Lucius felt himself involuntarily shake in terror as he felt the wave of insane intent wash over him. If it was this strong now, it would be overwhelming soon. He groaned and clutched his chest as a sharp pain shoot across the flesh above his heart. In a moment, it was gone, and Lucius found his fear and discomfort evaporated. A small grin spread across his face, and he felt an eagerness to fight that bordered on bloodlust.
A wave of disfigured wolves charged from the undergrowth, faster and less awkward than the first one they had slain. Behind them were giant, thin creatures, about four meters tall. They looked like black, shriveled corpses, with massive over-sized heads. They struggled to leave the forest and moved in unsteady, loping steps. Indeed, some of them fell under their own awkward gait, and were torn at by the wolves running around their legs.
Lucius felt the color drain from his face, and his bowels loosen, but again came the sharp pain in his chest. Suddenly, he was alert, ready, and viscous. He looked to his new comrades to see if any of them were faltering. It was unlikely the professional troops or imperial cadets would flee, but it didn't seem like the pupils of the forest academy had extraordinary discipline.
His friends looked terrified, but held their ground stoically, and Lucius sent them waves of intent, smothering them in his confidence and reassurance. For their sector of the wall, there was about one giant coming, and two dozen or so wolves. Vincent yelled to the people to his left, and then screamed out to Lucius. "Should we aim for the legs?" While Vincent was nominally in charge, he could feel Lucius' cool confidence overwhelm him, and wanted to refer to him.
Lucius got to a knee, raised his shield before him, and nestled his rifle into the slot on the top. "No." "Hitting the legs might work, but that's not an easy shot. Aim for their massive goddamn heads. Let's see how these lanky bastards like bullets." Everyone began firing at it's head but Albert; the creature was still a good seventy meters out, and his shotgun wasn't going to hit very much.
Instead he turned it down on the dogs that were beginning to swarm and claw at the wall, emptying barrel after barrel downwards into them. The squad squeezed off shot after shot at the tremendous beast, and it and the other tall monsters screeched with pain as they were peppered with ammunition. As they got closer, their intent and their unholy howls began to shake those on the wall.
Lucius grunted with pain and projected even more of his own willpower at the beast and around his company. His energy pushed back against the monster like a wave, and for the briefest of moments, it paused in fear. But now it came forward, angrier than ever, stumbling to reach the source of its pain as quickly as possible.
But before it could even get within fifty meters of the wall, the gunfire had becoming too much for it, and it slumped to its fragile knees and fell face first into the grass. As soon as it fell, the wolves ran from the wall and began clawing and biting its body. This gave them a tremendous shot on them, and Lucius picked them off with ruthlessly efficiency.
He had only brought two hundred rounds with him when he left Salvation. He was technically not at a military post while in transit, and they wouldn't allow him to bring more than that onto a train, a regulation to prevent black market arms dealing. He had almost half of that ammunition left, but he was going to need to be conservative; who knew what would rise from the trees next.
They methodically dispatched the wolves, which were scattered around the giant body and the base of the wall. They couldn't breach the wall or reach them, so they weren't really dangerous. For Lucius, it was a matter of conserving his munitions more than anything else. After a few minutes, their part of the wall was mostly cleared out. They were all decent shots, and they were basically just firing downwards.
Lucius and his friends looked around, unsure if anything more was going to come. To both sides of them, their comrades had performed valiantly; none of the giant monsters had reached the wall, and heaps of wolves and dogs lie at the base of wall's timbers. They stood there tensely for another hour, eyes glued to the unforgiving expanse of woods.
Lucius was still starting at that huge void when a hand clasped his shoulder, causing his entire body to jerk with surprise. "Woah buddy, it's me, Vincent." Lucius turned to face his new companion, his face wrought with adrenaline and stress. Vincent didn't look much better, and seemed like he was barely holding himself together as well.
"We've been out here for four hours. They found some regulars to replace us. We can go home." Usually Lucius would bristle at being spoken to like an infant, but as the insane blood lust drained from his body, so too did his confidence and bravado. Vincent put a guiding hand on his back, and walked him towards his peers.
They left the wall in a near silent procession, only daring to speak when they were well clear of the wall. They joined up with the other four cadets, and the eight of them were slowly plodding through the tall grass adjacent to the fortifications. Lucius heard a firm thump, and he turned to see one of the cadets he had not just met sprawled out on the ground.
"I'm not hurt." She said. "Just, mind if I lay here for a second?" Albert let out a tired sigh. "Only if I can join you. The ground sounds pretty great right now." Soon, everyone was slumping to the ground, and a cacophony of small thumps pierced the quiet of the night as humans, guns, and gear clattered to the Earth.
Lucius stared up at the sky, taking in the huge expanse of starlight sitting above him. The best views he had ever seen were when the train was moving through the underpopulated fields and mountains of the central continent, but the view in Ridgeland was still impressive. Both moons sat overhead tonight, one a pale yellow, and one a blood red.
Albert groaned. "Shit, we're out here laying under the Blood Moon, we're going to go insane." "Yeah." Vincent muttered. "Albert's right. We have the fair lady in the sky protecting us tonight, but it's never good to take chances. Let's get some walls between us and the sky before our minds collapse. Anyone need help getting up?"
Tired as they all were, they got to their feet pretty quickly. In their stress and fatigue, they hadn't noticed the planet's evil satellite, and no one wanted to be caught under its gaze for too long. "Where do we go now?" An unknown voice asked. "That's easy!" Cantia exclaimed, some of her cheeriness beginning to return now that the threat had passed. "We go to the cadet's lounge and drink!"
None of Lucius' new peers objected to that course of action, and neither did he. He didn't drink, but he didn't even know where he was staying that night, and he was still far too nervous to want to be alone. So he set off with his new friends, towards the dingy old building that would come to occupy much of his spare time.