A few more fired flares brought further chaos to the battlefield. However, the peasant mob quickly realized something; only one flare could be responded to at a time. If the masses simply pushed as hard as possible in as many places at once, surely the evil undead and the wicked Teutonians could be bested before that damnable flying zombie lizard could strike everywhere. Right?

After the lines separated and the mass of poorly equipped peons gathered the courage for another attack, the wave of humanity surged back towards the forces of Darksol and its client states. Incoherent yells had replaced any battle cries, and those who lay wounded on the field were mangled as the Ruskian infantry, if one could call them that, charged towards the disciplined forces of the ‘evil empire’.

This time, there were no flares fired, which confused the Ruskians immensely. However, they realized soon after the lines collided that this meant that there were no flares left to launch. Emboldened by the knowledge that there would be no more airstrikes the Ruskian cavalry, having held back to wait until the ‘great enemy’ was tired and weak, began to race across the field. Darksol’s forces were still not numerous enough to hold back both the infantry and the cavalry simultaneously, and as the Ruskian nobility picked up speed beads of sweat began to form on the faces of the Teutonian generals and the Darksolite necromancers.

…

Kain’s gaze fell upon the Ruskian cavalry as it raced to round the hill. There were only two ways up to the top where the base camp was, either you went the way that the Ruskian infantry was trying to go or you went up the opposite side. The other sides were steep cliffs that were unsuitable for climbing, both on foot and on horseback alike, and this gave the camp a sense of safety. Perhaps too much of a sense of safety, as they had neglected to make adequate defenses for their rear.

Kain sighed and directed his Zombie Dragon to fly over towards the rear of the camp. He could already tell that him ‘leaving’ would be a morale shock to his forces and a morale boost to his enemies, so he decided to be cheeky and conjured a massive rock in a peculiar shape and dropped it down towards the Ruskian lines while moving to defend the rear of his forces. He was going to be cutting it close as he and his mount dived towards the charging Ruskian nobility that were beginning to climb the hillside.

“Sometimes it feels like I have to do everything myself, doesn’t it?” Kain said in a joking manner. Unlike Kevin who was furious every time he had to get off his lazy ass, Kain saw things like this as a fun diversion. With only a few seconds before the Ruskian cavalry made it into the camp, the Zombie Dragon slammed into the ground.

And into quite a few members of the Ruskian nobility.

…

(The following is an excerpt from the debriefing of one of the few survivors of the failed attack on the Darksol/ Teutonian Main Camp)

As we began to crest the hill and make our way into the enemy’s camp, a sense of ominous, incoming dread caused our steeds to cease movement and rear up. We tried to reign in our panicking mounts, but it was not going as easily as expected. In fact, we barely had enough time to notice that our horses were overcome with fear before IT landed.

IT was a massive rotting monstrosity that seemed to be a cross between a lizard, a predatory bird, a bat and an undead. IT's head was high above our own and in IT’s empty sockets glowed a flame that flickered with a malign intelligence. The huge wings of what we faced unfurled to their full width and cast a fel shadow over all who stood before it. The beast then opened its mouth and from its desiccated and decaying throat was issued a horrible roar that shook the very air itself. This roar was so powerful that our horses foamed at the mouth and fell over, completely unconscious or in the midst of a seizure.

We were now on foot and facing a beast fit only for the realm of nightmares and of hell itself, not the real, mortal, physical world. One of the higher ranked nobles, one of the better ones, tried to rally us to combat, but the beast lobbed a glob of its terrible juices at him and his screams filled the silence. Oh, Goddess, the smell! The rancid stink of flesh melting under the corrosive force of the beast’s bile still hangs in my nostrils!

The screaming, thankfully, snapped us out of our shock and one of our number began to wail and point to the ground beneath the monster’s body. What I saw was likely not but the tip of the iceberg, but I can only tell my side. Though my vision was mostly obscured by the men in front of me, I could still see the mangled bodies and splattered viscera that lay under the titanic frame of the winged lizard monster. Horses, men, armor, weapons and more where crushed flat or reduced to horrid gore, and the beast seemed to watch our shock and horror with a sense of horrible and twisted satisfaction.

It was then that fear got the better of us. The dominating and terrifying presence that this monstrosity generated shattered our morale and we ran like the Abominable King himself was on our heels. I heard the beast groan and moan behind me, and it seemed to be having a conversation with someone. That conversation, if it truly was that, ended and the beast crawled after us as we ran. One by one the monster struck us down. Its gaping maw swallowed some whole while others were crushed underfoot, and some unfortunate souls were sprayed with its noxious breath and bile.

Whether I was able to think somewhat clearly or perhaps the Goddess herself guided my feet is something I may never know, but while the others ran straight, I ran around the base of the hill and out of the monster’s view. I ran until I saw the serfs, and then I ran until I got back here. I cannot know what precisely that horrible thing is, but if I were to hazard a guess, I would say that it is a new type of intelligent undead. The monster is simply too great for normal men to deal with; we need magic to even have a chance at taking it on.

…

Kain floated above his mount as he watched it sate its hunger on the bodies of his fallen foes. He could scarcely believe that this beast had once been so defiant that it refused to listen to both its creator (Zero Noir) and Kain himself when he tried to procure it as his mount. Dragons, as Kain remembered from most fantasy series, were insanely prideful, and Kain thought it was a shame for him to have to kill and raise the beast as an undead a grand total of nineteen times before the dragon finally submitted to him.

After a few short days under Kain’s control, however, and the formerly living dragon could not believe it had been so utterly foolish as to refuse Kain’s will while it still was alive. Kain had given it no end of food, treasure and attention, and the icing on the cake was that it was now being worshipped by a growing faith as a god!

Kain exhaled swiftly through his nose as the Zombie Dragon burped, its gasses escaping not only through its mouth but through the various holes and openings that the rotting draconic colossus had all over. He slowly floated down towards the Zombie Dragon’s head and put his hand upon the exposed bone on its forehead.

A smile flashed across Kain’s face for a brief moment as he forced more of his power into the undead monster. The flames in the creature’s sockets expanded in size and intensity and soon the Zombie Dragon was shaking and howling with pain. Kain was not killing his mount, nor was he torturing it without good reason. When he was done raising it for the final time, the beast was but bone, but over time Kain had poured so much of his own excess power into the former Skeleton Dragon that it had become a Zombie by the time he had invaded Teutonia.

Each infusion caused the undead dragon to gradually repair its form and grow in size. This was the twenty-fifth time they had done this, and after a few moments the dragon was nearly at a state where you could not tell if it was undead. Kain focused on mending flesh and restoring organs, and after a few minutes the process was halted. His mount collapsed to the ground in a slumbering heap and Kain sat down beside it. He looked over at the colossal beast that had just grown in size again and began the second part of his procedure.

It would take a bit of fiddling, but Kain knew that by the time he was done, his former Ancient-Black-Dragon-turned-Zombie-Dragon would be all the more powerful. He was still hung up on one thing, though.

“I still need a name for you… How about I use the name that the Neo Albion folks use when referring to you? I believe it was ‘Pluton’?”