The First Lich Lord
Chapter 187

I looked at my army and sighed, my numbers had grown rapidly over the last week. After the friar and I had split, we’d both advanced down separate routes towards the holy city. To my surprise when we came to the next major city, we found the garrison majorly depleted and huge numbers of the clergy of the church gone.

The citizens were unhappy that they’d been abandoned, and to make matters worse, when the garrison and church forces left, they’d rounded up people. At first it had been under the guise of fleeing before the undead, but when the citizens resisted being taken, they started being forced. There was enough pushback with the garrison and members of the church who were refusing to leave, that the church up an left with those they’d already coerced into leaving with them.

Some of the people fled, after all it was only several thousand soldiers and acolytes attempting to heard around 5,000 people, but it was still a large portion. The city was only of a population around 25,000, so a fifth had been essentially kidnapped.

The city had been in so much disarray that when we arrived, they hadn’t put up much more than a token resistance. The second my forces breached the gate they surrendered. The governor explained what happened and the high priest of the local temple, recently promoted since the original one left, agreed to join our side.

The remaining citizens, clergy, garrison, and administration had seemingly been disillusioned. While they were frustrated by the pullout of so much of their defense, they’d convinced themselves there was a gathering of a larger army someplace. By this point it was understood I wasn’t massacring cities, and along with the crows, the messengers from the friar had spread that news as well.

In the chaos that followed, with long-held beliefs upturned and disorder falling upon the city with too few guards to keep the peace, the order I brought with me was welcome.

We visited the local graveyards and created a whole bunch of mindless undead, left behind a workforce, and continued the march. Thiar and Shad’ehki would be claiming temples, and the now ominous power of my domain would keep the order, at least for now.

It was disheartening as we continued to advance. Word was getting ahead of the retreating forces, and many of the hamlets and villages we came to had fled into the wilderness to wait for Olattee’s army to pass. It was strange, normally the undead would be what they were fleeing from, but those who saw us were relieved.

The settlements not on the main road were less affected, but the sense of unease and general distrust that had suddenly sprang up was disconcerting. The detachments I sent to the side hamlets and villages reported back that some of the settlements had killed their local Olattee clergy when they tried to force the population to leave with them. Those bodies were added to the growing horde.

The last village we had come to was a ghost town. The map told us we were a day away from the holy city. Messages from Friar Brown indicated that he was several villages over to the south of me, also a day away from the holy city. He suggested we advance sooner rather than later. I informed him I would like to wait for reinforcements from Vito, but should be ready the following day.

Raven had scouted ahead along with Ehud, hoping to replace what awaited us. I had debated using the new horde of mindless undead to create more powerful singular units, like the juggernauts, though I could not replicate that at the moment. In the end, I decided numbers were more useful. While the holy city wasn’t bigger than Maltis or Rivian, in fact it was only half the population at about 50,000, I was worried what we would replace there.

If Friar Brown was right, I expected to face a horde of some kind. No doubt similar to what we’d fought in the ziggurat the two of us had cleared so long ago. Sound drew my attention, and I looked over a small rise to see an army marching towards me. At its front rode a living dead in full plate armor that I knew was nearly impervious, like the fort commander I’d fought. Beside him was a litter carried by four perfectly sculpted living dead. Tellkin and Freya had arrived.

***

A few hours later, I looked through my forces. Tellkin had merged his army with mine. He had several giant undead, what I had been going for with the juggernauts before Freya’s additions. Between the reinforcements I received from Vito, a group of bone guard, and a group of death knights he upgraded, and the addition of the reinforcements my army had massively grown.

Tellkin’s army did not have bone guards. He’d started with a horde of mindless undead and grown from there. He wasn’t a death paladin, Tellkin had gone down the route of oaths. The oath he took was different than what I had taken for the Order of Equinox or what paladins took, though there were some similarities. You could only take oaths every fifty levels, and that was if you had focused on physical stats.

Oaths would give physical-oriented individuals, be it melee fighters or rangers, powerful abilities based off stamina and physical strength instead of magic. It allowed them to keep pace with the magic-based classes. I did not know all of his oaths, but I did know that at least one of them allowed him to coordinate the mindless undead at a ridiculous degree of precision. The other one was a way to promote the mindless undead, or force an evolution, so they became something more.

Tellkin brought with him a mindless horde, and while it was still mostly a mindless horde, he now had a core of very powerful melee-focused officers. Freya had brought with her more than I expected as well. Many of the guards had joined under her banner and became living dead and wanted revenge. In particular, when they passed through the city that had been abandoned, most of the garrison and many of the citizenry wanted to join. I pulled up the combined army, having done some major rearranging.

Army of Ezekiel the Lich

Commander in Chief: Ezekiel Verniac

Chief of Staff: Maxwell Cromwell

Divine Advisor: Freya Hadrian

Operational Units

Stolen story; please report.

Field Armies (3-7 corps): 0

Commanders: 0

Corps (3-10 divisions):0

Commanders: 0

Division (3-5 regiments):1

Commanders: 1 General; Tellkin Iames. Note: Normally a general officer has negative effects for commanding operational units less than their command rank. However, this general officer has traits that turn that weakness into a strength. Increased commands limits and operation unit cohesion.

Regiment (4-6 battalions): 3 and 2 auxiliary

Commanders: 3 wight commanders colonels

Auxiliary Commander: 2 colonels; A arcane mummy commands the auxiliary regiment. A war cleric command a religious auxiliary regiment.

Battalion (3-7 companies): 15 regular, 1 special, and 7 auxiliary

Commanders Melee: 11 wight lieutenant colonels

Commanders Ranged: 4 wight Lieutenant colonels

Special Commander melee: A specter knight Lieutenant colonels commands a battalion of 107 lesser eldritch reapers.

Auxiliary Commanders: 1 greater mummy Lieutenant colonel, 2 necromancer Lieutenant colonel, 2 war priest Lieutenant colonels, 1 death mage monster wrangler, and 1 necromancer construct engineer

Company (3-7 platoons): 50 regular

Commanders Melee: 10 advanced greater zombies nexuses captains and 30 lesser wights captains.

Commanders Ranged: 10 advanced greater zombies nexuses captain

Platoon (4-6 squads): 86 regular and 29 mindless

Commanders Melee: 51 advanced eldritch death knights lieutenants and 29 hoard controller zombie

Commander ranged: 35 advanced eldritch bone archers lieutenant

Squad (10-20 troops): 125 mindless and 200 regular

Commanders: 125 control zombies sergeants (only mindless) and 200 promoted grave guard sergeants

Forces

Mindless Undead –

Zombies trash troops: 8,569 (0.1 command points)

Undead Troops –

Bone Archer: 150 common troops (.5 command point)

Bone Guard: 400 common troops (.5 command point)

Pike Bone Guard: 100 common troops (.5 command points)

Grave Archer: 685 uncommon troops (1 command point)

Grave Guard: 899 uncommon troops (1 command point)

Bone Knights: 523 uncommon troops (1 command Points)

Pike Grave Guard: 85 uncommon troops (1 command points)

Mounted Grave Guard: 187 uncommon troops (1.5 command point)

Lesser Eldritch Reaper: 107 uncommon troops (2 command point)

Advanced Greater Eldritch Death Elemental Zombie: 25 magical troops (2 command point)

Necromancer: 31 rare troops (1.5 command points)

Monster and Construct Undead –

Flesh golems: 35 uncommon monster (5 command point or 1 monster handler point)

Mobile Eldritch Death Bone Cannon: 20 rare construct (10 command points or 1 construct controller point.)

Undead Giant: 21 uncommon monster (5 command point or 1 monster handler point)

Shambling Mound: 3 rare monster (20 command point or 1 monster handler point)

Undead Officers –

Colonels: 3 wights (.5 command point of colonel rank), arcane mummy (1 command point of colonel rank)

Lieutenant Colonels: 15 wights (.5 command point of lieutenant colonel rank)

Captain: 20 advanced greater zombie nexuses. (1 command point of captain rank) and 30 lesser wights (1 command point of captain rank)

Lieutenants: 51 advanced eldritch death knights (1 command point of lieutenant rank), 35 advanced eldritch bone archer. (1 command point of lieutenant rank) and 29 hoard controller zombies (.5 command point of lieutenant rank)

Sergeant: Control zombie. 125 uncommon troop (.5 command point of Sargent rank) and 200 promoted grave guard (1 command point of Sargent rank)

Living Dead

Living Dead Troops –

Juggernauts: 4

Death Cleric: 45

Death acolytes: 236

Necromancers: 32

Archers: 223

Swordsmen: 497

Living Dead Officers –

Lieutenant colonels: 2 necromancers (1 command point of lieutenant colonel rank), 2 war priests (1.5 command point of lieutenant colonel rank), 1 death mage monster wrangler (1.5 command point of lieutenant colonel rank), and 1 necromancer construct engineer (1.5 command point of lieutenant colonel rank), specter knight (1.5 command point of lieutenant colonel rank)

Colonels: war cleric (1.5 command point of colonel rank)

General: Tellkin Iames (3 command points of general rank)

Commander in Chief: Lich (command point not needed)

Living

Troops –

Specialist: 1 Raven – Werecat (1 specialist command point needed), the Dread Thirteen (1 specialist command point needed per member)

Officers –

Chief of Staff: 1 Maxwell Cromwell (1 staff command point needed)

Divine Advisor: Freya Hadrian (1 staff command point needed)

Total troops: 13,181

Total troops not counting mindless hoard: 4,612

I had not realized just how much things were going to change when we started. Tellkin was a true commander. While the wights he used as officers were undead, not living dead, he assured me that was only for now, and that they would all become living dead eventually. They were also far more adept commanders than my own equivalents, even if they weren’t as powerful of fighters as their peers.

Tellkin suggested removing the Dread Thirteen from the command structure. It wasn’t a criticism of Abimelech or Othniel, they were excellent commanders. Tellkin believed they would be more effective in the specialist role, forming a kind of strike group. He also integrated Freya’s forces into the army, making her a staff officer. I wasn’t certain what having a divine advisor did, but I trusted the general.

Freya’s army included many death clerics, necromancers, acolytes, soldiers that had become living dead, and most importantly, the death mage monster wrangler and the necromancer construct engineer. Those two Tellkin had been very happy to see and commanded all of the monster and construct forces.

The undead giants added by Tellkin would support the juggernauts, but the most interesting thing he brought was the shambling mounds. He had not been able to create undead necromancers like I had, so he made the shambling mounds. They were completely useless in any kind of combat, for they could not attack, but they emitted a perpetual regeneration aura.

One of the most interesting additions was the specter knight that came with Freya. She’d created it when she saw the life thieves to lead them. It didn’t matter that they were now lesser eldritch reapers, though Freya was very interested in how I accomplished that. The specter knight was a very rare evolution of a poltergeist. Rare because it basically never occurred naturally, and in the process of becoming a specter, the poltergeist, like the juggernaut, required a living dead and became a living dead.

It had been a very long night. Tellkin took quite a while to rearrange and promote all of the grave guard he needed. Fortunately, he did not need my help, at least not after the initial integration. By morning, the undead were ready to march. All of the living dead had gotten a chance to rest their minds, so they were fresh.

Then Raven returned with news.