Ethan awoke in a bed opened his eyes and groaned. He felt his side ache.
“He’s awake,” said Arron from afar. “Don’t move and stay still, please. Your injures are still active and you need to rest.” Arron was soon beside him.
“What happened? I can’t remember much after the flesh golem first fell and what are my injuries?” Ethan asked.
“I can go over your injuries first. You blew up the golem’s core with some dangerous magic which caused a shockwave, and you were thrown to the ground. We’ve healed your ears from the damage and set your ribs back into place after you broke them. It will take a bit longer to heal them. There were a few other minor injuries that have already been taken care of. You may still be feeling the side effects of the headache.”
Ethan lay back with his head on the pillow still feeling the injuries described and some he hadn’t. He tried moving his hand and felt his wrist was also sore along with his shoulder.
“After the core exploded the golems head was torn off from the shockwave and then the rest of its body fell. We weren’t able to control its fall so the golem did fall on part of the wall. After it died the undead started retreating. The smart ones at least. From there the battle was over. We sent scouts out and found that the undead had left.”
“What happens now?” asked Ethan.
The general stepped in watching the two of them.
“Now we rebuild somewhat and change up our defenses,” he said. “You won’t be leaving this outpost until the defenses barrier breaks. Once it does so the soldiers stationed here will destroy the deactivated barrier pillar until it is dust. We will not let them know how to recreate the defensive structures that have been a strategic resource to our people.”
“What were our losses? Will be getting any more support?”
Arron jumped in and answered his questions. “For the ground soldier’s side, we lost about a third of our forces. As for the mages, we lost twenty-two of them. None of them were the leaders. We at least did our job in that part and protected them.”
“Oh good.”
“As for the second question. We won’t be getting any more personnel support. After the general sent word of our victory a caravan from the nearest outpost sent over some more food and supplies because we’ve been running a tight ship here.”
“So, what are we doing now?”
“Continue as usual,” said the general. “Build up the defenses once more here and wait to hear back from central command. We believe that now that most of the forces are situated here they may move to attack other outposts instead to spread out people. Or they may try to finish off this outpost once new forces are gathered to combat what they know us to be capable of. For now, you will stay here because this outpost is the south most one and is still the most likely target. The human forces will also stay here. If the undead attack the other outposts then the gnome forces will fight them off. If they only attack one outpost then we will notify you and bring you and a few of the others in to assist. You have been a great asset and we wouldn’t want you to stay here if you are needed elsewhere.”
“What if they decide to attack multiple outposts at once?” asked Ethan.
“That is another possibility and will likely result in you staying here to fight unless this outpost isn’t one of the ones being targeted.”
“Thank you for coming in and checking on him,” said Arron. “Would you like some food?” he asked Ethan.
The general stepped back and left the room recognizing he was done here.
“That would be great.”
Arron left the room as well and returned with food. Ethan ate it before sleeping for much of the day. A few healers came to check on him and give him more healing now that he had food in him. The next day he felt able to walk around so Arron showed him around the outpost. While talking he also learned that he had been unconscious for two days.
First, he was brought to the gate was being rebuilt with the broken stone with the help of earth mages. Beyond the gate, the bodies of the soldiers had been brought inside for funeral rites before they and the undead were burned. In this fight they could not allow the necromancers to use their own against them, so everything was burned. It took some time and horses, but the golem’s body was moved out of the outpost after crashing in and had also been destroyed over the last three days.
Walker and other plant and nature mages worked on repairing the cracks in the walls after the flesh golem was moved. The spirits and other undead had made many cracks and broken-off pieces that needed to be regrown, reinforced, and then reenchanted. That last step wasn’t done as much because no one knew how best to do so, so it was left with minimal enchantments in some places.
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Inside the outpost, the burned houses were torn down, and more temporary areas were erected. It was too costly to rebuild and was ultimately unessential to the defense of the outpost for the most part. Most of the new structures were large tents like the ones already set up while some were stone huts made by the earth mages to store things in.
Over the next few days, Ethan recovered, ate, and began assisting in the restoration of the outpost. It would never be perfect again, but it was acceptable. As most of the structures were made to be back in place the soldiers and mages took up other duties. Eli returned to the old battlefield to make new traps. Some of the mages who came from the battle joined him in designing the new stuff and building off of what had worked.
The mages trained constantly and improved using their knowledge from battle. Ethan and Arron returned to teaching. While recovering he sat down and explained the spells and techniques to the mages while they listened to him. The four mage leaders for the group also returned to training with ferocity. They all had taken part in major parts of the battle and faced the undead while under stress and exhaustion. They all took their training with more importance in their minds and knew where they had to improve.
After Ethan awoke the general left the outpost to perform other duties and visit the other outposts nearby. Ethan also got word that the ship containing the golem and crew was due back in a week or so. Zoe had gotten into range with her communication crystal off the coast and had sent word to the leaders and him. Ethan activated his communication crystal and listened.
“This is Zoe on the ship sent from the dwarven kingdom. We have completed our mission as requested and killed the dragon. The dwarves are happy with what we have accomplished and the agreement between us is now over. According to the captain we are about a week away. Please have the teleporting magician ready for us when we reach land. I will contact him again in about six days. I am sad today that we had some complications in battle and Ronny the dwarf who joined us and Kendra were injured. Kendra will not be able to join the battles for the foreseeable future. This also means that Aria will leave with her to get her treatment. She is currently in a coma after the battle. I take full responsibility for what happened and know that I could have prevented it with the tools available to me. I will meet with your gnome king to discuss options when I reach the capital. We will have much to discuss.”
Ethan put down the crystal as the message ended. Ethan looked down and frowned.
“I’m guessing the news wasn’t great by your face,” said Arron.
Ethan looked up to Arron.
“They did kill the dragon successfully, but Kendra the fire mage is injured. She and her sister are out of future battles for a while. Zoe will be at the capital for a day or two and then can travel here. We only need to last ten maybe eleven days here before we get some real backup.”
“That’s good to hear. What exactly happened to Kendra?”
“She said it was a coma. Hopefully, she can be healed. Aria is a good mind mage. She will find a way to wake her. Though I am surprised Zoe didn’t mention anything about Arthur or Lucas. They should be fine if she didn’t decide to include them in her message.”
“I’m sure they are fine. Maybe just a bit seasick. As for Arthur he will be busy training and growing stronger from what you have told me of him. With him stuck on a boat and with nothing to do but learn from your book of spells he will take to it like a fish in water.”
Ethan laughed. “Yeah, that sounds like him.”
It took another two days to hear back from the general. Scouts had spotted undead moving towards the nearest outpost. The undead had prepared a larger force against the other outpost. They couldn’t confirm if flesh golems were in use. Ethan began packing preparing for the trip and was set to leave the next morning. Then more info came into the outpost. This time it was from their outposts scouts. Ethan paused his packing and entered the old general’s tent now used for the dozen strongest humans and the few gnome officials still positioned here.
“Thank you for coming in. We are waiting for a few more before we start,” said the gnome official.
It was only a minute longer when Rich and Lydia entered the tent.
“Good, now that you are all here I can explain the scouts’ findings. The second wave has come of course but they are only a day and a half away.”
“What?” said Arron raising his voice. “How are they so close? How did they get through without us catching them sooner?”
“I was going to get to it, but it ultimately doesn’t matter anymore. We think it was some form of magic spell and the altered route they took helped as well because their armies are split. From what we can tell there will be 5000 this time at least. Mostly made up of wights and zombies. We believe they expect to be able to siege the outpost with magic and level this place. Personally, I think they are right and if they had 1000 more of their forces a few days ago they could have taken this place earlier using the hole made by the dead flesh golem.”
“How are we supposed to defend with fewer troops now and more enemies?” asked Rich.
“I think we don’t. At least the general doesn’t think so. He has made the decision to oversee the other outpost instead. The gnome forces will be withdrawing from this outpost except for me and a few others. We are required to oversee that this outpost’s defensive structures are removed preferably very destructively. Along with the current rations in the shipment, some explosives were brought as well. You will fight until I deem it necessary to retreat at which point this outpost will be demolished and you may flee with us. Over the next day and a half manual traps should be set everywhere within this place. You all will assist in preparing for this loss and help make the undead suffer for our loss.”
“This is a bunch of bullshit,” said Rich. “We could defend this place from five thousand if we just had more troops and assistance. We shouldn’t leave this place.”
“If you wish to stay here and burn with the walls I won't stop you,” said the gnome, “But everyone else should expect to perform a fighting retreat. Your people are still needed in this fight and can will be useful elsewhere. Currently though, this outpost’s walls and magic are failing. We let through too many spirits already. If they send just spirits we may be forced to destroy the outpost without killing a single undead. Now I will let you decide what you wish to do but if you try to interfere with the current plans then you will be punished.”
“I think I got the message,” said Rich.
“Good. Now I got your assignments here. Now get to work. The undead march day and night. We only have so much time.”