The horn went off before full light, but Wren had been awake for an hour before it because the treeline had been wrong.
Not wrong in any way he could name, just wrong enough that the birds that usually started around the fourth hour had not started.
The wind coming through the gap in the northeast fence post was carrying nothing with it.
He lay on his cot in the dark running the math on it until it stopped making sense to stay horizontal.
He got his axe off the floor and went outside.
Arnulf came through the far end of the hall at the same moment, knife out, boots already on, and their eyes met across the dark courtyard for one second.
Then both of them moved to separate sections of the wall without saying anything.
The alarm horn went off thirty seconds after Wren positioned himself at the northeast fence section.
The settlement bell joined it, which meant whoever was on watch had needed time to recognize what they were seeing.
The northeast section had rotted boards Mathild had flagged for repair three days ago.
Gerold had a rule about fences the same as forges: you patch the weak spot before you need to, and if you have not patched it, you stand at it yourself.
Wren's right hand went to the axe handle the way it used to go to the tongs when the fire popped wrong, and the grip was the same grip Gerold had taught him at eleven.
◆ ◆ ◆
The first Ashboar hit the northeast section at a dead run and the boards gave.
Wren had the axe up and connected with the skull on the creature's second step through the gap, two strikes, and the Ashboar went down in the dirt. The second came through on the left and its tusk caught his right hip as it passed, not deep but enough to shift his stance, and he went after it with Predator's Lunge.
The skill was at 71% proficiency and the stride fit better now, the weight-forward drop coming through without him fighting the timing.
He put the second Ashboar down in two strikes and turned back to check the gap.
"Two more northeast," Eckhart called from the wall-top. "Coming from the left."
Wren was already moving left.
The two Ashboars from that angle came in close together and he got the angle right on the first swing, which covered both of them with enough weight behind it.
The second was cleanup.
Three settlement defenders were working the center gate in a loose line, two holding positions while a third covered the open section with a long knife.
They were not trained well but they held their ground and stayed in their positions.
When Wren came back past them the woman with the long knife gave him a nod without taking her eyes off the gate.
"How's the northeast?" she said.
"Four down," Wren said. "How's your side?"
"Two Ashboars and something low and wide. All down." She checked the treeline to the east.
"Is that the first wave?"
"No," Eckhart called from above, cutting her off.
"Three more in the east brush. They're working up to charge."
She tightened her grip on the knife, went back to watching the treeline and did not say anything else.
The three creatures came out about forty seconds later, two Ashboars and the unnamed low-wide thing that ran with its head down straight toward the center gate line.
The knife defender took one step back before she held and got her blade up and committed to the angle.
Wren watched her commit, decided she was fine and went for the two Ashboars on the flank instead.
Predator's Lunge covered the distance to the first one fast and the axe came down clean, and he was turning before the creature hit the ground.
The second Ashboar caught him mid-turn.
Its tusk went through his sleeve and opened the forearm under it before he brought the axe down.
Not deep.
He pressed the sleeve flat against it and kept moving because nothing was coming out at a bad rate.
The knife defender had the unnamed creature down by the time he checked the center gate.
One of her companions was sitting against the gate post with a strip of his own coat wrapped around his arm, pale but upright and breathing through his nose.
"That's the D-wave," Eckhart called from above. "Hold positions."
Someone behind the supply shed let out a long breath that was not quite steady.
Nobody said anything about it because the shaking came after and that was how it worked, and saying something about it did not make it work any different.
◆ ◆ ◆
The quiet lasted about three minutes before Eckhart's voice came back and the flat clip was gone.
"South tree line. Four C-rank, moving fast."
C-rank creatures were heavier than Ashboars, built lower to the ground with more reach in the front legs and more weight through the haunches.
They hit the south fence in a push that took two sections of wall down at once.
The defenders who had been holding the gate line moved out of the path of the falling boards, which was the right call.
Then four C-rank creatures were in the courtyard and the formation the defenders had been holding fell apart.
Arnulf walked forward into them.
He had been standing off the main line since the alarm went off, watching, and when the creatures came through the south fence he moved to meet the first one.
It got its claws across his forearm in three lines and he went still for two full seconds, his jaw locking and his eyes going flat, and then he moved into the creature instead of back.
It stepped away from him.
Arnulf hit it twice, the second strike put it down, and he turned to the next one already faster than he had been sixty seconds ago.
The class manuals described Wiedergänger as a combat multiplier that scaled with accumulated damage.
Reading that and watching Arnulf take a third cut across his other arm and move harder because of it were two different things.
"C-rank heading for the wall ladder," Eckhart called. "Northeast, right now."
Wren turned.
One of the creatures had found the wall ladder and was halfway up it.
Eckhart was on the walkway above with nothing in his hands except the charcoal and the satchel.
Wren fired Flickering Step.
The displacement put him four feet left of where he aimed because the proficiency was 44% and the landing came in wrong.
His right foot caught the second rung at a bad angle and his knee took the correction hard.
He grabbed the wall with his free hand, got the axe into the creature's grip before it crested the top, and it dropped back to the courtyard and went still.
Eckhart looked down from the walkway. His charcoal was already moving.
"You favored the right ankle on both displacements."
"I know," Wren said, and went back to the courtyard.
The last two C-rank creatures were Arnulf's by then.
He had four new cuts on his forearms and was moving faster for each of them.
When the second one went down he stood over it with his knife in his hand and his breathing even, which was not what four cuts looked like on a normal person.
◆ ◆ ◆
Both creatures were down and the courtyard went quiet for the first time in thirty minutes.
Wren counted the defenders who were still upright: five, plus one sitting against the gate post with a wrapped arm and color coming back into his face.
The young man who had been moving well on the left flank was standing with his hands at his sides and not looking at anything.
Eckhart came down the wall ladder and crossed to Wren with new charcoal in his hand.
"D-rank Devour declined twice during the first wave," he said.
"Both correct. C-rank at the ladder was a sensory package, F-rank, nothing you needed."
He paused and looked at his charcoal, which had broken into two pieces at some point during the fight. He held both pieces up.
"I had four of these when I woke up this morning."
"Get the south sections repaired before the next wave," Wren said.
"The defenders need five minutes," Arnulf said from across the courtyard.
He was rewrapping his forearm and not looking at either of them. "Let them have five minutes."
Wren looked at the south fence, then at the treeline, and was going to say something about the risk window when Eckhart's charcoal stopped moving.
Eckhart was looking at the south brush and his face had changed.
"South brush," he said, and his voice had nothing in it.
The south brush went sideways all at once, a wide section of it moving aside.
The Aschentier came out of the dark at the edge of the morning light.
It was the size of a loaded cart and it moved at a walk, four legs covering the distance between the treeline and the broken south fence in long flat strides.
C-rank creatures rushed and committed to angles.
This one had never needed to rush because nothing had ever given it a reason to.
It came through the gap in the south fence and the broken boards moved out of its path before it touched them.
Then it was in the courtyard.
It went past the dead creatures on the ground without breaking stride.
Past the defenders without turning its head.
Past Arnulf, who had his knife up and his weight shifted back, and it did not look at him either.
Its head came around and its eyes found Wren across the full width of the courtyard.
It stopped.
Every other creature in the wave had charged, committed, attacked the nearest thing in front of it.
This one had walked through an entire courtyard full of armed humans, dead bodies and had not looked at a single one of them until it found the one it wanted.
It took one measured step forward, and somewhere behind the supply shed a woman took two steps back without deciding to.
[Soul Integrity: 97%]