As several of the Ghouls run off after the villagers and just under half of the human army chases them down, the rest of the undead army beings to move across the bridge in some semblance of coordination with the zombies and ghouls in front, the skeleton archers in the middle and the necromancers in the back thanks to the command of the necromancers. While they advance the strange contraptions stay back seemingly to cover the undead's advance.
The footmen with Captain Falric at their head swiftly form a shield wall at the base of the new bridge to prevent the undead from crossing completely using it as a chokepoint. While this happens the priests divide themselves into two groups, one with the job of Dispelling the weaker undead and the other group with the job of keeping the footmen alive. The sorcerers realizing the strange machines that deployed the bone bridge will be out of range of their attacks quickly prep a slow spell to cast on the enemy ranks instead of taking them out. The Dwarven Riflemen bring up their guns to take shots as they see openings. While everyone does this Jaina is preparing to cast an empowered blizzard when the undead cross a certain point on the bridge, Captain David prepares to snipe one of the enemy necromancers and Arthas is ready to plug any gaps that open up in the shield wall.
The Sorcerers are able to strike first thanks to their preparation, and quickly cast slow on the Skeleton Archers and the ghouls slowing down both their movement and attack speeds. The strange contraptions on the other side of the bridge suddenly show their true colors and prove to be Catapults of a sort that fling dead bodies instead of rocks and their attacks
smash into the shield wall and while a few troops have the room and reaction time to dodge the Vile projectiles most of them do not and five footmen are hit directly by the attacks and have some of their bones broken as a result of the sheer crushing force. One final footman is able to avoid the worst of the projectile but its impact sends shards of bone flying into the air at decent speeds which then peirce through one of his legs at the back, injuring him as well.
Even as the attacks slam into the ranks of the shield wall, Jaina finishes her casting of an empowered Blizzard on the enemy ranks seeking to kill as many undead as possible as swiftly as possible. Eight of the zombies and one ghoul get struck by the Blizzard swiftly falling under the sharp icicles raining down through their ranks piercing through flesh and bone with ease. As this goes on the skeleton archers fite through the blizzard into the ranks of the recently broken shield wall focusing their fire on the footmen who took the brunt of the damage and consequently don't have their shields up to protect themselves from the arrow fire. The arrows don't have too much of an effect on the footmen as most were stopped by their armor but any damage at this point was just inching them ever closer to death. In retaliation for the Skeleton archers attacks on the footmen the two dwarven riflemen fill one of the 3 remaining ghouls with lead blowing off one of its hands though the attack seems to have little true effect on it.
The priest group designated to work to undo the magics binding together the weaker undead succeed in their task and dispel all of the remaining zombies. Even as the last zombie falls to the ground the lead necromancer laughs stating "The undead scourge are endless in number!" and turn 3 of the zombie corpses into 9 new skeleton warriors that they then send forwards to combat the footmen. Seeing these new foes and the level of injuries the footmen have the healing priests as well as Arthas himself quickly move forward and mend the worst of the injuries 4 of the footmen had. The priests then throw a bit of magic behind a quick smite spell to damage one of the ghouls. Finally Captain David snipes The necromancer who was stating how their numbers were without limit instantly killing him. He then shouts out "Well, you may be endless but if your all that easy to kill then I certainly have no worries!"
The footmen swiftly break apart their shield wall to keep themselves safe from further attacks by the undead siege machines, but they are not quite fast enough the next volley slamming into their ranks halfway through breaking formation. The meat shots were going to smash into five footmen three of which were injured! However all three of the injured were wary enough to see the attacks coming and react to them though only 2 avoid the attacks entirely the third footman gets hit with a large boneshard midway through his dive away from the impact zone directly in his throat. He quickly bleeds out gasping for breath as the light fades from his eyes. The two uninjured footmen miss the attack coming in time and fail to get out of the way entirely and get hit by the full force of the blow that smashes into them breaking some of their bones and inflicting numerous cuts.
Jaina once more casts an empowered blizzard but this time does so on the skeleton archers. The ice storm hits eight of them this time and their bones are swiftly pulverized by the storms second wave. However as swiftly as the ice storm did its work, the skeleton archers were slightly faster, they were able to shoot one final volley of arrows out into the ranks of footmen in front of them. The shots were focused on the footmen that got hit by the meat wagons directly and they get off a couple lucky hits piercing through flesh on the joints but not enough to truly disable them thanks to the armor the footmen wear. The ghouls and skeleton warriors finally reach the footmen at this point and engage in a brutal melee as the healthy footmen and Captain Falric take on the brunt of the enemy attacks as their injured comrades slash and cut apart the ghouls who are focused on their comrades leaving dealing with the skeleton warriors up to the priests. The riflemen's shots blast into the most injured of the destroying its only intact shoulder as well as one of its kneecaps effectively neutralizing it. Even as that ghoul falls Prince Arthas runs in and Smashes another Ghoul with his hammer taking its head off which despite all conventional wisdom to the contrary, proves to not be enough to defeat it.
Two priests cast dispel this time around focusing on removing the newest combatants from the battlefield quickly snuffing out the dark magic powering their bodies and ending the threat of the nine skeleton warriors. As this happens the other three priests quickly heal several of the more injured footmen alongside Arthas who after smashing off the ghouls head swiftly uses the holy light to aid the troops. "For the light stand fast everyone! We have almost overcome this!" Prince Arthas shouts as he heals the injured footman of the worst of his wounds. All the priests then throw a smite spell at one of the two remaining ghouls weakening it severely with their holy magic. Five of the sorcerers choose to cast small fireballs at the two remaining ghouls swiftly incinerating one of them and leaving the others bones blackened but not quite beaten.
The other three sorcerers decided to shoot off arcane missiles at a necromancer while this was all happening the missiles landing in groups of three and swiftly weakening the necromancer as each blow pierces through his robes and causes bloody wounds on his body. However despite this before the last wave of missiles hit him, the necromancer manages to get off one final spell. Alongside the other necromancers spell this turns the dead footmens corpses into 6 new skeleton warriors ready to fight. The necromancer then casts a basic shadow bolt at the only injured footman that didn't receive healing in time swiftly snuffing the life from his eyes. "Even if we fall it means nothing! The restless damned will be your e...!" The final necromancer cries just before Captain David shoot his head off ending his battlecry before it finished.
All the footmen but the two most healthy ones run in complete retreat realizing they are too wounded to continue this fight. Captain Falric alongside these two footmen continue to hold the line and end up as the newest targets for the disgusting siege weaponry of the undead. The attacks both are focused on the good captain and he is hit with both a direct blow which ends up breaking his shield arm and knocking off his helmet even as he is able to sidestep the other and gets hit by shrapnel from it causing a new cut to appear just above his right eye as the blood seeps into it distracting him slightly. The skeleton warriors and the Ghoul then move in but while the footmen fail to intercept the ghoul they do manage to halt the skeleton warriors from reaching the captain and overwhelming him. Captain David also helps out Falric as right after Falric is able to lop off one of the ghouls arms David's bullet smacks right into its head finishing it off once and for all as the head blows into pieces. The footmen take various wounds from the skeleton warriors and the remaining skeleton Archers all shoot arrows at Falric and while two bounce off his armor the third grazes a furrow into his left cheek causing another flesh wound on his face and weakening him further. "Heh, I don't know about all of you but after this I'm going to have some impressive scars to show off." Falric brags laughing his injuries off.
Two of the priests then snuff the life out of the last of the skeleton warriors with dispel magic as the other three priests heal the most injured footmen. "Arthas, I believe You, Captain David, your two riflemen and I will be the best to deal with the siege weapons. Everyone else finish off the remaining enemies and fall back!" Jaina States before moving forward. Three of the sorcerers then fire a final round of magic missiles wiping out the last three skeleton archers before falling back with the rest of the sorcerers, the priests, the footmen, and Captain Falric. While Arthas, Jaina, the riflemen and Captain David all rush forward past the troops falling back Arthas heals Falric with the light dealing with the worst of his wounds and leaving the rest for the priests.
As they rush across the bridge of bones the two meat wagons continue to fire at the people rushing them. The first shots miss most of the troops but one lands near enough to the Dwarven Riflemen for several bone shards to pierce their backs causing them severe injury, but being as tough as dwarves are they ignore it and continue running. As they draw closer Captain David regains enough mana to infuse one of his bullets with magic again and drops to snipe one of the siege weapons. However before he can get off the shot the siege weapons fire at him as he is the only stationary target. One of the shots went wide as it failed to adjust its aim enough to hit the captain but the other lands a direct hit breaking some of his ribs. The good Captain keeps his concentration up however and manages to snipe off the throwing arm of the gruesome parody of a catapult that hit him. As the rest of the group finally draws within range and David picks himself up to continue moving forwards the meat wagon aims one final shot at Captain David however it misses him thanks to his movement though it landed close enough for the shards to hit him, thankfully all of them bounce of his armor doing no damage. Finally within range the riflemen both shoot the siege weapon damaging its wheel a bit and causing it to start to list slightly. Finally David stumbles the last few feet he needed to be within firing range for a regular shot and his bullet pings off the already weakened wheel causing it to splinter and break off completely which then forces the meat wagon to tip over rendering it out of commission and thus ending the battle.
Chapter ends here
ok so, not the last part of this chapter yet, and once again sorry for the delay. (I know i'm saying it a lot lately but i'm fairly busy with a move atm so its likely gonna keep coming up.) Anyway final part of turn 4 will be up soon it will include the other battle and the aftermath of both battles and a vote option as well
rate this chapter if you like it please
