatants, ready attack on the herd!" the caravan master shouted over the squeals of fear.

Cass readied another Tempest Blade, drawing lightning to her staff. It came easily. Happily. Like lightning was supposed to be there. It had never cooperated so easily with her.

Lightning had always been unruly. It wanted what it wanted, and it had never cared much for her instructions. And even now, she could feel it tugging to go. But it was more like a toddler pulling at her shirt sleeves to hurry to the playground than a rabid animal pulling at its chain.

Was this the effect of her new staff? The lightning rippled through the dark stone in the staff's center, sparking through its depths, as if distracted from its purpose by the stone's presence.

"Lease!"

Cass threw the blade. It blasted from the end of her staff, even faster than ever before. And wider. The blade had only been about two feet long at the end of her staff, but it had widened to six across as it sliced through the charging beasts.

It cut deep into the leading rhynselks, burning into the beast's hide and slicing into the muscle beneath. It tumbled to the ground, tripping the ones behind it.

Arrows and mage bolts rained around. They gouged out eyes, blew holes through heads, melted flesh, or blasted out legs. Many more beasts fell, some tripping those to follow them, while others found themselves crushed underfoot their fellows.

"Fire at the ready!" The caravan master screamed over the screaming below them. "Don't let them hit the wall!"

And there was so much screaming. Fear and pain and panic echoed through the air as rhynselk after rhynselk bolted into the kill zone, their horns ramming into the fallen ahead of them, their hooves crushing below them. There was no room to turn, no room to get out.

And still, the magic and arrows fell on them.

Cass threw Tempest Blade after Tempest Blade into the torrent of pain.

Rhynselk after rhynselk fell.

And yet, the line of corpses got ever closer.

The end was nowhere in sight.

"Dragon fire!"

Kelstor hovered over the wagon circle and opened his maw. Fire poured out, scorching the ground and incinerating the corpses. The heat scalded Cass's face.

As his breath receded, the ground was again clear ground with only scorched bones crumbling in the wind left behind.

It was a short-lived respite. The wave poured forward again.

"Keep attacking!"

And again the cycle began, the mages and archers shooting into the incoming wave.

And still there was no end in sight.

"Arrows!" the archer to her side shouted down at the support behind the walls. A moment later, a noncombatant was sliding another bundle of arrows into his quiver. He fired off another wave.

Again, the rhynselks pushed forward toward the hilltop and the defenders, unable to run around it due to their tightly packed herd mates. Again and again, they fell to the defender's attacks.

It was a siege. A fight to see who would last longer: the defenders or the endless stream of monsters.

Rhynselk Foal (lvls 3-12) x158

On her other side, Pellen was slowing, the gaps between her mage bolts increasing with every volley. Had she burned through her Focus already?

Pellen wasn't alone. The spells were slowing along the wall. Arrows still fell freely, but the magic effects of their impacts were tapering off too.

The defenders were running out of steam.

"Queen approaching!" yelled an archer down the wall.

Through the throng of low leveled foals, a hulking beast plowed forward. It was twice as tall at the shoulder as the surrounding foals, easily fourteen or fifteen feet tall at the shoulder, with a hump of neck muscles thicker than Cass's chest. Ice crystals swirled around it. The air dropped in temperature with every step closer of its pounding hooves.

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Rhynselk Queen (lvl 39)

"Dragon Fire!" the caravan master shouted.

Kelstor unleashed another wave of fire over the incoming monsters.

The leading foals squealed in pain, incinerated under Kelstor's breath. The corpses fallen ahead of the queen vaporized under the flames.

The queen thrashed her head, her horns glowing with blue-white mana. A sheet of ice appeared above her and her children. Heat and cold collided.

His flames melted at the sheet, even as the surface turned the flames aside. Her horns reinforced the ice, more forming underneath to replace what Kelstor melted.

Cass couldn't believe Kelstor's fire could be stopped by a random monster, not after she'd seen it melt men much stronger. But it wasn't just the queen. All the lesser beasts had joined in, their horns glowing with the same blue-white mana, each adding their thimble of power to their queen's greater whole.

On they charged, the air filling with steam and mist. They were going to hit the wagon wall.

"Increase fire! Take her down!" the caravan master yelled.

Cass threw more Tempest Blades at the creature. Blade after blade cut into her hide, the electricity zapping at her thick layers of fat beneath. Fire and force bolts struck her again and again. And the arrows never stopped.

But neither did the queen.

Pellen shouted the final word of her spell. A wall of dark blue mana materialized between the queen and the wall.

The queen rammed into it, her entire weight slamming into the plane with an audible THUMP. Pellen winced through a second chant.

More blades and arrows rained on the queen and her children. Kelstor's breath poured down. An arrow struck her eye. A blade took a chunk from her horn.

Around her feet, her children rammed the wall.

Each impact sent fractures snaking through the magic-summoned wall.

Pellen shouted another activation word, and her shield shimmered, thickening, the cracks closing. Maybe it would hold.

And then Kelstor's breath gave out.

The floating ice wall shattered, the shards exploding into him and the wall, digging into his scales and sending new cracks spidering across Pellen's shield.

The queen reared up, her body impossibly heavy for such an action yet strengthened beyond Earthly possibility by the system stats, and drew mana around her. It glowed impossibly bright to Cass's Mana Sight.

"Take cover!" For the first time, there was alarm in his voice. "Melee fighters at the ready! Prepare for wall breach!"

That was all the encouragement Cass needed. She grabbed Pellen and Stormstride Sprinted off the wagon and behind the accumulating melee fighters.

Beyond the wall, the air accumulated around the horns of the queen, stilling and slowing as they cooled far below what the afternoon sun would have of them.

There was a crack. Like ice shifting on an otherwise still sea.

Then a roar of wind, and the temperature plummeted below freezing as the queen's magic manifested an arctic wasteland. Pellen's teeth chattered. The noncombatants behind them shivered. Ice condensed on metal plates and along blade faces.

And then the queen slammed down, her full body crashing through Pellen's barrier and into the wagon wall.

Her horn crushed through the wood. A thrash of her head yanked it out of position, throwing open a gap in their defenses.

Around her legs, the lesser beasts poured in.

Cass's heart stopped. It had looked huge from the wall. Now, looking up at this creature, Cass felt tiny.

Wind pulled at her, asking if it was time to run. Whispering that she was in no danger if she fled now.

It was a sweet promise. It was a plan Salos would approve of.

But not yet, she whispered back. This wasn't lost yet.

Marco planted himself in front of the queen, his shield glowing. A large version made of maroon aura materialized between him and the beast.

The queen's horn struck it, only to rebound off.

One of the mercenary leaders—the woman, Captain Jont—darted around his shield, a two-handed longsword swinging. It cut deep into the queen's side.

The queen stomped, a ring of ice appearing around her hoof. Captain Jont dodged back, even as Sir Kaiz materialized on the far side of the monster, his spear jabbed into the soft armpit of the queen.

She squealed. Ice crystals formed in the air around her and shot down all around her.

The queen wasn't the only problem either. With the wall breached, more rhynselks ran into their fortress.

Cass had seen the size of the herd. Just killing the queen wouldn't be enough.

The noncombatants behind her shook from the cold and fear.

"Form up!" Exavier shouted. His guards accumulated around him, shields rising to form a wall between the noncombatants and the incoming monsters. "Protect the caravan!"

The wave was upon them before they could finish organizing themselves.

A rhynselk ran straight for Cass. She couldn't dodge without letting it run into Pellen and the noncombatants behind her.

Cass grit her teeth and raised her staff. She drew a Tempest Blade and threw it at the coming monster. It hit the creature's upper leg, slicing deep and tripping the beast. There wasn't time to celebrate, for the next was already coming.

Rhynselk Herdsmember (lvl 25)

It vaulted over its fallen herd mate and charged Cass.

She still couldn't dodge.

She thew another Tempest Blade. Lightning sliced into its snout, running along and across its face, down its flank.

The rhynselk threw its head, snorting in pain and disapproval, but hardly slowed.

Another Tempest Blade. Another long gash across its flank.

Another.

A sheet of ice appeared before the lightning blade, shattering on impact, but dispersing the lightning.

Another rhynselk charged behind it.

The one Cass had tripped was climbing back to its feet.

Another Tempest Blade.

Pellen's shield appeared in front of the lead creature. It struck it full force, its horn slamming through the deep blue shield. It bled off some of the monster's speed. But it kept running.

As did the two behind it.

She couldn't kill them fast enough.

Her mind spun through her skills list, looking for some other way to stop them.

Confounding mists? Would it faze them, or only confuse her allies?

Thunder Tempest Blade? Where would it scare the beasts into? There was nowhere else for them to go but through her and into the vulnerable noncombatants behind her.

Elemental Manipulation?

There was barely a yard between her and the lead rhynselk, wild madness in its eyes.

There was something familiar about this situation. A large beast charging her? Cass unable to dodge? Elemental Manipulation her only option?

Cass almost laughed. Sometimes more skills just made things more complicated than they needed to be.

She channeled Elemental Manipulation through her feet and into the stone below her. With a twist of her Will, she drew up a set of stone spears, angled for the charging creatures.

There was no time for the rhynselk to stop. No time for it to slow. All 3000 lbs of monster skewered itself on the spikes Cass had raised. Brain matter and skull pieces flew. Blood and tissue squelched.

Three down. A million to go.

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