The Sword of Retribution

Fort Battleaxe - Part 4

     Shaun was stationed at another part of the wall, about two hundred yards from where Thomas’s archers were waiting to be resupplied with arrows. He had a longbow and a quiver of arrows slung over his shoulder and was looking down at the wasteland below to see if there was anything worth shooting at.

     In some places, living human and sholog Shadowsoldiers were attacking the walls; pounding it with catapults or flying overhead on the backs of wyverns and hippogriffs. Below Shaun, though, there were only zombies. Milling around aimlessly, occasionally picking up a ladder, leaning it against the wall and climbing it whenever one of their living controllers arrived to give them orders. Shaun remembered when he'd been terrified of the undead horrors, but he'd seen so many of them now that the shock had long since worn off and all he felt now was revulsion. He, and everyone else on the walls, had learned how to deal with them, how to disable them by hacking off their limbs, and had now become so good at it that the only way the creatures were still a threat was if they attacked in a mass of overwhelming numbers. Shaun searched among them for a living zombherd he could shoot at, but he failed to find any and so saved his arrows.

     Most of the living enemy, the humans and humanoids, were camped safely beyond bowshot in a vast field of tents that stretched all the way to the horizon. They attacked in shifts, there being enough of them that there wasn't room around the city for them all to attack at once, which meant that the city was continually under attack from enemies freshly rested from a good night's sleep. The defenders, however, being heavily outnumbered, were almost dead on their feet, being forced to fight in an eighteen hours on, six hours off shift pattern, and even while they were off, the noise of battle meant they weren't able to get much rest.

     It had been three days since Shaun had gotten any decent sleep, and the former woodsman, now a soldier, was virtually a zombie himself as he gazed out across the devastated countryside, exerting all his willpower to keep his eyes open. The temptation to close his eyes, just for a moment, was almost overpowering, but even as he watched he saw purposeful behaviour down among the enemy. Living Shadowsoldiers had just arrived, or a zombie herder was giving orders to the undead horrors. He called out a warning to his comrades in arms and put an arrow to his bow. "Here they come!"

     He rubbed his eyes and slapped himself a couple of times in an attempt to wake himself up. He envied Matthew, who’d breathed poison gas the day before and had been carried off coughing his lungs up. At least he’s getting a bit of rest, he thought. He’s probably lying in one of the temples right now, chatting with the bandage maids, having a great time. He refused to contemplate the possibility that he might be dead.

      The bone whistles of the zombherds could be heard above the sounds of battle coming from further along the wall. Under their direction, the zombies stopped milling about and turned to face the city while living Shadowsoldiers formed ranks and files behind them. Then they began marching forward in unison, the zombies shielding the living enemies from the defenders’ arrows. A few arrows were shot anyway, until the Sergeant shouted at them to stop. Over the past few days, they’d worked out that the best way to combat this form of attack was to wait until they were close enough for their archery crackshots to shoot between the zombies and hit the living Shads behind. Anything else was just a waste of arrows.

     When they were thirty yards away, the command was given and the arrows flew, bringing down several Shadowsoldiers. The enemy then broke ranks and ran for the wall, to be killed in greater numbers by the less skilled archers, of whom Shaun was one. He looked down through the arrow slit by his feet, where the floor he was standing on overhung the wall below. At first he could only see decomposing body parts, the remains of zombies that had been dismembered by the defenders. He no longer noticed the putrid smell that rose from them.