The deployment was finished in the blink of an eye.
Everyone knew their position. Everyone knew what they were about to face.
Except Leah.
She glanced coldly at the handcuffed Lorenzo and said to Calista, "No need to make it so complicated. I'll help with the defense too."
Before Lorenzo could react, Leah brought the edge of her hand down hard on the back of his neck.
Lorenzo went out with a heavy thud, slammed into the ground, and knocked a huge bump into his forehead on the gravel.
Then Leah motioned for Mike to throw him into the vehicle.
Calista's mouth twitched.
As expected of the future leader of the Reapers. Decisive as hell.
The clearing team had already begun working like mad.
Mike and Wells were like two human excavators, their fire axe and entrenching shovel biting hard into the slick, sticky mud and rocks.
Turner and Bossie handled the smaller stones, moving them aside to carve out a path while nervously watching overhead for another possible slide.
On the other side, Jenson, Danny, and Ethan were also digging with everything they had.
The interception team quickly moved into position.
With nothing left to worry about, Leah smoothly grabbed two bayonets from the vehicle and slipped behind several jutting rocks on the left flank, crouching low with a blade in each hand.
Carver took position on the right behind a large, half-buried boulder. He kept his machete within reach and raised his assault rifle, aiming toward the walkers crawling along the narrow cliff edge.
Michonne stood slightly farther back in the center, leaning forward a little like a bow drawn to its limit.
On the other side, Shane used the sedan as cover, his fire axe held across his body as he shouted orders. "Daryl, watch those bushes at ten o'clock! Merle, hold the rear of the car. Don't let them circle around!"
Merle kept cursing under his breath, but his eyes stayed locked on the front.
Daryl crouched on the roof of the car, crossbow steady and aimed, his breathing frighteningly calm.
The horde's snarls grew closer and clearer.
The rotten stench reached them even before the walkers did, carried in on the cold wind, sickening enough to make them gag.
A dark mass began breaking through the cover of the tree line, surging in from every direction toward the two isolated "islands."
Calista stood near the center, her pistol already chambered, a dagger clenched in her other hand.
As the walkers staggered closer, everyone bracing for battle tightened their grip on their weapons.
The tide of corpses finally slammed into the makeshift defensive line.
The first wave came mainly from the gentler slope on the left.
They wore torn mountaineering gear or farm clothes, their skin gray-blue and rotten, their hollow mouths hanging open, stiff arms outstretched as they lurched downhill.
"Left flank, contact!" Leah called.
A walker lunged at her almost at the same time. She ducked under its grasp, then drove a bayonet upward through its jaw and straight into its skull.
Leah held the narrow passage beneath the mountain wall perfectly.
The pressure on the right, by the cliff, was lighter, but far more dangerous.
Walkers crawled awkwardly along the steep edge. One careless step would send them plunging into the abyss, which only made their movements harder to predict.
Carver used the rock pile as cover, his suppressor-fitted assault rifle firing short, precise bursts.
"Bang! Bang!"
Each bullet punched clean through the top of a walker's skull or sent one tumbling backward over the cliff.
Carver had to conserve ammunition as much as possible while staying alert to the slick mud and loose stones underfoot.
But there were too many walkers, and they were everywhere.
Several of them did not charge from the front. Using the jagged rocks and shrubs on the slope as cover, they crawled down through cracks in the almost vertical rock face, heading straight for Wells' back while he was bent over clearing the roadblock.
Wells was putting all his strength into prying loose a huge stone embedded in the mud, his muscles pulled tight, completely unaware of the danger behind him.
Just as those rotten claws were about to touch his back, a dark figure flashed past like lightning.
It was Michonne.
She gave no warning at all. The instant her katana left its sheath, two soft sounds cut through the air.
The heads of the two walkers trying to ambush him left their necks almost at the same time and rolled limply to Wells' feet.
Startled by the movement behind him, Wells snapped his head around, only to see Michonne standing with her katana lowered, along with the two headless corpses on the ground that had just stopped twitching.
Fear flickered across his face, then he gave Michonne a firm nod. "Thanks!"
Then he turned back and swung the crowbar with even more force.
Michonne moved again, searching for the next gap in the line.
On the other side of the landslide zone, the fighting was just as fierce.
Using the sedan as the center point, Shane had built a small defensive perimeter.
The fire axe in his hands carried tremendous force. Facing the walkers rushing in head-on, Shane stepped forward steadily, avoided their grasping hands, and brought the axe down with a sharp whistle.
"Squelch!"
A walker's skull split down the middle, spraying red and white matter everywhere.
He shouted, "Daryl! Watch your two o'clock, two more behind that rock! Merle! Hold the rear of the car. Don't get distracted!"
Merle's vicious streak had been fully unleashed.
With his back against a huge boulder, he placed himself at a relatively safe angle, his right arm already fitted with a brand-new blade.
As the walkers closed in, he spat out one filthy curse after another. "Come on, you rotten meat! Have a taste of Merle's axe!"
He swung the axe with all the strength he had. It was not as powerful as using both arms, but the precision and brutality had not faded in the slightest. More often than not, one blow was enough to split a walker's skull or neck.
Just then, Jenson was on the opposite side, straining with a crowbar to loosen a massive rock. He was so focused that he failed to notice two walkers circling in from the side.
One came from the left, the other from the right, almost forming a pincer around him.
Jenson heard the movement and whipped his head around, but it was already too late to raise his gun.
"Fuck!" Merle caught sight of it from the corner of his eye. In the heat of the moment, without thinking, he reached behind his waist with his left hand, pulled out the small hunting knife he carried for self-defense, and hurled it with all his strength at the walker closest to Jenson.
"Whoosh!"
The small hunting knife spun through the air. Unfortunately, Merle's left hand was unsteady, and the distance was not short. With a dull thunk, the blade sank deep into the walker's shoulder, but it did not kill it.
Still, it succeeded in drawing the walker's attention. Its movement stalled, and it let out an angry snarl, buying Jenson precious time to react.
Just as the other walker was about to throw itself onto Jenson, a crossbow bolt tore through the air.
"Whoosh!"
It sank with pinpoint accuracy into the walker's eye socket, the fletching trembling violently from the force of the impact.
The walker froze mid-motion, then toppled straight backward.
Daryl was half-kneeling on the hood of the sedan, still holding his firing posture.
He did not even look to confirm the result. His right hand was already moving to reload the crossbow as he searched for the next target.
Still shaken, Jenson glanced at the walker lying dead on the ground, then at the other one staggering toward him with Merle's small hunting knife still lodged in its shoulder. He immediately raised the crowbar and smashed its head apart with one brutal blow.