CHAPTER 34 - INTO THE BREACH

With a thought, I ordered Hope to intercept the rush of attackers as best she could. Anything she did to slow them down would help, but I already knew it wasn’t going to be enough. I had my pair of skeletons form a smaller shield wall at a ninety degree angle to the zombies. Their shields ought to keep him in one piece long enough to hold the attacking wave back for a short while.

The four retreating undead that had been luring us closer rushed in as well, and another dozen were right behind them! The enemy was making their big push, and we had to find a way to hold. Rosie nailed one with a strong blow, and I finished it off with a blow from my axe. I was trying to hold the Drain spells in reserve for when I needed them most.

With our little arrowhead formation set up, we were as good as we’d get. “Pull back! Slow march backward!”

My undead obeyed, clearing some distance between us and the attacking wave. The zombies took down two more skeletons on their side, but my skeletons were struggling. As I’d learned, weapons made a huge difference, and these foes had them too. Several enemy skeletons bashed down one of my soldiers with long poles—hoes or rakes, from the looks of it. They hooked my guys’ shield with one weapon, then the others went to work, beating it about the head and shoulders until it collapsed into a pile of bones.

I stepped into the breach. There wasn’t any choice anymore. We were still pulling back, but I didn’t want to lose all of my creatures and weapons, and the safe zone was another fifteen feet back. Maybe if I’d just run as fast as I could, I might have reached it before they pulled me down, but all I could think of was that I needed to stay with my troops and help them fight.

It wasn’t my smartest move.

As soon as I stepped up to fill the gap left by my fallen skeleton, two of the enemies rushed me. I crushed one’s skull with my axe, dropping it. The other smashed into me at a light jog and I tumbled backward, landing hard on my back with the skeleton dropping on top of me. All the wind went out of my lungs—and a sharp pain, the most intense I’d ever felt, stabbed me in the gut.

I gasped, barely able to breathe. The skeleton’s face was just above mine, teeth gnashing violently inches away. I’d lost control of my axe somewhere in the fall, and one of my arms was pinned beneath the attacker, but the other was still free. I tried to hit it with the heel of my palm, smacking its face as hard as I could. It shifted, and the pain in my gut redoubled. I realized it must have cut me with something. That was the only way it could hurt that badly.

Barking caught my ear, and then Hope was there. She tore into the enemy skeleton’s neck, shaking hard until the head popped off and the thing collapsed into a heap. I could move again, but my body didn’t want to. I’d been hurt, badly so, and even small movements brought that pain back to full roaring strength.

I glanced down at the wound. “Shit!”

It was a short pair of pruning shears, and what looked like two or three inches of dirty steel were embedded in my abdomen.

I was a doctor in training. As soon as I saw the injury, I knew I was in shit trouble. With an ambulance and an ER, that sort of wound would still take weeks to recover from. If I had Henry around with his Heal spell, maybe it would take days, instead, but without medical care? I was hosed.

But I did have medical care, of a sort, anyway. I could cast Drain Life and it would heal me. I didn’t want to cast it while the weapon was still inside me, though. I had no idea what that would do. Which meant pulling the thing out before I cast my spell, which was going to seriously suck.

I grasped the handle of the shears and got ready to pull. Even touching it hurt so badly that I whimpered a little with the pain. But there was nothing else I could do. I needed the healing from that Drain spell, and I needed it fast. I ground my teeth together hard and then yanked the blade free, tossing it immediately aside.

Teeth locked together or not, nothing stopped me from screaming as loud as I could, as soon as I’d pulled the blade free. I slammed my palm over the wound, putting pressure there to slow the flow of blood. My palm felt instantly soaked, and I knew I was bleeding like mad.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

But I was also ready to cast, so I locked my eyes on the nearest enemy undead, reached out my free hand, and let loose. Black fire shot from my fingertips and sank into the skeleton, then transferred part of its health back to me. The wound under my hand twisted and shrank, the tissue coming back together and closing the hole.

Rosie finished that one off, and Hope blocked the advance of a couple more, giving me a moment to get back to my feet. I grabbed the shield and hammer my skeleton had dropped and stepped forward.

The wound was mostly better. It still hurt, but I could move freely again. I was pissed. The right move would have been to retreat, even if it meant losing all my undead. I’d almost died back there, lying on the ground. If Hope hadn’t come to my rescue, I might have. The undead were replaceable. I wasn’t. It was something I needed to remember.

I cast Animate Dead on one of the slain skeletons, and it clambered to its feet to fight at my side, picking up my old axe as it rose. Then I bashed the nearest enemy with my shield, knocking it back. That set it up nicely, and the skeleton took it down with two swift axe blows.

The entire battle had broken down into a mess of a melee. My zombies were still side by side and continued to churn through the unarmed zombies on their side. But the armed ones were harder to kill, and a lot more dangerous. One of them hooked a hoe onto the top of my plastic shield, almost stripping the thing right out of my hand. Rather than let go, I allowed it to drag me forward, and dropped the hammer hard on its shoulder. The clavicle snapped, and suddenly one of its arms was useless. With just one arm, it couldn’t hold the hoe well enough to keep my shield locked up, so I was able to get the plastic between me and an income rake just in time.

The blow sent me staggering back a step anyway, and I realized we were just about at the finish line. A few more steps back, and we’d be in the clear, back where the enemy couldn’t reach us.

Truth was, though? We were winning. The zombies had taken down their entire line, and now turned to help my skeletons with the armed foes. Hope was in the middle of it all, biting at legs, ripping and tearing. Each one that she ‘legged’ was hopping around instead of walking. It made them a lot easier to escape—or kill.

We could withdraw. A few more steps back, and we’d be safe. The enemy would be there an hour from now, after we rested.

I wanted this finished, though. I called out commands to my troops. “Reform the line! Shield wall, side by side!”

They did as I asked, locking their shields together to make it harder to get past them, and then dropping hammer and bat blows into the gaps. My one skeleton without a shield did his best to stay alive on the right side of our formation, using his axe to demolish one foe after another.

I joined the line beside that one, using my shield to block an incoming blow from a trowel, then swung my hammer, shattering the arm carrying the makeshift weapon. My axe-skeleton finished it off with a powerful blow. We had this. I felt the momentum of the battle shift and knew that we were going to do this, that we could win the field.

The enemy realized it, too. All at once they backed away. Few of them were left. Of the eight or so armed enemies, I saw two left, and they fled with the others, backing up out of our reach. They were reinforced by another dozen skeletons, with more flowing to join their numbers from around the cemetery.

Maybe twenty of them left, all told. It was still a lot. I dropped another Drain on an injured foe as they retreated, killing it. The healing poured into me, further repairing the damage I’d taken. Taking a deep breath didn’t hurt anymore, and I’d never been so grateful to have pain fade away. For a few moments there, on the ground, I’d honestly thought I was a goner.

“Two steps forward!” I called out, and my troops marched ahead. I swapped the shield and hammer back to my skeleton, taking the axe back instead. Better to have them on the front lines, not me.

While they held off the enemies, I touched every pile of bones in reach. There were a good number of them, and each one dropped more crystals into my hands. Once I’d hit each one I could, I ordered my troops back until we were all squarely within the safe zone made by the gates.

Across the field, the enemy undead had organized themselves into their own formation. It looked like every single one left on the field was gathered there. We were heading into the endgame, now. They’d brought out every skeleton they still had, and it was going to be one last battle to finish this place off for good.

I considered the handful of crystals I’d collected. There were a few, and combined with the ones I’d snagged during our earlier runs it added up to over a dozen. Would that be enough to rank any of my socketed crystals up, though? I had a feeling it probably wouldn’t. I might come close, but it wouldn’t put me over the top.

All those piles of bones sitting out there, untouched, though? Those would!I needed to get back out there and grab all of those stones, and I didn’t want to put it off until tomorrow. I wanted to end this today.

I drained the rest of the water from my bottle and picked up my axe, then called out to my undead. “Shield wall time, boys! Let’s finish this fight so we can go rest.”

They formed their rank, Hope tailing along right beside me with an excited bark. She was ready. My line of battle was ready. I felt my stomach, where I’d been stabbed. The flesh there was still tender, but the wound was closed. I was as ready as I was going to get, too.

We marched forward.