webcrawl/APGTE/Book-5/tex/Ch-025.md.tex

\hypertarget{interlude-congregation-ii}{%
\section{Interlude: Congregation II}\label{interlude-congregation-ii}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``What do you mean, they `went around the maze'? Do you have any
idea how much it cost us to build that?''}

-- Dread Empress Malignant I
\end{quote}

They weren't even halfway through Brabant when Hasenbach's envoys found
them. For all that there were rumours of some strange disruption of
scrying down south in Iserre, Princess Rozala Malanza noted that the
First Prince's clever mages had no such trouble outside of it -- they
would not have been so swiftly found otherwise. Not that they'd been
trying to hide, but what did that matter when hundreds of thousands of
desperate refugees were fleeing south from the armies of the Dead King?
Reluctant as the Princess of Aequitan had been to strip so much as a
single soldier from the defence of Cleves, there'd been no choice but to
ride south with an escort of well-armed horsemen. The sea of people
forced away by the advance of the dead were starving and terrified, and
Rozala knew well that those with nothing to lose might be willing to
take a chance on well-dressed and well-fed travellers. It would have
been something of a farce for the three royals heading south to survive
the horrors of the war in Cleves only to die to some starveling with
frostbite and a hoe. Still, dark as the situation was in Brabant -- and
no mistake, it was nothing less than grim -- it was pleasant dream
compared to the war to the north.

Or perhaps it was the other way around, Rozala thought, stirring the
contents her goblet with a thin copper rod. Perhaps it was the months
she had spent fighting in Cleves that were the nightmare. Gritting her
teeth, the dark-haired princess forced her hand to cease shaking and
drank the full goblet of brandy tinged with poppy tea. It should calm
her enough, she thought, that tonight she would not need to resort to a
\emph{Hannoven drowse} to fall asleep -- namely, sleeping with her ear
to the floor to be assured she would wake in time if the dead and the
damned were digging up from below. The Gods were merciful enough that
she had time to begin feeling the effects and put away her affairs
before her bodyguard announced Louis. The Prince of Creusens looked as
bone-tired as she felt, but he offered her a wan smile and sat by the
shutters with her when invited. His eyes flicked to the half-open scroll
left on the small table between them, too polite to be caught staring.

``So it was you they wanted,'' Prince Louis Rohanon said.

There was no mistaking the broken seal of the First Prince, but instead
of replying Rozala unfolded the scroll a little further and let her
comrade glimpse the seal that went unbroken at the bottom of the text.
The Highest Assembly's. In time of war Cordelia Hasenbach's word was
law, in affairs military, but having her order seconded by a motion of
the Assembly meant disobeying it would have Rozala legally committing
treason. She'd be stripped of her title as Princess of Aequitan as well
as her rights in the Highest Assembly without any recourse, the vote
considered as having already been taken through the initial motion
seconding the order. Louis' eyes narrowed, and his shoulder twitched.
The Prince of Creusens was not cut from warrior's cloth: he was both
shorter than her and thinly muscled, with delicate hands. Dark-haired
and soft-cheeked, he looked more scholar than soldier. Yet he was also
clever, of good sense, and perhaps one of few decent men wearing a crown
she had met. The tragedy of his life had been inheriting a principality
ravaged by the Great War and finding that the only man willing to loan
him the coin to heal it was Amadis Milenan.

The scope of the debt was reputed to be massive, and Louis had admitted
to her in confidence it was unlikely to be fully repaid in his lifetime.
Amadis had offered to write off a part of the sum should Louis lead
soldiers in his support during the Tenth Crusade, and once the horse had
been hitched to the cart it had seen the Prince of Creusens dragged
through horrors all the way up to Cleves. And back, now, but it seemed
they were to walk into a different sort of danger. Louis' shoulder
twitched again, and he let out a frustrated breath. Giving in, the
prince glanced quickly at the door to confirm it was closed and behind
him to be certain there was no one between him and the wall. Three
heartbeats after looking, his shoulder began twitching again. Rozala
could not think less of him him for this -- she'd not been in the
bastion, when the ghouls had slipped through murder holes and begun
slaughtering sleeping soldiers. Prince Louis Rohanon had been, and he
was as uncomfortable without his back to the wall as she would be
without skin touching the floor. It'd been the breach at Sautefort, for
her.

No one had grasped until too late that the dead would not care about
tunneling under water.

``I have been named to the supreme command of an army being assembled in
Cantal,'' Rozala said. ``By the shores of Lake Artoise. Forty thousand
soldiers, perhaps more.''

Louis's eyes brightened.

``Reinforcements?'' he asked.

``Not to Cleves,'' she replied. ``I've been ordered by Her Most Serene
Highness to reinforce the Dominion's armies and break the foreign armies
in Iserre.''

``Praesi,'' the Prince of Creusens bit out angrily. ``Callowans.
\emph{That's not the war}, Rozala.''

``The League as well,'' the Princess of Aequitan reminded him.

``We should be making peace with all of them,'' Louis said.

``I don't disagree,'' Rozala admitted. ``But the seals are there,
Louis.''

``Let's see her enforce \emph{that}, in the middle of the Dead King's
wroth,'' he said. ``Madness.''

Yet the truth was, Rozala knew, theat neither of them were all that
popular at the moment. The attempt by Prince Amadis' supporters -- among
which they both numbered -- to force the Klaus Papenheim's armies to
chase after the Carrion Lord had been made known to all of Procer. It'd
been framed, no doubt by Cordelia Hasenbach herself, as petty intrigue
by the lot of them to attack the elected First Prince while she was
sending her own kin to fight the Kingdom of the Dead. In the northern
half Procer, save for Cleves where many of them had fought, they were
not just a figure of mockery but villains outright despised. If they
rebelled, and to refuse the First Prince's order was exactly that, they
would not find many allies. More than that, Rozala feared what even the
smallest stir of civil war might do to the Principate at the juncture.

``I will go,'' the Princess of Aequitan said. ``Gods forgive me, but I
will go. Adeline and Prince Gaspard should be able to hold for now.''

``Then I go with you,'' Louis said.

She inclined her head, too thankful to words to properly convey it.
Louis had not fought with his blade, in Cleves, but he had been her
steward and seneschal. His ink and orders had been a thousand times more
valuable than one more blade would have been.

``We ought to tell Arnaud as well,'' the prince added. ``Last I saw he
was drinking himself into a stupor across the street, but he has an iron
liver. Odds are he's still awake.''

Rozala's lips thinned. Prince Arnaud of Cantal was a rapist, perhaps
worse, and an arrogant fool. There was no hiding from that. But none
who'd been to Cleves, none of those who'd fought that endless tide of
dead smashing against icy shores, would ever be the same again. And
Arnaud Brogloise might be filth, but he was filth that'd held the fort
at Langueroche alone with his retinue for three days and three nights.
He'd fought on foot at the gates, and held long enough for a town of
three thousand to flee south. Arnaud knew the stakes.

``Would you fetch him?'' Rozala asked.

Louis nodded, poorly hiding his relief at no longer sitting with an
unknown at his back. She'd have the table moved for when the three of
them sat, the dark-haired princess decided, so he would not be afflicted
again. She closed her eyes, for a moment, and felt like cursing.
Fighting the Army of Callow or the Legions was not why the three of them
had come south. Once upon a time they might have ridden south to scheme
how to unseat Hasenbach, but since Cleves? No, not that. They'd come to
exhaust their treasuries raising every company they could, contracting
every fantassin and emptying every smithy in their lands before they
rode back north. Rozala's fingers clenched against the chair as she
flinched at a sound that was not there. She was weeks away from the
onslaught, now, and still she could hear the sounds in every silence.

The desperate screams of the dying as winged abominations spewed out
fire and venom. The biting crackle of dark sorceries as they tore
through steel and flesh. And that patient, relentless beat: forward,
forward, always forward went the armies of the dead. Without pause or
respite or the slightest speck of mercy. The levies and fantassins of
Prince Gaspard of Cleves had died like \emph{flies} in the face of the
Enemy, even with Chosen holding the line at the capital's port. When
Rozala had arrived with the remains of the army salvaged from the
Callowan debacle, she'd found the city of Cleves besieged by a sea of
shambling darkness. Yet on the wall, a man had stood with a sword like
the coming of dawn.

The White Knight had held the line until reinforcements came, defying
all odds.

Three months Princess Rozala had shared command of the defence of Cleves
with Prince Gaspard. Three months of an endless span of fresh horrors.
Swarms of dead rats scuttling up through the sewers to devour wounded
soldiers in their beds, rains of poison and acid, great abominations
made from the bones of the thousands serving as moving siege towers that
spewed out lesser dead over the walls. Three month of burning your
comrades lest they rise again and turn on you, of battles that lasted
through entire night and day for the dead simply \emph{never}
\emph{tired}. But oh, they had taught the monsters the mettle of Procer.

They'd fought on rocky slopes and crawled through freezing mud, they'd
sallied out in the howling winds and challenged the Dead King for every
scrap of stone and snow. The White Knight and the Witch broke an entire
fortress driving back a pack of dead Chosen, until their shore of the
Tomb flew only the pennants of Procer. Thousands and thousands had
perished for that, clawing at the dark in choking despair, but now along
the shores of Cleves forts were being raised by the hands of bloodied
veterans and smithies burned through the night to forge the swords that
would be bared when the next wave came.

And the front in Cleves, Rozala well knew, had been the easiest.

At Twilight's Pass the hosts of the Lycaonese had fought three battles
in two days against the horde trying to force its way out of Hannoven.
The same evening, soldiers said, had seen the coronation of three of the
Reitzenberg: Prince Manfred of Bremen died of a poisoned arrow leading
an assault to take back the furthest fortress of the pass, passing his
crown to his eldest daughter and telling her to continue the charge
unflinching before drenching himself in oil and taking up a torch. She'd
passed it to her younger sister after losing half her torso to sorcery,
and that sister in turn passed it to now-prince Otto Reitzenberg when
she took a spear in the belly scaling the wall and fell thirty feet in
armour.

The youngest of Manfred Reitzenberg's children carried the charge to the
end with that blood-soaked iron crown on his head, took back the
fortress and held it for half a day before a dead Chosen brought down
the walls and forced him to retreat further into the pass. This,
Princess Rozala had been told, was the closest thing the Lycaonese had
seen to a \emph{victory} since they'd begun the fight. And still their
people headed to Twilight's Pass, streams and rivers of soldiers wearing
old mail and iron-tipped spears. Through the ice and the winds they went
to make the same old stand in that same old pass, as they had for
centuries. The Princess of Aequitan had mocked these people for their
brutishness and lack of manners, once upon a time, for their rough
linens and bare-bone homes.

The shame of that remembrance burned her like acid.

In Hainaut, Princess Julienne Volignac lost the entire coast to the dead
before the Iron Prince arrived to relieve her. Too long a coast, too few
men to defend it and the craggy hills of northern Hainaut made it
difficult to march large forces -- or defend against many small forces,
as the Dead King had sent. When Klaus Papenheim took command he
fortified the outskirts of the crags and began clawing them back from
the Enemy, battle by battle, but with the shores of the Tomb in enemy
hands there was no end to the undead that could cross the lake. The city
of Hainaut itself fell to a sudden offensive that broke through the
defence lines two months in, and the Iron Prince was said to have taken
a wound at the battle.

Princess Julienne herself died charging the dead with her personal guard
of three thousand horsemen to buy the time for her people to flee the
horde. Her sister Beatrice claimed the crown over the dead princess'
too-young sons and swore oath before the entire army that as long as
single Volignac remained the Dead King would get nothing of Hainaut but
ash and steel. The fight had soon turned desperate after the dead
reached the flatlands, for they were harder to defend, but Prince
Etienne of Brabant bankrupted himself arming every soul of fighting age
in his principality and marched them north to ward off the collapse.

The north of the Principate was fighting for its right to exist with
every bitter dawn, and she would not fail it. So Princess Rozala Malanza
would hurry south and win the war they shouldn't be fighting, so they
could have a chance at winning the one they had no choice to fight.

---

If even \emph{one} other royal requested a private meeting with Princess
Rozala Malanza only to reveal they'd been secretly corresponding with
the Tyrant of Helike, she was going to send the head of everyone who had
back to Salia in a basket. When she'd arrived to the sprawling camp by
the shores of Lake Artoise, what the dark-haired princess had found
there was enough to make her blood boil. The more than forty thousand
soldiers, half levies and the rest principality troops, she much
approved of. It was the royalty coming with the finer soldiers that had
her furious. The First Prince, evidently, has tossed every single prince
and princess she could find at the army in order to accrue the largest
host possible.

The result was a labyrinth of intrigue and petty bickering: including
Rozala herself and her two princely comrades from Cleves, there were no
less than \emph{seven} anointed rulers assembled in the camp.
Hasenbach's orders had preceded her so there was no contest of her
command of the army, but what she encountered was much worse: one at a
time, three fools sought her out to proudly inform her of their
foolishness. Princess Leonor of Valencis, Princess Bertille of Lange,
Prince Rodrigo of Orense. All of which had been trading information with
Kairos Theodosian of Helike.

That Rodrigo Trastanes would number among them she'd took a personal
insult, for the man was a political ally. He too was one of Amadis
Milenan's pack of open supporters, having turned on his benefactor the
First Prince last year. The three who'd been dropped on the head enough
to make a bargain with the Tyrant of Helike and approach her with the
secret she'd stripped of command and sent Louis to keep an eye on, as
her appointed second in the army. Rozala would not trust anyone who'd
thought it \emph{clever} to trade information on the location of the
Dominion armies in exchange for the same on the Army of Callow and the
allied Legions. Not with a command, not with a seat at her council, not
with a fucking chamber pot.

That still left Princess Sophie of Lyonis, who the First Prince had
quite openly sent there to ensure that Rozala did not take the army and
march on Salia to depose her. The ruler of Lyonis was the First Prince's
creature body and soul, having murdered her own brother at the Battle of
Aisne when he'd tried to betray Hasenbach. For that she'd been rewarded
with the crown of Lyonis over her three elder siblings, and remained
viciously loyal to the First Prince ever since. The sole comfort of this
was that the woman was not incompetent, or a stranger to war. Rozala had
no true choice about having Princess Sophie in her council, but she was
proving of some use as the mouthpiece of Hasenbach and so recipient of
the First Prince's answers.

As in, for example, why it had become so difficult to obtain weaponry
and armour in Procer these days.

``You're certain the dwarves won't sell even if we triple the standing
price?'' Princess Rozala pressed.

The fair-haired Princess of Lyonis shook her head.

``They won't entertain any offer, regardless of the contents,'' Princess
Sophie said. ``The First Prince has confirmed it. It was made understood
to her that further insistence would be not be taken well.''

Rozala almost cursed. The unfortunate truth was that, beyond equipping
their own personal troops and keeping an armory that'd provide for
perhaps the same amount of armed levies, few Proceran royalty bothered
to accumulate armaments. What point was there, when it was possible to
hire already-armed fantassin companies instead? If the situation was
truly dire for a princess, an order of armaments to the Kingdom Under
would provide what was needed as promptly as it could be brought by road
from the closest dwarven gate. The Great War had lasted decades and seen
a prodigious amount of cheap steel floating around the Principate, to be
sure, but much of it had ended up in the hands of already-fighting
fantassin companies or since been lost on foreign fields -- Callow or
the Free Cities. Smiths could not work without metal to work with, and
it'd gotten bad enough in some parts of the Principate that the Prince
of Orense had privately admitted to her he now had more silver than
steel left in his principality. The existing mines simply could not keep
up with the rising demand.

``We can fight two, maybe three battles before our levies are left to
wave sticks and shout imprecations,'' Princess Rozala grimly said.
``Gods, do the dwarves \emph{want} us to break in front of the Dead
King?''

The Princess of Lyonis eyed her thoughfully from the other side of the
table. If it'd been more than the two of them in the tent, Rozala
thought, the conversation would have ended there. But it was only them
and maps and mostly-untouched cups of wine, so Princess Sophie broke her
silence.

``Her Highness believes it might the work of the Black Queen,'' she
said. ``To make our war effort unsustainable.''

The Princess of Aequitan felt her fingers clench into fists. She
breathed out only after a moment, forcing herself to approach it with
cold eye.

``She's a monster,'' Rozala said. ``But not one without reason. She'll
want us crippled by Keter, not outright devoured.''

``That is the First Prince's opinion as well,'' Princess Sophie agreed.
``Yet there is a possibility we must contemplate: that she struck the
bargain with the dwarves blindly, and that she may not return from her
journey for months yet. If ever.''

Rozala winced. That would be disastrous. It wasn't that the Principate
wouldn't be able to wean itself from reliance on the dwarves eventually.
It was that it would take years for the mines and foundries to be raised
to what was needed, as well as cost a fortune. Procer had neither the
years nor the coin required for such an ambitious undertaking on hand.

``Then we make truce with Callow,'' Princess Rozala said. ``I've made my
peace with fighting the League, Princess Sophie. The Tyrant has been
meddling in our affairs so extensively the Free Cities are out to either
take most the south or feed us to Keter. But Callow? We cannot afford
that fight, not with the vultures already circling us.''

``An offer of truce was extended by the Lady-Regent Dartwick,'' the
other princess said. ``Including withdrawal of the Army of Callow
through the northern pass.''

Rozala leaned forward eagerly.

``And?'' she said.

``It comes at the cost of allowing the Legions of Terror to retreat with
them,'' Princess Sophie admitted. ``The overture was declined.''

``You can't be serious,'' the Princess of Aequitan hissed. ``I don't
care if they butchered half of the heartlands, send the bastards
\emph{out}.''

``We've confirmed that if the offer is accepted, there will be rebellion
within the month,'' Sophie said. ``It is a certainty.''

Rozala almost cursed her out for speaking in absolutes where there could
be none, but stilled her tongue at the last moment. Hasenbach, for all
her flaws, would not lightly abandon her own native Rhenia to the dead
-- and that was what she was doing, so long as armies remained fighting
south. Which meant she \emph{was} certain, and there was only one way
that could be true.

``The Augur?'' Rozala asked.

The other princess nodded.

``You are not to speak of this to anyone,'' she warned.

The ruler of Aequitan almost rolled her eyes. That Sophie had not been
meant for the throne of Lyonis was sometimes quite evident. It was quite
gauche in such a situation to speak the words. They were simply
\emph{understood}, between well-bred women.

``How bad?'' Rozala asked, morbidly curious.

``Most of the eastern principalities beneath Brabant,'' the Princess of
Lyonis said.

Which would collapse half the Principate, the dark-haired princess
thought. Those lands were the most-populated and some of the wealthiest
in Procer. Or they had been, before the Black Knight led his legionaries
to take them to the torch and the sword. If a peasant revolt sparked
there the situation would spiral out of control swiftly. Especially if
some prince or princess saw an opportunity to seize the throne while any
force that could stop them was stuck fighting up north.

``You've never fought the Army of Callow,'' Rozala finally said. ``So
you might not understand exactly what it is you're asking of me. I
cannot crush their host without massive losses, Sophie. They're hardened
disciplined killers that believe in their cause.''

``That has been understood,'' the Princess of Lyonis said. ``Which is
why your true instructions were not put to writing.''

Rozala Malanza leaned back, brows raising, and waited.

``Win a battle, Princess Rozala,'' the other woman said. ``And if the
Callowans and the Praesi should manage to escape in good order towards
the passage, afterwards? It is unfortunate, but the League's presence
would not allow you to pursue.''

So, Rozala was to clasp hands with the Dominion to give the enemy a
black eye before letting them slink away. It sat ill with her to toss
away the lives of soldiers -- \emph{badly} needed soldiers -- for a play
in the Ebb and the Flow, but if the alternative was rebellion then she'd
swallow her tongue and do what needed to be done. However many died
there, it would be a drop in the ocean compared to what would take place
if the heartlands broke behind the defensive lines to the north. She
drained the rest of her cup, and set to the business of getting her
soldiers fed and marching.

---

In peace time it would have been against the laws of the Principate for
an army to be mustered in the lands of a prince at the orders of the
First Prince without the right being first granted by said prince in
front of the Highest Assembly, but these were not peaceful times.
Besides, it was in Cantal they were camped and the prince of this land
was among her commanders. Prince Arnaud did not balk at providing what
supplies he could. It was not as much as Rozala would have liked, but
that was understandable given the damage done by the Legions of Terror.
More surprisingly, he did so without any of the complaining the Princess
of Aequitan had expected. Out of gratitude she began extending him
invitation to the war councils that had previously been restricted to
Princess Sophie and Louis. To her further surprise, aside from the
occasional bout of arrogant bragging he proved to be rather useful. The
prince knew his own lands well, and did not balk at emptying his own
purse or armouries to strengthen the army. Rozala only understood
exactly what was taking place when Prince Louis approached her as she
rode ahead of the columns, a mere week away from the Iserran border.

``Rozala,'' he greeted her calmly, dipping his head.

The Princess of Aequitan slowed her horse -- he was not as skilled a
rider, and might struggle to keep to her pace -- and returned the
courtesy.

``Louis,'' she fondly replied. ``I see you've settled the fools well
enough to be able to afford a speck of freedom.''

``A prince's labour is never done,'' he drily replied.

That glint of amusement in his russet eyes Rozala would admit, if only
to herself, made him attractive in a mischievous sort of way. It was not
a thought she could allow herself to entertain. He might be a widower,
and she unmarried, but the interests of their principalities were often
opposed. To dally without any deeper commitment would cause dangerous
scandal, and there could be no true privacy in a war camp.

``Ours certainly is not,'' the Princess of Aequitan sighed. ``I had
counted myself fortunate, that we might never fight the Army of Callow
again.''

``Ours are not fortunate years,'' Louis said, tone dark, but shook his
head afterwards. ``Still, we do what we can. It to speak of that I have
come.''

Rozala cocked her head to the side, silently inviting him to speak.
After so many hours shared they had become more than passing familiar
with each other's mannerisms.

``When do you intend to begin inviting the Prince of Orense to the
expanded council?'' he asked frankly. ``Any longer and the slight will
grow too deep, he will become much harder to budge.''

Her brow rose.

``I had not meant to invite him at all,'' Rozala admitted. ``His
dealings with the Tyrant make me wary of his judgement and reluctant to
hear any advice from his lips.''

``You don't need to actually take the advice,'' Louis patiently said.
``When did Amadis ever take ours? It's simply a matter of binding him to
you. You cannot afford to throw Segovia away if you are to cleanly take
the reins. The blunder should make him eager to redeem himself, if
anything.''

The Princess of Aequitan almost informed him she had no need of Rodrigo
of Orense to run a brothel, much less an army, before she grasped what
he actually meant. It was not the army she was leading that Louis was
speaking of. He was under the impression that, in Amadis Milenan's
absence, she was usurping leadership of the alliance the Prince of
Iserre had assembled. Through those eyes, Rozala thought, the sudden
solicitude of Prince Arnaud took a much different meaning. He was
currying her favour, much as he had once done Milenan's. For a moment
she thought of telling Louis this was not her meaning at all, but her
tongue did not move. If she was perceived to have faltered halfway
through a coup, her `supporters' would turn on her without hesitation.
And had she not only aligned herself with the Prince of Iserre for lack
of other allies in the first place? More than that the man had not gone
north, fought in Cleves or Hainaut or Twilight's Pass. If the Callowans
released him, would he truly understand? \emph{And if they don't release
him at all}, her mind whispered, \emph{who would you trust to take the
place of primacy in your stead?}

``I am not Amadis Milenan,'' she finally said, meeting Louis' eyes. ``I
intend to take good advice, when it is given.''

``Then invite Prince Rodrigo to council tonight,'' the Prince of
Creusens said. ``And I will begin to approach the other two who
disgraced themselves.''

``Amadis never convinced them to back him,'' Rozala said.

Leonor of Valencis had been friendly, but firm in her refusal of closer
ties. Valencis and her own Aequitan had warred frequently, over the
centuries, but just as often struck close alliances. Princess Leonor
was, if she remembered correctly, a cousin in the fourth degree of
blood. The ruler of Valencis had been a tacit supporter of Rozala's
mother when she'd made a bid for the throne during the Great War, though
after the defeat at Aisne distance had been made between their courts to
avoid incurring Cordelia Hasenbach's ire. Princess Bertille of Lange was
dependent on Salia for much of her principality's trade -- and therefore
at the mercy of the First Prince's displeasure -- but she'd never
outright entered the fold of the First Prince's loyalists. She had a
reputation for being cold-blooded and of mercenary nature even by
Alamans standards. Amadis had simply never found a price that moved her,
Rozala had often thought.

``But you are not Amadis Milenan,'' Louis Rohanon replied, lips
quirking. ``I will see you at council, Princess Rozala.''

He dipped his head again, slightly lower than the first time, and left
her to her thoughts.

---

Eight days later, headed into Iserre, the army began to hear fanciful
rumours from refugees. Most of them about an army of dark ghosts that
left no tracks and spoke no words.

Five days after that, the army began to hear rather less fanciful
rumours about a clash between the Army of Callow and a Dominion army.
The Callowans and the Wasteland allies fled south, refugees said.

Three days after that, Rozala Malanza found forty thousand Levantine
camped on the snowy plains and waiting for her. She rode ahead to meet
with their commander, the Lord of Alava, and begin planning the shared
offensive.

The moment she truly knew it all had gone to the Hells was when she
found the Grey Pilgrim waiting alongside him.