Kravon finished, and held up the metal rod. It seemed to pulsate, and then a strange blackness issued forth from it, like some kind of black cloud. It rolled forward, towards Suld, growing larger and thinner as it moved, becoming like a fog bank but easily seen through. Tarrin watched it coming, worked out a spell of Air that would repulse it, and then wove and released it. A sudden gust of strong wind blew out over the wall, rushing towards that black cloud-
– -and then passed through it without doing anything.
It was a magical effect! And he could already sense that he could do nothing to prevent it. The black cloud rolled over the more distant bodies, those slain by cannon shrapnel, muskets, and arrows. And to his horror, those dead bodies began to move. They began clamoring to their feet, even as the black cloud rolled forward.
In horror, he realized why they had thrown away their army. To use that metal rod and cause them all to rise again as undead.
He spun around in the air and looked around. The defenders were absolutely surrounded by the bodies of their enemies! When that black cloud reached them, they'd be overwhelmed!
He realized immediately what they had to do. Pull back to where no fighting had taken place and reset their lines.
Using Sorcery to augment his voice, he shouted down to them quickly. "Everybody fall back! Fall back to the Fountain of the Swans! Damn you all, fall back right now!"
Some of them didn't speak Sulasian, mainly Wikuni, but when the ones on the walls looked out over the battlefield, saw the undead bodies rising up, even as the human reserves roared war cries and began to charge, they understood. "Jenna, Keeper, get everyone back to the fountain, and do it now! We have about two minutes to retreat, or we're going to be surrounded by undead!"
In a near panic, Tarrin mulled over and rejected any number of ideas to try to stop or slow down the black cloud, from an anti-magic Ward to trying to kill Kravon before it reached the wall, but it was moving too fast. He didn't have time to do anything, and besides, they'd need him to help get everyone pulled out. They weren't going to be able to retreat fast enough, and the people on the walls were going to have to literally fight their way out. He wove together a large weave of Air and used it as a giant hand, scooping up the Wikuni, Sulasians, and Arakites on the walls and depositing them on the ground quickly and gently as officers began barking commands for them to retreat. Jenna, clever Jenna, used Sorcery to obliterate as many bodies as she could as the defenders began to run into the city, clearing before the roiling black mist that crept towards them, with the shouts of the ki'zadun reserves behind it. Tarrin did the same, using vast sheets of fire to incinerate the bodies on the walls, both enemy and friend, making it hot enough to burn them beyond mobility. Tarrin could see that Jenna was starting to get very tired, and he couldn't deny that Sorcery was starting to become harder and harder to use himself.
With a gut-based fear, Tarrin pulled his projection away from that evil black mist, afraid to get inside it as it drifted over the walls, reawakening the dead it touched. In a move of sheer desperation, Tarrin wove together a Ward that would only allow living beings to pass through it and set it so it rested only a span above the ground. It wasn't very large, only covering a few square blocks, but he set it in the greatest concentration of friendly forces. It would prevent the undead from standing up, making them crawl outside the area of effect, and that would slow them down long enough for the defenders to pull back safely. That weave also began telling him how tired he was getting, and after one look at Jenna, who was panting and sweating, he realized that they'd also done things the way they had to wear out the Sorcerers before unleashing this new, very nasty part of their plan.
It was a disorganized, ugly, and very dangerous retreat. The black mist swept over the field, terrifying the defenders until they realized that it wasn't lethal, but it caused the bodies of the dead to begin to move. Not just the Goblinoids, either. All the Goblinoids and the humans, even the dead defenders, were awakened by that black mist and began to rise up. The bodies of those who had fought against the ki'zadun were now rising up to do battle for their cause. The bodies of the Wikuni, Selani, Vendari, Centaurs, Fae-da'Kii, and the very, very few Were-kin who had managed to be killed did not awaken. That, at least, was something. The newly formed undead found they couldn't stand up, so they crawled towards the living, many of whom were screaming in fear and fleeing back towards the city in a near rout. Tarrin couldn't blame them, for he found the scene horrifying enough on his own. To someone without exposure to magical phenomenon, it would be a terrifying, demoralizing sight. Men hacked at arms that reached out for them, some going down after being stabbed in the legs by the undead, who were then torn to pieces as their screams and cries of agony spurred the remaining men to retreat that much faster. In a matter of only a few minutes, the defenders withdrew from the main battle areas, away from the newly formed army of undead bodies that were rising up all around them, shuffling forward in a slow, ungainly advance, but they were chaotic, disorganized, and many of them were running away in terror.
And then Darvon was there. Atop a massive black charger, the aged Lord General of the Knights began shouting orders, waving his sword around. The defenders of the city rallied around the Lord General, formed into organized lines, and then withdrew step by step, using the Arakites and their large shields on the flanks of their formation to protect them from the reaching hands of the dead. They pulled back along the grand avenue leading in from the east gate, towards the Fountain of the Swans, which was about half a longspan along the avenue. Jenna and the Sorcerers that had been moving around the battle, helping where and when they could, joined the formation as it retreated cautiously and methodically. Darvon had stopped a panicked rout and turned it into a careful retreat, which would save many men from being the victim of their own fear. Tarrin brought his projection down to the ground as the army retreated towards the fountain, interposing his projection between the defenders and the slowly advancing undead, and he was starting to feel weary. Maintaining the projection had turned out to be more tiring than he had anticipated, but he had enough for one more spell. After that, he would have to release the Illusion and return to his own body. He mentally summoned back his Fire Elemental and told it to attack the undead-it would last about five hours with the magical energy he had bestowed upon it when weaving its shell-and then started weaving one more spell. It was quick and easy, a one-flow weave of pure Fire, and he unleashed it as a vast explosion of fire that erupted from in front of his projection and billowed out into the multitudes of the walking dead. They didn't dodge it or run away, and after it was over, the ones that had not been burned beyond the ability to move still shambled forward as their bodies burned like oil-soaked logs. The burnings ones that walked forward kept coming, even after all the flesh was burned from the bones, but some of them collapsed when the fire ate into the skulls, or burned their necks in half.
"Fire doesn't work, Tarrin!" Jenna called. "You have to take off their heads!" She moved out beyond the retreating lines and began to weave, and Tarrin knew what she was doing before she was done. She slashed her arm across her chest in a backhanded motion, and a slicing scythe of pure Air released at the motion, slashing across the entirety of the avenue before her. She aimed it at a relatively middle level that would take the heads off those of average height, and it was brutally effective. The weave slashed into the buildings on each side of the avenue, collapsing them as it cut them neatly in half, and it sliced through the undead shambling forward without impediment. Many of them were hit in the neck, but the taller ones were cut off at the upper chest and shoulders, and the shorter ones had only portions of their heads cut off by Jenna's spell. Regardless of where it hit, Jenna's weave stopped every undead body on the avenue, causing them to crumple bonelessly to the ground in one vast, seemingly coordinated motion.