The courtyard was now filled to the brim with the corpses of monsters known as the 'Younglings', along with the bodies of men who had died fighting them. The thick mist that had once blanketed the hedge maze slowly lifted, revealing a clear path that led straight to the inner gate of the castle.
There was no time to investigate the twisted remains of the creatures, nor to wait for reinforcements. The lives of two stormtrooper squadrons were hanging by a thread somewhere inside those walls. Whether they lived or died depended entirely on whether their comrades outside were willing to charge in and help.
The answer was quite obvious.
No comrade should be left to die while their brothers and sisters stood idle.
It did not take long for Elena and Jane to reorganize their forces and prepare for the final push into the castle to support the trapped Second and Third Stormtrooper Squadrons.
Machine gunners and SMG gunners formed the centerpiece of the frontline assault. Behind them stood the riflemen and mercenaries, acting as rear guard so the front ranks could unleash their storm of lead without fear of friendly fire.
Minutes passed as the newly formed line prepared to advance toward the castle. Nearby, their signaler struggled desperately to establish contact with the two squads inside.
But the response that came through the receiver was nothing but chaos of a frantic jumble of dots and dashes of broken signals and cleary panicked tapping.
Then the ground began to shake.
At first it was subtle, like a distant rumble, then the hill itself seemed to quake beneath their feet, as if the earth were about to crumble like a sandcastle beneath a rising tide.
Thinking it was an earthquake, soldiers scattered instinctively for cover.
The tremor lasted only a few seconds before fading into uneasy stillness.
But the silence never came.
Instead, a scream echoed from deep within the castle.
Then another.
And another.
They were getting ever closer than before, in every second.
The sound rolled toward them like a twisted choir of suffering, hooves hammered against stone, voices screamed in agony, beneath it all came the sharp, frantic rhythm of gunfire and the barked shouts of desperate commands fighting their way out of the chaos.
"RETREAT!! TO THE FRONT GATE!!" The commander of the Second Stormtrooper Squadron burst from the main gate of the castle keep, sprinting toward the courtyard with nearly fifty soldiers at his back. Their armor and uniforms were soaked in blood, smeared with black tar-like stains that clung to them like rot.
They were running for their lives, just like the first squad fleeing from the hedge-maze.
Behind them came the horde that's chasing them closely.
The creatures were massive, towering at least two meters tall. Their forms were twisted mockeries of humanity. Their arms had become black, jagged branches ending in clawed talons slick with blood. Their legs were replaced by writhing tentacles like those of some grotesque octopus, slithering across the stone floor with horrifying speed. Their bodies looked like dried tree bark charred by fire, cracked and blackened. Their eyes and grey and hollows as if they were already death.
But the worst are their mouths…
Their mouths hung open in wide, circular rings like those of a dried lamprey full of needle-like fangs, stretched into silent screams of endless agony, as their slithering long slimy black tongue twirling around madly in erratic lapses.
The transformation was clearly unfinished. Their movements were erratic, violent, as if their bodies were still tearing themselves apart and reforming at the same time.
Their suffering had only just begun, for the Black Matriarch still had many 'Gifts' left to give them.
-----
"What in the actual fuck is that?!"Elena muttered in stunned disbelief of the nightmarish creature she's seeing, but in that moment, her instinct overruled her own shock, keeping her as the same component Lady Marshal.
Her hand shot into the air, signaling her soldiers to form a firing line exactly as they had done when the smaller creatures attacked earlier, beside her, Jane mirrored the gesture immediately, barking the same commands to her own troops.
Within seconds, the line of guns was organized and at the ready, then night itself seemed to hold its breath, ready for another showdown of meat and metal, as they thrown the original plan to assault the castle into the trash bin and form a hardened battle line, adapting to the situation at hands.
And then at last, the two forces collided, as the tide of even more eldritch monsters crashing against a wall of blazing gunfire.
For the second time that night, In the exact same place, and amusingly enough, In the exact same way, and so the battle continued...