webcrawl/APGTE/Book-5/tex/Ch-043.md.tex

\hypertarget{interlude-graves-we-have-yet-to-fill}{%
\section{Interlude: Graves We Have Yet To
Fill}\label{interlude-graves-we-have-yet-to-fill}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``The middle years of the Uncivil Wars can roughly be described as
a series of conflicts fought to determine peace terms. The tragedy of
those years, in retrospective, can be said that while the overwhelming
majority of them desired peace no two Calernian powers could agree on
what exactly the terms of it should be -- and so to war they all went,
convinced every step of the way that the others were at fault for it.''}

-- Extract from the personal memoirs of Lady Aisha Bishara
\end{quote}

The third volley did not work better than those before it.

The spears of flame rose into the sky like quarrels loosed, before the
guiding sorceries of the legion mages who'd performed the ritual pulled
them down. The arc was sudden but graceful, the crackling fire in red
and gold tearing straight through the five largest apparitions the
Dominion had sent forward. Earth and snow dispersed at the explosion of
heat and light, the grounds beneath what had been the shape of strange
creatures scorched through a vaporized layer of a frost. There were
about a hundred of the damned things, General Abigail thought, but it
wouldn't have been too bad if a ritual volley actually put the
abominations downs. Instead she winced as she watched the flames of her
mages disperse in turn, leaving behind only small droplets of eldritch
power hovering in the air. A heartbeat later the ground beneath the
droplets began breaking up and the creatures that'd been broken began
reforming.

``It's not getting any slower, ma'am,'' Krolem said.

``I can see that, thank you,'' she acidly replied.

Fuck. At this rate the entire web of traps the army's sappers had worn
themselves to the bone digging during nights and hiding before dawn came
would be trampled into irrelevance by some strange godsdamned Levantine
magic. She squinted at the creatures again, noting how the massive
manticore in the lead acted like it was actually hungry. That had to be
blasphemous, right? It was all looking a little too much like
necromancy, and you weren't supposed to do that if you were on the side
of a crusade these people were on.

``I'm not arguing the House Insurgent is right, mind you,'' she
muttered. ``But this needs looking at, is all I'm saying\emph{.}''

``Ma'am?'' Krolem asked, sounding confused.

Had he been talking? Abigail had no idea, but now was not the time to
look like she was losing it in front of the troops. The Black Queen's
barn-burning oration at Sarcella had riled them up like young
dockworkers who'd just gotten their first pay. If they thought she was
the weak link in this army, Abigail thought with a sudden urge to
grimace, they were going to tear her apart. Possibly literally given the
amount of orcs there were in the ranks. \emph{Look calm, Abigail}, she
told herself. \emph{It's all under control.}

``Quite right, Krolem,'' she slowly said. ``Spot on. On that note, I
need you to request a deployment order from Marshal Juniper.''

She sent him off after a quick elaboration, fairly sure the Hellhound
would refuse her request and so in the after-battle reports she'd have
an excuse for her failure to perform. That it would put her straight at
odds with the Marshal of Callow would be even better, she giddily
thought. Marshal Juniper might even demote her, or drum her out of the
army.

A girl could dream, couldn't she?

---

Forward, Akil Tanja had ordered.

The Lord of Malaga was no fool, to send his binders forward unprotected,
but neither would he spare them contribution. After Lady Aquiline had
requested the deployment of his finest war-sorcerers to clear the
approach of traps, he'd immediately sent for his son. Razin was in need
of deeds to redeem himself, if he was to remain the heir to Malaga, and
opportunity would arise soon enough. For that purpose Akil had ordered
the boy to gather captains enough for two thousand warriors, all bearing
shields, and appointed him to command before sending him to reinforce
the binders. They would need that protection soon enough, the Lord of
Malaga knew, for the bound spirits that had been sent forth were
reaching the end of their leash. No other power of Levant had made as
deep study of the arts of binding like the Grim Binder's line, and
though Malaga was hardly the only city to send binders to war for the
other families such a thing was rare and always in small numbers. That
had obscured some of the limitations of their craft, which would become
clear very soon if Akil was not careful with his orders.

The binding of a soul or spirit was done with one's own blood mixed with
the ancient flower-dye, tattooed on one's skin with needles of
barrow-bone. The patterns of these bindings had been refined by Akil's
ancestors, to require less breadth and shackle the bound more tightly --
and cease sickening the blood of those who used them recklessly. The
sharing of those secrets with those who entered the service of the Tanja
was why so many practitioners came to Malaga, with the finest among them
allowed to read the tomes of the Obscure Library in exchange for oaths
to answer calls to war by the ruling lord or lady of the city. Yet since
the founding of the Dominion, no binder saved those Bestowed had ever
succeeded at sending one of their bound entities further than three
hundred feet from themselves. Akil was talented in the art, as befitting
of his blood, and so the silver-winged hawk he'd bound as a boy he could
send as far as two hundred and twelve feet without the shackle turning
on him. Yet it was a rare thing for any binder to reach more than two
hundred feet, and even most of those allowed to peruse the Obscure
Library remained in the antechamber of that hurdle.

This mattered today, if only because soon the spirits of his binders
would have to halt their advance. Ordering them to advance would remedy
the issue and allow them to clear the entire field all the way to the
enemy fortifications without further casualties, but it would also leave
them vulnerable. Razin and the shield-bearing warriors he'd assembled
would see to that vulnerability, he'd decided. It would leave his son
close to the front, too, and so able to lead the assault against the
same force that had humbled him at Sarcella.

At the head of his host the Malaga binders were surrounded by rings of
steel, and as he had ordered forward they all went.

---

``Why?''

Marshal Juniper of the Red Shields was frowning. General Abigail's
tribune -- a good Hoaring Hoof Clan boy by the look of his jaw, she'd
noted with approval -- cleared his throat in that way young officers
always did when they had no good answer but had to answer anyway.
Silver-quick, the wistful thought that Nauk truly had ruined that army
down to the bone came and went.

``So she didn't say,'' the Hellhound cut in before he could reply.

Tribune Krolem sheepishly flared his teeth, and did not deny it.

``Only a thousand?'' Juniper asked again, to confirm.

``Yes ma'am,'' Tribune Krolem agreed.

The Marshal of Callow's instinct was to send him back with an order for
General Abigail to make a proper proposal including for what she wanted
the soldiers, but she held her tongue. Catherine had raised the other
woman up for a reason, and it would not be anything as simple as birth.
If her warlord had simply wanted to put Callowan hands on the reins of
her armies, Juniper suspected Brandon Talbot would have been the chosen
candidate. Instead, though, she'd chosen an enlisted legionary who'd
shot up the ranks. Not someone with ties to nobles or fame in the
kingdom. Catherine had seen something in the younger woman, and though
Juniper of the Red Shields did not she'd not long ago had reminder of
the value of trust.

``She has them, then,'' Marshal Juniper said. ``See Tribune Bishara for
the proper writ and be on your way.''

The boy moved quick, like she'd stung him, but Juniper had already put
him out of her mind. Marshal Grem's curious eye on her she ignored as
well, her own attention now solely turned to the southern front. What
was the first commander Catherine had handpicked since Juniper herself
scheming, exactly?

---

\emph{Shit}, Abigail thought, look at the writ Krolem had just handed
her with a sinking feeling in her stomach. The Hellhound had actually
agreed? \emph{Why would she -- no, don't panic}, she told herself. This
could still be salvaged if she watcher her step. On one hand, she'd
actually be expected to produce results now. On the other hand, as long
as she tried to pull off a vaguely coherent plan and failed she'd
probably still manage to avoid the noose. Gods, Abigail knew she should
have made her request more unreasonable, if she'd gone overboard the
Marshal would have refused. But no, she'd just to \emph{had} hedge her
bets and make it look like her theoretical plan had been reasonable just
to improve the chances the Black Queen wouldn't feed her liver to
buzzards after this was all over with. Her mother was right, she'd never
learned to quit while she was ahead. Sure, Ma had lost an eye and a
finger brawling with Annie Sutherland over who made the better beer, but
just because she was a lunatic didn't mean she was wrong. Fucking
Sutherlands, anyway, strutting around like Annie having been in the
Royal Guard meant she knew anything about brewing.

``She did know a thing or two about knives, though,'' she conceded in a
mutter.

``It is a great honour, ma'am,'' Krolem, who was still there, rumbled
approvingly.

``Yes,'' Abigail echoed with a stiff smile. ``Honour. Just the word I
was thinking of.''

The Callowan general hid her rising horror with the practiced skill of
someone who'd been forced to be around the Queen of Callow and pretend
not to be terrified the whole time. All right, so the damned Levant
magic beasties didn't die to fire and that probably meant they wouldn't
give a damn about siege engines either. Munitions, maybe? Couldn't
really do that without using sending sappers in, which seemed
ill-advised, but it was only the First Army that had the `spitters',
those strange devices Sapper-General Pickler used to lob munitions over
long distances. Goblinfire was a restricted substance as of last year,
though, so Abigail would need authorization from the Hellhound to send
for any and that'd be suspicious as all Hells since Krolem had just been
there. Options, she needed options.

``Where's our Senior Sapper?'' she asked Krolem.

``She's checking in on our engines,'' the tribune gravelled. ``Though
she asked me to pass her continued protest as to the amount of munitions
we passed on to Special Tribune Robber.''

``Why?'' Abigail said, feeling another spike of fear.

``His cohort isn't part of the Third Army, it's detached,'' the orc
said.

``Why did we pass munitions to Special Tribune Robber?'' she clarified.

``You don't need to test me, ma'am,'' Krolem reproached. ``Your
signature was on the forms, the general staff is aware you planned some
contingencies -- just not what they are.''

\emph{Oh Gods}, Abigail thought, realizing that the Black Queen's
favourite goblin assassin had forged her authorization for something
involving munitions and she had absolutely no idea what. \emph{O Gods},
Abigail silently repeated, turning to prayer in her hour of need,
\emph{I know I'm in the service of a villain but isn't this still a
little much?}

---

Razin Tanja crouched down to the side of the pit.

He'd return to the front of the formation soon enough, but for now
he\ldots{} Well, he wasn't sure exactly what it was he was doing. There
was something about this situation that felt like a stone in his boot.
The Third Army had defended Sarcella with dogged viciousness, making the
Dominion pay in blood for every street. They had done so even after
being taken by surprise in the middle of the night after the
assassination of their commanders, which while Razin still thought
little of Callowan heresy had nonetheless impressed him in regard to
that people's discipline. Now that same army was facing them from a tall
palisade after having days and night to prepare, and all they had
prepare was a few pits with stakes at the bottom? No, he could not
believe that. Certainly the fighting would harden the closer they came
to the rampart, but this was too little.

It was not a complicated trap to build, Razin decided as he studied it.
A stake at the bottom, the slopes inclined so anyone falling would be
led towards it. Some sort of thin weave had been used to keep the hole
covered, but it'd been crumpled by the claws of a bound wyvern and the
weave had fallen below. That part was the most cleverly made, the heir
to Malaga mused, for the weave had made the grounds look perfectly
untouched until it was touched. Now the rings of shield-bearers
escorting the binders were going around the revealed traps, advance slow
but steady. The two sworn swords behind him were shuffling impatiently,
but Razin refused to be hurried. He rose just enough to move, circling
around the rim of the hole, and wrestled down the embarrassment he was
starting to feel. It was a simple pit trap, and he might be making a
fool of himself by insisting on taking so long a look at one.

The man's fingers clenched. No.~He would not bend so easily as that.
Pride had already led him down a dead end once. If a little humiliation
let him make certain there was no deeper trap then he'd suffer the bite
and do so unflinchingly. The sun shining from behind him -- the
afternoon at his back warmed him even in his armour -- gave him half a
breath's worth of warning, and that meant he survived the first blow.
Coming out in a spray snow and earth from a hidden nook within the put,
a howling goblin tossed something at Razin's sworn swords while leaping
up with a knife bared. The heir to Malaga caught the blade with his
shield even as he tumbled backwards, the wildly cackling creature
continuing to stab away as it landed on him. There was a loud crack
behind them and something wet landed on Razin's cheek. The yellow-eyed
monster bared needle-like teeth and slid the knife between two armour
plates, but the Levantine socked it in the mouth with an armoured fist.
Wincing at the shallow wound, Razing Tanja rose even as the goblin spat
out blood and laughed, reaching for something in its leather satchel.

It never got to finish the movement, for the heir to Malaga rammed the
hunting knife he'd adroitly palmed through its left eye.

Back on his feet a heartbeat later, Razin grimaced when he saw the
bloody mess the thrown munition had made of his two escorts from the
shoulders up. Blood and bone and brain fluid stained the snow around the
two corpses. Gaze turning to the rest of his command, he heard the crack
of further munitions and grimly admitted to himself the Third Army of
Callow had once more succeeded as springing an ambush on him.

---

Special Tribune Robber assessed the situation with a proud stare.

Sure, they'd been forced to come out early when one of his minions had
revealed their presence before the enemy was fully past their force. On
the other hand, even springing this too soon they'd gotten a full two
dozen of those Dominion sorcerers. Dipping low, Robber leaned forward a
bit to better slit the throat of the blinded warrior he'd caught with
his brightstick. Popping out of the holes and hitting fast with
munitions, his cohort had done a lot damage in the span of thirty
heartbeats. But not, he mused, enough to secure a comfortable retreat.
The strange spirits the Dominion mages had sent ahead to continue
ripping up traps were hurrying back, and between those and the warriors
recovering from the surprise two hundred goblins all spread out had no
real chance of fighting their way out. He whistled, loud and clear,
three times. \emph{Scatter}, it meant. Smothering a grin, the Special
Tribune began the run back to the tender embrace of the palisade held by
the Third Army. A great day's work, if any of them survived.

Still a good day's work, if they didn't.

---

``They won't make it,'' Krolem said.

They most definitely would not, Abigail silently agreed. Already more
than twenty goblins had been slain by warriors running them down, but
those had been the few whose hiding place had been within the Levantine
formation. The rest has scattered to the wings with that insolent goblin
aplomb, not that it would save them. They were quick, Special Tribune
Robber's sappers. Far quicker than humans on foot, especially on
trickier terrain like snow. But they were not quicker than the enemy's
creatures, not even close, and with more than seventy of those left
there was no doubt about the outcome of the chase. The monsters were
drawing back already, closing the gap with inevitable haste. Maybe ten
would make it out alive, General Abigail guessed. If that.

``Brave man, Special Tribune Robber,'' her aide added, tone thick with
respect.

\emph{Fuck}, Abigail thought, with a fresh well of horror. The Black
Queen's favourite goblin assassin was about to get himself killed, and
the only parchment trail there would be of it bore her signature. Faked,
sure, but who'd ever believe that? She was going to get blamed for this
wasn't she? She was going to get blamed for this and some godsdamned
buzzards were going to eat her liver. She needed to get at least that
one goblin out alive. Striking with rituals again? No, wouldn't work.
They'd gotten quite good at avoiding those, and there were too many
beasts anyway. Slowing down less than ten at a time wouldn't get her
anywhere. What did she have? Siege engines, which wouldn't do anything
more than the rituals, legionaries and -- oh, \emph{oh}. Abigail might
just survive this yet.

``Still got that writ, Krolem?'' she nonchalantly asked. ``Send them out
now.''

``Ah,'' the orc breathed out, looking at her with shining eyes. ``I
understand now, ma'am. You've played the Dominion like a fiddle.''

``That is absolutely what I did,'' Abigail baldly lied.

---

Akil Tanja's fingers had begun clenching with the first explosion and
had not loosened since. He had not anticipated that the goblins in the
Black Queen's service would burrow like worms within their own traps,
and neither had his son. Malaga had lost nearly thirty binders for that
mistake, men and women whose powers had each taken decades and a fortune
to forge. Dead, faster than it took to drink a cup of wine. Now the
wretched creatures were fleeing, but they would be run down. If any of
them was taken alive, he would have the damned creatures hung from his
battle-standard after personally crushing their malevolent skulls. At
least Razin had drawn the enemy's blood and asserted control swiftly,
which should prevent his reputation from being tarred too much by this
unpleasant turn.

``Movement by the enemy, my lord,'' one of his captains announced.

The Lord of Malaga followed the man's gaze and found the Army of Callow
was opening the southern gate of the camp. Reinforcements to extricate
the sappers? They would arrive too late. Akil rather hoped the enemy
commander was fool enough to send legionaries forward. The spirits bound
by his war-sorcerers could kill soldiers as easily as they could clear
traps, and any legionary killed down on the plains was one that would
not be fighting from atop the palisade. The wooden grate opened, and
Akil Tanja's lips thinned at what he saw. Horsemen, the first of the
column carrying a tall banner: a bronze bell with a jagged crack going
through, set on black. Lord Akil had read of these: the Order of Broken
Bells, the sole remaining knightly order of Callow.

``Call them back,'' the Lord of Malaga said. ``\emph{Now}. And hurry the
skirmishers forward.''

Two of his captains peeled off like he'd swung at them with hot iron,
both bearing orders. From where he sat astride his horse, Akil was
forced to watch it all unfold without being able to intervene. The
Callowan knights thundered out of the fortified camp without missing a
stride, forming up as they advanced. There must have been at least a
thousand, Akil saw with rising dread. The skirmishers were on foot, the
binders and their escort too far ahead. They would not arrive soon
enough. The only hope of the binders -- of his son -- was that the bound
spirits would slow the enemy knights long enough for a retreat. Razin
must have understood the point as keenly, for the bound creatures
abandoned pursuit of the goblins within moments and turned sharply to
the side. Facing them, the knights of the Broken Bells slowly lowered
their lances and quickened from canter to full gallop. The sight of it,
Akil thought, was moving. Callowan knights in their prayer-carved
armours, charging a host of beasts. The Lord of Malaga tensed for the
impact, eyes fixed on the lances.

He flinched in disbelief, when the knights rode through the spirits like
they were mist.

Sorcery sliding off their armour like water off a duck's back, the
Knights of the Broken Bells broke through and kept charging.

---

There was something deeply satisfying, Abigail mused, about watching
Callowan knights trample enemy foot. It scratched an itch she hadn't
known she had. The enemy mages tried other sorceries, after their nasty
little trick failed, but flames and curses were nothing new to the
cavalry of Kingdom of Callow. Compared to the Praesi, she thought, these
Dominion folk were fumbling amateurs. The commander of the Order's
detachment had split his horse into two wedges of five hundred and
rammed them straight at the enemy shield walls, shattering men and
shields alike. The knights had then withdrawn in good order, after the
initial momentum of the charge was spent, and formed up as they turned
the enemy flank and simply charged again. The Dominion had sent two
thousand foot to escort its sorcerers, but by the time General Abigail
sounded the retreat for her cavalry more than half that number was lying
dead on the ground. It might have been more, if enemy reinforcements
hadn't hurried. Where sorcery would fail javelins might just succeed, so
reluctantly she'd pulled back the Order. Abigail was leaning against the
top of the palisade with her elbows and watching the cavalry retreat in
good order when she heard her tribune return.

``Special Tribune and his cohort have been settled, ma'am,'' Krolem
said.

She nodded absent-mindedly. The goblin she'd needed to keep alive as
alive, beyond that they were hardly her concern.

``It's about to get ugly, Tribune,'' she said, gazing at the massing
enemy.

The skirmishers remained spread out, but the foot behind them was now
locked in thick formations. They were getting ready for a run at the
palisade.

``Ma'am?'' the orc said.

``Get the engines aimed,'' Abigail of Summerholm grimly said. ``They
have a path to us mostly cleared, now they're going to take it.''

---

Lord Yannu Marave patted his horse's mane, and fondly held out his palm
to feed her the last piece of bread from the loaf when she turned. He'd
been told of the debacle to the south by the outriders he'd left to keep
an eye on the situation, and it had darkened his mood. A few hundred
warriors were a drop in the sea of what would be lost before this was
all done and over with, but binders were a rare breed. They might have
been of great use in the war to the north, had the Lord of Malaga's
blunder not effectively pissed away half of them. Yet there was no point
in losing his temper, he knew. This was merely the first movement of an
intricate dance, and his side had never been meant to win it. In the
distance he watched the skirmishes of Vaccei and their Lantern guides
make it to the edge of the slaughter yard, and only then raised a hand.
One of the lesser horns was sounded, and the warriors came to halt. As
well they should -- any further and they would be in what he suspected
to be the outer range of the enemy's engines. In truth he should
probably should have let them continue advancing until that suspicion
was confirmed, but in the end he would rather overestimate enemy range
than throw away lives on such a petty confirmation.

He had what he needed of this northern front and if any of Akil Tanja's
captains had eyes they would have what he needed of that front as well.

``I would have your judgement, Peregrine,'' he calmly requested.

The Grey Pilgrim did not answer immediately. Instead the holy man gazed
at the distant ring of raised stones, that incongruous crown atop a tall
barrow.

``She will not step in even if the palisade is assaulted,'' the Pilgrim
finally said. ``Perhaps not even if the camp is breached, as you had
arranged.''

And so, Yannu knew, this meant the Peregrine would not intervene either.
It had been made clear to the Lord of Alava what the consequences of the
Grey Pilgrim acting first might be, and he would not have such disaster
brought upon them all.

``Then the offensive I had planned is doomed to failure,'' Yannu of the
Champion's Blood said, unruffled. ``And we must resort to the second
string to our bow.''

A shame. He'd enjoyed the cleverness of the scheme, the use of the Saint
and the Sorcerer to take the cavalries through crumbling Arcadia and
strike at the heart of the enemy camp while assault on the palisades
tied down most of their troops. Yet one must now grow too fond of plans,
lest they be followed even when they no longer suited. As was the case
here, to his understanding. Neither the Grand Alliance nor the Black
Queen wanted to risk the heavy casualties of a committed duel to death,
which meant every manoeuvre on this field was in fact was a jostling for
position in some greater game. One where the victor could twist the arm
of the defeated without having sown too great a field of corpses first.
It was Yannu Marave's duty to help the Peregrine triumph in this
struggle, nothing less or more.

``Sound the retreat for all hands,'' the Lord of Alava ordered his
horn-bearer.

The Peregrine looked at him strangely, as if the holy man was watching
someone both a stranger and an old friend. It might truly be so, Yannu
thought, if the old stories about his distant kin Lady Sintra were more
than merely that.

``You will be challenged over this,'' the Pilgrim said.

``I have been challenged before,'' Yannu Marave said, neither boastful
nor wary.

He might have to kill Akil Tanja, the Lord of Alava mused, or at least
the man's champion. The Lord of Malaga had taken enough losses today
anger might lead him to such a blunder. Perhaps even a second champion
would need killing, when he told the others that they would resume the
attack during the night now that the safe paths to the palisade had been
cleared. Ah well, these things happened. Nothing for it but swinging the
blade.

Victory was born of blood, and only ever earned through it: this Yannu
Marave knew true as any other child of Levant.