It was one of the last days of winter, the last cold winds were retreating farther north while the winds of spring were coming from the sud.

Yet those changes could barely be felt in the city of Koerth, much like a fortress than a city. It was the gateway to reach more fertile and suitable lands.

High mountains on his sides, and green planes of grass behind it.

In front, the valley. Yet No one dared to cross the valley today.

A minuscule figure could be seen from afar, it was advancing slowly but steadily, it looked like a very, very old man, a messager or diplomatic maybe? The whole garrison had crossbows and rifles on him. He stopped at the front of the gate and spoke.

“His highness as a message for you.” he picked up a scroll that he had tied to his leg “People of Koerth I have conquered the whole southern land, again and again, I cru-”

A rifle was shoot, penetrating his old and decaying skull, and interrupting the speech.

“Commander,” one of the rifleman asked, “why they have sent a messager to die?”

The commander turned back “they haven’t .”

From the corpse a dark mist emerged and made the fallen body stand up, his eyes glowed again with light. “I will send your reply to his highness, soon-death mortals.” He walked away.

An hour later a slight tremble could be felt, looking over at the valley a dark mass moving ahead could be seen. Swallowing everything in its path. As the cannons and artillery were about to fire a loud scream was heard. The walls from the other side had been conquered and trespassed, using the terrible undead pegasus.

“How is possible?!?” one asked, “it’s impossible that they had climb those mountains!”

And he was right, they didn’t. That group of knights had been travelling for weeks only for a chance to do a light attack. It was worth all of it now.

Soon the garrison had to manage two fronts at once. The enemy army advanced further and further, even though they were slaughtering them at the walls they knew that this were meat shield units. And they had spent much of their ammo on them.

Only after two hours did the main army appeared, colossus, plated warriors, monsters of all sort, mechanicals of ancient. It was all there, coming for them.

After two hours the battle ended. The city had been razed to the ground, the garrison made slaves, the gate broken. Now his highness could march his army nearly everywhere. Nearly.

…

“Are you sure that this will work?” An engineer asked perplexed to the other.

“I mean” he responded, “it worked against vampires… so.”

“The army of the vampires were very different, they were an uncoordinated mob that could easily be amassed into a point. Those aren’t.”

The engineer looked at the massive train “I don’t think that we have really a choice here.”

Asvo was in a very bad position, not only they were one of the last strongholds that prevented his highness to enter the heart region of the capital, but also because it was hard to defend. The city could be attacked from three different directions, it’s wasn’t high ground, it’s wall could be hit with long-range magic and, and this was really the worse of it, they lacked supply chains.

A slight tremble could be felt, they had arrived.

Immediately the high guard towers were high and send on fire, followed by a general bombardment of the garrison.

The signal was given to the train to leave.

“They will survive?” a young woman with black hair said

A man who despite his grey hair still retained a young look responded “I don’t think so. Probably they will all die.”

“There is nothing that we can do?”

“Nothing but hope that the train charge works. But that is not the important thing you know”

She looked at him confused

“For the administration, this city has already fallen, his majesty realm spreads worse than a plague. After this siege, the only city capable to put a fight would be the capital.”

“That is good, we would put a real fight there and defeat him there.”

He looked at her with a slight smile and much sadness in his eyes

“It will not matter then. Too many resources and men. It would be unstoppable.”

“What should we do then?” She said angrily “Wait for him to cleanse us from existence?”

“You know that the important thing here is that you survive?”

“Yes… but that doesn’t me-”

“That means that those men would have done their duty.”

The sound of a ferocious battle was ragging in the distance. Looking out of the window, he saw the battle, the garrison was no more.

All the sudden the train had a strong push. An undead pegasus ripped the roof off. It came jumping on her, with all angriness and dead bringing that such a creature was capable of.

As the creature was about to strike her, the creature paused. His eyes had become again normal, his flesh appeared healed. The rage was gone. The old man had touched it.

He looked at her and said, “do you believe that those are different from you?”