Chapter 167 - Bones and Ashes

I was ready to make my stand by the time the first orcs broke free of the woods. We’d cleared the area around the Farm out to a good distance, at Carver’s advice. His fortress was in the middle of a residential area, so he’d had to actually tear down dozens of buildings to make his killing field. In our case, most of the land around the Farm were fields or forests. Out to the west there was a golf course, too. It was already mostly open, so we’d just knocked down anything blocking our view for a half a mile or so in every direction.

That gave me plenty of time to see them coming, and a lot of runway between the Farm and the oncoming enemy to set up a few surprises.

Peter landed the dragon on a low hill not far away. He was definitely playing it safe. That Lightning Bolt must have hurt even more than I’d thought, because he wanted nothing to do with a second dose of electricity. I wondered what he was telling his minions about why he wasn’t joining the fight. They might put up with his excuses at first, but once I started stacking up the bodies, I had a hunch that would change.

Someone on the other side ordered an advance, because the army rolled forward again, forming tight ranks with interlocked shields. These guys were no joke, and I had to take them seriously. Most of the orcs were tier four or five, with a few at tier six. I spotted at least one tier seven in the mix. They were much tougher than the massed forces I’d fought in the past, and that meant this battle required a different set of tactics. I couldn’t just rush in. I needed to be smart.

Thankfully, they’d given me plenty of time to prepare a warm welcome.

Most of my zombies were on the walls, ready to defend the place. Some of them were elsewhere, though, planted in a way that was sure to give the orcs some fun times.

Their front rank hit the first of my pit traps almost immediately. I’d had the zombies out there digging pits ever since I raced back from Carver’s. They’d dug a lot of holes. Ten orcs stumbled into the first one, breaking up their line and causing confusion.

The pits weren’t deep, just a few feet. But my undead had installed spikes into the bottom of each. As thick as the growth was in the fields, they pits were just about impossible to spot, so they tumbled right in. Worse still for the enemy, I’d left a few zombies in each pit before covering them over with brush.

Those zombies latched on and bit their foes.

My zombies didn’t last long after getting a bite or two in. They were all tier one, and the bad guys were many times as strong. The orcs swatted the zombies aside like they were nothing.

But they’d been bitten.

That meant if they died in the near future, even if it wasn’t from the zombie bite, they’d turn into zombies themselves. Probably tier four or five ones. While they wouldn’t be under my control unless I used Control Dead on them, that wasn’t even necessary. Just having a bunch of dead orcs rising up in the middle of the fight to chomp their neighbors was going to create chaos. Chaos was good.

As I’d expected, the orcs made short work of the zombies. None of them died in the first pit. They hauled themselves up and kept moving forward, a little slower and more cautious now. They spotted the next pit, which was a shame. One of my zombies crawled out and still got a bite in before being killed, so that was something.

The further they came across the open fields, the more pits they ran into. Hey, I had four hundred bored zombies and three hours to kill. They dug a lot of pits!

But the enemy was slowing down too much. They were getting too cautious. It was time for the next phase of my plan. This part was going to suck a little. A lot, even. I didn’t want to do this, but I didn’t see another way to keep the orcs busy long enough. A glance at my watch said it was already four in the afternoon. Another couple of hours and the sun would set. After that, I was sure my friends would be able to escape safely. I had to buy them more time.

I sent mental orders to the zombies waiting in my courtyard to open the main gate. Sue strode out through the gates, which closed again behind the dinosaur. My T.rex gave out a bone-curdling roar, enough to give me the jitters even though Sue was on my side! The orcs froze at the sound, halting their advance entirely.

We all stood there staring at one another for a long time. I had no need to hurry them along. Delays were to my advantage, not theirs, so I was happy to let them stand there as long as they wanted. It only took about five minutes for Peter to get them moving again.

That’s when I ordered Sue to send a Fireball their way. It sailed over and detonated right past their front ranks. Orcs went flying in every direction. It was glorious, watching their battle formation dissolve as the orcs ran around trying to figure out what to do next. Would they break and run, or rush Sue?

I had Sue hit them with a second Fireball to hurry the decision process along.

That did it. About half of the lead ranks started backing up, but the other half lost their minds and just rushed. About a hundred orcs ran full tilt straight at my dino. They’d left caution to the wind and rushed with everything they had, screaming their lungs out.

They’d completely forgotten about the pits, of course.

Dozens of orcs fell into pits. Some of them fell in right away, but others managed to avoid the first pits and fell victim to another one, closer in. I watched as orc after orc tumbled into the shallow trenches. They were impaled on spikes—not enough to kill in most cases, but enough to hurt them badly. Then the zombies would bite them, grabbing hold of whatever bit of orc flesh presented itself to them and sinking their teeth in.

A hundred orcs, all primed with zombie bites. It was perfect. Sue kept up the stream of Fireballs, blasting one group of injured orcs after another. It wasn’t enough though, not yet, so I sent Plum out to join Sue.

Plum rushed through the gate and didn’t stop. There was no need for her to hang back; she didn’t have a ranged attack like Sue did. Plum went in for the kills. By that time the fastest or luckiest orcs were most of the way across the field to where Sue stood. Plum raced forward, plucking the head off the nearest orc with her beak. She swallowed, and the orc went down only to rise as a zombie a moment later.

But Plum was already gone, attacking another orc. She rushed back and forth, chomping down on one orc after another. Not all of them had been bitten by zombies, but enough had that I was getting a serious collection of tier four and five undead out there. I used all the Control Undead slots that I had to take them under my wing and send them back out toward the rest of the orcs. As I’d hoped, the orc zombies I didn’t Control saw my guys heading for the enemy and staggered along after them.

I’d touched a nerve. Peter launched his dragon skyward, flying toward the field. He blasted the grass there with fire, clearing some of it away and roasting a couple of the zombie orcs in the process. If I let him keep that up, he’d expose all my other surprises, and we couldn’t have that. It was time to remind Peter why flying was dangerous. I called another Lightning Bolt from the sky, which came blasting down with a sound like a mountain collapsing. The flash as the lightning struck Peter’s dragon was blinding.

This time, I knocked her out of the sky entirely. He’d been flying relatively low to the ground; I guess he hadn’t forgotten entirely! But that just meant she was too low to recover in time. Stunned, the dragon plowed into the dirt face-first, gouging up a huge divot from the soil. She wasn’t out of the fight, not even close. I watched as she shook her head to clear it. Peter’s armor was smoking.

“That looks painful!” I shouted from the wall.

He flashed a middle finger at me. I suppose that meant the wedding was off?

My guess was that Peter wasn’t going to try taking to the air again anytime soon. Instead, he had his dragon walk off the field, exiting into the trees to my north. The orcs did likewise, backing up again, retreating until they were completely out of view.

What were they up to? They had to have a plan in mind. I recalled the orc zombies that I’d Controlled, so they wouldn’t just get killed for nothing. The other zombie orcs shambled their way around the battlefield looking lost. They’d at least be speed bumps for the orc army when it returned.

I didn’t have to wait long to see what Peter had planned next. Less than thirty minutes after they’d retreated, the orcs were back. This time, they had three siege towers with them. I also spotted a few orcs wearing those big backpacks I’d seen at Camp Johnson. Those would be full of explosive alchemy potions, ready to bust down my wall if the towers failed.

The fighting hadn’t even been going on for an hour, and they were getting ready to take my walls down. I needed to buy more time or my friends were dead. All I could do was hope my remaining surprises would be enough to stall them a couple more hours.