The afternoon of Michael's return bled into a tense, watchful dusk, and then a night shattered by violence. By the time the sun had fully set, the ragtag coalition outside Cinder Town's walls had swollen to sixteen distinct warbands. From the wall, their separate campfires glittered like a constellation of malevolent red stars. A headcount, rough but terrifying, put their numbers well over seven hundred souls united by a single, thirsty purpose.
The sheer mass of humanity gathered to rend his town apart was a cold weight in Michael's gut. Yet, within the walls, a different kind of energy was building. The arrival of the truckload of supplies was a tangible promise. And Michael, with the instinct of a born huckster who'd stumbled into generalship, played his trump card.
Standing on an upturned crate before the assembled guards and the most able-bodied townsfolk, he held aloft a single, unassuming red-and-yellow tube. "Look at it!" he cried, his voice carrying in the hushed evening. "The unguent! The Mayinglong! A prize beyond water, beyond food! For every man who stands his ground, for every arrow loosed true, for every raider turned back from our wall—a tube of your own! Fight for your home, and fight for the right to feel humanagain!"
The effect was electric. The myth of the ointment, carefully cultivated by John and a few other satisfied evangelists, had seeped into the town's psyche. In a world of constant, low-grade misery, the promise of targeted, miraculous relief was a motivator that transcended loyalty or fear. It spoke to a primal desire for dignity. A ragged cheer went up, so fierce and sudden it echoed across the silent plain, causing heads to turn in the distant raider camps.
The rest of the night was a fever dream of preparation. Under John's bellowed commands, guards drilled with the new bows. The compound models, with their forgiving cams, were issued to the larger, stronger recruits. The sleek recurves went to the older hands and those who showed a natural eye. The shikkof whetstones on the unsharpened katanasprovided a constant, grating soundtrack, as women and older children patiently ground edges onto the factory-blank steel. Other teams, supervised by a grimly efficient Faye, filled glass bottles with a stinking mixture of gasoline, dissolved rubber, and rag wicks—crude, terrifying spheres of potential fire.
Old Gimpy, buzzing with a frantic energy, directed the laying of thick cables and the mounting of the powerful halogen work lights atop the wall. Michael's timing, as it turned out, was providential.
The attack came at the hour when night is deepest and the soul is weakest—just past 3 AM. It was not the main horde, but two smaller, ambitious gangs seeking glory and first pick of the spoils. They came from east and west, shadows flitting across the dust, aiming to scale the low, unfinished sections of wall, silence the sentries, and pry open the main gate sealed by the Greyhound bus.
They were fifty meters out when a nervous sentry, hearing a scuffle of gravel, yanked the chain on one of the newly installed halogens.
Daylight erupted in the desert night.
A dozen figures froze, caught in the act like insects in amber, their eyes wide with shock and terror. For a heartbeat, there was only the blinding light and the hum of the generator. Then John's roar shattered the stillness: "LOOSE!"
The air over Cinder Town's wall sang. It was not the professional volley of trained archers, but a ragged, furious swarm. Arrows—some flying straight, some wobbling, a few falling comically short—slammed into the illuminated killing zone. The sounds were wet, choking gasps and sharp cries of pain. Seven or eight figures went down in the first wave. Michael, who had been sleeping in his clothes by the west wall, was among the first to reach the parapet, adding his own, less practiced shot to the fray.
The raiders, expecting stealth and finding a thunderstorm of wood and steel, wavered. A horn blew from their main camp—a low, urgent bellow. More figures emerged from the darkness, not to scale the walls, but to cover a retreat. Arrows from the wall met a less disciplined spray of crossbow bolts and thrown axes. The night became a chaos of shouts, screams, and the sickening thudof impacts. After ten minutes of brutal, close-range slaughter, the raiders broke, dragging their wounded back into the dark, leaving twenty-three still forms in the dust beneath the unforgiving lights.
Standing on the wall, the sharp scent of blood and bowstring resin in his nose, Michael felt no triumph. The men on the ground were the desperate, the expendable. The real threat—the aura-enhanced leaders like the Black Hand's chieftain, and the cold, calculating Audra—had not stirred from their camps. The rifles, cleaned and loaded, remained in their wrappings. The real fight was being saved.
The failed night attack ushered in a tense, surreal stalemate. Each subsequent night, the halogen lights blazed, turning the perimeter of Cinder Town into a stage no raider wished to cross. The days were quiet, ominously so. The only change was the slow, steady drip-feed of new bands into the raider camp. By the third day, the number swelled past a thousand souls. The sight was a constant, grinding pressure on the nerves of every defender.
Michael maintained a brittle calm. He ate, he slept in fitful shifts on the wall, and he inspected. He knew the raiders' calculus. The water in their tanker was finite. Every day of siege was a drain on their most precious resource. The attack would come when the cost of waiting outweighed the fear of the wall.
It came on the fourth afternoon, under the pitiless sun.
Michael was dozing, his back against the sun-warmed fender of a rusted-out Ford pickup that served as a windbreak on the wall-walk, when a shadow fell over him. He opened his eyes to see Zach, the Ogre, a grotesque mountain of scavenged plate metal and unwavering loyalty. "Master. They stir. Like a hive kicked."
Michael was on his feet in an instant. He scrambled to the parapet and looked out.
The raider camp was disgorging its contents. From the chaotic nest of tents and pits, a thousand-strong host was coalescing. It was not an army; it was a mob with a singular direction. They formed up in rough, gang-specific clusters about five hundred meters out—a seething, multicolored stain on the pale earth. Michael's breath caught. Thirteen hundred, perhaps more. The combined might of the badlands, here to erase his dream from the map.
His mind, cold and clear, began issuing orders. "Onil! Take thirty. The other three walls. You see a flag, you send a runner. You hold until you hear the horn or see us break." The massive guard nodded, his face set, and began tapping shoulders, pulling his contingent of the Night Crew away.
"Zach. You are the hammer. Twenty men. Here, in the square. You do not move until I call. Rest. Be the hammer." The Ogre grunted, understanding his purpose—to be the devastating counter-punch.
That left ninety-seven guards for the main southern wall, the unfinished, vulnerable sector. From these, Michael pointed to four men—the steadiest hands, the ones who had shown aptitude with the precious firearms. "You four. Up in the bus. Windows. You do not shoot at the crowd. You wait for my mark. You look for leaders, for banners, for the big ones with the glowing fists. Understood?" They nodded, faces pale but determined, and scurried towards the fortified bus.
Finally, he turned to Old Gimpy, Lynda, Faye, and a handful of others armed with bandages, water, and stout clubs. "You are the menders. You stay behind the wall. You pull our wounded back. And for God's sake, keep everyone else underground."
As the town scurried to its positions, a deep, mournful, yet stirring sound echoed from the raider mass. A long, polished horn, carved from some great beast's tusk, was put to a man's lips. Its call was not a scream, but a declaration.
The sound died. For a heartbeat, there was absolute silence, broken only by the hot wind.
Then, with a roar that shook the very air, the front ranks of the mob—a solid wave of four hundred screaming men and women—surged forward. They came not at a run, but at a fast, relentless lope, a tide of fur, leather, and raised steel, their war cries merging into a single, bestial howl that promised nothing but annihilation.
The Battle for Cinder Town had begun.