Chapter 56: Torches and Pitchforks
The mob took all of the street’s width, with many people pressing into the walls of the nearby houses as they walked, and having to walk around empty market stalls.
Samuel’s soldiers were there already: a hundred zombies and several hundred skeletons. While most of the skeletons stood idly, the other part helped the zombies to build a simple barricade from wooden carts and boxes.
Behind the barricade was standing angry-faced Danit Arstain, and on top of it, Samuel in full armor.
At Aleric’s approach, Samuel jumped off and ran up to him.
"Master Fenn! I should have told the messenger to tell you to hide. The mob wants your head, and I don’t think we have enough soldiers to stop them here. I’ve already sent runners over the city to pull our entire garrison here, but they will arrive too late."
Samuel gestured at the skeletons and zombies nearby.
"I took the soldiers that were in the castle, but I was about to send most of them back before you arrived. The barricades on this and the nearby streets will only slow the mob down, but maybe for long enough that our carts and other property left outside the castle could be saved. And you, of course. Then, proper defense can be mounted from behind the castle’s walls."
From where Aleric was, it really seemed that the present undead forces had no chance against the angry mob. Next to it, his soldiers next to the mob looked like a handful next to a bucket.
Aleric’s forces were dispersed over the city to replace the existing garrison and watch over the key points, while the mob was all here. But even his full army would’ve been smaller than the number of people that came from the city.
Oakdale was the capital of the entire county. Aleric couldn’t count the numbers as large as its population—several thousand people... Even when just a part of them came out to fight, the number was almost double his full army in size. And his full army was mostly skeletons.
The mob might have been made of simple laborers and their wives, but their improvised weapons and the sheer mass of the mob would be very effective against fragile skeletons.
As for the zombies, there were simply not enough of them here to make a difference.
"You should hide, Master Fenn," Samuel repeated. "Maybe Danit can still convince his people to stand down, but if not, the castle will give you more protection than this place."
"The traitors!" Danit shouted at the approaching mob, shaking his fist. "Nobody in this city cares about my authority anymore—just because I died! Stop this instant, or you will regret it, you swine!"
The mob only shouted louder. But not because of Danit—they saw Aleric ahead and burned with murderous rage!
People began to walk even faster than before, a few even breaking into a jog. There were only two hundred feet between them and the barricade, and this number was rapidly decreasing.
Aleric huffed.
"Hide? Samuel, don’t suggest this to me ever again. Aleric Fenn does not hide." He looked at Danit, who thought he could hide and run from death... "Those who fall prey to fear die before they even stop breathing!"
With these words, Aleric rode toward the barricade and the mob ahead.
As he moved, the undead behind the barricade parted before him like water. Samuel could only follow closely, enraptured by his master’s divine-like majesty and inner power.
Aleric raised his hand, and his ghost floated from behind his shoulder. In the bright daylight, the green glow of its Dark energy was much less dramatic than in the dungeons, but still visible to the naked eye.
The ghost opened its mouth silently, but Aleric’s leash was too tight to speak.
"I didn’t think that I would get to test my new weapon so soon. It’s lucky, really." Aleric smiled and glanced at Samuel’s sheath. "And you have a new blade, too. Good!"
It was a dwarven sword that previously belonged to Danit—Aleric recognized it.
Samuel saluted with his fist.
"Thank you, master. That was my thought, too."
Aleric turned to the approaching mob. Now there were only one hundred and fifty feet—close enough that some people began throwing rocks at the skeletons. One even hit a skeleton’s head and sent it stumbling to the ground.
He pointed a hand in their direction.
"Rebels! Recently, I gave you a chance to live as you were. But you rebuked and went against your new lord. For this, death is a lawful punishment, and I will give it to you! My ghost... Take them all!"
In this moment, Aleric twisted the ghost’s leash. Through the Dark magic between them, he filled its mind with illusions. Even Aleric himself wasn’t sure what they were, but...
"Arstaaain!" the ghost hissed, lunging toward the mob.
Behind the barricade, Danit Arstain jolted, staring at the ghost with wide eyes.
But the peasants in the mob were much more shocked! In daylight, the ghost looked like a pale green silhouette, but its presence sent a grave chill through the living people within twenty feet.
A man running at the front of the mob raised his torch.
"Another undead! Kick its a—"
"Aaaaarstaaaaaain!"
The ghost flew up to the man and tried to grab his neck. Tried to.
The man simply ran through the ghost, smacking him with a torch that passed through it like through thin air.
And then fell.
Where the ghost had touched him, the man’s skin was gray and dead. The man was dead, too.
"Dieeeeeee!" the ghost hissed, turning to the next closest person.
In its eyes, every man in the mob had the face of the person who threw him to rot in a cell.
Moved by mindless fury, the ghost lunged for a man who just threw a rock at Aleric’s skeletons. It tried to claw at the man’s face, but its incorporeal hands only passed through.
However, the attacked man immediately grabbed his eyes and cried out in pain!
"My eyes! I can’t see anything! Aaagh, what’s going—"
"I will take your liiiiiight! Dieeee!"