The day began with a light mist extending out to the horizon. Rolling white fog obscured the sunlight shining on the grassy slopes and one couldn't even see the forest in the distance.

It was an idyllic scene like out of a picture book, spoiled by the black churning mass of zombies slowly making their way across the land towards Wendy's Fort.

Cato stood on the battlements watching the blocks of zombies approaching the thin line of knights standing only a short distance away from the walls of the fort. The two fast rising stars of Aleas and Ryulo were standing off to one side, watching. The Fukas would want some warning if the battle went badly.

Cato saw no black mist around the zombies but then they were still far enough away that he could barely make out any individual zombie. They were just one large mass.

"What do you think?" Landar said, standing beside him.

"About what?"

"The knights," she pointed at the colourful banners of the companies arrayed along the line. Some of them even had uniforms. Sort of.

Cato just shook his head, there was nothing he could say that Landar would agree to. If she heard the thoughts he had on the knights, she might have enough words to talk his ears off.

As the zombies approached, Cato began to sense something coming from them. It started faintly, like a candle just far enough away that you couldn't be sure it was there. But the sensation of magic grew stronger as they approached over the next minutes.

A black mist, huh? Well, there was indeed some magic hanging over the zombies, almost as strong as on the fort's walls too. It was... glowing. Actually, how did Cato know it was glowing? It just felt that way. Perhaps the Fukas saw a black mist? Hm, their way might actually be better than a vague feeling of magic.

The knights began to attack once the zombies approached within about fifty meters of their line. Flares of magic rose up along the line and an array of magic bolts flew out towards the zombies. So that was why Tulore said they used magic bolts for everything. It certainly felt that way.

Only except the knights' magic hit the aura around the zombies and simply disappeared. There was no fireballs, no explosions, not even a pebble disturbed except under the churning of dead feet.

"What... what was that?" Cato asked. He was sure that wasn't what the knights intended.

Landar squinted at the zombies' aura as it absorbed yet another salvo of magic, much more ragged now. There were a few knights on the line glowing like invisible suns, hosing a constant stream of magic towards the zombies but there was still no effect.

"It's a shield," Landar said finally, "the zombies have somehow gained magic and they're putting up a magic disruption shield. That's what the black mist is and that's why the marker arrows didn't work. "

It looked like the knights were finally getting it too, the flurry of invisible magic stopped and the arrows began to rain in earnest. Many of the knights were without bows but that didn't stop them from picking up rocks and throwing them with magic.

The zombies changed tactics too, the moment the first blows landed, the zombies broke into their charge, running directly at the knights.

For a moment it looked like some of the knights were going to charge back but Michi sounded a retreat horn. With only minor delay, the knights began to run back towards the fort.

Cato looked at the zombies. The fallen were already getting up. Ryulo was right, this could take some time.

After the retreat sounded, Wendy's Fort turned into a mess of activity. Cato barely dodged being run over by a cart full of grain when he careened to a halt at the gate. The faster knights were already streaming in.

"Go!" Landar said over the din of clanking armour and shouting soldiers, "your Fukas are already here to get you!"

"Why?" Cato asked.

"Just in case," she said ominously.

"Well, those knights sure didn't seem to do any good," Cato remarked, recalling how useless magic seemed to be against zombies. He was still sure Wendy's Fort would hold, if only because the walls were high and the zombies didn't seem to have brought seige engines.

"You insult us," Landar snorted, "just you wait until we get to grips with the zombies and you'll see what we can do. Besides, I also have a trump card. "

She grinned, "we'll be fine, but the Fukas need you. "

True. "Ah, some of the zombies might go after the Fukas," Cato said. He hadn't thought of that.

"Well, it's not going to happen in any case. Not on my watch. Now go!"

"So what do you think?" Ryulo asked him as they sat on the rock.

Cato shrugged. Ahead of them at the fort, the zombies attempting to climb the wall hit another wall enchantment that blew them off again. "It's hard to say. The zombies are lasting even longer than I thought. You said you managed to down a pack of them but they seem to reinforce each other when they're packed this close. "

"Still, the knights sure seem to be taking it easy," Ryulo said, as they watched the knights smash a group that had managed to dodge all the defenses on the way up the wall. The knights simply charged into a chaotic melee, bladed weapons swinging wildly to send zombie limbs flying in all directions.

On the other hand, at times it seemed like they were letting the zombies climb the wall. Magical bolts blasted zombies that got too far ahead of the main mass to no longer be protected, but they had long since run out of arrows and there were still enough zombies that they were crowding at the base of the wall trying to get on it. They even seemed to be running low on stones, unless they were going to rip out the wall.

How that wall was at all climbable was beyond Cato, but the zombies might be stronger than the average person or have yet another magic trick.

"The knights look like they could last a long time too," Cato said. Right on cue, the latest zombie challengers were blasted off the wall surface by the enchantments. Hm, were the enchantments actually decreasing in power? They seemed to be dimmer now.

"That just increases the chances the zombies go after us as well," Ryulo noted.

"That's part of the reason why I wanted you to try out the bowgun against the zombies. "

"Says the slowest person here," Aleas quipped as she appeared out of the tall grass, "you're the one who needs to be worried if the zombies take that fort. "

"Well, I'll leave my security in your capable hands," Cato said with a nod to Ryulo.

"His hands are capable in other ways as well. "

Ryulo was about to nod back but suddenly flushed red. Aleas's tail curling up Ryulo's legs gave no doubts as to what she was referring to.

Hm? Did he just hear a bombshell that the gossip aunties of the Fuka village would literally kill to know? Meh, Banage was probably already playing it for maximum effect. Besides, since when was Aleas the one doing the chasing and Ryulo the one running away?

Ryulo tried to get some space but Aleas clung on and didn't let him escape. Despite the playfulness that seemed to infect the two every few minutes they were together, their alert ears still pointed unerringly at the battle in the distance.

"Ah, so what of the battle?" Cato cleared his throat.

"They're doing fine," Aleas extracted herself from the tangle. She looked towards the zombies attempting to rush the walls again. Some of them made it to the top this time. Not for long. "There might not be enough zombies to take the fort, I didn't even see any casualties among the knights for the few minutes I was watching. "

Cato had no doubt that her sharp eyes were able to pick out individual soldiers on the walls. Fuka eyes could see surprisingly far.

"And what of the black mist?"

"Still there," she shrugged, "the knights have to chop the zombies to bits and keep those bits on the walls. Any bodies falling to the ground just get up again. I think Ryulo's right though, the mist does get weaker if they reanimate too much. I didn't see as much of it compared to before the battle. "

They watched the zombies struggle up the wall again.

"Say, at first, the knights tried shooting magic bolts at the zombies," Cato asked, "what did that look like to you?"

They looked at each other. Ryulo replied, "there were many colours and patterns. A chaotic mess impossible to describe. "

Aleas nodded in agreement.

Interesting. But probably not very useful in this battle.

The walls were a chaos of magic, yelling knights and finely chopped zombies. Landar rushed from place to place, patching up armour, recharging weapons and occasionally even contributing a little magic to amplify a spell or two.

Another wave of zombies got to the top of the wall right in front of her and an armour clad knight shoved her back roughly as they converged from all directions. He yelled something that was lost in the chaos of noise and then he was gone into the melee of flailing limbs.

She put a hand away from the stone in her pocket.

Hmph. So what if she had no armour and therefore would like some big fat oaf in front of her? They were clearly just rushing for the bounty.

Well, she would show them!

Landar closed her eyes and poured her magic into a tiny ball between her hands. She couldn't listen to the battlefield and concentrate on magic at the same time.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

The spell unfolded in time with her thoughts, magic placed just so here and with a touch there. It was efficient, and elegant she thought, compared to the simple brute force methods the knights used. With a final spurt into the center to power the magical spell, Landar opened her eyes. It was ready.

Hm. There were no more zombies on the wall.

Landar sighed and fired the spell roughly in the direction of the zombies below. The fire it was supposed to create disappeared into the swirling mass of zombie disruption magic like every other spell from the knights. There was only one group, full of spellstorms and snipers, still trying to salvo their spells and they weren't having much progress.

There were more yells and pointing as the groups rushed back to the walls to pick off zombies from the next wave climbing the walls. Michi's group overseeing the battle triggered the wall enchantments again.

Landar frowned, the wall enchantments were getting quite thin and there still seemed to be no end to the zombies despite the veritable mountain of limbs piling up in the courtyard.

The spellstorm group turned their fire towards the zombies climbing the wall and the maelstrom of spellbolts sent them crashing down in a firey rain. The zombies parted for the flaming bits and then set about stamping it out before scaling the wall again.

There was an air of disappointment from the knights but Landar ignored it. That behaviour was new, previous swarms of zombies would always space out to avoid devastating fire attacks but she thought this bunch might not be doing that because they had a defence against magic.

But they were coordinating at a level she wouldn't have expected them to do. Was that the new magic trick at work too? She couldn't imagine what sort of spell construct would be required to do something like that.

Cato looked up from the game of pick up sticks that Ryulo and Aleas were playing next to him. To think one of the games they played all the time was similar to a children's game on Earth! Then again, games with sticks weren't exactly hard to think of.

After many minutes without change in the battle, it looked like they were in for the long haul. Ri had flown out to find out what was going on but with so many stray spells flying around, they had sent her back with nothing to report.

The knights were tiring already, the zombies were grinding them down with endless rushes up the wall that seemed to lack no strength even if the army was more than half gone. Every rush towards a breach became slower and less enthusiastic than the last. Every zombie that made it up to the wall lasted for longer and more fell back down to be reanimated.

It was turning out that destroying ten thousand zombies was a problem of stamina and not difficulty. At least not behind those stone walls.

He looked up from the game to find that the zombies were still scaling the wall.

What was more interesting was the group of zombies heading their way...

Landar panted as she jogged up the tower. The zombies! They were moving!

She pointed wordlessly at the departing group, still trying to catch her breath.

Oin, the leader of the unimaginatively named Magical Flurry, nodded, "I know, but what good can we do?"

"There's... a group... of Fukas. You heard of... them?"

"Mhm," a few of his group members nodded back. They were sitting around the tower, recharging their magic as fast as their bodies could take it.

"They're that way. Stop the zombies! Please!" Landar pointed again, hoping they would move. The zombie pack was getting quite far away already, even hitting the pack might start getting hard soon.

Oin gestured around the tower. The rest of the knights here had vacated the tower top by now, having only a trickle of zombies up here. "But what good will our magic do? They have defences. Attacking them directly is useless, as you probably know. "

"The defences can be overwhelmed, the Fukas proved it with their arrows. "

"Which we don't have the magic to do," Oin pointed out, "their disruption effect is annoyingly efficient. You could drain all the knights of magic and wouldn't have enough to force your way through that shield. "

That was bad. Really bad. While the pack heading out would have a much weaker shield, she couldn't ask the knights to focus on them. And Oin wouldn't throw away his magic if he wasn't sure it would work. She looked out at the pack again. Maybe five hundred?

Did the Fukas even have enough magical arrows to defeat them? That scout must have used most of them in that first attack.

And... and...

She really had no other option, did she?

Landar sighed and looked up at the sky. So much for living out here in obscurity.

"I have a way," Landar said, digging the stone out of her pocket.

Unset from its usual necklace, the green gem sparkled in the daylight, revealing its hideously complex internal structure. Minute lines in the crystal guided magic along the paths somehow carved inside the fist-sized emerald.

Oin's frown turned into blank astonishment, "What is-... Selna above, is that a Summoning Crystal?!"

"Ye- yeah," Landar admitted.

"How do you have one of those?!" Oin said, inspecting the crystal in her hands more carefully. Some of the mages were in better condition now and they wandered over to look.

Summoning crystals were not exactly common and this one was a bit special even among them.

"I've seen Tami's crystal," Oin continued, "it's just a shard, and her Minor Phantom is already famous. " He pointed at the small whirling blade of force hanging in the air outside the walls, cutting down climbing zombies one by one. "What class is this? And why isn't it in its casing?" he asked.

One of the spellstorms peered more closely, "it's got to be Major at least. All the Minors are just shards. "

"I've a second cousin who's a summoner. All she got was Dancing Lights. This is insane!"

"Where did you get that?"

Landar backed away from the building torrent of questions and curious mages. "Er, actually-" she gulped, no point hiding it. They would know once she used it, they would all know. "It's a Ritual class. "

The blank looks on their faces was chilling. This was the sort of look she had wanted to avoid.

"WHAT?!"

The serpentine creature wafted into existence slowly, gathering power from the mages feeding it. At first, it was just a gentle touch on the senses, a mere sensation of magic barely felt, spread over too much volume.

But as the magic was fed into it, it grew and built into a shining beacon that could be felt clearly even from where Cato was sitting. There was no mistaking the green transparent figure of a Phantom and most knights deduced correctly that it was a Ritual class. Nothing else was quite as elaborate.

That was something that only appeared on the frontline battles or the most desperate defences. Ritual Phantoms were jealously hoarded weapons that knights, never mind normal people, often never got to see. Most of the knights assumed that Michi had been holding it in reserve, enough did that they contributed raw magic to fuel it. That at least was simple for a Ritual Phantom, aptly.

The figure of light grew upwards, making Wendy's Fort look puny in comparison. Then when it reached its full height and power, the serpent turned to the group of zombies making for the Fukas. The woman standing at the edge of the tower directed the targeting, she was out of practice but that didn't matter with its blast radius. The searing beam of light shot out from the serpent's mouth to vapourize an unfortunate zombie at the far side of the formation.

The beam flared, bright enough to cast shadows in full sunlight, then with a massive crackle, a lightning bolt leapt down the beam of light to smash itself against the zombie pack.

Unlike lightning, this one didn't stop.

The crack and snarl of the electricity drowned out every other noise in the region. The lightning hopped and jerked, leaving afterimages in eyes and holes in the earth. In less than a second, the entire five hundred zombies had been pounded into smoking craters.

If one was looking closely, one might be able to make out the way the serpents mouth seemed to be ringed with blue static charge, the way each of the rapid strokes was preceded by a flare of ionizing air. But against the sharp glare of continuous lightning, it was hard to make out even the zombies.

Having wreaked its destruction, the serpent turned its attention to the main body. It opened its mouth again and pouring the rest of its energy into the gaping hole, a series of sparks ringed its mouth. The fading serpent was crowned with sparks and little crawling bolts, as if gathering lightning from the air itself. Knights on the wall felt their hair begin to stand on end and the sharper edges of armour flaring with blue sparks.

Then with a single stroke, the pilot beam lit up again and the entire charge emptied itself into the center of the zombie army in one massive bolt. The shockwave and radiance from the superheated air threw back the knights with a wall of heat and sound. Even the ground rocked under the hammerstroke of sheer violence.

Above the charred ground and dancing sparks, a small woman put away her emerald and fled the tower top and the questions that would inevitably come.