Necromancer: Kingdom Building with My Legion of Undead Knights-Chapter 27: Leaving the High Ground

The spear came down and caught the nearest Bogoart in the flank. The creature lurched sideways, crashing into the one beside it, and let out a sound resembling a roar.

Below, the lanky knight had already abandoned any pretense of standing his ground. He was running, full sprint toward the tree line, ducking low as a Bogoart horn swung through the space his head had been occupying half a second earlier.

He turned and drove his sword into the creature’s side as it passed him, more desperation than technique, and the blade bit but didn’t stop it.

Arrows came down from the trees.

The archers had good angles and they used them, not aimless shots but aimed ones, targeting the areas Garren had described as weakest, the neck and the base of the skull where the hide was thinner.

Two arrows hit on the first volley, one clean strike that dropped a Bogoart’s head and slowed it considerably. The second Bogart followed almost immediately.

Other knights were throwing spears from their branches, some landing well and some not, the difficulty of throwing downward at a moving target making itself known quickly.

The horses had already made their own decision and were gone, crashing through the undergrowth at the edge of the clearing without looking back.

Then suddenly screaming started, and it wasn’t from the clearing.

"Snake! Snake!"

Four different trees, almost simultaneously. Four knights dropping, not jumping down in fashion but falling, one of them catching a branch on the way and spinning badly before hitting the ground, the others landing hard and rolling.

They were already writhing when they hit the dirt, clutching arms and legs, the particular high-pitched quality of their shouting making it

immediately clear this wasn’t a minor thing.

Snake bites in the trees. Four men down in seconds.

Darion looked at them from his branch and then at the clearing where the Bogoarts were still moving and the situation had not improved and there was absolutely no way to deal with both problems at once.

The other knights made the decision for him. The screaming from below pulled them off their branches, not all at once but in a cascade, one knight dropping to help and then another following because the ones already on the ground were outnumbered and then it became a flood.

Within thirty seconds most of the force was on the ground when the plan had called for them to stay elevated until the Bogoarts were significantly reduced.

Darion jumped down. The wolf landed beside him without being asked.

He looked up and counted.

Nine Bogoarts.

Wait... what?!

Four of the original group plus five more that had come in from the tree line while the chaos of the snake bites had pulled everyone’s attention sideways.

They were spread across the clearing and the near edge of the forest, moving with low purposeful aggression. They had registered a large group of prey and were now orienting on it.

Two were already dead from the arrow and spear work done from the trees. Which left seven.

Seven Bogoarts against a force that had just lost its elevated position, had four men on the ground with snake bites, had horses that were somewhere in the forest having a panic attack, and had burned through most of its arrows.

The knights pulled back instinctively, grouping behind Darion, weapons up but caution visible on every face.

Seven Bogoarts. They had barely survived encounters with one or two before. This was a different number entirely.

Then suddenly the wolf moved.

Darion hadn’t said anything to it. He hadn’t gestured, neither had he commanded.

It simply left his side at a full run and hit the nearest Bogoart like it had been waiting for the opportunity since the moment it stepped out of the trees an hour ago.

The impact was audible, a collision of two large animals that made several knights step back involuntarily, and then they were fighting, the wolf moving with a speed and ferocity that was completely disproportionate to what Darion had expected from an animal that had been calmly leaning into his hand ten minutes ago.

It was brutal and it was fast and for about forty seconds it was working.

The wolf killed one. Seriously injured two others, deep wounds that slowed them and changed how they moved.

It was taking damage in return, one Bogoart’s horn caught it across the shoulder and another’s tail whipped into its side hard enough to knock it off balance, but it kept moving, it kept pressing, keeping the creatures occupied and away from the knights.

Then three of them hit it at the same time.

The wild wolf went down hard.

It didn’t get back up.

The clearing went quiet for a moment.

The remaining Bogoarts: five still functional, two limping, turned their attention back toward the group of humans standing at the tree line.

"What do we do?" someone said, and the fear in the voice was completely unguarded.

The Bogoarts started moving toward them.

The knights gripped their weapons and Darion could see what was about to happen, they were going to hold their ground because there was nowhere to run and some of them were going to die and the rest were going to be in very serious trouble and none of it was going according to any version of the plan he had drawn up on that map this morning.

Then across his vision, appearing with the urgency of the system delivering something relevant at exactly the right moment:

[Corpse of Wild Wolf — Can Be Revived]

’Yesss!’

Darion was already moving.

"Cover me!" he shouted.

The archers raised what arrows they had left. The knights nearest to him stepped forward without fully knowing why, forming a rough barrier between him and the oncoming Bogoarts. Arrows flew. Two knights ran forward with spears, drawing the creatures’ attention sideways, buying seconds.

Darion picked up two spears from the ground: one dropped by a fallen knight and one that had missed its target and landed clean.

He picked them up and ran directly toward the nearest Bogoart. Not around it, not retreating.

At it!

He drove both spears in simultaneously, all his weight behind them, hitting the weak point at the side of the neck where the hide was thinner. The creature dropped.

He reached into his inventory and released the Decaying Tier undead without stopping.

It materialised between him and the next Bogoart, the green light fading instantly as the skeleton took the full force of the creature’s horn strike that had been aimed at Darion’s chest.

The skeleton shattered. But Darion was already past it, already crouching and already at the wolf’s side.

Behind him he heard the knights shouting, half in continued terror and half in something else, something that was trying to process what they had just seen appear out of nowhere and get itself destroyed.

Shock actually.

Darion put his hand flat on the wolf’s chest.

His voice came out low;

"Revive!"