Vaegon resolved himself to fight to the death – not an easy resolution to make for an elf. He went to punch the unprotected, half melted face of one of the things raring to swing a blade at him, but once again, Targon yanked him out of the way.
The undead soldiers had been struck still in their present postures, but their forward momentum was still carrying them ahead. Their bodies were as stiff as statues, and they couldn’t stop themselves. Two of them hit the ramp, and slid to a grinding halt. The others went tumbling over them, and fell into the dark, crowded area below.
“Push the others over the ledge, elf!” Targon yelled. “The spell will only hold them still a moment more.”
With that, he raced off towards the nearest scaling ladder, which was being topped by another wave of undead men.
The wizard had been correct. Even as Vaegon rolled the last stinking corpse over the edge of the ramp, it was starting to move again. Before the thing toppled over, Vaegon put his foot on the man’s blade. It was a long sword, like Ironspike, and looked to be well kept. As the man’s grip let loose and he fell away, Vaegon took up the blade, and charged over to help Targon. He got there too late though, or maybe not getting their quick enough saved him from meeting the same dismal fate as Targon did.
The Choska demon came swooping down out of nowhere at breakneck speed. Its clawed feet latched onto Targon and yanked him screaming up into the darkened sky.
As if it were connected to the Highwander wizard by some unseen magical rope, the siege ladder nearest him was yanked away from the wall. The sudden sideways movement toppled the undead climbers back into the darkness below, like droplets of water shaken from a wet tree. Only two of them had gotten to the top of the now island-like section of wall though. Vaegon readied himself to take them on, as dawn’s light reached up over the mountains behind the castle. He and the two decaying men were alone atop the isolated section of structure. All around them, some sixty feet below, raged a sea of bloody battle and searing flames.
Vaegon hacked, slashed, blocked, and parried with the sword. Moving from one edge of the crumbling plateau to the other, he fought furiously, but the undead neither tired, nor relaxed their blades. Nearly at the edge, the two living corpses split up, thus putting Vaegon in an extremely vulnerable position.
The first blow he took, caught him in the arm and split him from wrist to elbow. He dodged, and spun, slinging fat droplets of his elven blood. He even leapt like a tree cat, trying to get out from between them.
The second blow he took, caught him on the back of the leg, and made him crumple to a knee. He didn’t give up though. He blocked, and spun, grinding his kneecap into the rough, gritty surface of the plank, and somehow managed to take an undead fighter’s leg off at the calf. When he turned to find the other though, after finally narrowing it down to one against one, he saw the undead soldier’s sun-tipped blade coming down in a gleaming speeding arc. All he could do was dive forward, and he did. He heard the “whoosh” of the steel as it passed a hair’s breadth over his scalp, then heard another sound – a harsh thumping grunt.
He rolled to his back to see where the death blow was coming from, so that he might have a chance to avoid it, but what he saw was as baffling, as it was terrifying.
The back end, and streaming tail of a horse made of silvery white flames, shot out of his vision. Apparently, it had swept the undead swordsman from the wall. He started to get up, but the huge red dragon came swooping over him, in pursuit of the flaming steed. Its jet of scorching hot flames went right over Vaegon. It was so hot, that he felt his skin blister, and could smell his hair burning. He was lucky, he decided. The blast could have easily been a little lower, or he could have made it to his feet. If either had happened, he would have been left a smoldering husk.
He sat up, and tried to catch his breath. A few feet away, the one-legged corpse was still trying to come for him. It was pulling itself hand over hand towards him. It was close enough now to chop at Vaegon’s legs with its sword, but was intent on getting closer. Its eyes were dark, emotionless, and set in a decomposing face, that appeared to be smiling a smile of long, greenish-yellow teeth.
Vaegon gritted his own teeth together, and gained his feet. The pain of his wounds brought out a harrowing yell. Sensing the elf’s moment of weakness, the undead came scrabbling forward quickly, like some sort of grotesque three-limbed crab. Deftly, but painfully, Vaegon sidestepped, and dispatched the undead man, by shoving his blade tip down through its neck, and severing its spine.