24 – The Battle of Westbrook

Dozens of zombies poured in from all sides, stumbling out of the forest like a tide of rot. Some were barely more than undead peasants, their clothes hanging in strips, gripping rusted hoes and splintered pitchforks. Others were fully armored zombie soldiers wielding great swords and battle axes. A few still carried tattered banners, as if they remembered who they used to fight for.

And behind them, at the edge of the chaos, were the necromancers. Hooded and wraith-like, they flitted about on the sidelines, commanding their creations like a grotesque orchestra. Every twitch of their fingers sent another corpse lurching forward.

At first, the clearing erupted into chaos, but our group of half-naked revelers quickly recovered and went on the offensive. Despite being piss drunk and high out of their minds, these witches and wizards knew how to handle themselves on a battlefield.

Bagavash was the first to meet the charge head-on. Lightning crackled around his arms as he surged forward, fists glowing white-hot with raw electricity. Every punch landed with a thunderclap. The zombies jerked violently on impact, their bodies spasming as if briefly brought back to life, only to be obliterated a second later when his fist tore straight through their decomposing chests in a spray of ash and bone fragments.

The two witches beside him moved in perfect harmony. One slammed her staff into the earth, casting [Root Bind] as thick roots exploded upward, coiling around the legs of the incoming undead and yanking them down into the dirt. The other followed with [Earth Sink], and the ground itself surged and hardened, trapping the writhing corpses in stone and soil.

Not far away, Erl was taking on another wave of undead. I could tell he was being cautious not to use his overpowered [Fireball] in the middle of the packed covenstead. Instead, he activated some kind of fighting art that had his hands and feet trailing fire as he moved faster than I’d ever seen him move. A flaming roundhouse kick to a knight’s helmet sent its entire head crashing into the underbrush.

Senior Archwitch Embaire appeared to be a fire user as well, although one who hadn’t poured all her upgrades into one single catastrophic spell like Erl had. She was throwing baseball-sized bundles of red and green flame at any zombie that dared approach her, sending them screaming and burning into the forest.

Myrl stood at the edge of the clearing, firing off [Leaf Darts] in rapid succession, each one slicing through decayed flesh with surgical accuracy. But the real horror show was happening beside him.

The hippy witch.

She raised her staff, murmuring something soft and almost affectionate. “[Rot Blossom].” One minute, the zombies were charging at her, howling with rage. The next, their bodies convulsed as flowers began to grow. First, from the cracks in their armor, then from their mouths and eye sockets. Dense, vibrant blossoms erupted outward, using the decayed flesh like fertilizer. Within seconds, the undead were transformed into macabre walking gardens, until they collapsed into heaps of petals and bone.

In the middle of the melee, I caught a glimpse of a fully naked Linli pummeling the corpse of an undead priest with a barrage of punches. He was yelling something incoherent and swinging wildly with a level of enthusiasm that suggested he had fully embraced both the situation and whatever substances were currently coursing through his system.

I suspected this was probably not how the priest had imagined his afterlife to go.

And then there was the large witch who had carried off Linli earlier. She had pulled the entire maypole from the ground, ribbons and all, and was now wielding it like some massive, pastel-colored warhammer. She swung it in wide, devastating arcs, sending zombies flying into tree trunks like broken dolls.

Luckily, Becca and I had been lying near the center of the meadow and were somewhat protected from the fighting going on all around us. That didn’t make the microdose-enhanced sight of zombies any less terrifying.

Their movements were jerky and unnatural, and their heads were tilted at unnatural angles. One of them stumbled past us, jaw hanging loose, eyes rolling in opposite directions as it giggled and dragged a rusted scythe behind it.

Yeah. Not comforting.

“We should do something,” Becca said.

“On it.” I grabbed my staff and scanned the edge of the meadow. The necromancers were staying just far enough back to avoid the worst of the fighting, hands raised as they puppeteered the battlefield from the safety of the trees. I pointed my staff at the nearest one. He had deathly pale skin and skeletal features. His eyes glowed a faint red under the shadow of his hood. I made sure there were no witches or wizards in my line of sight, then cast [Void Thread].

I discovered it was kind of hard to aim the spell from long distances. The beam of void magic grazed his shoulder, and he turned his glowing eyes on us.

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“Oh shit. I think I made him angry.”

He pointed a bony hand, and an undead knight came marching toward us. His armor was dented and stained. The ground seemed to shudder beneath his boots as he advanced, dragging a massive sword behind him.

“[Water Whip]!” Becca said, and her slender, wavy staff transformed into a liquid tendril of mana-infused water.

The undead knight swung at us with his sword. I ducked while Becca dodged out of the way, lashing out with her [Water Whip]. The magical construct slammed into the knight’s chest, leaving a deep slash across the metal. Water sprayed outward on impact, shimmering with mana as it cut like a blade.

He didn’t even slow down. He raised his sword again.

I brought my staff up and cast [Void Blade] just as the strike came down. The dense blade of void energy appeared in my hand and severed his sword cleanly in two. For a split second, I thought I’d pulled it off perfectly. The top half of his sword flew off harmlessly into the grass, but the bottom half kept going. It slammed into my chest with brutal force. The broken edge tore through fabric and skin alike, carving a deep, jagged line across my torso and biting into my ribs before finally losing momentum.

I yelled out in pain.

Becca unleashed a fury of whip cracks on the knight, each one cutting further into his armor. Before he could make another swing, she had severed his arm and was actively slashing into his chest.

The undead knight took up a defensive stance and retreated, holding his one good arm up to protect himself. Becca made short work of that, cutting it off at the gauntlet, then wrapping her whip around its neck and decapitating it as she yanked her whip back. The body took one more step, then collapsed.

Dang. This witch was pretty hardcore.

That’s when the necromancer himself came at us.

I scrambled to my feet, ignoring the sharp protest from my chest. The cut hurt like hell, but the knight hadn’t made it past my ribs. I could still fight.