Adarin watched the fireball lazily arcing with a detached fascination. He was out of breath, his head was pounding something fierce.

  "I'm done for," he slurred out loud.

  The mage's control of his spellcraft went first. Then he collapsed to his knees and fell face first. The fireball sailed down straight on top of the man. The sticky goo making up the spell clung to the mage and he went up in flames. His seizures did not even change, despite the fact he was burning alive, and Adarin giggled.

  "Maybe I should make some command decisions, shouldn't I?" he slurred to no one in particular.

  He looked around at everyone, staring in horrid fascination at the noises—the noises of choking and people rolling on the ground inside the building as those hit by the wave of gas collapsed, living and zombies alike.

  "Nerve gas. Sodium channels—zombies run on the same signals as the living. It’ll hit them too. Doesn’t matter. They’ll still buy us time." Adarin narrated for an absent audience as he lay on the floor of his mindspace, mirroring his body’s state digitally.

  Adarin let out a groan and Liora walked over to him. "Are you okay?"

  "Yeah, I just overtaxed myself," he slurred at her. When did she get off me?

  He looked at his arm and smiled.

  Cornucopian Garden, Middle Tier 1 → Cornucopian Garden, Late Tier 1.

  "Well, at least the System thinks I did something impressive here now." Adarin went through a breathing pattern, clearing his mind of the aftermath. Useful little trick, this. Need to think about weaponizing it better at some other point.

  The ivy had become a skeleton of wood inside a milky sludge filled with green leaves that were torn apart.

  "Everyone retreat," Adarin hissed. "Necromancers, leave a few zombies behind."

  In the distance, the orcs roared, also understanding what had just happened.

  "Losses, anyone? Johan? Do we have someone who can make those burning zombies Rüdiger used? After all, we still have an entire ammunition depot to use—or at least to deny to our enemies."

  Johan suddenly appeared next to him within the well, coming out of the forest of broken statues. "I... I can try. I think I understand the spell, but I don't know if—"

  "Just try it," Adarin hissed. "I don't know how much powder is in there, but the mage believed it would blow us all to kingdom come."

  Liora was flinging blasts of necrotic energy across the plaza, delaying the breakthrough at one of the barricades where orcs scrambled over it like a plague of ants. Other necromancers were busy pulling out any undead they could while en route back to where they had entered the square.

  The musketeers were loading for another volley, rapidly forming up in a formation in a line three men deep. Their reloads were fast—fifteen seconds instead of forty. Better training or better guns, he couldn’t spare the thought to decide.

  Adarin lowered himself next to Johan, who was experimenting with two zombies on the ground. He felt the waves of heat washing off them, and soon amber cracks spread over the bodies of the undead. "I can't make them into blazing infernos, but I think if I activate the spell they reach the target... but if—"

  "Just do it," Adarin hissed.

  The Marholians at the first barricade broke, and orcs rushed into the plaza. Without Adarin having to order it, a volley of musket balls thundered and cut into them, breaking the charge. Ramrods were pushed into the muskets as the next volley was prepared. That's how we're going to do it. Retreat. Have some undead delay, fire a volley, and run. He informed everyone on the command channel. Then he turned his attention to the captain in charge of the musketeers.

  "Can your men reload on the run?" Adarin inquired.

  The grizzled old soldier gave him a vicious smile. “It'll take a bit longer. But it’s been a while since we did a running battle. Let's have some fun."

  Johan's sweat-soaked face and dark-stained robes turned to Adarin. He took a deep breath. “I got it. I can blow the depot on your command."

  The smoldering undead shambled off toward the town hall, where the white fog was causing pandemonium—or rather the absence of it. Silence had replaced the sounds of seizures, eerie and ghostly compared to the battles raging on the other side of the square. The knee-high nerve gas made the flame zombies stumble, but they managed to press on. Probably because Johan is just concentrating on those three?

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  Together with Liora and Johan, Adarin scrambled to the position of the musketeers, toward the mouth of their exit road, and Adarin spoke out loud. "We wait for another breakthrough of the orcs at either barrier. Fire a volley, then we run."

  He checked it with the necromancers, but they were competent—knew already which undead to leave behind.

  With a few practiced glances, he scanned his troops: four hundred undead, a hundred musketeers, a dozen mages, two hulking swamp troll undead.

  He considered the path back. Every 200 meters, we leave a tenth of the undead behind to stall them. By the time we reach the fallback point, half will remain—enough to hold.

  The light of the three sunbands had turned orange and illuminated the scene in the marketplace. The roaring war cries of the orcs—another breakthrough was forming as the last of the Marholian defenders at the first barricade were slaughtered. The side barricade still held, barely, but it wouldn't once the orcs flanked it. And all of you are dead anyways. Hope Rüdiger isn't too mad that I blow a bunch of corpses to smithereens.

  The eerie cold of the morning and the orange light illuminated the scene on the square as the undead and musketeers formed up.

  "Fire," Adarin ordered.

  The musketeers ripped into the breakthrough of the orcs coming over the barricade, cutting them down like a gardener would cut weeds. Screams and groans resulted, but the next wave was already breaking through.

  ‘Retreat. 200 meters. March, march.’

  The musketeers turned in an orderly fashion. Retreated swiftly.

  ‘We leave behind 10% each. Stop. We arrive with half our troops. Should be enough.’ As he was finished instructing the officer cadre, he turned to the mage beside him.

  "Johan, are your zombies in position?"

  "Yeah. Damn. I have a hard time making it out, but there's a big room filled with crates at the end. Should I—"

  "Good enough. Do not enter it yet. I will give you the order. Wait for the square to fill up."

  He smirked. "And for us to get ourselves some distance."

  Seeing the beam of a collapsed house, Adarin made a split-second decision. "Liora. Take one of the undead trolls. Have it grab that beam and hold the entrance to this street. We need to collect as many orcs as we can before we blow the depot. Every enemy we get here is one we don't have to kill later, after all."

  "But Rüdiger made them. We can't just—" she protested, but Adarin made a cutting gesture. "—he made them as resources for this war effort. If we can trade one of them against a few hundred enemy soldiers, he is willing to make that trade. Do what I say."

  Fucking hell, he cursed the last part in private.

  Liora swallowed and glared at him. "I—"

  But Johan grabbed her arm. "The master will accept this. He is a very reasonable man when it comes to making trades. Trust me on this. He says he has learned all about trading, even though he is no merchant."

  And Adarin smirked. Yeah. An economist for sure is no merchant, after all. One of the two was good at talking bullshit. The other...

  Even the unit fell back, and soon the first orcs streamed against the barricade of pikes, in front of which the towering black skeleton of the swamp troll held the wooden beam. It swung wide, and orcs—and the shattered bodies of orcs—flew to both sides. Goblins screamed, trying to run the barricade, but the pikes of the undead held them back, held them at bay.

  But it will not hold. It doesn't have to. But commit another 10%. This needs to hold longer.

  Acknowledgments were followed by more undead rushing forward, reinforcing the pike wall. How long till they find a side alley? No time for scouting, not in this chaos.

  Adarin rushed down the street and to the ruins of another barricade. The musketeers were climbing on top of it in turn, firing into the crowd over the heads of the undead, arcing their shots into the market square, and then stopped to reload. I love having competent partners.

  He assessed the ribs of a building that collapsed into the street. The perfect place to make the next stand.

  Adarin rushed over to it. Two hundred meters—done. Eight hundred more to go.

  Soon they would come by the house where the old widow and the children had lived. Let's hope they make it through this. Or have. Or had the good sense to already run from this mess.

  Then a pillar of green and purple light, interweaving into a spiral, erupted in the sky behind Adarin. Wind like the first breezes of a blizzard hit him, and all the morning fog was blown out into the sky. A chill that ran deeper than anything air could achieve hit them. Perfect. The ritual is reaching its crescendo. If we hold long enough, the battlefield itself will change.

  Adarin smiled. Things couldn't go better.

  That was when something flashed at the front line. Lyra yelped as the towering black skeleton was torn to pieces, its beam flying back and cutting an open swathe into the line of the undead.

  Three shapes ripped through the undead line—too fast, too precise. Not common warriors. Something worse.

  Johan’s voice cracked. “Orcish adventurers. Veterans. Strong ones.”

  Adarin groaned and checked the muskets. Five more seconds.

  He made out the enemy. Three of them: a brute with a two-handed axe like a cleaver for giants; a shield-bearer with a single brutal handaxe; and a wiry killer, hatchets flashing in both fists. "One-fifty! Ready! Line up your shots!" Adarin thundered.

  He sent forward the spiders and his minions. They scurried forward.

  The orcs pulled into the street, a hundred meters to their lines. The last of the undead who would be leaving scrambled over the walls, and Adarin stood on top of the barricade, shoulder to shoulder with the musketeers.

  "Ready?" he ordered. "Aim."

  He pointed at Johan.

  "Get your undead ready."

  Then he gave the order: "Fire."

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