You are Summoned

The undead horde moved slowly, and our scouts were able to screen the army with little trouble. At one point, Warmaster Glumbleflump asked for a scout volunteer to show themselves to the undead but not attack. A rather wary gnome volunteered for the task and reported that the undead had no reaction to him whatsoever. When a human scout fired an arrow into the horde, there was a reaction, every undead around the one that was shot charged off toward the attacker.

Unfortunately for the scout, one of the undead that pursued him was a ghoul. The creature easily ran him down and our report had to come from another soldier that was observing the operation. Undeterred, the scouts began to harry the undead as they moved, keeping away from any groups that looked to have a ghoul nearby. When a small group peeled off to attack the shooter, we ambushed them with several infantry squads.

It was slow going, but our losses were limited to the one unfortunate scout that had encountered a ghoul. When the horde finally came within sight of the camp, our efforts had whittled down around eighty of the undead. Nearly a thousand undead remained, but we had a plan to deal with that.

“All right, MESS’s, crouch down and wait for the signal,” Fitzfazzle ordered.

The plan to deal with the undead was hashed out while the horde slowly made its way forward. Anyone with a ranged weapon was massed behind a double row of stakes at the northwest corner of the camp where the horde would pass their closest. Behind the archers were the siege engines, their crews bolstered by a few soldiers to help with reloads after the losses the engineers sustained from the skeletons during the earlier attack.

Blocks of our infantry stood to the rear. When the undead closed in, the archers would pull back and be replaced by the infantry. Once safely back behind the lines, our archers could lob indirect fire into any large masses of attackers. Way out in front of the line, outside the first row of sharpened wood stakes, our mech’s waited.

We crouched down to give the archers and engineers a clear field of fire. Arrows would do nothing to our mechs, but an errant projectile from a siege engine would ruin my day. To prevent any friendly fire, the engineers spent time firing test rounds to make sure they were hitting nowhere near where we would be fighting.

With range markers clearly staked out in the swampy ground in front of me, I watched as the undead finally entered the firing range of the siege engines. The ballistae would fire first, and after a loud clack, I could see the pair of huge bolts flying over the tops of mechs to crash at the edge of the undead horde. One round fell short, but the second managed to skewer a zombie and push it into several other undead.

In response to the attack, several dozen of the undead began to turn toward our camp. The ballistae fired again, striking at the main mass of undead. Our plan was to peel off large groups that we could grind down with ranged fire and have the mechs clean up anything that got through.

Most of our mechs were going to be down to only their melee weapons, as there wasn’t much time to charge up the wands. The one wand I had pushed a few charges into wasn’t mounted on my mech and was instead slipped into my belt for emergencies. I did have my blunderbusses reloaded, the engineers finally managing that after they had finished placing their siege engines.

The wagons with our supplies had only one set of reloads left, so if I could conserve ammo, that would be best. Now the catapults got into the action, scattering grapefruit sized stones over the leading edge of the undead heading toward us. Back at the main mass of undead, the ballistae kept at it and each time they fired, another twenty to fifty undead peeled off to attack.

Our archers fired as the catapults launched their second round of stones. Between the humans and gnomes, there were sixty archers still in the fight, and each flight of arrows and bolts swept aside large chunks of attackers. For several minutes, we just crouched there on the swampy ground, waiting for something to happen. So far, the archers and siege engines had it covered.

Out near the main mass of undead, the ones that hadn’t been aggroed by the ballistae, a ripple of movement started. It was almost like a button was pressed and all the undead turned toward the camp and charged. If I had to guess, the necromancer figured out what we were doing and decided to unleash everything in an effort to at least cause some casualties before we killed off all his forces.

“Get ready, those of you with any magic missiles left, let them fly,” Fitzfazzle ordered. As one, our mech stood and those with any ammo left began to fire. It wasn’t much, only a dozen or so missiles, but every bit helped. As the enemy closed, I started sweeping my bladed spear back and forth, cutting down the undead like I was a farmer harvesting his fields.

The other mechs were doing the same, and we had spaced ourselves out far enough apart that we wouldn’t get in each other’s way. I was positioned on the far right of the line and despite my efforts, the undead were leaking around me. Once through our lines, the archers could take them under direct fire. The first leakers were turned into pincushions, but the attackers drew ever closer to our camp and the archers were forced to step back and let the infantry take over.

In the minute or so it took for the archers to reposition, the undead surged, their numbers no longer thinned by the flights of arrows. I forced myself to focus on the fight at hand, swinging my spear and stomping on anything that I could. It was easy to lose yourself in the task, the undead were completely ignoring the mechs, and were instead focused on the large mass of tasty living creatures nearby.

“Rico, help Flunzzlebump!” Fitzfazzle shouted.

I turned to my left where Flunzzlebump’s mech was positioned, only to see it covered in ghouls. He was piloting one of the first generation mech’s and even with the limited upgrades they had made, the ghouls were managing to peel open a section of the cockpit. Normally, I’d just pick them off with my magic missiles, but the launchers were empty, and it would be suicide to open my cockpit to use the few charges in my wand.

As the hatch began to bend and a gap opened, the ghouls started to reach inside and claw at the pilot. I had to act and pointed the blunderbuss directly at Flunzzlebump’s mech. The precious seconds it took for the flame stones to heat up seemed like hours. Bloody ghoul hands pulled away from the gap in the cockpit holding gobbets of flesh they had peeled from poor Flunzzlebump. With a whoosh, the blunderbuss fired, blasting Flunzzlebump’s mech with red hot stones.

The ghouls squealed as most were knocked off the mech, their flesh smoking as the flame stones that had penetrated their hide continued to burn. A single ghoul remained on the mech; his arm had caught inside the gap where the cockpit had been pried open. Blood streamed from the cockpit, and I held little hope that Flunzzlebump would make it. Many of the undead gathered around the mech, drawn by the fresh scent of blood.

I continued to hack and stomp on everything within reach, pausing for a moment to cut the arm off the ghoul hanging from Flunzzlebump’s mech. The dead piled up as I continued my grisly task. A second blast of my blunderbuss was needed when another pack of ghouls tried the same thing with the mech on the other side of Flunzzlebump.

Quicker on the draw, I fired the second blunderbuss barrel before the ghouls could make much progress. Smarter than the other undead, the ghouls somehow knew that we were the largest threat to them and that they had to coordinate their attacks if they wanted to deal with us. I didn’t know exactly how many ghouls remained in the undead army, but there couldn’t have been that many left given the losses we’d inflicted.

With the gap between mechs opened wider by Flunzzlebump’s loss, more undead made it past us. We did the best we could, shattering the enemy attack and making things easier for the soldier’s fighting at the camp behind us. Minutes ticked by and I was starting to get tired. I had been woken early for the first attack on the camp and had been running full speed since then. Now, I was a mindless automaton, cleaving through the undead and growing drowsier by the minute.

“That’s the worst of it, turn and engage the enemy from behind, we’re almost done here,” Fitzfazzle ordered.

The mass of undead were all past our line of mechs, but we had done a number on them. Piles of undead were heaped up near each of our mechs, and our efforts must have destroyed at least half the attacking force. Back at the camp, the undead were trying, and failing to break the lines of infantry. The stakes placed in front of the camp were jammed full of impaled zombies, and the soldiers on the line didn’t appear to have suffered many casualties.

“That’s it boys, head back to camp and let the mages start to recharge our MESS’s,” Fitzfazzle ordered after we had helped clean up the last groups of attackers. Only a few undead were left, and teams of soldiers had formed to take out the remaining survivors, as well as making sure there were no surprises hidden among the piles of fallen enemies.

Out among the piles of dead, Flunzzlebump’s mech stood a silent vigil over the fallen.