The first part of the Eastern Highway was rather easy and swift to construct, given that it followed the river to Heffengen , and also crossed by a dozen towns like Reitwein and Remer.

From Heffengen, I had to manually dig through the Bleak Moors hills until I reached Durben, and then began the hardest part, clearing the way until Burgenhof, through tougher hills made of granite, basalt and even marble. I mean, it didn't actually matter towards my own effort, I could probably dig a tunnel all the way into Cathay, if I got a bit mad.

But the stone hills will be useful in the long run, both as road material and then walls and forts and other construction projects. From Burgenhof I just followed the river til Essen, thus linking into the main Amber Road going through Averland all the way to Marienburg.

In my wake, a thousand construction workers and the newly recruited Army Engineers worked hard to set the gravel and then road stones, bringing with them wealth and affluence into an impoverished country.

Slowly, more and more recruits began to gather at Essen for the Army of the East, including 3 units of spears with shields from Stirland, from across the Stir River.

A small numbers of Halflings from the Moot arrived as well, to provide healing and other services, which was welcome as well.

While I did constantly (like 12 times a day) cast my Amber buffs on the working crews and the training recruits, fatigue, disease and injuries still plagued the new army.

The new Noble officers did well enough for the cavalry regiments, but they were abysmal for other roles that didn't involve sticking the enemy with a pointy thing.

The new bridge over the Stir River created a bit of controversy, as some Nobles wanted a tall bridge to allow sailing ships to cross under, while others preferred a low, and reinforced stone bridge to serve as a river fortress against ships following the river.

Luckily, I wasn't a medieval man, and have also seen the raising bridge in Marienburg. A single channel could be bridged by a raising bridge here as well, providing both trade and security.

Sure, I had to use hundreds of tons of iron from my collection of scraps to manufacture the iron chains for the bridge, but it would look extremely cool too. Possibly a tourism landmark for the future, if this planet ever had a future.

In the army, beside the cannons, rifles and cavalry I did invite all sorts of hunters and woodsmen, and thus a dozen of Vampire Hunters arrived as well, armed with wooden stakes and holy oils. Since they actually knew what they were doing, I instantly nominated them as officers for the infantry units, which caused a dozen more to arrive next month.

Did they think I was shy of making more officers? Capable people were worth their worth in gold, especially considering our future campaign.

Early recon into Sylvania has already began, made a bit easier by my own incursion that demolished the border defenses. Still, while Waldenhof was close enough from Essen for a push straight to the capital, I also wanted to train the army before a big battle.

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The cavalry officers were also eager to test themselves and acquire glory, and thus we went.

Kilometer by kilometer, a three pronged invasion began, with 3 army roads being constructed as we went.

Sometimes the local Sylvanian peasants fled their lords and sought refuge with our army, otherwise they fled from us.

Strangely enough, there were still living people in the bleak lands of Sylvania, albeit subject to 'blood tax' or 'first daughter tax' and various monsters hungry for human flesh.

The use of zombies and other corpses and skeletons by the Vampire Counts created other problems, like the Black Plague and mutants, some of them as a direct result of warpstone exposure.

More cleaning up for me, ejecting the stones out into the galaxy at escape velocity. A pair of Witch Hunters had the grueling task of sorting the locals for signs of mutation, followed by my own apprentices and their bear, just to keep them honest. The locals weren't very devout people, and often didn't even know that Sylvania was apart of an Empire, but that wasn't a real reason for torture and execution. I wanted to rescue what I could from the abandoned populace of Sylvania, if I could.

A hundred skirmishes over the next sixth months provided my troops with a bit of experience in killing (re-killing) zombies and skeletons, as well as live fire exercises for the cannons and cavalry. Silver amulets, as well as garlic necklaces and wooden stakes began to appear in large numbers among the troops, often by melting down their own silver mark coins which they received each week as salary.

And of course, a dozen Vampires had been killed by me and left impaled on the outer gates of the camps, as a morale modifier.

The undead stopped throwing away their troops into our guns, and retreated towards Waldenhof, which brought us to our first major battle a year into the campaign.

A long barrage of our long-range artillery brought down the missile towers of the Vampire's capital, and then produced a few breaches into the walls.

As a makeshift experiment into mobile warfare, I had 5 large wagons covered in steel plates, and carrying a gun loaded with canister shots, basically anything sharp or durable that could be fired into a mass of infantry, such as pottery shards, small stones and nails.

They were not steam tanks, but powered by muscles. One was powered by a bear called Grom, buffed to the gills for extra strength and stamina. Other were powered by mules, horses and the last one by a dozen strong men. Sadly, the last experiment failed as the men got tired before the war wagon reached the wall.

Even so, the 4 war wagons proved their worth, firing point-blank into the mass of waiting zombie and skeletons, while the rest of the artillery fired in high arcs above.

Possibly annoyed by the siege, the Vampire Count sent his heavy troops out, a dozen Vargheists and hundreds of Ghouls and even a unit of Crypt Horrors , Ghouls that have consumed Vampire blood and thus had become true monsters.

Any normal human army would have shattered by the counter-attack, but I was there to prevent that. My army had a hero unit too. Me!