Even as it debated the decisions with its tiny pantheon of underlings and slowly began to make preparations fer tasks, its minions spread in all dires. Some of those were fast moving cavalry units that galloped throughout the night on discordant hooves before they sheltered by night in bogs and ponds. The infantry units moved slower, both because of their short, human legs and the fact that they had to dig their own graves wherever they went.

  There were only three areas of now, though. The first priority was to surround Abenend.

  After that, some small measure of its forces was sent to the north to keep a for any northern armies that might which to disrupt things. A few scouting parties were also spared for the nds it had not yet ravaged to the south-east of Rahkin. Unfortunately, the north part of Dutton ty. There were already nearly abandoned.

  At least, that was what the Lich believed, it was only after almost a week of sc out every trace of life at each isoted farmstead that its scouts reported a small vilge on the banks of the Tolden river that was still pr.

  Normally that would have been enough for the Lich to desd on it a oill living morsels itself, even if it was currently busy with arras for Abenend were it not for one small plication. After many days of discussions with its Dark Paragon, it had decided that further frontal assaults would be fruitless. This left them with two options: tunneling uhe mages’ school-fortress or ying siege to it.

  Of course, in a broad sehey had id siege to the area for years now. It had dotle good, though. The Wiley wizards somehow used their magic to sustain themselves even as the world colpsed around them.

  Tenebroum was just beginning to discuss a different sort of siege involving standing stones more than soldiers, but that was halted when the men and women with light in their eyes were found. That was enough to stop everything.

  Its troops retreated ued, and instead a swarm of bck birds was uo go find out what orment had been unleashed. It took days for more than a few of them to gather, but they revealed no dire news.

  Indeed, other than the fact that two dozen of the two hundred people iiny armed camp had glowing eyes, everything was as it should be. They were just humans preparing for the ing harvest. Other that a palisade and a sturdy gate they were as defenseless as anyone else.

  Still, the Lich doubted. There had to be more thahe eye for such a strange occurreo unfold. He suspected the work of the dead Tempr, or if not him than evidence of another fallen star. The tter prospect was terrifying

  If the gods were tinuing to intervene in small ways at the edges of its domain, then who knew where they might strike at it ? The moon goddess might attack him again from anywhere in the sky, and the All-Father theoretically had everythih the ground within his domain. Then there were the gods of the sea and of nature to sider.

  Tenebroum didn’t feel fear, but suddenly it’s paraned out of trol and it sent spies in every dire and dark messeo che its distant strongholds while it focused on this one. Something wasn’t right.

  As each of its minioed back, though, all they had to say was that everything was as it should be. s tained anomalies, and ating attacks had been unched in ued pces. Even the kidnapped nature goddesses were still trapped in their cells so that Tenebroum could experiment on them as time allowed.

  With trepidation, after several days it sent the dreamer forward to explore the minds of the vilgers , to try to get more information from their sleeping minds. The results were ued.

  The evidence of the light’s touch had made the lich fear the worst, but all it had fouhe embers of hope. “This is where the Tempr id his head while he recovered from your st battle, sire,” the ephemeral Dreamer whispered. “There was a mage too, and some children, but they are gone now.”

  “Where did they go?” Tenebroum demanded.

  “West,” the Dreamer said, pying a piece of a vision that showed the small band leaving. “To take shelter with the mages at Abenend.”

  Even before the spirit had finished speaking, Tenebroum ordered a segment of his cavalry along with a small portion of the gathered raven flock to set out in search of the group. If they’d been forewarned about its ing, then they must be pawns of some importanbsp;

  The trail was weeks old at this point, so magic would be of little aid. Still, it trolled all of the ween here and there, so there was hey could hope to hide from its deathless eyes.

  “Shall I dig deeper and discover who might yet serve you with their whole heart?” the Dreamer asked.

  “Not this time,” Tenebroum answered, shutting dowopic immediately. “They have been touched by the light, and I want only to e them.”

  Ohe Lich had determihat the danger was minimal, it sent a single neuroid to the tiny vilge, projected by half a legion of war zombies. They didn’t attack though, they just got close enough to an unwatched portion of the palisade to fall uhe spell of its minion's psychic screams.

  By the end of the first night, half of the vilge had torher half into bloody shreds over paranoid delusions and imagined grievances. Even after its units retreated before the light of day, the killing tinued. Later that night, its structs returo find only a bare handful left that hadn’t been driven out of their mind by the maddening magibsp;

  That all of them had light in their eyes seemed to indicate that the Tempr’s blessing granted some kind of resistance, but it wasn’t enough. Tenebroum took things slowly after that, sending back its minions eaight just closely enough to ratchet the pressure up on the survivors as other minions studied whies would crack first.

  It was only whehere was a single survivor left that they finally moved in and hauled her away for further study. Her mind was pletely broken at that point, and she was covered in the blood of her family, but she geed such a rich fvor of suffering that the Lich could not bear to put her down until it had delved more deeply into her mind.

  That would have to wait though. It had wasted more than a week of its precious time focused on this anomaly, and even as it devoured the light tainted souls, it turs attention back to the true threat: the mages of the Magica Collegium.

  There, at least, the pn was simpler. Indeed, it was already ongoing. While it had focused on uanding the light’s resistao malign magics, its library had dohe calcutions, and all that remained was for its somber earth titan to do its job and create obelisks and standing sto the required points, so that skeletal dwarven artisans could e along and carve the necessary ruo plete the spell.

  The theory was a simple o was only the scale that was grand. The mages had built their school in a very defensible and highly auspicious pce. Perhaps at one point an army of Temprs and Siddrimites might have been able to marto that valley and pit the love of their God against the bined might of turies of learning and study, but no mortal army hard dared attempted it, almost sihe founding of the institution.

  The forces of darkness had already annihited the surrounding town, but ihree waves sihe initial attack they had done very little damage to the walls themselves. The mages imply possessed too much firepower and too many tricks. So it would take those away, and then it would sughter them to the st a on their secrets so that it would be its future ehat might knoain rather than its own forces.

  Such a rge pn required many parts, though. Its st few attacks had e from forces that had gotten as close as possible via the caves that ran throughout the mountains. Those entrances had long since been colpsed, but without mu the way of dwarven interfere would not be hard to rebuild tuhat went right into the basement of their fortress.

  All it would take, was time. That too was fine, sihe fourteen mos that would have to be raised, and the Strangulite that would have to be fabricated to to power them would also be extremely time-ing.

  What Tenebroum would have preferred to do was create a magical deadzohat bhe whole area, but the equations and forecasts had dubbed that infeasible. Were it to stop all mana from flowing in along the usual routes, more would just e in from elsewhere. Even if the Lich mao succeed, then it would nott be able to follow up wit the coup de gras, because its own structs would have difficulty operating in su enviro.

  Instead, it would have to settle for twisting the current of magic that flowed along the Wodenspine range, and make them uable and alien to the mages. Anti elements in the peaks would poison the currents that flowed through them as surely as it had crippled Oroza when it poisoned her waters.

  That wouldn’t stop them from casting their spells, though, but poisoning the nature and flow of mana would make the results very uable. Albrecht had experienced only the smallest taste of that ohe darkness wormed its way ihe man’s soul all those years ago. Soon, his peers would get a taste of the very same thing, and in the chaos, the Lich would storm their fortress and murder all of them.

  Oroza. For a moment that word sent a thrill e through it, and Tenebroum only pushed it down by force of will. She is not a priority, it repeated to itself for the huh time as it forced itself to calm down. Her river has been poisoned in every way, and she will die along with it while I foore important matters.

  The Lich had many more important tasks to do, of course. It had to split the soul of its paragon into perfect copies to prepare for all the wars to e, it had to finalize the spirits in its dark garden, or at least end them and give them up as failures, and of course, it had to use the very air itself to create itself in a dread sort of alchemy. pared to those tasks, Oroza’s ultimate fate was less than meaningless. Whether she died tomorrow or a decade from now, she could barely even challe iers of her own river anymore.