Ep. 403 Captain's War Part 13 (Patreon)

Raindrop says "That just makes it worse!"

"I will be the one attacking, you just stay back and cover me."

Raindrop whistles and her unicorn comes running over, as she mounts I can hear her muttering again. When I ask her what she is saying she just glares at me, but she still follows me as I head towards the enemy. When they come into sight the sheer number of them almost makes me change my mind.

Even for me these kinds of numbers are way too much to deal with, but I don't have to defeat them. All I have to do is slow them down so the army can retreat, not that it is going to be easy. Luckily, I only need to buy the army a little time, undead are slow, but they never stop to rest.

If the army gets a bit of a head start then they can make it to town before they will have to stop and rest. As I walk towards the enemy I take the death knight's sword out of my backpack and strap it to my side. I draw it with one hand and the chief's sword with the other.

Normally fighting with two greatswords isn't a good idea, but with my strength and speed it should be fine. As I approach the army the undead don't react to me at all, they just keep marching forward. That should mean they are being controlled, but I can't see a death knight anywhere.

All I can see are the orcs and goblins, all of which seem to be zombies. When I reach the front of the army I use Lightning Wave to open up a gap in the undead. Then as I move into the gap I start my sword dance, although it isn't as fast as usual.

The main reason for that is I have to keep my strikes more precise, after all only headshots count against zombies. Even with being more precise I am still able to cut my way deeper into the army without too much trouble. As I am fighting I constantly see zombies going down with an arrow through the head.

Finally the army stops and the zombies start trying to attack me, looks like I finally got noticed. It only took a couple of hundred dead zombies for the commander to notice me. Now with zombies pressing in from all sides it is a lot harder to move, so I end up stopping.

Very quickly I am surrounded by a circular wall of bodies with more zombies climbing over it constantly. For the most part I am killing them as they try to climb over, only a few make it inside the circle. After a few minutes I jump over the wall and move to a new position.

While I could have stayed inside the circle I was starting to worry about the walls falling on me. So instead I just start making a new circle, after all it isn't like I am going to run out of zombies. As I fight I learn how to use the two greatswords more efficiently, my movements become sharper.

After about an hour I am working on my fifth circle when I realize I haven't seen any arrows for a while. Since I have delayed the enemy more than long enough I start cutting a path out of the army. By the time I break free, by my best guess, I have killed over two thousand zombies.

As I start jogging towards town I clean and sheath both swords, then look around for Raindrop. I quickly spot her ahead of me, she is sitting on her unicorn just watching me. As I jog past, her unicorn easily falls into step with me while Raindrop gives me a dirty look.

"What?"

Raindrop says "I am completely out of arrows! That has never happened to me before!"

"Oh, sorry? We will get you some more in town."

Raindrop says "Ugh, human made arrows!" and makes a face at me.

"For this kind of fight quantity matters more than quality."

Raindrop says "I am going to ride on ahead. Make sure you stop and take a bath somewhere!"

It is only as she rides away that I realize I am completely covered in bits and pieces of zombie. Of course, as soon as I notice it I can't stop smelling it, so I start searching for water. My boots, cloak, and tabard are perfectly clean, but the rest of me is another story all together.

As soon as I spot a stream I rush over, dive in, and start washing myself vigorously. After about ten minutes of scrubbing I drag myself out of the cold water and try to shake off. It is times like this that I realize just how useful my cleaning stone really is.

I am still fairly damp when I catch up to my troop which is guarding the back of the army. They look unhappy, probably because I delayed the entire enemy army and they didn't get to do any fighting. However, I ignore their pouting and run up to the front of the army where Roland is.

"You have about an hour of breathing room."

Roland says "Good! Thank you!"

"No problem. I suggest you don't stop until you reach the town."

Roland says "I wasn't planning to!"

"Okay, I will run ahead and make sure everything is ready."

Roland says "Understood."

After leaving the army behind it only takes me twenty minutes to reach town. Based on their speed the army should arrive in two to three hours with the enemy an hour or two behind them. I inform the merc in charge of the gate of this and then go looking for Zimmy.

"Zimmy, the army should be back in two or three hours. What's the situation here?"

Zimmy says "A few hours ago the scouts started reporting small groups of undead heading towards the town. I sent out a couple of groups of mercs to kill those they can."

"What directions are they coming from?"

Zimmy says "South, east, and west."

"Damn! So that's their plan!"

Zimmy says "What? Why do you suddenly look worried?"

"The enemy isn't planning on a siege. Those groups are meant to keep us from escaping. The main army is going to focus on the north wall and try to overwhelm us in one attack!"