61 Regrouping

'Five, six, maybe eight?' Hopi thought as he hid deep in the cave. Three squad members hid behind him. The only reason they had survived the last few days was because they had each other's backs. While some slept the others took watch. He tried to slow his breathing, but it was still ragged from the last fight. 'These Ghouls must have heard the fight and wanted to join.' He held up seven fingers to his squad members. While they weren't at the level of the Virility guards, they could take care of themselves. They steeled themselves and got ready for a fight. Hopi put his pointed ear to the stone again and listened for more details. Every now and again he would hear something clinking.

He took occasional glances down the cave. As nothing was there yet, he waited. Subtle moans turned into the scrapes of their nails against the rocks. Hopi and the rest could have handled this number usually. After three days of constant fighting their moral was low and their wounds piled up. They had already run out of bandages. The first Ghoul showed its ugly bald head. It shuffled nearer, raising its head every now and again. 'Just wait a little bit longer,' Hopi thought. 'We can ambush the first one before it screams and alerts the rest. We can't make it out of this fight. We are outnumbered two-to-one.' It stopped a few feet away from him.

Its eyes shone a bright red in the black cave. It scanned each pillar which the men were hiding behind. Two more walked next to it. They seemed to be talking to each other using a mix of groans and whines. Hopi cursed under his breath. 'I can't ambush that many. My squad members aren't good at stealth so they can't help me.' He circled around their backs and waited for an opportunity.

Minutes passed. The Ghouls were doing nothing of note. They just seemed to be passing the time. A bead of sweat rolled down Hopi's chin. He caught it before it dripped on the floor. Any noise in this quiet cave was a death sentence. He didn't have his hand around his spear as usual. His weapon had broken on the drop. All he had was a stalactite he broke off from the ceiling. He leaned against the pillar and focused his life essence on his ears. 'They increased in number!? Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, how many are coming over here?' Since getting here, he had only come across groups up to five Ghouls at once. Now in addition to the three Ghouls in front of him, there were eleven just a little out of sight. He holstered the stalactite. If they were caught, that was it. There was no fighting, only running. The path away from the Ghouls was a dead end so he would have to run through the Ghouls to escape.

Just when he abandoned the thought of fighting, a loud thud echoed in the room. The three Ghouls turned their heads to look at one of the pillars. A water sac rolled out from it. One mistake, that was all it took. The men rushed out with their weapons in hand. Hopi jumped on the nearest one and stabbed it in the throat. Another Ghoul was decapitated. The last one, to Hopi's dismay, screeched. They had to all cover their ears. Hopi, with his enhanced hearing, suffered the most. When he pulled his hands away from his ears there were a few drops of blood. He silenced the last one and waited.

Far away shrieks were followed by increasingly loud footsteps. "Guys, it was good knowing you." Hopi got into a stance followed by the rest of the men. "Let's die fighting." He cast his thoughts back to those Von Trike soldiers. He imagined them tied up and waiting for him. Anger flooded through him. Dark green life essence wrapped around him like a coat. Each muscle ballooned up. His men activated their light green life essence. A half a dozen Ghouls shot out. The first one met Hopi's stalactite. The rest engaged with the squad members. 'That's not right,' Hopi thought as he dodged under two sets of claws. 'Where's the rest?' He didn't get much time to think after that. Like with the battle with the Elves, his mind went to the sidelines while his body acted on its own. Three Ghouls were on him at once. He dodged, rolled, and countered. Scratches appeared on his armor, but nothing hit him yet.

'There they are,' The dreaded rest of the Ghouls neared them. 'Just a few more seconds and they'll show up. Wade, Doevm, Frey, Jameson, Reginald, Thomas, I hope you guys will live much happier than I ever did.' The stalactite broke. He dodged a few more blows. His men, since they were only fighting one-on-one, were still standing, albeit barely.

The footsteps neared, and eleven familiar faces showed up. "Charge!" Doevm roared as he stabbed through the closest Ghoul. Members of squad six reunited as they tore through the pack of Ghouls. The cave lit up with the sparks caused by claws scratching against metal. When the fight was over, Doevm and the rest wiped off their weapons. Hopi and his little group were bandaged up and fed.

"How did you find us?" Hopi asked as he sat down. "At the main shaft, there were dozens of branched off tunnels." He opened his water sac and drank his fill.

"I just followed the Ghouls," Doevm said as he searched through the Ghouls' pockets. "They follow their nose to you. I just use them as hunting dogs."

"You couldn't have used only a few hunting dogs?" Hopi scowled an threw his water sac back in his bag. "We could have been wiped out."

"But you lived." Doevm found a few coins and stuffed them into his bag. "I can't let the Ghouls see me or they will be hunting me instead of you. The past few days I've been finding the rest of our squad using this method. There are over a hundred of those Undead in this place. I can't wipe them all out. Come on, we need to find the rest of our squad." He gathered the men up and returned to the main shaft. "I would say we're a half of a mile away from the surface." Doevm guessed.

"Now what do we do?" Hopi asked.

"Wait." Doevm sat everyone down near the branch cave's entrance and waited. After an hour or two, they heard Ghouls groaning. "Everyone, it's time to go hunting." Doevm jumped from cave entrance to cave entrance while everyone followed. While it was difficult to follow the noise because of how much it echoed, he walked with confidence in where he was going.

'How did he do it?' Hopi thought. 'He was the first one pulled down to this place. I saw him fall with a Ghoul scraping at him. It's only been a few days, but our party is now up to fifteen members. This isn't the first time he's pulled off a miracle too. Back when he was a guard, he did these kinds of things consistently. I thought he was just lucky, but this is beyond that. I have a feeling if I follow him, we really will find the rest of our squad members.'

Hopi finished his thought not a second too soon. Doevm stopped at the entrance to one of the caves that was different from the rest. The entire floor was covered in blood. Ghoul corpses littered the cave. Deeper inside, a war cry downed out the shrieks. Every few seconds, a crunch set his hairs on end. "Squad leader sir, it sounds like Frey."

"You're right." Doevm went from a walk to a run. "We need to hurry."