The next month was extremely busy for Norman. After his success with Scar the squad that was sent into the jungle to grab more samples returned not long after. The second mount went to Eugene, and it was the other one Norman had done testing on.

Turns out it didn’t make a difference what spells were used on the creatures before, so long as a significant amount of deaths and rebirths occurred. This actually helped Norman understand something he had been wondering about for a while. Mainly why his mana pool and ability to memorize and recall stuff were improving rapidly. There had been a bit of a difference after he was clearheaded and no longer subject to Charise’s mana drain but the biggest change happened after he had died and come back.

He certainly didn’t have a photographic memory… not yet at least. But he could picture in great detail every single symbol and spell he had spent any significant time with. That did make him wonder. If he continued getting killed and revived through magic would his intelligence keep increasing? Norman wasn’t going to attempt this, as dying was still painful but life didn’t always go the way you planned. At least now he had a baseline to compare against the next time he died.

Those thoughts could wait for another time though. Today it was all about the new mounts for his army. Although, calling it an army was a generous term.

Norman sat atop Scar and Eugene was astride his terror bird mount Night as they surveyed the sixty Death Knights arrayed for inspection.

It was every bit as awe-inspiring as Norman had pictured it to be. When he first envisioned the possibility of mounted troops, he didn’t know what sort of animal they would be. The zither had been the only possibility for some time. But Norman had disregarded the temperamental animals for a few reasons. One, he hated them. And the second reason was that they were rather weak. They could carry a lightly armored man, but not very fast or very far. They were also rather weak to temperature shifts and simply dropped dead if the ambient temperature dropped below freezing. He felt bad for the ranchers. There was no way either party could have known when they first purchased the creatures from the Alacala merchants.

That being said, Norman didn’t know how the terror birds would have faired in the cold while they were alive. Not that it mattered anymore since they were undead. Terror birds! That was much cooler than saying snake horses. He knew he nearly shit himself when first encountering the dinos. The same would likely be true for anyone else who first encountered them. Especially now.

Another interesting feature of the birds is that they tended to form packs. This seemed to be a survival response from when they were alive, but worked well with how Eugene had the squads arranged. A few Death Knights had to be moved around to fit into this new terror bird pack structure, but not as many as he feared. With the bird's higher intelligence and with each pack having an alpha, it just sort of worked out.

Speaking of alphas, Scar snapped and hissed at Night, but the larger female ignored him or hissed back angrily. His and Eugene’s mounts were the only two that were packless at the moment and it seemed to upset the creatures to no end. He would have to see about getting Nolix and Lohr mounts. None of the personal guards for Norman, Eugene, or Grobert had received mounts yet. They weren’t currently needed for their duties inside the city so it was a lower priority. Eventually, he would create mounts for them as well, but it had already been nearly a month since the attack. He didn’t want to delay it any longer.

Norman rubbed Scar’s neck, calming the beast as they came to a stop in front of the assembled soldiers.

Each man and woman sat quietly in their specially crafted saddles, waiting for Norman or Eugene to speak.

This one was all Eugene though. Norman gave the man a slight nod.

After acknowledging him, Eugene snapped his head toward his soldiers. “Eyes front and center!”

All of the assembled heads, including the terror birds, snapped toward Eugene in the same instant. It sent chills down Norman’s back.

“You have all been briefed on this mission and what is at stake! What happens to those that attack us?” he demanded.

“We destroy them!” Came a unanimous and deafening response.

The absence of all sound after the response was almost as chilling.

“The way is clear Knights! Dismount and store.”

With practiced unity, all of the knights dismounted their terror birds and stored them in a locket around their necks.

Norman winced at the memory of having to convince Nolia of the need to have all of the Death Knights equipped with the enchanted item. Only her death during the Gorfan attack swayed her enough for Norman to push it through. And even then he had to make some concessions on his other projects. His plans for electricity and a phone line were set back years to allow for this mission to proceed. Maybe it was for the best, he was starting to get used to this rustic living.

All sixty mounts vanished into the necklaces. Norman grinned at that. This was one of the spells Vincent had modified. Norman improved upon it some more and now living things with souls could be stored indefinitely.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

When he first came up with the battle plan with Eugene, Norman suggested using the magic to move all of the soldiers at the same time in one necklace. That was back before he knew the limitations of this particular spell.

After some testing, and having Grobert try to teleport with someone stored inside, they had to discard that idea. There was a fifty-fifty chance when Grobert teleported with the amulets that either it would prevent him from teleporting, or it would kill the thing stored within. There could also only be one creature or person, with a soul, stored per amulet.

The other issue was, of course, clothing and weapons. It would not be stored along with the person. The only reason the saddles and tack went with them was due to their organic nature. The saddles were molded from bone and sinew taken from the same creatures they rested upon. Dyed the same dark grey as the knight’s armor.

It was a rather macabre way to make a saddle, but also the only way to keep from having the knights carry the gear as well as resaddle the creatures every time they stored them and took them out.

His people needed to be swift, but also stealthy enough to get close before they made their attack. And having a ten-foot bird following you around or carrying a saddle was not very stealthy.

“In groups and through the gate! Chief Advisor Grobert will be waiting for you on the far end. Glory to Normenia!”

“Glory to us!” came the chorus of replies.

Norman looked over at Eugene with a quirked eyebrow.

“What?”

“I don’t know. I thought you would give a speech or something. Also, when did you practice that ‘Glory to Normenia, Glory to us’ stuff?”

Eugene shifted slightly in his seat. “Oh, that… it’s a standard part of training now.”

Norman quietly turned to watch the men hustle into the teleportation building in groups of four. “I like it.” He smiled slightly as he heard Eugene let out the breath he had been holding. It was endearing to see just how much the big man valued his approval. And his Commander deserved every bit of it. He had taken a rag-tag group of people and turned them into a well-disciplined fighting force. It was certainly more than he could have ever done.

***

Grobert handed out orders as the soldiers came through the teleporter. A few looked a bit disoriented by the trip, but they had time to recover and go over their assignments. It was still daylight and the attack wouldn’t begin until the dead of night.

He had finished his work with this teleportation chain, into the heart of Gorfan Principality, without anyone being the wiser. Hell, the warehouse they were stationed in right now was less than two miles from the Estate of the Prime. Which was just a fancy title for the first prince. A lot of the Gorfan leadership also lived within the sprawling complex, but thanks to the non-stop spying by the Wraiths, he knew their habits like an old friend.

The only issue was the waterways around and through the sprawling estate that housed the gomer. They were the same type that had attacked Ashvale. But he could already see the soldiers slathering on the paste that the boy’s group of enchanters had come up with. He chuckled internally at the decidedly non-magical defense they had developed to protect against the acid throwers.

It was lovingly nicknamed, bone wax by the soldiers. It wasn’t actually wax, but an amalgam of plant-based saps mixed with magical powder. The powder wasn’t strictly necessary but it did help the waxy substance remain in place longer.

Once all this nonsense was over, he would need to take a longer look at that jungle. The saps had come from that region and were likely the cause of his magical blindness. If something like that was so useful, just what else could be farmed from the place?

Soon the teleporter fell quiet and Grobert did a quick head count to ensure nobody had vanished along the route. It wasn’t likely to happen with his new design, but in the early days of his teleporter experiments, some gron had not completed their trips. He never did find out where they had vanished off to.

After ensuring everyone was present and had their orders, he teleported outside and made sure the building was still safe.

“Anything amiss?” he asked in a hushed tone as he appeared at his first spot.

“No, Sir.” The wraith responded quietly without revealing himself. “Same patrol came through half an hour ago and the next isn’t scheduled to come through for another ten minutes.”

“Alright, I’m gonna check on the others. If anything changes, or you feel someone is snooping around, deal with them.” Grobert waited for the man’s affirmative reply before he vanished, only to reappear closer to their eventual destination.

He glanced out of the opulent window that had a slight vantage point of the palatial estate in the distance. The streets were still filled with vehicles and people out and about. He looked back and let the curtain fall back into place when he saw Shannon appear through the wall, she was still partially morphed into her hunting form.

“Chief Advisor.”

He nodded at the woman. “Is it done?”

She nodded back. “The house is now clear.”

Grobert didn’t feel bad about having everyone inside this mansion killed. They needed this and another house as staging points for the raid and the people who lived here were some of the worst people imaginable. Not that any of these socialites, that gathered around the Prime, were innocent by any stretch of the imagination.

It was too bad too because the city was rather beautiful with its many canals and arched bridges. The buildings were not of a design Grobert had ever seen before, but they were stylish and beautiful in their own way.

He might have even incorporated some of their design aspects into the houses in Ashvale if they weren’t tainted by what the Gorfan had done. Nobody wanted a daily reminder of their attackers.

Thankfully the ratar weren’t fully aquatic. Each side of the canal hosted wide lanes that allowed the ratar versions of cars to run along them. They weren’t the same nasty petroleum-guzzling things that humans had loved so much. They were simple hydrogen-powered vehicles. Which made sense given how much water was on the ratar homeworld before the collapse. And now they had free access to an entire ocean on the far side of their zone, so there was no shortage of energy to power their society.

The Gorfan society was far more scenic and beautiful than he first pictured in his head. When he first learned of how this society acted, he thought to see plain buildings with no effort wasted towards aesthetics as everything was funneled into their war machine. That was the way most non-gron societies behaved.

As for the gron’s utilitarian flair, that was partially due to need and limited resources with the other part being a distinct lack of originality among his kin.

“Alright, keep an eye out, I’ll be making one final round just before we kick off.” Shannon nodded to him right before he vanished again.