Necromancer: Kingdom Building with My Legion of Undead Knights

Darion unsummoned the normal undead, sending them back to his inventory with a wave of his hand. Green light flickered across the graveyard as the ranks of knights dissolved and vanished, leaving only the commander standing before him.

He would be putting this commander to the test. Not in battle, there was no enemy here, but in the little way he could. He would be telling it to unearth the next grave. He wanted to see how fast and efficient this high-stat undead really was. The stat screen didn’t show speed.

No attribute for quickness or agility in that sense. The undead didn’t have a ”digging speed” stat or a ”reaction time” number. He would just have to watch and see.

The commander waited patiently, green eyes glowing, its massive frame motionless.

Darion gave the order. He pointed toward the next section of the graveyard and told the commander to find a shovel and start digging for graves of very strong people. Not necessarily commanders, he didn’t need only leaders. On battlefields, there were battle maniacs. Tall men with lots of strength who weren’t commanders but were just as dangerous. Soldiers who had cut through enemies like scythes through wheat, who had held lines alone, who had died standing up because they refused to fall.

Who knows? He might find someone like that.

The commander moved immediately. It located a shovel lying near a disturbed grave, one of the ones from earlier, and began walking across the graveyard, its footsteps steady and silent. Darion followed, scanning tombstones as they went.

Eventually, he found something.

The tombstone was larger than the ones around it, but not as large as the commander’s. What caught his attention was the inscription. It didn’t say ”Commander.” It didn’t list ranks or titles or years of service. Instead, carved deep into the stone, were two words:

Ghet Ulg

And beneath it, smaller but still legible:

One of the best on the battlefield

Darion nodded slightly forward, scratching his beardless chin. Well, not exactly beardless anymore. Stubble was starting to grow. Small, rough patches along his jawline that he hadn’t bothered to shave. He was starting to really become a man.

When he first became Baron, the knights and everyone had looked at him like he was a kid. Clean-shaven, young face, barely out of boyhood. Even King Michul of Thandor had guessed his age from his looks, and his looks had screamed teenager.

Now, with this beard, even if it was just stubble, he would look more mature. More like someone who belonged in the position.

But that was a thought for another time.

Ghet Ulg would certainly do. He was not a commander, but he was very good on the battlefield. The tombstone said so itself. That was enough. That should do.

One of the best on the battlefield...

Darion wondered how he had died. He could imagine it, a man like that, strong, fearless and probably reckless. Maybe the numbers had been against Percvale. A battle that should have been lost.

Soldiers retreating, banners falling, the enemy advancing. And this man, Ghet Ulg, had probably looked at the chaos and said fuck it. Planted his feet. Raised his weapon. Held the line while others ran.

Until death.

Surely, he would fight even more righteously as an undead. No fear, no hesitation, no need to retreat. He would just hold a weapon that kept swinging until the enemy was gone or he was in pieces.

Darion sent the commander to work.

The undead moved immediately, shovel biting into the earth. And it was fast, much faster than the normal undead had been. The commander’s massive frame worked with efficiency, each shovelful of dirt clearing the grave at a pace that made the earlier digging look sluggish. Speed was good. Efficiency was good. The commander didn’t tire, didn’t slow down and didn’t need breaks.

Hell yeah.

In no time, the grave was open. The commander reached down and lifted something out, not just a body, but a coffin. The man had been given a respectable death, at least. Not like the many normal knights Darion had unearthed earlier, buried in nothing but their armor or wrapped in thin cloth. This one had wood. A proper burial. Someone had cared enough to put him in a box.

His death definitely would have been a painful one to the ones who survived. The soldiers who had fought beside him, the commanders who had given the orders, the friends who had watched him fall.

He would be remembered as someone who had truly died for Percvale. Not someone who was caught off guard or overwhelmed by numbers, but someone who had a chance to escape and refused it.

Someone who probably looked at the enemy, looked at his retreating comrades, and made a choice. Those were the deaths that stuck with people. The ones that could have been avoided. The ones where the person stood their ground when every instinct told them to run. They would have given him a proper burial.

This was just Darion assuming though, but it shouldn’t be too far from the truth.

Darion commanded the undead to open the coffin. He stepped back several paces, staying upwind so that the foul smell wouldn’t choke him. Bodies that had been in the ground for years did not smell pleasant, especially in coffins.

The commander pried open the lid. The wood groaned, old nails resisting, then gave way.

Darion stepped forward and looked inside.

The corpse was large. Even larger than the commander he had just revived. The frame was massive, having broad shoulders, thick limbs and bones that looked like they could withstand a battering ram. Whoever Ghet Ulg had been, he had not been a small man. He had been a giant.

And the body was still in good shape. Not fresh, (far from it) but intact. The bones were solid, the structure preserved. This was not a corpse that would crumble at the first touch.

Darion crouched now, lowering himself to the edge of the coffin. He reached out and placed his hand on the chest. The bone was cold beneath his palm, dry and rough.

He focused his energy. Felt the familiar pull in his chest and spoke the word.

”Revive!”