Also you shouldn't need to be building boosters in order to cast Bladewind. You have access to E2 guys who can cast summon earthpower - that takes you to E3 right there and gives you additional fatigue regeneration. So that part shouldn't be a problem. You also have access to Cleansing Water with celestial masters, which is one of the premier anti-undead spells, or Wither Bones with communioned Spirit Guides (one out of 4 gets an astral random), but that one may be slightly beyond your comfort level yet.
For a bog dirt cheap thug, try either banes or Ancestor Smiths. If you're spamming anti-undead spells in a battle an ancestor would probably be the better choice here. But anyway. If you're going to use an ancestor smith, try giving him just a shadow brand, a vine shield, and a girdle of might. And script him for summon earthpower, ironskin, holdx3, attack. This will keep his fatigue down and allow him to fight the undead mostly in peace and without having to purchase any extra armor. If he gets an air random you could consider adding mirror image or air shield to the script if it looks useful for the battle. And as a bonus they can self bless, so if you have something nice there they can benefit from it while thugging. If you had access to fire, fire shields are quite nice against undead as well, as they will quickly kill themselves trying to attack you. The trampling gargoyle idea should also work, though.
You may be interested to know that with an ancestor smith, earth boots, 35 earth gems and a laboratory located in a wasteland, you can get access to fire magic by casting Hidden in Sand
And yes, corinthian is correct about how shadow brands work.
Amhazair has the right of it as well, thugs are *much* more effective in MP. In sp things need a lot more gear to survive, generally. That's why I suggested something cheap, so when it eventually dies you won't miss it too much :P