The night was young the moon was out if only a half. The mage was leaning against a wall in an alley watching the street and waiting for the sound of drums. His hand was healing from a cut. He held three stones the size of his thumb rolling around. Tonight, had been improvised over the day but the parts were coming together. Two streets over a mob of fifty or so unliving were waiting in ambush along with an assortment of his other children. He played with the blood stones in his hands.
The mage heard the drum. It was accompanied by the sound of boots stepping in unison. The company of men thundered down the street. As the sound of boots and drums grew louder Albie looked to the giant spider across the street. Its body was the size of a horse, its legs stretched halfway across the street. It had played a web across the street at a height that might catch the banner. The mage had tried to control the spider the same way he might control Bags but found a spider's body to different from his own to control. It was best to instruct the creature from here.
The orange coats passed by the lean body in the alley. Lanterns illuminated the men. Light reflected off polished buttons and musket barrels. Near the front of the formation was the banner. It was a simple triangle of orange cloth the number two was drawn on it. The cloth hung at the end of a long spear with a polished brass tip. The banner was a head taller than the muskets. It approached the building where the trap was laid.
The mage told the spider what he wanted. The orange coats were halfway through when the banner hit the web. Its carrier stopped for a moment and tried to pull it against an invisible net. The men walked a few paces before the drum signaled a halt. The square of men stopped as the man in charge of the banner struggled. The trap sprung and the man holding the flag was hoisted into the air. The flag was pulled up by the web the man responsible for it refused to let go. The crowd of men shouted as two massive spider legs reached down from the building and grabbed the flag man.
A few men took shots with their muskets as the man and the flag where spun into a bundle of spider silk. In a blink the spiders' victim was cocooned. The titanic beast stood up on the roof. The men gasped unable to understand the creature in front of them. It began striding down the street at its master's unheard commands. The mage stood and walked through the alleys directly to the ambush point.
Shouts and chaos erupted behind him. He arrived at the place they had set up the ambush. Still bodies waited in the dark alleys three piles of corpses awaited the stones in his hands. Buzzing could be heard nearby. In the center of the street was a headless body in priest robes. It had one hand tucked into the robes on its chest.
The titanic spider arrived and dropped its package into the street. Albie and Scab ran out to deal with the squirming silk. The mage touched the silk and his magic ate into it he reached the man inside and drained him of his life. After eating the solder, the two moved the bundle of silk in front of the headless priest. The two nodded and headed back to the alleys.
Albie had a seat by the corpse pile closest to where the orange coats would come from. Soon enough the first set of boots came running. A group of 50 men lead by the older solder wearing the tall hat arrived in the street. The men rushed for the cocoon. The man in the tall hat with the shrapnel gun stopped a few feet from the prize.
"Stop!" shout the old grenadier. "Form a square, watch the alleys. You two check on the color sergeant."
At the orders of the old solder two orange coats ran over to the cocoon. It was not what the mage or the wight had wanted. Albie felt it was the best they would get and sent Scab the go ahead.
The two men cutting into the spider silk heard a click. The entire city heard the explosion. Albie felt the ground shake under him. The two men closest to the dead priest disappeared in fire and smoke. The formation of orange coats was nocked to the ground. Men shouted and screamed as they got back to their feet. The mage could see some of the men were bleeding. pieces of the first two men had caught the men behind them. The solder holding the blunderbuss stood up and readied the gun. He eyed his surroundings.
The unliving rose from the alleys and stormed the street. The Grenadier blasted one pack on rushing unliving. Three corpses were shredded by the gun but the other unliving were already on top of the solders.
"For square around me!" shouted the old solder.
A few men ran to the sound of his voice. Men who had been left behind in the chase rushed to help. Tired but determined they ran one by one into the melee of teeth and wood. It was then they saw a new contender enter the field. He looked familiar to some of them. He had disappeared the night before along with a few others presumed dead or deserted. He was missing his arms, and someone had taken his shirt. His face and chest looked swollen.
The man opened his mouth and the men whose eardrums had been spared the blast heard a loud buzzing. A dark cloud of bees erupted from in between the man's teeth. The cloud flew to the man trying to reload the shrapnel gun. The other men watched as the insect's spit on the man. The Grenadier screamed as patches of his flesh began to melt and the bugs swarmed him. The other men not engaged with an unliving dropped their guns in panic and ran for the street they had come from. The titanic spider appeared from a nearby alley and bees the size of cats swooped out of the night. Both grabbed men and dragged them into the night.
Albie watched Bags brood emerge from the shadows to do as he had commanded. They stole the cartridge boxes and bags from the dead and injured soldiers. The giant rats dragged their prizes into the shadows before coming back fore more. Sometimes stealing a man still breathing if missing a few pieces.
Albie walked to the burning wreckage of the cocoon. The screaming men were not his problem. Those that could do him harm had more immediate threats to deal with. He reached into the burning cocoon and found the banner still intact. The mummified husk holding it was half gone but its charge was still in one piece. The mage pulled the stick out of the mans cold dead and held it up only to see that one hand that had been disconnected from the body was still holding on to it. The mage pealed the blackened hand off the staff and tossed it aside to observe tonight's bait.
The mage thought it a simple thing and could not sense any magic in it, but something about holding it felt powerful to him. it was strange but a smile crept to his thin chapped lips as he held up the captured banner. It had a power to it even if not a magical one. He wanted all of them. Intact if possible or in splinters and ripped fabric if need be. Holding it felt like he had beaten one hundred men.
Hooves echoed in the distance and the mage felt the glee of Scab that more food was coming to tonight's feast.