You are Summoned

The camp exploded into action as the gnomes gave and received orders. Each company formed up into a shield wall facing where the scouts said the undead were approaching from. Our formations weren’t as solid as they wanted them to be, the swamp we were currently on the outskirts of prevented that. The camp had been set on a small rise, the only completely dry place nearby that was large enough to house our army, but even here, the beginnings of the swamp were evident in the soft and damp ground.

I ran to my mech, happy that it was functioning properly again. The repairs had given it a rough and unfinished appearance, but the machine worked just as it was supposed to. With one of my launchers lost in the battle with the undead owlbear, I only had a dozen magic missile wands to work with. I’d have to save them for something other than easy-to-kill zombies.

“Everyone, spread out along the line and support the infantry with your magic missiles. If anything bigger than a human appears, take it down. Our siege engines will also be up and running soon, so make sure you don’t accidentally step into their firing arcs,” Fitzfazzle ordered.

Lumpy, who was piloting the other upgraded mech, anchored our line on the right, so I moved to do the same thing on the left, where the gnomish line tied into the human forces. The other mechs spread out, with Fitzfazzle in the center. After positioning their wagons to the desired spots, engineers began to pull out the disassembled pieces of their siege engines.

With well-practiced efficiency, the engineers worked to get their weapons ready before the undead reached us. We had two ballistae and two catapults, which should help break up the approaching enemy. I’ve watched the engineers assemble and disassemble the weapons several times now as they trained on the activity each evening. If the enemy didn’t arrive in the next ten minutes, the siege engines would be ready.

Warmaster Glumbleflump placed eight of the infantry companies in the main defensive line. Two of the companies, the ones that had taken the most casualties were held back as a reserve. The gnomish cavalry were positioned to the rear of our line, ready to react to anything unexpected.

To my left, the human soldiers did the same as the gnomes. They moved their infantry in blocks of fifty, and all 300 of their troops were on the line. Behind the human infantry, 100 archers stood ready to fire. The archers would whittle down the enemy numbers, then function as a reserve force if there was a breach in the line.

The humans also had 100 cavalry with them, the riders were armored in chainmail and carried lances. They would split their numbers with fifty on each end of our extended line, ready to charge in when the opportunity arose. We were on the outskirts of the swamp, so there wasn’t too much in the way of obstacles for the horses yet, but I feared when we got deeper into this horrible place, the cavalry wasn’t going to be all that effective.

Lord Braithwaite and his force of twenty, heavily armored knights waited behind the center of the human line. They would be able to quickly counter any breach in the line or charge home a counterattack if needed. There were also three wizards reinforcing the human lines, but I couldn’t make them out in the faint torchlight we were working with.

When the undead arrived, both the gnome and human mages would cast light spells for us, but until then, we only had a few fires that were burning behind our lines. Some of the undead were apparently vulnerable to fire, so a hot fire along with a stack of torches were positioned behind the line at regular intervals.

My blunderbuss would be called into action if we needed to deal with any particularly troublesome undead. While the gnomes had reloaded the weapon, one of the barrels had sheared off when I had fired it into the undead owlbear. I had three blasts of the weapon ready to go, and I intended to make them count. If all else failed, I could use my spear, or even stomp on some of the smaller undead.

Activity died down, and the lines grew quiet as everyone got into position. Only the hammering of the engineers finishing up the building of their siege engine, and the occasional rattle of armor and weapons being jostled by nervous soldiers broke the quiet. The gnomes in front of me looked resolute, this was a foe they had faced before, and more than that, it was a foe they had a grudge to settle with.

The human soldiers were a lot more nervous, and in the flickering torchlight, I could see terror etched on more than a few faces. Officers walked among the human positions, offering words of encouragement, or threats as they deemed fit. It had some effect on the men, but I got a bad feeling that they would break quickly if pressed too hard.

“Rather rude of the undead to keep us waiting, isn’t it?” The human war priest that I had seen during their first visit to the gnomish camp shouted. He walked out in front of the lines, turning his back on the enemy that was approaching somewhere out in the dark, his apparent lack of fear giving the men a small boost in morale.

“What do you say we make this wait a bit more interesting brothers? The church will offer this pouch of silver to the first man that kills an undead today,” the war priest offered as he held up a small pouch for the men to see.

“Battle Father Nicodemus, isn’t that a bit unfair to us poor sword swingers? These lazy archers have an unfair advantage, they get to shoot before we even get a chance to fight,” one of the soldiers manning the line shouted.

“You’re correct, Hamilton, that does give the ranged troops an unfair advantage,” Lord Braithwaite said, riding through the lines to join the war priest. His voice boomed across the battlefield, probably a class skill of some sort. I was impressed that he knew the name of a simple soldier, but that might be part of why the troops seemed to hold their lord in such high regard.

“Given the church’s generosity, I would be remiss if the crown didn’t offer something as well,” Braithwaite said before digging into his saddlebags for a moment. “Here, a gold sovereign to the first man that cuts down an undead in melee,” Braithwaite offered, flipping the coin in the air for the men to catch the gleam of gold in the torchlight before placing it back in his saddlebags.

Too bad I wasn’t part of the human army; I could really use some gold back home. I suppose it didn’t matter, anything I grabbed here would be gone before I returned to Earth. Still, I couldn’t help but think about what my rewards might be after such a long-term summoning. My thoughts of rewards were cut short as one of the human scouts came running out of the darkness to report to Lord Braithwaite.

“The enemy approaches, only a quarter mile distant. We face nearly a thousand zombies and some necromancers are following in support of their attack,” Braithwaite advised as he and the war priest returned to their places behind the lines.

“A thousand zombies don’t seem like much of an attack. Pharox surely knows the size of the force we’ve assembled. Keep on your toes boys, the necromancer must have some kind of trick up his sleeve,” Fitzfazzle warned to the mech operators.

He was right, a thousand zombies sounded like a lot, but it was about the same as our total force, and a zombie was no match one on one with trained soldiers. There had to be something else out there in the dark, something the scouts had missed.

Lights began to appear over the army as the mages began their work. In just over a minute, the dim, flickering torchlight had been replaced with a dozen bright globes that lit up the area around our camp. From the darkness at the edge of the light, shambling figures appeared as the zombies began their attack.

Archers, both human and gnomish, began to fire. The gnomes had significantly fewer archers than the human force, only a couple dozen spread about their infantry companies. Despite their fewer number, the gnomes were deadly accurate with their crossbows and the weapons had been engineered to pack a real punch. The human archers had the advantage in numbers, and they fired in controlled volleys that landed amongst the leading edge of the undead horde. Each volley of a hundred arrows knocked down a swath of zombies.

With a loud clack, the siege engines got to work. The ballistae weren’t the optimal weapon for a horde of human-sized foes, but each of the huge bolts the weapons fired took out several zombies. The catapults were even more effective, the gnomes loading several fist-sized stones into them to create a shotgun effect when the stones slammed into the mass of targets.

Despite our efforts, the ranged attacks wouldn’t do the job on their own, and the zombies didn’t even notice the losses, they just kept marching forward to get to the living beings in front of them. The first few zombies made it through the hail of fire only to die on the weapons of the waiting soldiers. More and more zombies made it through, but by now, our soldiers outnumbered the horde of attackers.

Things were going well, and the horde was going to be cut down without us suffering too much in the way of casualties. Just when I thought that we had this in the bag, I noticed movement near the feet of my mech. It took me a moment before I realized what I was seeing. The ground behind our lines churned as skeletal arms dug through the surface. I shouted a warning as several of the engineers also noticed the threat and spread the word.

Stomping down, I began to shatter the nearest skeletons that were pulling themselves from the ground. More and more skeletons kept appearing and the main line was already heavily engaged with the zombies in melee. The small reserve force behind our lines would be overrun in minutes by the now hundreds of skeletons that were digging their way out.