I threw myself forward and snatched my sword from its scabbard. The blade flicked out, and one of these new types of monsters fell back, leaving an arm behind. It still had three more, so I was confident I hadn't inconvenienced it too greatly. Three more of the things lunged towards me.

They were two bodies melted together. The legs were twice as thick as they should be, and the bulbous torso sprouted a pair of arms to either side at the shoulders. The heads were a vomit-inducing mishmash of both of the source materials' faces, mouths locked in eternal screams, meeting in the middle under pairs of partially rotten noses. Four eyes were randomly placed across the cheeks and foreheads, and the skull bulged out at the back, giving them a truly alien appearance.

If I didn't already have plans to kill that prick Mortimer, these things would have sealed the deal. My blade flicked out as I moved towards the one I'd already injured, ducking under a staff swung by one of the others as I went. Aim for the brain, Ray! I thought desperately as my target regained his balance and lashed out with a leg like a tree trunk to catch me in the gut. I activated Enhancement and moved faster than before.

Health: 595/600

As the air left my lungs, I twisted, my left hand catching the ankle before the thing could pull it back, and I sank my fingers into the rotten flesh. I spun on my left foot and let go, hurling the nightmare into the nearest pair of its friends. As my right foot settled behind me, I now had all the enemies in the right place: directly in front of me.

As they were untangling themselves, I flashed forward and removed a pair of heads. Four heads in total, I supposed, as each head was two fused together. My sword slammed down and sank through the spine of the one I'd thrown. The tip sank into the wood beneath as it cut through the thing's spine, and I left it pinned, flailing with its three remaining arms as I turned to the last monster.

Undead Amalgam slain x2. The Amalgams were composed of 2 Reanimated Humanos.

Thirty Souls harvested.

This one had eyes that neatly formed two rows, one set above the other, as opposed to the rest that had been much more haphazardly put together. The eyes blinked in sequence at me, first the upper pair, then the lower. It pulled four daggers from a broad belt around its waist and took a ponderous step towards me. Then it blurred into motion.

Floorboards cracked as the thing shot towards me, four long steel daggers flashing. I hit my Haste amulet and sped up even more. We exchanged blows too fast to follow. Each slash and lunge of the daggers was dodged or turned aside with a slap of my palm. Due to its advantage in limbs, I was being driven backwards, unable to get close enough to land a decisive blow.

A hand snagged my ankle, and I toppled backwards. I wrenched my leg free and rolled to the side as a tree trunk-thick leg slammed down where I had been. I pulled out my dagger and drove it into the thing's knee, twisting and slicing in a savage motion that left the grey flesh torn. The leg gave way as the last strands of undead flesh parted under the amalgam's weight.

I spun back to my feet and jumped over to slice the dagger through the middle of the conjoined skulls, and they split open, spilling gore onto the pile of bodies as it fell backwards. Another plunge, and the other amalgam stopped thrashing at the sword, pinning it down.

Undead Amalgam slain x2. The Amalgams were composed of 2 Reanimated Humanos.

Thirty Souls harvested.

I shoved the bodies clear and retrieved my sword, wiping it on my ruined tunic. I really needed to find someone to make me some tougher clothes. The sword slammed home in my scabbard, and I slipped the dagger back into its sheath. Then the world went orange, and I was blasted sideways. I bounced off a stone wall and slid to the bottom before flowing upright and glaring around.

Health: 523/600

"That was rude. I guess you're the big swinging dick here, but you're scared to fight fair," I grumbled. My tunic was now thoroughly ruined. The flames hadn't hurt me, but getting slapped into the wall had stung.

"The King has compelled me to fight you," came a voice from out of sight. The lord. I was disoriented. I wasn't sure which way I'd been blasted by his fireball, but I assumed he was in the other room on the opposite side of the corridor, which I'd started in. Two lords down, one to go, then I kill my way out of town and rejoin the army. This was noisier than I'd planned on being; more guards and Undying were probably on the way. I needed to make this quick.

I moved through the smoke, hopping over the gaps the explosion had blown into the floorboards. Stepping carefully, I entered the lord's chambers only to find him facing away from me, staring out the window like I didn't matter. He had Body A, Mind C+, and Souls F floating above his head.

"You aren't the chief necromancer here," I said, resting my hand on the hilt of my sword and stopping three metres away from him.

"No, the King created most of the Undying. Some of us were forced to take the Death affinity. When you get enough Souls, you can unlock a power that lets you claim or be given control of the Undying. Can you kill Ashrot?" He turned to look at me. His face was drawn and pale, sweat marked his brow, and his lips quivered slightly.

"You want me to put your wife out of her misery?" I asked, and he flinched.

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"How… You know a lot, Raymond. Yes. Can you?" I nodded.

"I expect I can, might need some help, but we'll get it done." He blew out a long breath.

"The guards are on the way. The fireball will have alerted them." No shit, I thought. "Can you escape the city?"

"I can. What's happening with the civilians? Soldiers and the walking corpses are fair game as far as I'm concerned-"

"Why haven't you used the terrible sky-fire spell yet?" he interrupted, looking back out of the window. His robes were blowing back as the breeze from the fifth-floor window entered the room. He looked over at me and smirked. "The King mentioned you were soft for a killer. You can't win, Harvester of Souls, you've not seen the armies, the tides of Undying and the… larger creations. You should run back to your steppes and then head east until the world runs out. Kill my wife. End Ashrot." His voice had become soft, almost a whisper at the end.

He leant forwards and went headfirst out of the window. I switched to Glimpse and watched his body fall, smashing his brains out on the cobbles below. Well, that was a waste of twenty Souls. The sounds of armoured men rushing down wooden-floored corridors reached my ears, and I turned back to the missing walls of the lord's chambers as a grin passed across my face. Primary targets dealt with, I was free to cause some havoc on my way out. My sword made a quiet scraping noise as I drew it and moved silently over to the wall. I hadn't melted away with Shape Earth.

The first one was a human in the weird iron skirt armour they favoured. The armour didn't even slow the blade, and I was moving as both halves of the man were still falling to the ground. Down the corridor ahead of me was a long line of normal human soldiers. This wasn't going to be a fair fight.

I flashed forward, slicing, punching and kicking as I passed. I left heads smashed into the walls, metal helms crumpled and dripping gore. I punched fist shaped indentations in their armoured breastplates that crushed the supposedly protected organs beneath them. .I snapped limbs with my free hands, crushing the bones just by clamping my fist around them. Normal humans were pathetically weak opponents now.

Normalo Humanos slain x24

Two hundred and forty Souls harvested.

I moved down the stairs, killing anyone in armour as I went. I didn't see anymore Undying, and the effort required to deal with these mortal enemies gave me time to split my focus and watch the unfolding battle outside from the perspective of my crow.

Ashrot had moved its bulk aside to clear the northern gate, and a long file of Undying was marching out. Most of them were regular dead men, but there were some squads, each no more than a few hundred strong, composed of small amalgams similar to the ones I'd fought before my chat with the suicidal lord of the city.

My little fort looked puny in comparison to the tens of thousands of walking corpses forming up into neat ranks, and from the perspective of the city, my fort looked barely guarded, with only a handful of patrols on the platforms behind the palisades. Glimpse could clearly see the ranks formed up behind the wooden walls, just waiting to pour out and form up once the city committed to the sally.

There was no trumpet or horn to announce the advance. The mass of undead simply started moving forward in perfect synchronisation. They moved quietly; if we didn't already know they were coming, it might have worked out for them. Glimpse was circling above the wall, and Ashrot, when my guys made their move. Nothing changed on the walls, but the gates to the fort swept open, and ranks of armoured Huskars fell out onto the grass between the fort and the city. In the distance, Glimpse could see squadrons of nomad cavalry, five thousand warriors strong, start to canter into position to try and seal off any retreat for the Undying by cutting in between the horde and Ashrot.

It only took a few minutes for the ranks to form. Shield and "short" sword-wielding Huskars made up the first line of defence. The swords were the length of most human adults, but in giant hands, they looked like oversized daggers. Spears settled over the front rank's shoulders, held in position by the taller Ur-viles behind them, ready to stab down as the zombies got close.

Then Glimpse cawed and wheeled up into the sky as burning light shot out from the spears to slam into the grey mass of flesh rushing towards them. The blasts cut lines in the horde, reaching almost all the way back to the walls and Ashrot's twitching metamorphic flesh.

Finally, my soulbound casters opened up. Fire, ice and lightning exploded among the unceasing dead, blowing them apart, reducing them to ash or bursting them with torrents of electricity the rotting flesh was unable to contain.

Glimpse saw a group of humans on top of the wall, perhaps a couple of hundred of them, who were raising their hands and casting spells back at my troops. Arcs of fire and lances of light and darkness reached out, but pink-purple rips in reality opened in front of most of them, the other end of the portal appearing above and redirecting the magic back at the foe.

Shields of ice and fire appeared hanging above Ashrot to catch their own diverted attacks and protect the soulbound casters on the wall. Excellent. Forcing them to waste their precious mana to stop their own attacks. All those portals we'd used were from artefacts. If this came down to a battle of endurance, we had just slipped ahead of the enemy.

Then the siege engines opened up from within the walls, and I winced as rocks the size of sheds began to slam down around my legionnaires. Gouts of earth were thrown up, mixing with the smoke from the blasts of magic. Not all the enemy spells had been blocked or diverted, and Glimpse could see gaps in the front of our formations. Not significant losses, perhaps, but when you were up against gods knew how many undead and the prospect of new troops was dependent on kids coming of age, every life mattered.

The remains of the wave of grey flesh slammed into the disciplined lines of the legion and began to dissolve. An Undying was a formidable opponent to a regular human, but they were chaff in the wind when faced with artefact-armed Huskars, all professional soldiers to a man.

Another barrage of spells was launched from the walls, arcing out to try and hit the point of contact between the forces, uncaring of harming their own troops. Another set of portals and shields sprang up. Three smaller figures charged forward from the legion's position, cutting their way into the mob and aiming for the smaller amalgams. I could almost hear the Fangs laughing happily as they finally got to unleash their full potential.

The cavalry arrived and began to cut into the flanks of the horde, lancers charging and retreating in waves while the archers peppered the enemy with enchanted arrows and javelins. Then Ashrot moved, contracting its bulk from around the city and swelling outwards from the section facing my army. Tendrils lined with teeth and eyes flicked out and began to pull the thing's bulk towards my forces.

Normalo Humanos slain x78

Seven hundred and eighty Souls harvested.

I stopped in my tracks, slamming a man's head against the wall to knock him out before throwing his body at the terrified warriors standing in my way, bowling them over. With a glance behind me at the stairs and corridors, I'd absentmindedly slaughtered my way down, and I saw blood dripping down the floor and walls.

"Bloody hell!" I cursed as I slapped my Haste amulet and shot back the way I'd come. I needed to get some altitude, and fast. Then it would be time to rain fire on the big bastard.

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