The Darkspawn closed on the house, not charging but marching, trampling over the arrow-riddled corpses of their own kind. The bellows faded back into that horrible buzzing, the almost musical dischordant humming noise that was somehow more unsettling. One of them kicked a body aside roughly, already snared in a trap, and the damn thing rolled right into the jaws of another clawtrap hidden in the long grass with a grisley snap and squelch. Amila bit her lip and held her breath, trying to keep her hands from shaking to get off another shot. The first of them was almost too close for Amila to shoot. She twisted herself into a distinctly uncomfortable potition and fired out the tiny window at a sharp downward angle; her bolt buried itself in the Darkspawn's's shoulder. It hissed and staggered, shouldered aside by another of the monsters as more of them surged past roughly and up onto the ruined porch. Boards splintered by past encounters with the creatures groaned dangerously under their weight, but they didn't seem to notice, and now Amila would have had to try to stick her head out the window just to see them.
"Mila..." Thomas moaned from behind her, but she didn't have the chance to answer. There was a muffled scream from downstairs as, with a cracking noise and the splinter of wood, the Darkspawn found the front door. The big one with the helmet was just standing there in the field. Why was he just standing there? Was he looking up at her window? Amila reminded herself that the eyes under that helm could be looking anywhere... but she'd swear felt the monster's filmy gaze graze hers in the moonlight.
She swore and leveled her crossbow at him as below her the beasts clawed their way through the cabin walls.
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He only saw one at first, melting out of the shadows with unsettling ease, and that was when he'd fired. It was a wasted shot, his nerves so on edge he'd startled himself into firing without aiming. He swore and shot at it again but it only disappeared into another bank of shadow, weaving like an eel toward the house. Then he saw the second bloody thing and took a potshot at that too. It skittered away, and Maker how he wanted to know what was going on out front that had Amila behind him yelling, but he didn't dare take his eyes off of the one he could still see as it moved ever closer.
"Mila..." he warned nervously, but couldn't get out another word before a scream and cracking timber erupted from downstairs. He cringed, but caught a glimpse of the first vanishing Darkspawn again, slinking up against the closer side of Bronson's smoke-shed. Gritting his teeth, Thomas fired. The creature's gutteral squeal as it was struck in the chest rewarded him richly. He renotched another arrow in an instant and sent it through the filthy beast's neck. It burbled, clutched at the arrow and stumbled into the garden, still alive but spilling poison blood all over the last trampled remnants of Pa Johann's carrot crop. Great.
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One of the monsters at the barricade must have had an axe, because it'd be hard to believe anything else could do that much damage with a single blow. The attack scared them all, but it'd been Niles' daughter who'd screamed and ran into the kitchen, throwing her arms around her little brother and sister. They'd been woken up moments earlier by the dwarf's shouting from upstairs, eyes wide and confused. Now the three children huddled together and whimpered in terror. Hannah crouched under the window with her bow notched, eyes dead an lifeless as she waited. Niles watched his wife and listened to the heavy scuffle of the Darkspawn outside, feeling a sick emptiness settle in his gut. He glanced across to Havard grimly, fear betrayed by the flashing whites of both men's eyes. Were they ready for this? No. But a second blow came, and a third, and the heavy oak door creaked and bowed under it strength.