"Something's wrong. Something's wrong." As the smoke thinned, the restless, bloodthirsty ghoul army actually stopped in its tracks.
Had they suddenly grown brains?
Puzzled, Byron raised the Spyglass he had swiped from the Military Foundry and carefully surveyed the battlefield.
Leonard counted his troops and arranged for the wounded to be taken to the rear. In less than three hours, the column had suffered nearly a hundred casualties. The undead had lost far more, but those living dead were nothing but cannon fodder. The soldiers of Kul Tiras were living, breathing people.
A veteran, Leonard quickly suppressed his grief, slipped down from the position through the trenches, and slid into place on Byron's right.
Byron handed Leonard the Spyglass and lit himself a cigarette.
War really burned through cigarettes. Byron puffed away and tossed the pack to the nearby soldiers.
"Something's wrong. These rotting ghouls are mindless cannon fodder. If they're hanging back now, there's only one explanation."
"What explanation? Has the creature controlling them shown up?" Byron reacted quickly, pulling another Spyglass from his pack to scan the area.
Leonard nodded slightly and said grimly, "Looks like they're finally getting serious."
The young master had said that the purpose of the frontline defenses was to slow the Scourge's advance, not fight to the death.
Fight if they could win, run if they couldn't. Preserving their fighting strength was what mattered.
Besides, everyone in the villages and towns around Guard Territory had relocated to the towns along the Inland Sea. The defenders had nothing behind them to worry about.
"Risen! How many Mage Hunters do we have left?" Byron turned and shouted toward Risen.
Risen counted the shells in the ammunition crate, his expression bleak. "Three, Captain Byron."
"Understood!" Byron called back.
With three Mage Hunters remaining, the Southern Guard