“Attack!” I roared. “Destroy anyone who resists!”
Behind me, my party members and the Brakith guards roared out their battle cries. Led by Rollar, charging into the battle on his undead direbear, blasting sonic booms of thunder from his hammer, they raced into the mass of enemy troops.
The rebellious conscripts needed no further encouragement to turn their weapons against their former masters. The Church commanders and veteran troops were now on their back feet, fighting for their lives, and nobody would be able to even think of arresting the mutineers.
“Fight for the God of Death!” one of the conscripts yelled, yanking off the white tunic that marked him as a Church soldier. “Fuck the Church of Light. Let’s kill these hypocritical, stuck-up bastards!”
Tens of thousands of other conscripts roared out their approval and tore off their Church tunics. Their spears, axes, bows, and swords were turned on their sergeants and the veteran Church warriors. As the first of my harpies started crashing into the massed ranks of veteran soldiers like boulders launched from celestial trebuchets, the mutineers began attacking their former masters.
I watched my horde of harpies smashing through the Church ranks. The undead creatures dragged screaming soldiers hundreds of feet into the air only to drop them like stones onto their comrades.
The rebels were fighting tooth and nail for their freedom while my party was carving a path of ferocious destruction into the heart of the Church Army. My wyrm was laying waste to entire divisions at a time, plowing through them and diving underground, then resurfacing in a volcano-like explosion of earth a hundred yards away to devour yet another 50 or 60 screaming soldiers in one savage gulp.
“Let’s have some fun, Talon,” I growled, pulling the power of Death into the chain end of my kusarigama.
It was time for me and Talon to get in on this action, and I swooped down with my kusarigama whirling around me with deathly glee.
The battle raged for the best part of an hour, but the result had been a foregone conclusion from the outset. And when the last of the veterans and commanders died, I raised the dead …
And now I had a new army on Prandish soil.
Back in the assassin’s den in Luminescent Spires, Yumo-Rezu and Friya were trying to shake me awake. My work in Brakith was done, so I gave Rollar some orders on what to do next, then pulled my spirit out of the actor’s body and returned to my own body.
“Where did you go?” Yumo-Rezu asked. “You’ve looked like you’ve been in some sort of trance for the last few hours, and I could sense that a large portion of your spirit had left your body.”
“Oh, I was just in Brakith.” I opened my eyes and grinned at her. “You know, annihilating a hundred-thousand-strong Church of Light Army. All in good night’s work. And now that that’s been taken care of, it’s time to break into the vaults of Luminescent Spires.”
Chapter Twenty
Now that the Church of Light army had been obliterated and Brakith freed, it was time to get my forces to Luminescent Spires for the final battle. Stealth was no longer necessary, at least not for the members of my party and my undead troops in Brakith; I was sure that Elandriel had watched the battle and witnessed the destruction of his army. Stealth was, however, very much necessary here in Luminescent Spires, since a large part of my strategy had relied on deceiving Elandriel by possessing the body of the actor. To keep the illusion up, I retained possession of my doppelganger’s body. He—I—would lead my forces to Luminescent Spires, openly this time, flying by day via my undead harpies and camping in abandoned forts and other secure places at night.
Elandriel had no idea that I was right here under his nose, and I intended to keep it that way for as long as I could. My assassin allies returned to the den just before dawn, and they brought with them a good number of additional assassins.
“You’re in luck, brother,” Rhuz said to me. “A member of our brotherhood recently infiltrated the vaults to carry out a mission there. He has some valuable information. Brother Yollah al-Khazar, step forward.”
A thin, wiry middle-aged assassin stepped forward and bowed before me.
“Brother Jang al-Ghazul,” he said in a reverent tone, “you are a living legend in our order, and it is an honor to serve with you.”
“And I am honored to serve with all of you,” I said. “Brother Yollah, what do you know of Luminescent Spires’ vaults?”
“A lot,” he answered with a sly smile. “A disgruntled treasurer hired me to dispatch one of his superiors, who was embezzling gold and sleeping with said treasurer’s wife. It was a long game, two years in the planning and execution. I had to be hired as a guard, and then earn the trust of the senior guards to work my way up to the rank of Guard of the Lower Vaults—that’s where all the most valuable loot is kept.”
“So, you know the layout of the vaults, I take it?” I asked.
“Like the back of my hand,” he answered. “I could lead you through the vaults blindfolded, if necessary.”
“Can you get us in?”
Yollah frowned and shook his head. “That’s the difficult part, and that’s why I had to go with such a long game when it came to assassinating the senior treasurer. I first asked the Thieves’ Guild for assistance, thinking that they would jump at the chance to break into the richest vaults in all of Prand. They
