replaced with embarrassment, while Will watched his wife with admiration. Such an eloquent rebuttal, he thought.
But Selene had one further thing to add, her voice solemn. “My husband is not your usual idiot.” A second later, her expression cracked, and her lip curled slightly.
That broke the tension, and several of the officers began to chuckle. Will looked to her with an aggrieved expression. You just couldn’t leave off the last line, could you?
She seemed to read his mind, for her eyes twinkled with mischief as she returned his gaze.
Chapter 58
That morning, Will got his first view of the ancient city of Myrsta. It didn’t disappoint. The city was as large as Cerria, and its stonework was just as large and impressive. Long ago, when the two nations had been one, Cerria and Myrsta had been the two prize jewels of Greater Darrow.
Now Will wondered if it would be his fate to destroy that repository of history forever.
It all depends on what Madrok does, he told himself, though it was cold comfort. Relying on a demon-lord to do the right thing was a fool’s game.
He stood on a travel-disk that floated twenty feet above the ground, affording him a better view of the area. The River Myrs emerged from the center of the city, just to the right of the main southern gate. Will and his army were arranged on the same side of the river. They had adopted a tight formation, if such could be rightly said of any formation that included five divisions and close to thirty thousand soldiers.
They weren’t going to enclose the city, but rather they’d formed in a way such that they could move to attack, if necessary, or hold their ground and defend against one or more attacks from different directions. Given the size of their force, it seemed ridiculous to be wary of flanking tactics, but Will didn’t care.
Today, the combined might of Terabinia and Darrow would be serving as his decoy, but that didn’t mean they would be sitting idly by. Depending on how the day played out, they would probably be involved in some degree of fighting, and he wanted them able to minimize their losses as much as possible.
The forward line of the army stretched out more than a hundred and fifty yards both to his right and his left. The formation stretched away to the rear over three hundred yards, forming a vast, nearly square arrangement. The tight lines allowed the sorcerers to closely cover all the exterior edges. In the center, not far back from the forward line, Will’s trolls stood at the ready. Selene stood with them, both to make sure they acted when required, and to help avoid misunderstandings between the monsters and the human soldiers.
The city wall stood roughly seven hundred yards from their forward line, and Will could see a fog of black void turyn that extended from the city two hundred yards in their direction. The fog marked a no man’s zone, the boundary beyond which none of them could cross. The void turyn would poison and kill any human that entered it.
It hardly seemed fair. The demons could come to them, but the humans couldn’t do likewise. Demons could survive for considerable periods beyond the void turyn that they found comfortable, but humans were far more fragile. Will glanced at the massive troll who stood beside Selene’s charger. Though her mount was a full eighteen hands tall, Gan towered over the princess and her horse. The yearling troll held the trimmed-down remains of a young sapling he had uprooted to use as a makeshift club.
Thank the Mother for trolls, Will thought with a smile.
Farther back, closer to the center of everything, Janice and twelve of the soldier-sorcerers were gathered into a circle, prepared to do their part. Streamers of turyn were already swirling around them as they prepared their ritual. They might be called upon to use their magic with little notice.
That was the crux of it. The plan was heavy on contingencies and fairly light on actual plan. Will had devised three possible routes to victory, but the choice would depend on how the demons reacted to provocation.
The worst would be no reaction at all, but Will was fairly certain he could aggravate Madrok into doing something. In his elevated position, Will could see and be seen by nearly everyone. He held out his left hand to one side with the palm down, signaling everyone to hold but remain ready. Then he