Chương 40: Iron-Core

The dark line of the forest exploded. Hundreds of starving beasts poured out from between the trees. Driven completely mad by the winter cold and extreme hunger, they moved with the frantic desperation of pure instinct. Massive mountain hounds, giant snow cats with glowing eyes, and heavily muscled dire wolves formed a chaotic, sprinting wave across the snow-covered valley. They caught the scent of the humans hiding behind the wooden walls, and they simply charged in a straight line toward the village.

Jack watched from the elevated castle grounds. His hands rested on the back of the wooden ballista. The massive siege weapon was already locked and loaded, a bolt sitting perfectly in the groove. Down in the valley, the front of the beast horde—mostly the smaller, starving hounds—reached the perimeter. They hit the hidden caltrops. The snow had completely covered the twisted spikes of iron Barnaby had forged.

The moment the leading hounds slammed their paws into the snow, the iron pierced straight through their footpads. Horrific shrieks of pain shattered the night. The front line of the horde tumbled forward, their momentum completely broken as their legs gave out. But the beasts behind them did not stop. The larger dire wolves simply trampled over the injured hounds, pushing forward blindly toward the wooden palisade. They reached the edge of the deep trench.

A dire wolf could jump incredibly far on flat ground, but they were running blindly through the dark. Dozens of the leading beasts simply ran straight off the edge of the pit. They plummeted into the darkness and slammed directly onto the sharpened pine logs Giles and the men had buried at the bottom. The sounds of flesh tearing and wood snapping echoed up to the walls.

"Hold steady!" Giles roared from one of the elevated firing platforms built on the inside of the palisade wall. The village militia was standing safely behind the thick wooden logs, looking down into the darkness.

"Let the spikes do the work!" The strategy was working perfectly. The initial charge was completely shattered by the terrain alone. But the Beast Tide was massive, and the older dire wolves approaching from the rear heard the screams of their packmates in the pit. They skidded to a halt in the snow, realizing they could not jump the gap. Then, they smelled the concentrated scent of the humans standing on the platforms near the front gate. They spotted the wide wooden ramp that bridged the trench.

Giles had originally wanted to pull the ramp up to completely isolate the village, but Jack had strictly forbidden it. Leaving the wooden bridge intact was a deliberate tactic. It created a perfect, irresistible funnel for the starving animals. The ramp led directly to Barnaby's iron-reinforced wooden gate, which was securely locked from the inside. The horde immediately changed its tactics. Instead of a wide wave, they funneled together.

A massive, tightly packed cluster of beasts began sprinting directly up the wooden ramp, intending to smash through the gate by sheer numbers. Up on the castle grounds, Jack lined up his shot. The ballista was positioned perfectly to aim straight down at the center of the wooden ramp. He pulled the release lever. THWACK. The bolt shot down into the darkness with terrifying speed. It slammed into the tightly packed group of dire wolves charging up the ramp.

The sheer force of the massive projectile tore straight through the skull of the leading beast, shattered the ribs of the second, and pinned a third completely to the thick wooden planks of the ramp. The cluster of beasts broke apart in sudden panic as their packmates were instantly killed.

"Grim," Jack commanded mentally.

"Turn the crank. Bones, load." The skeletal wolf obediently clamped its jaws onto the handle of the ballista and began walking in a circle, effortlessly drawing the sinew back until it locked. The tall skeleton, Bones, picked up a fresh bolt and slotted it into the groove. It was a perfect, mindless assembly line. A logical part of Jack's brain knew that sending his powerful, tireless undead down into the valley to fight the beasts directly would be incredibly effective.

But he also knew it was completely impossible. Skeletons possessed absolutely no combat instincts. If Jack sent Bones, Rusty, Dusty and Grim into a chaotic melee against hundreds of unpredictable animals, he would have to manually direct every single movement. He would have to think,'Swing sword left, step back, bite the throat, duck' for each individual unit simultaneously. Doing that in a high-speed battle would completely fry his brain in less than ten seconds.

That was why Jack kept them up here on artillery duty. Turning a crank and dropping a bolt into a slot were simple, repetitive tasks that required almost zero mental focus, leaving Jack's mind clear to aim and fire the weapon. Jack pulled the lever again. Another bolt shredded a group of mountain hounds trying to push past the dead wolves on the ramp. Down at the gatehouse, the surviving beasts realized they couldn't break the iron-reinforced doors.

A few massive snow cats, using their sharp claws, began trying to scale the vertical wooden logs of the palisade wall, completely ignoring the locked gate.

"Now! Pour it!" Old Miller shout. Up on the flat, sturdy roof of the gatehouse watchtower, a group of older boys tipped the iron kettles forward. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. A waterfall of boiling, liquid pine sap poured over the edge. It splashed directly onto the climbing snow cats and the wolves pressing against the base of the wall. The result was devastating. The sticky, boiling pitch clung instantly to their fur and skin. It could not be shaken off.

The burned beasts screamed in absolute agony, falling backward off the wall and thrashing violently in the snow as the hot sap cooked them alive. For an hour, the defenses held flawlessly. Jack fired the ballista into large groups on the ramp, the moat claimed the blind runners, and the older children poured the sap on the climbers. The human militia didn't even have to swing a weapon. But the beast tide seemed entirely endless. Slowly, the situation began to deteriorate.

Down in the trench, the trap was becoming a liability. So many beasts had fallen onto the spikes that the pit was completely filling up with dead bodies. The fresh dire wolves charging out of the forest no longer fell onto sharp wood; they landed safely on the corpses of their packmates. Using the growing pile of bodies as a fleshy ramp, the living beasts were getting higher and higher. Soon, they would be able to leap directly over the ten-foot palisade and land inside the village. Jack gripped his cane tightly.

He had to act. He couldn't shoot the ballista into the trench. He closed his eyes and pushed his mental focus past the safety of the castle grounds, sending his mana reaching out over the village walls and directly down into the bloody mud of the ramp and the trench. He aimed his magic at the bodies of the dire wolves his ballista had killed earlier.

"Rise," Jack commanded, forcing a thread of death mana into the fresh corpses. The dead wolves violently twitched. Their broken bones snapped back into place. To the absolute horror of the living beasts around them, the dead beasts pushed themselves up. But the moment they stood, Jack felt a horrific pain shoot through his skull. The "Wild Soul" of the beasts fought back. Because the wolves had just died, their feral instincts were still incredibly fresh. Their minds were chaotic storms of rage and hunger.

They violently resisted Jack's mental commands, fighting the foreign magic in their bodies. Jack dropped to his knees, gasping for air. His Grey Core was throbbing so hard it felt like a hot coal trapped behind his ribs. The pressure was agonizing. He was trying to suppress the wild instincts of a dozen separate beasts at the exact same time. The mental strain was pushing his soul to the absolute breaking point. The undead wolves on the ramp hesitated, snapping their jaws erratically as Jack's control wavered.

The burning pressure in Jack's chest reached a critical mass. The headache at the base of his skull felt like it was going to split his head wide open. He gritted his teeth, refusing to let go of the connection. He squeezed his eyes shut and forced every single drop of his willpower down into his core, demanding it to hold the weight. Then, he heard a sound. It wasn't a sound in the physical world. It was a sharp, distinct snap that echoed entirely inside his own mind. The agonizing pressure instantly vanished.

The flickering, cloudy spark of his Grey Core violently compressed. The mana inside his chest pulled together, hardening and solidifying until it formed a dense, unyielding foundation. It felt incredibly stable. Jack slowly opened his eyes. He let out a long, easy breath. His headache was completely gone. The mental exhaustion that had plagued him for weeks had vanished. He felt a vast reservoir of energy in his chest. His thoughts were moving faster, clearer, and sharper than they ever had before.

He had broken through the ceiling. He had reached the Iron Core. Jack looked back down at the ramp. The connection to the undead dire wolves, which had felt like trying to hold onto thrashing sharks with his bare hands just seconds ago, now felt completely different. With the sheer density of his new Iron Core, Jack didn't have to gently manage their wild instincts. He simply crushed them. The heavy weight of his advanced mana slammed down on the dead beasts, completely suppressing their feral souls.

"Kill them," Jack ordered silently. The instruction was entirely effortless. Down in the valley, the massive, undead dire wolves stopped thrashing. They turned their backs to the wooden gate and lunged forward in perfect unison. They tore into the front lines of the living pack with terrifying, silent efficiency. They did not feel pain, and they did not fear death. The living beasts instantly panicked.

Animal instinct completely broke down when faced with dead packmates that ignored fatal bites and continued to tear throats out. The front line of the horde collapsed into a chaotic mess of friendly fire as the living beasts turned on the dead ones. The momentum of the siege completely stalled. Within twenty minutes, the morale of the Beast Tide shattered entirely.

Unable to cross the trench, terrified by the boiling sap, and horrified by the undead wolves fighting in their ranks, the survival instincts of the living beasts finally overrode their starvation. The remaining pack turned and fled, scattering blindly back into the dark tree line of the forest. The valley fell entirely silent. Up on the castle grounds, Jack let out a long breath and severed his magical connection.

Down on the ramp, the dozen undead dire wolves instantly collapsed back into lifeless heaps of bloody fur. Jack rubbed his chest. His new Iron Core was incredibly powerful, but actively suppressing that many chaotic, living instincts simultaneously was still a mental burden. There was no need to push his limits now that the immediate threat was gone. Hours later, the sun finally crested the mountain peaks, casting a bright, clear morning light over the valley.

The iron-reinforced gates of the village were slowly pushed open. Giles and the village militia stepped out onto the ramp. They carried the iron boar spears Barnaby had forged, but they were not celebrating yet. The battlefield was covered in hundreds of dead animals, but the snow was also shifting. Dozens of beasts were still alive. Hounds with ruined paws from the caltrops dragged themselves through the snow. Dire wolves with broken backs lay trapped in the spike pit, snarling weakly at the morning light.

"Form a line!" Giles ordered firmly.

"Keep your distance. They are crippled, but they are not dead." An injured snow cat dragged itself out of a snowdrift near the gate. Its back legs were completely paralyzed, but its front claws were fully extended. It let out a terrifying roar and swiped its massive paw forward. One of the younger militiamen stepped too close. The cat's claws caught the wooden shaft of his spear, splintering the wood instantly and nearly ripping the weapon from his hands.

"Brace and thrust!" Giles yelled, stepping forward. He drove his spear directly into the cat's neck. The iron cross-lugs stopped the beast from sliding up the shaft to bite him. Two other men stepped up and thrust their spears into the beast's ribs, safely dispatching it from a distance. For the next two hours, the militia moved methodically across the caltrop field and the edge of the trench.

They used the long reach of their boar spears to safely execute the severely injured, trapped beasts without ever letting the dangerous animals get within striking distance. It was not a battle; it was a grim, highly organized cleanup. When the final trapped beast stopped moving, Jack walked slowly down the mountain path from the castle. His cane clicked lightly against the frozen ground. He felt incredibly healthy. The Iron Core was steadily feeding his weak body with much more stable energy.

Giles and Old Miller hurried over to meet him. They bowed deeply, their eyes filled with profound reverence.

"Lord Jack," Giles said, his voice trembling slightly with relief.

"Not a single man was lost. The walls held." Jack looked out over the massive field of carcasses. The trench was full, and the snowfields were littered with the bodies of dire wolves, hounds, and cats. It was not a tragedy. To the starving, freezing people of the Frost-Grip fief, it was a massive windfall of wealth.

"Yes, we did," Jack said smoothly, a small, genuine smile touching his face.

"Now, tell Barnaby to sharpen every skinning knife in the village. We have a lot of harvesting to do."