“No, he’s here to help – the undead are just about to attack! They’ll be streaming through the trees in a matter of minutes, if not less!” Gerold shouted, pointing towards where he sensed the concentration of Nether elemental energy.
“Boy? What are you doing back here – and what in the name of all that is holy are you wearing? That’s a poor excuse for your old armor, whatever it is – you look ridiculous,” the old Dwarf said, completely ignoring the danger that Gerold was trying to warn him about.
“Danger. Fight.” Felbar’s accent was horrid and was barely understandable, but the few words that the Gnome had learned of Dwarven were clear enough to those assembled.
“I don’t take orders from a Gnome—” the Second-shield began, before Gerold angrily cut him off.
“Look, I don’t care what you think of me anymore, or about how I may have dishonored myself and my family with my actions. But the undead are coming NOW, and if you can’t get over that, then everyone here could DIE! If you won’t fight, then get out my way and I’ll do your duty for you,” he said, before turning towards the forest, feeling the appearance of the incoming undead at the cusp of exiting the trees.
“Now listen here, boy—”
Anything else he was about to say was tuned out when he saw some movement towards the tree line, right at the edge of a barley field. Fortunately, the village was on a small rise in the landscape that allowed for seeing farther than normal, and the others around him seemed to glimpse the movement by the moonlight on the thankfully cloudless night, and they stopped their conversations and protests.
His protests apparently forgotten, Bregan started barking orders to the Shieldmen. “UP FRONT! Protect the villagers at all cost and prepare to engage!”
More and more stalks of barley started to twitch as a veritable wave passed through the field, aiming unerringly for the line of armored Dwarves that assembled next to Gerold and Felbar – leaving him and the Gnome to defend the middle. The villagers fell back and locked themselves in the Hall, the strongest and most defensible building in their small village. Thinking about the night before his disastrous first day, he remembered being in there drinking at a small impromptu party with the other Shieldmen, celebrating his training completion; that memory also brought back how he had good-naturedly thrown one of the others through a wooden wall in a wrestling match – and the “strongest and most defensible building in the village” didn’t seem that strong.
My father probably could’ve built that thing out of stone and then nothing would get through; with it made almost entirely out of wood, however, it won’t last long versus one of those more powerful undead.
His roaming thoughts were brought back to the present as the constant stream of undead made its way through the barley field; he tensed up as the twitching stalks arrived at the edge nearest the village…and a small skeleton rat poked its head out and stared at the assembled Dwarves with the empty eye sockets of its skull.
“Boy, if you got us all worked up over a tiny rat—”
The rat was soon joined by the appearance of hundreds more, just barely visible at the edge of the light thrown out by the torches. Gerold couldn’t help but think that if they had actual eyes, they’d be looking at hundreds of accompanying reflections – though the appearance of undead rats in their skeletal forms was bad enough.
At some unknown signal, the rats streamed out of the stalks and started to swarm over the assembled Shieldmen, as well as Gerold; they completely ignored Felbar in his War Machine…but he didn’t ignore them. The ground shook a little as he slammed his warhammer down, completely demolishing a dozen rats at a time, before sweeping his weapon back and forth, picking up and tossing the rats aside in the process. Gerold followed suit, smashing the rats which were fortunately having a difficult time climbing up the smooth metal of his Deep Delver; he eventually activated his Flame Cone enchantment with a flick of his right pinky finger to the activation spot, sending out a relatively small swath of fire around him, which was very effective against the weak undead.
The others were good at what they did, and despite the hundreds – or potentially thousands – of small rats swarming around them trying to reach the villagers in the back, they kept the line against the waves of undead.
* That’s just the first wave – the larger undead are arriving…now. *
Gerold’s senses had been overwhelmed by so many Nether monsters around him, but when he focused on that sensitivity, he could see that she was right…these were just the appetizer; the main course was coming up.
Chapter 28
Watching from above the village and fields from three dozen Reinforced Animated Shears, Sandra watched as hundreds of Undead streamed out from the trees, trampling the field of Barley in their effort to reach the Dwarves and lone Gnome. She heard Gerold warn the others of the incoming horde, but they were still having trouble against the swarm of rats; well, not trouble, but the small skeletons were literally throwing themselves suicidally at the Dwarves. Too late, she saw the plan: they were there entirely as a distraction, as the Dwarves were too busy trying to kill the smaller undead to prepare for the other, more dangerous ones.
* Tell them to ignore the rats – they’re coming! *
Both Felbar and Gerold tried to convey the problem, but the rats were just annoying to completely ignore. As the Undead closed in, Sandra brought in her small force of 6 Phoenixes – who were able to arrive faster than the others – and swept them over the field, burning through over a hundred Specters before they burned out and crashed to the ground. That was beneficial enough, but their bright appearance highlighted the rest of the field – and the horde of powerful undead heading their way.
The Dwarves finally understood the danger and did their best to ignore the jumping and biting of the skeletal rats as they prepared to withstand the charge of Undead. “HOLD THE LINE!” the old Dwarf that Gerold said was named Bregan shouted, getting everyone’s attention. They immediately faced towards the incoming enemies, letting all of the other distractions go as they settled themselves to receive the first wave.
Sandra briefly looked at her own main forces to see how far away they were and estimated that they wouldn’t get there for at least two minutes; the line of Shieldmen with Gerold and Felbar looked impressive – but she doubted they were going to hold intact for that long. She didn’t think they were necessarily going to be overrun, but there would likely be casualties before they could be relieved.
The Undead dungeon had either gotten lucky or had planned exactly when their Core would be upgraded, because the attack turned out to come at probably the worst time possible for the Dwarven Shieldmen; after only 30 seconds of defending the line admirably against Ogre Skeletons, ghouls, the armored Undead, and a variety of zombies (there weren’t any smaller skeletons other than the rats), the first of the Dwarves fell, his armor disintegrating around him as he fell unconscious when his energy ran out.
Sandra could only imagine how different this would’ve gone if they had listened to Gerold and at least taken the Energy Orbs, because after a long day of culling the Dungeon Monsters in either forest hemming them in, most of the Shieldmen were dangerously low on energy already. When their sleep was interrupted – the only way for them to regenerate that energy – they arrived at the battle only semi-full, which led to them fighting at a severe disadvantage.
Felbar took matters in his own hands when he saw the first – and then the second of the Dwarves fall near him – and opened up with his Flame Cone, shooting out a large swath of flames that blanketed dozens of incoming undead…as well as the barley field behind them.
“Those are our crops! What do you think you’re doing?” one of the Shieldmen next to the War Machine asked, distracted enough that he got smashed by a massive bone club from his blind side. Needless to say, Felbar didn’t answer him – not that he could understand it anyway.
But the Gnome didn’t stop there, as he continued to light up everything he saw, including more o
f the field; the Undead still making their way through the field ended up getting burned, showing the real intent behind the fire attack. Those that made it through – which, granted, was still quite a few – were on fire, the elemental attack doing continuous damage that helped to drop them faster.
The Undead Core wasn’t done with its strategy, however; the Specters that survived the attacks by the Phoenixes – approximately a score of them – had held back at that point, and Sandra hadn’t even noticed until they started moving. As they shot downwards from behind the line, Sandra reached out to the two that could hear her.
* Gerold, Felbar – the Specters are moving in! *
The warning came too late for a dozen Dwarves, as the Specters went right for a gap in the Shieldmen’s armor and disappeared; moments later, the Dwarves’ armor started to break apart, as the energy inside of them was literally sucked out by the mostly transparent undead. Only two of them survived the next couple of seconds as they collapsed, and before the others could react they were overrun. Those two that survived just happened to be next to Felbar, who had responded to Sandra’s warning by shooting his flames up in the air and burning some of the Specters out of the night sky, before turning to those around him and protecting them as well as he could.
Unfortunately, he had held his flames going for far too long, and the warhammer began to literally melt and drip from the end, sort of like a candle. When the head of the hammer was almost gone, the enchantment lost cohesion as what it was enchanted on disappeared, and the flames shut off abruptly. Luckily for Felbar, there was no backlash from the cessation, but the enchantment had collapsed so thoroughly that it would have to be completely built up from scratch.
The sacrifice of two of the War Machine’s weapons was worth it, though, as it had helped to clear out dozens of Undead and left a large space in the middle of the line where the Shieldmen could retreat to after their losses all along the line. At that point, Sandra counted only 22 of them left after what appeared to be over 50 – and the battle had only been going on for just under two minutes.
Then, inevitably, the Liches arrived. There were a dozen of them bringing up the rear, as they always appeared to instinctively stay behind the others. As the survivors were gathering together to put up a last defense against the scores of Undead still looking to kill them, the robed Monsters started to gather their Nether energy for their deadly attack.
A dozen Pegasi shot down from the sky behind the spell-casting Undead, diving straight for them as the rest of her forces arrived and streamed through the trees, running for everything they were worth. Everything seemed to be in slow motion as Sandra continued to observe from up high, and some quick calculations showed that her flying horses wouldn’t arrive in time to stop everything.
* Gerold, tell all of the Shieldmen to jump on the War Machine or get as close to it as they can! *
Gerold immediately shouted the order, knowing that Sandra was keeping an eye on things from above. The other Dwarves looked extremely confused, and only just over half of them followed the strange order – including, miraculously, the stubborn form of Bregan. When the older, white-haired Shieldmen leader saw that there were a handful still fighting, he added his own order for them to move towards the War Machine.
As the stubborn ones turned to obey, they were hit from behind by a mass of dark clouds that almost appeared to consume the armor straight off of their body; the energy drained from their bodies so quickly that they didn’t even get knocked unconscious – which made the next part hard to watch. The Nether-energy attack, having consumed all of the elemental energy inside of them, next started to consume their bodies…leaving the 7 Shieldmen to scream as their bodies started to age rapidly, before being eaten away from the inside.
Felbar, for his part, took the cue that Sandra had given him and activated his Holy Protection Shield as soon as everyone who could make it was close enough. The shield made of light lit up the village and burning fields nearly as bright as daytime, and the Nether-based attack – that the Liches managed to get off before having their rotting brains bashed in by Pegasus hooves – splashed ineffectively off of the powerful protective bubble and dissipated a few seconds later. The thirteen remaining Shieldmen looked around in shock as they were saved by the powerful enchantment, before the light disappeared and they were once again back to defending themselves.
Gerold had also activated his own personal Shield, though it was only just large enough for him. As he let it fall as well, he joined the other Shieldmen in a wavy defensive line with a one-armed War Machine in the middle.
“We have to evacuate the villagers! Marleth, run back and—” the old Dwarf began.
One of the other Shieldmen wearily interrupted him. “Marleth is dead, sir.”
“Fine, fighting retreat! Let’s get in between the houses to present them a better line of defense.” Putting actions to his words, Bregan started to back up, keeping the Undead at bay ahead of him with great sweeps of his axe. The others followed suit and in less than a minute they were in a relatively narrow space between two buildings, with a much more cohesive line of defense.
Meanwhile, Sandra’s forces were attacking the Undead from the rear and were absolutely devastating them. It wasn’t just that her Angels, Pegasi, and Apes equipped with Steel Warhammers were Undead-killing machines, it was also that none of the Monsters in the rear of the horde seemed to pay them any attention or defend themselves. They were all so intent on reaching the Dwarves that they apparently had no orders to do anything but that.
Things were looking good before one of the villager Dwarves hiding in the large building in the middle of the village looked out the window at the approaching horde and screamed; it was apparently just loud enough that the Undead heard her…and when one of them heard her, all of them heard her. Two wings of Undead broke off from the side of the horde pushing against the Shieldmen, Gerold, and Felbar, and started to circle around the buildings to either side.
“NO! Drecker, you’re with me; the rest of you…HOLD THE LINE!” Bregan shouted, tapping another Shieldman next to him and disappearing with him back behind the defensive line, aiming for the large building’s entrance. It was likely locked, but when there was a duo of Ogre Skeletons accompanied by two dozen ghouls on the way, a wooden door wouldn’t present much of an obstacle.
Their absence didn’t seem to make much difference, as the horde was finally starting to ease up a little from the Undead that had moved away and the pressure on them from behind. Gerold and Felbar eventually told the others to fall back for a moment while they took over, knowing that the exhausted and nearly spent Shieldmen likely didn’t have much left to give. Luckily, large sweeps of the double-bladed axe the War Machine was wielding was all that was needed to push the incoming Undead back, giving them some room to recover. Shortly thereafter, her constructs and other Dungeon Monsters finally managed to work their way through, destroying the rest of the horde with ease.
For the rest of the Undead that had gone around the building to go after the Dwarven woman who had screamed, it was another case entirely. Bregan and the Shieldman named Drecker arrived moments before the undead, and they immediately went to work slicing through the ghouls who had outpaced the Ogre Skeletons, but there were too many of them to handle easily. Not more than 10 seconds after they started to slice up the Undead with amazing speed and technique – especially considering the age of the older Dwarf – Drecker fell to one knee, the armor already starting to deteriorate as the Shieldman was emptied of energy. The wounded ghoul he was fighting immediately fell upon him and helped the armor finish falling away, ripping out hunks of flesh at the same time.
Bregan, apparently conscious of his co-defender falling, seemed to go berserk, moving faster and at one point actually spinning in a circle as he chopped three ghouls in half with one swing. He appeared to be winning…but then the two Ogre Skeletons arrived with their heavy steps reverberating the ground beneath his feet.
* Gerold, the old Dw
arf is in trouble— *
Sandra tried to warn Gerold, hoping that he or one of the others could get there in time; the pressure on them was easing to the point where all of them could help, but it was too late. Ignoring a ghoul trying to claw through his armor, Bregan just stood there and held his axe out, as if he was daring the Ogre to strike him with its bone club. So, naturally, the Ogre obliged.
As soon as the club swung downwards and impacted the axe the Shieldmen leader held aloft – which amazingly stopped the heavy weapon – Bregan emitted a shout that seemed to come from his very soul. As his voice rose in volume and the Ogre continued to try to push downwards, a fire began in the middle of the Shieldman’s chest, building larger as the seconds ticked by, until finally it burst out of him, hitting the Ogre with a massive burst of intense fire. The Skeleton cracked apart and practically melted as it fell to the ground, before dissolving and leaving behind an Onyx Monster Seed.
Bregan, unfortunately, suffered nearly the same fate. The fire that had burst from him appeared to consume both him and his armor in a flash, leaving behind a small pile of ash where a Dwarf stood just a moment before. He had given his life in a blaze of glory to save his people…but they were still in danger.
The explosive fire had killed off all of the other ghouls surrounding the Dwarf – whether that was intentional or not, Sandra figured she’d never know – but the remaining Ogre was completely unharmed. As the Dungeon Core watched it turn its attention to the large building, she heard more screaming coming from inside; looking back at her Monsters and the remaining Dwarves, she could see that they were quickly making their way there, but the massive Skeleton would have more than enough time to destroy half of the building – and kill quite a few of the villagers inside – before they could stop it.
The Crafter's Dilemma: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 3) Page 33