"How long do you think they'll stay there?"
Morgana advanced to me while I observed the horizon.
Before me, outside the towers' radius of action, it was possible to see a colossal quantity of infantry. A dark stain that stretched as far as the eye could reach, breathing together, moving together — the way only a real army moves.
I had already seen numbers like that before. Against the Tyrin. But there was a fundamental difference, and it bothered me more than the quantity: Tyrin were beasts. That thing had command. It had a march order, it had hierarchy, it had someone at the top deciding which lives to spend first. Beasts you defeat with terrain and patience. Armies, no.
I could identify some Burmans in the middle of it.
But the majority was of Orghaal and Firewood units.
And it was almost funny — if it weren't so cold — that, even now, those Burmans were intelligent enough to send the expendable first. The tactic was clear: use those races as bait for my towers, saturate the targets, exhaust the reloads — and, in the middle of someone else's carnage, make their own infantry advance into the territory.
It was cruel. And, very probably, it was clear to everyone involved.
Including to those on the front line. That was the detail that impressed me most: they knew. Every Orghaal, every fairy in that first line, knew exactly what it was — a shield of flesh so that the Burman army would arrive whole at the wall. And they marched anyway, because the alternative was to die sooner, at the hands of those who should be on their side.
Except for one of them, of course.
Even at that distance, I recognized the enormous six-armed Orghaal shouting alongside his own infantry, excited as though that were a party: Broxes. And, almost beside him, Irepia — the Firewood seemed far more contained.
Almost sad.
✦ ✦ ✦
In the end, Irepia was intelligent enough to know there would be no retreat for her.
Everything she built, everything she strove for over who knows how many years, would die crashing against my wall — and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. Giving up wasn't an option: the Burmans would kill her right there, exactly as they did with the Lycan. She didn't choose that war. She only discovered, too late, that she was inside it.
So all that remained was to risk it.
I still asked myself, for an instant, how many of those fairies down there knew that.
Whether Irepia's intelligence was something that extended to her summons — whether they comprehended what she comprehended — or whether they marched believing they would return home.
In the end, I shook my head alone, remembering the inhumanity each summon carried. They would follow the leader and any order to the death, even if it were the dumbest of all. That was what the Oasis gave to whoever was intelligent enough to understand what that kind of subordination meant: obedience without hesitation, without question, without fear.
For Lords like Irepia, all of that down there probably was nothing more than meat to be thrown into the grinder.
Her pain didn't come from what would happen to the units. It came from the fact that, this time, she was in the middle of them too.
And that's how commanders work when they've already lost: they carry the truth alone.
And, unfortunately for her, I wouldn't give a single centimeter of pity.
She was in the way of my victory — and I wouldn't spare efforts to bring her down. She was probably stronger than her own mages and soldiers. But I doubted very much that she was capable of enduring a flood of damage from the towers like the Tyrin queen endured.
In the end, she was more time than solution.
And I hated the fact that that thought came without any effort at all. Months ago, I would have hesitated — or, at the very least, felt something before reducing an entire creature to a scheduling variable. Now I just noted it and moved on. The Oasis doesn't transform anyone all at once. It goes scraping little by little, and one day you notice what's left.
Morgana looked at me sideways in that instant — and I had the impression she had read the entire thought on my face. She said nothing. She never did. But there were hours when that silence of hers weighed more than any sermon.
"They'll probably wait for dawn — when they'll have the maximum time possible before more Tyrin appear."
✦ ✦ ✦
The tactic employed by the Burmans was to skirt the ravine, trying to stay outside the reach of my towers, and to opt not for an attack coming from atop the wall, but from the front.
The main reason, I believed, was the Burman elite units: they couldn't fly. Nor glide. All that concentrated power needed, in the end, its own feet and the ground to propel itself — attacking me from the front, trying to enter my walls, was the only option left to them.
There was another possible reading, and it was more uncomfortable: maybe they didn't want to come down the wall because they already knew what was inside it.
A troop entering my space from above would be a troop entering the range of my reinforced Magic Tower — along with the griffins, and even the Yokais, who could attack from below with webs. All of that without any real capacity to defend themselves in mid-air. They would be paratroopers descending slowly while every weapon in the world aimed at them.
And, honestly, I wouldn't respect any rule of benevolence.
In the end, they were intelligent enough to understand one thing: I wasn't honorable enough to give someone time to prepare.
And the uncomfortable part was knowing they had understood that without knowing me. Just by observing.
It was exactly that which made those two brothers so sharp — and it was exactly that which gave me chills.
Fortunately, if there was anything good in all of that, it was that their choice cost time.
Because, skirting the ravine, they ended up having to help me clear the Tyrin advancing toward my towers — a free service rendered to the enemy, and I doubted they had found it funny. At the end of the night, they assembled at a distance an improvised mini-wall to hold the sporadic attacks. Something crude. A heap of earth, stone, and whatever was in front of them.
Temporary.
And, to me, each stone piled on that improvised wall was a small confession: they didn't intend to stay. No one builds badly unless they know they won't need it for long.
And that was one of the reasons I was certain the attack would happen in the morning. Any time beyond that would be a favor rendered to me — while they risked losing units defending themselves from enemies that were, by right, my responsibility.
Those two Burmans weren't fools.
And, the more I observed their choices, the more one thing became clear: I had spent the entire night reading the enemy. But the enemy had also spent the entire night reading me. The difference is that on the other side there were two war brains doing it.
And, on mine, only one.
✦ ✦ ✦
"Zeus… enumerate the units I possess."
[ Understood. Enumerating. ]
[ Mages — 40 units ]
[ Griffins — 5 units ]
[ Urskra — 4 units ]
[ Cockatrice — 1 unit ]
[ Yokais — 97 units ]
[ Owl-Bear — 1 unit ]
I hadn't managed to evolve much.
The only real change was twelve more Yokais, produced with Arachne's help — who hadn't stopped reproducing for even an hour. My main problem was another, and it was more annoying to solve than any enemy: the absence of enough workers to build the soldiers.
I had spent most of them to survive the Tyrin attack.
Fortunately, with Eris's help, I managed to make up for that lack. Honestly, I didn't even know it was possible — but she explained to me that the same item that allowed ceding units also allowed making workers available. That saved me time and capital, because I wouldn't need to build new houses before building a single soldier.
The deal, of course, had a price.
For the borrowed workers, I was obligated to hand over to her half the units I built — but only at the end of the fight. And only if we were alive to fulfill the promise. Until then, each of those soldiers answered to me, and only to me.
I was almost certain that clause didn't come from her.
It came from the family. From someone seated very far from there, who looked at my units and saw an opportunity: if she came out alive, she would come out with an army capable of making the rest of her time in the Oasis infinitely more tranquil. And, even if she decided not to come back after the Purge, those units would be of great help to her house.
It was interesting — almost admirable, in a repugnant way — that, even in moments like that, involving life and death a few hours away, the business factor still existed in the middle of it.
Maybe that was exactly why that family was rich.
Anyway. The fact is that, thanks to her, I had the units I needed.
[ Warrior Inheritance — 240 units ]
Two hundred and forty three-meter bodies with dragon's blood running inside.
Each of them built with a drop of my own mana. Each of them carrying, without knowing, a piece of a creature that spent eras chained in the dark. I had emptied my own body repeatedly until my fingers tingled, slept three hours in a day and a half, and drunk mana potions until I tasted metal in my throat.
Lined up in the courtyard, in absolute silence, waiting for orders that hadn't yet been given. None of them moved. None of them breathed loudly. And, looking at that, I had the strange sensation of standing before something the Oasis had never seen — and that maybe it would prefer not to see.
Two hundred and forty seemed like a lot — until you looked at the horizon and began to count the other side. Then it became a handful. An excellent handful, I admit. But a handful.
✦ ✦ ✦
For some reason, Eris liked mobility a lot.
So much that her units came down, basically, to heavy cavalry — nearly three hundred of them. It wasn't the kind of troop that would help me buy time against an invasion; cavalry doesn't hold a wall, cavalry doesn't plug a hole. But it was unit enough to cause an absurd quantity of deaths the instant the enemy entered our kingdom.
Of all the human units I knew, that cavalry was, by far, the most powerful.
It probably derived from the extremely high level of her stable — but that was something I didn't ask. In the end, it would have to suffice. Aside from the cavalry, she still counted on the ten Brutal Birman and the thirty Fire Fairy I had transferred before she left to fetch the family item. The Brutals were, individually, the most lethal thing she had. The fairies, the only real magical cover.
The other good news was that, despite Eris being very inexperienced, her heroine made up for that lack with room to spare.
✦ ✦ ✦
Fola.
I had learned her name two days earlier, and not from her mouth. It was Eris who said it, in passing, like someone mentioning a piece of household furniture — and only then did I realize that, until then, all of us called her only "the Centaur." Myself included.
An Equine Centaur — half woman, half horse, with deer antlers rising from her head like a crown no one needed to give her.
She was surprisingly good at handling combat, and seemed to have an enormous experience in coordinating Eris's cavalry — the kind of experience you don't acquire in a year, nor in ten. From what I saw, Eris had simply allowed Fola to be the territory's force of defense and attack, while she herself handled management and maintenance.
That was something only an Epic hero could sustain.
And there was a delicious irony in all of that: the Equine Centaurs hated, with all their strength, being treated as mounts. Even so, Fola had carried the Void Aquamarine on her own back when the situation demanded. Not by order. Not by humiliation. By calculation. Whoever manages to swallow their own pride at the exact hour is the kind of commander I would like to have at my side — and exactly the kind I wouldn't like to face.
And, even now, I looked at Eris with different eyes. Despite seeming naive, despite trying to solve everything with money, she was humble — genuinely humble — and understood exactly where her own limitations got in the way more than they helped. She didn't insist on commanding what she didn't know how to command.
It was something I didn't expect from someone of her caliber.
The truth is that I had judged Eris by the beginning. By the girl lying on the ground, hidden, trembling before an envoy. But whoever vanishes from the field of vision when they can't contribute, and reappears with workers, capital, and an army when they can, isn't a coward. They're efficient. There is an enormous difference between the two things — and it takes too long for most people to learn what it is.
And it was, very probably, what kept her alive for so long in such a hostile place. How many nobles had I seen die in the Oasis for thinking noble blood substituted competence? Eris had understood early what many never understand: commanding those who know more than you is the fastest way to lose everything.
It was almost funny. I had thrown a severed head into her arms to force her to be my ally — and, days later, she was the only reason I had an army, workers, and a cavalry commander. I had made the right play.
✦ ✦ ✦
While I observed the enemy pile up, alongside Morgana and Livina, the leader of Eris's heavy cavalry finally decided to appear.
Honestly, I didn't think it would take so long. In the end, she seemed to have her own ideas about how she should act — and the hour at which she would appear to state them was, apparently, one of them.
"Lord. I'm taking the cavalry to the north gate. I believe our units can employ a tactic of rapid attacks and return to the gate — this way, we manage to hold the external line with the minimum of magical protection units."
The great Centaur, despite seeming polite, wasn't the kind of hero who asked please.
There was no insolence in that — only the naturalness of someone who spent too long being the military authority of somewhere and hadn't learned, nor felt the need to learn, the shape of permission.
And, to be fair, her idea wasn't bad.
The lack of magical units to protect the wall was still what held me back. I could have focused on building Inheritance archers — but, at a cost four times greater than the warriors', I preferred to set it aside. I didn't even know how powerful they would be in comparison. What I needed, in that moment, was numbers. And the warriors fulfilled that role.
But choosing that cost me containment power.
Because my territory, like it or not, had more than doubled in size with the annexation of Eris's. And, with her units coming down to cavalry, everything became harder: I had double the perimeter to cover and not a single additional troop capable of causing damage from the wall.
So, yes: opening the gate, making a rapid advance, killing as much as possible and returning seemed a good idea.
My concern was another.
If something went wrong, the gates would have to be closed immediately — condemning all of Eris's units that were outside, all at once. And the one who would give that order would be me. It wasn't as simple as the Centaur made it seem.
But maybe it was precisely for that reason that she wanted to stay at the north gate. If the hand that closes the gate is hers, the decision about who stays outside is also hers. No decent commander hands that calculation to another. Much less to a human they've just met.
"I won't allow it. I'm going to spread my magical units across the entire wall. What we need is time. There will be no way to prevent the enemy's entry — but, if we manage to restrict their access to the gates, we'll have a chance. I'd rather you serve as a barrier when the gate falls than risk dying on enemy terrain."
The enormous Centaur grew pensive, observing me from above. Maybe trying to understand how it felt to be contradicted — for the first time in a long time.
Morgana and Livina, on the other hand, seemed not to like that horse-woman one bit — so much so that they placed themselves in front of me while we talked, shoulder to shoulder, like two doors closing.
I didn't mind.
Honestly, in that moment, we were all in the same boat. And the boat was sinking.
"Very well, human. You seem to understand some things. I'll give you my vote of confidence — but know that I won't make any knight available to defend this place. I'm going to focus on protecting the gate of my Lord's kingdom."
"HOW DARE YOU, YOU—"
Before Livina could finish, I stopped her with a gesture.
"That's fine… Thank you for understanding. If you need anything, I'll leave some units stationed nearby to help."
Fola didn't stay to hear the end.
She turned around and returned riding in the direction of what was her own Lord's kingdom, hooves striking the earth at a rhythm that had neither hurry nor courtesy.
I stayed watching her move away longer than I needed to.
Not out of rage. Out of recognition. That creature had just told me, to my face, that she wouldn't spend a single knight on me — and, at the same time, had given me the most valuable information of the morning: where she would be, what she would do, and what I could count on. No enemy does that. Neither does a bad ally. Only someone who intends to fulfill exactly what they promised.
✦ ✦ ✦
"My Lord… why do you allow that Centaur to speak to you like that?"
Morgana seemed irritated. Unconformed, in truth — in the way of someone who takes offense on another person's behalf with more commitment than the offended person themselves.
I simply looked at the sky, which was beginning to lighten in gradient — that dirty blue, almost gray, that precedes the first sun.
"At this moment, there shouldn't be enemies on this side…"
I looked at the horizon, where various units remained stationed, waiting for the light.
Morgana didn't answer right away. Livina, beside her, understood first — and the half-smile she opened had nothing amusing about it.
Because the truth was simple, and fit into a single calculation. Outside, there was an entire army wanting my head. Inside, there was exactly one creature of difficult temperament, with a lethal cavalry, guarding the only gate I didn't have units to cover. If I spent pride on Fola, I wouldn't be defending my authority. I would be opening a second front inside my own walls.
There is a specific luxury in being able to take offense. It's the luxury of those who have margin.
And I had no margin at all.
"There are too many enemies to make new ones."