"I thought that I won't be able to make a difference here. You know? Being similar to this world and all. But it looks like that is not the case. Maybe at this point in time it would have been easier to just send me back home," Anthony said, over the sound of the horse's hooves.

It was just loud enough that Anthony had been able to talk the elf's ear off. Finley had been letting him vent for some time, acting as the midwife's therapist.

Up ahead, a flash of brown fur and horns darted across the road. A full family of the creatures took the time to survey the oncoming caravan.

The sight of a few deer moving alongside of the road in a pack gave him some much-needed respite. It had been some time since he had seen anything except for horses and zombies. The fact that it looked like an entire family of them made him smile. Maybe things weren't going to be so bad after all.

Anthony wondered if it would be possible to secure anything approaching victory. Anything beyond Survival had been a pipe dream up until the day that they were getting further away from the horde. Anthony had assumed that any zombies would be able to march all day and all night and would not require rest. Therefore they would only be limited by their marching speed.

Finley's off the cuff calculations told him that the horses needed to rest for at least five hours a day. That didn't include the time that they needed to spend eating or drinking. If they had some way to get air superiority, they could just cast spells from up on high to kill as many zombies as possible. They might rain down destruction without fear of being turned.

That was part of the reason that everyone had zeroed in on the airship idea. Despite their ragtag appearance, things were beginning to look up. Finally seeing some wildlife, gave him the impression that things might be a little better.

His people might just be heroes summoned from his homeworld. They were also some of his only friends. He couldn't imagine this journey without them. It would be even worse if they fell in battle; they would turn into death knights. At least that was the current consensus.

So they rode on into the mid-afternoon without stopping for lunch.

When they cleared a ridge to see a far off lake, Anthony realized how far apart things were. It's behind them into the north where the Foothills that grew and grew until the mountains touched the sky. Ahead of them, ground finally stopped sloping several leagues beyond where they were, opening up into a grassland. The wooded areas on the side of them would once again received and if there was an Army on the March it will be visible.

He was unfortunate then to realize that there was smoke coming up from somewhere behind them. One of the riders came up to mention it to him. Anthony asked them to talk to Bob about it. Bob confirmed that the smoke was in the same direction as the death knight.

Something that Bob was also able to confirm was that they were not within five leagues of the death knight. Based on the death knights movements, they might not be the intended victim.

There was no room for a back and forth as the caravan moved along. It wasn't time to discuss what they would do next, but he was ready for the next town.

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"This next town, Arva is only notable because it's in between so many places. There are a lot of single family homes. This is where most of the grain is grown for the kingdom. These mostly are for the pack animals. They used to bundle them off and ship them from here."

"What did they grow up by Dunnamore? If this is for feeding pack animals that is," Anthony said, wishing he had binoculars

"Dunnamore had more vegetables and had a focus on corn. Dwarves love their whiskey and all," Finley said. "Not that I cared, mind you."

The caravan had stopped at a hill overlooking the outskirts of the town. Finley had wanted to pause to feed the horses before they considered a raid on the town. North of them, the horde hadn't shown up and it was going to be late afternoon soon. They would need to make a decision about their night accomodations, sooner rather than later.

"You want to lead a raid?" Anthony asked Bob.

Bob had begun to sketch the area doing a model of the town in the dirt. They could see the entire place from their vantage point. It wasn't difficult to represent the roughly forty buildings with rocks. By now they had a collection.

"We go down the center. We hit these houses first," Bob said gesturing with a knife as large as his forearm. " Then we take it block by block. Once we have the first block, Sonya comes in and secures it just like we did with that Mansion. This time we'll try to secure two buildings. That is to say we do the tower defense thing."

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"I am the tower?" Anthony said.

"You along with Finley, Zan and Andrew support Sonya. Everyone else is either on the front line or guarding you," Bob said. " It's a three-phase operation. The first phase is my team going in and clearing this block. Once is clear, the second phase is holding it. The third and final phase is the rest of it. We do this right? We'll be done before dark."

"There are only so many houses to search," Anthony said. "You're going to have Sophie and Stella with you as well as the monks?"

"That is the plan," Bob said getting up and once again looking intently at the town. "Finley, there's nothing more of the town? I'm not missing something on the other side of the hill?"

"This town exists mostly because there's only so far that a farmer wants to walk to get to a tavern. So safe to say, there are some farming estates that are farther out but none close enough to be a factor in this."

Arva was quiet. If it wasn't for the few zombies that roamed the town, it could have been a town in Nebraska. Anthony nodded.

"I think that we're ready. Are you taking the horses in?"

There was some discussion about whether they should arrive mounted or on foot. None of them has been trained as cavalry. None of them even had a mounted combat card. Taking a horse you were new to into battle? That was a huge liability. Bob guessed that he could run the distance in about twenty minutes or so, but he didn't want to try that. The grass was high enough to hide in as well which was another problem, if the zombies could find them in the grass.

"I think we all move," Anthony said. "There's no purpose in us splitting up like this. We go close enough to back you up, but far enough that if we have to split we split."

"Sounds good," Bob said. "Mount up?"

"Let's ride."

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Stella was the lucky one who got to lead the charge. She broke off from the caravan on one of the mares, Bob and Sophie hot on her heels.

Still had envisioned a lot of things for her future. She dreamed of one day graduating from college and getting a professional job. She never dreamed of holding out a spear and making a charge towards a very visibly zombie affected area.

It didn't exactly align with her vision of herself as she had been. But she could totally accept this current version.

They closed in on the very first house. Though there was a lot of room to expand, they had chosen to build close to each other. It kind of looks like suburban sprawl to her again. Three zombies in the main road took notice of them. They turn in their direction and began to move with a purpose.

Stella looked over to Bob and Sophie before slowing her canter. The horse seemed a bit wary of continuing on. She tapped into her animal handling trying to soothe it.

"It's only three zombies. We can handle three. In fact, there are three of us," Stella said. "And since I'm in charge, I'm going to count you horses. So we already outnumber them."

Her horse whinnied.

"Yeah I hear you, got it."

Stella cast an ice lance spell on the lead zombie. She was quickly followed up by a crossbow bolt taking down the second. She gave Sophie a bit of a side eye.

She was rebuffed by a bolt of blue lightning which arced straight through the third zombie. It wasn't as loud as she expected it to be. There was no thunder, just a small explosion where it contacted.

That explosion would probably draw more zombies in. Stella turned to Bob indicating with her head which way she wanted him to move. As he wheeled around, Sophie and Stella kept their focus on the front. This explosion had the potential to draw out some of the stragglers. As the grass was at least hip height, any zombies laying down in it could be obscured easily.

Bob had some abilities to find his chosen enemy easily. He had chosen zombies after a short deliberation. It was much easier for him to spot them. Stella was just doing her due diligence to make sure that they didn't move forward and get cut off.

It was true that they had three dependable horses, but there was no way that she was going to lose them. She patted her mare while checking her mana pool; so far, so good. She kept her head on a swivel, looking for any zombies to pop up in the grasslands.

Bob came back to her side and gave her the thumbs up, she focused on the front. About a dozen more zombies had appeared, popping up in between the houses. Most were two blocks away, but some were further. Stella hoped that this would make the next steps easier. After all, if they had freedom of movement, why would they stay in any of the houses?

"Light them up," Bob said, taking aim with his crossbow, "I'm going to hit from right to left."

He didn't wait for them, loosing a bolt as Stella prepared her favorite spell. Mist poured out of her hands as she concentrated on the packed dirt road ahead of them. She drunk deep from her mana well, as ice coalesced on the ground. She would get most of them with this spell, causing them to fall down if they walked on the ice.

It was up to Sophie to make the most of it.

Stella pulled even more mana, her cup going from half full to half empty in short order. In less than a minute, she was spent. She brought out her spear.

Any zombies that broke free would be heading straight into her melee range. She would take their heads clear off once they got into range, if they even did. Bob continued to fire bolts into the zombies, his aim continually surprising her. She now saw four zombies with bolts through their heads down the main road. In their haste, several of their peers had fallen over the corpses.

The closest were still at least a block away when they encountered the ice. None of them were able to walk on the ice and after skating for a short time, they all invariably began to crawl on the ice.

This made the perfect targets of opportunity for Sophie. Stella took a moment to get completely clear of the road as Sophie lit them up.

Stella checked on Bob. There was little doubt in Bob face as to if he would have made the same choices. He smirked, the lightning casting alternating shade and light against him. He looked delicious and Stella wondered how long they would need to slay zombies before she could relax again with him.

Another lightning bolt snapped her out of it as the explosion was a fair bit louder than the rest. She dared a look behind them and could see Sonya raising an the beginning of an earth wall, leaving a gap for their retreat if needed.

"Time to get to work," Stella said, dismounting.

She waved to the monks behind them to join the fight.