Betrayal Part-2

…

"EVERYONE!" Vice-Captain Tom's voice cut through the noise of battle.

"DO NOT RETREAT — REINFORCE IT! WE CAN STILL HOLD THEM DOWN!"

Victor sighed, causing Sasha to glance at him.

"We're retreating," he told her, helping to create an opening for both of them.

"But he just said not to do exactly that," Sasha said, confused. She could still fight.

"Look around, Sasha," Victor replied, grabbing her arm and pulling her back with him.

She did as her father instructed, and quickly realised what he meant. All around her, others were already starting to fall back, step by step. It didn't take long for her to understand why.

Sasha's eyes widened. Her jaw clenched. Her grip on her spear tightened until it nearly hurt. The kobolds had finally broken past the wall and opened the gate for the rest of their kin to pour through.

The non-combat classers, without the safety of the wall at their backs, couldn't hold them off like before.

She watched them scatter, fleeing from the beasts the moment they realised the defence had failed, leaving the kobolds free to hunt targets of their choosing. She couldn't blame them. Life was precious.

They're going for Aunt Amelia, she realised, retreating alongside her father. This was why sentient monsters were so terrifying. They knew exactly who to kill first. Twenty-something kobolds rushed at her as one.

Sasha watched as Vice-Captain Tom tried to stop them from harming the Priestess of Avaris. But he wasn't Captain Joseph.

He might have been a good fighter, skilled enough to train the kids, but he didn't have the kind of skills that focused on killing. He was more of a leader, best at commanding a group from behind, not someone built to fight twenty kobolds at once. They overwhelmed him in moments. The joint attack drove him to the ground, five kobolds piling on him… biting, clawing, tearing.

The rest charged forward, aiming to do the same to the priestess, but then her familiar jumped in between them. A fireball formed in her mouth, shooting across the distance and blasting apart the kobolds in front of her.

Magic bought them only a few more seconds. Every kobold froze, their attention shifting. And then they rushed, all of them, toward the cat and the tamer.

Tina snarled, her fur standing on end as she fired another fireball at a large cluster of dog-faced abominations, but the others had already closed the distance in that brief opening.

Sasha watched in abject horror as the two-legged beasts tore both the familiar and the tamer apart, ripping them into pieces, devouring them in savage bites.

Victor's face mirrored her own, a mixture of shock and disbelief, but it didn't last. That look quickly hardened into grim determination.

"Come with me. We must hide in a house and lock ourselves inside," He urged her, pushing her deeper into the village.

"The more divided we are, the more chances for some of us to survive," He said, taking her to a nearby house even as they heard screams filled with terror and despair mixed with pain from all around them.

…

David ran forward, huffing and puffing. His battle axe was long lost somewhere during the escape from the wall. He couldn't bring himself to look back, putting everything he had into running as fast as he could.

Five kobolds chased behind him, unable to close the distance, but unwilling to give up the hunt.

David sniffed, fighting back tears, remembering how his father had sacrificed himself to give him a chance to find relative safety. His body felt sluggish and heavy, but he kept running.

He had been unlucky enough to run into this group of monsters after turning into an alley, searching desperately for a place to hide. Their mouths and parts of their bodies were still covered in human blood…leftovers from their last feast.

His body screamed for rest, but the fear of what had happened to Aunt Amelia, and to his father, happening to him... That fear kept his legs moving. He turned left, spotting a house with its door left open.

Hope sparked inside him when he saw who was there.

James.

And Paul.

"WAIT! LET ME IN TOO!" he shouted, desperate to get their attention… and attention was exactly what he got. But their reaction… It was nothing like what he expected.

They recognised him immediately, but then their eyes shifted to the monsters chasing behind him. And that was when David saw it. Their eyes widened in terror.

A dark, grim look overtook their faces, a mixture of pity... and shame, as they looked at him one last time. Then they shut the door on his approaching figure.

"NOOO! PLEASE! JAMES!!! PAUL!!! PLEASE LET ME IN!" David screamed, begging, tears streaming down his face. Eyes full of betrayal. Full of despair. His body shook, trembling in fear for what was about to come.

He rushed to the door, slamming his fists against the wooden surface… begging, pleading, calling out their names in growing desperation. But the door never opened.

Instead, he heard the unmistakable sound of furniture being dragged, wedged up against it from the other side. That was when David gave up.

Slowly, he turned, only to see the kobolds standing barely a meter away from him, watching the whole scene unfold with savage grins stretched across their twisted faces.

And David realised…they knew. They understood exactly what had just happened. And it only made them hungrier.

"PLEASE LET ME GO! PLEASE! DON'T KILL ME!" he cried, dropping to his knees, begging them like a child begging gods that wouldn't listen. Fear made him do it.

The terrifying knowledge that they were far more intelligent than their crude appearances suggested made him do it.

The kobolds laughed in a high-pitched, nasal, almost mocking screech, hissing at him, sometimes chattering among themselves like they were enjoying a sick joke.

And then… they moved. Closing the distance. Intent on devouring him alive.

Panic ignited a long-buried survival instinct deep inside David, his frantic eyes darting, searching for anything, any possible escape.

In a last desperate bid, David bolted to the left. But the kobolds were faster. Stronger. More of them.

Clawed hands grabbed his shoulders, pulling him back, causing his balance to collapse, and he fell hard in front of the door that had betrayed him. The kobolds howled with laughter as he screamed, thrashing, even trying to bite one of them in blind terror.

But their thick, scaly hides shrugged it off like nothing.

One of them snarled, grabbing him by the neck, and began to drag him across the blood-stained pavement. It dragged him as close to the door as possible.

What happened next made James and Paul shiver, even from behind the relative safety of the barricaded door.