Fortification

So after listening to everything everyone had to say, Marcus managed to form a carefully constructed plan in his head. "Right, let's get to work."

He didn't expect them to beat the dragon after seeing Rowan's group reduced to almost nothing after having lost nearly all their supplies and over half of their members.

Even so, they had to try. If they could at least weaken it, maybe future encounters would lead to them defeating it or learning how to beat it.

At the exposed slope, overlooking the heathland and the valley Rowan's clan had left behind, wooden spears were planted into the ground. They would be the first stage of the plan to test their adversary.

If the threat was too strong then the plan was to retreat. Lana and Taemin would use bows at this stage since they were the most skilled. The second stage was to then lead the dragon down towards the river if it was decided to continue and not to retreat.

Team A (who initially threw the wooden spears or fired upon the beast with arrows) would then swim accross the river and get ready for the final stage. Here would be where everyone would make their final stand against the beast.

They were counting on the river to slow it down and if that didn't soak it enough, they'd throw some of Marcus' clay pots full to the brim with water. If they aimed for its jaws, hopefully they'd prevent it from using fire against them.

Now they were just repeating the process of adding more fortifications. Digging pits for at least its limbs to be momentarily trapped in, whittling more spears to throw, and even a new weapon Marcus was working on: the crossbow. An improved version of the bow that would be easier to aim and fire projectiles at much deadlier speeds.

The trigger mechanism was an S-shaped piece of wood held back by a slightly stretchy piece of para cord. It was impaled through the middle so it could be pulled back off the cord, therefore releasing the bolt.

It was easy to reset and much simpler than the more complicated trigger mechanisms that didn't need resetting in the book Marcus had found it in. The bolts were easy to craft. They only required some dexterity to make quickly so Taemin and Jessica worked on producing several large batches.

For almost a week, they carried on perfecting the plan and preparing defences. Some even started to wonder if the dragon was searching for them. Was it out looking for blood or was Rowan's group just unlucky?

It arrived when we least expected it to. While everyone was tittering about, wondering if it was worth checking the spears or making another batch of bolts, Gavin spotted it and sounded the alarm.

"Get to your positions!" Marcus hollered across the valley. Lana and Taemin came to join Marcus and Tarik at the edge of the slope. Gavin, Jessica and Rowan waited at stage 2 and the rest stood fiercely at stage 3.

The dragon was approaching the valley on foot. Every step wasn't so heavy that it shook the ground but we could hear them clearly. Louder as our doom closed the gap.

The sound wasn't a plod or crash but a crunch as it brushed aside trees and squashed the gorse. When Gavin spotted it, the thing had landed after flying nearly all the way from Rowan's old valley.

'So it can fly...' Marcus worried about whether it would easily evade their retaliation with those wings. If so then plan B would be put to good use. He wouldn't have proposed the idea if they couldn't abort at any given moment.

A system notification popped up ironically late but still Marcus read it: 'Powerful threat detected. Class A monster.' He was beginning to understand what the class meant. If it was class A then fighting it would be nothing like the zombies.

Marcus was confident in his ability to take out a class C or B threat since defeating the zombie horde and having trained diligently afterwards. With numbers on his side, things at least weren't entirely impossible.

When it finally began to ascend the slope, Marcus gave the order to commence the attack. First rolling boulders down the hill they'd spent an entire afternoon dragging up there.

The dragon sprung into life. This whole time it had been conserving it's energy. Or maybe it was an intimidation tactic. Marcus didn't think it believed it needed to be wary or vigilant around them to win. Pure arrogance.

It leapt out of the path of each rolling ball of stone with careless ease. Something about it reminded Marcus of how he fought when he'd taken on the zombie horde. Unparalleled speed against a small army.

The rocks had only slowed it down a little as it had to zig zag. Lana and Taemin immediately opened fire. Marcus grabbed a spear and threw it too. His spear fell short but Tarik's struck the beast's hide. It was too thick though as both the spear and arrows bounced off.

Soon they'd exhausted the area of any projectiles. Grabbing one last spear, the hillside no longer looked like the back of a hedgehog. They'd given it all they had and not a single projectile had done any damage. Together, they retreated back to stage two. Here, more spears and arrows were available so they took up the fight once more.

The dragon glided down the slope on open wings and was now running toward them. It halted though as everyone aimed for its wings but it kept them folded up and tucked away from danger only having to slow for a minute.

"Uhh, Marcus? We may need to give up! Live to fight another day and all that!" James called as both teams A and B of the first and second stages arrived at the river for stage 3.

"Not yet!" He shouted back before the others could start abandoning the battle straight away. They dived into the waters and arrived on the other side in no time. They all knew they'd have to dive in again anyway but they were still all dripping wet. It was harder to draw back their bows.

Grabbing one of the few machetes Rowan had managed to bring back when fleeing his base, Marcus stood in the centre of his forces. He was ready to lay down his life if necessary. HE was taking the risk to stay a bit longer so HE would make sure everyone else had evacuated first if nothing could be done.

The dragon stopped only five feet from the river. Just as it spread its wings to take off, it had to fold them again as spears were sent its way again. Marcus grinned and for a second he thought he saw frustration in its eyes not only at it's predicament but at Marcus' triumph as well.

The monstrous enemy huffed wildly. Every breath raised and lowered the hulking mass of destruction. It was a tank. No, an amoured fighter jet. It could fly, it was fast, it had the ability to unleash devastating fire power, and was not affected by primitive weapons.

And yet it was both at our mercy AND holding us hostage. Of course we had a fast, or at least frantic escape plan that allowed us to leave at any given moment.

The dragon roared in rage at the sky. A torrent of fire blew in our direction but could not quite reach us across the river. Thumping the ground with its tail in a tantrum, it decided to go all in and charge us. We anticipated the attack and timed the throwing of our water pots just right. Marcus cringed to see most of his hard work these past few weeks smash into a million pieces.

The thing shook its head in confusion and as it tried to torch us, nothing but a red glow was formed. Like trying to start a car engine after going through too many puddles, it could not spark the ignition required.

Instead, it went to slash at us but as a unit we evaded the strike and retaliated with the sturdier, flint tipped spears which thankfully managed to pierce its flesh. Just shallow wounds but the blood was visible.

Next, a squad of three fired crossbows. Marcus had only had enough time to make three. No one even saw the flight path the bolts took as they had already embedded themselves in the beast. It growled in pain as though it had been stung. It still wasn't enough.

As it snapped its jaws viciously at someone and just narrowly missed a second swipe, Marcus relented. "Alright! Everyone retreat! Plan B! Plan B!" No one argued. He knew someone would get caught in one of those swipes if they didn't leave now.

Hurriedly, they all grabbed one of the branches or chunks of wood they'd already tested as a flotation device and jumped into the river. They were dragged off down to the bunker in the woods so fast that some even canon balled or flipped like their lives weren't in any danger.

Marcus was just about to throw down his machete and grab one himself after checking every other person had gone when something massive barrelled into him. "Oof!"