The beast’s army was doing little damage in return. Shinsan’s few casualties went out through the transfers before the beast could seize them.
Ethrian was disgusted. He drifted away to the west. He moved swiftly, covering a wide region. He became awed by the mind directing the legions.
The Tervola were three or four jumps ahead. He saw no hope of escaping the desert. The stone beast would squander his strength in that pass, send a trickle against the enemy fortress, and there it would end. A year hence the Tervola would chuckle over the great war in the desert, and marvel at the stupidity of the enemy they had defeated.
He fluttered back to his body.
“Have a nice nap?” Sahmanan asked.
“No.” He told her what he had done and seen, and how little had remained of the beast’s assault force on his return.
“Will he just keep on? There’re only five thousand men up there. But they’ve got ten times that many coming to help. And behind those is the strength of Shinsan. Sahmanan, he’s stubborn and stupid, but you’ve got to make him see what he’s doing.”
“I don’t think he’d listen. He’s angry. Maybe when he calms down.”
“Calm him down. Do something. He’s destroying us.”
For a moment Sahmanan looked both vulnerable and winsome. She nodded once, violently, and mounted her dragon. The thing jumped into the air and sped eastward.
Ethrian considered the sun. It would set in another hour. He should rest. Sahmanan might be successful. He returned to his shady rock.
There was a little twilight left when Sahmanan awakened him. “Back already?”
“He wants you.”
“He’s willing to talk?”
She nodded. “He saw things today... He’s very calm, very rational, and very worried. Their counterattack shook him.”
“Counterattack?”
“They let him spend most of his strength, then surrounded what was left. He didn’t save a single soldier. They didn’t lose five hundred men. He learned a lesson.”
“He’s willing to listen!” Ethrian grinned. “Let’s go.”
They flew. Sahmanan set a vicious pace. The wind whipped round Ethrian. He kept his eyes closed half the time. They reached the stone beast in half an hour.
The youth felt the change immediately. The rage and arrogance had gone out of the monster. It felt like a child who had planned to show off and had fallen on its face.
Ethrian took a stance in the rubble and shouted, “Sahmanan says you’re ready to talk.” His father had taught him to be bold, observing that the gods had given men gall for a purpose.
The beast was deflated, but not crushed. It responded with mild amusement.
Ethrian called up, “I know your limits. I know your weaknesses. I know what you need. And you have no one else.”
The beast’s amusement grew. “I now have the strength to find someone else.”
Ethrian glanced at Sahmanan. She nodded. “But he doesn’t have the time.”
“Know what you’re up against now?” Ethrian shouted.
“If you mean our opponents, yes. I underestimated them. The world has changed. Man’s power has waxed. That of the gods has declined. Deliverer, I’ll offer an alliance. The three of us as partners, against the world. You free us and guide our armies. Sahmanan will wield the weapons of Power. I’ll channel my strength to you.”
Ethrian turned to the woman. “I’m not sure I follow him.”
“It’s a troika offer. You deliver us, he gives you the armies and myself the power to battle the Tervola. We work together to build an empire.”
“What does he get?”
“You might have to be a god to understand.”
“Try me. Otherwise, I can only judge him by human standards.”
“He wants to be the god of our empire. He wants us to create a new Nawami. After we do, we can move him to its capital, as patron diety.”
“That’s all?”
“All? That’s everything, Ethrian. He’s awake now. He can’t survive without worshippers. You look west and think of revenge. He looks and sees survival. Today’s defeat showed him how fragile our chances are.”
“How long before he would fade, or whatever happens?”
“Maybe centuries. Gods don’t die fast. But the time of decision is now. We have to crush those people. We’re doomed if we don’t. You were right. They won’t accept defeat.”
The youth looked up. His old hatreds smouldered on. “If we make this compact, how do we guarantee it? How do you make a god keep his word?”
The beast snapped, “Time binds me, Deliverer. I can’t stay here much longer. If I fail you, you can leave me to die.”
“Your word is good till you have someone to worship you.”
“For that long at least. There’s no reason we shouldn’t stand together afterward. Ask Sahmanan if I haven’t treated her well. Even when it was not in my immediate interest.”
Sahmanan agreed. “He stands by those who stand by him. I wouldn’t be here if he didn’t.”
“All right. We’re on the right road. Let’s test it. Godling, invest me first.”
The beast said nothing. Ethrian felt its displeasure and uncertainty. Sahmanan asked, “What do you mean?”
“What I said. If he gives me the power to control the dead, I’ll believe him. I’ll give him what he needs.” He studied the woman carefully, saw no sly smirk of victory.
“Lie down,” the beast told him. “When you waken, you will go test yourself against our enemies. We can take care of my needs later.”
Ethrian told Sahmanan, “There has been a change.”
“I told you. Don’t think he likes it. But there’s a realist under that arrogance and bluster.”
“Stand watch?”
“Of course.”
The youth settled himself. He could not sleep! His mind kept pursuing visions of what he might do once this power was his.
He wakened suddenly, unsure where he was or what had happened. The woman in white stood above him. He lurched up, looking for crabs.
“It’s all right. It’s all right. It’s over, Ethrian.”
“Over? What?... I don’t feel any different. Didn’t it work?”
“It worked fine.”
It seemed no time had passed. “How long was I out?”
“All night and all day. It’s night again.”
“That long? Really? We’d better do something. The Tervola... “
“They’re still up there. The Great One says they’re restless. They’re ready to come see what we’re doing.”
Ethrian became filled with all the things that needed doing. “Where are those dragons?” The two beasts dropped from the sky. “Did I do that?”
“No. The Great One brought them. From now on, though, I’ll manage them. You concentrate on the soldiers.”
Ethrian frowned. The beast was not totally stupid. “All right.” He hoisted himself onto a scaly back. In a moment he and Sahmanan were airborne.
As they sped westward he wondered what he would do. He really felt no different.
He felt it when he glided toward his waiting army. It was a vacuum that consisted of tens of thousands of vacuums waiting to be filled. Visions fluttered through his mind: The mountains as seen through countless pairs of dead eyes. He was disoriented for a moment. Then he began seeing with all those eyes at once. He felt the cord of power reaching back to the stone beast. His power. Power he could use any way he wanted.
The dragons landed. Ethrian peered over his mount’s head. His silent army had turned to face him.
“I’ll be damned,” he said. “I don’t have to do much, do I?”
“You have to decide who does what, when, and where. The rest is unconscious.”
“I just tell so many to go attack and they will?”
“Yes. You have to tell them how and where.”
He closed everything out and went out of his body. Eagerly, he swept up the mountains. He studied the enemy position, and returned
. “I’m ready to start,” he announced, and heard the amazement in his own voice.
“What should I do?”
“Just wait right now. Let me find the men I need.”
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 1016afe
The Fortress in the Borderland
LORD 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.”
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“Yes, Lord,” Tasi-feng agreed. “We won’t be able to hold them.”
“I didn’t expect to. This was a delaying tactic. Stall them as long as you can.” He glanced skyward, where a woman in white circled on a small dragon. “Is she good?”
“The best, Lord. Nearly as powerful as the Princess Mist. She’s given us no chance to support the men, so they’re not having much luck capturing enemy casualties.”
Shih-ka’i glimpsed a second dragon. “Who’s that?”
“We don’t know, Lord. Possibly the new control.”
There had been two people atop the thing in the desert. “I don’t want to waste shafts, Lord Lun-yu, but if you get a good shot, call for one.”
“As you command, Lord.”
“I’ll return to the fortress. Guard your portals carefully.”
“We’re shifting them now, Lord. We’ll fall back on them as they force us.”
“Very well.” Shih-ka’i walked toward the nearest transfer. He told Pan ku, “This new mind is a dangerous one. I sense a whole different outlook.”
“I felt it too, Lord.”
“I think we can expect a siege.”
The Seventeenth remained rooted longer than Shih-ka’i expected. A day passed and another night came before the last soldier retired.
“How many did we lose?” Lord Ssu-ma demanded.
“Less than a hundred, Lord,” Tasi-feng replied. “Permanently, that is. I assume that’s what you meant. Six hundred dead we got out.”
“Good. Excellent. I want you to transfer your wounded again, once new portals are set. To Lioantung. We won’t have to worry about them again unless the enemy breaks through both us and Northern Army.”
Tasi-feng no longer believed his commander was overreacting to an insignificant threat. He tried to buoy his own spirits by saying, “We estimate another twenty thousand bodies permanently destroyed, Lord.”
“Any idea what they have left?”
“Not reliably, Lord. At least fifty thousand. Plus the flyers.”
“Plus the flyers. We may end up wishing we had our own flyers. Chang Sheng! Any luck enlisting the dragons?”
“None, Lord. They won’t explain, but their elders claim they know this evil of old. They won’t face it again.”