Kasidy came running down the stairs, holding onto her new lyre in her left hand and my Standard in her right. She tossed the Standard to me as she neared the steps. Then turning, she saw the map and froze up.

Kasidy cleared her throat. “We are letting them in, right?”

I opened the door. “Yes, and we need to get our horse in. The wagons won't fit, and they might have to leave their horse out there, but I don’t want ours to die. We have too far to go.”

Kasidy nodded but was just watching as dozens of orcs came into view. While we could see around six miles away, there were spots that were blocked because of the tower’s line of sight. If we had been watching, we would have known before the tower started to attack.

When I saw how many were coming over the hill, I got moving. “Kasidy, help me get the horse in.”

That snapped her out of her daze. She set her instrument down and followed me out the front door. The fleeing people would be to us in just a few minutes. I grabbed the lead on my horse and pulled him toward the front door. Kasidy tossed a rope around the head of the wagon horse and then led her inside.

Once we had the horse in. I gave a quick look for Renfry but didn’t see him. Hopefully, that meant that he was getting his equipment on. I reached across the bond and found Blink. She was already in the field between us and the orcs. Then I reached across my pull to my one zombie. I was kicking myself for using all my wyverns for the new dungeon, but at the time, I thought they needed them. Keeping a few would have been smart for something like this.

I looked over at Kasidy. “Would you get better range on your songs on the roof?”

She shook her head. “Not much. There are no walls or anything out there that would block me. All that being on the roof would do, in this case, was make me further away.”

“Anything that you can do to help the people coming this way?”

Kasidy paused for a moment and then took a deep breath. She stepped out of the tower, sat on one side of the top step, and started to play. As she did, I noticed that I got a buff called second wind. My stamina bar flashed a bit as I watched the wagons surge forward. The running people behind seemed to pick up speed as well when the music got to them.

The lead wagon was a high-walled wagon with a heavy cloth tarp stretched over it. The driver stopped about ten feet from the steps and started to unhitch her wagon. She moved with experienced hands as she pulled the straps from the horse. As she finished, she looked around in panic.

As she saw me, she asked. “Did you defeat the Lair?”

I nodded quickly, “Yes, it’s safe to go in. You can get your horse in, but we don’t have time to get your wagon’s stuff in there, so only grab what you must.”

She gave a curt nod and then led her horse inside. The other three wagons were pulling up right as the woman was leading her horse inside. None of them looked much different than at first. The only differences were how worn the tarps looked and how angry or scared the drivers were.

I yelled out to them as they were stopping their wagons. “The lair has been defeated, so you are safer inside. Get your animals in there, but we don’t have time to unload.”

Just as the first one was getting down, the woman came back from inside and shouted. “You all know better! Park them in a half-moon with the tower as the back. Move it fast. We can cut the horse free if we have to but get this circled now.”

She turned to me and asked. “How many fighters are in your party?”

I shrugged. “Three, I think. We weren’t planning on a battle like this.”

As I said that, her shoulder slumped a bit. Then I saw one of the rocks from the catapult take an orc in the chest and send him to the ground. I smiled. This would be like fighting with the stone cube trees helping. I just hoped that these orcs were lower level than the last batch. If not, this would be a problem.

Just as I was thinking, I saw the orc that was hit by the stone start to get up. It looked like his arm was broken, but that appeared to be the only problem he had. Now I was worried as the magical rock was at least fifty pounds. I had thought the guy was dead, but since he wasn’t, I got a bit worried for Blink.

The wagons were moved, and the horses were taken in. The first woman there seemed to be in charge, or at least people were willing to listen to her. As the horses made it in, the first of the runners started to arrive. Kasidy’s song had given them the last burst of speed that they needed as they ran into the tower.

Renfry walked out and stood next to me. In a low voice, he said. “My lord, I counted ten orcs in light armor, 45 in medium, and 2 in heavy. In addition to those, it appears this force also has at least five mages or healers.”

I sighed as the last of the people got close enough to head in. “Any count on the goblins?”

“No sir, they move too fast for me to count on the map.”

“Thoughts about how we win this?”

“Not many right now.”

Kasidy stopped playing and stood. Then she wobbled a bit. I reached out, grabbed her hand, and gave her a smile. Then she headed back in with us right behind her.

I sent a thought out to Blink. “Careful out there. There are far more than we have fought before, and I think they are higher level.”

I smiled as I felt Blink rolling her eyes. “You worries too much. I know what I’m doing.”

As I stepped into the tower, I felt slightly overwhelmed. Sure, I had just been in a city with tons of people, but they weren’t in a tower that seemed to echo everything said. Nope, here everything was loud, and it didn’t help that they were all yelling at each other.

I closed the door, and my eyes then reached out to my mounted zombie. I sent him around behind the orcs as well. I knew that Blink would be back there, but I figured that at some point, I could send him in to attack. It would be better to use him this way than at the front. He wasn’t much of a fighter when he was alive and even less of one with how low-level I was.

When I opened my eyes, the lady that seemed to be in charge was walking right at me. She appeared to be angry, and Renfry stepped up between us.

The lady was about five and a half feet tall with a weathered face and red hair. She pointed at me and yelled. “Where are the guards?”

I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it. This was all just too much for me right now. I had orcs that could take a hit from a catapult coming after us and this lady demanding to know where the guards were. I had already told her that they weren’t here.

Renfry replied before I got a chance. “The lord just personally freed this lair. You are lucky that he did. Otherwise, you would be out there facing the orcs on your own.”

She stepped back just a bit and lowered her head slightly. “I am sorry, I didn’t know that you were the lord of the tower here. Please forgive me.”

I could tell that she was worried. I had seen how she had yelled at everyone else and got them to do what she wanted. So she was used to being in charge, but now she was in the presence of a noble, and I was betting that my intimidation was kicking in. She likely didn’t have a great impression of me to start with, but now she was even less happy because she knew that I was landed.

My brain caught up to what happened with Kasidy storming off. I had thought that she was upset that I hadn’t told her before about the land I claimed. Now, however, I understood she had found out that I was landed and caused a negative reaction. I have to find a way to deal with that as she is following me around. I also need to figure out how that will affect Lannah.

I waved off the lady’s reaction and asked. “We are safe for now in here. It doesn’t look like they brought anything big enough to take out our door. Now, why don’t you tell me what’s going on.”

She paused for just a moment, went to raise her head, and lowered it. “Your lordship, we were on the king's road when the zombies attacked.”

“Zombies? Where did the orcs come from?”

She grimaced a bit. “Begging your pardon, but they are orc zombies.”

I nodded my head as I watched the map show another orc take a stone to the chest. “Well, that explains a bit of how they could just get back up after the catapult hit them. They don’t seem to be naturally occurring as they are acting far more restrained than that would tend to make.”

She nodded, but before she could say anything, one of the guards spoke up. “It’s the Lich! He sent them after us.”

Now that got my attention. I turned to the guard. “I am just passing through. Can you tell me more about this lich?”

The guard made a poor attempt at a bow and then said. Umm, your lordship, sir. My lord, I mean.”

I cut him off. “We are in a battle cut with the lordship stuff besides, as far as I know, you aren’t one of mine. Now tell me more about the lich and why he sent his zombies after you.”

The guard nodded and stood up straight. “The lich commands the old pass to Cloudia. He tends to stay put, but as you saw, those orcs he has, are rather strong. We umm baited them, sir.”

Right as the guard said baited them, the short woman hit him on the back of the head. “Don’t go telling our business, Travis!”

Travis, the guard, looked a bit sorry, “Evie, but he’s a noble; you know how that goes. Besides, he needs to know, don’t he?”

She shook his head and looked at me. “Well, like he said, we baited them a bit. That’s why I am worried. You see, we used to be able to lead them this way, and the lair would take care of them. So we could then loot them. They never got this close before as the lair just kind of sucked and killed them somehow.”

I started to understand a bit. “So you would bring them here and then loot their equipment?”

She nodded. “It helped to pad our travel expenses a bit. It was always mostly safe. This time they got a bit closer to us, and well now the lair is gone, so whatever it was doing isn’t happening anymore.”

“Yeah, that with a force this size out there, I am surprised that lich isn’t visible. I thought control was a problem for them.”

The guard cut in again. “He’s close by, that’s for sure. We haven’t seen mages in a while. We normally only pick up a few zombies off the edge of his lands.”

I turned to Renfry. “Pull up the area map; Travis, was it? Please show me on the map where the lich’s lands are. I have a bad feeling about this.”

Renfry pushed past the horses, and the people crowded in the first-floor room. It was hard for me to count, but it looked like we had close to thirty in the place. Which was fine for the room we were in. Most of the people were watching the live view of the map, so they weren’t wandering around in places that we didn’t need them to go.

I was a bit worried about showing the map because I wasn’t sure how trustworthy the people in the tower were. I knew that they did some risky stuff, but that didn’t mean they were bad people. The only question I had was would they come after me to try to take the tower. After all, if they baited a lich for profit, then what might they do to me for the same?

Renfry flipped to the area map, and Travis walked up to the wall. As he did, my worry was proven right. He pointed to the pass that Castle Westiral sat at.

Travis said. “That’s the lich’s castle. Don’t know how any traveler could be here and not know.”

I took and deep calming breath and placed my hand on my face. After a moment, I looked around the room. Everyone was looking to me. I could see worry on some of the people’s faces, but a bit of hope was on everyone’s as well.

“Okay, so we know where they are from, and I think they are here because the lair is cleared. So now, the question of the day. Is the force out there the extent of his army or just a raiding party?”

Evie answered slowly. “This is just a raiding party. Both Last Port and Cloudia have tried several times to clear the pass. They never can beat him, but he also doesn’t have enough power to expand.”

* * *