Thirty-four other blazes flared within the horde, the fireballs of all the wizards capable of throwing that spell. Most were smaller than Hemetre’s, from ten yards in diameter on up, and none were larger. It was still enough to burn thousands of the zombies, maybe close to ten thousand. A minute later another thirty-five fireballs went out. A minute later thirty-three went out, those from the mages still having power. Each iteration produced fewer fireballs, until on the sixth and last volley only seven went out.
“That is all we can do, for now,” said the exhausted wizard, her eye lids drooping, holding herself up with her staff. “Give us some time to regain our energy. A couple of hours.”
Rory nodded. So it was up to him. He thought that the cavalry might do a better job striking at the undead, charge retreat and charge. But the cavalry was separated from the zombies by the infantry. And the zombies were starting to test the flanks, which were not anchored on cliffs like the day before.
“Signal form square,” he ordered his bugler and standard bearer, an idea forming in his mind.
The bugler started to blow his horn in the required tune while the standard bearer raised his flag and waved it in the ordered pattern. Horns all through the ranks sounded, while the standards went up and down. Within moments the ranks started to move, the men on the flanks stepping back, then to the side, while those far behind them stepped forward to complete each flank. The men in the rear turned and stepped away, stopping in a line far enough back to form the square. In five minutes the square had been formed, six hundred yards on a side, five soldiers thick.
“Compress the square,” yelled out Rory. Again the horns sounded, the flags waved, and the men stepped back on each side, shortening the sides, thickening the ranks, until there were ten men in each column.
* * *
This time Conner was in the front of the formation, to the left flank. No longer holding a pike, this time with mace and shield, he faced what looked like an endless mass of zombies.
“This is where we came in,” said a veteran to his right, chuckling.
Conner didn’t know how anyone could find this humorous. They were probably going to die here, and then they would be raised from the dead to march in that infernal army. He didn’t want to join his friends who had died in the first battle, so he did all he could. Raising his mace and bringing it down, smashing bones, dropping another undead into a helpless mass of quivering bone.
It seemed much like the last fight, and seemed that the mass of undead would never end. A bright pellet flew over the line, and Conner could feel the heat as it passed, even yards away enough to scorch his momentarily upturned face. The pellet grew in size, coming down and hitting the ground as a three yard wide ball, exploding outward and destroying many hundreds of zombies.
The lines of soldiers cheered, and many started shouting for the mages. Recently hated by most of the army, now they were adored as they sent their power into the mass. For minutes the fireballs went out, fewer in each volley, until they ended. Fires stilled burned among the zombies, taking more of them each second. The zombie horde kept shuffling forward, and it appeared as if the mass was as large as ever.
A bugle sounded, and Conner looked around for a moment, until a zombie grabbed his shield and forced his attention back to the fight.
“Other people will form the square, lad,” said the veteran on his side. “Just pay attention to what’s in front of you. Trust in your fellows.”
Conner nodded and brought his mace back up overhead, smashing the shoulder of a zombie on the downstroke.
* * *
“Sound, cavalry charge,” yelled Rory, again starting the signals that would tell the cavalry still out there what their king wanted. Of course they wouldn’t know his mind, but the priestess beside him had closed her eyes and was transmitting to the wizards with the cavalry. And he thought Brian and Connor were intelligent enough to know what to do when they got the orders.
The zombies flowed around the formation like water, covering the flanks, then the rear. There were still more on the forward side of the formation, but the horde thickened all around the infantry. And the infantry continued to fight, destroying hundreds of zombies for every man they lost. Every ten minutes people in the ranks moved forward while those who had been fighting moved back for a well-deserved rest. Each man only fought for ten minutes under this scheme, while getting at least a half an hour’s rest.
Bugles sounded in the distance. Minutes later a wedge of thousands of heavy cavalry hit the rear of the zombie horde, horses knocking over the undead, heavy blades and smashing weapons coming down on heads and shoulders. The horses drove thirty yards into the horde before they slowed. As the bugles blew the riders backed their horses up, turned them, and rode away, leaving some dozen of their fellows behind, pulled out of their saddles by the undead.
The cavalry rode a hundred yards, zombies starting slowly after them, covering ten yards in the time it took the cavalry to turn around and start back at a trot. Twenty yards into the charge they went into a gallop. Again they hit the zombies, but this time the undead weren’t such a compressed mass, and the cavalry pushed through even farther before they retreated.
Rory wasn’t sure how long the heavy horse could keep it up. Charge after charge would tire the large mounts that were carrying large men, as well as the weighty armor of both of them. Each charge hits a less compacted mass, and more zombies were ridden over. The last charge took out thousands of zombies, but the horses were obviously exhausted when they trotted away.
A couple of minutes later, as even more of the zombies had wandered toward the cavalry, spreading out further, five thousand light cavalry came charging in and rode down the undead. They didn’t hit as hard as the heavy cavalry, massing quite a bit less, horse and rider, than the knights. They still rode down thousands of creatures, and the majority of the cavalry rode away, setting up a couple of hundred yards away and starting into their second charge.
An hour later, after the heavy cavalry had performed more charges on rested mounts, the horde, seemingly undiminished, kept trying to move forward. Rory was sure they had destroyed several hundred thousand of the creatures, but it seemed as if there were as many of them as there had been before the battle was joined.
“They’re starting to wander away on the edges,” said Hemetre, her eyes closed. The princess stayed in her communicative state for a few moments more. A smile crossed her face, and she opened her eyes. “The necromancers are no more. Our friends have destroyed them.”
“Are they safe.”
“They all survived and are on their way back,” said the relieved young woman.
Rory smiled and looked out at the zombie horde. It was now obvious that they were thinning out as thousands of them wandered away and more moved out into their places. If they waited long enough the undead would clear away completely.
“We need to keep after them,” said Rory.
His aide looked at him in horror. “But, we have won, your Majesty.”
“We have won. But these things are still dangerous, and we can’t have them roaming the countryside. In a few months there won’t be a living farmer in this region.”
The men were tired, and there were still zombies attacking the lines. But the ones wandering away would make good targets, too good to pass up. He wasn’t sure if they would get all of them, but it would be a good start, even though it would still take months of hunting to get them all.
Rory shook his head as he thought about the task ahead. Just because they had won this battle didn’t mean the war was over. There were still other nomad forces out there, smaller groups of ten to twenty thousand roaming the kingdoms the horde had already overrun, or the bordering lands, taking as many lives as possible while their few remaining necromancers continued to raise undead. Rory would be within his rights to leave the war, since he had stopped the foe that would have eventually threatened his lands. But this was an enemy that needed to be destroyed, once and for all, so the oth
er kingdoms of the west could recover.
The priests were now praying, changing their spells from defensive to offensive, and groups of zombies were converting to piles of dust. Seconds later the fireballs came again, and once more circles of destruction spread through the horde. By the time the sun was sinking into the west there were very few zombies still on the field. The great majority had been destroyed, but tens of thousands had wandered off.
“Order the men to the camps,” said the monarch as the red rays of the setting sun lit up the hills. “We will rest tonight and take care of what must needs be done on the morrow.”
The men deserved a rest, as did the horses. And the king didn’t want his men to remain on this field after darkness fell. There were still the zombies, and possibly vampires, and fields of dead like this could attract ghouls. In the hills they would be away from this corruption, and under the light of day they could pile the bodies and burn them in place, after burying their own in consecrated ground, saving them from the blasphemy of undeath. And then they could reorganize and plan the march to the east.
Epilogue
Conner O’Kelly looked over field from the formation he marched in. Most of the bodies were gone, their remains, charred bones, in a huge bonfire that had roared the night before.
I made it, he thought, walking in a perfect line behind the man to the front.
“What are you thinking, rookie,” said the grizzled veteran to his side. “Ready to go home to mommy.”
“Shut your mouth,” growled another veteran, one that Conner recognized as one he had fought behind. “Our young lad is no rookie. He’s a veteran now, with two hard fights under his belt. Harder than anything any of us had face prior to this campaign.”
The other veteran nodded, and all of the men around him cheered. The officer in charge of the company looked over with a scowl, which soon turned to a smile when he realized what was going on. The young farm boy turned carpenter was now accepted by the professional soldiers as one of them. From what he had heard, there would be other fights ahead. He felt ready for whatever might come.
* * *
“I wish you were coming with us,” said Tengri to the divinely beautiful woman who stood before him. “We could use you.”
“I will be of more use to you after I have ascended,” said Freya with a brilliant smile. Already she was looking more like a goddess, her armor and skin glowing in the morning sun. “I will be with you, and you will have call upon my power when needed.”
Freya was the most fortunate of the walking gods. Enough of her people had taken part in the battle, and having seen their goddess in action, they were once again true believers. The energy had been flowing into her for the last day, and she had looked decidedly less human with each passing hour. And now?
“The barbarians never made it into the mountains of my lands,” said the smiling goddess, her hand touching Tengri’s and sending a charge of thrilling power up his arm. “It will take some time to organize as a nation once again, and a generation or two before we have any power among the Northlands. But we will return.”
The light falling on the goddess from the heavens brightened, and at the same time her form became less substantial. “Remember, when you have need of me, call my name.”
With that the woman faded away, while the light from heaven increased in brilliance until Tengri had to close his eyes against the pain. When he opened them again the woman was gone, and a goddess had returned to the realms of the divine.
“One day, my friend,” said Perun, slapping him across his broad shoulders.
“Has any god ever ascended after falling to Earth?” asked Tengri, staring at the sky that had once been his domain.
“Not that I have heard,” replied Perun. “But, then again, every other god has fallen to Earth because all of his worshippers were gone. That is not true of Freya.”
Tengri could hear the hope in the Slavic storm god’s voice, that it would not be true for him as well. And will it be true for me? he thought. It would not be unless he could turn enough worshipers away from Erlic and back to himself. Or, if not turning, at least reigniting the faith of those who had lost it in him. And to do that he needed to destroy his own people as a military power.
He had the power of two goddesses to call on now. Freya might not have much to spare for some time, but Morrigan was a mighty deity, with the faith of millions of worshipers behind her. And now that all of the gods of the west had been apprised of the threat, they would be able to unite against Erlic. Such hadn’t happened since the war of the human gods against those of the Eldritch. Those gods, those people, still existed on this world, far from the kingdoms of the humans. Could they perhaps be enlisted in this fight? Or would they wait in the wings, to pounce on human gods weakened by internal strife. Whatever the result, the one thing he knew was that his brother needed to fall.
“So,” said King Rory, walking up to the two male walking gods. “She actually ascended back to her heaven.”
Tengri nodded, looking over at the mortal who would never understand his kind.
“I think I’m going to miss her,” said the king, smiling. “As much of a pain in the ass as she was.”
“She might have been of great use to your army as a warrior,” said Perun, nodding. “I think she will be of even more use as a goddess.”
“And to think that I actually fought in a battle with a goddess on my side,” said Marcus, walking up to the group.
“And may we say the same about fighting beside an archmagi?” asked Perun with a laugh.
“That will be many decades down the road,” said the young man, looking down at the ground.
“And you are still determined to come with us?” asked Tengri, looking back at the king.
“I am. And I have forty thousand good men to come with me. We will clear these lands of your brother’s warriors. And of all the undead. We will go as far as the lands of the Scythians, since they are related to my people, and it doesn’t sit well with me to see the lands of our cousins corrupted so.”
“And beyond that?” asked Tengri, hoping.
“That we will have to see, Master Tengri,” said the king. “I doubt I can talk many of my people into going to the lands beyond the grass sea. But we will see when the time comes.”
Tengri nodded. He had expected no other answer. He would take what help he could get, as far as it was willing to go. If he had to fight Erlic by himself, so be it. But he thought he would still have allies to aid him in his battle. Even if it was only a pair of goddesses and some magic users, it might just be enough.
The End
About the Author
Doug Dandridge is the author of over thirty self-published books on Amazon, including the very successful, Exodus: Empires at War series, the Refuge techno-fantasy series, The Deep Dark Well Trilogy, as well as numerous standalone science fiction and fantasy novels. In a five and a half year period as a self-published author, Doug has sold well over two hundred and fifty thousand eBooks, paperbacks and audio books. He has amassed over 6,000 reviews across his books on Amazon, with a 4.6 star average, and a similar number of ratings on Goodreads with a 4.12 star average. His first traditionally published series, Kinship War, should be out in 2019, and he had written a novel, When Eagles Dare, in Chris Kenndy and Mark Wandrey’s Four Horsemen series. He served in the US Army as an infantryman, as well as several years in the Florida National Guard in the same MOS. Doug, who holds degrees from Florida State University and the University of Alabama, lives with his four cats in Tallahassee Florida. He is a sports enthusiast and a self-proclaimed amateur military historian.
Books by Doug Dandridge
Science Fiction
The Deep Dark Well Trilogy
The Deep Dark Well: An Adventure 40,000 years in the making. Pandora Latham was a Kuiper Belt Miner from Alabama. She’s used to landing on her feet, even when the next surface is through a wormhole, halfway across the Galaxy and 46,000 years in the Future. Pandora must disc
over the secret behind the end of civilization, and the enigma of the Immortal Watcher, the last survivor of the Empire that once ruled the stars. Her decisions will set the path for Galactic recovery, or a continuation down the roads of Barbarism.
To Well and Back: Pandora Latham is back, working Watcher’s plan to restore Galactic Civilization. But first she has to deal with the Xenophobes of the Nation of Humanity, back in the Supersystem with their sights set on making the Galaxy their own. Pandora is angry at the hyper religious Nation, and you don’t want to make a woman from Alabama angry.
Deeper and Darker: Pandora Latham is on the warpath. Watcher, her lover, and the only man who can once again unite the Galaxy, is a prisoner of the Totalitarian government of the New Galactic Empire. The Empire thinks they have the upper hand, but they have never faced someone like Pandi, and the peoples of the Galaxy that she has rallied to her cause.
Theocracy: A young gunpowder era monk becomes the only hope for his doomed world as he is caught up in the game of empire between two more advanced cultures.
Theocracy Book 2: With the aid of Watcher, Patrick O’brien and his partners, including some new alien allies, quest across multiple worlds in a search for the control center that could save his world.
The Exodus Series
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 1: The introduction to the Exodus Universe. Two thousand years prior mankind fled from the Predatory Ca’cadasans, traveling a thousand years and ten thousand light years to a new home. Now the greatest power of their sector of space, things seem to be going well for the New Terran Empire. Until the enemy appears once again at the gates. And the years have not softened the aliens’ stance toward Humanity.
The Chronicles of the Eirish: Book 1: The Lich's Horde Page 31
