From the top of the breach to the rampart was about twelve feet up. I knew that I could climb it easily. I also knew the others would have problems. I shook my head and went back down to the wagon. I should have remembered not to leave the rope behind, but I didn’t think we would need it.

A few minutes later, I had the rope around my shoulders, and I was climbing up the broken wall to get to the rampart. Of all of us, my climbing skill was the best. I had left my standard with Kasidy again since I couldn’t climb with it on. Which, of course, meant as I was climbing, I was thinking about a way that I could make a sling for it.

I pulled myself up just far enough to see what was on the rampart. I frowned when I saw that, like the field, it too had troops on it. The closest skeleton was about ten feet away, so I reached out to it. I wanted to see if my hope was well founded.

I cast claim undead and felt the connection form. As the spell hit, I expected to get a message asking if I wanted to contest the claim. However, I didn’t. What I did get was a message telling me that the skeleton’s level had been reduced to two levels above mine. I smiled if these weren’t claimed, which meant that he wasn’t getting information from them.

Still holding onto the rock, I thought about my next move. The rampart had dozens of creatures all milling around. I knew that just by the nature of the undead, they would want to attack me as soon as they saw me. However, it wouldn’t be coordinated; it would just be a massive rush of them charging. Which meant that if we could stay hidden, we could move through the mass.

I smiled and reached out to another skeleton claiming it. There were eight that were within my range. I soon had them standing side by side, blocking us from the rest. Then I pulled myself up. I quickly tied the rope to the wall and tossed it back down.

As I waited for everyone below to come up, I reached out to other close-by undead and started to claim them. Renfry was the first up, and I just held one finger in front of my mouth. He nodded and then moved beside me.

Next up was Kasidy. Getting her up was more fun since we had to tie the rope around her and help her. It wasn’t that she wasn’t trying to climb. It was just that she lacked the skill at all. The misapplied efforts of youth were not one of her lacking.

When she reached the top, she gasped at how close the undead were to us. I whispered, “I claimed the close ones. We are going to need to get enough of them that we can get surrounded.”

Kasidy nodded at me with her eyes big. I knew that she hated the undead and, for a while, worried like Lannah that I was a necromancer. She got over that fear on our way to Last Port. However, her general worry and dislike for the monsters around us was evident.

Irwin, with his slightly misspent or perhaps well-spent youth, climbed up easily enough. His tree-climbing skill gave him a general idea of how to climb the broken edge of the wall. With the rope there for safety, it only took him a few moments to get to the top.

Once everyone was there, I signaled them to come close and crouch down. It took us a few moments to get arranged on our little bit of the wall. The undead I had claimed made a small arc of bodies between us and the rest of the horde. I had them looking away from us to try to help the rest of the team be calm.

I smiled at everyone then I told them my plan. “Look, I can take control of undead through a spell. Just like having the ability to do the same doesn’t make someone evil, the spell doesn’t either. So what we are going to do is move forward slowly as I claim up enough here to surround us. Once the line of sight is blocked enough, we’ll head down the wall and to the castle.”

I took a breath and looked at each member of my retinue. “The good thing is that the lich lost control of the horde when he died. The bad thing, however, is that he can take control from me easily as his skill level is much higher than mine.”

All three nodded. Kasidy still looked the most nervous as she asked, “Can we have the Standard active as we go?”

I shook my head. “No, we need them as close to us as we can. That way, we aren’t very noticeable. The standard would take up the whole rampart, and we wouldn’t be able to pass. As it is, we are going to have to be tight. I can only focus on controlling so many at once. Ready?”

I looked at Irwin first. He gave me a short nod, nervous nod. Then I shifted to Renfry, who only smiled. I grinned back and then turned to Kasidy. She shook her head no and then closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

She breathed out slowly and muttered. “Just like the first night at a new bar. Okay, let’s go.”

I gave my best reassuring smile to Kasidy and Irwin. Then I stood and reached out to more unclaimed. As I started to claim the undead, we moved forward. I placed us with the wall to our left, and then we moved forward. It was slow work as I had to get enough to wrap around our party and block the line of sight.

Once we were moving, it was an eerie silence. None of us dared to talk since we knew that undead are known to react to sound. So we walked forward as fast as I could have a hole made for us. It was odd, to say the least, forcing a bubble of people down the wall.

The unclaimed were all hitting around levels 10-15 until I claimed them. Then they dropped quickly down to level 2, which meant that having my minions push through was difficult. I had to gather a large enough mass in front to overpower the level difference and so be able to push the physically stronger undead out of the way.

The lich had armed most of the undead on the wall with bows of various types. However, every fifty feet or so, a group of zombies were in full plate and heavy spears or axes. It was one of these groups that ground us to a stop. They just weighed too much.

So I slowly had to turn enough of them to get moving again. This, however, removed the silence as the plate armor hadn’t been cared for in years. So with each step of the newly added heavy zombie guards, the sound of creaking and squeaking rust was heard.

The plus side was that the axe zombies also had partial tower shields, which mostly held up as we moved. Like everything, the equipment here was worn and uncared for. When I fought the undead in the south, everything was magically in good repair until the spell was broken. Here, however, either through lack of skill or lack of care, the equipment showed its age.

The wall going to the castle was only about two miles long. However, it took us the better part of four hours to navigate down the path. I kept checking on everyone to make sure they were okay. About an hour Irwin broke and was either too tired to keep being nervous or had accepted that things were under control. Kasidy, however, managed to keep her nervous glances going the whole time.

I liked the woman, and she had proven useful and trustworthy to me several times. She was fun to talk with and made travel from the waterfall to Last Port more enjoyable. That said, I wished we had left her at the tower where she would have been safer. I knew why she wanted to come; she didn’t want to miss out on what I was doing. She also didn’t want to be alone.

We got to the end of the main wall and saw steps going down into the kill zone between the pass wall and the city wall. From this point, we would have to pass through three different walls to the castle itself. At one time, this would have been through a bustling city; however, now, it was a ruin.

I smiled as we got to the stairs heading down from the wall to the city’s outer ring. The lich’s former horde wasn’t arrayed in this part of the city. Instead, it seemed like he had massed all his creatures in the field and on the outer wall, which meant that we at least had some reprieve with the speed at which we traveled.

I guided our group of undead down the stairs as we moved into the city. The sun was starting to set, and so our vision was getting worse. We moved through the outer city for the next twenty minutes at a good walk. The gates into the next section stood open, and there was no guard.

We needed a break, but I wanted us closer to Blink. I was worried about what the lich was doing and what was happening to her. She hadn’t bugged me once I told her what I was doing. But I couldn’t help by worry.

We passed through from the outer city into the main city. I could tell that there was a marked difference in construction. This area was better in all ways, which was why it was more intact even after a few hundred years of neglect. As we moved in, I spotted one building standing without any signs of damage. The others around it that were equally as big but showed signs of weather and age despite their similar construction.

I pointed up to the massive building, and we headed in. It reminded me in many ways of an old courthouse. It had nearly a hundred giant stone steps leading up to the doors. At the top of the stairs were two huge metal doors that were closed. On the front of the door was a relief sculpture of a giant tree.

Built into the giant-sized door was a secondary person-sized door about twelve feet tall. I glanced back at my team; they looked tired and worn out. So I walked up to the smaller door and tried the handle. As I wrapped my hand around it, I felt a slight shock, and then the door opened.

* * *