The zombies stood in prepared lines, just like chickens wouldn’t.

Anthony and his group had prepared for the biggest assault that they had ever made. The legion had come alive with the possibilities, shifting seven infantry companies to the assault almost as fast as they could get on the ground. The legion kept one company in reserve; two others were still completing their contract with the Peace Turtle tribe. About one hundred Yellow Tail irregulars, a special request from Finley augmented them, working recruiting magic for once.

Half of the chosen were to be dedicated to this, one on each of the seven airships that they had fabricated. More were going to be ready soon, but it was time.

The amount of counter attacks had risen to an unacceptable level. Cedric had given the word, and that was it.

Andrew was staying behind and had given them a few parting words of wisdom. As the only dwarf that had been one of the chosen, he occupied a special part within the Caravans ranks. Of course, when he named his creations, they all tried to be happy for him, but the flame flinger was only called so when he was around.

Anthony was glad for those creations, no matter the name. As he aimed another shot into the crowd of zombies, all he wished was that he wasn’t aiming something called a daddy pipe. This was, of course, an upgraded magical mortar launcher.

“Good shot sir!” Sergeant Ginkgo said.

They could see the arc of the first volley as it went down. More than a dozen other shots went down, hammering into the enemy. The daddy pipe could aim and indirectly fire over barriers and walls.

Using it as a magical mortar shotgun was just one of the many ways that the dwarves in the legion had improved its use.

From where they were, it was easy to just take in the metropolis's view and the exploding zombies. It was almost pastoral. Save for the twenty that had died in the wall breach, casualties had been few.

“Just keep an eye out for dragons,” he growled. “And artillery.”

Up by the bow of the ship, three dwarves lobbed grenades down to the ground. Their supply looked to be endless.

Anthony actually had to aim to where they weren’t going. That was when the zombies on the ground brought out some of their siege weaponry.

Far from just staying put, the zombies swarmed to large trebuchets.

“Pull up!” Anthony said. “They’re aiming for us!”

A counter attack of what had to be card powers came up to hit the airship. The ship rocked, causing half of the crew to need to hold on to something.

“Of course, now would be the time that they reveal that they have card powers that they have been using. That makes perfect sense. Stupid zombies and your stupid plans. I’m thinking that Bob was right.”

Anthony grumbled to himself as he looked for any zombies that were firing off card powers over them.

Several streaks of black lightning passed by them as they banked right, then rose. It almost felt like no matter where they went, they could kill zombies. The ground was just covered in them.

Once again, he was glad that this was a just post-dawn attack, so that everything was lit up. He could imagine the horror of trying a bombing campaign at night when the zombies could see them, but not the other way around, at least for the chosen.

Some of them could see in the dark. But.

The dwarves did not. Not without special card skills or training.

Anthony assumed the position again and began feeding Moana into his direct mortar. Can. He pumped a few shots where the black lightning was coming from. He was going to get this one. No one threatened him and lived. Except maybe his girlfriend. And he had a soft spot for her.

“Sir, we’ve got a situation,” Sergeant Ginkgo said.

“Lay it on me,” he said.

“I know we talked about dragons, but what about wyverns? How do you feel about wyverns?”

“I don’t think that’s relevant, but they’re also fine. If you see a wyvern, though, I would like to know.”

She had his undivided attention all at once. He motioned for her to continue talking. As she did. She explained that he probably needed to check out the opposite side of the ship.

He was not pleased to see several wyverns flying around. The Griffin Dragon mashups were also looking to be a bit undead. He tried to think about which area she was closest to and then he realized he didn’t have to think. Some idiot was jumping out of in the airship with a grandpa hook and trying to wrestle a wyvern above a pitch battle. That would be Bob’s ride.

“God dammit, Bob,” he whispered. “Can we change voice to save his ass?”

The word got passed up to the Captain and the ship real quick and made its way back. This ship lurched towards the wyverns and, of course, that was when Anthony’s lunch made its displeasure known.

---

Bob, Mork’s helldiver, jumped out of his airship. He flung his grappling hook into the wyvern, getting purchase. He had really worked extensively on that skill, and it had paid dividends. The poem flew round an inch by inch. He climbed up it, getting close enough to duck out of the way of its talents. Bob was going to steal this wyvern and use it as a mount, but then he realized it was another Undead. That was not optimal. What would have been great?

Would have been if he had made a friend. Why would it be friendship if it could not be your friend? What is the age of the question that he was trying to answer that day? He would have loved the small dog or even a small cat, but what he got was an eldritch beyond his own comprehension. It was going to be doing a lot of work soon. Once he could set it on the horde. It wouldn’t kill them for him, but it would to extract their cards. And that was all that he did. The basis of extracting cards from beings was many a messy, fraught thing. No one likes it and people actually just liked you for doing it to someone who had spent a lot out of their care.

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The wyvern banked, swinging him wide. He can already see two of the airships try to close with him, but the wyvern was more careful of turning on a dime.

Or a slow-moving beasties that went why they wanted to but at someone else‘s long slow pace.

Inch by inch, Bob climbed off his rope, finding his way around the Wilder’s talons. He had hoped to salvage something out of its relationship, but then it began diving with intent. This was one thing he recognized as potentially lethal about the zombie wyvern.

He wasn’t even sure if boyfriends were really a thing here. It looked like the animal had a couple together in spare parts. I also I got the more Buffet patchwork it looks like.

He was going in hot. If he was going to dismantle these zombie dragons and wyverns, he was going to need to do it one at a time. Anthony had been holding him back for too long.

He yanked on the wyvern and, unexpectedly; it shifted.

Bob smiled.

“I’m in the killing zombies business and business is good,” he said, finally understanding the wyvern.

Things were looking up as Bob cleared the top of the wyvern. He pulled out his favorite knife and stabbed into the head of the wyvern.

It screeched.

He was so happy that he had some capacity to heal himself. His hearing went. He plunged the knife in deeper.

---

“You’re going to have to do something about him, sir,” Sergeant Ginkgo said.

“You wouldn’t believe the shit that Bob has pulled and gotten away with so far.”

“Is he stabbing the wyvern in the head? The thing that he is flying? Is he... Okay?” she said.

“I think we need to have a long talk. I don’t think that it’s going to work really well.”

The airship rocked again, bringing them back into the present. They were above a horde of intelligent zombies. She pointed to a group, and he tracked her movement before aiming it down.

“That looks larger than the average zombie,” he said. “I think that I’m going to focus on that one for a bit.”

“Carry us to victory,” she said.

---

“Is that asshole jumping off of the wyvern without a plan?” Sonya said. “Actually nevermind that.”

Sonya realized Bob was going to land in the center of a large group.

“Cara, we’re going to need some help here,” she said, pulling deep.

She could feel the earth far below them. She knew what she had to do. She just didn’t know if she could do it again. She reached out, connecting the ground to herself and the airship.

The ship swayed, anchored to the ground as she tried to anchor herself to the ground and then...

*Crack*

The earth forgot how it had been and suddenly fractured all over beneath Bob. He would know what he had to do.

The deep touch that she had layered into her magic dropped hundreds of zombies, burying them.

It was going to make him do more work.

She could live with that.

---

This world wasn’t built for them. He had found a path through the fight with the zombies. Sonya had cleared a landing zone.

Bob spouted several blasts of flame to land on an uncontested area that had recently undergone a management change. A distinct lack of zombies felt like he wasn’t trying. Then another group of zombies found their way to the large circle.

Bob smiled. All around him, the airships were dropping magical grenades and other area of effect spells.

He focused on his pathfinder skill, looking for the death knight.

He was the closest he had ever been to this particular death knight. He could almost taste it.

He licked his lips and loaded his crossbow. He aimed for the largest of the zombies, attaching a mote of charged mana. He fired one bolt off. Then he took out his knife and short spear.

He pursued the death knight.

He would not make the same mistake that he had done before.

---

“Fuck! What the fuck is that asshole doing? Cover his ass!” Anthony said. “That’s going to come out of your pay.”

“Are you paying him, sir?”

“No, Ginkgo.”

“He is trying to just...”

“Sir, I’m sure that he can do what he wants. I’m also equally sure that he won’t be making a sudden and drastic change to his demeanor. This is who he is.”

Anthony sighed.

He fired another round. He was going to keep pushing in, and then...

“Sir! Another fire bender is joining Bob!” she said.

“Stella!” Anthony yelled.

Nothing surprised him. She was pretty ride or die. He was just hoping that they would be a bit more on the ride side. It made little sense to him, but their team has been together for so long.

It looked like the cracks were showing. Anthony did not want to jump down there, but if Stella was there, maybe Sophie would follow and at least Bob would be safe. He had to think for a minute to see if Sophie was with them. Was still on Sophie. Both being mainline scouts. It would be pretty bad for them to lose both of them. Everything was pretty sure that Sophie was way back behind lines that would not open up soon.

Anthony continued pounding the ground below with more and more Asheville spills. It seemed like Bob was going in a specific direction, so we started aiming that direction. He had the helmsman turn toward the ship so he could get a better view. Bob was heading into the horde, deeper and deeper, and as he and Stella lit up the surrounding zombies. He must have gotten a hot quest or something. Otherwise, there would be no point. They had talked in a vault about going wild like this and his going woke was depressing. They had expected him to have gotten past that kind of stage in his life. It was a thing that you did, right? You gave up trying to kill the bad guy by herself and just waited for a tactical look or a bunch of bombs to take about, right? Bob, wasn’t that kind of guy? Bob was really Hands-On person and Anthony, although he could appreciate that. Wanted a legion to have skin in the game. He wanted them to do Lana’s work. They were more than that. The chosen? Over a dozen. So saying that they need to do all the work? That wasn’t going to work for Anthony. He could clear the way for Bob, and in doing that, Anthony had figured out a way to annoy the f*** out of Bob. Even as he got one. He wanted.

“To tell the truth,” Anthony said to Sergeant Ginkgo. “If he keeps going like this then we’re just going to have a nice easy pathway forward and since it looks like one was always are heading his way, I think he’s on the right track. This means that we could possibly find the death knight and take it out before it happens.”

“You think that Maniac is on the right track? I think he’s insane. But you do you.”

Anthony prepared to be in it for the long haul. If this was not what he was expecting and they had gotten far off the plan. But now I was in the frying van and he was the chef overseeing Bob’s preparation into a meal that he would deliver straight to the death. Knight. Promise is death knights that they had killed before. I had a special power given to them by a car that they wielded. He was wondering what you want this one would be. It seemed like the death knight controlled the populace.

Perhaps that we got a population control card or something that caught someone to be a better leader. Anthony started thinking about the problem between a car that he had gotten so long ago that had boots. It’s worth time to time. Or perhaps that person had a class car that they could use. He liked the idea of the Gloucester detachment passing druid cards around to level up the wild shape. What do you like better? Was taking a car that another enemy had leveled up and then he was together.

He does all the hard work when he could get somebody else to do it. Why would he do any work when the enemy was there to do it for him? He might not be the most ethical of ways. But there were so only so many, so many unethically sourced zombies he could deal with. Now Bob was literally making them focus their fire to create a safe corridor.

Or perhaps he was telling them where to fire?

Anthony sighted down the bow of the ship, focusing on clearing Bob’s path before he got through with what he was doing. He was going to have a lot of explaining to do. That much was clear. Because he was carrying a non standard amount of important cards and it looked like he was recruiting zombies for his multilevel marketing scheme.

If this was what it took? He would do it.