We marched out of Maltis a week later. We waited that long to be certain Freya and Gallus had a firm handle on the city. In that time, I had created another ten necromancers for my army. Freya told me she was planning on sending out forces to conquer smaller villages and hamlets in my name nearby.

We marched south and then east, heading deeper into the plateau. When I had fled from Omark, I’d stayed near the edge, but that was the least populated area. Now we headed deeper in. The fact I had not heard anything from the friar was beginning to cause me more and more concern. He was in the south still, but even Bishop Dolores hadn’t seemed to think he was doing much. My interest in the friar had confirmed who she thought I was.

In the week we were at Maltis, reinforcements had continued to arrive. A group of one hundred grave guard with long pikes had showed up. We were heading out into the planes, pikes would be great for dealing with calvary. I also hope to get better use of the mounted troops I had, fighting in the city was not great for mounted troops.

As we marched, my numbers swelled. I rode near the front noticing a shambling column moving to join us from a side road we were approaching. They were led by Tola, who’d gone and conquered nearby villages. Out of curiosity to see exactly where things were at, I pulled up the army tab, Abimelech was constantly updating it.

Total soldiers in army: 9,271

Troops

Mindless Undead

Zombies trash troops: 6,152 (0.1 command points)

Undead Troops

Bone Arches: 1000 common troops (.5 command point)

Bone Guard: 1465 common troops (.5 command point)

Pike Bone Guard: 100 common troops (.5 command points)

Mounted Bone Guard: 200 uncommon troops (1 command point)

Life Thief: 107 uncommon troops (1 command point)

Advanced Greater Eldritch Death Elemental Zombie: 25 rare troops (1.5 command point)

Necromancer: 15 rare troops (1.5 command points)

Monster and Construct Undead

Flesh Golems: 19 uncommon monsters (5 command point or 1 monster handler point)

Mobile Eldritch Death Bone Cannon: 10 rare constructs (10 command points or 1 construct controller point.)

Undead Officers

Captain: 15 advanced greater zombie nexuses. (1 command point of captain rank)

Lieutenants: 51 advanced eldritch death knights, 35 advanced eldritch bone archer. (1 command point of lieutenant rank)

Sergeant: Control zombie. 47 uncommon troop (1 command point of Sargent rank)

Living Dead

Living Dead Troops

Juggernauts: 4

Death Cleric: 10

Living Dead Officers:

Lieutenant colonels: 11 exalted living dead (1 command point of lieutenant colonel rank)

Colonels: 2 exalted living dead (1 command point of colonel rank)

Commander in Chief: Lich (command point not needed)

Living

Troops:

Specialist: 1 Raven – Werecat (1 specialist command point needed)

Officers:

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Chief of Staff: 1 Maxwell Cromwell (1 staff command point needed)

The death clerics were from Freya, having insisted I take some since I had great need of them and she did not need all of them, or so she said. I had more of the mindless undead that I could control with just the controllers from Vito, so several of my necromancers were in charge of them. The extra necromancers were also helping control the undead constructs and monsters, I needed to create whatever type of undead was supposed to control those.

After every fight we had, I tried to create more of the constructs of both the flesh golems, which were monsters, and the mobile eldritch bone cannons which were constructs. They were powerful additions to the force and great force multipliers, but they were eating up a lot of command points that I needed. As it was, I had no spare necromancers outside of the Dread Thirteen and I didn’t want to tie them down.

***

The ground shook and horns blared stirring General Sextus back to awareness. His army was arrayed only a few kilometers outside of town. He didn’t remember the name, having arrived the previous day after a long day of marching. The plan had been to dig in and fortify before the enemy arrived. Unfortunately, at the end of a long day of building fortifications, a scout informed him that the undead horde was only hours away.

That meant neither the officers nor the troops got the sleep they so desperately needed. A tired troop rotation was taking place while the soldiers slept wherever they could find comfortable spots on the field behind hastily built barricades. At any one time about half of his force was asleep.

The general himself didn’t have time to sleep. He had been inspecting the defenses, some of which weren’t much more than sharp stakes driven into the ground pointed away.

As flares of purple eldritch light blossomed out in the dark fields beyond his troops, exhaustion turned into fear and adrenaline. They had marched hard to make it here in time to protect the village. The blasted crows had convinced the civilian population to not do the reasonable thing and flee before the undead.

Many of the civilians even voiced quiet thoughts about the rumors coming out of the lands that had already fallen to the undead. Rumors that couldn’t possibly be true, rumors of tireless labor forces, order, and even, the most dreaded rumor for any ruler to hear about a rival kingdom, less taxes.

The force under Sextus’s command numbered five thousand. Five hundred of which were a light calvary division, which dared not ride at night. The horses would assuredly break their legs on unseen obstacles.

The thundering grew louder as the hissing sound of arrows falling amongst his troops could be heard. His own ranged companies returned fire, flaming arrows flying out into the darkness. The arrows lit up the horde. Thousands of undead raced towards them. Swirls of magic propelling them faster.

His magical corps struck out. If they survived, he would have to complement their colonel for organizing them so quickly. Balls of bright white fire fell upon the undead. Then exploded against dark barriers illuminating the night.

While the attack did not penetrate the barriers it did break the concealing magic, revealing his foe. Hordes of disorganized undead, neat lines of armored infantry, flights of arrows, mounted figures flanking out to the right, lumbering monstrosities, and figures on mounts that spewed forth eldritch fire charging down the middle. Though none of that held his attention.

What Sextus saw and what made him go cold and curse the tardy war cleric that was supposed to be reinforcing him with a thousand of the church’s warriors were the four massive figures headed straight for his front line. They ran in a straight line abreast of his army. They did not move with the lumbering slowness like legends told of giants, they sprinted.

The weapons they held were crude. And they wore nothing more but ragged pieces of cloth. But their hands ended in vicious claws and the roar they released when their concealment was shattered had the general’s army crying out in fear and horror.

“Artillery, target them!” Sextus’s voice boomed. A moment later the scorpions and catapults fired. The long bolts and boulders hammered towards the onrushing juggernauts. However, they made one vital mistake by targeting more than a single of those giants. All four juggernauts staggered, but it was not enough.

Before a second volley could be fired, they hit the front line. The prepared barricades shattered. Two of the juggernauts, the ones on the far left and right, held long poles that had likely once been trees. Along those poles were jagged pieces of stone and metal. With one hand they hammered clusters of men while the other reached out with claws.

And when their mouths opened, they released a torrent of purple eldritch flames that turned the night into a nightmare. His magical corps struck out a bolt of lightning, hammering one of the juggernauts causing them to stagger. In response, one of the two center juggernauts roared. Power built over its crowned head in between the spikes coming from its shoulder.

It took only a moment for the sizzling blast of power that hammered out from the section of wizards of his army to draw the beast’s attention. The eldritch power exploded in a deafening roar that ripped apart the earth as it expanded. Then, as if not to be outdone, the one female juggernaut struck. Her power at first seemed less, being not as aggressive as the others, but when beams of eldritch power blasted from her eyes and traced around his army, eviscerating all it touched, it became clear she was far from the least.

“Archers, focus on bringing them down one at a time,” Sextus ordered, his tired brain finally stirring him to action. But it was too late, for though the four juggernauts were terrible, the riders on mounts of eldritch fire were far worse.

As that terrible power exploded along his front line once again, spells wrapped around the juggernauts, strengthening and speeding them up even more, Sextus turned to shout an order. Only, to his horror, he suddenly could not speak. He felt something wet, and his hands came up to his throat and came away covered in blood. A moment later, he saw violet eyes and fluffy ears before his world closed in around him.

***

The battle turned into a slaughter. Raven had rode in on the backs of the juggernauts and made a beeline for the general. He was a competent man, a true leader, but not a warrior. Regardless, with the front lines broken, the command structure decapitated, and chaos raining, the army didn’t even have a chance to surrender.

My horde swept over them, destroying them in completion. No horse, mage, or even a lowly trooper survived. The mounted detachment of bone guard hunted down all who fled. The army general, Sextus, was no more.

My own scouts had warned me of his approach, and we had purposely disguised how quickly we could move. When he had marched in and began to set up, we could strike that night while he and his would be tired. His magical corps was competent, but weak for a force that size. He was meant to be augmented by the church, yet it was late.

The complete and other destruction of his army was so that we could ambush the priests next. They would have no warning that their expected allies were no longer available.

I laughed to myself. Well, they would be available, just not in the way they expected.