Valkyrie's Shadow

Chapter 7

11th Day, Upper Wind Month, 1 CE, 2000 Hours

“Eh? Another one? How hungry are these guys…”

Far below, a Lion Beastman left a long trail through a green field of spring grain. Raul raised his goggles, looking ahead to a farming village about five hundred metres away. He pointed with a leather-clad hand.

“Beastman headed to that village there. Five hundred metres northwest of it.”

“Contacting the nearest sergeant,” the Elder Lich riding behind him said.

Raul sighed, following the Beastman’s trail of trampled grain back to where a much larger set of trails was being made. He lowered his goggles over his eyes again, trying to make out what was there. It was too far to make out for sure even with his goggles, but it looked like three Urmah adults and six children.

His eyes went back to the lone Beastman headed towards the village. It was probably trying to get food to feed the others it left behind. Normally, one would help people out if they were hungry – especially if they had families to feed. But these people ate other people.

Over fifteen hours had passed since the battle in the valley and the start of their sweep across the Draconic Kingdom. The Undead army had long spread out and was chasing the remaining Beastmen across the province. They were under orders to drive them forward, but not kill them. While that was being done, the Draconic Kingdom’s citizens were to be protected.

A pair of Bone Vultures glided below them. They tucked their wings and dove on the lone Beastman, driving it away from the oblivious village. Throughout the day, they found that most of the villagers looked like they stayed indoors whenever possible. It forced the Beastmen to break into their homes, but it also meant that the people never knew when the Beastmen were coming.

“Target has been deterred from its objective,” the Elder Lich behind him said.

“Mm.”

He watched the Beastman limp away. Despite everything, he couldn’t help but feel bad for them.

Being hungry sucked. He knew what it was like to be hungry from the time before the Sorcerous Kingdom. People got skinny and weak. It was easy to get sick and even getting hurt a little bit could be a big problem. But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that people changed.

If things were bad for a long time, the way people thought twisted. They stopped caring about anything other than themselves and the ones closest to them. Sometimes, not even that. Everyone became a competitor. An enemy…and everything one could do to survive – even if it hurt others – looked more and more reasonable.

Raul didn’t know whether these Beastmen were considered good or bad people to their own kind, but Captain Zahradnik was intent on pushing them as far as she could. She wanted to learn as much about them as quickly as possible so they could complete their objectives in the Draconic Kingdom efficiently.

When she explained what she was doing during briefings, reports and their discussions over the battlefield, it sounded rational. But there was another way to look at it: the Captain wasn’t merely satisfied with beating the Beastmen – she wanted to know how to break them.

While they studied the Beastmen, Captain Zahradnik had gone ahead to Blighthold, where another force was securing the city ahead of the fleeing Beastmen. Raul and Olga were left behind to help coordinate field operations and learn what they could. So far, Raul felt that what the Beastmen did was understandable. It might have been because they were desperately trying to run away and couldn’t do much of anything else.

Like Humans and some of the other races that he knew about, these Beastmen formed groups with one another. He wasn’t sure what their families looked like, but they at least protected the members of their groups – especially children. Adults would split off once in a while to look for food. Sometimes they caught birds and small animals; other times they were lucky and found loose livestock or game. They would bring back their kills and share them with the others.

According to what the Captain had heard, Beastmen were fast over short distances, but worse than a Human of the same strength over long distances. She told them that this wasn’t true for all Beastmen, but it looked like it was with these ones. Since they were running with children and old people while also trying to gather food and stopping to rest, they were super slow. Even if he were on the ground, Raul thought he could just out-walk them everywhere.

Their Undead were ordered to move as fast as it looked like the Beastmen could move. He was beginning to think that this type of Beastman – who called themselves ‘Urmah’ – couldn’t even cover the same distance that Zombies could in a day. Then again, that was probably unfair since Zombies could walk all day and all night.

“How far are they from the town?” Raul asked.

“At their current rate of travel,” the Elder Lich answered, “approximately three hours.”

“Are they still going straight there?”

“Yes.”

About thirty kilometres down the road from the site of the night’s battle was the northwesternmost town of the Draconic Kingdom. It was pretty much a straight route and the sea was on one side, so it was hard for the regular Undead to get around to force the Beastmen to change direction without running right over them.

“I guess we should push them away,” Raul said. “Let’s fly over.”

The Skeletal Dragon banked southwards. Ever since the Frost Dragons came to the Sorcerous Kingdom, Raul wondered if he would be able to ride a Dragon one day, but his hopes had been fulfilled in an unexpected way. They weren’t anywhere near as fast as Frost Dragons, but the Captain said that they made perfect flying ‘platforms’ for the Royal Army’s Commanders since they could loiter over a theatre forever.

“Hmm, what should we use…” He frowned down at the town and its surroundings, “How many Elder Liches do we have nearby?”

“Eight.”

Eight was a lot. Especially since they were allowed to use their most powerful summons. The problem was that the Undead army was behind them and they couldn’t do anything that might make the Beastmen think that the Undead were up to anything special. Raul figured they’d notice what was going on pretty quick, but Captain Zahradnik always did tricky things that made him scratch his head over how weirdly stupid people could be.

“What do you think?” Raul asked.

“This one is uncertain what you are asking,” the Elder Lich answered.

“Er…how can we make them change direction without screwing up the plan?”

The Elder Lich fell silent for a few moments.

“One of the sergeants suggests that we emulate the flanking manoeuvre from the recent battle.”

“The flanking manoeuvre…you mean how the infantry company came in? But we’re not supposed to trap them like that.”

“The sergeant was referring to the idea that Undead pursuers might come from the sea.”

“Oh.”

Would it work? The Beastmen couldn’t see what was in the water, so if the Undead started attacking them from that direction they might move away from the shore. The town was on the shore so they’d end up going around it.

“Let’s see what the shore looks like.”

From their height, Raul could already see how the land was shaped, but he wasn’t sure if there were cliffs or anything in the way. The Skeletal Dragon reached the shoreline, settling into a wide circle as he examined the terrain below.

“It’s pretty rocky,” he said, “but I guess that’s okay? The land sticks out a little here too so we can summon stuff without being seen.”

They were told to avoid bringing the Undead into the water, if possible. Demihumans and other things might be living in the sea and the Sorcerous Kingdom didn’t want to make enemies by accident.

The Elder Liches flew down to a beach littered with jagged boulders. Raul watched them, wondering what they would bring out.

“What do you recommend that we summon?” The Elder Lich asked.

“Eh? Me? Uh…I think Blood Meat Hulks would be good. The Beastmen are on the run and they’re too tired to fight anything strong. Blood Meat Hulks are big and tall so they’ll be seen from far away, plus these Beastmen already know what they are. Maybe they’ll run the second they see them coming.”

Below them, the Elder Liches spread out, summoning four Blood Meat Hulks each. With that many stomping around, they would be difficult to miss. The line of newly-summoned Undead headed west towards the nearest group of Beastmen.

“Don’t go too fast,” Raul said. “We’ll end up stepping all over them. All we need to do is lumber in their direction.”

The Blood Meat Hulks slowed down, taking ponderous steps while swinging their dangling arms back and forth. He wasn’t sure whether the Elder Liches were doing it on purpose or not, and he wasn’t sure if he should ask.

About ten minutes later, they came close enough for the first groups of Beastmen to react. The Urmah all swerved away. Their new path would take them far to the side of the town down the road.

“That worked really good?” Raul couldn’t believe that things had gone so well, “We’ve squished them into a narrower space to watch, too.”

There might have been over a thousand Beastmen on the run, but the ‘corridor’ that they were chasing them down was thirty kilometres across. It would gradually grow wider the further they went, so the Royal Army was trying to figure out how to keep things manageable with what they had. While their forces would grow from all the Beastmen that fought and got turned into Zombies, it still wouldn’t be enough to make a giant line across the front.

“Anomalous behaviour has been reported on the right flank.”

Raul turned his attention to the reported location. Ahead of the right side of the Blood Meat Hulk line, several Beastmen had gathered. He adjusted his goggles, trying to get a better look.

“Four adults…it’s those Tiger warriors, though. Is this happening anywhere else?”

“Similar behaviour has not been observed elsewhere.”

“Hmm…”

What were they doing? He couldn’t tell how strong they were. During the battle, groups of the Tiger Beastmen ganged up and easily destroyed Blood Meat Hulks, but could one group win against so many?

“How shall we respond?” The Elder Lich asked.

“We don’t even know what they’re up to,” Raul replied. “We’re not supposed to kill them, either…oh, they’re moving.”

The party of Beastmen charged up and attacked one of the Blood Meat Hulks. One tried to climb up the Undead construct, but fell off when it took a ponderous swing at the others. The Beastmen scattered and ran off towards the next.

“They’re trying to lead them away?” Raul asked, “They started from the right side and they’re headed across the front of the line…follow them for now. Make sure you don’t run them down.”

One by one, the Blood Meat Hulks lumbered off after the Beastman group. The Beastmen eventually got all of them and started leading them northwest. They didn’t seem to care whether they’d run into the other Undead bringing up the rear.

“What nonsensical behaviour,” the Elder Lich said. “These specimens appear to be suicidal. Have they been inflicted with some unknown status effect?”

“We’re controlling what they see,” Raul softly repeated what the Captain told them earlier. “And they only see what they want to see…”

“This one does not discern any logic behind your statement.”

Raul looked over his shoulder. The Elder Liches – whether they were from the Royal Army or working in the administration – were weird in certain ways. They had ‘logic’ which was determined by what they believed was true. Everything was broken down into ‘processes’ that were grounded in those beliefs. If what they observed couldn’t be subjected to their reasoning, the Elder Liches tended to dismiss it as ‘irrational’, ‘inferior’ or ‘impossible’.

“It means that our overall strategy is working,” Raul said. “We’re trying to convince the Beastmen that an Undead horde appeared. It’s one gigantic trick so the Beastmen don’t think we’re trying to save the Draconic Kingdom. The Beastmen down there are acting as bait so the Blood Meat Hulks don’t catch up to the others trying to run away. They don’t need to, but they don’t know what – they’ve made up their minds about what’s going on based on what they can see.”

“Your explanation implies that they expect to perish,” the Elder Lich said. “We have been discouraged from killing any Beastmen during this phase of the operation, but if we do not eliminate them, they may uncover our ruse.”

That was true, too. They’d start wondering why they weren’t dead yet at some point.

Raul examined the area around the Beastmen heroically ‘sacrificing’ themselves to save the others. The main body of the ‘Undead horde’ was still far behind the wave of fleeing Beastmen. Between the two lay an expanse of farmland, copses, and villages.

“Make some of the Blood Meat Hulks get lost,” Raul said.

“Lost?”

“Yeah, um…like the ones furthest away and make them wander off like they lost track of the Beastmen. Make them keep ‘chasing’ imaginary Beastmen until we have a few spread out.”

“What is the purpose of doing this?” The Elder Lich asked.

“So we can control where the Beastmen are going,” Raul answered. “Those guys down there still think the Undead are mindless enough to be lured around, so we’ll use that idea to spread the Blood Meat Hulks out. Then the Blood Meat Hulks will ‘catch on’ again and come from a direction that makes the Beastmen change direction.”

“What is the target direction for the Beastmen?”

Raul pointed to a cluster of about six dozen buildings two kilometres north of where the Beastmen were.

“That village. Don’t go straight towards it though: just close enough for the Beastmen to see it.”

“Our orders are to protect the Draconic Kingdom’s citizens,” the Elder Lich told him. “Your suggestion appears to go against those orders.”

“The villagers have all locked themselves inside their houses from before,” Raul said. “The Blood Meat Hulks will be right on the Beastmen’s tails, so they won’t be able to stop and break down any doors.”

The Elder Lich raised a hand to the side of its skull. Raul fidgeted nervously as he watched the Beastmen run ahead of the Blood Meat Hulks. Their pace had noticeably slowed, turning more into a slow jog.

“Captain Zahradnik has approved of your plan,” the Elder Lich said after a few minutes.

“Huh? Really?”

He was almost sure he’d get in trouble. Olga would’ve definitely started yelling at him for taking unnecessary risks.

“Once the manoeuvre has been completed, you will report to the Captain with your results.”

Eh…

Now that he had permission, he wasn’t sure if he should do it. What if something messed up? He had to go and report to the Captain afterwards…

“Your orders?”

“…let’s start spreading out the Blood Meat Hulks.”

If he said something and took it back, that’d be bad too. He wasn’t sure what was worse: being a wishy-washy Commander or one that took risks.

Far below, a few Blood Meat Hulks slowly drifted apart from the others. After that, some of them stomped away at different angles while others pretended to look around in confusion. Even though mindless Undead could only carry out simple instructions, the Elder Liches were weirdly good at acting with them.

Ahead of the Blood Meat Hulks, the line tracing through the grass by the Beastman group wavered. It looked like they were trying to decide where to run with some of the Undead breaking off from them. After a moment, they turned southeast.

Raul frowned at the abrupt change in direction, which nearly got them stomped on by the Blood Meat Hulks still chasing them. His gaze went ahead, then he realised what was happening.

“Make those Blood Meat Hulks that wandered southeast ‘notice’ them!”

The Beastmen turned back. Raul let out a sigh.

“What happened to them having trouble focusing on more than one thing at a time?” He muttered.

“Our observations over the past few days indicate that their behaviour varies according to situation and motive. Different races of Beastmen also display different behavioural tendencies. In the case of these Nar, they may also have special training as warriors.”

“I guess that makes sense…”

Even though Beastmen were strong, most of them weren’t trained to fight. Warriors were probably trained to harness their instincts or a few Humans with spears would be able to poke one to death. The only ones that used combat-related Skills, Abilities or Martial Arts so far were the Tiger ones. The Tiger ones weren’t all warriors, either: they found a few Nar tribes in the Draconic Kingdom’s capital filled with civilians.

In all, it made it confusing to sort the Beastmen out. They couldn’t even treat the civilians as civilians because they were a lot more dangerous than the average Human and wouldn’t hesitate to attack them. Raul could only tell if one was a warrior after it did something that made it stick out from the rest.

The sound of barking rose from the village ahead.

Is that a Kao? No, it should be an actual dog…

He wasn’t sure if it was because of the dog, but the Beastmen changed direction to head straight for the village.

“Stop barking, dog,” he muttered, “run away!”

The dog kept barking. Raul eventually spotted it standing in the street: it was a black and tan sheepdog, standing in front of one of the homes near the edge of the village. One of the incoming Nar pounced on it and carried its kill away.

“Dammit.”

“Is something the matter?” The Elder Lich asked.

“They killed that poor dog!” Raul said, “All it was doing was standing in front of its home trying to scare them away.”

“I see. How respectable.”

“What?!”

“Dying for one’s master is a respectable fate, is it not?” The Elder Lich said, “I believe this is also codified in Human literature.”

There were stories about Knights and heroes that defended princesses and innocents from danger, but…was that how it was? Rather than feeling respect for the dog, he was angry that the Beastmen killed it.

“Don’t follow the Beastmen out of the village,” Raul said. “Spread the Blood Meat Hulks around the buildings.”

“That’s quite clever of you. Good job, Raul.”

Raul started at the voice to his right. Captain Zahradnik was there flying alongside the Skeletal Dragon.

“C-Captain!” Raul awkwardly imitated the salute of the Undead servitors, “You saw all that?”

“You’re calling me that now too, huh?” The Captain smirked, “I don’t know who started it, but everyone in the army’s been using it since this morning. And yes – I was watching what you were doing. You’ve learned a lot since we started.”

He turned his head away in embarrassment, unsure how to respond.

“This one does not understand what was achieved,” the Elder Lich said.

“It has to do with a problem that the general staff has been trying to address,” Captain Zahradnik said. “We’re purposely driving these Beastmen ahead of us as part of our overall strategy, but it’s becoming clear that the Urmah can’t outpace the Undead. We needed to do something the Beastmen could rationalise as behaviour that allows them to stay ahead. At the same time, it gives us a way to better direct their movements and keep the Draconic Kingdom’s citizens out of harm’s way.”

Did that mean the Captain understood what he was trying to do the moment his idea was reported to her? Raul wondered how she could put things together that fast and act so decisively. People always called him ‘aggressive’, but he was constantly second-guessing himself.

“We’re headed to Blighthold,” Captain Zahradnik told them. “You and Olga have been awake for nearly a full day, so you’re long due for some rest.”

“But I don’t feel tired.”

“You need to be awake when you need to be awake,” the Captain replied, “so you need to sleep when you need to sleep. Now that we have a good idea of what the Beastmen can handle, we’ll be setting a reasonable pace for them. It should be about another two weeks before we push them across the Forst River, so I hope you don’t expect to stay awake that entire time.”

A one-hour flight southeast saw them circling over Blighthold, a small port city sitting on the west bank of the Seylan Estuary. Its plazas and streets were filled with far more people than it should have had, making it look as crowded as the Draconic Kingdom’s capital.

His Skeletal Dragon glided over its grey stone walls, sending the city’s sentries scurrying for cover. Citizens in the streets similarly panicked, ducking under eaves and into dark alleys. The Skeletal Dragon’s flight brought it over the harbour, where Raul saw the familiar sight of Ruin’s Wake moored at the longest pier.

After landing beside the Ghost Ship behind a second Skeletal Dragon – probably Olga’s – Raul hopped off and boarded Ruin’s Wake.

“Raul, over here.”

He turned at the sound of Olga’s voice. His classmate’s head stuck out from a doorway near the hole in the hull. It looked like she had arrived long before him: she was all cleaned up and dressed in the simple blouse and kirtle that he usually saw her wearing in Warden’s Vale. No one would’ve expected she had just come from a battle with thousands of Beastmen.

Raul entered a cabin where a table had been set up and a map laid upon it. Captain Zahradnik was standing on one side of the table with her adjutant, Saiko, arranging markers on the map.

“There’s a Trooper’s Towel on the shelf there,” the Captain pointed to the wall closest to him. “A fresh change of clothes and some blankets as well. Pick out an empty cabin to sleep in tonight and get changed and cleaned up. We’ll begin our debriefing once you’re ready.”

He went and did as she asked, returning to find dinner waiting on the corner of the table. Olga was already halfway through her sandwich. The Elder Liches controlling the Skeletal Dragons had joined them, as well.

“First,” Captain Zahradnik said. “I’d like to say how pleased I am with our progress over the past few days. The rushed nature of this operation made me wonder if everything would fly out of control at some point, but, so far, things have been shaping up as well as can be expected. Please make sure the others know as well.”

Raul washed down a bite with a cup of warm tea on the table.

“Commander Linum and, uh, Commander Linum talked about all the things that might go wrong, but could any of it really happen? We’ve had a few battles so far and it was like we were toying around with them. Chasing them all day today showed us how weak they are when things get stretched out.”

“Some of our initial fears proved not to be as severe as we initially thought them to be,” the Captain said, “but the fundamental issues remain. Our objective in this campaign is not only to fight the Beastmen, but to preserve the lives of as many of the Draconic Kingdom’s surviving subjects as possible.”

Captain Zahradnik looked around the table as if waiting for anyone else to say something. When no one did, she looked down at the map between them.

“Earlier today,” she said, “Raul pointed out something that we can use to maintain our image of an ‘Undead horde’ while also allowing us to control Beastman movements. Honestly, it’s something that we should have considered long before, but our desire to not damage public sentiment by putting the Undead too close to the citizens early on forestalled our use of this tactic.”

“What tactic is it, Lad–Captain Zahradnik?” Olga asked.

“Eating the citizens,” the Captain replied.

Olga stared at the Captain. Raul’s lip twitched.

“Not literally,” Captain Zahradnik smirked. “We hit the limit of how far the Beastmen seem to be able to run for a day about an hour ago. They started dragging themselves into copses and brushland after that, looking for places to hide and rest. The central element of the Katze force is roughly fifteen kilometres away from where the Beastman started to exhaust themselves. If the Undead continue advancing at their current pace, they’ll overrun the Beastmen in their sleep.”

“The Dragonic Kingdom is really flat,” Olga said, “the horizon is only five or six kilometres away. There aren’t any hills or anything to look further from. Well, maybe they can climb some trees, but we can still stop the Undead far away enough that they can’t be spotted. Why move the Undead into villages if we can just stay out of sight?”

“Because we’ve already set a ‘pace’ for the Undead. I at least assume the Beastmen know that the Undead don’t need rest, so we need to show them why they’re slowing down. We don’t need to move into every village that they’ve already passed: just enough to convince them of what’s going on. There is also another aspect of this we can exploit.”

The Captain’s hand moved ahead of the Beastmen’s ‘lines’, indicating the area between them and the Seylan River.

“We can have some groups of Undead get ahead of the resting Beastmen and ‘consume’ settlements. This will deter any attempts to hunt the residents, as they’ll assume that they’re all dead. The Beastmen should only get as close to the villages and towns as they can detect the Undead since getting any closer risks the Undead being drawn to the Beastmen instead.”

“What if the Draconic Kingdom’s citizens attack our forces?” Saiko asked.

“That would be annoying,” Captain Zahradnik answered, “but we should be able to make them retreat. Since we’re moving in advance of the Beastmen, our sergeants can use mind-affecting spells to stuff villagers – and their pets – into their homes. Hopefully, they’ll stay indoors and not cause any trouble in the first place. The Beastmen will feed on what little livestock remains to survive, but I think that the Draconic Kingdom’s citizens would consider that an acceptable alternative.”

“Will we be doing this for the entire campaign?” Raul asked.

“If it proves to be useful, yes. In addition to being able to preempt the movements of the Beastmen, it may also convince them that they can reliably depend on Humans as distractions for the Undead. That way, they’d refrain from attacking Human settlements or taking Humans with them.”

It would be nice if they could keep people from dying like that. Raul’s gaze went to the fortress marked on the nearby northern border.

“What about Highfort, ma’am? Aren’t we supposed to free the people in there?”

“We are,” Captain Zahradnik nodded. “The Beastmen will make it to the Seylan River in about two days, so we’ll secure the fortress and its surroundings before then. Any questions or concerns before I have these updates relayed to the general staff?”

Raul shook his head. So did Olga. The Elder Liches remained silent.

“Alright,” the Captain said. “Oh, one more thing: Raul, you became angry when the Beastmen killed that dog…”

“Yeah. It was mean.”

“Your anger is misplaced. The Beastmen saw an opportunity to feed hungry mouths and took it.”

“People would get mad if something came and killed one of their animals,” Raul said. “How is this any different?”

“It’s not,” Captain Zahradnik replied. “And that anger is also misplaced. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the person in charge of those animals. Just like a shepherd is responsible for their sheep, the master of that dog is responsible for leaving it outside when they could have taken it into hiding with them. People are not animals in the same sense as dogs or sheep – though I’ve heard of soldiers referred to as ‘dogs’ – but those in charge of them are ultimately responsible for what they do and what becomes of them.

“This is especially true for people who have been entrusted with the lives of others. Be they a Noble or a Commander, one has a responsibility to ensure that their subordinates are not squandered. Never forget that.”

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