"Uh… long story." Remian said sheepishly.

Max and the cub exchanged glances. The cub grinned cheekily.

"Is that… the barbecue thief?!" Max guessed.

"Yeah. Animals would die for food." Remian shrugged.

"Well, you're not giving it any of my food." Max grouched. "You can do your own trapping from now on, I'll loan you some traps and you can feed it whatever you catch on your own."

Remian sighed, turned to the cub that was sitting on his left shoulder. "Now look what you've done. I officially have to become a trapper."

The cub let out a small, apologetic whine.

"Also, you better explain to Markus before he kills your little furball." Max went on. "We're actually preparing to kill a lot of Wilds tonight."

"What? Where? Why?" Remian asked.

"It is a Beast Wave. Dozens of random Wilds all coming to kill us at the same time. They have an odd sense of unity, and they'll slow down to match the speed of the slowest Wild in their group, or else we'd all be dead by now. At the rate they're going, they'll be here, at the southern gate, just after sunset tonight."

Remian frowned. "Are Wilds really hostile to us? I mean… the ones I just met didn't seem so bad."

"That fellow on your shoulder is half wolf. That's not too far off from your household dog. There's a reason why people can peacefully keep dogs as pets, and I'm guessing your little friend there shares some of that canine temperament. But the creatures coming at us are coming to kill us. Don't you forget that."

An odd idea occurred to Remian at that point. If some Wilds could be friendly with people, then…

Possibility after possibility began to slip through Remian's mind while Max began to explain the military outlook on tonight's battle. "The so-called warlords who run this town have agreed to set aside their differences and join hands against the Beast Wave for tonight. Each of them has pledged ten of their crew and at least one Slayer to the fight."

"One what?" Remian blinked.

"A Slayer. Basically, a very strong warrior, but perhaps better described as a hit-man. In this town, Slayers are legends." Max explained. "From what we have learned so far, it seems that all six gangs have at least two Slayers each. Tonight, each of them will be sending us one."

"Sending 'us'? You mean…"

"Yeah. Since we're the most neutral party here, they've given us the responsibility of coordinating the defense. You might say we're in command, but when push comes to shove, my guess is they're all just going to do whatever they want and leave us holding the bag." Max grunted. "I won't lie to you, it's going to be a very tough battle with unreliable allies and the darkness of night."

"We might not be able to do much about those allies, but maybe we can do something about the darkness, like place torches…"

"Who's going to pay for those torches? You?"

Remian grimaced. Even if he wanted to, he had nothing to pay for them with. "Is there something out here we can use to make light at no cost? Some plant or mineral we could scrounge up from the wilderness…?"

"By tonight? Enough to really help?" Max shook his head. "You may as well try to convince that Priest in the Church of Celestial Light to cast Light Spells for us."

"I could try that." Remian said, thinking. "We're not that close, but he's helped me before. Maybe there's something I can do for him so that he'll help me again."

***

The day pa.s.sed with the scrambling about of man, busy as he always was. This day, the people of Frontier Town were especially busy, running about digging pits filled with sharpened stakes, felling trees and raising barricades, piling mounds of dirt in rows.

Time was of the essence, and the impromptu minutemen of Frontier Town were as short on it as they were on resources. Most of the minutemen from the five gangs only arrived as the sun was beginning to set. Some of the Slayers weren't even there after the sun went down.

As it did, Remian arrived at the Iron Legion camp with the Priest, the nun, and his new wolfcat friend on his shoulder. "Max! I got them!"

Max waved at him. "How did you do it?"

"Suffice to say I'm going to need to send them food every day from now on." Remian rolled his eyes toward the nun. It was her, more than the Priest, that had to be convinced to help. "This is Priest Kairos, the nun's name is Rhema, she's willing to help with medical duties if you have the supplies."

"We actually do have a little, but it's not much. Most of it are wild herbs we managed to gather while out in the field." Max pointed. "Also, Remian, you might want to stash that furball away in your tent. We don't want anyone to kill him by accident thinking he's part of the Beast Wave."

"Got it." Remian's tent was something Tan left behind in his backpack when he died. It was in bad shape, but Max had helped him patch it up with leaves and twigs and whatnot.

Afterward, he came back to Max and asked, "Anything else I can do?"

"There's no time. The Beast Wave is here already." Max pointed.

Remian squinted, but he couldn't see anything in the dark. "Where?"

"See those glinting red lights?" Max asked.

"Sort-of. Are those reflections from our torches?"

"Probably. But what do you think are reflecting them?"

Remian winced. He got it. Those were eyes. Dozens of eyes, some as high as three meters tall. "Uhoh."

"Priest Kairos, if you will?" Max requested, as the minutemen gathered to form a very long single line behind makes.h.i.+ft barricades of sharpened stakes.

Kairos drew a sigil in the air, something that seemed almost similar to a '1' or an 'I', a sigil formed by glowing yellow traces from his finger. Speaking in the tongue used by the Iron Legion, he pushed at it and shouted, "Light!"

A head-sized ball flew up into the night sky, lighting it up like a flare. In that dim magical light, the defenders of Frontier Town saw the ma.s.sed Wilds that were coming at them hungrily, madness in their eyes and drool dripping from their fangs.

"Anyone invite some guests for dinner?" Markus asked softly.

"Not when we're the dishes, no." Max replied.

They charged. Sixty, maybe seventy Wilds, each thrice the size of a man or more, came barreling down the plain at the southern gate regardless of what minor obstacles and traps the minutemen had managed to put in their way. They broke past the logs that were set to direct their traffic into bottlenecks, rampaged over the snares and lures and distractions. The only things that really stopped them were the pits with sharpened stakes. There, one after the other Wild fell to their deaths, piling on top of each other until the pits were filled and the next Wild behind the dead could pa.s.s over them on their carca.s.ses.

"Next time, we just stick to pits." Max grunted. "Waste of a lot of traps…"

"Fire at will!" someone yelled, and crossbows sounded in the shadows. Others were slinging stones. The legionnaires themselves picked up short javelins and threw those at the incoming wave.

"Pole-arms!" Markus shouted.

All across the line, people raised spears, halberds, pikes, pitchforks, even a broomstick in one case. They stood roughly ten feet behind the barricades of sharpened stakes…

"Light!" Kairos cast another glowing ball as the first one began to fade.

With a resounding crash, the wave of Wilds hammered against the sharpened stakes, impaling many of their fastest runners without hesitation, without mercy. The barriers broke under the pressure, and then the Beast Wave was upon the defenders, slowed down by half after all those obstacles, but nevertheless. .h.i.tting them with enough force to shatter most of the pole-arms pointed at them.

"Melee!" Markus roared, and lunged at the nearest Wild, another one of those short javelins in his hand. Max and the other legionnaire was on either side of him, each with a short sword in his hand.

The Wild coming at him was an oversized boar with a mane, tusks, and hooves that looked like metallic. It tried to gore Markus, but he leapt high, a full six-feet jump, and landed on its back, lancing his spear directly into the boar's back.

The oversized boar went mad. It swung from side to side, goring Max and the other legionnaire in moments. Max scrambled to get out of the way, but the other legionnaire went down, leaving Markus alone on the bucking boar, trying to maintain his balance at the risk of getting trampled under the two-ton monstrosity.

"Light!" Kairos cast, and started coughing.

"Are you all right?" Remian stood there, not taking part in the battle, quite aware than anything he did would more likely be a hindrance than help. He had Tan's bow, but to be honest… he wasn't strong enough to draw it. Maybe he could have lent it out but everyone else had their own weapons already.

"I… don't normally have to cast… using this much power…" Kairos wheezed. "I need a break."

"But if you take a break… and the light fades…" Remian gulped. "If they have to fight the Wilds in the dark, we're all going to die."

"One more." Kairos coughed again. "I can manage one more. After that, we must sound the retreat and fight within the gate."

"That's not going to work. The town walls on this side wouldn't last more than a few seconds against a charge by even one of these Wilds." Remian eyed the boar that Markus and Max were struggling with. That thing alone could have rammed a sizeable hole right through the town wall. There were at least twenty Wilds out here as big or bigger.

"If you want light… you're going to have to help me." Kairos said then. "You need to learn the spell."

"You can teach me?" Remian stared. "I thought the Church only taught light magic to priests!"

"What is a priest? It is merely a t.i.tle. I therefore ordain you as a priest as a field emergency!" Kairos turned to Remian. "The power of light is the power of hope and kindness, and I have seen both in you. Do you believe in G.o.d?"

Believe in Him? I MET him. Even argued. "Sure thing."

"Do you promise to serve Him?"

"If it benefits me. If you want me to work for you, then you're going to have to pay me."

"Do you promise to obey the church, and follow the leaders.h.i.+p?"

"No way. Nuh-uh. I have things to do."

"Do you promise to wors.h.i.+p Him all your life?"

"What does that even mean?"

"Would you pledge yourself to the cause of spreading the Light in His name…?" Kairos coughed some more.

"No. Freaking. Way. Absolutely not!" Remian said stoutly.

"How honest." Kairos smiled a dry, mirthless smile. "Only one answer is satisfactory. But I don't have much of a choice, this is an emergency. Remian Vin, I hereby ordain you in this emergency field commission as a Priest in the Order of Light! Congratulations!"

"Great. Now can you teach me that spell already?!" Remian eyed the magic glowing ball fearing it would weaken before he could replace it.

So Kairos taught. "This is what you do…"

***The following secrets are cla.s.sified by The Order of Light. No exposition of them may be revealed without authorization, all rights reserved.***

"As for the word you speak at the end," Kairos cleared his throat. "It does not really matter. I like to keep it simple and just call for what I want, like 'light'."

"Here goes…" Remian tried it. "Sense the mana… everything has Life Force… this place has plenty of life… focus the patterns… come on, sigil! Come on!"

Faint outlines s.h.i.+mmered in the air, but the sigil did not take form.

"I will show you one last time." Kairos drew a deep breath.

Kairos watched him, burning his movements, the ebb and flow of mana that he only now learned to sense. He saw the patterns, the flows of magic that formed a bridge between man and nature, telling nature what Kairos wanted. "Light!"

A fourth glowing orb flew up into the sky, illuminating it one last time.

Kairos fell. He collapsed almost on top of Remian. "Kairos? Kairos?! Hey!"

But there was no response. Priest Kairos had completely lost consciousness.

"Medic!" Remian called for the nun/nurse. "We need a medic!"

Rhema took Kairos in to the medical area, leaving Remian alone in the dark as Kairos' last light began to fade, and the onslaught of the beasts came ever closer to the gates of Frontier Town.

"Sigil… mana flows… flow…" Remian closed his eyes, feeling doom creep up on him as the defenders fell back, screams sounding on all sides. Sweat beaded on his forehead "Please, please, please… sigil… form… I don't wanna die… please, G.o.d, I don't wanna die… I've come this far, and only just gotten started… everyone here is trying so hard… I can't leave them, I have to help them… please, sigil, take FORM!"

There was a burst of power from the air and from the ground, and Remian felt energy surge through, and then from him, going out into a newly formed sigil right in front of his fingers. The s.h.i.+mmering traces that were hardly visible before now suddenly seemed rock solid, almost like polished gold.

At last! Remian placed his hand on it, straining with all his heart. "Kindness… hope… life… for everything that is good… for even a chance at happiness…"

Emotions surged in his soul. The desperation of struggling for his life every day under an endless curse of weakness. The faces of his parents, and the grief he always brought them. The squalor of his family. The blood that was spilled on the ground tonight. The screams of the defenders. The shattered armor of the fallen legionnaire.

A deep, heartfelt plea rose up from his innermost being, a cry and an outcry that burst out in silence and thundered in stillness. Remian's hand grasped the sigil, turning into a fist. He screamed and all the world screamed with him. "LIGHT!"

There was an explosion and everything went white.

Screams sounded on all sides. "Aargh! My eyes! My eyes!!"

"It's too bright! I can't see! I can't see!"

"Defense! Fall back! Anyone! Can anyone hear me? Can anyone see?!" Markus shouted. "What is happening?!"

Howls rose up on all sides and for a moment, Remian feared the worst, but quickly, the howls faded going farther and farther away.

"They are retreating! The Wilds are running away! We've done it!" Max roared. "We've won!"

Cheers rang out as sight slowly returned, but by that time, the white was fading to black, and Remian was only aware of falling, and landing hard on the ground before pa.s.sing out.

***

The next thing he knew, he was back at the church. Sitting over him was Priest Kairos, and all around him were the wounded, the entire main hall having been turned into an infirmary.

"Did it work?" Remian asked.

"Work? You just cast the most powerful spell I've ever seen outside of a Holy City." Kairos said wanly. "Remian, I tell you the truth, your body may be weak but your magic is terrifying."