Chapter 22

“GENERAL!”

Avod leaned away from the bellowing officer, did they ever look to see where she was before doing that?

“I’m right here, dammit!” She snarled, “What the hell is going on?”

“We’re under attack. Northern camps are falling back.”

Falling back?

She turned her gaze north, but the moonlit fields offered little in the way of an explanation. The sounds of her soldiers rousing for battle nearby could be heard. Of the enemy that they were falling back from, there was no sign.

Nothing she knew of in the basin could push back a thousand-strong encampment of her trained regulars, never mind the entire northern fringe. Had the surviving tribes of the basin banded together for a final, desperate counteroffensive?

“Which side of the river is this happening on?” She asked.

“I only know about my camp on this side of the river,” the officer answered.

“Then what are we being attacked by, exactly?”

The officer hesitated, licking his lips nervously.

“The curse,” he said in a low voice.

“I’m going to hit you,” Avod’s voice was flat.

“That’s the actual report!” The officer protested, “A bunch of the scouts we sent downriver came back, all spouting the same gibberish. That they had gone too far north. They had roused the curse…and that it was coming for them.”

The curse…she did her best to quash the rumours of the local tribes, but rumours had the effect of getting stronger the more the higher-ups tried to suppress them. In the end, all she could do was let it run its course and be forgotten, but how had it gone from fiercely territorial Humans to a full-blown curse?

“Have we seen any real sign of this ‘curse’?” Her voice grated with barely restrained patience.

“That’s uh…we killed the scouts just in case they did bring some weird thing back with them. About an hour later, though, people started dying anyway.”

“How?”

“Started in the tents,” he swallowed. “Screams, every few minutes. We’d go to see what the noise was, but it’d be too late by the time we found ‘em. Some looked like they’d been shrivelled up in their cots, others were torn into a bloody mess. After a while, we saw what was doing it.”

The officer stopped to swallow again. His eyes darted from side to side. Avod punched him.

“Stop dragging every little thing out,” she fumed, “You’re not a damn Bard!”

“It was Wraiths, General!”

“So we’re being attacked by the Undead?”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“Then say so in the first place! How much time did you just waste?”

That being said, her soldiers had experience fighting the Undead back in the haunted forest. If entire camps were being pushed back…

“How many Wraiths was it?” She asked, “How many did we lose?”

“Hard to keep track since they kept popping in and out,” the officer answered. “A few dozen in my camp were dead by the time I ordered us to fall back.”

“Then I assume that a few Wraiths weren’t what had you decide to give that order.”

“No, General,” he shook his head. “More Undead are coming from the north. The scouts spotted them coming through the forest, but we couldn’t get a decent count before they started to enter the clearing.”

“How many were there by the time you pulled out?” She asked.

“A few thousand, at least,” he answered. “Mostly Zombies, but the scouts said that there were some stronger ones mixed in. There was no reason to stand there waiting to be overrun, so I ordered my camp to fall back until we could reorganize and form a proper defensive line.”

Avod nodded. He had made the right decision. Zombies were slow and mindless, but strong – better to consolidate their strength and destroy them at range than take needless losses in a disorganized effort to stand and repel them.

“Good work,” she said. “Get back to your troops…actually, do you know if the other camps had the same thing happen to them?”

“I’ve no idea, General,” he shook his head. “Came straight here to report in.”

Avod waved him away, collecting her thoughts. After three more reports from different camps, she had a general idea of what was going on on her side of the river. The current ran strong and deep, so messengers from the other side had to travel south to cross, but the forces there could be seen falling back along the opposite shore as well.

At last count, there were nearly five thousand Zombies. Zombies were easily dealt with, but the problem was that masses of lesser Undead gave rise to greater Undead. The Wraiths were an example of that, as were the stronger Zombies that had been identified. What they really needed to be wary of were powerful Undead who could indeed cause trouble for a single encampment, such as Elder Liches. With this many Zombies, she wouldn’t be surprised if a few showed up.

She frowned at the thought of the Undead mages. Zrol and his troops had taken one down in the haunted forest, but it was bottled up into its lair and depleted of mana before being destroyed. They would be more annoying for her forces to deal with out in the open. Her Goblin skirmishers were too weak to stand up to them, so they had to rely on massed volleys of blunted stone arrows to chip them down. Ysvrith and her people were the ideal counter, but they weren’t expected to arrive for another day.

They would just have to deal with it when the time came. She sent runners out to the encampments, ordering them to mobilize and form on her position.

Three hours later, her main army – a force twenty thousand strong – was lined up in their neat formations on the field. Wolf riders had delivered messages back and forth between the opposite shores by then: it appeared that Undead had appeared on the eastern side as well, though in lesser numbers. She instructed the commander there to organize a defence with his ten thousand and clean them up before moving his troops to join the main body of the army.

A command platform was raised, overlooking the silvered landscape. The officers from her side of the valley had gathered from their respective formations, awaiting her instructions. They still had some time: Zombies being Zombies, it would take them a while yet to arrive.

“Anything that requires my immediate attention?” She asked them.

“The eastern command is a bit disordered,” the Hobgoblin to her right said. “They had troops out working to subjugate the remaining tribes, and it’s taking time to recall them.”

“Will that cause any issues if they get into a fight right now?”

“It shouldn’t,” he shook his head. “There’s only two or three thousand Undead on that side. The way things are, it might take them a bit longer to get rid of them all, but they still shouldn’t take long once things get started.”

“How about the Undead on our side?” she asked, “Scouts see anything big yet?”

“It’s still mixed Zombies on the ground,” another officer responded. “Nothing stronger than what we can handle. In the air, we’ve seen a few Wraiths flying around, plus some robed Undead. Two, so far.”

Several of the assembled officers turned their heads upwards and to the north, as if they would be able to spot what had been described from a distance. Avod didn’t bother.

“Elder Liches?”

“Might be. We won’t know for sure until they come close and start dumping spells on our heads.”

“Did we get stone arrows out to the troops?” Avod frowned, “Regular ones won’t do anything to them.”

“Yes General,” he nodded. “All along the line. We won’t let them cast spells at us for free.”

They knew that Elder Liches had spells to protect them from projectiles in general, but every spell they needed to refresh to defend themselves meant less mana being directed against their enemies.

“Make sure your formations are hardened against magic,” she told them. “Shield walls for any Fireballs that come our way. Spread out the rest behind to minimize damage from area spells. Even in that stance, we should easily manage against the Zombies on the ground. Just be ready to respond to anything nasty that pops up.”

“And when we’re done, General?” Another officer asked, “Should we disperse back to our camps?”

“No,” Avod answered. “After we’ve dealt with this lot, we’ll march north. I don’t know if these Elder Liches will retreat, but we need to find out where these Undead came from and root them out. We’ve just about picked this basin clean anyways – it’s time to move on.”

The officers dispersed to see to their respective formations. Shortly after midnight, horns sounded over the front. Avod leaned forward intently over the railing. Through the abandoned camps to the north, the first signs of movement could be seen. Figures lurched under the moonlight, moving independently rather than in any recognizable formation. Their advance was slow, with more and more coming into view as time went on.

Above, she could see one of the mentioned robed Undead floating in the air above the Zombie horde. They were still some distance away, so Avod decided to send a probing attack.

『Wolf Riders – right flank. Sweep along the front and start thinning out those Zombies.』

The baying of wolves sounded far to the east, where over 600 Goblin Wolf Riders sprung forward. Within a few minutes, they were running along the front of the slowly advancing Zombies, hurling their javelins into them.

Normally, the Wolf Riders would work in small packs, using their javelins to hobble a target before closing in for the kill. Undead, however, did not ‘hobble’ very well: they didn’t bleed, didn’t have the vitals of a living being, and couldn’t be crippled unless their limbs were removed entirely. It took about two javelins to kill each one, and the riders emptied their satchels before returning to replenish their ammunition behind friendly lines.

At the point that they were nearly depleted, she sent the riders on the other flank in to perform the same attack. Their cavalry trained to fight like this, as their future enemies would presumably have cavalry of their own that would pursue the first wave as they withdrew. The second wave would prevent this, though in this case, the enemy had no cavalry to speak of. As the riders from the left unleashed their attacks, several fell in return.

Avod furrowed her brow. It appeared that the stronger Zombies mixed in with the regular ones had retrieved some of the spent javelins and were now using them against the second wave. She issued an order to the Wolf Rider captain.

『Pull back the Riders. I’m not losing any more over some stupid Zombies. Ready yourselves for the skirmish.』

The Wolf Rider formation changed direction in unison, angling away from the Undead before wheeling around to return to their position.

Above, a second robed figure had appeared, but neither of them reacted to the Wolf Riders’ provocation. The results of the attacks were less than spectacular. Because the Zombies were moving independently, they were spread out over a wide area. Missile attacks that missed their mark had little chance to strike another. Still, they had managed to take down several hundred Zombies, and the rain of arrows from the skirmishers would soon take their toll as well.

As the Zombies shuffled within a hundred metres of their front line, she called for her skirmishers forward to release their first volley. Ten thousand arrows arced through the night sky, catching the light of the waning moon. Though the majority missed their marks, there were so many that the leading edge of the Zombie wave was annihilated.

Overhead, the Elder Liches made their first move. A dozen ghostly figures descended towards the lines. Avod snorted derisively. They were being underestimated. A group of Wraiths might spell doom for a tribe of Goblins, but they were a Goblin army.

『Focus Battle Aura!』

As one, the Hobgoblin and Bugbear formations activated their Martial Arts.

In the wilderness, magical weapons were few, but there were magical beasts and monsters aplenty. Focus Battle Aura imbued the weapons that one held with magical properties, making them more effective against opponents with supernatural defences. Every seasoned warrior learned it out of necessity.

The Goblin skirmishers retreated behind the Hobgoblin lines. As the Wraiths attempted to follow them by passing through, they were cut to ribbons. Calls for healing rose into the air, but the damage overall appeared negligible. Another volley of arrows filled the sky, slicing down into the advancing Zombie horde. More Wraiths appeared in retaliation, to much the same result.

Are these Elder Liches idiots?

Maybe they had spent so much time persecuting the weak tribes of the basin that they never learned how to fight a real opponent. Avod gazed out across the river. It looked like they were already finished with their battle, and were withdrawing to cross the ford in the south. No surprises, then. She returned her attention to her side of the valley. The few strong Zombies that made it to the front line were crushed as soon as they arrived.

After the next volley of arrows, a third Elder Lich arrived. The three Undead swooped down over the front line, sending three globes of flame down at the formations below. Shields locked together just before the Fireballs struck, exploding into a sea of flames that washed over them. When the spell dissipated, the shield wall remained intact and her soldiers were unscathed. As if incensed that their attacks had been thwarted again, they unleashed another set of Fireballs to little effect.

Arrows from the skirmishers below pelted the Elder Liches as they lingered over the army. New sets of Wraiths appeared, who descended to deal with the skirmishers below.

『Move the Bugbears to intercept those Wraiths! Keep hitting those Elder Liches!』

The commanders below worked to relay her command, organizing their shock troops to deal with the incoming Wraiths. The Elder Liches switched to using Lightning spells, but they were casting from such a high angle that only one or two Hobgoblins were struck at once. The Undead casters continued probing the Hobgoblin formations’ defences until they seemingly gave up and turned their attention on the Goblins and Bugbears spread out behind them.

How much mana do these jerks have? They’ve gotta run out sometime soon…

Fireballs started raining down on the troops spread out over the field. With how far apart everyone was, they weren’t very effective. The Elder Liches targeted Bugbears in the midst of several Goblins, but most would scatter out of the way. The Bugbears survived half of the time and were healed by nearby mystics.

Avod shook her head. What was the point in this? They were expending their mana to kill three or four targets at a time when the entire army numbered in the tens of thousands. Eventually, the Elder Liches seemed to realize this too and withdrew to the north. The Zombies wavered and stopped.

A slow grin spread over Avod’s face. Victory was theirs for the taking.

『Sound the advance. We’ll be waiting all night if we just stand here. We’ll find those Elder Liches and destroy them in their holes.』