The night over Mousillon was not dark; it was sick. The fog glowed with a greenish luminescence, residue of the magic saturating the land. Geneviève divided her two hundred and eighty men into two groups.
"Baldrick," she said, her voice low like the hum of a taut bowstring. "You take the bulk of the troops. Archers and sergeants. Position yourselves on the east side of the valley, where the ground is muddier. At my signal, I want hell."
"What kind of hell, Commander?" asked the veteran, checking the oil on his arrows.
"Noise. Fire. Scream as if you were King Louen's entire army. I want those corpses to think ten thousand knights are charging from the eastern flank."
Geneviève turned to Tristan and ten of the best Knights of the Quest. "You come with me. No horses. No torches. We become shadows. Our target is the winch mechanism of the sluice gates on the west side."
Tristan swallowed, nodding. He had stopped shivering. The fear was still there, but now it was cold, useful.
At exactly midnight, a flaming arrow rose into the sky, drawing an orange arc against the rotten green. It was the signal. Two hundred men began beating their swords on their shields. Drums rolled with a frantic rhythm. Incendiary arrows rained down on the skeletons guarding the east side. "FOR THE LADY! FOR BRETONNIA!"
The effect was immediate. The sea of bones moved. Like a disturbed swarm of insects, two thousand skeletons turned their skulls toward the noise. The Black Knights spurred their dead steeds toward the source of the disturbance. On the Dam, the Necromancer in the red robe screamed orders in a guttural tongue, pointing his staff east. The bone catapults began to rotate.
The Infiltration
While chaos exploded in the east, Geneviève and her team slipped through the mud in the west. Geneviève moved unnaturally for someone in full armor (Kensai: Path Without Trace). She made no sound. The black Gromril absorbed the light. They scaled the stone wall of the dam using grappling hooks and pure physical strength. They arrived on the walkway. It was deserted; the guards had run to see the lights in the east.
Before them was the mechanism: a series of huge rusty iron gears and chains as thick as a human arm, connected to a petrified wooden winch. "Quickly," hissed Geneviève. "Place the oil on the gears."
The knights began pouring barrels of whale oil and pitch onto the mechanisms. But fate does not like simple plans.
A sudden cold, more intense than the swamp's, hit them. Geneviève looked up. On the central tower, the Necromancer had turned. He was no longer looking at the fake attack. He was looking at them. His eyes were pools of violet void.
"Worms..." thundered the wizard's voice, magically amplified. "You dare touch the Seal?"
He raised his staff. A bolt of green energy shot from the tip, striking the walkway a few meters from Tristan. The stone exploded, spraying shards like shrapnel. "Kill them!"
From the shadows emerged twenty Grave Guard. They were enormous, wrapped in ancient chainmail, armed with great two-handed axes glowing with spectral frost (Wight Blades). "Defend the oil!" ordered Geneviève, drawing Vesper's Light.
The fight on the narrow dam was brutal. Geneviève launched herself at the Captain of the Wights. He brought his axe down to split her in two. Geneviève did not block. She slid under the monster's guard, knee dragging on the wet stone. Vesper's Light sang. An upward slash. The holy blade cut through rusty mail, cut through dry ribs, cut through the spine. The white fire of the holy stone incinerated the necromantic energy holding the bones together. The Wight crumbled into dust and empty armor.
Behind her, Tristan fought desperately, parrying the heavy blows of two skeletons. "Light the fire!" yelled Geneviève, decapitating another enemy with an elegant backhand.
A knight threw a torch onto the oil. Flames roared, engulfing the wooden winch. But the wood was magical, hardened by time and sorcery. It burned, but too slowly. The chains did not give. The Necromancer was preparing another spell, a sphere of death that would wipe out the entire team.
Geneviève understood. Fire was not enough. Impact force was needed. "Back!" she ordered her men.
She ran toward the burning mechanism. The heat was intense, but her armor withstood it. She stopped in front of the main gear, a cast-iron cogwheel as big as a man. She sheathed her sword. She closed her eyes for a second. The energy flowing in the metal, the micro-fractures in the centuries-old cast iron. It wasn't just iron. It was tension.
She opened her eyes. She struck with her right fist, protected by the Gromril gauntlet. It wasn't a punch. It was a seismic impact. KRA-KOOM.
The metal screamed. A spiderweb crack appeared in the center of the gear. Geneviève struck again. And again. On the third blow, the cast iron exploded. The gear shattered into a thousand pieces. Without the ratchet, the monstrous tension of the chains was released. The winch spun wildly, whistling like a banshee. The chains snapped, whipping the air and decapitating two Grave Guard who were approaching.
The Flood
With a roar that shook the earth all the way to Quenelles, the massive stone floodgates of the dam collapsed under the pressure of the no-longer-held water. Millions of liters of stagnant water, mud, and debris poured out of the basin.
"RUN!" screamed Geneviève.
The shockwave swept away everything downstream. The skeletons on the east side were swept away like twigs. The catapults collapsed. The water cleaned the valley, taking away the mud, the traps, and a good part of the undead army stationed in the riverbed.
Geneviève and her men ran along the crest of the collapsing dam. The Necromancer, screaming in rage, tried to stop them, but the platform he stood on crumbled, dragging him into the abyss of black water.
They reached solid ground, panting, covered in soot and bone dust. They looked down. The artificial lake was emptying. The "Toad's Path" was no longer an impassable swamp, but a bed of wet rock and drained mud. The enemy garrison was halved and in total chaos.
And then, on the northern horizon, they heard a sound. It wasn't water. It wasn't monsters. It was a horn. A silver horn, pure and crystalline. Then another. And another.
On the crest of the hill, illuminated by the first light of dawn piercing the thinning fog, banners appeared. The Yellow and Black of Quenelles. The Blue of Bastonne. The Red of Aquitaine. A thousand knights in heavy armor, lances lowered.
Geneviève took off her helm for the first time in days, letting the fresh air fill her lungs. She smiled at Tristan, who watched his uncle's arrival with tears in his eyes.
"The door is open, boy," said Geneviève, leaning on her sword. "Now the real party starts."
Tancred had not waited. He had seen the fire. He had heard the roar. The cavalry of Bretonnia charged, not into the mud, but onto the road Geneviève had opened for them. The earth shook, and this time, it wasn't the dead making it tremble.