The orange coats had put up a good fight. The mage standing on a nearby wall honestly thought that. Those explosives and trenches had destroyed huge numbers of undead. It was frustrating losing the armored Zombies to a pit. The defenders even managed to destroy the first stone bound by meat. The cannoneers were now getting ready to fire at the second. They had even managed to turn the wall to ruble. Injured men and two of the cannon crews moved to clear enough of the shattered stone to get the wagons through.
The Moon mage had thought he only needed a hoard of undead to overtake them. The orange coats were going to escape. The mage was sure that if they he had more time they would be overrun soon.
Soon would not be soon enough. The orange coats and the sergeant at arms were slipping from his grasp. The spiders had set up some traps outside the wall, but it would not be fast enough. The mage looked at the walking hives next to him. The armless man trapped under layers many lairs of beehive.
At this time the only recognizable part of him were his torn pants and legs. From his waist up was layers of honeycomb bulging out as wide as he is tall. The mage thought about his living reserves. The walking hives were his best choice to make a nuisance for the people clearing rocks. Two of the oldest hives ran over the edge of the wall landing in the gap.
The bees escaped the hives and began to attack the rubble cleaners. The crews flailed and rolled as the bees spit acid on them.
One of the gun crews turned their cannon to the breach.
BOOM!!
The cannon shell sent shockwaves through the air scattering the cloud of insects. The acid burnt men got back up and began pulling rocks out of the gap.
A horde of dead bodies was one thing. It was easy to sacrifice. Scab and the other smarter undead were almost irreplaceable. His living servants were just the same. The table made undead and the beasts he had created were his children. Loosing them hurt what little was left of his heart, but it was now time to be willing to sacrifice them.
A mental order was sent out and the crows and ravens began to charge the gap from the other side of the wall. The flyers swooped on the gunners and the ground birds rushed at the rubble cleaners. The birds ripped men apart with primal jaws and teeth. A man was pulled off a cannon by a pair of crows and thrown into a nearby building.
A group of orange coat jumped off the wall. At the command of a man dressed in yellow. A volley of muskets raked the birds. Blood erupted from half the birds on the ground. The beasts screamed. The mage felt his heart squeeze as three of his birds fell to the ground flailing.
Teams of five giant rats dragged muskets to both sides of the gap and began shooting down on the gun line. The birds rushed the orange coats as the orange coats on buildings began to shoot at the rats. The flyers attacked the rooftop troopers who changed targets to the birds. A shrapnel gun nocked one of the birds out of the air. It landed on the street splattering on the pavement.
"Scab!" Ordered the mage through the mind link. "Get those dead men over the wall."
"I have sent all the walkers father," responded Scab in a comb tone of mind.
"I see," agreed the mage.
The line of orange coats had fixed bayonets and were fighting the ground birds. An old man in a yellow coat smashed the brains out of a bird the size of a horse. The old man yelled something to the gun crew shooting at the remaining walking statue. Its arm crumbled guarding the central stone.
Two knights ran to fight with the birds. One of the five rats screeched as it fell of the wall.
The mage pulled out a blood stone the size of his upper arm. He placed it next to his chest in his harness and thew the musket walking stick over his shoulder. He began to absorb the life force in the stone. A rush of energy filled his body. The liquid death stirred his blood lungs and stomach.
The mage ran and jumped of the wall onto the nearest building. His knees buckled and his legs broke as he landed. The team of men set up on the building turned to look at him surprised. They looked at the broken body that jumped among the four men.
The pistol pointed at one of the shocked men.
BANG!!
The man fell over backwards dead. The mages legs snaped back into place as the blood stone poured life force into his body rapidly healing himself. The mage stood up to get shot by one of the orange coats. The torn flesh and bone began to nit back together. The mage dropped the pistol and swung the musket staff with the strength of ten men. The orange coats head split apart scattering across the roof.
The remaining two men shouted desperate war cries and rushed the mage. The mage grabbed the first man and was used as a hammer to nock the second into the rooftop. With no further use for the man in his hand he threw him off the roof.
"Father what are you doing!?" thought Scab.
"I can't watch this anymore," responded the mage jumping off the roof."
His legs broke again as he hit the street. The man he just tossed off broken but still alive. The mage saw no need to finish the man. He might have a use for him latter.
He rushed the line of orange coats fighting with his murder birds. The liquid unlife took its share of the energy fixing his body. It squirmed in his stomach and boiled in his blood. As he closed on the gunline he felt his body reject the black liquid. In a bout of madness, he punched his stomach shattering bones and squirting its content over the men and two beasts fighting. The liquid maddened the beasts and attacked the minds of the men.
The mages stomach and ribs began to heal. A hammer swung from almost outside of his view. The mage raised an arm to stop it. His arm saved his head but was nocked backwards at an impossible angle.
"So you are the mage," growled a sour voice.
The mage looked to see the hammers wielder. An old man with a long grey beard in a yellow jacket.
"Sergeant of Arms Maxum Blunt," responded the mage. "I will not let you escape."