Which wasn’t so bad, actually. Eva considered herself far from squeamish, but there was something off-putting about the idea of dumping liquid down their headless necks. And that was assuming potions would work on them in the first place.
A moot point, as it did not change the fact that she didn’t have any.
“Anything else I should be aware of?”
“Nothing comes to mind, command–”
Another vampire-cat–the one that was supposed to be on lookout–dropped down between them, giving a rushed salute to Eva. “Enemy force fast approaching from behind.”
“How many and from which direction?”
Her lookout whipped an arm out, pointing towards the street behind the burnt out building they had just fought within. “Coming up the road. At least seven, possibly eight.”
Eva cursed under her breath. Seven wasn’t a huge number. Arachne could certainly have sent more. While they had just taken out six of the bugs, three of those had been in the initial ambush. Four if she was counting the one the goblins took out.
Retreating wasn’t much of an option. Even if they started running now, the only way to go was out along the back road. Running out the front of the building would pinch her between Arachne’s main force and her current attackers. Along the back road, they’d be forced to run and find a hiding place in some other building. And her dullahan-bears were not faster than the bugs out in the open.
“You,” Eva said, pointing towards the scout, “you’re in charge of the goblins.”
The female vampire-cat grimaced, but nodded. That was understandable. The goblins were menaces.
“Gather them up and loop them around the side. Keep them quiet and out of sight until they’re fully engaged with us. Then start taking them out, one by one, starting with the ones furthest in the back. If any go off on their own, take them out.” Eva paused to take a breath. “Can you do all that?”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said with a salute. Before her hand touched her forehead, she was already sprinting off towards the goblins.
Eva sighed. The vampires were easily the more intelligent of her soldiers. Yet she had so few.
She turned towards the third vampire-cat. “You get the bears into cover, ready to charge out and intercept the enemy. Once they’re in place, return to my side.”
“Including the injured one, ma’am?”
Hesitating for just a moment, Eva nodded. If there were eight of the things coming for her, she’d need her full force. Even if that meant fighting while injured. “Him as well.”
The third vampire-cat nodded and ran off without so much as a salute.
Eva would berate him if he survived.
“And us, commander?”
Eva glanced around the burnt building. Other than a few tipped over wooden desks on the ground floor–most of which had large holes in them from the acid spitting bug things–there wasn’t much in the way of cover. With a quick thought, she stepped straight to the second floor balcony.
At least, it looked like a balcony. The way the fire ate away some of the wood made it look like it a balcony, but the wall ran right up along the edge of the floor. Another series of desks was piled in one, mostly unburnt corner.
After looking around for a moment, her lieutenant spotted her. He jumped, gripped the side of the pillar, and bounced off straight up and landed on the edge.
Some of the charcoal cracked and fell beneath one of his paws. With feline grace, he caught himself and casually brushed himself off.
“We’ll have to watch out. They might try to collapse the floor.”
“True,” Eva admitted. It wasn’t ideal–nowhere was–but it could be made better. “If we pile up some of those desks along the walls, they’ll be a lot better than anything on the ground floor.”
“I suppose.”
“You’ll be a lot happier with more stuff between us and any globs of acid coming our way,” Eva said as she started moving one of the desks against the wall. “Trust me.”
“You’re the commander,” the lieutenant said in a tone that very clearly implied that he was only following orders.
“Alright then.” Eva finished piling a desk on top of the first before turning to the vampire. “What would you do instead?”
The lieutenant kicked one desk against the opposite side of the burnt-out opening in the wall with a grunt. “I don’t mean to counter your orders,” he hedged, “but between your teleportation and our natural graces, we are highly mobile.”
Eva gave a quick aside glance to the ground floor of the building. The place was a mess. Pockmarks of melted wood and earth dotted the entire landscape. And they had taken out all the acid spitters in the initial ambush. Only one managed to get more than one volley of the corrosive gunk out before one of the vampires managed to shove some fire down its throat.
Her bears were almost assembled by the looks of things. Two were well concealed behind a stack of boxes near the edge of the building. The vampire-cat assigned to the task appeared to be directing a third to a spot.
