Drones atop the three great towers which marked the cornerstones of Exarchi's fort loaded large bolts onto the ballistas which watched over the surrounding fields. Not a moment sooner, all three ballistas fired at a large hulking monster charging towards the castle.
The beast's head was shot off, and its body tumbled upon the gray ground. The undead following it were swiftly destroyed by a Rhankish cavalry charge.
The bones of the dead were crushed by the rolling heavy horses, and those that still dared to defy death were sent back to purgatory by the blades of the Rhankish horsemen.
As quickly as they came, the horsemen immediately fell back into the castle, and the men cheered as they destroyed another group of horrors. It was just another roaming undead which acted more like feral animals than an organized threat. At the start, there were only a handful of skeletons attacking, but over the time the number of undead had increased.
Still, Agrianos couldn’t help but shake his head as the last battle concluded.
"I, too, wouldn’t be that amazed by such a boring bunch of bastard! They just rode out! They did nuthin'!" Oyuf cursed with a hoarse voice.
"Nay, not that. It's been a few days since we planet the Hand of Humanos but the Church hasn't attacked in full force yet," Agrianos corrected. "Any news from your scouts, Warlord Exarchi?"
"They will come," Exarchi replied.
"What? Who will come? The northmen scouts or the undead?" Oyuf asked.
"The undead, you fool!" Agrianos retorted before turning back to Exarchi. "How long do you estimate before the undead arrive?"
"Our enemy will appear in the vicinity within seventeen hours, thirty minutes, and fifteen seconds," Exarchi answered.
"Strangely exact, but you’re sayin’ they’ll be here in a day?" Oyuf asked.
“Less than a day,” Exarchi corrected.
“By Humanos! We should tell the others!” Agrianos exclaimed as he and his retainers scattered to spread the news.
Exarchi nodded. There were some people willing to risk their lives and scout outside of the safety of the walls, but few were willing to venture far. Even amongst the human bastions, there were only a handful of individuals considered mad enough to scout out the undead in advance.
Luckily for the drones, they didn’t have fear or stamina… and they could even fly. Just across the battered lands, a squadron of aerial drones was battling a flock of undead carrion crows. The crows pecked at the drones’ rotary wings and clawed at the metallic exteriors, causing some aerial drones to crash onto the ground. In retaliation, the aerial drones slammed themselves into groups of crows while flailing their attached powered saws, a modification unique to Exarchi’s aerial drones.
For every drone unwinged, dozens of crows were shredded into bundles of meat and feathers. However, the fight didn’t last long. The aerial drones grabbed all of the fallen drones with their tiny pincer claws attached at the bottom of their body before retreating. While the undead could get an ubiquitous amount of undead birds, Exarchi couldn’t replenish any lost or permanently damaged aerial drones—at least not until an outpost could be set up.
Down below, armies of disorganized zombies marched towards one direction. The dead varied from human carcasses to large monstrosities, as if the army was raised haphazardly and without care for quality. Behind them were squares of infantry flanked by horsemen ridden by half-skeletal soldiers. Unlike the vanguard, these undead displayed great cohesion and discipline. Not only that, they also raised different banners proudly up into the air.
Without warning, the ground exploded. The quake of the ground was seemingly drowned out by the continuous march of the undead, but soon the entire field ruptured.
The liches leading the army panicked, though there were a few horsemen who seemed to calm about the whole affair.
"How annoying. I didn't even-… even detect any presence-... of magic," a lich grumbled between gasps. He was surrounded by armored horsemen and, most notably, he was guarded by two women draped in white.
"Lord Tanne, this is a trick made by the… demons?" one of his fellow noblemen asked.
"Yes. Now, let us see what-... Brother Farold will do," Tanne replied as he pointed his chin towards the front.
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A man wearing a bear pelt over his head raised his hand, stopping the undead horde. With another wave of his hand, a line of undead disintegrated into dust. Their essence was absorbed by Farold, and he felt a surge of energy flowing within his body.
"The Pontiff hears my call!" he shouted as he clenched his hand into a fist. The ground in front of him shook violently before exploding. The explosive mines left by Exarchi's forces were triggered, and a path was left open.
Exarchi, who was watching the undead through video feeds, nodded with a strange sensation of loss. "It seems that I didn't take magic into account. I'll have to accept this setback."
The aerial drones returned back to the fort, while the spider drones sent to harass the undead were forced to scatter before they could even start. Luckily for Exarchi, the undead couldn’t detect the presence of the unliving machines so the drones were free to stalk the undead from afar.
For the rest of the day, the defenders of the fort spent the time preparing and hoping for the best.
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Horns were blown from the outer walls. The fanfare for the arrival of the beginning of the end.
The walls were lined with plentiful archers and sparse amounts of mages, while the gates were guarded by the infantry. The less experienced warriors were readied at the courtyard to plug any holes in the defense or to work as support.
The drones, on the other hand, stood guard in the inner sections. While this caused unease among the humans, they were hoping that they probably had some sort of plan in mind.
“Over there! I see them!” an archer warned.
On the horizon, a black dot appeared on a hill. A line covered the hill until the dirt mound turned into a mountain. No, it was clear that the hill wasn’t turning into a mountain.
‘The undead is finally here!’ - the blackening skies seemed to scream as the undead crows filled the air with the smell of death and decay. Despite their experience on the battlefield, the endless cawing still got into the nerves of a few soldiers.
“Looks like we’re eating birds tonight, me lads!” Oyuf shouted so loud that the entire fort could hear it despite the cawing, which garnered a few laughs from the defenders. The Vyssians started bashing their weapons against their shields, as if taunting the undead from afar.
The sight of defiance by Oyuf and his men snapped the humans back into their fighting state. Not only that, they realized that the shadow that loomed over them wasn't from the vile crows. It was from the towers!
When the murders got close to any of the towers, lines of flames whipped the skies apart. Fire and embers sparked mid-air, almost as if they were trying to imitate fireworks. The mage drones stationed at the towers incinerated the crows into ashes, and when the birds tried to fly down, they were met with a new wave of arcane magic from the human mages below.
Any attempts to attack from the air failed, and the crows were forced to take a spectator role for the clashes to come.
Black bolts of magic were shot from the undead’s side, clearly aimed at key points, but they all shattered upon contact with the defensive barrier set up by the humans. Not only that, it seemed that magic in general was weaker than expected.
“Brother Farold! The humans are using demonic magics!” a lich shouted at Farold. “Our spells are too weak to break through the barriers!”
“We will have to rely on our faith and sacrifice, then!” Farold announced as the first wave of undead charged towards the fort. Shambling corpses, barely resembling their former selves, shattered upon the first volley of arrows, but it was of no consequence to Farold. In order to stop the sea of undead, the humans will have to bring something better than a bucket!
And bring something better, they did.
When the fifth wave of undead were half-way towards the fort, they were all spontaneously launched into the air. The ground turned into a mess of blood and bone as the servants of the Church splattered all over the field.
The human mages, veteran seerists of the Humanosian Faith, were trained to use low-intensity simple magic to achieve the most. After all, it was they who understood the most that fighting against the dead was an uphill battle of attrition.
A straightforward air blast from the feet was all it needed to eliminate the next few waves. Even if the undead weren’t launched that high in the air, it still caused them to tumble and stop in their tracks.
Hours of endless one-sided slaughter turned the day into night. Yet, the battle continued. Arrows and magic crushed one group of the living dead after another. The occasional monstrous beast would be immediately shot down by the three ballistas placed on top of the fort towers.
When the sun had risen, the exhausted defenders on the walls were replaced with a new set of people. Some even collapsed on their spot and had to be dragged away.
“It-It doesn’t stop! They’re endless!” a man shouted when he saw that, despite the fact that the ground had practically been replaced with a mass grave, there was still a massive army of zombies waiting to take their turn.
“They’re desperate! Now switch with me! You’ll take over!” a tired defender replied.
When afternoon came, the defenders had to be replaced with a fresh set of warriors. Ammunition had to be moved around as well. There was no rest for the defenders as the situation was becoming dire.
The undead was progressing at a steady pace, as evident by the fresh corpses strewn across untainted grass. The mages had to intensify their spells as well, pushing the undead back before tossing them up into the air.
As night came, it wasn’t clear who was winning. The mages had become comfortable with the amount of mana in the environment, so they were able to fine-tune their spells to increase the intensity while decreasing mana consumption. Perhaps there was hope that they could last an entire month?
Unfortunately, that hope was not to last.
When dawn came, the morale of the defenders were shaken when they heard of a dreaded news - “TREBUCHETS!”