Chapter 88: Chapter 76 – A Dispute of Undeads

"With some refugees making their home in my lands, word got out, and more arrived. At times they trickled, while at times they came in droves, but they came nonetheless. The situation in the neighboring lands was just so bad that many chose to take their chances on the rumors of the lich willing to accept refugees.

 

Before a century had passed, my parcel of land had become cramped and overpopulated, by both refugees and their descendants, as generations had passed by then. It was at such a time that I set eyes on the less palatable of my neighbors. Finding an excuse, a "just cause" so to speak, was easy, as few would risk contradicting me for a dead man, and so my little parcel of land expanded to accommodate those that lived in it.

 

The process repeated itself over and over again over the next millennium or so, and before too long, the once small parcel of land I claimed as my own by force, had grown to encompass a whole quarter of the region. The people living beneath my protection multiplied and prospered, while it was also around this time when the Deity first made itself known to me.

 

To worship Death was not even a foreign idea for most of the people who lived in my lands by then, as many had worshipped me as their guardian deity, and what do I symbolize but Death itself? Making it official to worship the Deity of Death instead, with myself acting as his hand in the mortal realm, was as seamless a transition as they come for my people.

 

It was also during those times that I started finding talent amongst those who lived under my protection, and nurtured those talents under my wing." - Nec Aarin, the Bone Lord.

It was an eerie, silent clash, with a horde of zombies on one side, with only the barest semblance of discipline and coordination, but overwhelming numbers, against a horde of skeletons, far fewer in numbers, yet arrayed in formation with a discipline even professional soldiers would have envied.

 

Since they were going against a known enemy, and expected Antemeian resistance, the skeleton soldiers did not wield spears into battle. Instead, each skeleton carried a large wooden tower shield, coupled with a one-handed beaked warhammer, which enabled them to punch through the skull and decimate the brains behind with a single blow.

 

In contrast to the neat skeleton lines, arrayed into a firm shieldwall, the zombie hordes clearly relied more on overwhelming quantity, as each flailed about, often with only a makeshift club or some such in their hand. The Antemeian necromancers only had the capacity to give their hordes a general command, not to fine tune and coordinate their movements.

 

Dead bodies pressed against the shield wall, as weapons banged against the solid shields, their superior mass pressed and pushed against the far thinner skeleton line, and the skeletons gave way. as if commanded, they took a step back in unison, as the foremost zombies stumbled forward from the sudden lack of resistance. An opening taken without mercy as warhammers struck heads, at times splattering the rotten flesh and bits of bone and brain matter like an overripe watermelon.

 

The superior coordination of the Ptolodeccan army whittled down the horde, but even so the superior mass and strength of the zombies took their toll as well, as here and there skeletons fell apart, only to be trampled beneath the feet of the horde. Even so, the loss ratio was steep, with at least three to four zombies downed for each skeleton downed, but that was merely both sides probing each other, as their elites had yet to come into play.

 

Aideen watched the silent abominations on the other side with a wary eye. She didn't like being made to sit back while others fought the war for her, but understood the necessity of saving their best for when it was needed, as their enemy did the same. The Bone Lord had also made it very clear that the skeletons used in his armies were entirely expendable, and that he would not have minded their loss.

 

They were skeletons of residents of the land of Ptolodecca, dead so long ago that nobody still remembered them. On the other hand, skeletons of those whose family and friends still lived, were the ones assigned on guard duties around the cities and villages. The ones used for armies were these old, long forgotten bones. Ptolodecca had existed for millennia, and only the Deities know how many of these old, forgotten bones the Bone Lord had access to.

 

You are reading story Unliving at novel35.com

Either way, everyone watched as they readied themselves to go forward at any time, tension building up as the numbers slowly but surely thinned on both sides, as neither side were willing to send in their reserves yet, instead pitting their expendables against the enemies until someone's nerves broke.

 

Eventually, Clovis and Kestera looked at each other and exchanged glances, before they nodded. In the blink of an eye, the four hundred mounted death knights they controlled rushed forward, and before the Antemeians could react much, they slammed into the sides of the horde, rampaging their way through the other side, leaving only carnage in their wake, before circling back to where they started beside Clovis and Kestera.

 

The Antemeian side looked over the carnage those death knights caused, conferred briefly with one another, but eventually decided to not react to the provocation just yet and continue the attrition a bit more.

 

So Clovis and Kestera had their death knights make another pass.

 

By the time they did the third pass the Antemeian side finally reacted, and the lumbering abominations stepped forward towards the front lines. In response, Kestera gave Aideen and Diarmuid a signal, and they also approached the front lines together with Diarmuid's Death Guards.

 

The militiamen and the heavy infantry also readied themselves, but did not advance just yet, as at the moment roughly half the skeletons were still holding on in the frontlines. Mimia did send Haon, Trí, and Ceathair along with Aideen and Diarmuid, and they reached the frontlines at roughly the same moment the abominations did.

 

No two abominations were the same, as they were towering monstrosities, each at least three meters tall, made from a patchwork of many corpses, often with an awkward number of limbs, or too many mouths, or the likes.

 

Diarmuid ordered his newer Death Guards to fight off the zombies around such abominations, clearing some room for teams of the more experienced members to take them on. Diarmuid and Aideen each led one such team, while his current second in command, a woman of orcish descent named Cressida, arranged the remaining experienced members into teams and also led one herself.

 

Trí on the other hand just tackled two to three abominations at once, her twelve arms handily keeping them occupied even as her tail and some of her heads cleaned up any zombies that wandered too close. Ceathair handled abominations one at a time, dispatching his foe swiftly before moving onto the next.

 

Aideen herself stood behind one such abomination, a giant of flesh nearly four meters tall, with a third arm growing out from behind its back. She twisted one end of her staff, setting the blades in place, turning the staff into a dagger-axe halberd, before she moved to meet the abomination with her team of twenty Death Guards behind her.

 

You can find story with these keywords: Unliving, Read Unliving, Unliving novel, Unliving book, Unliving story, Unliving full, Unliving Latest Chapter