Chapter 58
The bridge was wide, open and empty. No stalled cars were anywhere along its expanse, leaving the horde highly visible ahead of them. However, that meant the pack was just as visible to them and any that may follow. Thankfully the shrieking and excited horde seemed far more interested in whatever they were running too to take the time to look over their shoulders. This both relieved and stressed Natalie out at the same time. On the one hand, they weren't all coming and running at her. That was way to many monsters to be able to fight on her own, even with all of the canines helping. Vice versa, this meant they were all running towards the area that her best friend was in, supposedly. A small part of her hoped the dreams themselves would be fake. A extension of her fear plaguing her subconscious mind. The rest of her was prepared for the worst, but was trying to make sure that she was not too late to save her, should she need it.
After running after the horde for about ten minutes, she saw that the road ahead had changed. Where it came up out of the valley and was surrounded on either side by steep hills, the road seemed to have been blocked off. When she could spot a plethora of movement, she quickly directed the wolves back into her Soulscape. If there were people from the city fighting off the monsters, they would probably be scared at the sight of a large pack of predators. Assuming that some of them had ways to attack at range at the oncoming horde, she did not want to take a chance with any of her pack getting injured by people just trying to survive. However, she asked if one of them could just pop their head out of her back slightly, so that she could get warning if someone tried to approach her from behind. After Kali gave her confirmation that it was all clear, she continued following the horde, drawing out and nocking an arrow as she went.
Not even two minutes passed by before she heard sounds of fighting going on. Screams of pain that she recognized as both monster and human alike rang out from further ahead. Now that she was closer, she could see that there were maybe two or three people with bows, but the rest seemed to be using either makeshift spears, blades of varying length, or whatever hand tools they seemed to have been able to get a hold of. She was surprised in herself to be able to see so much detail from such a range, but now was not the time to dwell on that. As she got within range of a cluster of monsters, she pulled the arrow back and loosed it towards the nearest hob. By the time the arrow landed in the back of the unfortunate monster's head, she already was in the process of nocking her next arrow. None of the creatures thought anything was up, probably assuming that the ones they were attacking were the ones making those attacks. Thanks to this, Nat was able to send arrow after arrow uninterrupted into the rear monsters of the horde. She did her best to aim exclusively for hobs, but she did end up missing occasionally. Those missed were still hits though, as with that quantity of numbers they just impaled whichever goblin had the misfortune to be standing there at that time.
With what felt like an hour, but was in reality just a couple of minutes, the numbers dwindled enough that the monsters were being taken down one-sidedly by the defenders. None of them turned and tried to run, but instead threw themselves forwards in what must have been hopes to get past. There had been so many goblins, that Nat had shot out two whole quivers by the end of it. The tip of her fingers on her right hand were starting to match the soreness of her legs, just from the constant friction of releasing arrow after arrow. While she could have just walked forward, something about the whole situation she was in made her wary of the other people. Clipping both quivers to opposite sides of her jeans, she moved forwards towards the defenders, scavenging her arrows from the bodies she passed. While she did not need them, she was hesitant to show off endless supplies to these people. As she looked at them, none of them had green mist coming off them like the other bonded people she had met. Add that with the nightmares that had been happening recently gave her a sizable amount of paranoia. As she approached the barricade, one of the men that had come down to gather whatever materials they could off the horde approached her. "Hello there! Thanks for the assist, that was a large group right there. How did you end up behind them?"
While the question seemed innocuous enough, her paranoia red it as pointed and prying. "I was just passing through when I heard them running as I approached the bridge. After waiting for them to run past, I continued down the bridge and found you fighting them off." He scratched the back of his head with a defeated look on his face, before sighing loudly.
"Damn, I was hoping you were a fellow resident. That would have given us hope that there were still people holding out over there. Anyways, welcome to West Lethbridge, currently monster free and home to a crap ton of people. Should not be any issue for you to pass on through, but please do not cause any trouble. And if any give you trouble, ell them Mark gave you the okay!" He gave a thumbs up backwards before continuing to go through the bodies on the road. While majority of them were monster corpses, some of them were human. A couple people even went around lighting them on fire. Probably a preventative measure for the whole zombie issue. Carrying on walking, she passed through the main opening of the barricade with two full quivers and her bow. Once through, she just kept on the road forward, while constantly keeping a side eye on the university to her left.
Huge thanks to my Elder Wolves Jake, Viktor, Nikolas, Saganatsu, Eeleater, Corgi, Zmal, Lachlan, Coen, Adam, John, Nicholas, Ty, and Kevin for supporting me and my writing! Remember that I keep Patreon ten chapters ahead at all times. Our next goal on Patreon will be getting up to 25 patrons, which I will then open up an official discord for everyone to come and discuss the story in and hang out!