Touch of Fate

Chapter 250: Counters

[This is slightly troublesome.] Kultanis thought to himself as he watched the dragon make another pass, unleashing a stream of fire which incinerated another batch of animate corpses.

Combined with the earlier meteors, the Dragonknight had already destroyed a significant portion of his army, somewhere in the region of 8-9% of his available forces. Thankfully, the Entropic Field around the command center had limited the destruction to the expendable troops. Still, the situation was one that needed an immediate remedy.

The Skull Lord briefly considered going forth to challenge him personally, but dismissed the idea. Clearly, the Dragonknight's harrying actions were designed to provoke a response, and draw the best of his forces away from the command center. More than likely, the mortals were planning on direct assault with the best of their fighters once the necromancers were left unguarded.

Although the entirety of their scheme was laughably obvious, Kultanis couldn't really blame the ones who came up with it. After all, they didn't have have any other options at this point.

[At least the pressure of our previous two attacks has prevented them from taking the most dangerous course of action.]

Previously he'd been concerned that the Almirans would resort to hit and run tactics in order to wear down his forces. With both the Dragonknight and one of the world's most accomplished Space Mage's on their side, they could rapidly attack and retreat with relative ease. While that wouldn't have won them a victory in the end, it would force Kultanis to alter key elements of his plan, and potentially delay his ultimate goal for another few decades.

Fortunately, it appeared that the enemy had completely fallen into his trap. They not only hid within their makeshift castle, but took a defensive stance and surrendered the initiative. As it stood, he merely had to keep the Dragonknight busy until the strike force arrived, and then it should be a simple matter to destroy the core of their forces. Once that was accomplished, the remainder of the coalition army would be easy pickings.

He turned to an adjutant, "Gather a contingent of Death Riders and a company of Skeleton Archers and engage the enemy. Do not concern yourself with killing either the rider or his mount. I want you to keep him occupied to the best of your ability. In a few minutes I'll also send a squad of Plaguewings to assist."

The adjutant saluted, and moved to gather his forces. With the exception of the relatively mundane archers, the troops Kultanis had listed were powerful undead which required extensive rituals to create. They'd been smuggled in as part of the initial invasion, and formed the heart of his army.

[If I hadn't wasted all that time and effort in the creation of those zombie birds, we could have made more. Oh well, I should treat this as just further proof that mortals cannot be trusted.]

Immediate tasks dealt with, he calmly watched the fight between the Dragonknight and his troops while waiting for his next foe to arrive.

After a few minutes, a region just outside of the Entropic Field warped and was rent asunder, depositing close to a hundred living humanoids who immediately began cutting their way towards the center of the Lacotian army.

[They have a few strong ones amongst them, even a few of the rumored Royal Guard. Excellent. We will be able to create strong minions from their corpses.]

Kultanis strode forth calmly, his cadre of Death Knights moving to match. He signaled the rest of his counter-ambush force to begin closing in on the isolated group of mortals, trapping them in a tightening noose. Or at least, that should have been the case.

Instead, the strike force had simply scattered, melting into small pockets of fighters that promptly proceeded to bypass his army's defenses with apparent ease. So shocking was this development, that he found himself mildly concerned that the enemy's leader had somehow outplayed him.

It took the Skull Lord close to a minute to determine what was actually going on, and by then it was largely too late to respond.

"They really threw a bunch of untrained fools at us without anything resembling a cohesive plan?" He muttered while observing one of the small groups fleeing from the surrounding undead in obvious panic, only to be caught and quickly destroyed.

It was a move that he hadn't considered. In almost any other circumstance, it should have resulted in the strike force's piecemeal destruction, but Kultanis had placed so many of his key troops in areas where they could unite to crush an enemy unit, they'd been slow to respond to the complete lack of unity.

As it was, they now had several dangerous experts loose in the most important part of his formation. Low though it was, they did have a chance of inflicting serious harm to his command structure, depending on where they ended up. If they should succeed in killing any of his necromancers, then a large part of his plan would fall to ruin.

"I can't tell if the Almiran Marshal is a genius or merely a lucky fool. Nonetheless, we cannot let them succeed in their efforts. Hunt them down and destroy them!" He ordered, spurring a legion of undead monstrosities into action.

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On another part of the battlefield, the Death Knight Yukrina was organizing her remaining troops for an assault on the Almiran fort. While she'd been tasked with merely keeping the defenders penned up within their walls, she had every intention of crushing them. After all, the sooner the irritating mortals were killed, the sooner they could finish the glorious task of eliminating the scourge of life from this continent.

Admittedly, it was going to be a difficult task. She'd only been given a handful of Skeleton Warriors to lead the horde of zombies that represented the eastern section of the Lacotian army, and a large portion of those had been caught up in the meteor strike which had signaled the start of the battle. Quite frankly, she was probably going to have to do the majority of the work herself, if she wanted to succeed.

Not that a little hard work bothered her. Over the course of the last few centuries, she'd climbed her way up from the rank and file to her current position as the Right Wing Commander under the Skull Lord. She'd done so by repeatedly taking the lead in critical moments, and her instincts were telling her that this was just such an occasion.

"Get the assault ladders in position, and keep the defenders distracted." She ordered the Skeleton Warrior that was serving as her second in command. "I'll take half of the rest of the Warriors and a few thousand zombies and circle around to their southern gate. It should fall quickly to my axe."

She hefted the heavy Necril weapon, taking a muted sense of pleasure at the way the light reflected off its bone-white blade. Despite not being enchanted, the material alone made it more than capable of cutting through something like a castle gate.

Her subordinates moved complied with her orders, and in less than ten minutes, Yukrina was leading a charge on the Almiran bastion. She ignored the occasional volley of arrows from the walls, knowing that they were relatively useless against her troops. It seemed like this section of the defense lacked the heavy siege equipment and mages that had been stalling the main assault.

[Ha! I knew this was a weak point.]

With a glee that defied the usual emotionless nature of most of her kin, she lept over the shallow moat and buried the head of her axe in the slab of hardened earth which functioned as the gate. Much like she expected, her weapon bit deeply, almost breaking through on the first blow. Punching herself a handhold, she pulled her arm back and delivered another strike.

Again and again she attacked the gate, carving a large section of it away. Pretty soon, she was awarded for her efforts by a satisfying 'thunk' as the axe broke through in a shower of dust. She felt her phantom lips pull back in a grin as she moved to capitalize on the break.

[A few more good hits and...] Her thoughts trailed off as she realized that she was hearing the sounds of battle coming from behind her.

Glancing back, she saw an army of living humanoids had assaulted the rear of her troops and were quickly cutting their way towards the fort. Leading their vanguard was a beastman wielding a large greatsword.

[Did the scouts miss them?] Yukrina idly wondered before hopping back down to the ground. She needed to head this off quickly or risk losing her assault force. Narrowing her focus on the beastman in the lead, she broke into a loping run.

He was an obvious leader, and may very well be in charge of the enemy force. Taking him down would be a good way of breaking their morale.

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Brenden's sword passed through the skeleton's spine with such ease that he almost overbalanced as a result. He'd grown so accustomed to the fleshy toughness of the zombies that he was a little surprised when he struck down the armored skeleton that seemed to be leading this particular group.

[I'm glad I made them move stealthily these last few kilometers. This surprise attack was well worth it. Thankfully, the majority of them had skills that assisted in the process.]

When he left the city, he was followed by a group of almost three thousand criminals. While they were of questionable use as a standard military unit, their unique skill sets made them ideal, at least in Brenden's opinion, skirmishers and flankers. So he made sure they moved in a loose, flowing formation that took advantage of their natural agility.

Over the course of the march, a few of the older thieves, who had a bit of military experience, had taken the time to bring a little order to the chaotic force. During one of their meetings, it had been decided that the army would be given a name, to unify them under a common banner. After much deliberation, they settled on the King's Guard, a name that Brenden vehemently resisted, but eventually proved too popular to deny. He was forced to give in.

When the three thousand strong King's Guard arrived on the battlefield, they found the coalition army besieged by a massive undead host. Selecting the weakest sections of the encircling troops, they threw themselves onto the enemy in a surprisingly effective pincer move that led them to their current position.

[If I can get in to the defenders...] Brenden was thinking when a shout of alarm caught his attention.

Looking up, he had just enough time to roll backwards in an awkward evasion attempt as a bone-white axe slammed into the ground where he'd been standing a second ago. The weapon itself was a sight to behold, being nearly a meter and a half in length, but the wielder was even more eye-catching.

Standing roughly 180cm tall and clad entirely in dark plate mail, the creature in front of him could have looked like some kind of armored warrior, if not for her exposed head, which gave lie to the assumption. Glowing and transparent blue flesh covered her otherwise mundane looking skull. Her ghastly face was wreathed by fluttering tufts of ghostly hair.

She looked like a horrid fusion of ghost and skeleton, and judging from the way she hefted her axe, far more powerful than the foes he'd been fighting up to this point. Glancing down at him with the two luminescent orbs of unnatural light that seemed to serve as her eyes, she gave him a disturbing smile.

"Not bad for a mortal, I suppose, but you're going to need to do better if you want to survive more than a few blows. Let's see if you can entertain me a bit before I kill you and the rest of this fodder." She mocked in a strangely echoing voice.

It was then that two of the King's Guard, who'd snuck around behind her, launched their attack. Barely even taking the time to acknowledge them, the undead knight spun in place, bringing her axe around at chest level.

The first of the criminals managed to stop himself in time, but the second wasn't so lucky. The axe cleanly bisected the man, easily cutting through the sword he'd raised in defense. As the two halves of the unfortunate thief fell to the ground, the knight stepped forward to finish the other, but was forced to block with the haft of her weapon as Brenden attacked with a diagonal slash.

He pushed forward for a few moments, testing her strength, only to find it roughly similar to his own. Clearly, this wan't going to be an easy fight.

"Everyone get back! I'm taking this one on alone." He commanded while breaking contact and jumping back a few steps.

"Very brave of you," The knight commented with amusement, "but wasteful. All of you pathetic mortals should just attack at once. At least then it won't take so long to finish you all."

Letting rage awaken in his heart, Brenden adjusted his grip on his sword. "Not wasteful at all. I just don't want them getting in the way."

He swept forward in a blur, sword swinging horizontally towards the knights midsection. He thought he detected an expression of surprise as she brought her axe up to block again, only to be nearly knocked over by the force of his blow.