Chapter 170 - Scorched Earth

I let the tears fall for a minute. Losing Sue hurt. I’d had the dinosaur by my side through so much that it was hard to imagine that being over. I couldn’t afford to grieve for long. Those orcs were still out there and they wanted in. On the plus side, I’d ended the spells on both big undead just in time. Out there on the ground, Plum and Sue’s bones were both still available to Animate again. They were a little out of range, but assuming I survived all this, maybe I could find a way to bring them back.

With both Plum and Sue dead, I’d lost two of my biggest heavy hitters. I had zillions of tier one zombies, but they wouldn’t last five minutes in close combat against the orcs. Keeping them at a distance was our only chance.

Fortunately, Sue and Plum took out the last two siege towers. With all three towers smashed, I knew Peter was going to switch tactics. He’d have to try to get through the walls another way.

Sure enough, he sent in more orcs with alchemy bombs. While most of his force hunkered down behind the ruined towers, a dozen heavily laden orcs rushed the walls. Each carried a backpack full of explosive alchemy potions.

I’d already seen that weapon in action, so we were ready for it. We’d raided every sporting store we could find, and had only managed to gather up about sixty bows. Some of them had gone with my friends when they left, but I had forty zombies armed with pre-Event bows, and another twenty-five using ones we’d made ourselves. It wasn’t much, but most of them were on the north wall, along with my fire skeletons.

The orc sappers rushed the walls, sprinting for all they were worth. One went down, pierced by two arrows. A fire skeleton blew up another. The rest of my undead fired, cutting the enemy sappers down in under a minute. Not a single one reached the walls.

Sending unprotected people with bombs strapped to their backs running up to a wall works brilliantly—the first time! But since I’d seen it in action, I knew what to look for, and we wiped them out completely.

After that, Peter pulled his force back a bit. They retreated toward the edge of the field, where they were doing something. It was difficult to tell what, at first, but I soon figured it out. They were chopping down trees and cutting lumber from a couple of buildings, and using the wood to build ladders. As these things went, it was a good strategy. My big undead were gone, so I had no one left to knock the ladders over. If they built enough of the things and all rushed the walls at once, odds were some of them would get through. Unlike the bombs, which we blew up, if the orcs carrying the ladders fell then the ones behind them could just pick it up.

The sun set while they worked. Full darkness had settled in before they were ready to make their move, which means I’d already succeeded in my mission. As soon as the sun set, my friends were to move on from the mall. They’d be making tracks east, getting themselves someplace safe, where Peter wouldn’t easily find them. With the ratkin along to help, I was confident they’d figure something out. Our small friends were amazing at finding places to hide themselves from enemies. My bigger worry was going to be finding them once I got away from here.

The concern even larger than that was getting out of there in the first place. I needed to sneak away, but I also had to take down the escape tunnel, or at least enough of it that Peter wouldn’t be able to follow it to us.

As soon as the orcs started moving on us again, I had the fire skeletons set the broken siege towers alight to given us some illumination. Being able to see would benefit us more than the enemy, and I wanted every advantage. The towers went up quickly, burning bright enough to cast some light across the fields.

The orcs came in fast, rushing the walls as a mass, carrying dozens of ladders above them.

I sent the mental command to my undead to fire at will. The zombies fired one good volley, scores of arrows arcing through the sky to stab down into our attackers. After that they were to fire as fast as they could. The fire skeletons likewise launched their assault, shooting flame blasts as quickly as they could. Scores of orcs went down, but it wasn’t going to be even close to enough. They would make the wall; there was no doubt. I moved six of my Abominations to the ramparts, glad we’d made the walls both thick and strong. It was tough getting the massive creatures up there anyway, but they’d be the only thing that could stop the orcs if they hit the top of the wall.

I added to the chaos as much as I could. There were no shortage of dead bodies on the ground, so I went to work. I cast Animate Dead, raising two tier five orcs as zombies right in the middle of the horde. They turned on their nearest ally, both biting another orc. I cast Drain Life on that one to finish him off, and thanks to the zombie orc bites I then had three zombies.

A quick Health to Mana, and I repeated the whole cycle elsewhere in the horde. Animate a couple of zombies, wait for them to wound a living orc, kill the orc with a Drain, and then there were three. With the darkness, the arrows raining down, and the confusion of their mad rush, the orcs didn’t even realize they had enemies among them until they were attacked. I kept up the pressure, adding more pockets of undead scattered through the mass of foes.

That was about when Peter decided to try another aerial assault. He and his dragon took to the skies again. I saw it, but I almost couldn’t believe it. He’d already seen what I could do, but he was just going to try the same thing again? I shook my head and called another Lightning Bolt from the sky again.

It slammed into the dragon, lighting up the night sky almost as bright as day for just a second. That was enough for the beast. The dragon spiraled toward the ground, smoke pouring from her until she plowed face-first into the dirt a hundred meters from the walls.

For a moment, I thought I’d gotten lucky and finished this, because Peter wasn’t moving. But no. He stood and staggered his way clear of the dragon, which was also stirring. Both of them looked like they’d be out of commission for a while, though. I didn’t think they’d play a major role in the rest of this fight.

In spite of everything I could do, the ladders reached the wall.

We’d killed hundred of orcs as they rushed us. Arrows, flame bolts, Drain spells, and the zombies now working their way through the enemy force all worked in our favor, but there were too many orcs. There had always been too many orcs. I’d known that from the start.

The Abominations rose to meet the enemy as they climbed to the ramparts. They pushed back one ladder, then another. When the orcs reached the top, they fought hand to hand against the attackers.

It just wasn’t enough. The Abominations and fire skeletons were only tier five, the same as the bulk of the orcs. While they had the advantage of being the defensive force, it wasn’t enough against these sorts of numbers.

I jumped clear of the wall, Flying back toward the main building. I landed on the front porch and made my way inside.

A booming noise went off outside. Chunks of rock shattered a couple of the windows. They must have had more sappers handy, waiting to strike in the confusion. That blast would have taken out a chunk of the wall, so they’d be rushing in any second.

I ordered the remaining Abominations, the ones I’d kept in the courtyard near the gate, to move to the main farmhouse and defend it. The orcs were allowed to get inside the walls. At this point, that was where I wanted them. I didn’t want them inside the farmhouse, though.

There wasn’t much time, so I moved through the building quickly. The orcs weren’t the only ones who’d had fun with Alchemy. We had two people socket those stones, and they’d made us a crap-ton of the explosive mix.

All of which was in the farmhouse, just waiting for something to set it off.

I hit the top floor. There were barrels of the stuff there, all surrounded by boxes of nails and other junk. Once those went off, they’d send shrapnel in every direction. Everything was in place, including the fuse I’d attached to the old antenna on the roof.

The level below had plenty more explosives, too. And when I went down to the basement, where we’d had the zombies dig the tunnel, there were barrels of explosive liquid there as well.

One Lightning Bolt, and this entire place was going to go sky-high.

“Woof!” Hope was there with me. Of all my undead, she was the only one I hadn’t ordered into the fight.

“You can stay with me, girl. Let’s see if we can survive this mess, huh?”

“Woof.” Her tail wagged.

I dropped into the short shaft we’d dug and landed in a small pit with a tunnel leading northeast. Hope joined me a moment later.

That’s when I felt the first of the six Abominations I set to guard this place go down. If one of them was already down, the other five wouldn’t last long. The orcs still had over five hundred troops left, and by that time there had to be hundreds either on or inside the walls.

“Time to go,” I told Hope, and we rushed down the tunnel away from the entry chamber.

We went fifty meters, sprinting as hard as I could manage. My Agility and Stamina meant I crossed that distance faster than any Olympian could have dreamed of doing it. Two more Abominations went down, then a fourth. There were just two left. Whether I was far enough away yet or not, there wasn’t time to move further.

I called on my Lightning Bolt spell, visualizing it striking the antenna of the house. It wasn’t easy. I couldn’t see the target, so I was casting blind. The first bolt missed the house. I couldn’t tell what it hit, I just knew it didn’t hit the antenna.

Both of the other Abominations went down before I could cast a second Lightning Bolt. The orcs would be inside the farmhouse now. They’d be rushing through the place, looking around, and they’d know what the explosive mixes were once they saw them. The timer was up on my spell. I cast one more time.

The Lightning Bolt hit the antenna, this time.

I still couldn’t see it, but I could feel the effect. There were a series of explosions, almost like a string of firecrackers going off but a thousand times stronger. I hit the dirt near a beam the zombies had put in to support the ceiling and covered my head with my hands. The compressed air from the explosions’ shock waves washed over me, deafening me. There was a sound like the entire world was coming to an end, and then the ceiling collapsed, burying me alive in soil and gravel.