“This is a big one, captain!” one of the archers cried out.

The gate shook with the impact of the undead. The heavy beams screamed from the sheer pressure of rotten bodies pushing against the gate.

This will not hold.

Archers had been releasing arrows for minutes, the barrels next to them dangerously close to being empty. I paced up and down behind the backup line, eager, war-hungry, and annoyed. There was no space for me on the walls. There was nothing to kill down at the gate.

The undead moaned and growled, beating their broken bodies against the wooden palisade. They clawed and bit and reached for the men on the ramparts. Soon, bloodthirsty hands managed to grab feet above the sharpened beams as bodies mounted outside. Men with swords and spears pushed them back, more arrows slammed into rotten flesh, and yet I still wasn't able to get to any of them. Captain Griff stabbed down, barked orders, and wiped sweat and blood from his face.

Bleff was busy running around, still buffing people and throwing a weak heal every now and then, but hardly anyone noticed him. Zandalee was up there, too, flinging wyrd-tongued spells down at the horde. Threelegs was counting every kill, shouting to anyone who’d listen how well he was doing. Perhaps he was afraid to end up like Zandalee’s husband. Who knew…

One of the guards suddenly shrieked desperately as several hands grabbed for him, their fingers wrapping around his shoes and pants, giving them just enough perch to pull the man over the palisade and down into the swarm of the undead.

To the Frostlands with you, old boy.

I shot up the ramp in long strides, took his place, and looked down at the undead numbers. Hundreds, perhaps even a thousand zombies were milling outside the gate and spilling to both sides, east and west of the entrance like a river crashing against a rock. There was the mistake, there was the waste of resources and the great risk. When your wall is wood or rock, you’ll always fear it cracking.

My words of wisdom fell on deaf ears, but they would learn soon enough. Learn or perish.

The undead came in the same sizes as everyone else in the overworld. Humans, gnomes, dwarves, lizard-folk, even elves, and those wood creatures, all pale, rotting, and mindless. Many were like Marabel, slow, lumbering onward seemingly without a goal. But many more seemed nimble, strong, and focused on destruction like their cursed brothers, the demonfolk.

Those crawled over the corpses of their foul companions and reached upward toward the men at the walls. I slashed and hacked at the grabby bony hands that kept inching closer with every rotten corpse piling up beneath. So did the men next to me, panting, swearing, reaping the oncoming horde with a trained rhythm.

YOU HAVE KILLED: HUMAN ZOMBIE

EXPERIENCE GAINED: +2

EXPERIENCE: 242/350

The experience gain was meager to say the least, but it didn’t dishearten me in the slightest. There were ample bodies to put to the sword, after all.

A sinewy, greenish undead elf managed to lift his foot on the palisade and jump on one of the soldiers, tackling him backward and off the wall. The backup line waiting there quickly came to his aid, pulling the undead off the man. The drooling, enraged monster flailed mindlessly around, slashing the throat of one of the men before it died in a mass of swords and spears.

“Section two is giving in!” a voice cried from atop the wall just to the right of the gate.

“Section three is giving in, too!” another voice, this one to the left, called out as well. The beams to either side of the gate were being chipped away by furious claws and bony teeth.

“Backup line, split and reinforce both sides!” Griff ordered and the fifteen men hastened to follow their orders.

Just open the damned gates!

Griff was thinning out his defenses while trying to hold every single spot on the wall. It was simply impossible. A ruinous strategy that the First Father had warned us about eons ago.

Another angry zombie, this one the size of a gnome came skittering over the wall and latched itself onto the nearest archer. The man staggered away, almost falling off the ramparts.

I grabbed the creature by its neck and raised it, stabbing my blade through its mouth. It gurgled and thrashed for a moment, then fell still.

The archer looked up at me with a mix of panic and surprise as I threw it back over the wall.

“How?” he mouthed. “How did you—”

I pulled the man to his feet and pointed over the wall. That seemed to shake him free of any doubt, and he quickly returned to releasing more arrows.

The answer was as simple as the Soulforge could offer. My Varian blood offered me a 300% increase in damage against demons and the undead, but these men couldn’t know that.

“Ruinbeast incoming!”

The warning cry was steeped in sheer horror. I looked out onto the great horde and saw a large, four-legged beast with great simmering boils covering its entire body stomp through the other undead. It crushed zombies with every step, but didn’t seem to be bothered by it at all.

“Good Kold,” I muttered, seeing that the creature was an amalgamation of smaller undead, humans, elves, dwarves, and whatnot else. They were all bound together by sheer hatred and testing Gods. The Ruinbeast knew no friends or foes as it lumbered through the other undead, squashing them beneath its feet.

I noticed Griff talking to his sergeant, a young man of broad shoulders and long black hair tied in a knot. Captain Griff landed a hand on the sergeant’s shoulder, looked deep into his eyes then addressed the rest of his men,

“Fight hard, brothers! The dawn will come! Archers, cover me!” With those words, Captain Griff leaped over the palisade and into the rotting swarm beneath.

Archers closed the spot where he stood moments before, and released a volley at anything that moved around the captain. The man slashed his sword in wide arcs, cutting through anything standing in the way between him and the Ruinbeast.

Words could not describe the awe I felt for that man as I watched him reach the towering abomination. I stopped everything I was doing and simply gazed at the heroic spectacle beneath. Could it be that these wretched people had the hearts of Varians?

“Cover the captain! Come on! Cover him!” the young soldier yelled, hacking downwards, his face caked in putrid blood. I rushed atop the gate to get a better look, finding myself next to him. Griff was engaged with the Ruinbeast, dashing around the monster with incredible speed, slashing across its blisters. Every single one that he opened, exploded with yellowish goo that sprayed across the horde. Where the deadly liquid landed, it scorched flesh and bone, making me realize why the captain had gone out in the first place.

A black orb exploded against the Ruinbeast, then several arrows, some of them lit aflame. I saw Zandalee and Threelegs a few spots to my left targeting the large monster. All this took away from the rest of the defense as more and more undead were climbing to the top of the wall.

“Section two! Section two!” someone yelled over the cacophony of battle. Griff managed to climb the Ruinbeast and drive his sword down into its back, creating deep holes in its rotten flesh. His left leg was steaming from a spray of yellow goo, and is face set agony.

“Help!” came the frantic voice of the soldier next to me. Several pairs of hands were pulling down at his legs. Soldiers grabbed onto the man and pulled back while I hacked off the grabby hands.

A lanky, feral-looking undead shuffled its way upward along the soldier’s body until it reached his neck and bit into it. The soldiers pulled him back by the arms with the zombie on top.

I pulled the mindless beast off him, shoved my sword through his back then slung it over the palisade.

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“Bleff!” I yelled. “Heal the sergeant!”

The goblin came rushing up the ramparts with his head in hands and covering his ears. He was trembling worse than the palisade by the time he arrived. The goblin took one look at the bleeding sergeant, then back up at me and shook his head.

“Do it anyway,” I said.

“The captain!”a voice shouted, then another.

I looked over the battlements and saw the Ruinbeast limping forward, putrid blood and rancid goo spilling out of its many wounds. Behind it, left in the deep footprints of the abomination, was Captain Griff’s lifeless body.

“Bring down the Ruinbeast!” I roared.

Were it to reach the gate and explode there it would take a dozen lives if not more.

Zandalee, Threelegs, and many of the archers rained down onto the massive abomination. Arrows, black orbs, and the occasional spear found their marks.

Finally, by the grace of Kold, the Ruinbeast staggered, its body littered with arrows like a pin cushion. The wounds were too many even for something of its size to keep on moving. It keeled over and fell to the ground with a wall-shaking thud.

“Bleff?” I asked as the goblin used his last heal on the dying sergeant.

“No way, the wound is way too deep. I’m sorry Shieldfather.” In one fell swoop the undead army had beheaded Roterwoods defenses. I saw the ruinous fear that latched itself onto the soldiers seeing their commander die. It came a Tide in every Shieldson’s life that brought these emotions to the surface. Fear, despair, then cowardice, and finally death. Not even us were not immune to it, and these men certainly weren’t either.

“Shieldfather, what do we do?”

I looked across the battlements and then at the horde. We hadn’t yet defeated half of their numbers but were already battered heavily and, even lost Captain Griff.

“We fight, Bleff. Even harder than before.”

“Uhm…okay. I’ll fight down there,” the goblin said, then quickly waddled down the ramp. As I watched him go, I felt claws dig into my back. I reached behind my shoulder, coiled my fingers around the nearest limb, and pulled the zombie over my shoulder and onto the wooden ramparts. I smashed my foot into its belly and forced a [Shield Slam] into its face, ruining it completely.

Another demon-friend came up the palisade, clawing at my hips. I stepped back, and just as I was about to swing my blade at its head, a second zombie, a tiny, wild gnome undead came flying at me from my right. I used [Triple Block], letting it bash against my shieldmid-air. It crushed its head and dropped beneath my feet.

I swung the shield toward the first one, blocked its claws, and used [Shield Bash] to stun it. The gnome undead, still not dead, pushed its claws into my legs. I took the pain, bit through it, then slid the sword between its shoulder blades. Finally, I turned to the first one and hacked its head off. I was already panting and feeling my strength reaching its ends when I heard words resounding from somewhere below.

“Chosen of Kold!” Fry cried out from the bailey.

“Chosen of Kold!” the man next to him cheered.

The soldiers around me who saw my battle, mouthed the words before they cried them out for the others too hear. Very soon, almost all mouths had picked up the chant.

“No more will die tonight!” I roared and it was met with a mix of cheers and agonized cries and the sickening moans of the undead.

I leaped down into the bailey and glanced at the gate. The three beams holding it together had splintered badly and were threatening to give in any minute. Both to my right and left, the palisade suffered damage to sections of wall, through which flailing hands and claws grabbed at whatever they could. The entire thing was about to collapse.

“What do we do?” Fry said. “We can’t hold much longer, not without Griff and Sergeant Thrin.”

“Backup line,” I yelled. “On me! Form against the gate. Abandon the other sections! Soldiers on the walls, too! Get down and form two lines, here and here. Now!”

I wasn’t used to people ignoring my orders, yet I expected as much from the Roterwooders. I was a nobody to these men and there was little reason aside from the few good kills I offered to listen to me. And yet, they obeyed, running down the ramparts and forming two lines. It was clear to me why this was the case, however. Losing a commander during a Tide more often than not meant utter destruction. Morale and courage were just as necessary as a good blade.

Whoever steps out and gains a grain of respect during those troubled times could be elevated to unite the remaining warriors, no matter who he was.

Those were the words of the First Father and they had proven true many times before.

“They’ll swarm the palisade without anyone on top!”

It was a fair assessment, but it came from the same flawed defensive logic that brought the town to the brink of death.

“Threelegs, help me with this!” I said, rushing to the gate and grabbing the side of one of the beams. The dwarf was surprisingly fast and agile, leaping onto the ramparts, and down into the bailey from there. He rushed over to me and grabbed the other side of the beam.

“What the hell ye think yer doing?”

“Trust me, brother. That is all I ask!”

The dwarf grunted hard but did as I ordered and we flung the first beam off the gate and into the mud, then the second.

“Section three is almost open. We need more people! The palisade won’t hold!”

“Chosen! What are you doing!” one of the soldiers standing in the two lines yelled.

“Soldiers of Roterwoods, brave men!” I yelled, hefting the last beam as the undead kept bashing against the gate. “I’m going to release the gate and let them flood inside. We stand our ground here. Abandon all positions and gather at the gate. All of you. To the gates!”

There was a moment of confused silence within which only the horde’s deadly wails echoed across the town.

“Do what he says!” Fry yelled, breaking the silence and as if woken from a dream, the town’s soldiers abandoned their posts and came rushing to the gates.

“Two lines! Archers move off the palisade, don’t be targets! Find high ground behind your brothers.”

I locked eyes with the dwarf and without another word, we flung the last beam off the lock.

“Positions!” I yelled and speared back into the first line to take point.

“Is this—is this smart?” One of the soldiers asked behind me. “Are we going to die tonight?”

“Shields up!” I ordered as the gate broke open and the zombie horde spilled in. A volley of arrows felled the first enemy line, but the second came at us with all the fury of the twice-born. There were now no words to steel the soldier’s hearts. Only actions.

I met the horde at the very front, cutting into them with abandon. My was boiling and my heart thundered in my chest. In my mind, I was back. I was Shieldfather and I was about to perform my duty.

Hell is waiting for you.

I was quickly overwhelmed by a deluge of rotten bodies, suffering claws and bites, blocking some attacks, striking back when I could.

A human zombie flung itself at me but met a [Shield Slam] instead of my flesh. It crashed into my steel, and then dropped into the mud with shattered bones. A second came flailing to my left, I ducked, slid my sword across its mid-section, letting its putrid insides wash onto the ground. I swung my sword wide like scythe reaping grain, the Varian blood within me lead my blade. The onslaught was like a pulsing wave of putrid flesh where eyesight meant little, and instinct was everything.

First Father guide me.

I activated [Triple Block], and defended against a pair of hungry claws aimed at my face from my right. Then blocked another, even angrier pair from my left that almost took my eye. I stabbed forward into rancid flesh. Pulled the sword out with a spray of green, rotten-smelling blood, clenched my teeth, and then blocked a frontal attack by a towering lizard undead. It staggered away from me after meeting my steel.

I sensed an opening, drove my shield into the ground, activating [Fissure]. Spikes of jagged rock erupted from below, skewering zombies on both sides. Smaller undead were sent flying, while heavier beasts had their legs torn from under them. Fetid blood and rancid flesh soured the ground and air. Another volley of arrows cut down the following advance. I straightened up and shook the blood from my blade.

“Kill the undead! For the Chosen!”

A stampede of boots behind me suddenly rushed forward, and iron flashed to both my sides as the Roterwood soldiers surged to claim what was theirs.

We fought shoulder to shoulder, sweating and bleeding, hacking, slashing, and dying. Undead heads flew from one side to the other. Limbs swirled through the air. Arrows rained against their backlines. Black orbs took out several groups at once, and a hailstorm of icy arrows coming from Threelegs shattered skulls and pinned zombies to one another.

“Onward!” I yelled, and the line moved, stepping over the undead, crushing them into the mud with heavy boots. Iron ruled and flesh melted before it.

It had been just as I knew. The horde had sensed an opening and disengaged from the other points. Their entire force now funneled through the main gate, pushing on, climbing over each other, getting squashed beneath their own filthy feet, clawing onwards, and craving our blood.

I felt the indescribable pleasure of having reached level seven sometime between heaving a zombie back into the enemy lines, and skewering another, but had little time to think about skill points.

Blades and spears cut through the enemy ranks. Shields held firm, soldiers covered each other, undead bowels sprayed the air, and pale limbs and bodies were crushed beneath our feet.

“Push them back through the gate!” I commanded, wiping stinking blood off my face.

With newfound vigor and courage, the Roterwood soldiers drove the undead out of the bailey and out through the entrance.

Archers ran back up the palisade and loosened more death upon the walking dead.

“First line, open your ranks, let the second line reinforce!” I yelled and the men and women from the backline surged forward as the first line fanned out opening spots for their kinsmen.

Without another order given, the Roterwooders spread into a crescent with the gate behind them.

The last of the zombies could do nothing against us. The rhythm of the blade sang through their ranks without mercy, without second thought.

I couldn’t tell how much longer we fought, but I knew the last zombie died even before the sun climbed over Apple Hill.

I felt my legs shake by the end . The sword in my hand still remained there only because my muscles cramped up enough for it not to slide out.

“The night is ours!” the soldiers cheered as they realized our victory.

“Hail the Chosen of Kold!” Fry yelled.

I was barely able to stand when the cheers began. None of the good men calling my name looked much better, though. They were bloody, exhausted, wounded, and a few lay sadly dead among the rotten corpses.

I stood there, taking the praise with my sword held high and my heart full of joy. Even here where overworlders met a fraction of our daily duty, here where weak men fought weak enemies, here where the people looked as rugged as the very undead they were up against, the First Father’s words rang true.

“Hail Bleff the Buffer!” someone else cried out as the goblin carefully waddled his way toward me. Bleff flinched at the sudden roar in his honor, but then grinned from ear to ear and offered us a little bow.

“How the fuck did ye pull this off, lad?” Threelegs said chuckling.

He had pieces of undead flesh stuck in his black beard. I looked over the sea of corpses and back up at the hard faces of the soldiers around me.

“By the shield in my hand and the iron in my heart, dwarf.”

Threelegs shook his head and snorted. “Kold is watching, friend. He’s always watching.”