By now, there were entire bodies of different shapes and sizes converging on the pile of carcasses we had just left and more were popping up all over the ground between camp and there. Then, as if to spite me, I could suddenly hear the tearing earth sounds of undead underground… under me. Now I knew why Lucinda was fine with letting me come here.
She wanted to try and scare me straight!
Everybody else was up and coming out of their tents, now, while carrying their equipment and rushing to put it on. "What's the situation?" Leo calls out while still putting his proto-suit on over his sleeping clothes. Then, "What the fuck is that?!"
From the ground nearby, something that looked like it used to be an animals head but was divided into the fingers of a hand tore through the grass and weeds.
"That's the situation," I reply calmly as Poniard mercilessly leaps up and spears down on the bony arm and body underneath. "Leo, you and Ms. Gwyn and Karen are going to be our heavy hitters in this play but we're going to need you to hit as hard as you can for as long as you can, got it? We need you in the tower with Emilia and Eliza keeping this place surrounded in fire as much as you can. Fred, Frank," I say to get their attention while they fastened their outer armor up.
"We're going to run around the outside and drop all our firewood so the job is easier on Leo, I'll keep the two of you covered if you can dont mind carrying the loads," I explain quickly and hopefully while running around to find one of the spare fence stakes. "Carlos, Emile, I want you guys running around inside the fence just leading whatever undead pop up inside the camp in circles. Emilia and Eliza will keep you covered. Karen, Ms. Gwyn, can I ask you two to make a quick high-ground platform near the sentry tower? It will create a space where you guys can overview the action but stay out of it while still taking part in it with your healing range."
"I brought an artifact for JUST such an occasion," Ms. Gwyn replies almost cheerfully while everybody else runs off to gather fire wood or follow their roles, reaching into one of her many bags and taking out a very familiar looking iron plate. "D grade healing artifact, a bunch of them were being auctioned by a neighboring territory and I HAD to get one while they were cheap."
Mine was free, but now was not the time to tell her that.
"Good! With that, you're at least twice as strong of a healer," I say while chopping the top five feet off of an F grade fence stake with my big sword so that I was left with an F grade pole of about ten feet in length. "Karen, you're the alchemist and magic craftsman, right? Craft us a platform and keep the anti-death unit loaded with potions. Fred, Frank, on me!"
Poniard, who was busy spearing anything that attempted to climb up in our proximity, started to follow me as I lead the tankers toward the closest gateway until I stopped them. "Poniard, if you can understand me, I have the most important job for you. You see those two pretty ladies over there? Protect them with your life," I say seriously, knowing he would at least understand the word 'protect' and the people I was pointing at.
With that last order given to my goblin I ran off once again to open the gateway for the tankers and follow them outside. Once outside, Fred followed Frank as Frank ran along the fence dropping loose stacks of broken logs and branches from his arms as he went. When he ran out half of the way to the next gate, Fred took up where he left off.
There were only a couple dozen undead in the area of our camp but there were more constantly popping up only fifty or so yards away was a squirming and writhing pile of skeletal or rotten bodies devouring almost twenty dead bodies between them.
With a ten-foot staff I had little to worry about personally despite the absurd sizes of some of these creatures.
An arm made up of almost nothing but joints and nearly as long as my staff reaching towards me was shattered as I spun the staff through its wrists. The same beast standing over twelve feet tall on three legs of twists spines and femurs simply reached toward me with the other arm as if nothing happened.
Leaping forward under its arm, I sweep the fore end of my staff in across one of the behemoth's knees before turning and whipping the butt of my staff into the opposite side. The joints that had just shifted to the left now broke out to the right as my staff smashed right through. Leaving the toppling undead to continue pursuing Fred and Frank, I shoulder tackle into a smaller undead creature's back to send it rolling more than ten yards away from Frank who was fighting it off for Fred.
Bright streams of yellow and orange illuminated the hilltop as arrows and spears of flame began flashing through the air, striking large and small undead bodies alike to splash like water even as bone and flesh charred. Undead were weak to a few different types of magic, but fire and the energies of life itself that healers used were the most effective. Wielding an artifact, the undead probably could not even approach Ms. Gwyn.
Regretting not having brought mine with me as I follow the tankers back inside the camp, I stop inside the gateway and simply hold my ground while spinning and thrusting the staff at anything within range. Full spins were not easy to accomplish because of the staff's length but a little lean in the staff or my body could compensate. What I could not compensate for, though, was that the makeshift staff was steadily becoming dented and bent out of shape with every resounding ring of metal on cracking bones.
Finally, after smashing apart three bodies and heads that refused to stay dead, the tankers returned with the next load of wood and we once again started running around the camp. The burning bodies and patches of ground were already helping to deter most of the smaller undead.
Bigger ones like the behemoth I crippled earlier, though, had no problem walking or crawling through the flames.
Undead were finally starting to rise up in greater numbers around the camp as the bodies at the bait site started moving much more restlessly. However, I did a much better job this time of keeping up with the tankers. I simply had to make myself focus on one thing and one thing only.
After crippling our way through almost a dozen undead enemies I once again found myself standing ground just inside the camp's third gateway.
The rotting head of something like a giant bull with four outward curving horns was slithering across the ground using a serpentine body of knotted spines to wind its way forward. Another undead about the size of a person with skinless wings for arms and a massive deer's skull for a head was hopping in from the side. From underground there were four small hills forming from body parts breaching the surface.
Simply standing their and playing for reach with the warped pole by pool cue thrusting through one hand at the oncoming bull serpent. With every ding of contact, cracks formed on the skull that had half as big as my body and the end of the staff curled in on itself slowly. By the time the bird-man thing came within my newly shortened reach, it was quickly swatted into some nearby fire by the much heavier new end of my staff.
Probably just to spite me like tonight's events seemed to be designed for, the now seven-foot staff folded in two on impact with the bird-man undead. Holding the continually changing weapon by the bend in the middle, I smash the clubbing end of the now three-plus-foot mace down on the bull skull with abandon.
When it was finally broken through and the rest of the body stopped, the other bodies outside were at least halfway free of the ground and the tankers were already returning. Breathing deeply to steady myself while clenching my fists as tightly as possible, I get into lunge position for a brief second and tense my entire body before throwing myself forward.
My original intent had been to place myself within the climbing bodies and hold their attention for the tankers. However, I sailed straight through one body while still preparing to throw a punch! By the time I landed my fist and arm that was never thrown smashed through the humorous torso of arm bones in my way.
Spinning around on the balls of my feet after basically passing through the undead, I skid backwards to a stop even as I take my first step toward the next undead. This step still had the full tension of my body behind it but much more control, bringing me right in front of the seven-foot tall pigorilla-like abomination made up of broken skulls. Without the slightest hesitation or pause, I threw my still waiting fist up into the undead's chest and feel my knuckles start cracking from the impact even in my combat suit's proto-gauntlet as their torso caves around my fist.
Fred and Frank were clear of the gate and moving along the perimeter, now, so I did not bother with the remaining undead now that I had acquired an injury. Instead, I maintained their pace from a little to the side and physically threw myself into any undead that came within reach of my lunges. My upper arms and shoulders started aching even in my armor, but it was better than messing up both hands.
"Ms. Gwyn, my hand!" I call out as we come back to camp and I am forced to stop inside the gate and jump into a side kick to send a pursuing undead tumbling head over heels out of the camp. An instant later, the world around me suddenly seemed a little brighter even though there were no lights but fire in the area. Even the undead at the gate seemed to back away.
Then, the pain in my hand from its swelling being constricted by my gear was suddenly gone. So was the swelling! The healing buff of a D grade healing artifact in a healer's hands was NOT to be underestimated.
Filled with even more energy than I had when I woke up that morning, I simply turned around and ran to the sentry tower where I left my sword. "Ms. Gwyn!" Emilia calls out from above. "The zombies finished the bait and they're on their way here!"
"Eliza, if you have any heavy arrows left then use them up," Ms. Gwyn calls back as I leap into a spinning slash through the gateway that all but shatters two undead entering the gate. "After that, use Malcolm's rifle! Malcolm, how do I tell Poniard to take a bullet box up the tower?"
Caught by surprise by the question that had never occurred to me before as I smash the spine of my sword easily down through another bull headed serpent, I simply did not have an answer. Finally, I could only say, "Just tell him and point, he's smart!" Then, as the tankers came out for the last pass of wood, I turned my attention back to the undead.
Once I cleared enough of a path for Fred and Frank to get out of the camp we started finishing our ring of piles of wood. Well, they did while I followed along and slammed undead bodies out of the way or hacked them apart. Even though the numbers were steadily thickening around the camp, we made pretty good progress.
Now, two rifles were filling the air with the reports of gunfire as Eliza ran out of heavy arrows and took up my rifle to fire into the main mass of bodies heading for camp. Sadly, most of the bodies they were firing upon were made of bones and bones in this world were the hardest to put a bullet in. If not for the fact that my ammo supply had been temporarily upgraded by the director, only the .300 would be of any real value in this fight.
.410 slugs would need to hit the same spot a couple of times, even in pairs, before breaching the otherwise hollow bodies.
How was it that smashing at least half of their bodies, heads, or spines managed to kill something that was already dead? No clue. How was it that dead things were even up and moving? No clue, but I think magic had something to do with it.
Leaping low to the ground from a crouch, I smash the broad side of my sword through the front leg of another three-legged behemoth.
Whipping back the other way while skidding to a stop, I chop the blade of my sword into the next back leg while skidding to a stop. Even with less strength than the previous attack, using the blade allowed my sword to bite into the bone before stopping and releasing its force.
THEN the second leg shattered above its knee.
It was right about then that one of the beast's arms swung by low to the ground while I was turning to make distance with a leap. Instead, both legs were swept out from under me as I somersaulted toward the gate the tankers had already passed through. Nothing broke, from the sweep, but when I landed inside the camp I landed hard on my shoulders and felt multiple pops in my ribs, arm, and collar.
No matter how shock absorbent my armors were, no matter how strong my bones were, and no matter how strong my pain tolerance was… this hurt. Jamming and then dislocating all of the structural joints around my shoulder, back, and chest felt like somebody had just ripped my entire arm free of my body and then shoved it back into place.
I was not aware of it at first but as the blinding light in my head cleared and I came back to reality from the shock, I was yelling.
Like a pig being dragged into the slaughterhouse, I was screaming like something out of a horror movie until I caught myself and bit down on my other hand to muffle the cries. Then, once again, the world around me became incredibly radiant without any real source of light. The undead that were about to fill the gateway only a few feet away from me suddenly started steaming in the radiance and fell back.
As soon as I had my breath back before the healing was done, I yelled, "Leo! Light it up!"
Then, as a new light suffused the area, "Frank, Fred, shield up then replace Carlos and Emile in running the circuit. One run counter clockwise and the other proper so you can smash each other's tails. Ms. Gwyn, stun the undead behind our swords with a flash of healing magic as soon as Fred and Frank get in range so they all take a refresher from it. Carlos, Emile, hold the middle ground around the platform so whenever the tanks are on opposite sides you can disorient their tails."
I thought about asking Emilia for a status report on the main mass of undead as I pushed through the gateway in front of me, but when I got passed the flames I could already see. Just on this front side of the camp there were about thirty undead heading for my gateway and only twenty yards out from them were the fastest in the hoard.
I could not even begin to imagine how many undead were here that I could not see to estimate on the other side and IN the camp.
Breathing deeply to steady myself, I dash ten yards to the left as I exhale and overhead smash through another bull headed serpent's horns and skull. Lunging back the way I came while turning into an inward chop, I bear the sword heavily down on another skull monster's three-faced head and smash down into their chest before the rest of their body just falls away.
Another dash, another strike, a high bearing leap into an upper body back flip, and then I was partly diving onto a new behemoth's head.
Smashing the enlarged pommel of my big sword down on the top of its mismatched skull pieces, I roll backward off of the behemoth's head as the cranium starts cracking apart like a glass puzzle. Falling down its face of different jaws and eye sockets crammed together, I stuck out my foot into an eye socket to hang from for a moment before jackknifing away.
So close to the top of the behemoth's fragmenting skull, its face around me was broken apart from the 'flipping' force and the rest of its skull caved in.
*