Devourer

Chapter 150: Opening Battle

Count Uxtual stood before on the wall towards his gathered soldiers. His fortress had only about 180 000 men as well as 20 000 other support personnel. He could see the fear in many of their eyes. 80 000 of his men were conscripts that were dragged from the population of Zarima. They were not prepared to fight the forces of the dead. They lack the training, equipment and the will to fight. The rest of the army were 20 000 devotees of the House of War, 30 000 Border Guards who were experienced at fighting the forces of the dead and 50 000 regular soldiers. 

In his army only the devotees of the House of War had firm gazes, everyone else was terrified. The devotees of the House of War were religious zealots who felt it was an honour to die for their goddess. Count Uxtual was of a similar opinion but he was also not foolish enough to forget that not all share his devotion. 

Luckily for him this was not a suicide mission. It used to be but now it’s not, which was a welcome change needless to say. As much as he was willing to die for his cause he would rather be alive to serve it.

The dead will be here soon according to the scouts but honestly, the giant cloud of sand on the horizon was enough of an indicator for the Count. 

Now the only thing to do was to give a speech and wait for the wave of death to crash against the wall of the fortress. Count Uxtuall could only pray that the wave will break upon the walls.

Count Uxtual drew his greatsword and placed the tip at his feet as he held the hilt with both hands. The fidgeting in his army went silent and the quiet set in, the absolute silence before the roar of battle.

I trust all of you know why we are here

A black crusade comes for us

The dead come for all of us

If the dead break through they will kill all of us

Then our bodies will be raised to strike our kin

This fortress was raised in the age of the Ancient Draconians

It has stood for a hundred thousand years and it will not fall today

We are the chosen of the Goddess of War

The Goddess smiles upon us and we will not fail

If you need a reason to fight then look within yourself

Look to those that stand to your left and right

We do not need a reason to fight, for we have a reason to win

Our land, our home and the air that we breath

The dead will come for us

Then I say…

Let them come

We face the jaws of death

Let those very jaws break it’s teeth on our fortress

If the dead want to come and take it all

Then I say…

COME AND TAKE IT!

At those words the army raised their blades to the sky and let out cry to the heavens. Count Uxtual could hear it in their voice, this was not a cry of hope. It was a cry of defiance, that although the world seemed set against them they would not go quietly into the dark.

But Count Uxtual knew these were just words and words could not save anyone. The Goddess preaches action, deeds and not words. The angels on high like to preach to their devotees that faith is their armour. That was about as obvious a lie as one could say. 

Faith would not protect them, lies would not preserve them but most of all blind hope will damn them.

Many will not survive the coming battle but Count Uxtual knew they could win. The fall of this Fortress serves no one’s interests except for the vampires. The Empire will come, for that was what would give them the most gains. If there was anything to be trusted, it would be personal self interest.

Count Uxtual turned to face the gold sands beyond the wall and he saw the incoming cloud of sand and the pair of large black ziggurats that hovered above the ground.

He heard the officers shout to their men. Calls to be ready for the incoming onslaught.

Stand ready!

We are the shield of Zarima!

The blazing sword held against the darkness!

Count Uxtual looked to his right and he saw the crew of a Scorpion Bolt Thrower nervously waiting. He could see them trembling slightly as the mass of corpses slowly approached. He looked to the right and he saw soldiers ready with a wooden mechanism designed to toss barrels of explosive Alchemical Fire over the walls.

Count Uxtual could see archers and mages with their projectiles at the ready. Usually before the siege there would be an offer of surrender but Count Uxtual knew none were coming. The dead do not need terms, they only need more corpses and thralls.

Not even an hour later the Vampires were close enough for Count Uxtual to see each individual shambling zombie. The army was massive, some had split off to hit the other two fortresses. But regardless, what was here was more than ten times the numbers he had. Each of his soldiers would need to take down ten enemies before they died for them to stand a chance. Even if they managed that it would still imply the entire garrison would be dead.

Then the Ziggurats stopped but the front outermost layer of zombies continued to press forward. This was standard Vampire strategy, send the cannon fodder first. If they win they can just raise the dead again and recover most of the zombies that were lost. Count Uxtual heard the familiar thunk of the ballista’s firing. The man sized bolts flew out towards the encroaching mass of zombies. The moment they landed there was a series of flashes followed by a blast. Count Uxtual made sure these explosive bolts were as numerous as possible but there still wasn’t enough. He ordered the artillery crews to only fire up to three volleys at the approaching zombies. They had to save those shots for the bigger targets.

When the mass of dead got closer to the walls they reached the fire trench. Count Uxtual had his soldiers dig a trench around the entire fortress and filled it with Alchemical Fire. He heard the officers shout for the archers to draw their bows. Then a release of a wall of arrows. After that the archers were to shoot as fast as they could manage. In this phase of the battle no accuracy was needed. All the archers needed to do was get their arrows into the mass of shambling zombies. The arrow tips had this hammerhead design, they were designed to strike with enough force to shatter bone. The zombies had no functioning organs other than the brain; they could only be stopped by destroying the brain or by immobilising them. Thus these arrows splatter heads or break enough bones to disable the zombies.

The zombies shambled forward even as many of their number had entire parts of their heads blown apart. The Scorpion Bolts had enough force to impale several zombies but they kept moving forward. Their bodies packed so tightly together the bodies didn’t even have room to fall to the ground. The ones behind just shoved the limp corpses into the ones in front with bodies falling only on rare occasions.

Count Uxtual was waiting for enough of these creatures to cross the trench. The zombies couldn’t swim so many of them just sank to the bottom of the trench with the rest just walking over them. The trench was designed to be around one and half times taller than a person. So when the zombies crawled through they ended up compacting themselves to the bottom of the trench and forced the Alchemical Fire out of the trench while still leaving plenty of the oil in the trench itself.

So now the black oil covered zombies were everywhere and Uxtual was waiting for them to get to the first layer of razor wire obstructions. There was about twenty metres of distance from the trench to the razor wire, the razor wire sat at just the right distance for the archers on the wall to have a clean shot at the zombies below. Once the zombies started reaching the razor wire the orders went down.

Light the trench!

The officers started to shout and the mages all channelled power into their hands. Then a wave of [Fireballs] flew out towards the trench. There was a burst of flame and the entire trench went up with an explosion and turned into a wall of fire. Alchemical Fire burns hot enough to melt bone so it was more than sufficient to take out zombies. The wall of fire also slowed the progress of the zombies allowing the archers to clean up the zombies that were on the wrong side of the wall of fire.

So far so good, it looks like they had taken out about ten thousand low tier zombies but Count Uxtual still ground his teeth at the sight. The entire reason the Vampires sent out this first wave of rubbish was to drain the resources of the defenders. Alchemical Fire trenches burn for hours so it was a must have defence but if Count Uxtual allowed the zombies to reach the walls it would create the mother of all fire hazards. So he had no choice but to expend one of his defensive cards early. He knew this would happen, it was just the standard outcome of the initial contact. The real threat starts after this…

The hordes kept pressing forward but most of them were destroyed by the flames. These were the so-called walker zombies but what came after were called runners. Although alchemical fire burned hot and long eventually the corpses would start to smother the flames and the flames would be cool enough for the dead to break through.

This was exactly what was happening, there was starting to be a small mound of burning corpses forming at the fire trench. The sheer amount of burning bodies slowly covered the burning flames below leaving only burning corpses above. Although this was still enough to set the zombies on fire it wasn’t nearly enough to incinerate them instantly. So the zombies just continued to shamble over.

Then suddenly Count Uxtual saw zombies start bursting through the flames at full sprint. It looks like the second wave was here. There was something concerning about this whole affair. It was that the dead did not bother to surround the fortress. It looked like they wanted to throw everything against the walls and break them in a decisive attack.

However, these past two attacks seemed to be probing attacks. What are they waiting for? Or perhaps the better question is what are they afraid of? The most obvious answer would be the Great Beast’s hive, if they committed to a full assault or split their forces to surround the fortress it would leave them open to being picked off by the Hive.

Well it doesn’t matter, the goal of this first battle was that they took as little casualties as possible. Count Uxtual narrowed his eyes as he watched the flaming running figures pour through the flames. The archers were keeping up for now with the help of the occasional magical barrage. Most were being stopped at the razor wire with a few reaching the wall. Some of the more experienced archers stood atop the edge of the walls while attached to a special mechanism. This allowed them to stand perpendicular to the wall as if they were rappelling down. They raised their bows and fired straight down the wall at the zombies that have gotten close to the wall.

The wall was covered with enchantments that made it slippery and impossible to climb. The only areas where the stone was rough was at the top which allowed the soldiers to do that trick of leaning over the edge of the wall. The archers leaning over the wall started to use their enchantment abilities on the arrows and soon the base of the wall was peppered with blue magic arrows.

Count Uxtual took in a deep breath as he examined the situation around him. Everything seems to be going well for now. But this was just the beginning, the Vampires were just sending these out to tire out the defenders. There were still the Ordias Derenge’s Blood Knights and their Signifiers. Rosa Maledicta was famous for her undead horrors. The Vampires also had plenty of flyers, giant bats and other grotesque creatures like Necromantic constructs. All of which has yet to rear their ugly heads.

Then there was a shockwave and Count Uxtual looked on wide eyed as the mound of corpses was thrown forward towards the wall. The wall of fire then started to simmer out, it was far too early for the fire to go out.

“Signifiers…” Count Uxtual said through gritted teeth.

Sure enough when the flames vanished it revealed a neat row of black heavy shields. Count Uxtual knew the sigil on the shields far too well. The sigil of the Blood Knights.

Then the shields parted to reveal archers with bows already drawn. Count Uxtual’s felt his eyes widen, he grabbed the soldier next to him and pulled him down over the crest of the wall. Then he heard the screams from around him. He looked up to see the Scorpion Bolt Thrower had been destroyed with its operators lying dead or dying on the ground. 

Count Uxtual stood back up and saw all the archers who were hanging off the walls were dead. Many of his weapon crews, mages and officers were dead as well. He grimaced when he realised the first attack was not just a probing attack to drain him of resources. It was for the enemy to figure out where they should snipe to inflict maximum damage. He hadn’t activated the wall’s magic barrier because he just didn’t have a lot of charge in it. Ether crystals were expensive and his decision to conserve resources just lost him most of his best-ranged troops. 

It seems Oridas Derenge’s reputation as a skilled tactician was not undeserved.

Before his soldiers could even retaliate, one of the Ziggurats in the distance pulsed with power  and then siege towers appeared all along the line of the undead army.

“Of course, the Blood Knights and their teleportation…” Count Uxtual growled.

Luckily for him his ballistas were protected with their own individual magic barriers which means that the sniping attack did nothing to his heavy artillery.

Well, the Vampires came here for a fight, Count Uxtual would not want to disappoint them…

Ballistas aim for their siege towers!