Brett headed up one team, while Rachael joined another. Alice, armed with a butcher’s knife from the kitchen, stuck close to Rachael’s side as they made their plans: all the teams would split up, defending and clearing the courtyard from different angles, hoping to spread the horde thin.

The runners—with Sophia, Maria’s mom, as backup—would sneak to the fence and make the repairs as quietly as possible, hoping that darkness and silence would would give them enough time before more orcs came through. Once the fence was fixed, they would clear out the rest of the orcs a few at a time, and hopefully have them all cleared before morning.

Rachael gave each of the runners a hug before they left, wishing them luck.

“May the odds be ever in our favor!” Eden said with a smile, giving Rachael a salute before they moved off into the darkness.

The odds are never in our favor. The ominous thought struck her, but she hushed it, focusing on sending each team to their starting point, and readying the attack. The runners slipped into the darkness, silent shadows keeping to the fences and weaving undetected between the orcs. Rachael crossed her fingers for luck. Playing at being heroes was one thing, but actually being heroes—being warriors—was something else. The armor and weapons and occasional bits of speech cribbed from a fantasy novel or movie helped support the affectation, but once they were in combat they were going to be ordinary people faking it until they made it as heroes, or until they died. Rachael could not will them to be better fighters, she could not make them remember their training and drills. All she could do was pray, and she was not great at that.

She said a prayer anyway. In Elven, because . . . fuck it. Why not?

Then led her own team out to begin their assault.

Rachael had left the most dangerous approach for her own team: the barricaded front door. Moving with quiet caution, they unbarred the door and she stepped up to peer through the gap. There were more orcs than she had anticipated, and most of them had come close to the hospital, following the sounds and smells of living flesh. Turning to her team, she gave them a brave smile.

“On three. Ready?” They nodded, and without making a sound, she drew her sword and dagger before silently mouthing the countdown. On three, she kicked the doors wide open and led the charge.

Immediately out the door they were deep in battle, and Rachael moved with practiced skill as she sliced and stabbed through heads and necks, digging her dagger into the eye socket of an orc and driving her sword through the skull of another.

Bracing her foot against the second orc to pull the blade out, she turned to watch the rest of her team. They weren’t as skilled or experienced, but all four of them moved with purpose, Alice slashing the head of one orc with her knife while Andy slammed a club into the skull of another, crushing it with an explosion of black decayed brain matter.