18. Defense

The first place that Mark checked was the crevice. He had to make sure that this main defensive position was still holding strong and that nothing had managed to make its way into the village yet. It would be a foolish thing to defend a village while everyone was being slaughtered on the inside.

He quickly moved through the village, spear in hand, but didn't see any monsters or any people. 

'It's reassuring to not see any signs of fighting within the village, it looks like all of the entry points have managed to hold off everything so far.'

He quickly approached the crevice and found the guards still maintaining the security of the villagers within. They looked nervous but they also seemed relieved to see that Mark was moving around the village in battle mode.

Sam, the one in charge of the crevice defenders, walked forward to talk with Mark.

"Sir, it is good to see you out and about. Is there anything you need from us?"

None of the rest of the guards found it odd to see their commander addressing Mark in such a respectful manner. They all knew that Mark was a beast slayer and it helped that their 178cm tall leader had to actually look up to make eye contact when talking to Mark.

Looking into Sam's bright green eyes, Mark could see a mix of fear for the general situation but also a mix of respect and relief. Mark was glad to see that Sam was taking his position seriously and felt the villagers would be fine here as long as someone like Sam was leading the crevice defenders.

"I was just checking on the crevice to make sure the villagers were well protected. Now I am going to check the gates and I will probably run from entrance to entrance to make sure none of the mountain beasts will be able to get in. I also want to prevent as many deaths among the guards as I possibly can."

Sam nodded at the good news while Mark continued.

"If you need any help, just use the signal horn as normal and I will rush over here. Sound good to you Sam?"

Again, Sam was washed in relief. 'As long as Mark is willing to defend the village to such an extent, everything will be fine today.'

"We will be fine here Mark, you go take care of the gates, and don't let any of those things through. We would be hard-pressed to defend this area even with the barricades in place."

Mark knew he was right, the hastily erected barricades would hardly provide any defense against wargs that could just climb over them. It was imperative that the gates held strong.

The guards did not have any sort of blind faith in Mark either. There had been various breaches in the defenses of the village before and it was usually Mark that showed up to take any beast down that the guards couldn't handle. The village had to rely on Mark during the growth especially since it was normal to get attacked by the more ferocious mountain beasts during this time.

The normal attacks on the village by mountain beasts were bad enough when they were just looking for food or wanted to establish a further-reaching territory. Those attacks could be fended off by the regular guards without any issues most of the time since the resistance they could put up when they worked together was usually enough to deter a mountain beast from committing to the attack. It was another story during the growth because these beasts were more like cornered animals trying to find a sanctuary they could survive in.

The mountain beasts of different groups would attack each other even if they were of the same species, and the fighting usually made its way to the village where the villagers had to fight tooth and nail for their survival. While the greater area of the village was plenty safe for the animals, it would get overrun very quickly and different groups of beasts would be pushed closer and closer to the village. 

This was evident as Mark made his way to the East gate.

The guards were currently in a fierce fight with a few already sitting to the side with injuries that were being treated by other guards with first aid supplies.

There were no head nods of respect as they noticed Mark approaching. This time, they blatantly cheered out loud when they realized that the most powerful person in the village had come to assist in the defence of their position.

"Yeah! Mark is here!"

"Mark! Show these beasts why the village is not as safe as they think it is!"

"Whoo! Urgh! *cough* *cough*"

Some of the guards were not in a good enough shape to be cheering for him but he appreciated the sentiment and was humored by their enthusiasm. 

He quickened his pace and jumped up on a battlement to thrust his spear right through the skull of a Gullen Boar.

The beast had a thick golden coat and two sturdy tusks that it was using to try to smash through the wall near the hole Mark just used to kill the thing. It was nearly tall enough to look through the hole which was about 3m high on that side of the wall.

With enough time, these boar beasts were known to put large holes in the walls of the village. Luckily for the village, the walls were mostly large piles of rocks that were impenetrable except near the gates where they had to be made of wood. Thus, the only places that needed to be carefully defended were at each entrance of the village, and there were only 3 of those.

After the beast fell and didn't get back up, the rest of its pack scattered. They apparently found it more reasonable to fight the other beasts around the village for a safe place to wait out the growth than to attack the village any longer.

From what Mark could tell, the Gullen he just killed was the biggest and likely the leader of the pack. The reaction and disorder caused by its death was too much for it to just be a large member of the pack.'

There was some more cheering as the morale of the defenders was lifted.

'I should see if they would drag that thing in for me.'

Of course, Mark was just thinking of the crafting materials he could make from the beast he had just slain but he didn't let it show on his face.

He proceeded to check up on the guards at that point and made sure there were no repairs that required his strength to fix before he headed to the North gate again. Since the North gate was between the East gate and the West gate, it just made sense to him to check up on it instead of skipping it.

Before leaving, he checked in with Alex who was taking charge of the east gate. He was just a higher-ranking guard than the rest and not an officer since the east gate generally was considered safe due to the layout of the terrain in this area and the known beasts that could attack.

While the gullen were fierce, they were rarely a threat and the guards that got hurt this time around were likely just untrained. They would learn from their mistakes, and the timely intervention of Mark just showed them how to properly utilize the battlements.

After shaking his hand, Mark addressed the temporary leader, "Alex, don't let the rest of these guys get hurt while I am gone. Show them how to use those spears, you know what I mean?"

"Of course, of course. These guys panicked and tried to lean over the wall while that beast was smashing into it. Honestly, the wounds are mostly self-inflicted."

Alex said the last part quietly and Mark just silently nodded his head before taking off.

The gate was not far and from the initial looks of things, they were not having a hard time yet. He also didn't notice any injuries among the guards so that was a good sign to him.

As he approached, he was noticed, and Sid walked over to meet up with him.

"Hey Mark, how are things with the rest of the village?"

Mark looked at Sid and replied, "The villagers are all safely in the crevice and there have been no breaches in the defenses at the gates yet, from what I have seen. I still need to go check on the West gate but I figured I would stop by here to make sure things are still standing. The East gate had an attack from a pack of Gullen and some of the guys there got injured trying to get them to leave but I managed to kill their leader by sheer luck so the pack dispersed."

Sid nodded his head and looked over to the West gate where the guards were still looking over it.

"We have a pack of regular mountain wolves outside the gate but they seem wary of us. When they get too close we throw rocks which has kept them from trying to damage the walls."

Mark thought about the pack of wolves outside the wall that he could not see and then replied: "It's probably a good thing to have them there if they aren't going to attack actually. While they are not as powerful as the rest of the mountain beasts, their presence could deter others from approaching this gate. I have noticed out there that even the beasts know it is unwise to attack a weaker beast that has a defensible position."

Sid nodded to this and added, "We figured that would be the case so we have refrained from attacking them outright. I think you should just head to the West gate, thinking about them as me a bit anxious. . ."

Mark knew that Sid was right so he thanked Sid for the update and took off to the west to make sure there was nothing catastrophic happening at the last gate.