[Defence] Shadow Gate

[Adder]

The stench and noise of war was but a distant threat to the citizens who remained in the city, though occasional lights and sounds of arcane origin flashed and echoed from the distance. Those who did venture into the streets hurried along cloaks clutched around them and most kept to the edges of the streets, darting across when it was necessary to cross and glared suspiciously at any other passers by. Any who were not of dwarfen height and build came in for especially close scrutiny and more than one innocent passer by lay huddled in a pool of blood because they appeared too much like a Vyssie or other dark race.

Not too far down the street from the B&D Anvil, whose memories must have caused some echo in the thoughts of Avanthar, a shadow formed. It seemed to gather from the eaves and corners of the buildings that edged along the street and pooled on the cobbles of the street before raising itself up into a vaporous mass on the very stones of the street itself.

The citizens who observed it shrank back against the very buildings that had spawned the shadows and watched while their skins crawled. None ran though for their dwarfen pride ran deep, and movement finally came only when one of the male dwarfs sprinted away seeking the Veldar.

So far, the shadows had gathered unopposed but the intrusion of necromantic archmage level arcane into the heart of the city was too much. Defensive arcana of the hidden city, long dormant had been stirred into life by the conflict just outside the city. Too much arcana was loose in the area from both sides of the battle and even the Dolwoods must soon respond. On the walls of the city, the druids cast spells to the ruination of the enemy, calling for the aid of Carmelya, goddess of the dwarfs ancient elven foes and now the forces of darkness dared to push their magic into the city, the arcana put into place by long dead archmages finally responded to the threats.

The cobbles bucked and paving spewed forth, and now the onlookers did retreat and in a hurry. The shadows as they formed and darkened now rose as the short part of the street on which they sat also rose up into the air, paving blocks dropping away to crash back to the street below. It was a passive reaction, merely pushing the now formed shadow gate away but the result was going to pose something of a problem for anyone passing through it, for now except for a handbreadth of paving in front of the gate, it now sat level with the roofs of the buildings to either side. For now the gate sat there seemingly hanging there in the air, the shadows flickered for though the gate was powered by the spell of an archmage, it was countered by spells created by archmages and the effects were not finished yet. The gate appeared to be active but it had yet to be used, and who was to say what would happen when it did?

[Adder]

As Sgt Veleraens squad approached the strange shadows, they could see that it was jerking slightly and every so often it dropped downwards by a hands span or so.

[Veleraen]

"I think we have more things to worry about that rioting boys....Darius.." Veleraen turned to Darius who was sitting upon his mount. "..I need you to get to the Deputy Commander as fast as you can and tell him that there is a shadow portal of sorts at this location. Tell him my squadron is going to need reinforcements, and we're going to need a lot of them. Go! Make haste! For the sake of Aslan, may your journey be swift and safe." Veleraen placed a hand on Darius's shoulder and gave him a wink of hope from behind his veil of steel and then turned to the rest of the men.

"Alright men! Listen up! We have to get that crowd near the gate away and to safety!! I want you all to split off into pairs and disperse the crowd!! We have to clear this area! Tell them to either return to their homes, or to go to the Veldar Compound and join up to fight. I have a feeling we're not going to be alone for much longer...Recruit Garrone Laiforge! You're with me. The rest of you, make it happen!" Veleraen's head turned to the gate and his eyes narrowed in on the darkness that penetrated the sky, slowly lowering once and a while, more and more paving from the buildings breaking off.

"It is the work of a greater evil....Some mage on the battlefield outside no doubt is causing this anomaly to pop up into Zerdargia. A defence must be erected around it. But how...." Veleraen frantically looked around and tried to get a good layout of where the gate was in position to the buildings and streets. If the gate was positioned in such a way in the streets, that when whatever came out could be slaughtered immediately by the Veldar. If the troops could set up a defence perimeter, troops bottlenecking the streets at the gate entryway, perhaps they would be able to gain the upperhand against any orcs or undead that decided to make their way through the shadow gate.

Veleraen turned to Garrone with a sense of urgency upon his voice. "Okay Recruit, lets see what you're made of. We have to get these people out of here, and you're my partner. Lets get this done, and we'll be out of this shadow hell hole in time for rosyun." Veleraen grinned and rushed over to the crowd where the rest of his men were trying to get them to leave.

"By order of the Veldar Elite, you are to clear this area immediately! Your lives are at risk if you stay, please, either return to your homes or go to the Veldar Compound and sign up to the militia, we need every able body to defend the city. Otherwise, you will need to leave immediately. Your lives depend on it!!" Veleraen shouted at the top of his lungs, getting in front of the crowd and pushing them backwards by spreading his arms and walking towards them, hoping that they would get the idea and evacuate the area.

"I really hope these people aren't stupid enough to stay and put their lifes at risk." Sighing, Veleraen repeating his shouts, hoping to ward off the crowd and evacuate them back further into the city where they would be safe.... for the meantime.

[Darius]

Darius listened as Veleraen asked him to report the news to Deputy Commander, and nodded firmly in response to his words. "I'll move as fast as possible. Midnight runs several times after than the finest racing horses, so I'll be there very soon." Darius spoke with quiet confidence, and wasting no further time on words, he wheeled his Saurus away from the platoon. Darius leaned forward, said something softly to Midnight, and with a firm push of his heels, they were both off at a speed that would easily outdistance a horse.

Pushing Midnight to move swiftly, while simultaneously trying to carefully maneuver through streets that suddenly seemed much narrower at the speeds he was traveling, Darius made his way back to the gate and wall where he had begun his trip with Veleraen. Once there, Darius dismounted while also calling out, "I have an urgent message of grave import for the Deputy Commander. Could someone bring me to him as quickly as possible?"

[Adder]

With Valeraens men working in pairs the crowd pushed back but did not disperse, and if anything it grew larger as word spread like wildfire through the surrounding streets. Even the growing darkness failed to discourage them, and as the torchlight flickered into light it threw back a lot of glittering from the crowd and clearly the newcomers to the crowd had come armed. Not for nothing had much of the citizenry passed through the training programme of the Veldar, indeed it was almost a rite of passage for a young dwarf to have spent time learning the trade of a soldier. Armour was less to be seen in the crowd but weapons seemed to be held in every hand, even those of the hobbits who made up a sizable part of the community here.

They gave way to the soldiers, remembering the discipline that had been drummed into them during their time in service but they only gave back so far and were not going away. The gate had now dipped below the level of the rooftop and would have been halfway down the windows of the upper storey had these buildings actually had windows, but this area seemed mainly dwarfen in construction and the only breaks in the solid stone walls were the doors which led into the buildings. Most of the buildings were two stories high which was a little unusual but reflected the fact that this was a busier part of the city, but that was not to say that the buildings only had tow stories because that simply was not true. All of the more private areas of the houses were underground and should Avanthar decide to enter the buildings then he would spend a lot of time clearing the houses as each would need to be done one by one, and even should he not so decide, the fighting was liable to degenerate into a messy house by house clearance.

But even as Veleraen and his men cleared the streets either side of the gate, the gate itself continued to move, jerking downwards slowly as the ancient spell degenerated and the occasional paving slab dropped away to crash into the street below.

Darius was hailed by a grizzled sergeant at the gate and shown through to Captain Hammersmith, who was frowning as she stood hands on hips and surveyed the defences that had been put in place. ”Serale, the Deputy Commander is further round the wall at the moment. I’m Captain Hammersmith, in charge of the Gate, if its urgent then you had better tell me of your message and I will get it through to the Commander.”


Veldar Compound
The retired commander. Bomburl Derisson surveyed the militia that had assembled in the compound and smiled grimly. They had outfitted as many as possible with any armour and arms as were needed but in truth those that had assembled there had come fully equipped. He knew that thoughout the city, with the children and infirm evacuated from the city before the siege had locked itself round the city, similar scenes were being reinacted with groups of armed dwarfs and hobbits gathering. The militia forces would be badly in need of leadership and he closed in eyes in pained anticipation of how many would be lost if the enemy forces found their way into the city. Trained they were, but an army they were not and he hoped that they would remember not only their weapon training but also the teamwork that made the Veldar such a feared force. He was however realistic and knew that whilst the dwarfs would happily practice with their weapons, cutting their way through imaginary armies the tactical training would not have been remembered so well and instead what would happen is that they would fight as individuals. He sighed as he looked around at the grim faces and wondered how many would not survive the coming battles. At least this was not an open battlefield where teamwork would make such a difference. If it came to close quarter fighting around the city then this bunch of individuals would be in perhaps the ideal tactical environment.

He spoke quietly with the lieutenant that stood next to him, confirming that the militia would stay in the compound for the time being so that they could act move quickly to wherever they were needed. Taking them to the walls would only make if harder to get them where they were needed in any sort of numbers, even if it did mean that the compound was busier than it had been for a long time. He estimated that there were around five thousand militia assembled there and there would be many more times this many scattered across the city though those would only be able to react piecemeal to a localised threat there. Rubbing his hand across the chainmail that he always wore, he gripped the axe that hung at his side and hurried off towards the Gate to confer with Captain Hammersmith and to run his experienced eyes over the battlefield from the wall.

Shadow Gate
The street where the gate hung now was quiet for some distance either side though the rooftops above it were now darkened. The crowds that still waited blocked the streets separated only by Veleraens troops. Several small alleyways led off from the cleared area and into the neighbouring streets and held their own dark shadows but otherwise all was quiet. Quiet until that is there was sudden movement from the gate and suddenly figures were falling from the gate and bouncing from the pavement and the smashed and piled flags and cobbles that had mad up the street before the top layer had beed brutally ripped up and raised into the air. The first though smashed without compromise into the street below since the height was now some twelve feet in the air but they continued to move and writhe since although the fall broke limbs it wouldn’t have been fatal to even someone alive and since these were undead that wasn’t even an issue.

Soon a stream of falling bodies had carpeted the ground and were cushioning the bodies that came behind. The bodies fell, then rolled as they hit with their forward momentum, and soon a growing number were on their feet and spreading out to either side of the gate, packing out the edges of the street and pushing forwards.

[Duncan Sythe]

OOC: Posting here with Adder’s permission.

IC:

Well his arrival into the city wasn’t quite as he’d planned it, but as Duncan took a prolonged step into thin air and clattered roughly to the cobbles in a roll to protect his head he watched as the undead around him also picked themselves up and began to head…outward. In the dimness between gruesome corpses Duncan saw shiny metal, defenders already here, that’d make things more interesting for Avanthar, although the undead certainly did pull their weight, he knew that from his own, more hostile encounters with such entities. He had more pressing problems attending him now however as he moved from where streams of undead collapsed untidily to the cobbles before picking themselves up, how to evade the press.

Now if any of the defenders had attention to spare beyond the line of undead oppressing them they would see a grey and brown clad figure standing near the portal adorned in armour, a youthful man in his twenties who, beneath a grey cloak, had a hard-to-see breastplate, meanwhile he also managed to be graced with bracers and greaves for the wrists, shins and thighs as he brushed himself off from a rude decent from the portal, slipping a backpack over one shoulder beneath the cloak, the movement revealing a pair of sword hilts at his left hip as he glanced around the street.

As it was Duncan was looking for his first way out, a door, an alley, either would do, walls didn’t really pose a problem to the Mystic but the fact someone had probably seen him emerge from the gate did, he needed to go inside and change again before making himself known to the authorities, for a plan was forming, a change of heart to put it another way. Avanthar’s problems with Jalat were his own, in the beginning Duncan had helped because things had happened so quickly, he’d instantly been thrust into a situation where not helping might have killed him, something he could not allow, now though he had his freedom back and therefore time to think more clearly than simply ‘survive’.

Looking for one such alleyway, probably by now accessible easily from the portal, Duncan headed for it, slipping carefully, yet almost absently into Meditation as he did so and preparing to Mana Shape his illusion, just a little. Instead of the younger man he became the older, Kyle Linvail was common enough but Aaron Slone was better, after all maybe the former Medonian Corporal was up here? No, no-one would even know the name, he could always make a new one up anyhow and in the end it would be the rank tabs and ID that would convince anyone.

But now, hopefully out of sight and without being hassled by an unfortunate Veldar member Duncan transferred brown and grey clothes for pure grey, an Imperial military uniform with the high-collared mage corps clothing. Without smiling, Duncan, now with a short grey goatee, greying, short cut hair and light blue eyes that looked normal, would then proceed around the alley way system. He was looking to get behind the Veldar forces now, behind the cordon they’d thrown up but yet not too far, he wanted to double back to the shadow gate but do it on the street, the fact an Imperial Officer randomly turned up would be dealt with later; after all Duncan didn’t plan to be reporting to any Commanders at the end of all this, he’d simply fade off again.

For the irony was it would be hard for Avanthar to locate who had foiled his Shadow Gate even if he looked very hard, he’d have so much to deal with on the plains that trying to kill Duncan would, well, not happen in a hurry.

[Darius]

Darius made his way to the gate none too soon, and perhaps too late; he just didn't know. He was brought by a Sergeant to a Captain Hammersmith. The Captain explained that the Commander was farther around the wall and that he would relay the message if needed. Darius nodded and replied, "Captain, it appears that the opposing forces have erected a magical portal of some kind in the Merchant District. Sergeant Veleraen and his platoon are there now. However, he believed, and I agree, that this opening will soon be releasing numerous enemies, and he will, or likely now does, need reinforcements." Darius paused for a moment, then continued," I apologize for not first introducing myself, but the message was more important. I am Darius Val Oren, former Captain of the Daltina Thanal Guard."

[Adder]

Captain Hammersmith nodded as Darius gave him the message and introduced himself. ”Thank you for that I will get the information relayed along immediately, and it explains why the enemy have pulled back from their assault on the walls. It’s good to know that we have the support of people such as yourself Captain, and I wish you every success in your fighting here. I hear that you have a saurus? Could you get over to the Veldar Compound and repeat your message there? Our militia forces are stationed there and they can get to the merchant district very quickly and without us having to pull men from the walls. If you don’t know the way then the sergeant here can give you directions. But if you will forgive me I need to get this message off right away.” With a wave of thanks, the Captain was out of sight and passing the information to his second in command.

With the information passed, soon couriers were headed out in various directions, for not only the militia would react to this but also any unattached units as well. Captain Hammersmith mounted the wall and stood next to Commander Derisson and repeated the information to him. ”I think you were right in your analysis Captain,” the commander said, ”but its very strange that they cut off all attack. They ought to be still assaulting our walls, keeping our attention and forces here on the wall if that is their aim. Surely they realise that any form of portal is too vulnerable to disruption for them to base their entire plans on it? If they wanted to use a portal then why not use one before the attack even started. They could have set it up during the night a their whole army could have been inside the walls and taken over all the key points before we had enough of the army awake to deal with it.”

He frowned and rubbed his chin. ”This is an act of madness, trying to sneak troops in during the war unless it is for a series of strikes into the city. We will be slow to react to each one, but deploying troops into the city would be slow and we can bottle each one up as they come. We will take damage but the merchant district?” He shook his head. We need to react, but not with too many troops. The militia and the Veldar patrols can deal with it until the arch druidess can get there and destroy the portal. I think the risk is that it’s a distraction for the main assault. I want all of the troops to remain on the wall and let the deputy commander know that I’m here now if he needs me. Since the arch druidess is going to be busy, I’d better get on with looking at the damage that the wall took from that first strike.”

The commander walked along the wall until he reached the area of damage and then crouched down with his hands on the stonework and closed his eyes while he reached for clara and used the focus to examine the ara of the wall, the Master elementalist reaching the required concentration easily. The acid had etched its way into the wall and he concentrated for a while and carefully shaped the mana, concentrating on the area of wall that had been affected. With care he cast the spell and then released it the acid neutralising as his conjuration converted it back into stone. It was weaker than before but at least the damage had been stopped.

[Veleraen]

Chaos was imminent, and sooner or later, blood and bones would be scattered about the streets, and Veleraen had to do everything in his power to stop it. The crowds did not seem to want to leave, and in fact, more came, almost all of them armed and swarming the area like flies attracted to a lantern. "They won't leave, then they can help." Veleraen sighed and put up his arms, halberd in both hands, and waved it back and forth to get everyones attention.

"LISTEN UP!!!" Veleraen roared out over the crowd of people who had taken up positions around the gate blocking off the main parts of the street. Never before had Veleraen yelled so loudly, as he sucked every ounce of breath and sound from his gut to get everyone's attention. "If you are not leaving to go seek safety, then you are to help in the defence of the streets!!! I am Sergeant Veleraen, and I need EVERYONE who is willing to fight to help! I will only ask this once!!! I want everyone who is willing, who is armed, to come forward. I want groups of twenty! Column formation!!!" The giant's eyes burned in frustration, trying to organize the defence in the street. "Corporals!" Veleraen pointed to a couple of the corporals in his unit. "I want you few to make sure these squads are in order. Each of you will be assigned a squadron of twenty men and women. I want you to bottleneck the streets leading to the gate with an inverted arrow head formation and enclose the area. NO ONE is to get out. Shields in front, pikes and spears supporting the front lines of the squads! Privates! The rest of you in my squad, we will barricade the alleyways leading out from the gate. Round up as many wagons and carts as you can find. We're going to barricade the area and confine them to these few blocks around the gate!!! We confine them, we have the upperhand, NOW MOVE!!!!!!!" Veleraen screamed across the crowds pointing to corporals, assigning them to their squads and showing them where to position themselves on either side of the gate. The giant pointed to the entryways to the city block that were inbetween two buildings and instructed them to bottleneck their defences there and force the enemy to bunch together to fight. He assigned half of the squads on either side of the gate, so that the whole area would be encircled, and soon, hopefully reinforcements would arrive so that they could hold their positions.

"If we can contain them and hold them off till reinforcements arrive, we should be able to contain them effectively in and around the area of the gate. It will be a messy street fight, but we can do this..." Veleraen looked over to Recruit Garrone Laiforge and had an assignment for him. If they were going to fight a street war, they were going to have to resort to some guerrilla warfare tactics.

"Recruit Laiforge! I have an assignment for you! I will need you to round up all the lantern and stove oil you can find. Take five men from my squad. I don't care where you get it from or how you get it. If anyone stops you from taking it, tell them it's a matter of city defence and you have authorization to take it to defend the city. Get a wagon and horse, load up the oil and as much flint and steel. You're in charge of the mission. You hear that men? Now go! Before I demote you down to civilian!" Veleraen shouted and dismissed them, and then turned to the remaining ten or so men in his squad. "Listen up squad! We gotta get ourselves some barricades. Split into groups of five, roll as many wagons as you can into the remaining alleyways that are leading out of the city block around the gate and wedge them in against the buildings so it'll be hard for the enemy forces to get out. We gotta hold this block until reinforcements arrive. Do everything you can. We'll be split up, so I'll need you to do your best. If you can't hold them off any longer, retreat and regroup. Since we'll only be able to take a few alleys we'll need to do this quickly. Lets go." Since they were in the Merchantile District, there was bound to be merchant wagons, or carriages of some sorts. Zerdargia was indeed a trading post in Centripax, even though it wasn't as famous for it, it definitely had business.

Looking back, Veleraen saw the gate was getting closer to the ground, now only twelve or so feet above the ground. The giant did a double take, as he saw a glimpse of what appeared to be a body falling out of the gateway, and then another, and another, until they started to pile up below. Veleraen thought that they would've stayed down from falling from such a height, but indeed his suspicions were correct, as he witnessed them rise again....They were the undead. "I've had enough of these demons...." Turning to the rest of his men, Veleraen sighed. "Okay men, looks like we got company. We're facing the undead here, and we only have one shot at killing these rotting dung piles with legs. You aim to decapitate, go for the neck and take their heads. Undead will not hesitate and spare you no mercy and they will fight as long as they have an ounce of jorel's breath inside them. If you can't get the neck, aim for the limbs and take them out, it's the only way to stop them. Lets get those wagons in place as fast as we can! Move!" Veleraen shouted, as rushed out with his men, hoping the corporals and their squads would be doing theirs.

"May Aslan have mercy upon this city and our souls..."

[Garrone Laiforge]

OOC: Sorry about not posting for the past couple of days and not letting you guys know about it. I had family come in from out of state, so I have been doin some things with them. I will try to catch back up tomorrow night, once again sorry about not letting you know.

[Garrone Laiforge]

Laiforge knew that the oils would come much in handy when there became large crowds of these undead. He nodded to Veleraen and as to take as little time as possible, turned around, looked straight at the first five Veldar that were in front of him and said, "Ok you five, come with me. We are to gather any and all lantern and stove oil that we can. We will need to find a wagon and horse to put it into and along with those items we will gather as much flint and steel as we can also. If anyone tries to stop you from taking any of these things, let them know it is for the defence of the city, and move on with your business. We shall head towards the B&D Anvil first. I believe that they should have some of the each of what we are looking for. Follow me and stay close, this group of onlookers has become large and more so ready to take out anything that they feel is a threat."

Having said what he felt was needed knowing these were Veldar, Laiforge turned around and looked towards the B&D Anvil. He started to make his way towards it, coming to the edge of the inner circle of the crowd Laiforge decided he would give one bellow that they needed through, and then just make his way through. Yelling at the top of his lungs, "Make way for the Veldar, we need to make through the crowd to gather some supplies. Please make a path." After making his shout, Laiforge started to move onward towards the B&D Anvil. Some of the people moved, but there were the few that had decided to either ignore what he had said, didn't hear him, or didn't care. Laiforge didn't care either though, and plunged his way straight through, occaisonally glancing back to make sure that the other five Veldar were still behind him.

After making it to the outside of the crowd it was still about a block or two to the B&D Anvil. Laiforge turned around and looked to his Veldar commrades, "Ok, I am going to give all of you a small task. First Veldar, I want you to take the left side of this block and make your way through all of the buildings, gathering any of the items that we need that you find. If any door is locked break the lock if you can do so quickly. I figure that many of the doors will be unlocked, most of these people rushed out here to take sight of this portal, and I don't think they thought twice about locking their doors. Make your way up to the B&D Anvil. If you get overburdened, leave some of the stuff in front of the buildings and we will pick it up on the way back and put it in the wagon. Second Veldar, you will do the same but take the right side of the block. Third & Fourth Veldar, I want you to as quickly as possible scour the closest streets for a horse and wagon. It is up to you wether or not you split up or not, I trust your judgement, you are Veldar are you not, or at least in training. Meet us at the B&D Anvil when you find one, do so quickly. Fifth Veldar, you will come with me, we will go a block furthar than the B&D Anvil and work our way back to the B&D Anvil. I will take the left side and you will take the right. Now why is everyone just standing here wasting time? You have your orders. Go!" Laiforge took off as if he had been standing on hot coals.

Laiforge passed the B&D Anvil in a hurry and kept on going. He made it about a block further and stopped almost instantly. Turning to his left he headed for the first door he could find. Barging through the door of what looked to be someones home, Laiforge only had one thing running through his mind. Get the oil, get the flint, get the steel, get the hell on to the next building.

Laiforge just prayed that the Veldar or Veldar recruits would be able to do as well as he had hopes for and knew that they needed them to do in this situation.

[Adder]

It seemed as though Veleraens plans to block the alleyways was too late to be effective and now he needed to rely upon the training of his Veldar troops and whatever help he could get from the civilians. Luckily for him the undead would be constrained by the width of the street and this would help to overcome the current imbalance in numbers. The undead were going to be hard to kill (again) but they lacked the cohesion and training that the Veldar had so overall it was not as uneven a battle as it might have been. Of course, attrition on the defenders side was going to be harder to take and it remained to be seen just how the balance would work and how many of the undead would need to be put out of action for every defender lost.

Veleraens forces were split either side of the gate so he had lost direct control over half of them and it was to be hoped that he had someone over there who was capable of leading the defence on that side. The street was about 30 feet wide and ran straight at this point. Added to his force of twenty were currently around fifty civilians at each end, armed with a mixture of swords and axes. In addition to this there were in total another fifteen armed with bows. It would be possible to send someone from one force to the other by cutting around the streets but this would only be possible until the undead found their ways onto these streets and would take a short while. More civilians were arriving and the sounds of battle would be sure to draw more in but for the moment these were the total forces under his control.

Duncan was able to effect his departure unnoticed from the scene of battle and ducked down an alleyway unseen and managed his transformation successfully, leaving him the freedom to roam the city. These alleyways were currently unguarded and would pose a headache for Veleraen to deal with. If he didn’t block them with troops or otherwise then the undead would quickly leach out into the city, but that would drain his already small force and could leave the streets open for them instead. It was an invidious decision and there would be no right answer but that was one of the challenges of command; decisions had to be made on the spur of the moment and with a little luck they would be the right decisions but if not then at least it was a decision.

Garrone had had some success in finding oil but then his attention was drawn by the shouts of Veleraen and the other Veldar which heralded the arrival of the undead.

ooc: Veleraen – I need you to decide whether Garrone is with you or on the other side of the gate. In either case you must control the forces under your command

The undead continued to spill from the gate, and now that there was a cushioning layer of undead which were immodilised with broken limbs and which were further compounded by the impacts of bodies arriving from above, there were now some active fighters on the streets. They continued to mill, lacking direction from their commanders and confused for a short time by the strange manner of their arrival. This would not last long and Veleraen had only moments to organise the defenders to receive the assault that was about to be on them.

The outer edges of the mob of around two hundred active undead started to get close to the defenders and this resulted in them overcoming their confusion and they attacked. At the gate itself, more undead continued to arrive and soon if nothing happened they would have a massive advantage in numbers, even if most of those numbers were currently unusable. The first necromancer arrived through the gate and picked himself up from the pile of undead, dazed for a moment by the fall and being hit by falling undead but he would be active shortly and his fellows were close behind.

[Veleraen]

"Where in Aslan's name are those bloody reinforcements!!!" Veleraen muttered to himself, in the midst of chaos and confusion, trying to muster a temporary defence on the city streets. "I will have to make due until help comes.." "Recruit Garrone, keep on getting that oil, we'll need as much of it as we can. Garrone, you will be in charge of this side of the street with the several small alleyways. Line the street floor of the alleyways with oil and light it with a torch. This will hopefully create a barrier that we cannot hold with the amount of men we have. Once they are lit, hold this position, and keep an eye out. The buildings are all made of brick and stone, so don't worry about them burning down. I'm going to take five men and gather another ten civilians from either side of the street lines and defend the other side of the street where the alleyways are and hold them as long as we can. You and the other five men here with you hold this position and if any of those undead try to walk through, they'll catch fire and hopefully burn to death before they reach this side. If they manage to get through while still on fire, lop their heads off, or decapitate their limbs if you can, it's the only way to kill them. Now move it soldier!"

Veleraen pointed to the five privates that were with Garrone. "I need you to circle around the right side of the city block and gather the ten fiercest citizen fighters you can find and bring them to the other side of the street. Tell the right flank to hold the line for as long as possible. Tell them to hold their ground, and that reinforcements should be arriving very shortly. We're going to hold the alleyways until the milita get here. I'm going around the left side and getting another ten, hopefully we'll be able to confine these bastards and snuff the invasion out from here. Time is of the essence. It won't take long for them to get out on the other side, so we have to act fast and push them back into the crowded alleyway and make them stay there. MOVE!"

Veleraen rushed off to the left main defensive line and shouted orders to keep everything running smoothly. "Archers! Don't fire until they get close! Take your time to aim! Aim for the head and take them clean off! The undead don't die so easily! Infantry! Aim to decapitate! Show these undead filth what you're made of! Show them no mercy, for they will show you none!" Veleraen looked over the crowd of civilians behind the trained 20 men on the left flank and quickly pointed and grabbed a few. "I need you ten people to come with me, you're going to help us hold the alleyways on the north side of the street while reinforcements arrive. Lets move it!" Veleraen ran along side his newly recruited roughneck civilians and over to the other side where the alleyways were to be over run. "I will take the centre alleyway myself. The rest of you, I want a comfortable line of room to fight in the alleys. Make sure you have enough room to swing your weapon. Once there is a first line of defence established, I want another line and another line behind that. Use whatever crates or boxes you can in the alley as an obstacle for the enemy. We MUST hold this position until reinforcements arrive. Aim for the head! The Veldar will not bow down to these filth! Keep your eyes on your target! They are slow and dull witted! Use that against them, and you will succeed. Conquer your fear, and you will conquer death." Veleraen pointed and assigned his men to all the alleyways, stationing them no more than 3/4 up the alleyway leading to the street and then set up a defence perimeter from there backwards. Veleraen himself took one alleyway, and decided that his longsword and tower shield would be effective in this instance. Setting himself up mid way up the alleyway, he strapped his halberd to his back and withdrew his longsword and held his tower shield in his left, waiting for the advance to begin.

Hopefully by now the men with Garrone would be pouring the oil from front to back in the alleyways, lighting them ablaze, creating a fire line, hopefully one that would be able to contain the city block for now.

"Get ready men! We're in for a rough ride! Trust your instincts! Trust your fellow man! And give'em hell!" Veleraen shouted from the alleyway, hoping to rouse their spirits in a time of desperation and fear. He had no doubt that the citizenry of Zerdargia would fight fiercely, they had been trained, and Veleraen trusted that they would not fail, even if they did die in the line of duty, in his eyes, they would be beyond the call of duty.