In the heart of the night, when life was at its lowest ebb, the army of the dead returned to the attack. They went in silence. They did not move in massed formations as before; they were scattered all over the slopes. A fall of shafts would harm only a few.
The first ten thousand bore bows or crossbows. They did not try to close with the soldiers of the Dread Empire. They stayed out and sniped.
"That looks good," Ethrian said. "Sahmanan, take your dragon up. Distract the Tervola."
In moments she was speeding toward the pass, a spear of light preceding her.
Now the spearmen and javelineers, Ethrian thought, and another ten thousand men went in.
The mountains flickered under the fury of an exchange between Sahmanan and the Tervola. Lances of fire scored the underbelly of the sky. Ethrian mounted his dragon. He lifted the monster till he could see the battle's shape.
The spearmen were advancing perfectly, widely spaced. They passed the snipers and began skirmishing with troops the enemy had sent to rout the bowmen. They did not do well, one on one, but were having more effect than had the masses in the stone beast's assault. They were more supple and quicker under Ethrian's more immediate control. Shinsan's skirmish line fell back. The spearmen reached the earthworks. Snipers kept hurling darts into the fray.
Ethrian brought up ten thousand swordsmen, also in scattered array, and behind them wave after wave from the horde in waiting.
Or half-horde. The stone beast had squandered sixty thousand before relinquishing control.
Ethrian found it hard to believe that all those bodies were moving simply because he willed it. He had only to imagine a movement, and the men he wanted making it, and it happened. A hundred men to storm a knoll where an arrow engine was taking his main thrust in enfilade? There they were, scrambling uphill, falling, lying still for ten or fifteen minutes, then rising to charge again. It was like daydreaming with the daydreams coming true.
He had the Seventeenth completely engaged. Sahmanan kept the Tervola occupied. Only a few demons roamed the contested slopes, and they had little effect.
He had thought-space left for other maneuvers. Ten thousand tireless soldiers marched southward, to pass round the legion, form smaller units, and head west. When they left the desert they would begin "recruiting." Perfection, Ethrian thought. Sheer perfection.
He banked his mount and dropped lower, passing above the battle at a hundred feet. "Spooky," he thought aloud.
The battle was so quiet! Machines might have been fighting down there. He heard only the movement of feet and the clang of weapons. The dead had nothing to say. The soldiers of Shinsan were schooled to fight in silence. Few would cry out even when mortally wounded. Their sole voluntary sound was the rumble of signal drums.
A ballista shaft screamed up. It ripped a hole through his mount's wing. "Hey!" he said, more surprised than frightened. "That was too close."
They might not throw their magical shafts at his scattered men, but they would target him if they realized that he controlled their attackers. If he perished, the dead army would collapse. There might be nothing left when the stone beast reanimated.
He wished he controlled the flyers. Now would be a good time to commit them. Bring them swooping in, blasting away, and scrub the Tervola before they could defend themselves.
He thought at his snipers, telling them to take higher ground and concentrate on enemy commanders. They were no longer needed to cover the assault itself.
He was losing men, but it looked good. Already several hundred of the enemy were out. The defense had begun to fray. Several strong points had yielded. His own fallen were rising again.
They were worth ten live soldiers. They could rise and rise again... Omnipotence engulfed him. For a moment he knew how it felt to be a god.
He felt for the enemy dead, tried to raise them, to confuse the legionnaires by making them fight among themselves. He found nothing. Dead men, yes, but none ready for his command. They were passing through the transfers before they cooled.
Just for an instant he had forgotten that he battled the Dread Empire. There was no confusion on their side of the line. They would not lose sight of their mission. They would not panic. They were, as always, the best. He might end up taking but a single body into his own force, that of the last man guarding the last portal while the last corpse went through.
Ethrian reached into the Seventeenth's fortress, trying to find dead men there. He sensed bodies, but none he could touch. He would have to put his own warriors inside first. The enemy were too much in control right now.
He was not disappointed. His strategy was working. The pass would be his. He laughed. Most of his soldiers had gone down at least once, but few had been badly mauled. They rose again and again.
His laughter rang across the night. Sahmanan heard it. She called back, her voice merry with imminent victory. The Tervola heard it as well. They responded defiantly. The Seventeenth's battle drums roared.
The drums. Those infernal drums. He had heard his father tell of their endless, terrifying rumble, but never had heard them before. Chills crept down his spine. Fear hit him. He began to doubt.
Those were the drums of the Dread Empire, drums of promise, drums which proclaimed, "We of the Seventeenth do not stand alone. We of the Seventeenth know no fear. A hundred legions will rally behind us. Come find your doom, enemy of the empire."
Though his blood ran hot with the joy of victory, Ethrian could not help but hear the drums.
He was winning. The mountains would be his. He would travel on and meet Shinsan again, round the fortress beyond desolation's edge...
There were other legions and other armies. A hundred legions might be an exaggeration, but, for certain, this victory would be a small one. A minor incident on the road. The great battles were yet to come.
He had heard his uncle Valther describe the battles in Escalon, when Mist and O Shing had taken war to that once mighty kingdom. Compared to those this was a skirmish. For battles of that epic stature he would need all the might of his stone godling, and more.
The moon was a sickle that night, and rose just an hour before dawn. Its wan silver light splashed the concluding movements of a battle determined and grim, clearly lost and won, yet still as vicious as when it had begun.
The Dread Empire did not yield. Not a step. Before the last of her defenders fell, Ethrian lost forever his twenty-thousandth man.
And yet he was joyful. He had seventy thousand left, and was knocking on the doors of lands where others could be conscripted into his cause.
The last few drums spoke their defiance. He thought to his dead battalions. The dead gave voice to a battle cry. "Deliverer!" they rasped. All together, like a hellish choir. "Deliverer!"
He smiled as they completed the demolition of Shinsan's fabled Seventeenth Legion.
9 Year 1016 afe
The Fortress in the Borderland
L ORD LUN-YU SENT the message via Meng Chiao. "Lord Ssu-ma, they're attacking again. And there's a new mind in control."
"Oh?" Shih-ka'i had a cold feeling. "What makes you think that?"
"Their effectiveness. Their tactics. Perhaps you should come see what we mean, Lord."
Shih-ka'i considered the Tervola. Chiao was disturbed. His stance and little fidgety movements betrayed his inner turmoil. "All right. Pan ku. We're going to the mountains." He glanced at the big map. Everything was shaping up nicely. Eastern Army was coalescing. Should the dead break through the pass, they would find a hard knot blocking their path here.
A few days more would help. Yes. Every minute would help.
Shih-ka'i followed Meng Chiao through the transfer. He sensed the new mind immediately. He said, "We're in trouble."