The air shimmered around him as Rüdiger swayed in the center of the ritual circle, preparing the first step of the breakout.

  The chanting of a dozen necromancers echoed through the star-shaped construct of circles and runes, hypnotic in its cadence.

  Adarin watched, strangely entranced.

  Night had come, the clouds clearing at last—and with it, his first true glimpse of this alien world.

  There was no moon. Only three pale white bands, glowing faintly above the horizon like static brushstrokes across the void. I’m at the bottom of an hourglass habitat. Interesting. I wonder what the other side is like.

  Adarin returned his focus to the present. He tuned into the noospheric link, the strange sense-web that bound him to the ten spider drones he had crafted. Each carried three gas grenades—primed and waiting.

  The spheric link also connected him to Johan, to Liora, and to three more necromancers—each commanding their share of undead.

  Archmagister Mathilda had equipped the living ones with distraction stones. Every one of the hundred zombies now under necromancer control was outfitted as well. Three gas grenades each: one clenched between rotting teeth, two in their grasping hands.

  Adarin concentrated as the chanting climbed toward a fever pitch. From Liora, he caught only glimpses—dim, flickering impressions.

  Maybe if the implant develops... Who knows? I’ve heard higher-tier versions gain clarity, maybe even active control.

  Then a wind picked up—sharp, deliberate—blowing straight toward the Free City’s army positions.

  Rüdiger collapsed. Two necromancers rushed forward and caught him, hoisting him up by the arms. His thoughts pushed into Adarin’s mind through the link, faint and breathless. ‘I am spent…’

  He paused, breathing hard. ‘Now it’s up to you.’

  Adarin checked all the connections. One by one.

  ‘Liora, come in.’ — ‘Yes.’

  ‘Johan, come in.’ — ‘Yes, Adarin.’

  Each of the ten mages linked through the noospheric net confirmed. Then he opened all the channels at once.

  The familiar pattern of the action made him shudder. This is what I’m good at. This is what I was brought up to do. What I was born for.

  He allowed himself a moment. A breath.

  The silence before the storm...

  Then he sent the command. ‘Go. Go. Go. Attack. Phase one.’

  He focused on the spider drones. They were the vanguard—and already in position.

  Each unit lay mere meters from one of the five Marholian watch posts, having crept into place under the cover of darkness.

  The spiders scuttled forward.

  Behind them, the zombies began their own advance—but only those cloaked beneath the distraction spell. A full hundred meters out from the enemy line.

  Adarin watched from the top of the hill. He had created a viewing focus with Thousand Eyes—a primitive but effective spyglass. And been rewarded for his creativity by a swirling of the eye-like tattoo carved into his bark.

  Thousand Eyes (Lesser Tier 1 → Early Tier 1)

  Through it, he studied the line of undead, each meter they advanced, each flicker of torchlight.

  The first spider reached the edge of a dugout and climbed over.

  The five guards inside didn’t notice.

  One sat watchfully. The others were engrossed in a game—coins and carved bones scattered on the ground between them. Slack discipline. I’ll remember that.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Adarin adjusted his lens, watching the edge of the light. The undead advanced further with inevitable slowness. He checked in with his commanders for the last time.

  Liora’s response came back tinged with excitement.

  Johan’s voice—and the others’—remained steady. Calm. Veterans of a dozen battles.

  Then, at last, he could make out the face of one of the undead as it entered the ring of torchlight.

  Two of the watchmen stirred. Adarin issued the next command to the spiders. They curled their legs inward, pulling their payloads—three gas grenades each—up tight against their bellies.

  Wood creaked under the strain.

  Adarin pulled up the perspectives from his spider bots’ dim senses and refocused his spyglass on the one watch post where the guards were actually doing their job.

  The apples broke. Putrid fumes spewed out.

  The reaction was immediate. The guards choked—but before a cry of alarm could escape, coughing and retching drowned out all sound. Two-thirds of them doubled over, vomiting their guts out, writhing on the ground in helpless spasms. Desperately, they tried to clear their eyes as the mix of butyric acid and hydrogen sulfide assaulted their senses.

  The smell was probably unspeakable—distilled vomit fused with rotting eggs, sour decay, and a chemical stench straight out of a necromancer’s fever dream.

  The stealthed zombies scrambled forward.

  The main line of the enemy camp—where soldiers still slept beneath their tents—had yet to react.

  Adarin spotted Rüdiger stepping up beside him, supported by two black-metal-clad skeletons. The man, as always, looked absurdly overdressed—but the look on his face was dark, serious, and focused. He’s not even asking how it’s going. I do love myself such a commander. But I’ve got a moment...

  “Margrave von Erlenwald,” Adarin said, voice clipped and fast. “Reporting in. I’ve taken out the guard posts. The undead are advancing. Twenty seconds.”

  “Gut, gut,” Rüdiger mumbled in his native tongue, still catching his breath and wiping sweat from his brow.

  The wind continued blowing steady, picking up the prepared reservoirs of broken apples. The putrid fog rolled downslope, creeping toward the encampment. Adarin pushed a command through the noospheric link: ‘Increase speed.’

  Movement stirred in the encampment.

  Someone’s noticed. Someone’s figured out the wind isn’t natural.

  Then—shouts. Tents burst open. Soldiers spilled out, half-dressed, weapons barely in hand, armor half-fastened. Formations stumbled together in the dark.

  Too late. The zombies were among them.

  They clapped their hands together in eerie unison.

  Fssshhhkk. Another wave of gas burst out—rotting, eye-stinging, bile-choking.

  Men screamed. Others fell. Vomit flowed in streams as chaos took the line.

  The white fog, tinged with a faint green glow, drifted ghostlike beneath the emulated moonlight.

  It rolled over the chaos of the camp like a shroud, swallowing the screams and retching. Men clutching their stomachs, panicked and howling, vanished beneath a silent blanket of death.

  Adarin opened the noospheric link again, broadcasting to the commanders. ‘Go, go, go. Phase two is a go.’

  The eye-like tattoo stirred again, but Adarin ignored the message. Kill now, read later.

  Thunder cracked as explosions tore apart the quiet of night. The Order’s few cannoneers had fired their salvo—then moved fast, packing up their guns with trained efficiency.

  Cohorts of undead, controlled by the bulk of the necromancers, now advanced in formation. A tide of rotting, groaning flesh. They came down the hill like a grim tsunami, sweeping through the fog toward the broken men below—retching, writhing, mewling in their own bile.

  Distantly, a voice whispered through the link. ‘Miss Mathilda, confirm status of rearguard.’

  She and ten other necromancers had but a thousand undead against the dragon-blooded rearguard.

  The sacrifice.

  Their army was nearly 20,000 strong now, the graveyards fully spent.

  Adarin and Rüdiger advanced behind the line, cloaked in the shadows of their black-skeleton guards.

  Only a sliver of Adarin’s attention stayed with his steps. The rest tracked the battle—the spiders—pushing forward through the fog and confusion.

  Then—there. At the rear of the camp, where torches flickered in clusters, were several pockets of resistance. Smart officers had rallied, drawn in surviving men, regrouped.

  Adarin passed distance and coordinates to Rüdiger in curt phrases.

  From the forward edge of the undead lines, death squads of black skeletons broke off and surged forward.

  They ran—not shambled—sprinting like phantoms across the uneven ground, weapons in hand, eyes burning.

  They had one task: Kill officers. And if I’m lucky... maybe I’m getting the war council.

  Things were going well, Adarin noted. The enemy cannon line had been overrun.

  Behind the front, cannoneers rushed forward with mules to secure the plundered artillery.

  Adarin allowed himself a rare smile—in the privacy of his mind-space. Textbook victory. Feels like yesterday. Nice to know my skills aren’t rusty.

  That was when the bellows came. Loud. Wet. Horrid. Several erupted near the front.

  Adarin turned his spyglass just in time to see zombies hurtling through the air—launched like ragdolls from within the fog-drenched ranks.

  He swept the lens lower—and spotted them. Half a dozen hulking forms were moving through the mist. Towering. Wobbling. Covered in boils and sagging sludge.

  Rüdiger, beside him, extended his own spyglass.

  Then cursed. “Schei?e, Swamp Trolls.”

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