It's been half a day since they cleared the town. Awakened gathered at the second floor of the administrative buildings, discussing the situation they found themselves in. Previously what their scouts were describing was numbers, appearance, characteristics of the Nightmare Creatures coming from the west, and so on. But recent reconnaissance, as well as Luster, Kim and Belle, who woke up couple hours ago, brought bad news.
"Tei, that is not a normal horde, we must go north."
Brail was saying this, even though he didn't want to go into the mountains again. Not with data they got.
"You are telling this all the time since I met you. We must go north, we must go north. For Spell sake, we can't just go. You know yourself why."
Irregulars didn't like that idea either, considering what they heard in the Dream Realm. But nobody objected, because nobody knew for sure, what would be better.
"Maybe I say this for a good damn reason? You think two Masters will make big difference here? Our best option is to evade this battle."
Awakened needed to choose between unknown path without proper destination and what was coming in the next hours. Or days.
"And I think we need to stay here, until we know where to move. Fend of these flesh beasts and hold our position. When we deal with the horde, have a chance to escape, or receive an order to retreat elsewhere, we move. We all agreed to this, no?"
"That's smart not to make rash decisions without data, but not very smart to fight them when we can escape. And we know exactly where to. We have only one direction left, after all. What do you think will happen if we fight them here?"
Dorn glanced at Tei and moved his head pointing at explorer.
"He's right. Considering what happened during the fight with the Titan, we can throw in the window all our maps, yes. But protecting this place is suicide."
Tei looked back at giant indignantly.
"We cleaned this place, no? How many of these dogs were here, three-four hundred? And Fallens were here too."
Belle gestured to the window behind him.
"Yeah, only they were stupid beasts without coordination. This is army. Go to the window, take you scope and look what they are doing."
Everyone unwillingly brought their attention to the window looking west. Obviously from this far they wouldn't see what was happening in the lowland. But they knew that thirty kilometers away around three hundred abominations were stretching in a thin line closing the wide passage between two cliffs, slowly moving closer.
And the reason why they couldn't just break through this line, as well as the reason for such uncharacteristic behavior of usually stupid Beasts, was simple. Tyrant. Big, significantly bigger than his subordinates, relatively quick and obviously smart.
"We are army ourselves. And we have the high ground and natural defenses."
Catching several skeptical glances, Tei tiredly exhaled and spoke.
"Look. Road to the Talos, the same as direct road to the Erebus, were relatively short. It wasn't in any case safe, and we still needed to do it, but I need to remind you, that we all agreed with the plan only after we received at least some data. What do we have now?"
Honestly, they had almost nothing. All they knew is that Erebus Field 'should be okay', evacuation from there 'should be continuing', and that good part of the mountains and land north from them was mangled severely after Saints killed one of the Titans. So severely, in fact, that they didn't know what roads, or at least off-road passages were still existing.
Information, Irregulars and other awakened brought, was not so different from the last time, with the exception, that what they got now were only rumors from random awakened, while contacts from army command were just shrugging somberly.
"I can't predict, what's in the head of a mad Tyrant, but from what I see, he is not in a rush to plunge the town. Plus, creatures are slow. When they move, we will know long before they attack. So, we still have time to…"
"We don't. I told you already."
Brail cut him off. First, he hoped that will be just another fight. Maybe, not so quick as he wanted, but at least they won't stay here for long. But with the Fallen Tyrant' actions, these hopes were slowly carried away. He was starting to get nervous again.
"You told we have two weeks. 'Supposedly'."
It wasn't hard to realize, that destroyed Siege Capital, impostor mentioned two weeks ago, sitting in a cage, was either Port Talos or Erebus Field. And when Kim asked after they drove by the destroyed former, he found no reason to hide it anymore. Army already reinforced their efforts in south.
"Yes, and our time is still running out. You want to ground off this horde because the goal is to clear the quickest path and deliver people to Erebus. I get that. But even if we destroy these horrors, we will stay here for a while. Then road. And even getting there, they will still need time to board the ships and sail away. Time, which is sinking away. So all that will have no sense, as your people will just die there, instead of here."
"You know what? How do I know exactly that your words are correct? I trusted you and this trust costed me ninety human lives…"
Brail was just staring at him saying nothing. Tei bit his lip, realizing that coming exactly here was his idea, and he saved less then lost. He several times opened and closed his mouth, finding words. Then he closed his eyes, calming down, and finally continued.
"Even if you are right, and we escaped even greater danger… And you right about the fate of Erebus Field… How do we know your timings are correct? From the, according to your own words, fifty-years-old reports?"
Lith was silently listening to this moment, but now decided to join the argument.
"These fifty-years-old reports are similar to what you can receive now. Facts without proper date. Your colleagues were creating these documents, so you are basically waiting for data we already gave you. Yes, we can be late, we can be early, but…"
"But we don't know this. So, we still need to move to Erebus, that's my opinion. And to get there, considering destructions at north direction, I see only one road. This one."
He pressed finger on the map and turned to the window again.
"Blocked by walking piles of flesh. We just need to form a proper battle plan."
***
In the end they couldn't persuade the man to move through the mountains. He was in charge of fifteen, well, now fourteen, hundreds of LO personnel, and two Masters could not order them around. Even if 'Master Verne' was their nominal commander. Because if they try to seize control, Tei will reveal they are impostors, and all shit could went south. Brail didn't want to antagonize people he was fighting alongside with.
'Even if they are not real. We need their help to get out of this mess. Yeah.'
Technically they could just take Irregulars, Professor, his assistant, and leave all these people here. But all of them turned out to be against the idea, and strangely Lith agreed with them. To sit in the Rhino and escape, in their opinion, was the last option.
Thus, they needed to make out a good strategy. With minimal loses. And maximum chances.
***
Three days later Brail was sitting at the roof of western watchtower, gazing at the aurora. He was sitting alone, as Zeph was watching Obel. Well, she was always on Beth's shoulders or in her hands, as scientist and cat apparently liked each other too much. But she performed her watch duty diligently. Explorer chuckled.
'Little traitor. Well, at least she's doing her job.'
Snow didn't bother him much, as he created blanket of warm air around him, melting the snowflakes and blowing them away. He wasn't cold, he wasn't even nervous too much anymore, he was just sitting there, contemplating in dark anticipation.
Town had open view only at south direction with vast evergreen forest, covered in snow, circling the city up to the west road. East was mostly blocked by the snowy mountains with a singular pass, where they came from, same thing in the north. Last direction, though, didn't have so beautiful view.
Two towering cliffs with the road in between, close to the right one, going downhill, a lot of trees, and a lot of abominations. Nightmare Creatures were approaching slowly, as if trying to scare humans away, instead of hunting them down. They were close now, around six kilometers away, which meant they will reach their camp tomorrow with this speed.
If only something, or rather somebody would manage to stop them. They didn't figure out how to clear the road to run path them, or how to effectively fight them if they will be pushed inside the town, but they still managed to concoct a little evil plan.
Unexpectedly, the idea they went with, belonged to the guy, who's best problem-solving methods included 'let's bash bastard's head in a wall' and 'I do, then think, usually it works'. This idea wasn't too different in approach, but it could work.
When Lith told that he has a great solution, Brail paled, and intently looked in his eyes, prompting him to shut the hell up. He didn't.
When everyone agreed to listen, interested, he paled harder, which was probably a strange sight considering how pale his current body was.
And when warrior said they just need to deal with monsters in Queen's Fashion, he froze, not to far from a stroke.
First, because it was prohibited to speak about future domains in Nightmares about Old Earth, as too many things could go wrong. Some Sovereigns and even some powerful Saints, could have abilities to somehow hear important things, as he knew, and such info throwed in air could lead to unimaginable results.
Second, because everybody knew how exactly Goddess of Humanity liked to deal with problems. There was a joke, he heard in a tavern once, "As Lady says, to deal with little inconvenience, you need big boom.", and Queen was known for exactly such approach for battles. Back then he laughed, but now Brail wanted to either cry, run away, or both.
'Let's blow bastards up! Hahahaha! What a great fucking idea. Why did I agree to this?'
He looked down at the driving out of the forest APC's.
Right. Their best plan was simply mine up the path with the explosives they found in local armory. Then cover up with artillery. Then deal with survived abominations. Great. Best thing, they all agreed instantly, commenting that it is actually a common army strategy, so he had nothing to retort with.
But as they still needed at least some resemblance of the road to drive away, they decided to mine the forest. When Brail asked is this a good idea to burn the place they will need to drive through, Lith simply answered that he like to sit near fireplace and see it burns.
'Plus, we have no need it the forest itself. Yeah, right. Gods why did I decided to enter the seed with this psycho?'
And for this idea to work someone, obviously, must lure creatures into it.
'Who else could it be? I wonder.'
But what surprised Brail the most, was his own words, after he agreed. He told Irregulars, that he will go alone, as they were not fast enough, and even if Rhino could drive through the forest, it was too dense to just rush in straight line. Why he decided so? He didn't know.
So now he was waiting for soldiers in mech costumes, war platforms and carriers with turrets to get in their position. They were settling at elevations left from entry to the town and mountain slopes along the road. Several minutes later he heard the voice from the bracer.
"Okay, Master Bait, Tei told they will be ready in five, so you can start now."
"Got it. And one more thing. When we find Milly, I will definitely ensure you're fucked, buddy."
Incoherent mumblings were heard from the bracer, strangely reminding apologies. Explorer shrugged them off and called for his faithful companion. A couple seconds after, light gusts curled around his neck, and cat's face appeared near his own. Brail patted Zeph's head before jumping from the tower, and charged forward, enveloping himself in winds.
'Alone against three hundred abominations. What could go wrong?'