Deadtired

They weren't going to be given a restful night's sleep. The sun dipped lower, casting long shadows across the road-turned-battlefield. Rotney sighed, then stood up straighter, grabbed the side of his mule-pulled cart, and lifted himself up onto the back of it so that he could see from a slightly better vantage.

Ranks Seventy-Three had pulled back and folded into Rank Seventy-Five. "Seventy-Four, pull back!" he ordered.

This was shifting the tempo of the battle. Rank Seventy-Four had barely been reached by the living army and they were already pulling back.

He waited until his troops had formed a much thicker line than usual. So far they'd been keeping about four ranks going, with a fifth constantly forming from a trickle of undead. Whenever a cultivator deigned to leave the centre of the formation to wipe them out, they'd just reform four more ranks a hundred necrometres away and start it all over.

Now...

"Rank Seventy-Five.... Hold."

The humans were exhausted, and yet they hadn't been ordered to stop for the night just yet. It wouldn't make sense for them to. At the moment, they were at the bottom of a slight dip in the terrain. Their visibility wasn't ideal. But the road rose up just ahead, and from atop that hill they'd be able to see the faint lights of Yu Xiang in the distance and have a commanding view of the area as well. It would be the perfect place to camp out for the night. Had they not been harassed by Rotney, the army would be at the top of that hill already. Trenches dug, latrine pits filling, tents erected before the sun dipped below the horizon.

Now, they were pulling out torches all along the formation to better see the encroaching darkness.

"Yeah, this'll do," Rotney decided. A last hoo-rah before he could finally slink back into the city and say that his part was done. "Rank Seventy-Six... charge!"

A new order, one that hadn't come yet.

The seventy-sixth rank, still a little rag-tag and disorganised, jumped to it. Zombies shambled ahead, the slight incline in the terrain giving them a bit of a boost before they slipped through the Seventy-Fifth rank. By then, they were in an all-out sprint, or as much of a sprint as a zombie could manage.

It was enough. The army saw them coming, barely, and raised spears to skewer the undead, but some slipped past as soldiers struggled to raise heavy spears after a long day of exertion. The Seventy-Sixth rank crashed into the front of the living formation, grinding their slow and constant advance to a halt.

The rows of soldiers behind, unable to see into the dark, ended up bunched together while sergeants and officers shouted for order.

Rotney started to yawn, but this time he held his jaw in place. Oh... he'd forgotten about that arrow lodged in his neck. He tugged it out and tossed it onto the cart.

"Seventy-Seven... retreat," he said simply, and the last rank of his zombies started to shamble away.

The moment his cart crested the hill, he turned and waved ahead. The wave was carried on by a staggered line of wights and ghosts to the city in the distance.

Rotney squinted as the distant crack-choom of trebuchets firing carried out across the empty plains. A boulder larger than he was hummed past overhead then came crashing down. It missed the army by about a hundred necrometres. They were way off.

The next missed by half as much.

The third came crashing down near the front ranks, and soldiers pulled back, screaming.

Yeah, the army wouldn't be resting on the hilltop. Not tonight. In fact, the army wouldn't be resting tonight at all.

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Officer Corpse — Appari Shawn

Officer Corpse — Appari Shawn

So far, he and his troops had killed eight enemies.

It would have been a rather pathetic number except for two things.

First, those eight deaths were all ruled to be accidents. The first two were an officer and his second in command. They had died overnight from intestinal issues. The alchemist dragged along on the enemy expedition had discovered the fruit of a poisonous desert plant in their meals.

The next to die was a quartermaster who tripped into a rack of swords. Then an inner disciple whose rival had discovered some of his precious treasures in his tent, obviously stolen. Then one of the few elders in this entire convoy, who choked on a pea.

The next three were done in quick succession. Two men from the officer corp were found dead next to the camp, both smelling of alcohol, both dead to the other's blade as though they'd fought a drunken duel in the night.

And the next morning, the outer disciple in charge of the investigation was found strangled in his room, only hours after suggesting that a particular inner disciple might be to blame.

Cadet Officer Appari might not have racked up the most kills, but he liked to think that his were the most valuable. There was a reason that the higher ups in the army weren't in the front lines from the start, and that was thanks to him.

That was the second reason why the low count wasn't pathetic. The enemy didn't suspect that anyone was to blame for these eight deaths but themselves. They didn't even realise that six of those dead were some of the most competent and intelligent people in their army.

That might change this very night, however.

The sect elders of the Mist Gate, Storm Gate and Wind Gate sects were meeting in a hastily assembled pagoda right in the centre of their new encampment.

This wasn't where they had intended to have their camp-atop a hillside that would have given them a commanding view of Yu Xiang-but was rather a few necrokilometres away from that point. So far, the wider undead army had done a good job of stalling the army's advance and even pushing them back a little.

That was to be one of the topics of discussion as well.

Six elders sat around a low table. There was a seat for a seventh, the member who had passed away, choking on a pea. Two elders for each sect, and a final member from the Jade Throne. This man was the most powerful of the lot, and the only one that Appari actually feared.

"Let us begin," he said. "Mist Gate, tell me about the disposition of the men?"

One of the elders, an older woman in a finely embroidered dress, shifted in her seat. "The disposition is... not the greatest. The mortal army is tired after so many weeks of marching and training. Too little time was given to them to recuperate."

"They should have had time to do so here," another elder said.

"Yes, and yet that will not be the case. The combat on the road-" she paused as two of the elders snorted and sneered, obviously unimpressed by the idea that what their troops had seen so far was actual combat. "-The skirmishing along the route has tired our men more. They need rest."

"Pathetic."

One of the elders from the Storm Gate sect leaned forwards. This was one of those that Appari was most interested in killing, because he tended to be reasonable when the others were not. He was also younger. Not young, of course, he was still an old man by any measure, but he was less of an old man than the other elders. "Let's not measure our brave soldiers with the same staff we'd use to measure our disciples," he said. "They are mortals. We have need of them yet, and that need will be quite complicated if we waste their lives away."

"Do we really need them?" His opposite from the same sect asked. "We can take on the undead ourselves, can we not?"

"We might be able to, yes, but when it comes time to bring law and order to Yu Xiang, would you rather have outer disciples solve every petty crime or would you rather have mortals corralling mortals?" The elder shook his head. "If rest is what they need, then I'd rather give it and not have to wait for reinforcements to arrive from our three gated cities."

That seemed to put the others on the spot, but they quickly acquiesced.

Appari had been listening for some time, and he'd put together that there was much pride on the line here. Calling for additional aid would make these remaining elders seem weak, and not one of them wanted that.

It was why their letters back all spoke of a shining, glorious campaign. Not that those letters ever made it back. This group was cut off from the moment they entered the Steppes. They just didn't know it yet.

"There are other issues," the elder from the Jade Throne said. "The death pall. I can smell the stink of it, even here with our incense burning."

"It is a distracting stench," one elder said. "Perhaps the Wind Gate can assist us? A Thousand Year Wind Cyclone Vortex of lesser power to better circulate the air around the camp?"

One of the elders bowed. "I will see to it that the outer disciples get to work. The stench will be gone soon."

Appari blinked his spectral eyes. Stench? Did they mean the smell left by the undead? It wasn't magical, as far as he knew, just a normal odour that must accompany the dead and undead. Rotting flesh and ripped bowels and such. Mostly it was the zombies. Ghosts were odourless, and skeletal warriors had little that stank about them.

He made note to mention this tactic to the captain. It was maybe something worth exploring. They were, technically, downwind of Yu Xiang, with the undead army between this army and the city itself, so the stink would be hitting the soldiers.

"Tell me of our losses?" the Jade Throne Elder said as he sipped from some tea.

The same elderly woman from Mist Gate nodded. "As you wish. Over the last week of travel, we have lost seventy-seven regular soldiers. Fourteen members of the caravan, and nine disciples."

"That's a large number of disciples to lose," an elder commented.

Another nodded. "The undead are being led. Normal ones would rally against the living like wolves after sheep. Picking off the nearest and weakest. These are smart enough to decide to go after the stronger parts of our army."

"Do we have anything to worry about?" another asked.

"Here? Nonsense. There is nothing the undead have that can threaten us."

Appari was impossibly tempted to spring the trap then and there. The poetic moment would be so tasty, but no, the time wasn't quite right.

"We need to find and eliminate the leader of the undead," the older Storm Gate elder said. "A decisive stroke, and this entire rebellion will fall apart and we can go back to our homes and sects."

"After extracting our just reward," another said.

"Only as much as the throne allows," the Jade Throne elder said with the kind of tone that implied that this wasn't the first time he was reminding them of this. "The Throne will be taking part of the spoils as tax, but the majority will go to you, to be split evenly amongst your sects based on contributions, as discussed. Keep in mind, a minimal amount of loot must be left behind so that enough working people of Yu Xiang do not starve before the next harvest."

So, they intended to pillage the city while they were here? Appari didn't care much either way, but he imagined the Empress might care to know.

"And the necromancer?" the same elder who brought it up repeated. "Should we not focus on them?"

"Their body's weight in gold to the one who brings their head to the throne," the throne elder said. That perked up the others a little.

Appari paused. There was a faint, distant whistle, then the pagoda shook as the ground dropped out from beneath it.

That was as good of a signal as any. "Go," he whispered.

Seven apparitions burst out of the ground, long clawed arms already swinging.

There was motion that happened in the time it would take a man to blink. Swords were drawn, techniques deployed. By the second blink, his seven assassins were ripped apart and deader than they had been.

Two elders slumped to the ground. Appari heard one breathing. So, merely injured.

Oh well. One out of seven wasn't so bad, and his other assassins had launched similar attacks across the camp, aiming at inner disciples. He could hear the shouts and techniques going off still even as he faded away and returned towards the city as so much smoke.

Time to repeat what he'd learned to the Captain and the Empress. He wondered if he'd be deployed again. His unit's kills might have been few, certainly, but he liked to think that they mattered.

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Chapter Thirty-Nine — The Empress On the Wall

Chapter Thirty-Nine — The Empress On the Wall

The Limpet. Empress Limpet-that was still taking some getting used to-stood atop the walls of Yu Xiang and observed her incoming doom.

The army had arrived atop the hills to the south of the city late last night. Her advisor in military matters... and the person in charge of everything military related at the moment, Captain Seventeen had warned her that the enemy wouldn't be attacking during the night. And if they did, then the undead had a clear and powerful advantage.

He was right. The enemy had retreated back and away from the hilltops after being bombarded by their undead trebuchets. A few thundering shots had rang out through the night.

She'd like to blame those for her lack of sleep, but in reality she'd always been a heavy sleeper. The exception was over these past few days, where her nights were filled with tossing and turning and attempts to read herself to sleep.

That had never worked before.

She'd start reading, and get into what she was reading, then by the time she was actually too tired to understand what was on the page, she had to pee, which required getting up and padding over to the washroom. By the time she returned, the act of standing up and walking about had awoken her enough that she wanted to read more, and then the next thing she knew the sun was up.

This was as predictable as it was unavoidable.

It led to moments like these, where she was standing on the walls of a city that was ostensibly hers, watching an entire army unfold itself into a great formation with thousands of soldiers within it, and the entire time all she could think about was going back to bed.

But she could hardly ask for the enemy to come back tomorrow, and it wasn't like she'd be getting any more restful sleep, not until they were all gone.

"Rem, could you get me some tea, please?" she asked over her shoulder.

Rem glared at her. Or that's how Fenfang read the mantis's expression. It wasn't easy to do at the best of times. "Fine. Stupid empress," the butler mantis said before stomping away.

They weren't alone on this section of the wall. There were a couple of under officers from Captain Seventeen's officer corpse, some of the braver members of the city council, and a half dozen of the calmer mantis sisters.