Valkyrie's Shadow

Chapter 20

“Ah…ah…ACHOO!”

Two rows of heads watched intently as Avod released a tremendous sneeze. The open flap fluttered loosely on the opposite side of the tent. Painfully aware of the attention of her officers, she tried to restrain her sniffling but failed.

I know they’re just being attentive to their commanding officer, but do they have to just stare at me like that?

She sniffled again, trying to clear her sinuses. The source of her woes was the haze that clung to the bottom of the basin. The light winds that blew through from the north were insufficient to drive it away, and the high summer heat made it all the worse. It hadn’t once rained on their camps since they had occupied the area, making the entire place feel like a giant pile of kindling awaiting that one spark to set it all ablaze.

“Have we fixed our fire problem yet?” She asked.

“We’ve cut down on the number of fires allowed in each camp,” one of her officers replied, “and we’ve ordered everything easily flammable placed far away from them. Things have gotten better in the main camp, but it still happens back in the training camps.”

Damned undisciplined whelps. Damned weather, too. She couldn’t make any sense out of it; neither could the mystics.

It did rain in the basin, but only in the eastern third where heavy clouds rolled down the barrier range. The rest was infernally hot and dry, and foraging parties were turning up with less and less. The fires that she supposed would have to inevitably spring up in these conditions destroyed food and other supplies, halting their once-smooth advance. It was as if someone had tied a gigantic rope around their collective necks and gave it a good yank.

“Did they carry out my instructions to set up separate supply relays with reliable soldiers running them?”

“Your orders went out right after you issued them, General. It’ll still take a couple of days for logistics to catch up.”

Avod tapped a finger against her hip. There was no point in shouting and screaming: she was confident that her trained soldiers were performing as expected. It would take them as long as it took.

The unasked-for delay still tested her patience, however. The southern arm of their advance was supposed to be subjugating the eastern portion of the basin while the northern arm came around and started investigating routes north. The local tribes that fled ahead of the Goblin army’s advance refused to go south or north, so a great number of them now had their backs against a proverbial wall. It would be a good training experience for her troops.

“Anything new from the northern group?”

“A runner came in yesterday, reporting that Zrol’s scouts located a toehold on the other side of the northern passes,” another officer replied. “They’re moving to secure the pass and set up camp on the other side. The main branch of the northern group has been reporting steady progress, but I suspect the next set of runners coming in will report the same problems we’re having here now.”

Avod grimaced at her oversight. It seemed sensible enough, before they realized the condition that the basin was in. Already-trained soldiers would lead the way, while newly inducted recruits would be sent to training camps in the rear. What resulted was chaos: the supplies being delivered over the pass to the west were being destroyed by the undisciplined, careless, and inattentive. The resulting delays would affect their efforts in the north and south.

“What about the Humans these local tribes are so damn scared of?” Avod turned her mind away from their troubles, “We’ve been creeping pretty close to the edges of the basin here.”

“Nothing,” an officer said. “I’m willing to believe that there’s Humans to the south since the Slane Theocracy was southeast of The Neck, but the north seems like nothing but baseless spooks.”

To a Hobgoblin, the gathered officers nodded in agreement. The tales of Human raids from the south closely matched the methods of the Slane Theocracy, but they had discovered nothing substantial about the Humans that supposedly occupied the lands to the north. The only sign that there might be anything there was an old road that was not maintained and had no signs of recent use. Perhaps Humans once lived in the north, and the mere tales that lingered were sufficient to deter the cowardly tribes living in the basin.

“Maybe we should shift our main camp north,” Avod said. “I’d rather not wake up one day to the sight of Angels ransacking my tent.”

“Should be easy enough once our supplies are flowing again. Locals say that the river gets bigger the further north it goes, so forage’ll probably get better the further along we go. We’ll be able to link up with the northern group faster that way, as well.”

“Let everyone know, then,” Avod told them. “Recall that group advancing along that road going southeast, too. I don’t want to alert any of the Humans down south. We’ll finish up here and make our way out without any of them noticing.”

If not for the poor weather, their time in the basin would have been as ideal as she had initially envisioned. There were plenty of tribes to fight and add to their number, but everything else made for a miserable experience. Barely a week into it, she already wanted her army to move on. Loitering here did not net them the resources she thought it would, and was instead leaving them with a deficit. So much for showing the quality of her army to Qrs and Ysvrith.

“How are things going on the western side of the pass, by the way?” Avod asked.

“No idea,” one of her quartermasters replied. “They keep sending supplies and equipment over, so nothing should be amiss. Was there something you wanted changed?”

“No,” Avod shook her head, “just getting antsy, I guess. We’ve been on the move for so long now that not moving forward feels strange…and Jaldabaoth is still somewhere behind us.”

Her officers shifted where they stood, and she saw a few of them exchange surreptitious glances with one another. None of them had been part of the original group that had escaped Jaldabaoth’s hell. They had all heard the accounts and most of them saw the aftermath of the battle at the Ford, but it just wasn’t the same as being subjected to what those who had suffered at his hands had experienced. They had come to join an army, and it was success that drove them forward, not the demonic spectre that loomed to the west.

As their successes grew, so too did their collective ambition. Subjugating small tribes wasn’t sating their appetite for conquest anymore. They wanted something big – or at least they wanted the sense that they were headed towards some momentous battle worthy of the army that they had raised. Jaldabaoth was a tale that they had left behind; now, they only looked for glory on the horizon.

She turned her gaze towards the officer in charge of the camp at the main army’s northern perimeter.

“How far have our scouts gotten along the river?” She asked him.

“The ones that have returned so far have followed the old road as far as the second bend north,” the officer replied, “where another river joins it. The ones that were sent further out haven’t returned yet, but it’s slow going. One in three Goblins probably get eaten by some wild animal or monster along the way…I can get something more substantial together if you’d like.”

“I’ve got a better idea, actually,” Avod said. “Since the next step is north through those passes and into whatever is waiting for us there, we should send word to Ysvrith. The Gnolls will be able to get everything we need done faster and better. Save for the forces that we need to finish up things in the east, we should move on and get to better lands.”

Though she had to force herself to settle down to do so, sleep came quickly for Ludmila. With the Ring of Sustenance, she always felt like she could go on forever, like some sort of Undead being – or perhaps more like some Construct, since Lady Shalltear had recently explained that Undead could indeed become mentally weary.

Wakefulness brought with it change: a new set of Undead to train, a pile of reports and administrative matters to sift through, and a map that had changed far more than she had expected it to.

“Wiluvien,” Ludmila stretched the last of her sleep away, “how long have I been asleep?”

“About eight hours, my lady?”

Wiluvien glanced over to the Vampire Bride that was standing at the table with her, who nodded.

“This looks like an awful lot for eight hours,” Ludmila frowned down at the map.

Two nights had passed since the first sweep of the Goblin army encampments: two more sets of Undead that gained combat experience by clearing the rest of the northern arm of invaders. Unlike the first night, where she had been so ambitious that dawn had overtaken them while they were still cleaning up the aftermath, the following nights were split into nine camps each. With three broad strokes, the entire northern advance of the Goblin army had been eliminated, and there was no indication that the rest had noticed yet…until now.

“It does appear like quite a bit,” Wiluvien said, “but watching it as it happened makes it a bit less substantial. They’ve simply relocated the camps following the road from the Slane Theocracy to the central valley. In total, the number of camps remains nearly unchanged.”

Was this the entirety of the Goblin army, then? Not that it wasn’t a large number, but she had already cleared a third of their number in the last three days.

“Is there still movement through the western pass?” She asked.

“Yes, my lady,” Wiluvien nodded. “These Demihumans continue to replenish their supplies, so there must be something on the other side that can keep this up.”

Ludmila didn’t think that it was possible – not for any lengthy period of time, anyways. Whoever was supplying the Goblin army would be stripping the entire area bare. Another possibility was that the same, mysterious, source of their high-quality equipment was also providing everything else.

“Aside from these movements, have there been any changes in behaviour? Infighting; desertion – anything that might suggest that the army is falling apart?”

“No, my lady – just a lot of moving around.”

Their Shadow Demon sabotage, while enough to arrest the Goblin army’s momentum, apparently hadn’t yet done enough to break down their discipline and morale. The repositioning of their soldiers from south to north suggested that they were preparing to advance in her direction. With the canyon within a day’s march of the closest portions of the Goblin army, she wasn’t keen on finding out what would happen if they all mobilized.

Did she still have time to wear them down? Or was it time to go on the offensive and try to shatter the main body of the Goblin army? Her plan for the coming evening was to pinch off the supply line leading to the tightly-packed cluster of encampments in the central valley, but if they advanced north regardless – or worse, advanced north while her forces were in the south – the risk of a breakthrough was high.

“What’s the river like right now?” She eyed the Katze River, which had camps on both sides.

“I beg your pardon, my lady?” Wiluvien asked.

“How high is it?” Ludmila explained, “Where can it be forded in the central valley?”

“…I’m not sure,” Wiluvien frowned. “We’ve only been keeping track of the camps and the movements of supplies. They mostly just follow their respective sides of the river, but we have no information on the river itself.”

Ludmila walked over to the hall window, peering outside. It was still mid-afternoon. She looked around for her two Shadow Demons, finding them under the dinner table.

“Head out past the canyon,” she instructed them. “Follow the river. Look for all the places that enemy soldiers might be able to cross up through the main body of this army. Report back to Wiluvien with what you find.”

The Shadow Demons flickered away, and Wiluvien lowered her head when Ludmila turned her attention back to the map.

“Apologies, my lady,” she said.

“It is something I should have had you check days ago,” Ludmila replied. “Lady Aura’s map is excellent, but she made it back when the weather was normal. The place is so dried out now that most of the small rivers have been cut down to a trickle. The Krkonoše restore the weather to its natural state over their territory, but I am not sure if it is enough to make the Katze River uncrossable in the central valley.”

“I see,” Wiluvien nodded. “I will keep these sorts of things in mind for the future.”

“The future, huh.”

A faint flush appeared over the Half-Elf chambermaid’s dimples, and she turned her gaze aside.

“It’s fun,” Wiluvien smiled slightly. “If ever you need us for this sort of work, my sister and I will gladly come to help.”

“There will be a couple of new additions to your family come autumn,” Ludmila raised an eyebrow. “There is your mother, as well. I imagine you will have your hands full for the next while.”

“A few years probably,” Wiluvien said, then furrowed her brow. “How does that work, anyway? Will they be Quarter-Elves? I don’t think I’ve heard of anything but Half-Elves before.”

“You have probably picked the worst possible person to ask,” Ludmila smirked. “I seem to be good at fighting, ordering others around and scaring people witless, but that appears to be the limit of my talents. Anyways, I need to get this work out of the way before tonight: let me know if anything happens out there.”

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