Chapter 59 - The Next Wave

“Get the wounded to the hospitals!  Send anyone too injured to fight back to Windfall,” ordered Fenris.  What the commander hadn’t said was that too injured to fight pretty much meant unable to fight.  The level of injury he’d allow right now was something he’d never consider normally.   

Of course, it's not like he could get an honest response from the troops.  He walked past several of them that had no business being back in the line but things were truly desperate.  They’d almost been pushed out of the gate passage before he’d ordered it closed.  

In the temporary reprieve between the fighting, a handful of adventurers that were no longer capable of fighting up top had been pressed into service below.  Ashe was trying not to cry after seeing her sister.  Margwal was a sight.  When the line was overrun, Fenris thought she’d perished, but the girl had a parachute ready and leapt from the wall moments before the hospital she was being treated in was overrun.  

Margwal didn’t want to talk about it, so Fenris moved on. The knight was supposed to be up top but Julia just informed him that she’d transferred Dalton down here to assist with the fortress gate for some reason.  With all the elves and Falconians up there, he was probably feeling a bit useless.  

At least that was the reason Fenris hoped.  He wasn’t checking the names on the casualty lists unless he had to.  They were depressing.  

Ashe and Zorlando were busy getting the Dandies ready for their next action, and Fenris did his best to ensure that the rest of the force was as ready as possible.  The tunnel was not going to hold, or the enemy would attack them from above.  In either case, the next battle was going to see the Dark Overlord pushed back or the Mayor’s armies would be shoved back into Windfall valley where the undead horde would spread out and overrun everything.  

They filled out many of the units with anyone available, often drafting broken adventurers into regular army positions.  Even with the elven reinforcements, there were fewer than when they started up top, but the wall had vastly less area to fight on anymore.  The reinforcements would help, because Fenris was positive that the undead were going to break through eventually.  

Fenris was as ready as he could be for the next assault with his wounded army, he just hoped they would be enough.  

***

“Take care of your sister,” said daddy as the wall swayed again, then he started down the portal that took him to the ground floor.  Rose kept her brave face on as he left, this somehow felt worse then when he’d sent her off to Windfall the first time.  She almost regretted begging the Princess to send him down, but of course she’d had no choice.  

Daddy was useless in times like this.  

Rose’s engineering skills kept flicking alerts into her vision, and none of them were good.  Her explosives should have only been enough to collapse part of the passage, but the timing had been terrible.  The explosives detonated when Badgelor crashed the dragon into the wall, and that broke something that couldn’t have broken.

Objectively, most of the damage was caused by the dragon of course, but no one was ever going to believe that she wasn’t responsible.   

Hansa intercepted her first, she still had that special look when she got a bit too excited but it was tempered with something now.  Rose didn’t like that.  Apparently Hansa’s wrist mounted dragons had been highly successful.  

“Are you okay,” asked Rose.  People said she had an accent, but of course she didn’t believe them.  Everyone always had their own way of talking, but she wasn’t going to draw anyone’s attention to that.  

“Yes’sir,” said Hansa, “Just getting some reinforcements for the…”  She glanced down at the rear wall, the shorter and less impressive wall.  The wall where they were going to fall back to if they were losing.  

They’d be there soon.  

A fierce smile graced Hansa’s face as she looked up, “We did it!”

Rose looked at her little sister for a moment, and recognized the false confidence, “Yes, we did.”

“Is Ashe safe,” asked Hansa, quirking an eyebrow.  “I think your explosion might have been a bit larger than expected.”

“Ashe is fine, she’s down with Zorlando getting patched up,” said Rose.  Hansa scanned the top of the wall briefly, and not finding what she was looking for glanced over at the gate.

“Where is…” she began.

“Daddy is at the gate, please make sure he goes down,” said Rose, watching her sister’s brow furlough.  It wasn’t the time for that, “I believe he said he needed your help.  I’m gathering up everyone else.”  Everyone else meant Margwal and others, but Rose knew Margwal was already ‘safe’.  

It was all she could do to keep her brave face on.  

Hansa grinned, she was always a daddy's girl and of course Rose knew that.  The red head dashed off towards the gateway.

Rose hated being the mature one, but she always was.  Daddy needed a mature one when she was younger, and since Rose was the most responsible that fell to her.  

Sure, Ashe and Margwal were older, but they never really understood other people like she did.  They were all a bit too interested in their own lives, while Rose had been forced to be a bit more interested in everyone else's.  Not that she minded, after all she always had…

HarDragon stood next to her, “I sent them away, but we need to hurry.”

She nodded.  HarDragon was good, and she needed ‘good’ right now.  

The field hospital was the worst breach, when the wall broke again parts started falling off and a number of undead gathered up and flanked everyone.  For a few terrible minutes Rose thought they were going to lose the entire top of the wall, but the elves showed up and managed to lead a counterattack that forced everyone back.  

If only they had shown up a few minutes earlier.  

The Duke’s headless body was tossed against the wall.  The rod of power was just gone, it would hopefully turn up after the battle but for now one of their greatest weapons was lost to them.  Not that she cared.  Rose’s breath caught as she spotted her sister, sleeping like aways.  

That’s how daddy must have found her.  He was leading the charge that retook the hospital with Princess Julia and little Twinkle.  She’d been there too, and saw everything.  She told the Princess to send Daddy away.  Daddy couldn’t handle stuff like this.  He wasn’t the mature one, that was Rose’s job.

Batista’s armor looked intact from the back, and Rose was at least happy that her sister had managed to empty every single potion out during the battle.  Several of the new engineering syringes designed to rapidly employ healing potions were scattered around as well.  

“You passed,” said Rose, standing next to her sister, she was using some sort of massive undead Puma as a pillow.  The thorn Rose gave her broke off in the creature’s side, while dosing it with radiant poison specifically formulated to kill undead.  

That was supposed to keep her safe.

Rose knelt down and undid the straps of Batista’s helmet.  She was truly a sleeping beauty.  Rose always looked like a cat dragged her out of something when she woke up.  Not Batista, she always looked so put together.  Her hair was still perfect, and she was even wearing makeup.  

It was black makeup that went around the eyes to lower glare, but Rose was desperate for anything good. 

Rose closed her sister’s eyes, and pulled her onto her back.  The puncture mark was in her armor right at the heart.  Batista never wanted to be an adventurer, she wanted to get married and have kids.  She didn’t want some fairy tale life, she just wanted a simple one.  At times Rose thought that silly, but considering what she’d done for the past few hours… she didn’t anymore.  Not everyone needed to be a hero.  

“The gate,” said HarDragon after a long minute.

“Of course,” said Rose, pulling out a floral tile.  They didn’t have time to properly process all these bodies and there was a necromancer about.  There was only one thing to do, and that’s what she did.  

Rose set the red tile on her sister’s chest and checked to see that HarDragon had done the same to everyone else, as that was the responsible thing and she was a responsible girl.  Responsible girls didn’t leave any loose strings.  

Standing, she walked over to HarDragon and walked away from the hospital.  When she was out of range, and with a few extra steps, she mentally activated the tiles and all of them combusted at once.  She did not look back.

It was bad luck to look at explosions and her family already had enough bad luck.

***

SueLeeta ultimately decided she didn’t like being a scout, at all.  It was like watching an avalanche that was about to fall on you, instead of moving out of the way.  There were so many undead that she couldn't hope to find the Dark Overlord and while she watched about half the undead they killed got put back together.  

Fortunately that half contained relatively few champions.  Champions tended to die hard, and Falconian holy magic was well known for its ability to destroy undead.  

She wanted to comfort Dalton, but he’d fled down to the ground floor.  SueLeeta didn’t blame him.  Batista was one of the few daughters of his she actually liked.  The girl had a good head on her shoulders.  

SueLeeta hoped it stayed there.  

That whole thing had gone so quickly, one moment the line was held and the next the undead were stabbing and killing.  It was all over so quickly that SueLeeta hadn’t even had a chance to react, but she’d seen it.  

Batista fell doing what she thought her father wanted her to do, but not what he would actually have wanted her to do.  

Dalton was a great influence, except when he wasn’t.  He wasn’t smart, but he was predictable which is what she liked in a man.  She hated surprises, but she could usually see them very far off which is why she was able to send out the alert before anyone else.

“The Dark Overlord’s army is preparing to move.”

***

Zorlando moved to smooth his mustache and stopped.  His naked face was bereft of the proud mustache that graced it for so long.  He felt strange, and could tell Ashe was having trouble adjusting to it.  He didn’t blame her, after all Zorlando without his mustache was no Zorlando at all.

When the call came that the enemy was moving, Zorlando was walking the line to ensure his Dandies were the best they could possibly look when he felt the footfall.  He hated the undead, for one main reason.  Drill, no matter how well trained, was never supposed to be that good.  

The Dandies could manage it only if he was using his Path Talents.  Undead could manage it because they were unthinking monsters that were controlled by a central intelligence.  The difference was that when one of his Dandies got hurt, Zorlando felt it.

Quite literally, he’d spent the perk points to share that feeling for good reason.  You didn’t want to treat your men like automatons.  

He looked out over the courtyard where the army was arrayed.  The battlefield here was much larger than the tunnel, but still small compared to any field engagement he’d ever fought in.  There were advantages to that, especially if you were the defender.  

But only if you hold the high ground.  Ashe looked concerned and most of the troopers were growing agitated.  Time to calm some nerves.  

Zorlando nodded at Ashe and prepared himself.  “My close, personal friend is up there.  Nothing will get by Jim and Badgelor.”

If only he truly believed it.