webcrawl/APGTE/Book-6/tex/Ch-077.md.tex

\hypertarget{chapter-56-repertoires}{%
\section{Chapter 56: Repertoires}\label{chapter-56-repertoires}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``There is no such thing as an unusable army, only armies that are
not properly used.''}

-- Aretha the Raven, Nicaean general
\end{quote}

We did not come as an army, not the kind I'd raised and led and fought
against. The Firstborn followed in my wake like a trail of colourful
armed gangs, advancing without formation and answering to no single
general. Ten thousand of the Firstborn had come raiding with me, the
eerie grace of their stride belying the disorder of their advance. Few
of their sigils resembled each other, be it in looks or composition. My
old servant Lord Soln now led hardened elites in steel and obsidian, its
circular sigil of grey and red painted over faces and mail, while the
numerous sigil of Mighty Kuresnik eschewed armour entirely in favour of
long barbed spears and dyed green hair like their sigil-holder.

Through the winding hills of the Twilight Ways they followed me in
silence, my dead mount's gallop keeping me ahead of even the quickest
among them. Of the sigils that had answered my call, the greatest Mighty
were Soln -- once a lord in my short-lived Peerage, and still
instinctively deferential to me even when it preferred otherwise -- and
Sudone, who back during the Iserran campaign had once challenged me and
since been taught better. Three days stripped of all Night had humbled
it, but though fear had given way to insolence it loved me not. No
matter. When it came to commanding loyalty among the drow, fear was more
than enough. They would both serve as my captains when the time came.

And it would come soon, for our departure had been swift. It had left
all the work that inevitably followed the end of a battle in the hands
of General Hune and the Blood, but that'd not been a choice born of
shirking but of a pragmatic consideration: so long as we took the
Twilight Ways, we'd reach the enemy's camp before the Revenants could
return. Stripped of their vulture mounts by Archer and Huntress doing,
they'd have to make their way back on foot and stuck on Creation. Less
than an hour had since been spent treading the paths of Twilight, but
already I could feel we were reaching the end of our journey. Just a few
more hills and we'd be there, which meant it was time to appoint my
captains.

I stroked Zombie's mane, silently instructing her to slow her gait, and
shortly closed my eyes. In a twist of will I pulled at Lord Soln and
Mighty Sudone through the Night, as if tugging a bridle, and before long
tendrils of shadow trailed Zombie's hooves along the ground. The Mighty
smoothly leapt of the darkness, each landing at a full run and never
breaking stride. But a heartbeat later we were atop a hill overlooking a
small vale where I could sense our crossing awaited, so bade Zombie to
halt and the drow smoothly mirrored her. With them no longer moving, I
got a better look at the pair I'd summoned.

Soln's sigil, a ring of swords with an open mouth at the centre, had
been enameled into the side of a helmet of clear Proceran make. It hid
its eyes from sight, if not the long pale hair that went down its back.
Beneath that affectation it wore ornate ringmail under its obsidian
cuirass, going down into knee-length mail skirt ending in obsidian
greaves covering leather boots. Soln had a martial look to it and bore
both sword and spear, two of the three traditional arms of the
Firstborn. Like most of those who had once been in my Peerage, my once
Lord of Shallow Graves had thrived in the war against Keter: taking
Night and loot from the dead had allowed it to slowly turn its sigil
into a hardened and finely equipped warband. Its sigil-oath, I'd been
told, related to the sharing and obtaining of such equipment: even dzulu
were promised mail and steel weapons. It was not a grand oath like
Rumena had made, but it had made the Soln an attractive sigil for many
in this time of war.

Sudone's appearance was rather more lavish. Its sigil was woven into
many tresses as small coloured stones that made the wavelike blue and
green patterns look like they were following some eldritch tide, almost
hypnotic to look at. Its `armour' was a decorative breastplate of dyed
leather so heavily encrusted with lapis lazuli as to be useless even if
it \emph{didn't} inexplicably have a neckline. Beneath it were only long
gauzy robes in shades of blue and green, though there were enough layers
its body could not really be made up beneath -- but the different
colours made it look as if it were rippling, likely the intent.

It was impressive and unique, as had often been the way with
sigil-holders in the Everdark.

Sudone's only weapon was a long obsidian-tipped glaive and like many
traditionalists it disdained the `new ways' learned in the Burning
Lands, mocking armour and `dressing up dzulu' as being some kind of
perverted fixation for Mighty grown feeble in the head. The Sudone and
other traditionalist sigils often took harder losses in battle, but the
old-fashioned way they distributed Night also tended to mean they had
more powerful Mighty. Those two were, in a way, emblematic of the
currents that were beginning to pull Firstborn society two very
different ways.

Mind you, the traditionalist here did not have the better reputation of
the two. Sudone was taller than Soln in body, and perhaps stronger in
the Night, but it was also what the drow called \emph{radhular.} It
translated roughly to `glad-joiner', and was an insult some Firstborn
used for Mighty who preferred to act through cabals and alliances
instead of picking an honest fight. The connotation was that drow like
Sudone only fought when the odds were on their side, something most
Firstborn would be quite offended to be told. The essence of the Tenets
of Night, after all, was to rise in power by taking it from others.

I'd been silent for too long, I realized, lost in my thoughts as I'd
been. Both were looking at me without hiding their wariness.

``Watch closely,'' I said, ``as neither of you were with the host when
we took Lauzon's Hollow last summer.''

Lightly tapping the dewy grass of the hill, I let Night ripple out and
shaped it as the broad strokes of what the location we'd be raiding
would look like. Julienne's Highway, going from south to north, would
furrow between steep-sloped and tightly nestled hills.

``The Silver Huntress and her cabal tell us that the entrance has been
fortified by the enemy,'' I said.

My staff traced ditches and walls not only in the furrow between the
hills, but also in a broad half-circle in front of them. Keter had not
spared work in preparing for us, though these defences were not yet
finished.

``Deeper in, we approach the Hollow proper,'' I continued.

Night continued to slowly ripple forward, depicting the way the furrow
would continue into the hills until it reached a bowl-like valley, its
surrounding slopes so eroded by rain as to be nearly vertical walls.

``There was once a village there, Lauzon, for which the hollow was
named,'' I said. ``Some structures should still stand, and the enemy is
likely to be using them as warehouses. There will be many undead here,
and perhaps even Revenants.''

In fact the village was named for a folk heroine named Lauzon who'd
supposedly beaten back a great army of bandits here and then founded a
village when the prince gave her the land as a reward, but I saw no need
to needlessly confuse the matter. Night continued to crawl, shaping the
latter end of the pass: a wavy, hilly road with several large alcoves
that eventually led back to open grounds.

``There will be enemies on the road,'' I continued, ``but the larger
part of the enemy's camp is out in the open beyond the pass.''

There just wasn't enough room to cram a hundred thousand people in the
pass itself, even if Keteran armies didn't have to deal with the usual
disease outbreaks that came from cramming soldiers tightly together for
long times. The two Mighty were watching closely, and not only because
I'd ordered. There were no sigil-holders alive who were not practiced
raiders, aware of the importance of knowing the lay of the land.

``We will split our force in three,'' I said. ``So that we might make
the most of this night.''

``Wise,'' Mighty Sudone muttered. ``We will not find a soft belly
twice.''

I nodded, then turned my gaze to the other sigi-holder.

``Lord Soln,'' I said, and watched the title ripple through its frame.
``You will take to a third of our force and strike at the enemy's
fortifications.''

The bottom of my staff tapped the entrance of the pass, in particular
the walls and ditches nestled between the hills. Pickler's engines would
be able to reduce fortifications out in the open, but further in it'd
get tricky. Best take care of that potential bottleneck now, as no one
did attrition warfare like Keter.

``Leave no wall standing and sweep all in your way,'' I ordered.

``It will be as you say, Losara Queen,'' the drow that had once been my
Lord of Shallow Graves replied, pressing hand over heart. ``The dead
will die once more.''

My gaze moved to Sudone, whose silver-blue eyes watched me unblinkingly.

``You will lead one third of our force as well, Mighty Sudone,'' I said,
and tapped the northern edge of the pass.

Near the open grounds where the camp lay, but not \emph{too} far out.

``Your duty is hunt down the Enemy's ritual-makers and destroy them,'' I
bluntly said. ``Sow ruin where you may, but it is those skulls above all
others I require of you.''

It was a fantasy for the raid to be able to rid us of Neshamah's mages,
but we could at least hamper is ability to hammer away at us with
rituals. It was always Binds who were capable of magic, never the lesser
undead we called Bones, so great concentrations of their kind were
usually knots of sorcerers -- when they served as officers for his
armies, the Dead King used them rather more sparingly. Made sense,
considering he had a limited stock of Binds and massive hordes of Bones.
Just because Keter's logistics were different than ours didn't mean its
armies were entirely without them.

``You word is that of Sve Noc, First Under the Night,'' Sudone replied,
mirroring Soln's own salute. ``Their will be done.''

It would do. Sudone was a better match for the mage-hunt, given that
Soln was a great deal more prone to\ldots{} blunt approaches. It was no
Jindrich, mind you, but Sudone was a lot less likely to end up
overreaching when it hit the edge of the enemy camp.

``I will lead the last third myself,'' I said. ``You may pick whatever
sigils you like to assemble your war party, but I claim three for
myself: Brezlej, Randebog and Kuresnik.''

A pair of eyes, a shield and a swift spear. Those three, as much the
Mighty as the sigils they had shaped, were at the heart of my plan for
my part of the raid. Neither of the three were considered among the
greatest Mighty of the host, either, so it wasn't even like I'd be
stepping on the toes of my two captains by claiming them.

``And should we both seek the same sigil?'' Sudone asked.

I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth.

``I would expect the matter to be settled in concord between you two,''
I said. ``I have no patience for foolishness tonight.''

``As you say, First Under the Night,'' Mighty Sudone murmured in reply.

Not convinced, that one. It would have preferred a fight. Sudone's sigil
had grown smaller in the years since the giving of sigil-oaths had
become a law of the Firstborn, for its rule was particularly brutal to
dzulu. Yet those that remained, and those that had since joined, were
hard-nosed traditionalists. That lesser Mighty and even dzulu would be
willing to become Sudone knowing they'd be treated like expendable
things had startled me, but then the Everdark's traditions were not
something easily set aside even when those traditions were at your
expense.

``Might this one ask what deeds you will seek tonight?'' Lord Soln
delicately asked.

Flattery and not genuine deference this time, I gauged. Not that it made
any difference.

``Havoc,'' I replied, baring my teeth as my staff came to rest on the
valley that had given the pass its name. ``Havoc is my business tonight,
Lord of Shallow Graves.''

While they went about their sabotage, I was going to return to my roots:
I'd make enough of a bloody ruckus that Keter would not dare to look
elsewhere.

``Is it not always, Losara Queen?'' Mighty Sudone laughed.

It bowed to me, allowing the gesture to end its presence as it dissolved
into shadow.

``Our deeds will be worthy,'' Lord Soln promised me, ``of an empire ever
dark.''

It followed suit, though not quite as smoothly. As for me, I closed my
eyes and let Zombie guide me towards the last of the distance to the
needle-hole that would take us out of the Twilight Ways and into the
heart of the enemy camp. Letting the Night flow through my veins, I
listened through the sea of thoughts and emotions as my two captains
picked their sigils. They went swiftly, the unspoken competition having
hurried them as I had wished, and when the last of the sigil-holders, a
Mighty Finarok, went over to Sudone I leaned forward with a smile. The
darkness came eagerly when called.

``You ride with me,'' I murmured.

It carried through the Night, like a whisper into the ears of my
raiders. Fear and excitement bloomed, along with an undercurrent of
\emph{hunger}. Oh yes, I mused, these would do nicely. The sigil-holders
among them I pulled to me as my mount slowed and then stopped before the
very stretch of grass where we would cross. First those I had wanted
most: wary Brezlej, grizzled Randebog and bold Kuresnik. But the others
as well, the whole throng of them, with only the most eye-catching
standing distinguished from the rest. One-armed Vudaga bedecked in
jewels, Darissim with the bone-white tattoos and its ebony spear, even
bloody Ogoviz -- smaller than me, almost childlike, and having never
worn paint not made of Mighty's blood.

Even the least of them had been around for a century, and there some
here who had been blooding their spears for longer than anyone save
elves could live.

``Sudone has been made a hunter of hunters,'' I told them. ``And Soln
will destroy the works of the Enemy. Ours is to be the hour of the
sword, Mighty. Bare and bloody.''

I swept the sigil-holders with my gaze, holding them there look enough
for them to look away.

``We will war in the manner I have arranged,'' I said. ``Listen close
now, for you will bring those words to your sigils.''

Nothing too sophisticated would work with Firstborn. They weren't
trained soldiers, and though by now they were veterans one and all it
would be decades before a proper drow war doctrine could be made -- just
adapting the Legion one to Firstborn peculiarities was bound to fail,
and spectacularly. So it was tactics in broad strokes I presented them
with. Skirmishers out front, the sigils heavy on them taking the
vanguard when we crossed. After the first few exchanges armoured sigils
would strike in the thick of the enemy, and those few small sigils that
were heavy on Mighty were to hunt constructs and Revenants at the
exclusion of all else.

The tactics were not new to them, and I trusted they would be carried
out skillfully. The dismissal was swift, save for three I held back.
Brezlej, Randebog, Kuresnik. I met their eyes, sensing their unease in
the Night.

``I have a particular use for you,'' I smiled.

They listened, and when I was certain they'd understood I dismissed them
as well. Not a moment too early, either. Our way out was just before us,
and the forces of Soln and Sudone were nearing their own ways out.
Orders trickling down form sigil-holders to sigil, my third of the
forces gracefully repositioned into the rough order of battle I'd
outlined and resumed its advance. We would be the first into the fire,
to draw the most attention.

Within moments crossed, and the hour of the sword began.

---

Two hundred of us, Mighty and dzulu, slipped into Creation.

By the time feet had touched solid ground, the first volley had already
been thrown. Keter did not field many bowmen -- bows required too much
upkeep -- but that hardly meant the armies of the Dead King were without
ranged weapons: iron-tipped javelins came down as a rain. Two dzulu were
unlucky enough to take a sharp tip through the chest before they could
liquefy into shadows, but they were the only casualties from the first
round. Drow skirmishers were damnably hard to kill. I batted aside the
sole javelin chucked at me -- it would have punched through my shoulder,
by the angle -- with my staff and took an assessing look around.

I almost let out an impressed whistle as a second wave of drow came into
Creation, for Keter had been \emph{busy}. All around us the dead turned
to match the threat. Already a second volley of javelins was in flight
even as drow began to emerge from the shadow tendrils closer to the
enemy, but the sigil-holder for the Serbanad howled as it unleashed
Night and the javelins froze in mid-air, momentum stolen from them. They
clattered to the ground a moment later, even as I pulled Night to my
eyes and tried to figure out the lay of the enemy's fresh works. The
abandoned village of Lauzon had been rebuilt into fortified stone
warehouses, but that wasn't unexpected.

The surprise was the scaffolding going up the eastern and western sides
of the hollow, intricate sets of stairs and even pulley-lifts. In the
darkness I glimpsed hulking shapes atop the hills where the scaffolding
led, not constructs but instead engines of war. My brow rose, as those
were rare -- Neshamah usually preferred his horrors, as they could be
used in more ways than simple engines. Which meant, I grimly thought,
that these were unlikely to be simple engines at all.

We had maybe half an hour to spare before this got too dangerous to
continue, so there was no time to waste. My skirmishers were already on
their fourth wave through and they'd closed the distance with the dead,
going up close with the skeletons in mismatched armour the Dead King had
crammed here. More threatening were the warbands of heavy infantry near
the entrance to the hollow: tall skeletons in heavy armour, wielding
long spears and greatshields. If my vanguard got in close with those
it'd be slaughter, so I breathed out and let Night flood through my
veins. A few javelins were thrown at me, but two ispe in Volvich paint
had stayed as guard dogs and they shredded the projectiles with howling
bursts of air.

I struck the ground with my staff, letting Night crawl out in thin
tendrils like spiderwebs along the ground. With every heartbeat more of
the hollow was covered, until the crisscrossing covered the full
grounds. Firstborn stepped on the darkness without consequences, which
had been the tricky part, but where the undead made contact they found
the working stuck to them like glue. Much less exhausting than a
destructive miracle, and almost as effective: given the size of the
heavy infantry and their lack of finesse, most of them were caught
within moments. Those that weren't found their fellows served as the
wall they were meant to be, only this time to Keter's detriment.

``Slayers, begin,'' I called out in Crepuscular.

Acknowledged bloomed in the Night as the last of my skirmishers hurried
through and armoured drow began sidling into Creation. All around me the
hollow had become a nightmare made melee, deft drow dancing around
clumsy corpses -- many stuck to my miracle -- and reaping death as they
moved with fluid grace, slipping into shadows and striking with
unnatural strength. I waited until two sigil-holders I'd decided on
earlier came through, then finally set out.

``Krakovich, Prosij, with me,'' I ordered.

I limped towards the old village of Lauzon, the two of them trailing
behind me without a thought to disobedience.

``Mighty Krakovich, I am told you know the Secret of Great Gales?''

``It is so, mighty one,'' the sigil-holder acknowledged.

``And you, Prosij, are reputed to hold the full suite of the Secrets of
Ruin,'' I noted.

``A feat long in the making, Losara Queen,'' it proudly replied

Good. The Ruin Secrets were on the subtle side, compared to most
Secrets, but I'd found them very useful -- the trick that'd killed the
Saint of Swords was derived from the Secret of Marching Ruin -- against
most conventional defences. There just wasn't a lot of sorcery using
similar means, so most wards and enchantments didn't account for them.

``Good,'' I smiled. ``Mighty Prosij, I want you to use the Secret of
Ruinous Downfall on those stone houses.''

I pointed at the warehouses Keter had raised from the old village,
sidestepping a skeleton swinging a sword as I did and leaving Krakovich
to absent-mindedly slap its head off. Its fingers trailed down the bare
spine after, and there was a soft touch of power as Night was stolen
from the corpse and added to its own. Prosij looked pained, as if it
wanted to contradict me but did not dare.

``There are too many, Losara Queen, and the sum is too large,'' Prosij
finally hazarded. ``It will not be a success.''

``It's not meant to,'' I grunted. ``Krakovich, be ready to call on the
Gales soon.''

Mighty Prosij, either reassured or wary of arguing further, heeded my
command. Biting deep into its own thumb it drew intricate patterns on
its bare arm, the Night shivering in them, and only then did it begin to
call on the Secret -- a stabilizer, the patterns, as the Ruinous
Downfall was particularly difficult to maintain. It was based on the
principle of entropy, like most Secrets of Ruin, but this particular one
had a vicious bent: it went for the weakest part of what it meant to
unmake and poured the curse there. In people, that usually meant
bursting eyes or the brain, but anyone with Night could fight the curse
off so it was usually used on artefacts or structures instead.

When it got unleashed on a dozen stone warehouses instead, it proved
thin. Weakened. Which didn't matter because I'd never meant for the
Secret to actually break the stone: what it did, what I'd wanted it to
do, was find the weak parts of the buildings and then attack them.
Sorcery immediately flared as the defensive wards laid into the
stonework by Keteran mages protected the structure, neatly informing me
of both the strength of the enemy's defences and where the weak points
were. Masego much admired the Dead King's wardwork, as it was reactive
instead of uniform -- it concentrated power where the strike was made
instead of leaving it spread out.

This once, though, for someone who could smell out the sorcery it was
like shining a light on the weaknesses.

``Keep it going,'' I ordered, and let loose the Night.

Veins writhing with power, I grit my teeth and went about it
methodically. Shaping a great spike of Night, angrily roiling power, I
rammed the strike straight into the weakness of the ward. The warehouse
blew as if struck by the hand of an angry god, clouds of a disgusting
green miasma erupting as a plume.

``Krakovich,'' I snarled, already shaping a second spike.

The Secret of Great Gales were meant to shred entire warbands
approaching through tunnels, but it wasn't the force I'd been after when
I'd chosen someone who could use it -- it was the size. Correctly
divining my intent, Mighty Krakovich drew the cloud of poison that would
have spread across the hollow and guided it up into the sky where it
could not massacre my entire raiding force. The Dead King did like his
poisons, and he would have made sure to keep those both close to the
front and under a roof, where the containers would not be damaged by the
elements. We went about it in good order, smashing one warehouse after
another.

By the last one Krakovich was panting heavily and Prosij looked about to
pass out, but we'd left only rubble and poisoned sky where Keter's
poisonous munitions had been held. That alone would make the raid worth
it.

``Well done,'' I said. ``Retreat to your sigils. This is about to get a
great deal more unpleasant.''

How many dead had there been in the hollow when we'd first come? A
thousand, I figured, maybe two. Not as much as could have been placed
here, even though it was a significant amount. By now most the last
waves of my raiders were almost done coming through and we'd effectively
taken the hollow, though of course trying to \emph{keep} it would have
been madness. We were a cork on a river, not a dam, and Firstborn were
not good defensive fighters. The last few holdouts of the dead were
heavies, pockets of a few dozens being taken apart by lesser Mighty and
drained of Night, but I knew better than to think this a victory. There
had been no constructs here, no Revenants. We'd not been contested, and
though the poison had been a loss for Keter it wasn't a major one -- if
they truly had a Crab close, then not only would they have replacements
but they could likely \emph{make} more. It'd been bait.

Lauzon's Hollow was defending itself too poorly. Mighty Soln would be
hitting the positions ahead of us by now and Mighty Sudone be sowing
chaos near the enemy camp, but that wasn't enough to excuse the poor
performance of Keter tonight. It'd all make sense if we had taken them
by surprise, but they had to have known a retaliatory strike by the
Firstborn after dusk was a possibility. Were this the first year of the
war, I might have been on the enemy miscalculating and believing that
Ivah's ten thousand out in the lowlands were all the drow there were on
our side. I knew better by now, though.

When Neshamah made mistakes -- and he did, like everybody else, for
brilliance was not omniscience -- it didn't look like this. This was a
trap. One I'd caught in advance and entered willingly, with an eye to
the escape, but it would have been a dangerous delusion to believe we
actually had the upper hand right now. Making my way back towards the
heart of the hollow, where Julienne's Highway passed, I idly flicked a
hand over my shoulder. The western scaffolding went up in black flames,
and with a sharp twist of will I subjected the eastern to the same.
Petty vandalism, but sometimes it was the little things that made life
sufferable.

``Spread out,'' I called out. ``Prepare for assaults from the front and
back.''

Skirmishers took the front on both sides, heavier sigils setting up
behind them, but I did not supervise -- with Firstborn, doing so was
often more harmful than helpful. I pulled at Mighty Ogoviz and Darissim
through the Night, called them to me. I did not waste time with
courtesies when they rose from shadow.

``There are engines of war up on the hills to the east and the west,'' I
said. ``Go there, and learn of them. Destroy the Enemy's work if you
can.''

I dismissed them curtly, and in silence they melded back into the
shadows. I doubted the Dead King would leave those as unprotected as
they looked, but it was worth a try. And if it went bad, as I suspected
it might, those two sigils were known as being rather quick on their
feet. Unlike with humans, the drow conception of honour in no way
precluded running away when the opposition was stronger than expected.
Safely at the heart of the milling sigils, I wove myself a few
protective workings in Night -- an illusion, a sharpening of my senses
and a trip ward -- and straightened my back. It wouldn't be long now, I
figured.

Above, on the hills, the two sigils I'd sent ran into what sounded like
entrenched defences. There was fire and light, sorcery as well as clash
of arms. And still I waited, almost with baited breath. Ogoviz retreated
from the western heights, going down the heights as shadow strands with
most of the force it had taken up there, when finally Keter closed its
trap. With a bone-shaking hum, wards went up over all of us. Idly,
already knowing the outcome, I tried to open a gate into the Twilight
Ways and found a lock had been placed over the area.

``The first part,'' I mildly said. ``Now for the second, King of
Death.''

As if called forth by my words, two hulking shapes rose from where they
had been lying among the hills. With horrid roars, the great undead
dragon creatures we called wyrms spread their wings as their eyes glowed
with eerie power. There was a great clamour as the drow who had gone up
to the other heights fled in disarray, a tall silhouette in armour
standing over the edge and bringing up a bloody head. Mighty Darissim, I
recognized. \emph{Revenant}. I cracked my neck to the side and grinned.
Good, Keter had finally played its hand.

Now the fun could begin.