With Samuel in the lead, the defenders couldn't stand in the wave of undead. While the slower part of the army cluttered around the ladders, Samuel and the faster soldiers rushed down the wall to the gates.
There wasn't any mechanism to open them, simply a dead bolt defended by two dozen militiamen.
At the sight of Samuel charging toward them with twenty skeletons behind his back, some of them howling like madmen, these defenders panicked immediately!
Some of them froze with panic, making killing them even easier. Some blindly swung with their spears, dealing even less damage than they could.
Their pathetic resistance was crushed in seconds!
Soon, the undead soldiers threw away the massive deadbolt from the gates and pushed them open.
This was the signal for Aleric, who raised the Spine Staff.
"That's it! Get in the gates and take the ladders with you—we will need them for the inner castle!" he ordered to the soldiers below.
Then, he walked toward the gates himself. The emanations of death were beckoning him.
"I wonder if I could raise a servant without a ritual now," he said, smiling. "I want to try."
"I believe in you, master," Spine Staff replied. "You practiced the Raise Undead Servant spell so much that it's like a second nature to you. The ritual is just a crutch now!"
It was while Aleric walked toward the open gates that the undead met the first meaningful resistance.
While they were taking the gate, the city's militia and Count Arstain's soldiers were waking up and gathering their forces. Now, a reinforcement was finally coming for the defenders of the wall and gates.
Down Oakdale's main street, Danit Arstain was galloping on his horse, leading two dozen of his bodyguards. All of them carried swords in one hand and torches in the other. Also, three surviving clerics from the local temple were riding here, ready to use their spells.
Behind them were running fifty more soldiers with spears and shields—people from Castle Arstain's garrison.
As a wave of skeletons and zombies rushed past Samuel into the open gates. The wights rushed over, but Samuel's mental order stopped them.
Instead, he ordered several zombies with spears to come forward and prepare to repel the charge.
"Hold fast, men of Oakdale!" Count Arstain shouted, although he was barely heard over the ringing of the alarm bell and the sounds of battle. "Today, we are protecting our houses, our families, and our very souls!"
Then, the cavalry crushed into the undead!
The horses neighed and reared when they saw the spears of zombies ahead. Some were too late to stop and charged right into them, crushing the spears, the zombies, and wounding themselves gravely in the process; others just stopped right in front of the undead, even causing a couple of men to fall from them!
Count Arstain cursed from the top of his horse. He had slowed his charge a little earlier, and his horse didn't throw him off as a result. But the sight of an uneven spear wall ahead was still infuriating.
The dead had no right to exist, much less use military tactics!
Worse, Arstain couldn't see the necromancer nearby, but he recognized the man who was leading these zombies and skeletons.
"It's Justicar Esvan!" he gasped. "Men, keep fighting! We will give rest to his soul! Clerics, do something!"
Despite his words, Arstain himself didn't move to attack, choosing to stay at a safe distance. But his men did.
"For the Light! For the King! For Oakdale!" they shouted, trying to cheer themselves up with battlecries.
"For the Supreme Necromancer!" Samuel shouted, directing the nearby soldiers to surround and attack the horse riders before the infantry arrived.
The trio of clerics raised their hands.
Their spells were weak, but they hoped that at least together, they could bring peace to their former leader.
However, before their spells could be completed, a volley of Dark bolts flew in their direction from behind the gates!
It was Aleric who saw this from behind his shield and decided to interfere.
The distance to the fight was too large to be precise, but one of the Pain spells hit a cleric's horse, which immediately threw its rider down from sheer agony.
Two other clerics released their spells, but because of Aleric's interference, both Spears of Light went wildly off the mark!
At this moment, the infantry finally reached the gates, and the fighting began in earnest. Although the spears were poor weapons against the undead, the skeletons mass-raised by Aleric were so fragile that a good shield slam could destroy them.
This was the opposite for the zombies fighting alongside them, especially Samuel!
Nobody dared to approach the former justicar, because anything living near him died within seconds. His steel armor became so red with blood splatters that it became impossible to tell it belonged to a former templar!
All this time, Samuel was advancing toward the clerics, while they were moving away from him. More rays of Light came from their hands, but they couldn't hit anything except the masses of undead.
And the losses in those were quickly replaced.
Although dozens of undead died every minute, dozens more came from outside Oakdale. Those who didn't have enough space to go into the gates went back to climb the ladders, so the fighting continued above, too.
Their tide was seemingly endless and tireless. Even as more defenders arrived to reinforce the existing ones, all they did was slow down the inevitable.
Finally, a cleric's horse stumbled and fell, throwing him down. The last one made a mistake of slowing down, hoping to help his brother in faith.
Then, several wights were on them both, screaming in pure fury. They were as eager to stab with their new spears as they were to bite off a person's face!
Nearby, Count Arstain watched this happen with his face pale as a sheet.
The wights were attacking other people, but to him, it seemed like they were on him, trying to kill HIM!
His hands shook as he stood frozen with terror and memories.
Then, he saw several skeletons with spears go toward him.