A tower between fortresses in the central plain. 

Margrave Sigismund Jagiellon, Count Erakis and Viscount Champione were eating their dinner. An old maid was pouring wine in each of their glasses before bowing and leaving.  The brick tower they were on was just behind the walls of a fortress. It was spacious enough for a table of four men. The open air room was protected by the roof and walls on two sides while there were very large openings towards the plain. The plain before them was filled with hundreds of tents and fiery torches. 

The armies camped along the meadows facing the seven fortresses which had lost their guardians. Rather than refilling the empty fortresses, they placed almost their entire fighting power on the plain in one straight line protecting the remaining fortresses and redoubts. 

With dark beautiful sky as their scenery, the three aristocrats were chewing their meal gloomily. The table and chairs were quite luxurious while the wine was expensive but they were enveloped by uncertainty and losing men left and right. 

"Those invaders fight like a coward." 

The youngest among them Viscount Champione cursed while looking at the maid who was descending the stairs.

"I'd have enough of the stupid games they play. Let me take hundreds of light cavalry and hunt them down."

Count Erakis just continued eating while the margrave was staring at the meat on the plate. 

"That would be playing right into their hands." The margrave replied. But the young man was still restless.

"Rest assured. We will avenge the dead knights and do so without mercy. But to defeat them, we think like them."

He stared at Count Erakis who suddenly stopped eating and pondering seriously but helplessly before standing up and walked to the window. 

"Look at that mighty war machine camped on the plain beneath the tower. The measly invaders were no match for the trained and well equipped knights in the battlefield. So, they lurk in the shadow... scheming..."

He gazed the plain feom left to right and said,

"Willing to do anything to take this land from us. That's how their strategist was trained. But so was I..." He clenched his fist. 

***

At the same time on the meadow.

The was a slight rain but the wind blew quite strongly. The flame of torches affected by the wind became dim and danced. 

There was a distant wolf howling.

There were dozens of guards along the camp frontier. 

Suddenly, there were footsteps on the wet grasses. Walking slowly. 

Several guards assembled at the place that the footsteps were heading to. 

However, they couldn't see anything beyond the fog.

After a few minutes, the footsteps were coming from everywhere. Silhouettes appeared from the fog. 

From various directions, men donning Castall heavy armours were walking towards them.

They were limping. 

"Who goes there? State your business?" Two guards shouted at two different positions.

"..."

Without answering, the limping men kept walking towards them.

"Are you hurt?"

"..."

The limping men still advanced without any voice.

"Stop right there. Otherwise.."

The guards unsheathed their swords as the advancing men were stumbling and staggering towards the camp.

The knights could smell the toxic pong from their body odours.

"Waaaa!!"

Two guards fell onto the ground shockingly when they saw the visitors' looks.

The limping men were just within their sights. 

Even the chief guard, a veteran swordsman, nearly left one off in his shorts at the sight of them. Their skin were arctic-white and glistened in the moonlight. They had lank, straggly hair and chaotic, dead eyes that reflected emptiness. Their teeth were like a line of broken tombstones and his breath stank like the vomit from a drunken sailor. 

They knew many of them. They were their comrades who were killed when hunting the invaders before.

"You guys are alive?"

"No..be careful. Something is weird."

"Grrrrr!!"

***

After two weeks of being pestered and killed by guerilla attacks, Castall defending armies found themselves caught in a nightmare that came to life between the mighty fortresses they were proud of. 

Arrows whizzing. Men shouting. Fleshes ripped by swords. Those sounds were everywhere. 

Despite being slashed and stabbed by arrows, the limping men didn't fall but instead swinging their swords randomly at the defending knights.

Shouting in disbelief from the tower, the three aristocrats looked helplessly.

Margrave Sigismund Jagiellon said,

"Who is the devil who did this?"

***

Beside the wall of an empty fortress, a group of were observing the chaos from afar on their horses. 

There were three women among the dozens of men.

A woman has slightly long ears, a dalish beast master. She was commanding her wolves to disturb the already chaotic with their sounds.

Another woman with long black silky hair, was focusing on the walking corpses she unleashed on the defending enemies. 

Between the two women, a bespectacled woman was grinning when the men called her.

"Lady strategist. What kind of warfare is this?"

Rather than replying, she praised the work of the two women beside her,

"Lady Hanabi. Lady Elora. Magnificent job."

As his question is being ignored, the Hyuutia noble persisted in his inquiry,

"Lady Cass. Could we defeat them tonight with that undead attack?"

The bespectacled woman's expression changed. 

She glanced at the two women beside her before turning back towards the men and elucidated,

"If include the local villagers from west and east, we outnumber them. Undeniably, number is a strength but losing villagers means losing future manpower, losing future armies. The smarter choice is to fight with our trained red army but margrave's force after southern reinforcements outnumber ours."

Another man from Hyuutia retorted,  

"But this undead troops tonight avoids us from fighting them head in. If we could win tonight.."

Cass interjected firmly,

"No. Impossible. Without trained soldiers more than them, there is only so long the Red Army can keep Castall's mighty war machine at bay."

"Then, tonight is futile?"

Cass immediately replied,

"Like preceding quick ambushes, we try to kill as many enemies as possible. Then, we disturb their mind so that they won't touch the villages that we had taken."

"Disturb their mind?"

Cass smiled and turned her face towards the chaotic battlefield beyond the fog.

"But it seems we have spooked them nicely.....I don't think the margrave or his men will get much sleep after this.."

She chuckled.

***

Margrave Sigismund Jagiellon had received reinforcements from the south but Cass Brankovic's hit and run campaign from the shadows had left the mighty war machine on edge.