“Do you think this will blow up if I use it.” I asked Belus, gesturing to the wand of Infernal destruction, as the demon called it.

The necromancer carefully inspected the arcane device, his aged eyes ran across its shaft with a keen interest.

“The wand seems stable enough, though I have not seen that spell before. It looks like pyromancy, but oddly it resembles spells to effect the soul of a target. Though nothing major like a binding, merely a damaging spell.” He made his assessment.

His assessment did make sense, the demon did explain his practice of magic was a combination of fire and spirit. The wand likely has a flame spell that can damage both the body and the soul of a target.

I was not sure how it would do against soulless zombies, but ghouls and vampires would not find it pleasant. The thought of mass-producing these weapons and raining fiery death upon invading armies crossed my mind.

It was tempting, but I didn’t want to be seen as a threat, merely to be left alone. My brother needed to declare me, too much trouble to put forces to the task of subduing me.

He knows full well the consequences of deploying the army in this effort. Such an act will alert the duke and prompt him to act to seize the barony for himself.

“We shall see the efficacy of this weapon soon enough.” I said, directing my gaze to the oncoming army.

Drelem had deployed his undead forces and was lining them up for an assault on the walls. Siege ladders, towers and rams were built. I noticed they were setting up catapults as well, hopefully, they weren’t planning on completely decimating the wall. I mean this lord Drelem plans to occupy this castle.

“It will not be long before they make their attack.” Sir Felmun observed as he approached me.

The knight scanned the enemy, his eyes darting between the arrayed undead and human mercenaries. Once he was satisfied he looked to Belus, annoyed but still willing to speak to the man.

“Deathmonger, what can you tell us about the undead they have?” He inquired of the necromancer.

Belus snorted, shaking his head and stepping forward to get a better look. Squinting his eyes, he grunted angrily before withdrawing a pair of spectacles. Affixing the item to his face, he went back to examining our foe. After about a minute of inspecting the numbers and composition, he turned back to Felmun and me.

“As expected of Drelem, he went for quantity over quality.” He harumphed.

“Meaning?” I asked.

“His undead forces although quite large, over two thousand strong, are all composed of simple zombies, skeletons and ghouls. I can spot several vampires, likely acting as commanders.” He explained, tracing his finger across the enemy's position. “The vampires will be most troublesome, they are formidable fighters, generally skilled in magic if Drelem bothered to train them and can command undead forces.” He finalised, making another jab at his rival.

“How do you think they will deploy them?” I questioned.

“Generally they would just starve us out. But given the time limit we are all facing. They would likely seek to overwhelm the wall with disposable forces and seek to establish a foothold. Once that is achieved they will flood the castle with undead to cause chaos and then deploy their human forces to seize key targets.”

The plan he proposed was rational, the enemy would likely employ this strategy. It wasn’t sophisticated, but battles between undead forces generally relied on overwhelming numbers tiring out the enemy. Unless both sides deployed undead, which we were.

I looked to Felmun who nodded, accepting the assessment. It was what we expected and we had already put measures into place for this. Our own undead, specifically zombies, skeletons and a few revenant overseers were arrayed on the main walls. They would tirelessly harass any force that dared to breach the wall.

Other undead are kept in reserve at least for the time being. I hadn’t planned to utilise my demons until they were necessary. If the enemy acted as expected, they would not be needed until the enemy committed a full assault. The demons would be best against the vampire commanders and the mercenary forces.

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So for now, I will keep faith that Felmun and Belus will keep the wall. If the enemy manages a foothold, we will all be doomed. That cannot be allowed, we must claim victory and repel these invaders by crushing them so completely that brother would not dare try again.

With the siege well in hand, all we had to do was wait until they made the first move. That did not take long however as only a few hours later they began to march. Over one hundred zombies began shambling towards the wall. Some of them pushed siege towers, battering rams and held ladders. The siege was about to begin and this was the opening gambit.

I looked around, noting the fearful looks of my men at arms. They had never been through a siege and despite Sir Felmun's training, they could not help shaking. On the other hand, the undead held fast, the odds meant nothing to them. They merely obeyed and readied to crush any that got close to the wall.

I gripped the wand tightly, not knowing if I would be using it now. Felmun wanted me to descend the wall and hide somewhere for safety. I would not do that, I couldn’t. These men and women were putting their lives on the line to protect my land. I would be a complete coward if I didn’t at least participate.

The army finally arrived, ladders were raised and before they could even touch the stone. The undead protectors began pelting them with stone boulders. The ladders broke apart and zombies squished into bloody paste. Despite the carnage, the undead continued to tirelessly assault the wall any way they could.

Zombies shambled forward after their ladders were destroyed. They clawed at the stone, trying desperately to scale the massive structure. Their efforts were for naught, as our own undead kept dropping anything they could get their hands on. One by one or in large groups, the undead were crushed.

But there was simply too many for our meagre protectors to cover. On the wall, our men at arms stood with spears at the ready and clubs were distributed amongst them. The idea was to skewer the undead before they got over the wall and push them down the chasm below.

If any undead managed to get atop the wall, we would bludgeon them and toss their corpses away. Belus was at present working on a method to usurp control of the enemy's undead. But Lord Drelem was one step ahead and protected his forces from such interference.

So in the end, we had to rely on keeping their forces off the wall for as long as possible. In that vein, we were keeping them at bay. Our men at arms had not had a chance to strike a single undead and were largely in reserve. The undead protectors were dismantling any effort to put a ladder down and even stopped the ram in its tracks.

It became so effective that the enemy turned to piling up the undead on a hill of corpses. The next wave of undead tried to climb this slowly building-up corpse pile. Every undead we dispatched only made it larger, their corpses adding to it as they fell.

“We need to get rid of that!” Sir Felmun ordered.

He was pointing at the slowly accumulating mountain of corpses. It wouldn’t be an issue currently, but in the second or third waves, it could be used as a means to reach the wall.

The siege tower was slowly arriving, it wouldn’t be too long until its wooden rampart descended upon the battlements and spewed undead all over the wall. We didn’t have a good option against them. Siege towers were generally dealt with in advance.

I had spoken to Sir Felmun on this exact subject. Siege towers could be dealt with by a castle built on a steep hill, surrounded by a moat or destroyed with enough pyromancers. But we had neither of these things and could not easily dispatch it.

The strategy we could employ was to build a wall of undead and keep whatever came through at bay. Until we could do that, any siege tower that got a foothold would be devastating.

“Keep steady men!” Felmun commanded.

The human soldiers were faltering, the wails of the undead and the ever-increasing size of the mountain were straining their already taxed nerves.

“The tower is getting closer!” One of the soldiers shouted.

“The corpses are piling up, what do we do!” Another screamed.

As the waves hit us, I could see the accompanying waves of fear bash against every soldier. No doubt if we had the time we could have trained them to hold fast and brace against the fear.

“My lady, please return to safety!” Felmun pleaded as the tower was nearing our doorstep.

Something had to be done or the men would fall into a panic. Resolute I shook off my knight’s request, gripped the wand firmly and ran to the battlements before he could stop me.

“My lady!” He shouted, following behind.

Ignoring him, I pointed the wand at the oncoming tower, infusing it with mana, I released the stored spell. Fire engulfed it, the blackened flame spilled out from the tip and launched itself.

The blast of flame impacted the right flank of the tower, blowing the wood apart and setting the structure a flame. The undead concealed within lit up like the sun. The flaming wreckage and corpses littered the battlefield with fiery debris.

As the tower crumbled under the power of the spell. The soldiers behind me cheered, their morale restored. Emboldened by their cheer I forced more mana into the wand, blasting the siege tower again and again. I tore apart that fragile construction of wood and corpses.

I turned the wand upon the remaining undead, sending fireballs into major concentrations. The flames poured over them like a decimating wave of destruction. So enraptured by the power of the wand, I kept firing.

Suddenly the wand grew hot, searing my palm before exploding in my hand. The pain was immense and sent me careening backwards. A sudden pain in my head and the world went black.