Pushing as fast as they could Corvus’ army bolted along a forest path, it was a few days after Kreat had joined their forces, they were hurrying to catch the next Fae Chanar before night fell and before he got out of the forest.

They’d left the undead and the few Fae who had no way of increasing their speed behind, they’d catch up later.

Kreat had no way to speed himself but Corvus was carrying him because the plan hinged on his magic, which he’d kept. The bindings that had held Lynoba and his minions in this world were absolute genius allowing undead to keep their magic and in some cases most of their personality as well. He hadn’t managed to recreate all of the binding, the ones he raised with them kept their free will and their personality he’d had to rely on skills other than his Necromancy to control Kreat. Lynoba had unknowingly provided the means for that because Corvus had studied his mind control spikes intensively, as one of Valard’s more annoying rivals he’d been constantly trying to infect the Fae of Valard’s lands with them and removing them had fallen on him.

Unfortunately that meant if Kreat managed to break the mind control he would be perfectly free and effectively resurrected so Corvus had set up a safety, if the mind control broke a spirit was tasked to immediately destroy the bindings animating him. It wasn’t a sophisticated or fool-proof safety but hopefully it would work, anyway if it was ever needed Corvus was probably already dead so it didn’t really bother him.

The undead spies told him that Py and his Fae were just ahead, he shouted out, “Alright form up! The target is just ahead.”

As his Fae moved into a loose formation he said quietly to Kreat as he put him down, “You know your role, put Py down hard and fast.”

Glaring his hatred at Corvus Kreat said, “Of course, Master.”

And Corvus smiled.

Kreat joined the throng of Fae heading through the light woods toward Py and his troops.

Corvus hung back, he wanted to see if Kreat was fully controlled and more importantly if he was going to be effective. He’d said he could kill Py but if he would and if he could after being raised was a completely different matter.

The first flashes of thrown spells and the glow of shields showed through the trees, shouts, grunts and screams sounded out as the Fae clashed.

Pitch darkness covered a large part of the fighting Fae.

Muted screams came from the darkness, when it cleared wounds that hadn’t been there before liberally covered some of Corvus’ Fae where their shields had broken under the assault of unseen claws, then the ground rumbled and spikes of stone impaled some of the Fae with wounds on them before their shields could recover.

Py was making himself felt.

Kreat swelled up into his tree-like combat form, groaning the trees swayed and rustled then their roots tore out of the soil tightly holding a stone-skinned Fae who thrashed and fought them.

A lance of bright white highly concentrated flame speared through him leaving a molten edged hole in his chest roughly where his heart had been.

Kreat fell to his knees, wailing, “Corvus! I vow I will kill you before my time ends. You have made of me a deliberate slayer of my brethren, an abomination, accursed in all Fae Chanar eyes. You will pay for this before they kill me!”

Corvus walked forward as the last of Py’s Fae were killed while they were stunned by their Master’s death. Studying Py’s corpse he said, “Doubtful. Make all the vows you wish, I hold your continued existence in my hands. Do you really think I will ever let you go? But don’t worry you won’t be the only one your brethren hunt, soon enough.”

*******

Gader said, “Do you have to keep them in here? They’re creepy and I can feel them wanting to kill me.”

Sighing Corvus said, “Unfortunately I do. I need them where I can see them otherwise I risk them getting loose. I’d put them down but without them Alcod, Swe and Odeberon wouldn’t be dead and we probably would be or at the very least we would have an even greater number of undead troops versus living.”

“I don’t doubt they’re useful but the risk we take in using them.” He shook his head, “I don’t know if it’s worth it.”

“It is, you yourself know Ireen’s strength, we’ll need them to have a hope of doing anything if he ever gets over his obsession with Valard and actually comes after us. Even the nearly three thousand undead and the eight hundred Fae won’t mean anything to him, Kreat and Py themselves likely won’t mean much either but they may slow him down. You know that once he comes after us we’ll all die and all we can do is as much damage as possible so Raelea and Krarrnic have an easier time of it once they do return.”

Gader shook his head, “Don’t say any of that where the troops can hear, it’s true enough but it’d kick morale right in the guts. They have to hope we can win.”

“I’m not dumb for all you seem to think I am but I have to be realistic about our chances, the only reason we have been even this successful is Fae Chanar arrogance.”

Gader snorted, “Their arrogance is reliable thankfully, oh don’t snort at me you dead thing! It is or you wouldn’t be standing there glaring at me.”

Py said, “Would that my friends in the dark could feast on your eyes Fae.”

Corvus said, “Enough! Hold your tongue. You are dead and beaten by your own arrogance, Kreat assumed wrongly that I could not beat him and you assumed, also wrongly, that you were safe in attacking us as did your other three dead brethren. The one I killed and the two that you personally did but you aren’t whiny about it as Kreat is at least. Seems the rest have gained some wisdom because my birds tell me there are no preparations for another group to leave, it looks like they’ve settled in like cowards waiting for daddy Ireen to save them.”

Kreat said, “I hadn’t known Py would be so willing to kill his brethren. A kinslayer is accursed, lost and beyond the pale.”

Py said, “I’ve wanted to kill Odeberon for thousands of turnings only the censure of our brethren held my hand and Alcod was a weakling, if he hadn’t clung so closely to Ireen’s skirts he would have been played out long ago. We rule only by our might and I hate this one for defeating me but I don’t deny his right to rule over me, for now. I will break your fetters Corvus, when I do the dark will be alive with teeth and you will scream.”

“Like I said to Kreat when he threatened me in exactly the same way, I hold your existence in my hand. You will never be free.”

Py said, “We shall see.”

Corvus snorted and tugging on their controls said, “Fine. But be quiet now, the adults are talking. Gader, I suspect we must attack them and kill as many as we can before their fear overtakes them enough to lose the last vestiges of their arrogance. We need them making mistakes.”

“We do but it isn’t going to make that much difference is it? Not if Ireen takes the field. We need to hit them hard and fast destroy who we can then run like hell and hope we can hide well enough to not all die and Unmentioned take you for making me think like that.”

Corvus shrugged and said, “It’s reality. I’ll get the dead marching on the Tower, all of them and that includes you pair.”

As the angrily glaring Fae Chanar stood stiffly and unwillingly Gader said, “I’ll get our troops moving.”

Corvus nodded and followed the two Fae Chanar out of the tent.

*******

Four days later standing on a hill he looked down on the small camp of his living Fae just a half a march from the Tower, the dead still shuffled toward the Tower through the darkness. They’d catch up to them in the morning, his Fae would be well rested and ready for the attack.

He sighed, most of those he could see moving around the camp making dinner would be dead by tomorrow evening. He wished he’d been able to keep things under control and hidden until Raelea and Krarrnic had returned, maybe they could have stopped so many dying so needlessly.

No use crying over lost choices, this is how it was and how it would be.

In the morning he faced his Fae and said, “You all know I don’t do pretty speeches. This battle will be the toughest we have faced in our campaign to end the Fae Chanar and I make no promises that any of you will survive the day. We will strike a crippling blow today but we will not win this war, not today. They are too entrenched, too powerful and too many but by killing this group of the so-called 'natural rulers of the realms' we will set the stage for our eventual triumph. By showing that defiance is possible, that it is not hopeless, that they can be beaten. This day we will show the Fae race that they can stand against the Fae Chanar, that they do not have to accept this one sided rule. Are you with me!”

As they roared their approval, Corvus felt hollow despair. More innocents to be driven into the final darkness by his decisions.

Taking a deep breath and screaming at the top of his lungs, he carefully kept his real emotions off his face as he said, “We march! Give them no quarter for they will give us none!”

They marched quickly and quietly through the pre-dawn darkness until they reached the edge of the Tower’s clearing, Vlard liked to see wooded glades when he could be bothered looking outside. Corvus had told him often it would let an army get much too close, and it had.

Small fires twinkled among clusters of tents in a clashing variety of styles and sizes, the lines between the separate camps in the cramped clearing were jealously guarded, much better than their perimeter. Not a single sentry looked outward into the forest.

A surging tide of darkness flooded out of the forest as he sent the dead in, blocking the small campfires from view. Wards sprang into view as the dead passed the perimeter of the camps keeping the dead away, except where stupidly the wards had been allowed to be made overlapping each other. They exploded in crackling releases of magic and the dead flooded into those camps as the Fae in them, who thought they were safe behind wards, fell like scythed wheat. Badly outnumbered and at that range their magic and their shields meant nothing.

His living Fae followed behind acting as assassins, killing any opposition that opposed the dead too well.

A huge man shaped mass of chaotically shifting Light and Chaos erupted in the middle of the camp that intersected the other wards that had fallen, Corvus nodded, that would be Sterling unless he missed his guess.

He signalled Kreat and Py forward, other Fae Chanar in those undefended camps would be reacting soon as well. Kreat swelled up into his tree-like fighting form as a stony skinned Py sunk into the ground.

Drawing his sword and igniting it in golden light Corvus charged forward.

Kreat hurled a blindingly white spear of flame at Sterling who batted it away with a sweep of his fuzzy looking arm, turning the huge shape roared and a ball of pure Chaos flew at the druid.

As it splashed over his shield of flame and turned the air to shorn hair, Py erupted under Sterling’s shambling feet and tore him in half with a Sctyhe of pure darknesss.

From another camp they heard a scream of rage and disbelief, Nutres was standing there with her jaw hanging open just outside her tent.

Kreat screaming his rage but being forced to do as he was bid spun faster than his massive form should and threw a net at her, which draped over her slim form. In her shock at Sterling’s death she’d allowed her defences to drop, the net constricted and poison dripping thorns injected their venom deep into her flesh. She was dead before her body hit the ground, her flesh already swelling and necrotising from the terrible potency of the poison.

Fordromonouses had also stepped out of his tent and shocked at the suddenness of his brethren’s deaths was standing there gaping. Not wanting to waste the momentum and grinning like a madman Corvus pointed his sword at him and shouted, “You’re next!”

The hulking brutish looking Fae Chanar recovered from his shock and cocked an eyebrow before making a come hither motion as his shield of all colours of the Realms lit brilliantly.

Corvus dashed forward, a Fae in blue enamelled armour got in his way. She may have thought she was fighting him but he didn’t even slow as his sword smashed through her shield of watery blue Water Realm energy and left a bright silver scar across her breastplate as Lightning discharged into her. Her smoking corpse was flung backward knocking another couple of Fae over who were then swarmed under by the still rampaging dead.

Other Fae who’d started taking a few steps toward Corvus’ path abruptly changed their directions, headed anywhere else.

As he got close the ground turned to mud under grasping waist high grass that grew with ah audible hiss and a maze of faintly humming walls of silver shot darkness popped up around Fordromonouses.

He slogged forward into the maze, bogged down and worried about the walls there wasn’t much he could do to dodge the spray of watery mud flecked by chaotically shifting light that liberally coated his shield, which started failing as the mud ate into it like acid.

A fiery partially molten ball of stone whooshed toward him and when he dodged because his shield was in tatters he merely brushed one of the walls of darkness, something took hold of him and dragging him in a blur deposited him right at the start of the maze again.

Irritated Corvus snapped, “Py! Darkness is your Realm get me to Fordromonouses!”

He got no response but the same unseen something grabbed his arm and dragged him into the maze to it’s centre. Much to the mazes creator’s surprise.

But as soon as Corvus was released and he stalked toward the hulking Fae Chanar with his sword out and crackling with lightning over it’s golden sheath Fordromonouses smiled, waved, shimmered like a mirage and vanished.

As the maze disappeared, Corvus looked around frantically trying to find him.

A wash of pure darkness covered the area around the Tower as far as the eye could see, he felt his dead get torn to shreds by unseen things in the darkness. Soon it was only his shielded huddled Fae, himself, Kreat and Py still standing.

As the darkness ebbed away Ireen appeared with Fordromonouses standing behind him, smiling. He said, “Well, Fae. It seems Valard was a failure in that task as well, you should have been put down hundreds of turnings ago. I’ll remedy that right now.”