Courtyard Zombies

The battle that followed with the castle zombies soon dissolved into a series of quick repeated motions as I killed them. Swing, hack, slash, repeat. Swing, hack, slash, repeat. I kept moving from one side of the courtyard to the other, desperately avoiding being boxed into a corner. And for a while, it was working.

There were times when I came close to being beheaded by one of the zombies when I wasn’t looking, but I always ended up reacting just in time to dodge out of the way and save myself. The sheer amount of corpses on the ground was starting to pile up, making movement difficult and a bit tricky.

Also, I had to be cautious of where I stepped so I didn’t fall, especially with the maggots and worms spilling out of the opened wounds of the decapitated corpses and writhing on the ground everywhere. A few times, I almost slipped. That would have been very gross.

“They just keep coming!”

I yelled at Rachel in frustration while I continued to battle the enemy. A zombie I had been fighting tried slashing at me with his sword, but I quickly swung first and took off his sword hand before swinging again and sending his head flying away from the rest of his body. Then I lunged forward and turned my attention to the next one.

“They are being summoned from within the castle!” Rachel said in my head as I struck another one down. I had finally advanced to the center of the courtyard, though I almost wished I hadn’t. The zombies were now quickly encircling me and attacking from all sides, trying to cut off any point I could use to retreat.

I was fighting to my front, I was fighting to the left, I was fighting a zombie on my right, and I had to constantly glance over my shoulder to avoid getting stabbed in the back. My health hadn’t gone down an inch, but it was only a matter of time before...

“Hunter! Look out!”

A spinning hatchet came flying and struck me in the side of the head, causing me to zone out of the battle and lose focus for a minute. In the heat of the fight, that was a big, big mistake.

The second I lost my grip on the battle, the zombies pressed their relentless assault, not giving me a moment to catch my breath. One of them suddenly stabbed me in the side of my stomach with his short sword, causing an explosion of pain and triggering my health bar to appear in the center of my vision.

79.

78.

77.

I was still not even fully healed from my fight with the Widow Makers out in the farmlands, and I was already taking on damage. Damn, this was not good.

Another zombie slashed me across the chest with his knife, causing fresh blood to begin leaking out of the wound.

74.

73.

72.

Yet another zombie jabbed me with his spear in the right side of my chest, before another one jumped forward and slashed me across the side of my face with his sword, spilling more blood.

I was bleeding profusely from all of the wounds I had received, and I stumbled away to avoid another attack. My health had plummeted in an instant from seventy to sixty-one. A weapon was still sticking out of the side of my stomach, and I instantly recognized the short blade as the weapon the first zombie had stabbed me with. The damn thing hadn’t even bothered to pull his sword back out.

I reached for the hilt of the short blade and pulled it out with a yank, causing more blood to gush out as a result. I suddenly felt tired and weak, and my vision was starting to blur. I was losing a lot of blood.

I continued to move back from the advancing corpses, having swapped over to a defensive strategy rather than my initial offense. Although the ones I had killed remained dead on the ground, the zombies continued to multiply by the second, joined by fresh corpses streaming out of the castle to assist in the fight.

It was like I was fighting an endless supply of undead troopers. I couldn't keep this up much longer.

“You need to take a temporary healing potion,” Rachel said in my head. “If you keep this up, you won’t be able to last long.”

I stumbled back over to the main wooden gates of the castle, giving myself enough distance to catch my breath from the slowly advancing horde. I took a quick glance at my health bar and was horrified by what I saw. I was now at fifty-five percent health and dropping. This was absolutely not good.

“Do it,” I told Rachel, and two small vials of glowing blue liquid suddenly appeared in the palm of my left hand. I didn’t waste another second. I popped open the cap of the first one with my teeth before pouring the liquid into my mouth and swallowing. I did the same with the other vial soon after.

Just like the first time I had taken a healing potion, and the subsequent ones Lumia had given me, they both left a bitter aftertaste in my mouth as the liquid went down my throat. And as the zombies slowly boxed me into a corner with nowhere left to retreat, I felt a familiar cooling sensation wash over me in an instant, briefly sealing up my injuries and slowly pushing my health back up to ninty-five percent. Suddenly, I felt a lot better than I did a moment ago.

“Hunter, look!”

I lifted my gaze to stare at the spot Rachel had indicated with an arrow in my vision. Up ahead on the opposite side of the courtyard, standing behind the dozens of zombies moving toward me, was a figure. An old man wearing a black cloak and holding a staff with a glowing orb.

"What the...? Who's that?"

His eyes were glowing the same bright color as the orb on his staff, and he appeared to be reciting an incantation, or mumbling something, as more zombies poured out of the castle behind him.

“He’s the one,” Rachel suddenly said. “He’s the one controlling the zombies and summoning more of them from the castle.”

"Hell no."

Frowning, I gripped my sword tighter in annoyance and prepared to cut my way through the approaching horde of zombies in order to get to him. But there was a good chance I was going to end up surrounded again, so I decided to think of a different strategy.

I passed my sword from my right hand to my left, then I stretched out my free hand to the side. “Dagger,” I called, and a small glow suddenly enveloped my right hand before quickly dissipating, leaving behind a small black dagger.

“I know what you’re thinking, and yes, it will work,” Rachel said. “But you need to hurry. The zombies are almost on top of you.”

There were around four or five zombies already closing in on me, ready to lunge and attack at any moment. But I ignored all of them and stayed focused.

I lifted my right arm in a throwing position and took aim at the glowing orb located on the head of the old man’s staff. Then I flung it forward as hard as I could, sending that baby flying straight toward the ball of energy.

There was a small explosion. It sounded like the sudden pop of a magical glass ball filled with sprinkles.

“Bullseye,” Rachel said with pure excitement in her voice. “Right on the money. Nice shot, Hunter. At least now we don’t have to worry about these guys anymore.”

Not a second after Rachel had spoken, all of the zombies in the courtyard suddenly collapsed to the ground and exploded into dust, with their weapons still lying beside their ashes. I turned my attention to the old man, who I was now suspecting to be some kind of wizard, but I only caught a glimpse of his cloak as he disappeared back into the castle, deciding to retreat.

“We need to follow him,” Rachel said.

Before proceeding to the entrance of the castle, however, I grabbed my dagger on the way, wiped it on my jacket even though there was no maggot crawling over it, and reabsorbed it back into my inventory.

Then, passing my broadsword back over to my right hand, I took in a deep breath to settle my nerves, exhaled, and began strolling into the castle.

"Alright, what's next?"