Aleric did a lot of work that day. Besides raising more and more angry wraiths, he tried to put his undead soldiers into a more battle-ready state. Their weapons needed sharpening, their armor needed fixing, and many of them could benefit from sutures.
Some zombies picked up shields Aleric found in the fortress, but many of these shields had rotted to the point where they were near-unusable.
However, there were dozens of the undead and only one of him. He quickly realized that he could do very little, and the undead themselves were of no help.
In the end, Aleric focused on his five zombie archers. His stolen supplies had various repair kits for templar equipment, and he used them to suture some of the wear and tear zombies got from traveling.
By the end of the day, Aleric raised a hundred wraiths. There were still some bones around that could be raised, but they were either deep underground or scattered in the bowels of the fortress and its surroundings.
Still, now Aleric had 123 wights! It was an impressive force, even if many of them missed limbs, pieces of armor, or weapons.
Aleric also sent some animal "scouts" at a large distance around the fortress, since they proved very effective in the past.
In the evening, he went to explore the rest of the fortress.
The wooden buildings, like stables, were badly rotted, but the stone ones fared better. The fortress's well was full of rotten water and unusable, but this wasn't a concern.
Aleric had a lot of trophy flasks, which he had filled with fresh water the last time he saw a spring. Since his soldiers didn't need to drink, these water rations would last Aleric for weeks.
The other buildings that survived were the living quarters of soldiers. But the furniture, to Aleric's displeasure, has all rotted away.
The walls were also still strong enough to withstand an assault—at least, without siege weapons. Aleric walked around the walls and placed his zombie archers on small towers on top of the gates.
The gates were the most demolished part of the fortress. Once more, Aleric looked at them, feeling a loss.
"Spine Staff… Do you, by chance, know a spell that can fix this?" he gestured at the gate's fallen iron grate.
"Uh… Well, some undead carpenters… that you don't have… Um. I apologize, but no, master."
Aleric ordered his zombies to pull the gates closed. It took three of them for each side of the gate, and also shoveling away the dirt that slowed the gate's movement, but eventually the rotten doors closed.
However, Aleric couldn't lock them because the deadbolt's fastenings were missing. And the deadbolt itself.
"I am absolutely sure that an army is marching after my head and will be here within a few days at worst," Aleric muttered to himself. "If not for this, I'd just leave this place and march somewhere else. This defensive position is too good to abandon so easily, though. Even with the broken gates…"
He paused as an idea struck him.
Aleric ordered his zombies to bring as many shields and boards as they could. After a moment, he ordered them to bring rocks and whatever heavy garbage they could find.
"Throw it all here and cover with soil!" Aleric ordered, gesturing at the gate. "Since I can't lock the gates, I might as well barricade them."
"Ah, another ingenious solution, master!" Spine Staff exclaimed. "Since your army doesn't need to eat, you can out-wait any siege laid against you! And in the meantime, I will teach you more spells that can bring down your enemies."
"Can they, really?" Aleric asked. "You didn't suggest any damaging spells besides Pain before…"
"Well, they can bring your enemies down in an indirect way, by raising undead that can crush anything. The great Xarvain put only the knowledge of the Necromancy school in me, and it has no spells that deal direct damage besides Pain. And some scholars have argued that Pain isn't even a spell."
Aleric's expression soured.
"I wish you knew less history of magic and more spells, Staff."
"Forgive me, master. I don't even know where the Baleful Eye with the knowledge of Destruction is—only where is the Dead Finger that knows the school of Curses. It's in the mountains that should be north-west of here. Or west?"
"Forget it!" Aleric rubbed the bridge of his nose. He knew immediately what place Spine Staff was talking about.
The Aleshat kingdom didn't have many mountains. The nearest mountain range was a part of the Ashen Mountains—a place that was so wild and full of monsters that no one inhabited it except the barbarians, so mad that his mother told him stories about them stealing unruly children.
"I will just make do without attacking spells. Or… Make my own." Aleric smiled. "You've taught me a lot of basics, Staff. I think I can do something simple."
"That would be incredible, master!"
With that, Aleric found himself a seat in sight of the gates and put Spine Staff nearby. The zombies needed his input to barricade the gates and wouldn't obey the staff.
But while they worked, Aleric gathered his mana and transformed it into Dark energy.
Pain was an incredibly simple spell, but it had limitations. Aleric couldn't make its bolts larger without them simply blowing up in his hands. Their effectiveness also fell a lot at a distance.
"Maybe… If I use the words of binding, I can stabilize that structure… Staff, the word of binding is 'sidonta', right?"
"This is for flesh-binding, master! For energy-binding it's 'velvoittava'."
Aleric tried the word on his tongue. It didn't feel right, at least not on its own.
"Binding… Things have to be bound to something, not just thin air," he muttered. "Binding Pain spells to arrows? Could that even work?"
"If you try, use 'puinen' for wood in general, master…"
Aleric worked like that until he was too tired to continue; in the morning, both the barricading and the spell-making labors resumed.
He hoped he would finish both before the enemies came.