Kevin McLaughlin
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Chapter 118 - Battle of Wills
🕑 Added 2025-03-14 21:52:48 +0000 UTCWhen I dropped out of the sky directly in front of the oncoming zombie horde, I wasn't sure what was going to happen. Would they stop? Keep coming? I had no way to know. There wasn't time to think about it, either. I knew my people needed time, and the only way they were going to get it was if I bought them some.
A human army might have stopped in its tracks. A zombie army? As it turns out, not a chance. They just kept lumbering forward, the same as they had been before. If I had been bluffing, that might have been a problem.
I wasn’t bluffing.
My sword sang through the air as I slashed down a zombie from the front ranks. Another fell, a second later. I was actually getting pretty good at this sword swinging stuff! For someone who had never owned a blade longer than about four inches, it was an impressive accomplishment, as far as I was concerned.
I gave ground as they continued to advance. One on one, or even ten on one, these tier one zombies were not really a threat. But if they could surround me, if they could grab onto me with enough of them, and pin me down in one spot, then I was going to be in a lot of trouble. I was tough, not invulnerable. So I backed away at the same speed they advanced, my blade flickering in the night air as the enemy struggled to catch me. I was leaving a good trail of severed zombie pieces behind us as I went. And they had slowed down. They hadn’t completely stopped, but they weren't pushing ahead as swiftly as they had been without resistance. A glance over my shoulder told me that our side's troops had already reached the crude defensive positions we'd constructed. I'd bought them enough time to reach the defenses. Now I was just whittling down the apparently endless enemy army.
All at once, two of the wraiths dove out of the sky, heading straight for me. I’d already had a bad experience fighting them one on one. Two of them would make quick work of me, so I launched myself skyward, using my Flight power, and sped back toward where the rest of my troops awaited. The wraiths stopped short of giving chase. One of them had already been nailed with a Fireball earlier. They'd learned the hard way that our group, while small, was still dangerous enough to be a serious threat to them. When we worked together, we could absolutely take a wraith down.
I landed next to Farnsworth. “Are we ready?”
“As we'll ever be,” Farnsworth replied.
I gave a mental command to my fire skeletons, ordering them to grab hold of ropes hidden in the grass. In unison, they pulled the ropes up in boney hands, ready to spring the next step of our preparations.
“Wait for it,” Farnsworth said. “We don't want to spring it too early. Wait for the right moment.”
For a long moment I had a feeling Farnsworth wasn't watching the same battle I was, because he allowed the zombies to get far closer to us than I would have. They were almost at our front ranks, about ready to start tearing into my Abominations. Ever closer they shambled. Another few seconds and they’d be engaged with our front ranks, and it would be too late…
I glanced over at Farnsworth again. “Now?”
“Now!”
Without hesitation, I passed the next command to my skeletons. They yanked up on the ropes, as did a group of ratkin who had been placed nearby to do the same on other ropes. Each pair of ropes was attached to a row of wooden stakes, all of them hastily lashed together with rope and cross beams. When the skeletons pulled the ropes, the stakes were lifted up to a 45-degree angle, directly in the path of the oncoming zombies.
They were too close and coming too fast to stop themselves. The front row of zombies impaled themselves on the stakes, growling at us as they died. The row immediately behind them continued forward as well, not seeing the fate of their fellows. They, too, found themselves impaled on the wooden spikes, pushing the other dead zombies forward as they did.
All up and down our front line, the scene repeated itself. Scores of zombies died in seconds. The rest of the horde stalled in their advance, unable to immediately get past their impaled fellows.
I had Sue launch a Fireball into their midst, shattering what little ‘formation’ the zombies had. More undead filed in behind the ones killed by the blast, the ongoing flood still crossing the road and marching toward us.
Two wraiths dove at Sue, slashing at the dinosaur’s head with their greatswords. Sue roared, snapping at them, and managed to tag one with a Fireball. It was wounded but not dead. The other wraith responded by slashing Sue on the neck, cracking a vertebrae.
Sue was tough, immensely strong, but I’d already seen them shatter bones and be unable to move as a result. I’d had to use multiple Heal Undead spells to get Sue back on their feet when the dino fell through the ground into the ant nest. If the wraiths took Sue down we’d lose a key powerhouse. I couldn’t let that happen.
Farnsworth saw me looking and nodded. “Go!”
He didn’t have to tell me twice. I darted skyward flashing toward the wraiths. I cast a Heal Undead as I moved, helping Sue recover from the damage already done. Now I just wanted to stop additional damage, and we’d be all set.
The wraiths didn’t see me coming, so my first swing was a doozy. I ran one of them through from behind—a nice payback for what one of them did to me, back in the mall. It shrieked in pain as I withdrew the weapon. Both of the wraiths turned on me, darting forward. I parried a greatsword blow with my blade, barely blocking it in time. They were so fast! And almost as strong as me, too.
Flight was sucking down my mana too quickly. I wouldn’t be able to maintain it for long. But I had an idea, and I sent Sue a mental command so the dinosaur would be ready for the moment when it came.
Both wraiths continued attacking me with their blades. I was all defense, now, barely keeping the blades away from me. I missed a block, the sword coming in under my shield and slamming into my side. I felt ribs crack, but the armor held this time, so I wasn’t bleeding.
The injury still staggered me, though, and I gave more ground, backing up, letting them follow me in just a little bit more…
Sue’s massive mount crunched down on the wraith I’d already injured. Those were some crazy big teeth, let me tell you! They were epic size, and they sliced into the wraith as easily as my sword had. Incredibly, the undead monster was still wriggling in Sue’s jaws, struggling to free itself. I cast a Drain Life on the thing, healing my broken ribs with the life force I sucked away. Then Sue bit down just a little harder, and the bottom half of the wraith fell toward the ground.
Sue spat out the top half a moment later. That was one wraith who was definitely a goner.
“Nice work!” Kara called out. She fired an arrow into the other wraith, who was still chasing me. The shaft sunk in, but didn’t seem to do much to slow it down.
It came in with a pair of fast sword swings, each one ringing as it slammed into my already battered shield. We clearly needed to get stronger materials to make our gear out of, now that people had superhuman Strength! I’d lost one shield to giant ants ripping it up, and I was well on my way to ruining this one, too.
Sue snapped at the remaining wraith, forcing it to back away. It glided out over the undead army, where it was joined by three more wraiths! How many of these things were there? Now I had a good idea how they were controlling so many undead, anyway. I’d wondered what sort of creature could control a thousand zombies. That would be like tier ten or eleven, and I was truly hoping whatever this boss was, it wasn’t tier ten or higher. But if it had a stack of wraiths each controlling a smaller collection of undead, then suddenly it made much more sense.
I used the free moment to examine the overall battlefield. The stakes were still holding. The weight of two ranks of zombies crashing into them and impaling themselves was actually keeping the stakes upright even after the skeletons pulling the ropes let go. As hard as the zombies behind them pushed, all they were accomplishing was to drive the other side of the stakes deeper into the ground.
The ratkin were our saviors in all of this, yet again. They’d found the oil and diesel we used to buy time on the road. They’d also pointed out that the fields were all surrounded by wooden post fences. Between the ratkin and my undead, we managed to gather enough posts and crossbeams that we had a good-size row of stakes along the front of our position.
That wasn’t tying up the enemy entirely, though. Barred from proceeding directly ahead, they were slowly moving to the sides instead. I ordered my Abominations to the flanks to stop them from pushing through. Like Farnsworth said, the last thing we wanted was for them to surround us. If that happened, we were all done for. The trick would be to hold them all as long as possible and then flee before we were enveloped.
I landed on Sue’s back, next to Kara. “Hey, keep me safe for a few? I need to do some spellcasting.”
“You got it,” Kara replied. She had an arrow on her string, just looking for another target.
I quickly tied myself down with one of the ropes we’d attached to Sue. The last thing I wanted was to go tumbling to the dirt. Then I reached out with my power, focusing on the undead we’d already slain out there. I had a ton of material to work with, so that part was easy.
First I focused on the undead I’d killed during my brief delaying action. I’d killed ten of them, and they were all helpfully close to one another, near enough I could merge their bodies to Animate something stronger. I cast Animate Dead, raising a new Abomination right in the middle of the enemy horde.
I gotta say, there’s nothing like seeing a ten foot zombie made up of the zombie parts of five different bodies rise up in the middle of your enemies and begin hammering your foes to dust.
The Abomination was surrounded and badly outnumbered. It wasn’t going to last long—but that wasn’t really the point. For however many minutes it survived, it was scoring a terrific kill count. While the zombies around it were distracted by a new foe in their midst, I cast the spell again, Animating a second Abomination.
Two of them was even tougher than one to take down, because they could support each other. They quickly cleared out a hole in the defenses around themselves, knocking down more enemies with each blow. Of course, all of those dead zombies just gave me more material to work with, and why not? I made a third Abomination, the powerhouse joining the other two in wreaking havoc on the horde.
Before I could pat myself on the back too much, a wave of icy magic flowed down the hill from the mall. It slammed into my Will, and I realized with a start that something was trying to wrest control of those Abominations from me! Control Undead worked both ways—I’d wondered a few times if I could use it offensively against another necromancer, and now I knew the answer: yes.
The leader of the undead Domain was coming. I felt its presence, still distant, but moving nearer by the moment. It was awake, aware, and furious with us. It was coming out to play, and I realized as its magic started stripping control from me that its Will felt at least as strong as mine!
