Resalintas fought for another thirty minutes, during which he was able to hypnotise another two zombie herders, sending them and their undead flocks back to attack their own encampment. He then retired from the battle to rest, but remained nearby in case another ghost or some other kind of higher undead creature turned up, something that only he could deal with. He wasn't going to waste any more of his strength on zombies, which were so easy for the enemy to replace that killing them was pointless. He intended to save himself for the real battle, to which he would return as dusk fell.
Elsewhere, the defenders were concentrating on killing the zombherds, and after another hour those still alive had withdrawn to safety, leaving the undead horrors to fight amongst themselves. The defenders breathed a sigh of relief as they retreated back inside the wall, shutting out the carnage behind thick steel doors. Abandoning the upper walkway to the enemy while they waited for them to hack each other to pieces. It took another half an hour before all sounds of fighting had stopped, and when they cautiously peeped out again they saw that the attack was over.
As every other time, virtually the entire surface of the walkway was covered by chopped and severed decomposing body parts, most of which were still twitching and writhing in an obscene imitation of life. Here and there one or two zombies were still more or less intact, wandering around chopping up their dismembered colleagues into still smaller parts, but looking down at the land outside thousands more zombies were still busily at work piling rubble against the wall. The ladder assault had just been a sideshow, and even now the defenders could see zombherds organizing the zombies, getting them ready for another attack, wanting to give the defenders as little time as possible to rest.
How many of them are there? thought the old priest, gazing down at them with an expression of iron self control. At least two hundred thousand of them building the rubble piles. An equal number standing around over there, and their numbers constantly growing with every Ilandian who fall.
He held tightly to his faith, the conviction that the invasion would be defeated, somehow, even if he didn’t survive to see it. In the meantime, though, fatigue was taking its toll on him. Those whose prayers gave the defenders the benefit of accelerated sleep could not themselves benefit from it. He decided to get a couple of hours of real sleep while he could, therefore, and began to make his way back to the storeroom where he'd laid out a couple of blankets on the floor.
He was descending a flight of stairs down to street level and passing another unit of Lourellian shae folk on their way up to reinforce the defenders on the walkway when he was spotted by a messenger who called out his name and pushed his way through the throng towards him. The messenger, like all of them these days, was distressingly young; barely more than thirteen or fourteen by the look of him with a rash of freckles across his nose and tangly red hair peeping out from beneath his helmet. He saluted clumsily as he reached him, trembling in his boots as he confronted the formidable priest.
“Sir,” he began in a high pitched, unbroken voice, “his excellency the High Prefect requests your immediate presence in the palace on a matter of the utmost urgency.”
He began to tremble even more. Doubtless the news of the old priest’s arguments with the High Prefect was hot gossip all over the city and the boy was terrified to find himself between them. Resalintas resisted an impulse to offer a few words of reassurance. The young lad was doing his very best to be an adult and deserved to be treated like one. He simply gave a curt nod, therefore, and marched off into the city, leaving the boy to breathe a sigh of relief behind him.
What could he want? he wondered as he strode through the almost empty, rubble strewn streets. If he’s finally seen the light, it’s far too late. We can’t possibly carry out Skulnya’s plan now. Most likely he’s thought of a plan to get me even further out of his hair, somewhere so far away that he’ll never hear of me again. The idea didn’t bother him, though. So long as he was somewhere where he could fight the enemy, he could do as much for the war effort there as he could in Tatria.
A horse and cart passed him in the street, having delivered a load of provisions to the soldiers on the wall and now carrying half a dozen casualties back to the infirmaries in the city centre. He waved it down to get a lift on it, sitting next to a man with an arm in a sling and blood soaked bandages around his head. Half an hour later it dropped him off on the old dock road, which ran along the west bank of the river, and he crossed Empire Bridge to commandeer another horse and cart on the other side to carry him to the cathedral. Reaching the quarters that had been assigned to him, and which he'd barely visited since arriving in the city, he stripped off his gore stained uniform, washed in a bowl of cold water fetched by his personal acolyte and pulled on some clean clothes. Then, presentable again and fit for an audience with the High Prefect, he made his way to the palace.
The soldiers on guard outside bore golden tattoos on their foreheads which, along with their almost ridiculously ornate uniforms, identified them as members of the Imperial Senn Legion, the Emperor’s own bodyguard, which meant that, by extension, they also had the job of protecting the High Prefect, the Emperor’s voice in Ilandia. Two regiments of the elite, heavily mind conditioned troops had been sent to Ilandia, but most of them were currently fighting alongside the ordinary soldiers on the wall. Resalintas recognised the two on duty on the doors, having been turned away by them several times during the previous few days, but this time the splendidly uniformed men stood aside and let him pass without a word.
The High Prefect was waiting for him in the audience chamber, dressed in the full regalia of his office, and the old priest scowled when he saw the look of pleasure and satisfaction on his face. I was right, he thought. He’s found a way to get rid of me, and probably Skulnya too. Look on the bright side, though. At least I won’t have to watch this city suffer any more.
“Ah, Captain,” said Milus Rona as he entered. “Glad you could come so promptly. I’ll get right to the point. I’m afraid the time has come for us to say goodbye.”
“I thought as much,” grunted Resalintas. “Where am I going?”
“Tara,” said the High Prefect with a broad grin that revealed his gleaming white teeth, one of which had a gold cap.
“Tara?” said Resalintas in confusion. “The capital city of Belthar? That Tara? What’s the point of my going there? If they want to reassign me to another battle front, they don’t have to tell me in person. Why don’t they just tell me my final destination?”
“Maybe Tara is your final destination. You’re not as young as you used to be. Maybe they think your vast experience could be put to better use training the next generation of eager young granite faces. After all, your fame has spread to every part of the empire, and news of your fall in battle would be devastating for morale, so I’m told. Maybe they're calling you in to promote you."
“Don’t be absurd,” replied Resalintas, racking his brains to think of the real reason.
“A message came by farspeaking link a couple of hours ago. Orders for you to report to Marshal House immediately, on the orders of the Emperor himself.” The High Prefect opened a drinks cabinet and poured himself a shot of Lydian nectar. He offered one to the priest, who ignored it. “I’ve spoken to the wizards. They say the enemy's setting up another screen of interference around the city, like they did around Fort Battleaxe, but our wizards are waiting for my order to punch a hole through it, so you can teleport out. I’d like to say I’ll be sorry to lose you, but...” He spread his hands in a ‘you know how it is’ gesture.
“I’d like to say one thing before I go,” said Resalintas, fixing the High Prefect with his steel grey eyes. “Listen to Skulnya. He’s one of the best tacticians the empire has. If anyone can save this city, he can.”
“I have my own advisors,” replied Rona stiffly, “who disagree with him on every important point. Who am I to listen to, one man or a whole team of experts?”
Resalintas sighed, having expected the reply. “Then I fear that you and I will never meet again this side of death. You and your staff have my deepest sympathies.” He paused for a moment to let the point sink in and then said “I’ll go now, if that’s convenient.”
“Convenient isn’t the word I’d have used. The Fellowship teleportation cubicle is in the offices of the Tatria Post. There's a carriage waiting for you outside."
"I shaln't be needing a carriage," the priest replied. "I can teleport, if My Lord grants me the power."
"You needed the Fellowship teleportation network to get to Pargonn."
"Because I had to take Keller with me. My Lord's power is mainly in the arts of combat. In other areas it is limited."
"As you wish," replied the High Prefect, picking up a small glowbottle and waving it over the protruding end of an optical fibre that emerged from a small table at his side. That cable, Resalintas surmised, ran for several hundred yards beneath the streets of the city to where the wizards were waiting to cast their spells. “It’ll be just a couple of minutes,” he said, although the expression on his face suggested that he wouldn’t grieve for long if the priest left too soon, with terrible consequences.
Sure enough, a couple of minutes later the protruding end of the optical fibre flashed a couple of times as the wizards returned the signal. “That’s it,” said the High Prefect. “You can go now. Good luck, wherever you end up.”
“Thank you,” replied Resalintas, ignoring the insincerity in his voice. “And good luck to you, too. I pray to the Gods that we are wrong and that this city comes through the war intact and undefeated.”
He then opened his heart and soul to the God of War, allowing His power to flood into his body, and willed himself to be elsewhere, in Marshal House in Tara.