The guild camp was a constellation of fires in the darkness, two hundred yards from Ashenfell's walls. Through Dirk's eyes, positioned on a nearby hill, Grix observed their activity. They'd posted sentries, established a perimeter, and gathered in the central command tent where heated voices carried on the night wind.
They were arguing. Debating their next move. Exactly as Grix had hoped.
"They're divided," Mordren observed through the phylactery. "The paladin wants to press the attack immediately, but her officers are counseling caution. Eighteen dead in the first engagement has shaken their confidence."
"How can you tell?" Grix asked.
"Body language. Even from this distance, I can read the patterns. Two hundred years of observing mortal behavior teaches you to interpret gestures, postures, tones. The woman in red robes—senior mage, probably—is gesturing emphatically at a map. She's arguing for withdrawal and regrouping with reinforcements. The paladin keeps pointing at the fortress. She wants to finish this now, before you grow stronger."
"She's right to want that. Every hour they delay gives me more advantage."
"Then don't give them time to make the right choice. Force them to react rather than plan."
Grix had been thinking the same thing. A night raid—small, targeted, designed to eliminate high-value targets while the enemy was disorganized and demoralized.
He gathered his core commanders in the keep. "We're going on the offensive. Tonight. While they're still reeling from today's losses."
"A night assault?" Aldric's tone was approving. "Bold. What's the objective?"
"Kill the remaining mages. I need four more for Mordren's release, and they've got five left in that camp. We take them out tonight, and I solve two problems—eliminate their magical support and get what I need to free an arch-lich."
"The camp is defended," Marcus pointed out. "Sentries, defensive positions, and that paladin never sleeps according to Dirk's observations. She's been pacing the perimeter for hours."
"Then we create a distraction." Grix outlined his plan. "Aldric, you take a hundred eternal guards and assault the eastern side of their camp. Loud, obvious, draw their attention. Make them think it's a full assault."
"A frontal attack on a defended position will result in significant casualties."
"I know. But eternal guards are expendable. Mages aren't." Grix turned to his intelligent undead. "Marcus, Dirk, Kent—you three come with me and Zara. We're the infiltration team. While Aldric's assault draws their forces east, we slip in from the west, eliminate the mages, and extract before they realize what happened."
"What about the clerics?" Zara asked. "They can detect undead through divine sense. The moment we get close, they'll know."
"Not if I mask us." Grix had learned a technique from Mordren earlier—death shroud, a spell that temporarily suppressed the telltale signs of undeath, making undead appear as corpses rather than active threats. "It only lasts about an hour, but that's enough for infiltration."
"Five of us against a camp of forty-plus defenders," Dirk said. "Even with surprise, those are challenging odds."
"We're not fighting their entire camp. We're assassinating five specific targets, then disappearing. Speed, precision, ruthlessness." Grix looked at each of them. "Can you do this?"
"Yes," they answered in unison.
"Good. We move in two hours. Aldric, use that time to position your assault force. The rest of you, prepare for close combat. We won't have room for elaborate magic or tactics—just kill quickly and extract faster."
As his commanders dispersed, Mordren spoke through the phylactery. "You're risking yourself directly. Commendable, but dangerous. If you die in this raid, everything falls apart."
"I know. But I need to see this through personally. Need to know I can do more than just hide behind undead servants."
"Hmm. Pride. It's both necromancers' greatest strength and fatal weakness. Just ensure yours is the former."
Grix spent the next two hours preparing. He applied death shroud to himself and his infiltration team, watched their obvious undead characteristics become muted and less detectable. He practiced Soul Harvest a few more times on animals, trying to increase his success rate. And he meditated, centering himself for what was coming.
This would be his first time deliberately hunting and killing sapient beings who weren't directly attacking him. The adventurers who'd assaulted the fortress were legitimate self-defense. But this? This was assassination. Murder, by most definitions.
They came to destroy me. They declared their intention to tear down my fortress and execute me. This is still self-defense. Just preemptive.
The rationalization felt thin, but Grix pushed the moral queasiness aside. He'd crossed too many lines already to start developing a conscience now.
At midnight, Aldric's assault began.
A hundred eternal guards charged the eastern edge of the guild camp with weapons raised and war cries echoing—artificial sounds, created by magic to simulate living warriors. The effect was terrifying in the darkness.
The camp erupted into chaos. Sentries shouted warnings. Fighters scrambled for weapons. The paladin's voice cut through the confusion, rallying defenders.
"Eastern perimeter! All combat units to the eastern perimeter! Mages, prepare suppressive fire! Clerics, sanctification ready!"
Perfect. The camp's attention was focused east, warriors rushing that direction, magic users positioning themselves to counter Aldric's assault.
Grix and his infiltration team approached from the west, moving low and quiet through the darkness. The death shroud made them appear as simple corpses left from the earlier battle—bodies scattered in the aftermath, nothing unusual.
They reached the camp's western edge unchallenged. Tents stood in organized rows, mostly empty as their occupants rushed to defend against Aldric's assault. Grix could see the command tent in the center—larger, more elaborate, and importantly, still occupied.
Through a gap in the tent flap, he glimpsed robed figures. Mages, staying protected while directing their magic from a distance rather than risking front-line exposure.
Target acquired.
"Marcus, Kent—guard the approach. Kill anyone who comes close. Dirk, Zara—you're with me. We're going inside."
They crept toward the command tent. The sounds of battle covered any noise they made—the clash of weapons, the shouts of warriors, the explosive bursts of magic as the guild's casters engaged Aldric's assault force.
Grix reached the tent's rear wall and carefully cut through the fabric with a knife. The canvas parted silently, revealing the interior.
Five mages stood around a table covered in maps and magical implements. Four were focused on the battle, channeling spells through focusing crystals. One—the woman in red robes Mordren had identified as the senior mage—was shouting orders.
"Concentrate fire on their left flank! The undead are densest there! Area denial spells, create a barrier they can't cross!"
None of them noticed the tear in the tent's back wall. None of them saw death approaching.
Grix raised his staff and whispered a spell. Shadow tendrils erupted from the ground, wrapping around the senior mage's legs and pulling her off balance. She screamed in surprise.
The other mages spun around, but Dirk was already moving. His daggers flashed in the dim light, catching one mage across the throat before the man could finish his defensive incantation. Blood sprayed. The mage collapsed, gurgling.
Zara launched bone shards—a simple attack spell—at another mage. The projectiles punched through his protective barrier and into his chest. He staggered back, trying to cast healing magic, but Grix was already there with his staff.
Soul Harvest activated perfectly. The moment his staff connected with the wounded mage's skull, Grix felt the technique engage. Death energy surged through the mage's body, accelerating his dying, pulling his soul into a binding matrix before it could escape.
The mage's eyes went dark, then ignited with green flame. He stood, newly undead, and turned on his former colleagues.
"Betrayal magic!" one of the surviving mages shouted. "He's turning Aldric against—"
Marcus's spear took him through the back, bursting out through his chest. The mage looked down in confusion at the weapon protruding from his body, then collapsed.
The senior mage in red finally completed her spell. Fire exploded outward in a desperate area attack, forcing Grix and his team to scatter. The heat was intense, her power genuine.
"You dare!" she screamed, flames wreathing her hands. "You dare attack us in our own—"
An arrow took her in the shoulder. Kent, firing from outside the tent. She stumbled, her concentration breaking.
Grix didn't give her time to recover. He lunged forward, staff swinging, and struck her in the chest. Soul Harvest activated again, the death energy flooding into her even as she tried to resist with raw magical power.
The battle of wills lasted perhaps three seconds. Then her resistance collapsed, her soul was bound, and she stood as his newest undead servant.
Five mages entered this tent. Four were now dead or undead. The fifth was running, screaming for help.
"Dirk, silence him."
The scout was faster. His dagger flew through the air and caught the fleeing mage in the spine. The man fell, paralyzed but alive.
Grix approached and raised him with Soul Harvest. Five for five. Perfect success rate.
"Extract now," he commanded. "We have what we came for."
They burst from the command tent into chaos. The camp had noticed something was wrong—someone had heard the fighting or seen the flames from the senior mage's desperate spell. Warriors were turning away from the eastern battle, trying to determine what was happening in their own camp.
"There! In the command tent! The necromancer!"
The paladin's voice cut through the confusion. Elara charged toward them, her holy sword blazing with divine fire, face twisted in fury.
"Run!" Grix commanded.
His team scattered, each fleeing in different directions to split pursuit. Grix ran west, away from the fortress, into the darkness beyond the camp. Elara followed, her armor clanking, her sword leaving a trail of holy light.
"You coward! Stand and fight!"
Grix had no intention of fighting a paladin in single combat. He ran, using his small size to dodge through obstacles that slowed her pursuit. Trees, rocks, rough terrain—all advantages for his goblin agility.
But she was faster than he'd expected. Trained, enhanced by divine magic, driven by rage and duty. She was gaining.
An arrow whistled past her head. Kent, providing covering fire from a concealed position. Elara raised her shield without breaking stride, deflecting the next shot.
"I'll kill you!" she shouted. "I'll kill you and every undead thing you've created! You're an abomination!"
"Then catch me first," Grix taunted, diving behind a large boulder.
Elara's sword smashed into the stone, holy magic shattering rock. Fragments exploded outward. Grix rolled away, barely avoiding the shrapnel.
He needed a weapon. Something to slow her down.
His undead mages. The five he'd just raised. They were still connected to him through Soul Harvest.
"Attack the paladin," he commanded through their shared link.
The five undead mages turned as one and began casting. Fire, ice, lightning—all directed at their former commander.
Elara's expression shifted from rage to horror as her own magic users attacked her. She raised defensive barriers, deflecting most of the assault, but it forced her to stop chasing Grix and focus on the immediate threat.
"You turned them. You turned my people into your slaves. You monster!"
"I gave them purpose beyond death," Grix called back, continuing to retreat. "They serve better now than they did alive. No doubts. No fear. Just absolute loyalty."
"That's not service, that's slavery! You've damned their souls!"
"Their souls serve the cause of necromancy now. Seems like a worthy purpose to me."
One of the undead mages' spells broke through Elara's defense—a lance of ice that pierced her shoulder. She screamed in pain and fury, then charged the undead mages with her sword blazing.
Grix used the distraction to escape into the forest, putting distance between himself and the camp. Behind him, he heard Elara cutting through his newly raised mages, holy magic exorcizing them completely.
It was acceptable losses. He'd gotten what he needed—five mage deaths, five fresh corpses for Mordren.
Three of them survived Elara's rampage and managed to escape into the darkness. Two were destroyed. Still a net gain.
Grix rendezvoused with his team at a prearranged point half a mile from the camp. Marcus, Dirk, Kent, Zara—all accounted for. Plus three undead mages who'd escaped the paladin's wrath.
"Status?" Grix asked, breathing hard from the sprint.
"Aldric reports his assault force took heavy casualties but accomplished the mission—kept them distracted while we infiltrated," Zara said. "Forty-seven eternal guards destroyed. But the objective was achieved."
"Did we get any of the mage bodies?"
"Two. The rest were either destroyed by holy magic or still in the camp."
Two mage corpses. Plus the three raised mages he'd managed to extract. That was five total, but he needed intact bodies for the sacrifice to free Mordren.
"Not enough," Mordren's voice said through the phylactery. "I need seven intact mage corpses of seventh circle or higher. Undead mages don't count—their souls are already bound. And destroyed corpses can't fuel the ritual."
"Then we need more raids. More targeted killings."
"Or you wait for the final battle. When they commit everything, you'll have opportunities to harvest what you need."
Grix considered this. Another raid would likely fail—the guild would be expecting it now, would defend better. But a final decisive battle where both sides committed fully? That would create the chaos and casualties he needed.
"We wait then. Let them come to us. And when they do, we take everything they have."
They returned to Ashenfell as dawn broke. Aldric's assault force was already back, minus the forty-seven casualties. The guild camp was in disarray, scrambling to reorganize after the night's chaos.
Grix climbed to the keep's tower and observed. The guild's formation was breaking down. Some wanted to retreat. Others wanted revenge. The command structure was fracturing.
And most importantly, they were down to zero mages and four clerics.
Their magical advantage was gone. And they didn't have enough holy magic left to counter his undead army effectively.
"They're going to run," Aldric observed. "By tomorrow, they'll withdraw and request reinforcements from the guild."
"Then we don't give them until tomorrow." Grix turned to his assembled commanders. "We attack at noon. Full assault. Overwhelming force. We crush them completely before they can retreat in good order."
"My lord, our forces are depleted from—"
"We still have six hundred eternal guards. They have maybe forty effective fighters left. We attack now while they're disorganized. Drive them from the field. Take every corpse we can. End this decisively."
Mordren's voice whispered through the phylactery. "Aggressive. Risky. I approve. Break them here and the guild will think twice before sending another expedition."
Grix looked out over his fortress, his undead army, his claimed territory. Two months ago he'd been hiding in a cave, terrified of everything. Now he was planning to annihilate a guild expeditionary force.
The transformation was complete. He wasn't just surviving anymore.
He was conquering.
"Prepare for final assault," he commanded. "At noon, we end this. One way or another."