General Poll stood on a high ridge amongst the towering, snowcapped peaks of the Copper Mountains and looked out over the narrow, steep sided valley guarded by Fort Dirk.

     The mighty fortress had been carved out of the living rock by the Agglemonians two thousand years before. Its topmost ramparts were just visible further down the valley between the peaks of an intervening ridge, the mighty redoubt standing high on another ridge separating a smaller side valley from Bula Pass itself. It was approachable only by one narrow road that switchbacked its way up the cliffs below.

     The offensive that had been timed to coincide with the attack on the Shadowlord in Lexandria Valley had been only moderately successful. The enemy had been pushed back with great loss of life, and there had indeed been some indication of confusion within the enemy command, but not enough. The enemy had regrouped and retaliated, and they were now back to where they'd been before as if nothing had happened. Considering the losses the wizards had suffered in their part of the joint operation, nothing like it was likely to be tried again and consequently each of the small wars being fought around the perimeter of the Shadow would have to be won, or lost, independently of the others. There would never again be any need for coordinated attacks, and the distances between the various battlefronts were simply too great for reinforcements to be moved from one to another in time for them to be of any use. Which certainly simplifies things, he thought as he looked out over the valley. He could focus all his attention on what was going on here and let his counterparts in the other war zones worry about what was going on there.

     He looked down at the last stretch of valley floor he could see before it disappeared from sight around the first ridge. It appeared to be covered by a light sprinkling of snow, the first touch of the bad weather that was expected any day now, but the General, looking through his high powered binoculars, saw what it really was. A vast Shadowarmy, one hundred thousand strong, the sun gleaming on their white painted bone armour and skull helmets.

     This was the first time the enemy had ever made it this far along the valley, having breached the wall that blocked the valley and that had previously trapped invaders under the weapons of fort Dirk. They'd been filtering in ever since the failed offensive, gathering in dribs and drabs, and the Beltharans had been letting them, allowing them to all gather in one place. Three days ago, though, the influx had stopped. There were still hundreds of thousands left in the Shadow, but the enemy had sent all they were going to send for the time being. They knew, as well as Poll himself, what was going to happen next, and the General was surprised, and a little worried, that they were showing such intelligent self restraint. The enemy wasn't worried. In his mind, the war was already as good as won. All he had to do was play it cool and not make any stupid mistakes.

     They had resumed their assault against the Fort Dirk several days ago, and had had it all their own way so far, assailing the fortress with wizards and dragons while their seemingly endless ranks of zombies and humanoids launched one attack on its walls after another. With impunity. The defenders had exhausted the weaponry with which they had devastated the enemy in the first few weeks and had not yet been resupplied. The fortress was strong, but no structure of mere stone could long withstand the forces now turned against it. Poll had completed his preparations just in time.

     Behind the General waited the fifth, sixth, seventh and tenth battalions of the Imperial Beltharan Army, pulled back into the mountains following the offensive. Hidden until the enemy believed they had been withdrawn either into the fortress or back into Belthar itself but instead poised to sweep down on the enemy. Relieving the beleaguered fortress and driving the enemy out onto the Endless Plains where they would be met by the twelfth, fourteenth and fifteenth battalions and crushed. That, at least, was the plan, and it had better work because Fort Dirk was the most powerful of the four fortresses guarding Bula Pass, and if it fell the enemy would have little trouble taking the other three. If that happened, then the Shadowarmies would have unrestricted access through the Copper Mountains and would be able to pour through into the very heartland of the Beltharan Empire. The war would then be over within six months, and Tharia would be a completely undead world just a few years after that.

     He swung his binoculars a few degrees to the right, to where a dozen enemy dragons were sleeping on a high ridge, saving their strength for a renewed attempt to take the city scheduled to begin at dawn the next day. Nine of them were reds, thoroughly at home in the high mountain pass, but there were also three forest dragons, their smaller cousins, a long way from the dense, deciduous woodlands that were their natural home. Both species were normally highly territorial, having ranges of tens of thousands of square miles, and for such a large number to be gathered together in one place was a vivid testimony of the power of the Shadowlord whose influence, somehow channeled from his bone castle in the Pit by means of his servants in the Shadow, had welded together an army from thousands of normally mutually antagonistic tribes and species. It was also testimony to the importance the Shadowlord attached to this battle, and the General knew that the huge flying reptiles would count heavily against him when the fighting started.

     Up until two days ago there’d been royal dragons, traditional friends of humanity, to contest the mastery of the skies with their evil cousins, but they’d all been killed or driven away with critical wounds in a fantastic aerial battle that both armies had stopped to watch. The only royal dragon still visible now was the torn and broken body of a huge male that had been draped over a high outcrop of rock to taunt and demoralise the city’s defenders.

     The effect was lessened, however, by an event that had happened in the middle of the battle between the dragons and that had been witnessed by everyone on the battlefield. Two royal dragons were already dead, lying in a broken heap on the ground where they were being torn to pieces by Shadowsoldiers eager for trophies and souvenirs, and the remainder were suffering heavily under a continuous barrage of teeth, claws and assorted breath weapons. It was looking as though their end was also imminent and most of the city’s defenders had turned away in grief, unable to watch any longer, while a cacophony of chanting and jeering rose from the enemy’s ranks. Suddenly, though, the noise made by the Shadowsoldiers had stopped abruptly, to be replaced by a collective gasp of disbelief, and the Beltharans had looked back to see what was happening.

     Another dragon had arrived on the scene. Bigger, older and looking much more powerful than the others. An ancient red dragon at least three thousand years old whose like hadn't been seen since before the days of the Agglemonian Empire, during which the red and forest dragons had been hunted mercilessly and driven close to extinction. Even the rak Darkthorne, supreme commander of the invading forces, had gaped in awe at its approach, and the younger reds, none of them more than five hundred years old, had given way before it, reverently offering up the surviving good dragons for it to finish off personally.

     But the ancient red had completely ignored the royal dragons and had instead gone into a steep dive aimed directly at the platform on which Darkthorne stood. Thinking it was saluting him or something, the rak had just stood there, not realising its true intentions until it was far too late. At the last second he’d tried to cast a defensive spell, but the blast of incandescent flame caught him before it was half finished, turning his withered, undead body into a pile of glowing ashes scattered by the wind.

     The dragon had then run amok. Lashing out with blasts of flame, ripping and tearing with its teeth and claws, until the ranks of the Shadowarmies were scattered in panic and terror. It had seemed to target the enemy’s wizards and killed over a dozen of them before the other evil dragons came down to deal with it. Two younger red dragons and a forest dragon were killed before the ancient red was finally overcome, and another two were so badly injured that they were no longer able to participate in the battle.

     The ancient red had seemed invincible, indefatigable. It had carried on fighting even after one of its wings had been almost torn away, even after a blast of flame from a younger red had seared its flank, turning its scales into charred cinders that cracked open and leaked body fluids, even though the pain must have been unbelievable. It had fought like a thing possessed, not seeming to care how many injuries it suffered so long as it could cause as much harm to the Shadowarmies as possible. Even after it suffered its last and mortal wound, when the claw of a forest dragon had ripped open its throat and almost beheaded it, it had still managed to take to the air one more time before it died so that its body fell on a regiment of trolls, crushing over twenty of them. It wasn’t until some time afterwards that anyone realised that, while all this had been going on, the surviving royal dragons had managed to escape.

     The event had stunned the Beltharans and Shadowsoldiers alike, and speculation as to what had motivated the ancient red to its berserk, suicidal attack was rife both inside and outside the city walls. The most common theory was that the creature had been completely senile, three thousand years being a good age even for a dragon, but another theory was beginning to circulate. A theory that was being used by the Beltharan high command to counter the devastating erosion of morale caused by the sight of the dead royal dragon displayed for all to see on the other side of the valley.

     That ancient red dragon must have fathered a good many baby dragons over the centuries, they said, and like all parents, it must have cared deeply for its offspring, wanting them to have a long life and lots of little dragons of their own. Perhaps, with the wisdom that comes to all old creatures, evil as well as good, it had come to realise what it would mean for the entire race of dragonkind, and in particular its own offspring, if the Shadowarmies were victorious, and perhaps its rage had been so great that it had managed to escape from the Shadowlord’s control and strike a blow for the freedom of its race. After all, it had made the enemy commander its first target, and had then gone on to kill as many wizards as possible, the very people who posed the greatest threat to the city’s defenders. It was an intriguing theory, and was being seized upon by more and more people as a source of hope, but they would probably never know the truth.

     Whatever the reason, the deaths of three dragons, a dozen wizards and countless lesser soldiers, and the absence of the rak General while its body reformed, had come as a welcome relief to the embattled fortress. If not for the ancient red, General Poll and his army might well have arrived only to find the fortress in ruins and its surviving defences manned by the enemy. Instead, Fort Dirk still stood, proud and strong, and with Poll's fifty thousand men and the consignment of magic and holy weapons they'd brought with them, painstakingly gathered from shrines and vaults scattered across half the continent, they could deliver a real blow, driving them all the way out of the valley, for a time at least.

     He saw a racing griffin flying in from the east and clambered back over the rocks to where he'd left his horse, riding back to his camp in time to greet the messenger as he was climbing out of the saddle. “Sir, Colonel Finch reports that the twelfth, fourteenth and fifteenth are in position and awaiting your command,” he said.

     “Good,” said the General. “Go back and tell them that the attack begins in one hour.”

     The messenger saluted and took a field chronometer from his belt, holding it while the General fetched another. They both set the clockwork devices to an hour, pressed the activation button at the top and the devices began to count down, ticking loudly. The messenger then remounted and flew back the way he’d come while the General summoned his officers and took them into the tent where he’d set up his command post for a last minute briefing.