“Master Ben Ten. I understand you’ve a bunch of very unwelcome news for us.”
Mayoi had been almost empty of the undead who normally staffed it, only the most junior members who couldn’t survive a fight against the shades and Shaded creatures coming out from Tou-Tou left behind to watch over it.
It wasn’t as much of an issue, since the lands for miles about were absolutely clear of any Summons at all, and the Vanguard teams were still pushing north toward Hebian-To.
Even the monuga tribes were letting the teams pass now, the countryside clearing up of the Summons in their wake, making it easier and simpler to just walk around. They poked at the black and yellow stakes pounded into the ground to indicate where Summons had been popping up for ages, places and things they had avoided or hurled themselves at to prove themselves for uncounted years… but they didn’t pull them out or knock them down.
Even the Summoned monugas were gone and didn’t return. To the simple and crude three-eyed native Jotuns, it was probably surreal.
Master Ben Ten’s people looked pretty beat-up and battered, with fresh battle damage on their armor, bones, and decaying flesh. The paramounts deployed nearby didn’t look pristine, either, although Healing magic had kept them in better physical repair, their equipment was looking nearly as smashed-up.
“More shades are coming out of the Vortex than there were a month ago,” the skeletal sword master informed me. “They also surged in the last twenty-four hours. There have been waves spilling out of the center in all directions, but they inevitably turn south and have to be stopped here.”
“Mixed-arms, or knots of the same things?” Kris asked crisply, her eyes turned north-east with cold purpose.
“Knots of similar creatures, which is something of a blessing. The Stillflight Fields crippling the movements of the Shadow Zefirs are particularly useful,” he reported. “Heal Deadly Wounds have been very much appreciated by everyone targeted by mass magic.”
Technically it was both Heal and Inflict Deadly Wounds, as the negative energy variant was required to Heal the undead. Get to someone who was targeted by multiple spells fast enough, and they wouldn’t die. As there was no lack of users of Life Magic among the living and the undead, getting that Gold-equivalent spell out there for them to learn and make use of had been almost the equivalent of being tied to a deathstone… or reanimating at midnight at your chosen grave, as the undead were locked into.
It had done a lot for morale for the paramounts, and there had been an almost fanatical rush to master it as quickly as possible among our Casters, to the point that they weren’t really allowed to use War Magic for more than opening volleys or Vulns, saving their mana to save others who might go down.
Another big switch from them being the primary muscle that they used to be. The rather derided Melee weapon users and overshadowed Archers had been enjoying a strong comeback as a result, and the increasing power shown by the Matrix Melee students, and even Ben Ten’s swordmasters, had naturally been noticed.
Originally the main force had been gathered along the main Road into Tou-Tou, the ancient pavings still as unmarked and uncaring as ever. However, the surge from Tou-Tou spread in all directions ran into the Shorewards, and spilled southwest along the beaches to either side, out of and down from the hills.
As a result, the undead lines had shifted mostly east and west, MacNaill’s less elite, but more numerous forces in Hebian-to crawling all over the shades to take them down, knowing they’d just be back at night.
“You all look like you need more Healing,” I told him, waving my hand slowly in a gesture I didn’t use often.
The Note that sounded as the Shards manifested was low and somber. They weren’t bright in the slightest, looking like slivers of black ice, the only flames upon them thick and oily, hard to look at with living eyes.
“Undead fools, soak this in!” I reminded them as I called out. There was no hesitation as the undead of Mayoi turned towards me, waiting expectantly, some even spreading their arms out wide inside rattling armor to wait for what was coming.
Uttercold Shardrays, with the cold component minimized and the negative energy aspect maximized, converged from the independent Shards, the Paired results plunging first into the most heavily-damaged elites, and then Chaining out to two dozen more targets each.
Waiting for the surge, they sucked the power in, and bones firmed up and reformed out of dark energies, spikes of black ice spontaneously manifesting out of their armor and bones at the same time. Holy energies somehow swirled serenely among them as the energies of death were digested by them, helping instead of harming what would normally be dire enemies as they boosted the negative-Healing aspect of the spells in this case.
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Heaven looked after its own, especially its fools.
I moved down the lines of undead, the Perpetual Spell endlessly cheap and free, saving the mana of the Casters among the undead, who did not regain their power as readily as the living did, especially during daylight.
By the time I was done, they looked like a glittering black-iced array of spiked and nasty undead of their own… which by their viewpoint probably looked like glowing spikes of energy and power buffing them all up and fixing all their armor and injuries at the same time, turning their rusting and fractured weapons into slickly clean and deadly implements of killing power.
Which I didn’t mind at all, and I was sure the shades coming in would enjoy the whole process.
---
“Pushing up the middle is still the absolute best ploy, while we just try to contain the flanks,” Kris murmured as she studied the tactical map and the information coming in from hidden Scouts tracking the movements of the shade-creatures spilling out of the corrupted city. “There is absolutely huge risk of a recall, however.” She drew on the Holo we were all looking at, and I adjusted it accordingly.
You could feel even the bone-faces of the skeletal undead turning ugly when all those shades suddenly collapsed onto our forces from all directions.
“Yer saying this is a huge trap, then?” the Mick guessed, staring at the whole thing.
“That is my guess,” Kris nodded, sighing slightly. “Whatever is behind it either knows vivus is being deployed and what it portends, or has figured out through time-sighting that this is the event that could push it off the planet. It’s expending a lot of power to make sure that doesn’t happen, and us advancing right up into a complete envelopment does not feel in any way like a clever tactic to me.
“Using vivus is difficult with us undead around and contributing,” Master Ben Ten said softly in his hollow voice, realizing the main problem with all of this. “Instead of taking the flanks while you race up the middle into a trap, we need to keep this blocked while you eradicate one of the flanking powers, grind your way up to one of the side passes, and come in from the flank yourselves.
“We need to keep the shades occupied so that if a recall order comes through, they either cannot answer it, or so many of them die trying to reach Tou-Tou that it is ineffectual.”
Killing a foe running away was always easier, and the undead did massively outnumber the shades, who in turn greatly out-leveled the average undead soldier. Tar-pitting them in bodies was a completely viable tactic at this point.
“That be a lot of shades movin’ about,” Lord Mick murmured, eyeing the throngs and small hordes of demented shades of various types, shadow zefirs, corrupted grievvers, and marguls scattered around and continually coming out of Tou-Tou.
“Most of them are likely modified Summons being continually recycled,” I supplied to him, earning everyone’s attention. “If we Burn them dead with vivus, we cut into the pool they can draw from. In actuality, we can win the majority of the battle simply by staying on the flanks and Burning away everything that comes at us. At some point, the entity behind all this will simply run out of things it can recycle and send back in at us.
“That’s the time we need to advance.”
“Ah, the logistics of Summoning,” Princess Kristie mused. “How certain are you of that?”
“Around ninety percent. I don’t guarantee that something like the zefirs might be conditionally infinite. If they are spirits of shadow forced into Fey form and sent out here, their numbers might be nigh-infinite. But obviously there’s a limit to how many of anything it can send through, or we would be buried in clouds of shadowy kill-sprites buzzing from here to the horizon.”
“Ho, that.” The Mick leaned forward with sudden interest. “Ye mean t’ say that there’s a maximum amount that they can release inta the world at any one time?”
“And they are pushing it now, and that will become harder and harder as the Veil gets stronger and stronger from the deaths of those self-same forces. As vivus burns at it, its influence gets harder and harder to maintain. Infinite Summoning is by far the most powerful overall standard magic that there is, but it has its own limits on it for that very reason,” I informed them confidently.
“So we have to chew up their pool of forces, and the undead can’t do it for us. They can only occupy a certain number of them at any one time. It all comes down to what the living can do in the end.” Princess Kristie just shook her head in grim resolve.
“We brought you time, and we will bring you time,” Master Ben Ten interjected calmly. “We have never been the solution to the problem, that much is very obvious.”
“The entity is force-cycling its pool of forces, that is the only explanation here. They die, they immediately get sent back out, but they have no real direction or commands in their madness, and so are dispersing randomly. The proper way to address this is simply to soften them up before they get to the living, but not to kill them, simply allowing the living to do so.” Kristie thumbed the map. “Is there a point we can stage an archer company to rain arrows upon them as they go by, but not be much subjected to attack if they do?”
I raised my hand before those who knew the terrain could reply. “If not, then an area of cliffs close to the water. Something they cannot go up. I can make a wall there, we can form a chokepoint, and we can fight them beyond.
“We do NOT have to make this an open field fight,” I reminded them. “I can and will put up some fortifications very quickly!”
There were some excited murmurs at that. Walls on demand was a new thought they had to take into account, after all!
Master Ben Ten pointed a section on the map. “The overlying hills run almost all the way to the water here, and are steep. The only thing which may be able to come up them are the marguls and the zefir, and with the right Wards in place, they may be thwarted as well.”
“Then I’ll need a Wall design that lets them come up and engage us, but at a constant disadvantage… and the undead will need to not get tired of raining down death from above on them.”
Master Ben Ten’s naked jawbone clattered, as did the dozens of his elite followers around him. “Lady Magos, you need not fear anything on that score…”