Theory, as Valos liked to say, was a wonderful thing. It allowed one to calculate, weigh, and anticipate everything. Practice, as a rule, was that drunken cousin who shows up to a dinner party and starts smashing the furniture.
Theory said that the wall reinforced by the dwarves would withstand the impact. Practice, in the form of a skeletal dragon, categorically disagreed.
The monster did not elegantly soar or breathe fire. It simply dove like a stone and crashed into the wall just left of the main gate. The sound was as if the gods were hammering a mountain. The stones that Balin swore would stand for a thousand years flew into the air like sand. The tower on which they stood shuddered, and Valos barely kept his feet, grabbing onto the parapet. Below, in a cloud of dust and rubble, a monstrous breach gaped.
— Well then, Master Balin, — Valos muttered, spitting out lime dust. — About that "thousand years"?
His answer was Balin's furious shout, in some primal Dwarven dialect, as he descended toward the breach, his body already beginning to grow stone again.
Theory also suggested that the moat before the wall would be a serious obstacle. Practice showed otherwise. The skeletons in the front ranks, without slowing, stepped into the moat. And those behind them. And those behind them. They did not drown. They stacked themselves. Cold-bloodedly, with engineering precision, they formed a living — or dead — bridge from their own bones, over which the main mass of undead surged toward the breach.
— Gods, — someone whispered nearby. — Look, they… they're building.
— They're not building, — Valos said through gritted teeth. — This is skeletal engineering. And our necromancer friend seems to have plenty of raw material for construction.
Chaos swept over the wall. Archers tried to rain arrows down on the creatures crossing the bone bridge, but it was like spitting on a forest fire.
— SHIELDS! FORWARD! — Thorgrim roared, and the squares of dwarves, gleaming in their plate armor, moved toward the breach to meet the wave of undead in the narrow space. They locked their shields, forming a steel wall against which the first skeletons shattered with a crunch. But there were too many. Infinitely too many.
The dragon, meanwhile, rose for another run.
And then what Valos had secretly hoped for happened. Balin, transformed into a stone giant, found himself directly in the path of the diving monster. He did not dodge. He *took the hit*. His giant stone hands grabbed the dragon's bony neck. It was as if a man tried to stop a falling tower. Bones cracked, stone crumbled from Balin's body, but he held on. For a few precious seconds, he was locked in a titanic struggle with the flying skeleton, distracting it from further destruction of the walls.
Valos saw a flicker of something like admiration cross Corvus's face as he drew his rapier. «Hold him, old man,» Valos whispered.
But this was not enough. The undead continued to pour into the city through the breach, overwhelming the dwarves' shield wall by sheer numbers. Something had to be done. Something drastic.
— Hey, pointy-ears! — Thorgrim shouted, parrying a zombie's head with his halberd. — Is that fire spear of yours ready yet? Or are you waiting for them to reach our alehouse?!
The dwarf's words were the last straw. Valos felt something click in his mind.
He stepped back from the front line, grabbing the magical halberd from the wall — the one retrieved from the dungeon.
— Corvus! Cover me! — he barked.
Corvus silently stood before him, his rapier whistling as it traced deadly arcs through the air, severing limbs and heads of any creature that tried to approach the shield wall.
Valos closed his eyes, pushing aside panic, pushing aside fear. He concentrated on the images he had studied in the library. «Fire. Not just flame. Energy. Chaos. Expansion.» He poured all his will into the artifact.
— Fire and Wind, — he whispered, feeling mana drain from him, a cold stream rushing into the ether. — Coalesce into a sphere and burn these creatures!
A fireball the size of a wagon erupted from the halberd's tip. It soared over the heads of the dwarves and struck the very center of the bone bridge across the moat.
An explosion followed. A blinding white flash that for a moment eclipsed the sun. Then a wave of heat that singed the eyebrows of those standing on the wall. The bone bridge vanished. In its place raged a sea of flame, consuming bone and flesh. Dozens of skeletons and zombies caught in the epicenter turned to ash. The assault on the breach stalled as the path for reinforcements was severed by the fiery barrier.
A moment of silence fell on the wall, broken only by the crackle of flames and the heavy breathing of Balin, still holding the dragon.
— NOW THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! — Thorgrim's voice boomed.
But Valos did not hear him. He stood leaning on the halberd, his knees buckling from exhaustion. «One attack. And almost no mana left. I need to drink a mana potion, but drinking that filth…»
And then, watching this sea of fire, the chaotic yet orderly army, the dragon the necromancer had thrown at them like a pawn, it dawned on him.
His gaze fell on the far edge of the enemy formation. There stood a motionless, dark figure in robes, surrounded by a retinue of wraiths. Nazrik. He was not participating in the battle. He was watching. Like a conductor leading an orchestra.
Click. In Valos's mind, everything fell into place.
— He's not here! His consciousness! It's linked to the dragon and the army! He's controlling them from a distance! While we fight the symptoms, the source is sitting over there, in safety!
— And what do you propose, son? We have no reserves left!
— I have a plan. We don't attack the army. We attack the conductor. He's there, — Valos pointed with the halberd at the necromancer's figure. — While the dragon and the main force are here, his personal guard is minimal.
Eldrid looked at his son, then at the distant enemy ranks. The calculation was insane. Suicidal.
— It's a trap, — he said shortly.
— Possibly, — Valos agreed. — But it's the only move we have left. We can't overpower them with numbers. We have to outthink him. He doesn't expect us to counterattack when we're being overwhelmed.
Eldrid's face twisted into a grimace that held both despair and pride. Silently, he weighed the odds. And saw only one option.
— Fine. Corvus, gather the remaining cavalry. Volunteers only. We exit through the western gate. We'll try to flank them along the edge. Fast and quiet.
— Quiet isn't in our favor right now, Father. We're not going quietly. We're going fast. And we're going to make so much noise that he takes his attention off his orchestra for just a second. While his dragon and army try to break into the city, we cut off the head.