Kidnapped to Another World

Chapter 54

Chapter 54

The spider invasion...

Day 11 since entering the gnomes' warren...

"Quick move it!" the lieutenant signaled both in the gnome language and to us so we knew what was going on. He was being firm now. It gave the other gnomes confidence.

We were stunned into silence.

"Girl, stay away from the front lines," he said to Vira, waking her up to action. I was almost as dazed but managed to get myself going. It was easy to get like that, seeing things that were foreign to our world and being caught up in watching the violence crashing over those below like a wave.

"Have to stay moving," I muttered to myself.

"But my light..."

"Is useless if you die," he retorted. "Extremely useless..."

"Hurry, don't stand out in the open or you'll get killed," the lieutenant gestured for us to get down in a trench like structure next to the switchback trail system. It seemed to follow it all the way down around the courtyard and could be used either for water or hiding men in it. It led down into a crater like pock marked courtyard that was ruined below where everything was happening below us; though crudely made and not very good looking it wasn't bad for providing survival cover to range people up top of the bowl area.

This courtyard had been the focus of many previous battles also, I can see.

Other gnome defense units also had recently arrived with human refugee units from our people. But not a lot of them were at the front line yet. They seemed to be still coming out of adjoining chambers and tunnels. It seems there's more than one set of switchback trails from other corridors that adjoin together to cover the range fire positions around the gate area.

So others were helping out too?

"I wonder how many others will be joining us?" I wondered.

The lieutenant gave no clue that he knew. Or maybe he didn't trust us enough yet with that information.

I caught sight of Akira and Yuriko working with another gnome unit near the front lines where all the mess was occurring. Of course they would be the first to get down by the front. Akira was crazy to expose himself like that, basing his decision off his reckless strength winning through. He was again using a heavy log and smashed a spider's abdomen so hard its guts splashed out coating all the gnomes around them. The spider twitched and died.

But somehow I doubted it was going to be that easy.

The gnomes were cheering. They had taken up some kind of odd chant. The chant seemed to be referring to Akira.

"What are they saying?" I asked turning to the lieutenant..

He shrugged, "well...uh...it's kind of embarrassing." He didn't want to tell me.

"Go on," I urged.

He finally relented, looking bashful. It's something like, "Go, goat man? It wasn't my idea," he said apologetically.

I had to cover my snicker.

"Where were you?!" Suddenly Asakura was by my side, with Rina and Yumi.

"I could say the same to you guys," I muttered.

"The whole warren has been mobilized. They have even armed their young lings," Asakura said with a look of grief on her face.

They are suddenly a bit relieved now that they are with me.

"They wouldn't do that unless they feared everyone in the colony being killed," I said with a tingle up my spine.