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"My daughter, if you can hear me, I knew you would return as well. It's in your nature to protect the innocent. I'm sorry that on that day, the day you were shut out and left to die, no one was there to lift you up into their arms the way you lifted others into yours, and then, what became of you. I should have known you wouldn't be content to disappear, not my daughter. I couldn't save you then, so let me save you now. It's time to rest - for you, and for those you have carried in your arms. This ends for all of us. End communication. "

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The Primeval Apocalypse by Alex Raizman and Robert Keene
Start here (Prologue) Previous
***
Author's note:
Some days I just sit here and stare at the Author's Note section, unsure of what to write. I've already been editing for the past few hours, and so my brain is shot. Caffeine, please work harder.
***
It had only been a handful of days since Noaich and I had hit the Mandrill town, but a surprising amount of the damage done had been repaired. Most of the buildings towards the edges of town had been fixed up or rebuilt.
There were still a few damaged or flattened buildings farther in, though many had been crudely patched with cloth curtains. My senses easily detected which ones had been abandoned during repairs, and which ones were still intact enough to house their occupants, even if the damage was still present from some monster blasting through the walls.
This late into the afternoon, many of the Mandrills were in their homes, but there was a group still working in the middle of town. Of all the damage I’d done, no building had been so obliterated as the stable. And with everyone’s living arrangements sorted, it was the most important building to get back up and secure. The pen outside of it would only contain what few drug-addled mounts and livestock they had left for so long. About eight or nine Mandrills were working feverishly to get the building back up before nightfall.
I tried not to freak out when I saw the alpha near at hand, ferrying cut lumber from the crafters to the work site. Despite the above-it-all behavior he’d shown last time, he wasn’t so proud as to neglect helping, even if the task that was needed was just a strong back to haul materials. It was almost respectable behavior for a leader, if it wasn’t terrifying to think that he was going to be at the center of this fight once it began.
I conveyed all that to Rachel from our final staging spot just outside the ring of farms around the town. She looked at the others and pointed at two members in particular.
“Peter, Yara,” she said, pointing to the mage and the woman with the iron-banded club, “get ready.”
The two split off, Peter moving with the scout Emma to the left side of the group—where her stealth aura could still cover the raid crew, but where the pair of them could duck away quickly when combat broke out. Yara moved to the back, giving Liz a protective pat on the back to try and calm the anxious archer.
At the same time, Rachel moved to the front. The rest of the group formed around her the same way they had when we were making our approach on the cerebtyrannus.
“In position,” Rachel said.
With a firm gesture, the group headed straight for the town.
The cover of Emma’s cloak couldn’t hold forever. But like my Hide In Plain Sight ability, it got us pretty far. We swarmed past the front line of guards stationed around the town by approaching in a blind spot, and got halfway to the stable before encountering a guard patrol. There were only three Mandrills, and so when one of them managed to check against someone’s stealth and win, they didn’t try and fight.
Instead, they howled in alarm, their voices shrill and panicked.
“Now!” Rachel snapped. “Move!”
Peter and Emma broke off from the group. The mage was a bit clumsy, but Emma caught his first stumble and turned it into a springing sprint, getting the pair of them clear of us before putting her cloak back up over the pair of them. Everyone else charged forward as one, though Yara and Liz fell back, trailing behind even Big Sam who still covered the rear.
We burst out into the clearing around the stable. The workers were already scrambling to get away. I could sense every guard in town converging on the stables now, moving in response to the increasingly noisy hoots of alarm. The only fighting force ready and waiting to oppose us were a half-dozen anxious guards, with the Alpha approaching from behind their shaky line.
“We can take him,” Rachel said quietly. I could tell that she was hungry for the win. She might never have another chance to engage with the alpha as cleanly as she could right now. And even now he wasn’t such an imposing figure. Clearly the oldest Mandrill in the camp, with a slight limp to his gait, and unarmed, too.
“It’s not part of the plan,” I said quickly. “We have to stick together.”
“If we get spread out, it’s all for nothing,” she said, pressing her lips together in a tight line, remembering my warning back in town. “And getting baited to run forward is spreading us out.”
“Until we see The Big One, the plan is everything,” I confirmed.
“Together, then,” Rachel ordered, and the group advanced at a more measured pace than the breakneck charge she no doubt wanted.
The Mandrill line seemed about to break before our numbers, but the alpha stepped up beside them. His presence visibly bolstered their resolve. And as the remaining guards grew closer, they seemed more willing to fight. I could even sense this town’s queen approaching from the west, leading a large enough group of guards to be a threat to us.
Rachel adjusted her position to meet the alpha head-on. Right before the fight began she let loose with her two shout buffs, and then added a third yipping war cry that instead applied a debuff to the Mandrills, slightly shaking their confidence. I wasn’t sure what the effect was, but there wasn’t time to stop and ask.
The frontline of Rachel’s fighters smashed into the Mandrills. As soon as they did, I instructed Noaich to Howl, spreading the buff to the whole party.
I wanted to pop Enrage as well, but I held myself back. If this fight was going to drag on, we were going to need to stagger our buffs. One overwhelming blow wasn’t going to be what won this battle.
Not yet, anyway.
With the stacked buffs, our frontline put the Mandrill line on the back foot immediately. The two shield-bearing tanks at the front were near-indomitable, their boosted dodge, block, and parry skills keeping them ahead of the Mandrill’s attacks. The attacks from those behind them were fast and furious as well, defeating their defenses thanks to Rachel’s shout, and dishing out tremendous damage thanks to Noaich’s Howl. The Mandrill line almost crumbled.
But it held.
Because the alpha held.
Rachel’s giant cleaver swept in with tremendous speed, the increased skill making the weapon blur even to my heightened senses. For a brief instant, it looked like she was going to cleave the alpha in half at the waist before he even knew he was in a fight.
But his bare hands came up with speed that was outright blinding. One moment his hands were at his sides, and the next, one palm was planted on the side of Rachel’s blade, guiding it up and around his body. The other hand reached out and smashed into the center of her chest, the impact loudly rattling her armor and sending her staggering back.
As the alpha held his position, he snarled and I could see the wounds on the other Mandrills closing as fast as our fighters could open them. The pain of being struck again and again was a blow to their morale, but physically, they stayed upright. They held, stopping our advance.
I stepped up into the breach when Rachel fell back. I felt a magical force bolster me as one of the mages in our backline focused his efforts on me, giving me a buff to my DEX and AGI stats. Combined with Rachel’s buffs, it let me send my weapons flying in a fearsome web of blades.
The unarmed alpha’s hands moved just as fast as mine. He swatted away my blades as fast as I could swing them, but unlike Rachel, I had two blades, and it occupied both of his hands. He couldn’t just swat me away with a spare moment, not unless he wanted to take a deep cut in exchange. He had to hold the line.
“Come on,” I said, grinning in his face. “You’ve gotta be able to do better than this, can’t you?”
The alpha was shocked at my ability to communicate.
That momentary hesitation was all the opening I needed to cut across his forearm with the blade of my new axe, leaving a deep and bloody cut. My foe recovered quickly, slapping my next attack away, but that one strike was all I needed. My attack speed was increased by the blow, and so my next attack was much faster.
I left a smaller cut across his palm when he tried to block me again. And then another cut on his shoulder.
“You send a team to hit us when you’re not prepared for a team to hit you?” I admonished, grinning all the wider. “Seems irresponsible. A failure of leadership, I’d say.”
I gained a step of ground. The elder Mandrill took a step back under the fury of my assault and the insults I flung at his face, and when he fell back, the line beside him started to panic. Even as he was healing their wounds, his own were weakening him. If things didn’t change I was going to take him out with a thousand cuts.
The alpha took a desperate gamble to try and turn the fight, planting one foot firmly and rearing back to kick me away without dropping his guard.
He didn’t even realize the opening he was handing me.
Noaich surged forward, slipping under my wide stance to clamp his jaws down on the alpha’s planted back leg.
“Have a nice trip,” I remarked, offering a mock salute.
I jumped back to let Noaich hurl himself into a roll. Against every Mandrill we’d come against so far, the attack was a guaranteed kill. I assumed it would take my companion out of the fight for a while to be busy blending the alpha until liquefied, but I had no reason to expect what happened next.
The alpha did get slammed into the ground on his face with bone-crushing force. But as he flipped, rotating around Noaich’s center of gravity, his hands and free leg caught himself on the next spin. His muscles tensed, and in a brief show of force, he turned Noaich’s momentum against himself, kicking up and over himself.
My companion lost his grip on the alpha’s leg and was sent flying through the air, slamming noisily through the wooden wall of a nearby building.
As the alpha returned to his feet, his earlier limp was a little more pronounced. And along with all the damage I’d added to him, he was looking a little rough. Even though he’d shaken off Noaich’s attack, there was still an opening and I surged forward. As long as I had my attack speed boost from my new axe I could—
Rachel grabbed my shoulder and yanked, pulling me off-balance. I couldn’t catch myself and slammed into her. I was about to protest when the purpose of her interruption became crystal clear.
A huge lump of fur, muscle, and claw slammed into the ground between me and the alpha like a meteor. If not for Rachel’s interference, I would have been flattened.
There was a deep growl of rage at being denied its target.
The Big One.
The beast raised its head and glared at me with its strangely human-like eyes, baring its big square teeth at me in a mad rictus. It was an uncomfortable reminder of what had happened to me the last time I’d been unable to keep those teeth from chomping down on me.
I didn’t have time to think. I had to move.
The monster lunged, mouth open and slavering for another bite of me.