“Head towards the trees, climb up one and keep pressure on the entrance,” Daryl’s voice came into Drew’s head. He sped up as much as he could while keeping watch on the doors to the north, waiting for any more trolls to venture out.
Seeing movement out of the corner of his eye, he stopped long enough to cast firestorm about two-thirds of the way across the field. When the spell was cast, he turned back to the east and ran as fast as he could the rest of the way to where Katie and Chuck had begun to build something around a few of the trees. Katie had already created a few walls, while Chuck seemed to be focusing on one of the larger trees, his hand touching its bark and his eyes closed.
Triggering blink step, he jumped just past the halfway mark up the tree, falling half a foot before he managed to catch himself on a branch and cutting his hands on the rough bark. He grunted at the pain in his shoulders as they were wrenched from trying to arrest his fall. He could hear a shout of alarm from below as a branch he knocked loose crashed down through the canopy to land within a few feet of Chuck’s concentrating form. “Sorry,” he shouted down to the older man and then turned back to look towards the entrance. Hooking his arm over a branch and wedging one foot into a y-joint.
Turning his attention towards the entrance, he realized he could hardly see anything. The line of trees that made up the windbreak blocked the entrance of the DIA building. He worked his way around the trunk to the other side where fewer branches would obstruct his vision. As he did, he felt the tree sway a little and looking down realized that he was higher up than he had been before by a few feet. Chuck must be growing the tree. Shaking aside his vertigo he walked out along one branch a few feet until he finally got a decent view of his target. A few dozen trolls had already made it out and were running towards their group.
Drew took a few seconds to ensure he wouldn’t fall and then focusing to the north began casting frost storm. He thought that the cooldown on storm was almost over and planned to switch to that one next. Wanting to keep frostfire storm for when he could hopefully get a relatively large group of them together. He finished the last seal of the spell and saw more than a handful of them engulfed within the radius of the frost storm. One, on the leading edge, managed to punch through the last few feet of the frost storm, chunks of ice embedded in his shoulder had breached the front side.
Drew frowned, trying to decide if he wanted to reveal his position by launching a fireball at this distance when he heard the report of rifle shots being fired. JP had made his way towards the front and, with his rifle out, shot a few rounds towards the lead troll. The first two shots went wide, launching into the fury of the storm behind it and hopefully catching some of the trolls behind it. But the third shot landed true, and the forerunner burst into flames as JP’s combustive ammo exploded on contact.
With no targets immediately visible Drew glanced down. Katie had not been idle, and several sloping walls had been built around the tree. She was making a diagonal line using the windbreak of the trees as a central point, the first few sections of what Drew assumed would end up being a diamond shape. It would create a choke point for anyone attempting to approach them. As defensive positions go, it wasn’t ideal. Drew would have rather had a funnel, but they needed to get as many of their people in a covered area as they could.
He approved of Sarah’s decision to put them in the open. With the trees hiding Drew, he would have a decent chance of keeping overwatch and attacking the trolls long before they could bring their melee weapons to bear on his people. And JP could continue to take potshots at them as they approached or switch to pistols when they were closer. He just hoped the man would have enough ammunition for the long fight that was bound to come.
The last few shopping carts were making their way across the fields, most now being pushed and pulled by three or four people each. Others had already begun emptying Katie’s shopping cart of flammables spreading the liquids around the area near where he assumed the entrance to their defensive diamond would be.
The sound of new rifle reports caused Drew to glance back up, casting storm before he even saw his first target. Another dozen trolls had spread out, heading east where they could hide behind a building for the final approach. With their jumping ability Drew assumed they wouldn’t be limited by the narrow gap in the buildings, but he and JP would make them pay for any ground they gained.
Another storm lashed out and caught a few of them, making the rest detour around it. JP’s bullets had killed another troll. Drew was impressed with his accuracy. They were still eight or nine hundred yards away and running quite quickly. He hoped the two of them would be able to buy enough time for the defenses to be set up. His fingers began casting firestorm as another dozen circled around to the east. More appeared to the northwest, but they had spread out enough that he couldn’t catch more than three or four per storm. And he still hadn’t seen any sign of the lightning caller.
Chapter Thirty-Five — Rising Action
“There’s a large group coming in from the west side by the river; they should be visible to you any moment,” Daryl’s voice played silently inside Drew’s head. He turned to look behind him at the back of the Commissary. They must have some sort of hidden exit out that way since they’d come from there twice now. Might be worth investigating it as a possible way into the DIA building that didn’t involve cutting a hole in the wall.
Drew wished Daryl would have told him how many were in this ‘large group.’ A flash of light to the north drew his attention as another Troll was ignited after being struck by one of JP’s fire bullets. He shifted his weight down to a lower branch that allowed him a better view of the new groups’ approach path. Glancing back to the north, he considered another storm spell for that direction. Frost storm was probably off cooldown or would be soon, and he still had frostfire storm held in reserve; but the other two still had at least a minute left on their cooldowns.
He counted two dozen spread between the northwest and northeast… Probably at least another dozen coming from the west. Drew swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. There were already more enemies on the field than he had ever fought at once before, except for a couple of his fights with much smaller and less deadly insects, and there was still the lightning caller to deal with. Drew would feel much better about their prospects when he was dead.
Holding off on more storms, for now, he was hoping he could catch them in higher concentrations with such high cooldowns. He glanced back to the west and saw the first troll coming around the corner of the exchange. They didn’t seem to be proceeding with caution, and they were still relatively grouped up. He waited a few more seconds for more to appear before beginning the cast for frost storm. Hoping that the lightning caller was in this group and unprepared for the onslaught, although he appeared to have some method of surviving his spells; it wasn’t a fight he was particularly looking forward too. Maybe JP could just shoot him?
Shaking his head to discard his stray thoughts, he focused on the trolls advancing from the west and cast frost storm. His eyes were on the group as his fingers moved to form the hand seals, counting the trolls. He got to thirteen before it was ready to cast, and then the storm stole them from view.
Looking down, Katie had managed to put up the northwest and northeast side of the fortifications. Tree branches wove above the small holes in the top, creating a barrier even there, and he realized that he was a good 10 feet higher than he had been at first. The tree had grown around him. The hair on Drew’s arms rose in a sensation he was coming to know all too well, and he shouted, “Lightning!” as he blink stepped as far away as he could to the northeast.