When I’d first seen the Yellow Graves, I would never have thought that I’d come back at the head of an army less than two years later. The jungle didn’t look quite the same, but that was probably because of the different season. Even this far south, spring was arriving, but winter had still left its marks, and the characteristic yellow trees looked sparser. The singing of birds was both familiar and strange, and I took a moment to listen to it and try to pinpoint different birds. I didn’t know enough to tell what each sound was, though, or even which might be produced by insects or other animals.

Aston stepping up beside me brought me from my thoughts. He seemed tense, barely keeping his eyes off the forest, even though we hadn’t even entered it yet. Some distance to the sides, the remnants of our fortifications threw long shadows, but the Zarian had pulled the wall down over long swathes, and stones lay scattered far and wide over the grass and the outskirts of the jungle.

“My lady, we got an update from General Poteri,” Aston said. “They’ve finished securing their assigned zone and are moving in. We expect reinforcements in two days, but most of them will go to the eastern prong.”

I nodded. While we’d reached the Yellow Graves, not every bit of land north of it had been cleared by our soldiers, and many of them were still sweeping south. It had still been a very successful campaign, so far.

“I feel like we’re almost too successful,” I muttered.

Aston nodded, his expression serious. “The Zarian haven’t really contested our advance, my lady.”

“They’re conserving their forces,” I said. “Any soldier we don’t face now is one more fighter they’ll have defending their strongholds down south.”

“But that also means they’re surrendering the initiative,” Yarani said, stepping up on my other side.

I glanced at her. “I guess you’re right, but they’re not losing much. We’ve had the initiative for a while now, really.”

She was right that the next move was ours, though. We’d finally switched from defense to offense entirely. But taking our own towns back wouldn’t be much compared to pushing through the Yellow Graves, then assaulting their own cities. Assuming we got that far, of course, though I didn’t doubt that.

We stood there for a while, watching the Yellow Graves and our own people moving towards it. It was a pretty small convoy, for an army, and many of them flew on flying swords. But my gaze stopped at the group walking in the middle, most of them in their traditional clothes rather than the uniforms of the surrounding soldiers. We’d meet other Zarieni inside. Those who’d stayed, kept watch on and needled the Zarian and their allied tribes.

“The Terbekteri are still sending ships,” Yarani finally said. “Even if they don’t want to push too far into the Graves.”

“They shouldn’t,” I replied. There wasn’t exactly an abundance of navigable rivers in the Yellow Graves, especially if you needed to go through or around the mountains, but even if there had been, I wouldn’t want to risk them. There were more dangers than the nomads in there, and monsters were at least as much of a danger in the water.

“Just using them to ferry our soldiers seems like a waste, though,” Yarani said.

I shrugged. We were going to send most of the army, the soldiers in the lower stages, around the Yellow Graves by ship. That would probably be safer and easier than trying to march a large army through. “We could have just used our own ships, but this way, even if the Zarian decide to launch an attack with their own navy, they’ll be well protected,” I pointed out. “And it’ll discourage such an attack in the first place.”

By now, we were reaching the outskirts. I watched as the army split, with one group heading southwest, curving around the edge of the jungle at a comfortable distance. The other one gathered around us.

“I just feel like this is weird,” I finally continued the conversation, glancing at Aston and Yarani. Tenira and Lei were overseeing the weapons teams, and spirits only knew where Elia had gone off to. “The Zarian fought hard for this land, pushing into the Empire. And now they’re just letting us take it all back. I know we’re in the advantageous position, but that didn’t really stop them before. I mean, we had the alliance with Terbekteri and everything. If anything, they were pushing this hard because of it.”

Aston nodded, a faint frown on his face. “I know. I’ve been thinking the same thing. It occurred to me that we may be seeing the effects of an internal shift in the Dominion, or in their strategizing. Perhaps between different factions.”

“Hmm. Good point.” I frowned at the jungle. I hadn’t heard about that from Kariva or anyone else, but I’d definitely take another look at the reports she sent and maybe ask her the next time I saw her.

Then, finally, it was time to go. I walked forward at a quick pace, surrounded by my guards and a section of our elites, and looked up as the trees closed around us. The faint scent of wet vegetation reached me, and the chirping and buzzing got louder. But we had a pretty clear path, for now, and made good progress.

About an hour into the forest, we found our first contacts. A group of Zarieni raiders, with little bones and shells stitched onto their clothing, waited for us in a small clearing. I went to meet them, but let Kiyanu do most of the talking. He would obviously get more respect from them than I would.

“The other tribes are on the move,” one of them, a chief going by the intricately braided hairstyle, said. He spoke their own tongue, but I’d spent some time familiarizing myself with it, and given its similarity to Zarian, I understood it pretty well.

“We’ll let you and your people guide us,” Kiyanu answered in, as far as I could tell, perfect Zarieni.

The chief nodded. He motioned, and the stronger ones of his followers stepped forward, seeking out our elite officers. I focused my hearing and listened in a little as they discussed the terrain, the enemy forces, and what to do here.

It didn’t take long until we moved out. This time, our force spread out a little farther, though I stayed with the largest clump, of course. Aston was watching the jungle around us intently and rarely strayed more than a meter from my side. He clearly didn’t like the situation at all, though he didn’t complain. Perhaps because Kiyanu also stayed pretty close to us.

“Have you been here before?” I asked Kiyanu quietly after a while.

He nodded. “Three times total. I never actually crossed through the Yellow Graves, though.”

That was still probably more than anyone else here aside from the Zarieni. And I doubted many of them had crossed the whole of the Graves, either. Luckily this peninsula or whatever you call it isn’t actually that big.

For the next while, we walked in silence. I eyed the nomads curiously, but didn’t approach. They talked among themselves, but their voices never rose very high and seemed to be swallowed by the foliage around us. Still, they looked pretty relaxed, and were actually laughing and joking. In contrast, the Imperial soldiers appeared tenser, and most of them kept their weapons close. The ones who didn’t were mostly those carrying the formation plates, spread in an oval around our group. I didn’t know if it was going to be enough to hide us from our enemies, but so far, it seemed to work.

My attention was brought back to the path in front of us when the people ahead slowed down. After a moment, I realized two scouts had returned. I sharpened my hearing, then took in a calming breath. We’d spotted our first enemy camp.

I sped up a little and caught up to the officers in charge, and Kiyanu. They were already arguing about this. It seemed like some wanted to completely circle around them, while others said we should take the opportunity to take this group out now.

“How assured would a victory be?” Kiyanu asked.

“Very assured, Your Grace,” the scout, a woman in the sixth stage with nature affinity, replied. “It’s a relatively small camp, with few people above the fifth stage.”

“They’re all like that now,” the Zarieni chief commented from where he was leaning against a tree trunk a few meters away. “A lot of the people’s strength is gathered with the Zarian.” He smiled humorlessly. “Or the Empire.”

“Then we don’t need to all go,” I said. “A smaller group that could move more quickly might be better.”

Most of them nodded, and in the end, we decided to send a team of elites after the camp while the rest of us avoided it. They’d be able to catch up quickly, and we’d still have enough strength if we were surprised by another group.

That didn’t happen, though. The first few minutes as we continued walking were tense, and I looked in the camp’s direction more than once, even though I couldn’t see anything. But about half an hour later, the elites caught up to us again, and we continued moving without a pause.

That set a pattern for our time going through the jungle. On a few occasions, we’d locate other camps of Zarieni, and usually detail forces to take them out. A few of them were ready for an attack, though the Imperials still beat them, but most apparently didn’t present too much trouble.

We also didn’t encounter many spirit beasts. Maybe it was just that our group had too many people, so they steered clear of it. And I guessed the nomads were guiding us around the more dangerous ones’ territories. We certainly didn’t walk in a straight line, but curved around a lot.

Although we were all technically walking, our speed was higher than a jogging pace for a non-cultivator. At this point, we must have been more than a dozen kilometers inside the border even in a straight line. At a guess, the Yellow Graves were about three or four hundred kilometers from continent to continent at the narrowest point, which was a little east of our position, though there were bulges on both sides of the actual pass, with the eastern one a lot wider than here. It would take us a few days to cross if we didn’t speed up.

Although speed isn’t the issue, I reminded myself. We want to clear this, or at least make sure the Zarieni or Zarian can’t launch an attack on the Empire while we’re fighting down south. That was why we were split into several forces moving south and sweeping through the peninsula.

I was beginning to think that I had been nervous for nothing and this would continue to be smooth sailing, when we encountered our first real spirit beast attack. Our first warning was a roar echoing through the jungle. The acoustics made it hard to tell where it came from, but it sounded like it was still some distance away to me. The soldiers drew a little tighter together. But only two minutes later, the roar sounded again, much closer, and I felt a faint vibration of the ground beneath my feet.

When we finally saw the monster, I sucked in a surprised breath. And it definitely was a monster, not an intelligent spirit beast. It looked like a larger version of those furred elephants I’d seen once, except with red fur and tusks that spread out into a tangle of pointy bits. Its head was comically small compared to its huge body, and it crashed forward with no care in the world, but a lot of speed.

One of the elites launched a spear that seemed to grow out of a nearby tree at it, but the beast barely seemed to notice as the weapon broke against its side. It had definitely noticed us, though. It altered course slightly and stomped down with enough force to shake the ground. A few trees creaked and groaned, and pretty much every small winged flying thing in the trees around us fled.

Aston caught me and pulled me aside, sidestepping ten meters in a few moments, just as the monster altered course so it would have hit us. It turned and stomped down. A pair of soldiers in the fifth stage dodged to the side so they avoided its stomp, but then a wave of earth and greenery rose from the ground and engulfed them, ripping into them.

I stumbled back, looking around.

“If I fight it, everyone in the area will know we are here,” Kiyanu said. But I noticed from his aura that he was gathering his qi.

I hesitated, grimacing as it tangled with another group of soldiers and got the better of them. All of this was happening in seconds.

“Can you lead it away?” I asked.”Without announcing our presence too much.”

Kiyanu’s face tightened, but he nodded. “I will. Move quickly, Inaris.”

The spirit beast was in the equivalent of the seventh stage, at least. Only our strongest elites could actually hurt it, and it was really tough. I got all that from the short fight. But when Kiyanu used a bit of qi to form a razor-thin blade of wind that he hurled at it with extreme speed, it actually cut into the side of its head, causing a wound that bled considerably. The other soldiers backed away as it roared again and focused on its new attacker.

Kiyanu rose into the air, shot it again, and turned, curving away. The beast trampled after him. It barreled into another soldier who’d been too slow to get out of the way and barely missed three others. Then it was leaving.

We stood in silence for a moment, before I cleared my throat and started walking again. “We need to get moving. Quickly now.”

The officers organized the force, and we set out once more, jogging this time. The Zarieni, who had seemed content to stay back and out of the fight, led us through narrow paths between the trees. I could still sense Kiyanu and his opponent, who was wobbling around in my senses enough I could tell he was having trouble keeping it focused and on track going after him. But he managed. I didn’t want to bet that no one had noticed the fight, though.

A few more times, I sensed powerful spirit beasts. Maybe the recent upheaval had stirred them up. But we managed to avoid all of them, even if the last one could have gone badly. We picked up the pace again, and our rearguard was starting to lag behind. But we were almost there.

I was breathing heavily when we finally stumbled into the largest clearing yet. It was actually more like an earthy mound raised over a steep incline with a river flowing through a waterfall at the bottom, bigger than anything of the kind I’d seen so far. The rocky ground bulged up in places and several holes were dotted through it, leading into a cave system. I could see a smoothed out area with a dock and a few shelters built of wooden planks below, coming out from another hole. But my attention was focused on the several hundred people clustered throughout the caves.

“Well, we should be safe for now,” Aston said.

I took a deep breath and straightened. “Yeah. Let’s go in.”

This was the first and only real base we’d find in the Graves, as much of a safe spot as there could be here. We’d need to leave it soon enough, but for now, I forced my tense muscles to relax. This could have gone better, but it could have gone a lot worse, too.