“Scyther!” warned Mair, and Orwin dived to the ground, hugging it to avoid the insanely whirling blades that would make short work of his armor and flesh. The creature zipped by the warrior, and Lowa raised a stone barrier in front of her, and the orb-like golem crashed spectacularly on it as it tried to target her, breaking apart as all its momentum betrayed it. Leanor shot ice shards towards the whirling ‘Spitter’ golems, felling a bunch of them with each attack, but the remaining creatures retaliated, firing stone spikes that were blocked by her barrier.

Alongside them, Chief struggled to hold back the fists of a ‘Brawler’ while Mons speared its side, trying to pierce its crystal. Tealdin was holding back a swarm of wooden ‘Dwarf’ golems by himself, sword and fire spells holding and deactivating the automatons. Garner was having a hard time trying to cut all the Scyther drones that noticed them and started advancing from a nearby hilltop, gaining dangerous speed. It was already past time to launch, but Garner would be surprised if they had made it a third of the way to the Spire.

There were, thankfully, more useless and broken golems than functioning ones, but those that worked were often dangerous, or working in big numbers that made up for their lower offense. The Scythers in particularly were really, really dangerous. What a ruthless person would create such a kind of golem? It would be a threat to both friend and foe in combat, its only purpose as a undiscriminating killing machine. They kept at it until all the nearby golems were finished, and then everyone sagged, specially the apprentices.

“Hells, Lowa! There are so many of them that I’m almost drained of energy!” complained Leanor.

“Maybe you should improve your mana recovery, don’t you think?” countered the old witch, more physically tired than magically. Nowadays, young people said ‘energy’ this, ‘energy’ that, but on her time, they knew it as mana, and she rather preferred it, even though the Mana Tree theory had fallen from favor.

“These area spells, Master… They are easy to cast, but they take so much energy…” Tealdin was saying on the other side of the field.

“You’re probably overdoing it. Practice enough, and you’ll get a knack for the bare minimum use of it to do what you need.”

Chief stretched his sore soldiers, tired of having to hold back the Brawler. These drones hit like a horse if you let them windup their punches, and having gathered so, the veteran started interrupting their ‘reloading’ movements. It was better than getting punched, but damn, it sucked. Mons complained about a dent of a fist on his breastplate where he had gotten punched in an earlier fight, and Maia swore as one of her arrows broke when she tried to take it off a fallen Brawler.

“Okay, I thinks it’s time we have launch,” declared Garner as he noticed the general bad mood of the group. He got mad when he was angry too, and these blasted golems trying to punch your head in surely didn’t help with the bad mood. Romer surely had something excellent prepared already. His decision cheered his people up a bit, though they were anxious to get to the tower already.

Chief approached him as the others got themselves in order to return, and asked, “What do you think about our newcomers, Master?”

“Good, very good. That Orwin is a good leader, and very bold. The siblings seem to be natural fighters, and surprisingly reliable if you don’t mind all the bickering.”

“Yeah, that was my impression as well.”

“You trained Orwin well, Chief, and it seems he’s gotten a knack for it too.”

The Chief just praised the compliment away, and turned back to return to the others. Keeping an eye to see if they were being followed, or if they had missed a golem on their way, they returned to the carts to find Romer arguing with a green-haired Druid they had seen before.

“I’ve told you before, there’s no need to feed me!” argued Balmia.

“It’s called good manners, lady Balmia. You brought us all these fine ingredients and these hens, and we must give you something-” the majordomo pushed a plate to the woman’s hands before he turned to see Garner and company arriving. “Master Garner, launch shall be served now. Lady Balmia will join us,” He said incisively, pushing the grudging woman to the pots filled with delicious fare. There was boar - not surprisingly, there was still a lot of the magical beast’s meat yet - prepared in two different ways, roasted and cooked, with wild vegetables and well-cooked rice, richly spiced.

Everyone got a plate and formed an impromptu line, gorging themselves with the delicious food. Romer looked on pleased, offering water and refreshments to anyone with an empty cup. Balmia ate with them, after all, and had to agree that it would have been terrible to miss this masterly prepared meal. Druids usually ate things with a lot less attention to its preparation. Maybe having a halfway decent cook in the Commune would be revolutionary, started thinking Balmia.

As they ate launch, Balmia noticed the sorry state everyone who had gone to clear the way was in, and asked:

“What the hells happened to you?”

“Golems, endless golems,” replied Maia, sitting besides her.

“They just don’t know when to die,” grumbled Mons.

“They can’t technically die, Mons, as they are not alive,” added Valena, pissed on her inability to help, and showing it.

“Er… Who are you again?” asked the Druid, scratching her green-hair. “I don’t remember seeing you the other time.”

“Ah, we weren’t there. We were following them and just joined this morning,” explained Orwin.

“Hmmm, I think the others commented about you. You had a nasty fight before, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, we’re not feeling so lucky right now,” confirmed Orwin.

“Tell me, how hard are these golems to beat? It’s been a long time since I’ve had a proper fight…”

***

After everyone had their fill, the group took half an hour to unwind before going back to their task, this time with the addition of Valena and Balmia, who were surprisingly becoming fast friends despite the expected incompatibility between someone that venerated all living things, and the other whose trade run with the undead side of things. Valena had nearly ran out of energy trying to animate the boar’s huge skeleton, but there it was, one of her most potent raised creatures. Now, she reckoned, she could be of some use to the upcoming fights.

“Won’t your Commune get angry that you went and got involved in a fight side to side with a necromancer?” taunted Valena.

“No, I’ll just say you are a really puny one,” quipped the druid. They both looked at the undead boar, and laughed. Imposing in life, and imposing in death. It was a shame Valena couldn’t control its magical affinity for now, leaving it only with physical attacks.

“Enough joking around, people, let’s go!” said Chief, making the group climb the hill the Scythers had been rolling down from in the earlier fight. This time, thankfully, they weren’t attacked by any more of the damned things. Getting near the top, the veteran motioned for them to stop and turned to Maia, “Peek over the hill stealth-like, archer, and give me some good news for once.”

Giving a textbook salute, a fist to her padded jacket, Maia proceeded to take a look on things on the other side of the hill. She got in a prone position, and only raised the minimum necessary parts to accomplish her tasks, the top of her head barely visible but to very noticing eyes - and the golems, so far, were far from something that could spot her. Still, it paid to be careful. Maia remained in the position for a long while, frozen, until she decided she had seen enough, and slowly retreated from near the top of the hill.

“Report, warrior.”

“We’re screwed, Chief,” She replied.

“Can you be a little more specific?” questioned Garner.

“Yes, Master. There’s another meadow like the last one, probably swarming with golems too, but it’s hard to know how many.”

“Nothing unexpected then?” replied Tealdin, puzzled with the report.

“The problem is on the next hill, pretty close to the Spire itself. I saw an outline there for a moment, something standing on the top of the hill. It was huge. The size of that boar, and half again.”

“Aw, shit,” said Mons, and many of the others paled and groaned at the notion. The small golems were a pain already, a huge one could be really, really lethal.

“Just tell me its not a giant Scyther,” asked Orwin, his bald head sweating at the possibility. He had had to block one Scythe’s blade earlier, and the thing’s momentum had nearly wrenched out his sword from his hand, throwing him meters away with some impressive bruises.

“Couldn’t tell much, but I doubt it.”

“We’ll handle that when we get to it,” said Lowa, shrugging. “We still have a lot of smaller golems until we can worry about the giant one.”

“I miss Master’s Tower,” lamented Tealdin to the other apprentice, but Leanor was busy warding a small shield she’d borrowed from the supplies, barely more than a buckler. Those damned Spitters made her want to hide behind a shield the size of Orwin, but she couldn’t carry one of those. So this was her compromise. She was starting to get the hang of the Barrier spell, but Shield was still hard for her. Barrier was actually a more costly spell, but she got away with using it because of her considerable energy potential. Tealdin would probably have to learn the trick Shield first, and his Barrier might never have half the size of hers.

“Standing around complaining won’t solve our problems. Remember we have guests incoming, so it would be real good to get our new house in order,” pointed out Garner. “If the ‘Giant’ golem interferes, we up and run - in a different direction from our carts’,” He instructed.

“That’s the plan then. Move it, people, no slacking!” said Chief, always the slave driver.

***

Sword and spell at hand, shield and Barrier at the ready, the group advanced, plowing through the automaton’s resistance, even as the golems threw themselves in a frenzy to bar their way. Garner let loose unbridled lightning, Lowa lowered the ground and raised stone in providential moments, a talented display of geomancy, while Tealdin unleashed fireballs at clumps of enemies and Leanor froze the more dangerous opponents to the ground. Sword, spear and axe were methodically used, crippling and eliminating Brawler and Guard drones - the new type carrying two swords which it used with repeating patterns of attack.

Thankfully, the Giant golem never made an appearance during the successive fights they had. At some point, they started passing through more and more of deactivated golems, seemingly without energy. Just to be safe, Garner asked them to carefully retrieve their mana crystals to make sure the automatons weren’t just playing dead. Not that the automatons were intelligent, not really, but as they got closer and closer to the Spire, it became obvious that there was some kind of intelligence behind them now. The attacks became more coordinated, and they had a harder time advancing.

If their opponent had decided to send the Giant golem while they were busy dealing with the hordes of its smaller brethren, they would have been royally screwed, but, for some reason, that had never happened.

The group had become a lot more coordinated and increased their synergy, as they went. They had decided to establish a reserve in case they suddenly needed fresh combatants, and Valena and Balmia were the ones doing that role right now. They had switched with others as they had started tiring, allowing everyone to rest, and the group to gain confidence. Valena’s boar had proved to be a lot more efficient than her other skeletons - its tusks could easily pierce an enemy, or sweep a whole group of them away, sending them tumbling backwards.

After three hours of fighting, they noticed a flare lit by their rearguard.

“Shit! The carts!” exclaimed Garner.

“Back, back, go back! Hurry!” shouted Chief.

Balmia and Valena each took a perch on the skeleton boar, and a pulse of will send the undead creature charging back to the camp, speeding away from the others. Garner decided to cast hastening spells even if he was weary from the high usage of energy during the protracted fighting. They crossed the hill and the meadows and arrived in time to see the boar smashing into the back of two dozen Dwarf golems. There was screaming and whinnying coming from the surrounded carts, and the warriors were fighting back to back against Guard golems, sporting injuries already.

Romer and others were knocking down any golem that tried to climb the carts, even as the hunters tried to relieve the warriors with well-timed arrows. Even the concussed Rajpul was trying to help, though he was feeling really scatter-brained and feeling he had the dexterity of a particularly dim toddler, just waving sharp instruments. The riding horses were thankfully kept a ways away from the cart, and weren’t being target, though one of their kind’s cry of pain was making them uneasy.

“No area spells!” warned Lowa as Tealdin started casting a fireball he then let fizzle. “Careful with friendly fire, kids!”

The group attacked with a vengeance and dismantled the golems’ attacking force, wiping every last one of them out, mana stones crushed into dust. Fighting with desperation to make sure no one of the rearguard fell took a heavy toll on them, even if they succeeded. Lowa and Valena rushed to look after a screaming page, his leg nearly cut off from a surprise attack by a Scyther. That same golem had also maimed one of the carts’ horses.

“Shit!” exclaimed Garner looking over at the agonizing creature, two of its legs bearing severe cuts.

“Do you want me to sacrifice the poor fellow?” asked Orwin, looking with pity at the animal.

“Woah, hold your horses!” interrupted Balmia, standing next to Garner. “And I mean it literally. I’m a Druid, and excellent at healing animals. There’s no need for it,” She said reproachfully at Orwin, who nonetheless was just relieved that he wouldn’t have to put the poor thing down.

“That’s great. Come here, Mons, help me hold him - watch the hooves,” said Orwin, and Balmia then put a hand on the terrified animal’s neck and started chanting.

“Okay, I think that was enough excitement for one day. Let’s eat and make camp tonight, tomorrow we will face whatever we have to, and make our way to the Spire,” Garner said after all injured were being treated, man and animal alike.