am-books BECMI Chapter 483 – A Bridge Too Far… for Them!
BECMI Chapter 483 – A Bridge Too Far… for Them!
“Acquire and fire on my mark.” Rifles snapped to shoulders, our slow advance not stopping. “Mark!”The first volley headed downrange, and eight targets jerked and spun as hot, hard light ripped through them. My shots notably exploded into black-stemmed crimson roses, which blew their targets apart into white dust and sand, the vivus spreading along the ground and igniting the corpses of the other goblins.
“One, two, three, fire! One, two, three, fire!” I counted out, taking small steps, but not stopping our advance. Eight blue and one crimson shot extended downrange, and any remaining archers were the primary targets, spinning and falling as we continued our advance.
Behind the caravan, the goblin and kobold swarm charged, three-foot nothing nifloids raging forward in a tide. Karista and Holgurs knelt on either side of the Mule as it stopped, and Sergeant Chuco lowered the Mule to the ground to get a lower firing point. With a grin, he hit the audibilizer, and a and still-accelerating wound up as the rotary barrels began to spin, electricity playing in harmless discharges around the plasma conduits of the glowing blue barrels within.
The Daisho team held their fire as the horde ran screaming onto the bridge, green-skinned goblins with huge noses shrieking as semi-lizard green and brown-scaled reptilian (‘draconic’, you filthy soft-skin!) kobolds hiss-screaming tried to out-shout them, and the entire horde raced onto the bridge after the caravan.
They didn’t have too far to go to the thirty yards mark, and all fire was held until that point as those behind closed, and closed, and-
The clanking became a roar that didn’t need to be there, it was purely for fun as heat was vented out the audibilizer chamber, and fifty shots a second screamed out from the heavy rotary laser.
There was no on the weapon, but that was fine. Normally the bodies would be mounded up in such circumstances, but in this case, the incoming kobolds and goblins were killed so fast there was no time for that to happen.
Sergeant Chuco hosed them down like spraying water on a fire, and the incoming flood of small bodies hit the sweeping arc of blue rays and just died.
Karista and Holgurs held their fire as Chuco washed blue down the length of the bridge ahead of them. Those behind didn’t have any chance to recognize the threat, or even slow down or stop before the washing arcs swept over and past them, and they died explosively in mid-charge.
Thirty seconds later, he let up on the discharge, but the barrels were still spinning as they vented heat loudly.
Nothing ahead of him, and for fifty meters back from the bridge, was moving, the entire center of the horde reduced to exploded body parts and ash.
Duum dropped down out of the sky as the goblins and kobolds were screaming in panic and turning to flee. His wings had a scarlet sheen to them, like razor blades were along them, in actuality ki wielding arcane energy, and they were angled just so as he came in barely above the ground, using his own version of lightfoot to remain far nimbler than something his size should be.
His wings also spanned more then a hundred feet, while his claws were extended behind him in arcs of their own.
Red and green blood spurted as scores, then hundreds of heads gave way to a attack of massive width and breadth, the level ground making a perfect harvesting ground for the giant Bat to reap them like literal wheat.
He soared past the edge of the river and out over the bridge, shrieking his own shrill cry of triumph, skulls tumbling off his wings and behind him into the river, and bodies of those who hadn’t dove to the ground quickly enough falling flat.
The surviving members of the horde on the opposite side of the landing threw themselves off the Road, sometimes to bone-breaking effect, as Duum rose up and began to dive again towards the opposite shore.
Because something was coming from the other side.
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At much the same time as the following horde screamed and charged, the lead side also hit fifty yards, and the much larger horde leaders screamed and pointed at us for everyone to charge.
“Full Auto!” I stated without any emotion, clicking over the fire control. “At your discretion!”
Fingers held down triggers, and off we went.
The standard rifles were only ten shots a second, but there were eight of them. Mine was potentially much higher, but I didn’t need it, as my individual shots were much more powerful, and I just bored a hole through the center of the incoming horde, while the four rifles on each side of me swept in behind to finish the damage.
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The incoming goblins ran into a wall, and the wall pushed back. There was no time for the bodies to really stack up, as they were dying too quickly. Sometimes the shots cut down two at a time, even three if they got unlucky with me. My targets blew apart into vivus, washing the bridge and clearing my lines of fire, and we kept advancing.
Slow, precise steps, never faltering. Vivus swam in front of us, bodies ignited and Burned , and the horde died faster than they could come at us.
But they were initially on the bridge, had nowhere to go, there was no cover to be had, they were boxed in by the guardrails… and the wolf-riders loomed over the short goblins and human-sized hobgoblins and made excellent targets as the charge faltered.
Then Cirru arrived behind them all on the road. Like Duum, she came in just above the Road, wings flaring broadly to catch her diving. Unlike him, she had a pair of rotary lasers strapped under her foreclaws, power sources hanging upon her Saddle, and the dwarven Sergeant Hrackhem was standing up there on that Saddle with his own Gatling heavy laser itching for action.
The goblins all turned to run away, run away!, were met with a wall of Dragonfear as Cirru came in very low, her guns almost scraping the ground, and she opened up at full salvo.
The volley was short, but incredibly vicious. Goblin-kin, dire wolves, and wargs exploded. Sergeant Hrackhem hosed down the forces off to the sides of the road who were also preparing to flee, stuttering his volleys past Cirru’s wing as she passed them by and he rotated to shoot back at them.
She roared to show the fleeing horde on the other side she was coming, her faint blue-and-white image streaking past in a blur of motion as Doom’s great black form swept by in the other direction on the other side of the bridge, trailed by a long bloody-red trail of death.
“ I Said to her, while more screams arose on both sides of the bridge. Quite fearlessly, Duum slammed into the horde off the north side of the Road there, harvesting more heads with shearing wings and spread claws, although not as easily as on the other side. His momentum did falter about three-quarters of the way through them, and without an ounce of care he dropped right into the middle of the goblins, spinning his wings like scythes and everything coming apart in a swirl of crimson for over thirty feet around him… and he just kept bounding forward!
Our own fusillade didn’t stop, and the goblinkin who’d hadn’t reached Cirru’s double volley were sandwiched back into ours, dying with great speed and cleared off the Road, chaos and confusion thwarting their attempts to flee… and running away along the Road itself just kept them in our sights longer.
The caravan never stopped. The biggest impediment to travel was the bodies that hadn’t Burned completely down, and the pressure of a wagon wheel or hoof was generally enough to crush them and send them down into powder in a spurt of power.
I inserted my fourth and final power clip to get back to full. I’d have to put the other three into the Mule, since I couldn’t recharge them with magic right now without using Immortal Power. The others rapidly followed suit, forming a V with me in the center, where the road was mostly clear because I’d slaughtered everything in the middle.
The two hordes were trying desperately to get away, running along the sides of the river and along the mountains, getting off the road as hotshots dropped them if they stayed on it. Vivus was flowing down the road and over the sides, igniting the slain as it streamed forth, as well as their hide, cloth, wooden, and leather gear, albeit more slowly.
Their crude metallic items were left where they were for now. They could be harvested later, or the local tribes would clean them up themselves. Wheels rattled over crude axeheads, spears, arrow tips, shreds of metal plates and chains, and poor-quality knives and swords that were scattered about on the stones of the bridge and Road itself, while bodies Burning unwhite poured out softly gleaming white mists and slowly crumbled to white ash as the wagons rolled past.
None of the drovers or guards said a thing. None of them had had to do a thing, and now they only rode along on wagons or horse through the quiet swirls of vivic mist, staring at the heaped-dead that were igniting, Burning, and crumbling away as they moved past.
“Collect clips for recharge!” I ordered calmly. Lieutenant Fallen directed Sergeant Ilkers to gather them up, and soon he was trotting towards the back of the caravan and the Mule that had raced up to rejoin them as the cracks and booms that accompanied Cirru breathing lightning trailing unwhite fire ignited the dead on the far side of the Bridge.
Sniping shots cleared away the last of the goblins around Duum, who promptly took to they sky and start chasing the fleeing goblins, focusing on the wolf-riders, who were generally elites and their mounts far more dangerous than those who rode them.
He wasn’t in any danger unless he flew into an ambush of dozens of giants throwing boulders, and he was too smart to be pulled into something like that.
Sergeant Hrackhem was taking some potshots, but Cirru wasn’t going to be chasing down screaming kobolds and goblins. Their wolf and weasel-riders were already dead, so it was just cleaning up the bodies to deny any necromancers and get rid of the stink.
The Road calmly glittered and drank it all in. If the stone was a little bit whiter in spots, that was just par for the course.
There were no other horde attacks against our caravan for the rest of the day. Enough survivors seemed to reach other the other hordes that they decided bothering us was a wise thing not to do.
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We reached the White Bridge about the middle of next day, the merchants and their caravans shouting with relief after seeing the Erendyl troops waiting on the far side. That all of those troops were humans, including two Rangers in command, was something they also noticed, also glancing at me as being an elf willing to fight during No Magic.
“Lady Edge,” the trim and athletic, brown-haired and eyed Ranger Tarmin greeted me, while his taller, stouter partner dealt with Karista and the merchants who were regaining some of their arrogance now that they were on safer ground. “Thank you for coming to our aid. Most of the elves are taking a very defensive posture during this time.”
Not all, but most. Notably, the Sims of Belle, and any other elves who’d reached Wishcrafted Perfection, could function on the martial side suitably well, if a bit hampered.
“I was in the area, and not going anywhere quickly, so it seemed the most feasible thing to do. Anything substantial going on?”
He pulled out his molded Eismark-made com and spoke into it. “Ranger Tarmin at the White Bridge. I’ve got the Lady Edge here. She wants to know if there are any updates on Erendyl’s situation, or Zanzyr in general?”