The Elementals : The Dawn of Darkness

Chapter 29 - Insert Walking Dead Theme Song Here

To say the silence was broken was the understatement of the century. Honest to god it felt like an atomic bomb had gone off and we were the ones who dropped it. The empty night sky was suddenly lit up, fire bursting from the wall and raining down onto the crowd below. It was like a scene in the bible. It wasn't just hellfire raining down from above either, oh no, we had those giant fans I'd seen earlier blasting out miniature tornados, what appeared to be police riot water cannons literally carving through the crowd, and solid cannonballs of ice, generated by our favourite Ice Elemental, turning the once smooth ground of the earth into the surface of the moon.

I honestly felt a little redundant as my piddly little fireballs had an extraordinarily limited range but when they did hit the undead freak turned into one of those human candles Emperor Nero made (History is wonderful, isn't it?). Soon the air was filled with nothing but the scent of smoke, copper and barbecue and the shouts of people sprinting between the ballistae and cannons, reloading and distributing out extra ammunition and several grenade type objects that were primarily given to me. Lucky for them I have a good throwing arm, or we'd all be for the high jump.

The few that made it to the edge of the wall were either lit up by yours truly or had some type of burning hot oil dumped on top of them. It didn't kill them by all means, but it definitely softened them up for death from above. It seemed that the best way to finish them off was to literally turn them to dust, as I discovered quite quickly upon observing the writhing mass, they could survive without their heads. Nope, no messing around with head shots, just let 'em have it and watch 'em burn. Fun for the whole family!

And yet, even though we must have killed (Or re-killed depending on your viewpoint) at least five hundred by this point they just kept coming. I mean I'd counted at least seventy zombies that I'd personally bumped off but yet it hardly felt like we'd made a dent. It was like a hydra, you kill off one and two more are behind it. Lillian was right, this was going to be a long night.

I only noticed how long we'd been up on the wall when the tired old church clock chimed twelve, midnight, a whole new day and a further five more hours until sunrise which, apparently, was when this lot decided to call it a night and go back to whatever hole they call home. It made you wonder why no one had ever found where this lot was coming from, I mean they had a rough idea that most of them were coming from the west side, hence the wall on this side having enough defences and tricks to make Q from James Bond weep with joy. There had to be a source for these things, but where?

A jolt shook me out of my thoughts as the swarm had now reached the wall and they were actively trying to tear the metal plates and bricks apart by hand, or stump in some cases. Not on my watch. I leaned over and let her rip, two flamethrowers barrelling down the length of the wall, firmly incinerating anything that was in range. Some of them turned to ash instantly while other just slowly burned to death. Again.

"Nice shot kid!" Someone yelled to me as I hurled another fireball that just managed to hit its target.

I was exhausted by this point, but somehow I was still managing to stand up and keep pushing forwards by sheer will alone. Some fire was taking a little longer to be conjured, while other flames fizzled out and had to be re-lit. My hands were permanently burning, a technique that a few others had given me to reduce conjuring time but dear god it was draining. On a few occasions when that completely failed I resorted to using Incaendium like a shotgun which I must admit was quite fun.

I felt a cold hand on my shoulder and turned to face Sheira who had stepped down from her ballista. "You alright? Do you need a break?"

I shook my head and gave her a thumbs up. "I'm fine. Positively peachy. Just tell me this, does the world look yellow to you too?"