25. A Low-Cost War of Attrition

A Low-Cost War of Attrition

Gargoyles, the favored scouts of the Mavis army, possessed several unique advantages.

These winged stone statues, given life through magic, were smaller even than children, and dark mason apprentices could summon them in great numbers. Their toughness and small size made them extremely difficult to destroy with projectiles, while their density allowed them to fly freely even under very poor natural weather conditions.

The newest versions of the gargoyles had been inscribed with magical patterns that allowed them to cast fireballs. Those patterns were also connected to the constructs’ rudimentary intelligence.

True, those fireballs had short range and relatively weak power. Against stronger infantry units, they were only useful as harassment. But in raids, these airborne firestarters were not to be underestimated.

When Mott’s hundredth scout was destroyed, he found himself thinking that perhaps the gargoyles ought to be enhanced with invisibility.

Even without magic, the locals’ weapons—made with iron and driven by fossil fuels—were reasonably effective against gargoyles within five hundred meters.

In the end, Mott was forced to hide the small constructs in trees or on rooftops in order to maintain a clear scouting view of the approaching army.

The fact that the locals possessed thousands of armored vehicles of various kinds did not surprise him. After all, if the civilians of this city owned hundreds of thousands of self-driving vehicles, why should it be strange for their military to possess armored ones?

What truly surprised Mott was that their scouting teams consisted entirely of infantry.

He had used weather magic to infuse the fog around the city with certain properties of lead, thereby blocking the cheapest and most common divination and communication spells. Unless the enemy possessed true scrying ability—which, without magic, seemed nearly impossible—such scouts should have been easy prey for heavy forces, taken apart one by one.

Ah, well.

It was not Mott’s duty to teach the enemy how to conduct their operations. He needed only make them die for his lord.

As the scouting continued, the enemy established dozens of forward bases approximately one kilometer from the fog’s edge, encircling the city. More and more supplies and troops were transported to those bases by flying vehicles with horizontal rotors.

It was like fighting the technological barbarians of the Great Ice Sea all over again, except this time the enemy had no magic.

Still, these people did not display the catastrophic arrogance that iron mages so often did. Their bases had proper walls, though relatively fragile ones, and were equipped with turrets bearing metal-launching weapons that could shoot gargoyles from the sky at range.

In the city center, hidden by fog, Mott directed his three dark masons as they completed the latest batch of crypts.

Necromancy, as a crucial part of Mavis magic, had been shaped by centuries upon centuries of folklore and tradition from many lands. Casting necromancy in darkness or underground was cheaper and easier.

Crypts echoed true tombs in function, but differed from them as well. When it came to rapidly creating low-level undead, they represented the best compromise between cost, construction difficulty, and effect.

Here there were one hundred and fifty thousand dead locals, plus another fifty thousand undead delivered through the original portals, most of which had now been destroyed. There were more than enough souls to draw into the crypts.

Inside the crypts, necromancy reversed the processes of entropy and death. It shaped new bodies for the souls from dust and air, then granted those bodies life by closing the gap between soul and false flesh.

Each crypt could produce a walking corpse in only a few seconds. With twenty crypts operating at once, Mott could raise an army in a very short time.

Many might sneer at the weakness and limitations of low-level walking dead. Necromancers in most cultures often strove to create stronger undead.

But for a Mavis commander, the cheapest and most expendable troops were the preferred choice.

Because they could be hurled at the enemy in swarms, and there they would be violently killed.

And violence produced power.

In fact, the power produced was slightly greater than the power required to create each low-level undead, because the walking corpses also attempted to inflict violence upon the enemy.

Before those souls were used to harass the enemy, consume enemy resources, and strengthen Mott’s own power, they would return to the crypts and be bound once more into dead flesh.

Six hundred thousand corpses advanced out of the fog in loose formation. The earth groaned beneath the weight of the dead.

The locals’ weapons roared. Dead flesh was mercilessly torn apart. Explosions cratered the ground and tossed walking corpses away like dolls. Constructs swept through their ranks on streams of fire, or plunged down from above and exploded, harvesting hundreds of lives at a time.

In less than fifteen minutes, the locals achieved victory.

Three hours later, they won again.

Three hours after that, they achieved another victory.

But this time, before the walking dead were all destroyed, they had come close enough to slam against the walls of the enemy’s base.

Another three hours passed. Night fell. Visibility dropped. A new horde of walking dead surged forward.

This time, it took the locals an hour to wipe them all out, and for the first time—apart from the loss of scouts—they suffered casualties.

Meanwhile, Mott had his dark masons construct a second lightning tower, then a third, and raised within the inner city a sturdy iron wall fifteen meters high and two meters thick.

Eventually, the enemy would either have to enter the area under Mott’s control, or face endless waves of cheap attackers.

Fortifying his position would make it difficult even for a much larger army to launch a lightning assault against his base.

But Mott was no fool.

He questioned several locals who had been converted to his side, and their answers revealed the locals’ trump card.

This was another reason his lord’s conquest plan had been delayed. Still, applying fireproof enchantments to anything important was considered necessary, just as it was when facing Mavis factions who had hired true fire mages.

Hundreds of enemy flying vehicles took to the air. Mott’s next nighttime attack was repelled by explosions and rapid-fire weapons before it ever reached the forward bases.

Since the walking corpses failed to inflict violence on the enemy, the net energy Mott gained was negligible.

If the opponent had been another magic-using enemy, this might have become a stalemate, even a dangerous delay.

But since the locals had to consume resources in battle, they would eventually run dry.

Or at least this army would. After all, more than one hundred thousand people could not possibly be the full extent of their forces.

Far from it.

No, Mott would give them a reason to keep fighting.

At the center of the city, one of the tallest buildings began to emit an ominous hum and crackle. Blue energy discharged along a metal cylinder sixty cubits tall. A few seconds later, a bolt of lightning tore through the sky.

It traveled in an almost perfectly straight line, crossing kilometer after kilometer in defiance of nature, and struck one of the flying vehicles, blasting it apart in midair.

On the count of six, just as the enemy began to react, a second roaring bolt of lightning brought down another of their machines.

Then came another, no matter how they dodged or turned.

Five minutes later, most of the enemy’s airborne fleet had been reduced to burning slag, and most of the surviving machines had withdrawn beyond the tower’s range.

The legion commander sighed with regret that he did not possess one of the true storm towers found in his lord’s stronghold. Those larger and sturdier versions could not only fire a bolt with every heartbeat, but could guide lightning to targets as far as twelve kilometers away. The tower he had built could only reach five.

Even so, the enemy’s forward bases were now as chaotic as overturned anthills. Thousands upon thousands of soldiers moved without order as their commanders reacted to his newly displayed capability.

He did not allow the tower to attack the ground forces.

He would save that power for later, when the true battle arrived.

Let the enemy think the ground was safe.

When the moment came, he would have three lightning towers instead of one, and the enemy would be in too deep to retreat.