If the justicar looked behind him, his courage would've left him in a moment.
Only one templar now stood behind him and a horde of wights. He walked a step up the stairs, so that the wights could only approach him two at a time, but even so, he was slowly losing.
When the templars first stopped to cover the justicar's back, they were already heavily pressed by the wights and the zombie horses. Still, they would've surely won the justicar enough time, if the arrows hadn't started flying.
The first one missed by a large margin, but the second one hit the central templar in the defensive formation. Unlike the justicar, these templars wore mostly scale and leather armor, and it wasn't enough protection from the enchanted armor.
When the templar died, the entire formation was torn asunder by trampling horses. With demonic howls, the wights killed the templars one by one, until only one was remaining.
This all took merely seconds.
Now, the third arrow from the zombie flew at the desperate last defender and pinned his foot.
From it, agony and Dark magic spread over the templar's body. His scream drowned in the screams of wights.
Following the order of their master, they crawled right over the convulsing body and rushed to the man behind it.
Aleric's knee buckled under the pressure of the justicar's attack. But at this moment, Aleric suddenly smiled.
Justicar Esvan's eyes widened in alarm an instant before the wights stabbed at him with their swords!
Their weapons were rusty and dull, but when aimed at the gaps between the armor plates, they could still hurt.
One blow was deflected by the justicar's armor, but the other pierced layers of mail and gambeson underneath the mail and left a shallow wound under the justicar's knee.
He lost his balance momentarily. Forgetting Aleric, Justicar Esvan swiveled around, beheading both wights in an instant—but right behind them was a fresh undead puppet.
It lunged at the justicar with bare hands, grabbing his leg with a dead grip. Then the puppet pulled back with all its mass, basically falling off the stairs and trying to bring the justicar with it.
In his plate armor, the justicar was much heavier. He still could've destroyed the puppet and salvaged his situation. But he made a mistake turning his back on Aleric, even for a moment.
With all his strength, Aleric smashed the justicar's head with the Spine Staff!
The blow reverberated through the justicar's helmet and his head. He flailed his arms, trying to regain balance, but it was fruitless. He was too clumsy in the heavy armor.
He toppled and rolled down the stairs, crushing the zombie puppet and two wights underneath with his weight. The undead softened the fall, and despite the fresh bruises, the justicar immediately tried to rise.
But when he looked up, dread chilled Justicar Esvan's soul.
Above him, dozens of green eyes were glowing from skulls of wights, and a zombie horse was raising a hoof.
The next moment, it smashed the justicar's chest, bending the cuirass and breaking several ribs. Dozens of swords and spears struck at once, but the justicar had no breath in his lungs to pray for protection anymore.
In his last moments, there was no Light—only pain and howling of malevolent undead.
From above the stairs, Aleric watched the justicar being torn apart by undead despite his plate armor and laughed victoriously.
"I will live! I! Will! Live!"
During all this, a group of templars led by a pair of clerics was fighting wights to set foot in the fortress's courtyard. With their mana already spent on support magic, the clerics watched in helpless terror as the justicar fell off the stairs and was swallowed by the sea of undead.
"The… The justicar is dead!"
"We can't win this. We can't win this. We can't win this!"
The templars' spirits were broken. They began routing and fleeing, some even showing their backs to the enemy, while others still remembered some discipline.
The wights replied with victorious howls.
Outside the fortress, Count Arstain watched this happen. He had already retreated to the back of the army, where he was safe from all the undead. Despite his fears, the count was hoping that Justicar Esvan would defeat the necromancer.
Instead, he saw templars fleeing in panic from the fortress.
At this, Arstain took a signal horn off his belt and blew twice: a signal to retreat!
His men, scared by the howling from the fortress and the rocks falling from the walls, obeyed eagerly. The templars, left without leadership, also followed the count.
It was a frantic retreat, with people barely remembering their formations. Nobody thought twice about the dead they were leaving behind; even wounded were lucky if they were remembered and carried away.
As the soldiers withdrew from the fortress, the wights poured out to chase them. Aleric let them.
When he went to stand on top of the wall, he saw the wights amazingly speed up the retreat of his enemies! Nobody had even the thought of turning and giving them battle, even though outside the situation was more favorable for the count's forces. As for the supply wagons of the attackers, they began running away even earlier.
Only when the armies were almost out of Aleric's sight, he ordered the wights to stop chasing and return to the fortress (to their unhappy hisses).
As the wights trudged back uphill, Aleric beheld the scene of the battlefield.
The withered grass was trampled into dirt by hundreds of boots, and the dirt itself was speckled red with blood.
An abandoned battering ram was lying on the ground, surrounded by several bodies. Many more of them were strewn in front of the fortress's gates, with more scattered here and there. Dropped weapons were lying near their former owners.
Some of these bodies were still moving a little. Not for long—the returning wights were drawn toward them like snakes to warmth.
But despite so much meat, no crow or other carrion dared to approach the place, and Aleric smiled wider at the thought.
Even the animals knew—this feast of death was all for him.
Today, his undead army will grow like never before!