The first wave died in the corridor.

  Eirik watched it happen from the cherry tree observing an outcome he had already calculated.

  The column entered through the main gate. The front rank carried shields, and the second rank held shorter blades. Probably the exact formation they used against real enemies, Eirik presumed.

  A formation that disintegrated as soon as they reached the ice maze.

  The corridor forced them into single file. A man in full armor could not pass another man in full armor within the confines Eirik had built.

  That meant the fight through the chokepoint would essentially become one-on-one fights against who Eirik put forth guarding the chokepoints: Jory, flanked by Marsh and Gedrick, and uncultivated warriors simply cannot compete against cultivators, even at the lowest Snow Rank.

  Even better, it wouldn't be strictly one-on-one fights. Eirik had told the three-man unit how to press their advantage.

  The lead soldier who rounded the first bend had already met Jory's spear point. His shield came up and met with Jory's spear, though he stumbled as he did so. Jory thrust again, aiming lower, and the soldier scrambled to defend again, at which point Marsh drove his own spear over Jory's shoulder, taking the man in the throat above his gorget.

  First blood.

  The soldiers behind the fallen man tried to push forward, but the body blocked the corridor. They tried to drag it back, in which window Kael put an arrow through the neck of the second man, and Gedrick's spear went through the third.

  Eirik watched the bodies pile up at the first chokepoint.

  The second wave of soldiers decided to simply move past their dead companions. They charged Jory's position with a coordinated rush this time and copied Eirik's exact tactic—the first person holding out a shield, with the man behind thrusting the spear. Jory gave ground, stepping backward through the corridor as Eirik had instructed. And a soldier decided to press his advantage.

  And he stepped on a buried ice sphere.

  The detonation took his foot off at the ankle as he let out a terrible scream. The man behind him caught shrapnel in both shins and also went down clutching his legs.

  The second advance stalled just like that.

  From the tree, Eirik put an ice spike through the shoulder of a soldier attempting to climb the maze wall. The man fell back into his companions. Olaf with his throwing axes had also effectively persuaded against other attempts.

  By the fifteen-minute mark, twenty-three soldiers had entered the corridor. Eleven were down—four dead, seven wounded badly. The remaining twelve had pushed past the first chokepoint and were approaching the second, where the path narrowed to barely four feet across.

  Eirik gave the signal.

  Torvin and Sigurd moved along the hidden path behind the ice walls that Eirik had prepared for them. They appeared again at the corridor's entrance just as the rearmost soldiers were pressing forward.

  The effect was immediate. The soldiers at the back turned to face the new threat, but the corridor's width gave them no room to form a proper defense. Torvin's axe caught the nearest man across the back of the knee. Sigurd stepped over him and drove his blade into the next man's side.

  The remaining soldiers were trapped.

  The soldiers in the corridor could not advance into Jory's shield wall, could not retreat past Torvin and Sigurd, and could not climb out.

  It took four minutes to finish them.

  Outside the gate, the surviving soldiers of the first hundred had pulled back. Eirik could see them milling in the plaza beyond, their officers shouting orders that no one was eager to follow.

  He checked his mana.

  [MANA: 44/200]

  Regeneration had given him back thirteen points during the fighting. Enough to maintain the existing constructs and handle whatever remained of the first wave.

  "Olaf. Casualties?"

  "Marsh took a shallow cut across his forearm. That's about it."

  Eirik nodded.

  The remaining soldiers made two more attempts. The first was a rush of fifteen men who tried to overwhelm the gate with speed. They reached the second turn before Kael killed three in rapid succession and the rest tripped over the bodies. The second attempt was more creative—a group of eight tried to scale the eastern wall using a makeshift ladder.

  The rune-spheres detonated. Two men fell back into the plaza with burns across their hands and faces. The rest abandoned the ladder.

  After that, the first hundred stopped trying.

  Eirik allowed himself a slow breath. Forty minutes remained on the clock. At this rate, they would run out the hour without—

  Movement.

  From the street beyond the plaza, a new column was forming. Black armor, dragon insignia, halberds and tower shields.

  Eirik counted.

  Fifty. A hundred. Two hundred. And the column kept coming.

  His stomach dropped.

  Three hundred men. Fresh, rested, fully armored. They formed up behind the battered remnants of the first wave.

  "Commander?" Kael's voice was tight. "That's not a hundred."

  "No. It is not."

  Three hundred. Plus the fifty-odd survivors from the first wave who were now being folded back into the formation. Three hundred and fifty soldiers total, against nine defenders whose primary advantages—the ice maze, the explosive runes, the chokepoints—had already been revealed.

  The knowledge alone was worth more than just their headcounts.

  Eirik's mind ran the numbers again. His mana sat at 48. The ice walls would hold, but the rune-spheres along the corridor were spent. He could conjure more, but each one cost three mana. Replacing even half of them would drain him to nothing.

  "This wasn't what was agreed," Jory said from below. "One hundred. He said one hundred."

  Eirik said nothing. He was watching the far end of the plaza, where a balcony jutted from the upper floor of a stone building.

  A figure stood there.

  Tall. Broad-shouldered. Wearing a simple robe of undyed cloth.

  The General.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  He stood with his arms folded across his chest. Corvinus was beside him in his wheelchair, attended by two guards.

  The new column began to advance.

  Eirik's mind worked.

  He could spend his remaining mana on fresh walls, new runes, and deeper barriers. Buy another thirty minutes, perhaps. Maybe hold out if everything went perfectly and his men took no casualties and the enemy made the same mistakes twice.

  They would not make the same mistakes twice.

  He could collapse the gate entirely. Seal it with ice three feet thick and turn the courtyard into a sealed box. That would stop the assault, but it would also trap his men inside with no escape route and no way to prove anything to the General except that they could hide.

  This was a test, and hiding behind ice barriers was not what the General wanted to see.

  The column was two hundred paces away now. The front rank raised their shields in a wall that stretched across the full width of the plaza.

  Eirik looked at the General on the balcony.

  The test about holding the courtyard had already been decided. Eirik had won, and the General suddenly gave him a new one. One hundred men was a test of tactical competence. Three hundred was the General telling him: your preparation means nothing when I decide to change the terms.

  Which meant the correct response was to respond in kind.

  "Olaf. Kael. Stay in the tree. Keep shooting until you run out of targets or arrows."

  "Commander, where are you—"

  Eirik dropped from the branch.

  He landed in the courtyard, absorbing the impact with bent knees. The fall sent a jolt through his legs that he ignored.

  "Jory, hold the gate as long as you can. When it breaks, fall back to the tree."

  "Commander!"

  Eirik was already moving.

  He crossed the courtyard in six strides and vaulted the western ice wall. He landed on the other side in a narrow service alley that ran along the courtyard's exterior. The alley led north. Twenty paces brought him to a cross-street. He turned east, toward the building where the General watched.

  Two guards stood at the building's entrance. They saw him coming and leveled their halberds.

  "HALT!"

  Eirik did not halt.

  The first guard thrust his halberd at Eirik's chest. Eirik slapped the shaft aside with his open palm and drove his shoulder into the man's sternum. The guard flew backward into the wall and slid to the ground, gasping.

  The second guard swung wide. Eirik ducked under the arc, seized the halberd's shaft, and channeled frost through his grip. Ice raced down the wood and across the guard's gauntlets. The man yelped and released the weapon. Eirik swept his legs from under him and kept moving.

  Inside. Stairs. Two flights, taken three steps at a time.

  A corridor at the top.

  Three more guards, already turning toward the sound of commotion below.

  Eirik raised his hand. Ice formed across the floor in a sheet so thin it was nearly invisible. The first guard took two steps, lost his footing, and crashed into the second. The third managed to stay upright but by then Eirik was past them, shoving through a door and onto the balcony.

  [MANA: 38/200]

  The General did not move.

  Corvinus flinched. The two guards flanking his wheelchair drew their swords and stepped forward. Eirik ignored them.

  He stopped five paces from the General and stood there, breathing hard.

  Below, the plaza erupted in chaos. Officers were screaming orders. The column that had been advancing on the courtyard broke apart as soldiers realized the prisoner was no longer inside. Three hundred heads turned toward the balcony.

  "This is not what was agreed," Eirik said.

  The General looked down at him. His expression had not changed from its initial mild interest.

  "No?"

  "One hundred men. One hour. Those were your terms."

  "They were." The General leaned against the balcony railing. "And you handled them well. Quite well, in fact. Which is precisely why I sent three hundred more."

  "That's cheating."

  "Cheat." The General seemed to taste the word. "On a battlefield, when you have your enemy outnumbered, do you send only a portion of your forces to be fair? When the Khorath breach a wall, do they pause to negotiate acceptable terms of assault?"

  Below, soldiers were flooding into the building.

  "No one will discuss terms with you on the field, Lord Stormcrow. Your enemy will not honor agreements. He will not limit himself to what you prepared for. He will hit you with everything he has, and when you think he's finished, he will hit you with everything you didn't know he had." The General's eyes were steady. "The question is always the same: what will you do then?"

  The first soldiers reached the top of the stairs. They spilled into the corridor and formed up behind Eirik in a semicircle of drawn steel. More kept coming. The balcony's entrance was a solid wall of armed men within seconds.

  Three hundred soldiers. One exit. The General at his back, the army at his front.

  The General turned to Eirik.

  "Impress me," he said. "Do whatever you can to extract yourself from this situation, and I will not try you as a criminal for what you've done today."

  Eirik stared at him.

  Underhanded bastard.

  The whole thing had been rigged from the start. One hundred men was a genuine test with genuine terms. But the moment Eirik passed it, the General had moved the goalpost, as if Eirik were a performing dog expected to do tricks on command.

  He forced his mind to strip the problem to its bones. Three hundred soldiers behind him. One exit. No mana for a fight, and no path through that corridor even if he had it.

  But the General was five paces away.

  The thought arrived half-baked, but it held: Use him as the exit.

  The General wanted to see what he'd do when the terms shifted, then Eirik would give him a taste of his own medicine.

  He held his gaze.

  "Fine."

  He knelt and pressed both palms flat against the stone floor of the balcony.

  [MANA: 38/200]

  The ice began beneath the surface.

  It spread through the stone itself, threading through cracks and seams, finding the structural joints where masonry met masonry.

  Eirik closed his eyes. He shaped the ice into a disc roughly twelve feet across, centered directly beneath his own position and the General's wheelchair. The disc sat two inches below the balcony floor, embedded in the stone.

  The General watched without speaking.

  Eirik opened his eyes.

  Ice Genesis.

  The skill had changed at Hail realm. What had once been a momentary conjuration now persisted for a full minute.

  Which meant he had enough time to get creative about it.

  [ICE GENESIS ACTIVATED]

  [DURATION: 60 SECONDS]

  [REDEFINE ICE CONSTRUCT PROPERTIES?]

  The instruction he gave:

  Go up.

  The disc erupted from the floor.

  The stone shattered. The balcony's floor split along the disc's circumference with a crack that echoed across the plaza. Soldiers stumbled backward as a circle of flagstone twelve feet wide detached from the building and began to rise, carrying on a column of ice that grew from below at the speed of a man running.

  Eirik stood on the ascending platform. The General sat four feet away, tilting slightly as the surface adjusted.

  The General did not grip anything. He watched the ground fall away with the same expression he might wear while observing an unusual cloud formation.

  Ten feet. Twenty. Thirty.

  The ice column pushed them higher. Below, three hundred soldiers stared upward with open mouths.

  Fifty feet. The rooftops of the surrounding buildings dropped below them. The city spread out in every direction, bounded by massive fortifications that Eirik could now see clearly for the first time.

  The walls were immense. Beyond them, the plains stretched to the horizon, and on those plains—

  Tents. Thousands of them. An ocean of hide and canvas surrounding the city on three sides.

  The Khorath.

  Eirik filed that information away and kept pushing.

  Seventy feet. Eighty. The air grew cold. Wind tugged at his clothes.

  [MANA: 18/200]

  He stopped.

  The platform hung in the sky, supported by a pillar of ice that rose from the shattered balcony like a great white finger pointing at the heavens. From below, it must have looked quite amazing. From up here, it looked precarious—because it was.

  "Well," the General said.

  He had not raised his voice once during the entire ascent.

  "You've made your point, Lord Stormcrow. We are beyond the reach of my soldiers. No archer could hit us reliably at this height, and even if one could, you would simply raise us higher." He glanced over the platform's edge with the casual interest of a man looking down a well. "But you've also trapped yourself. This column will not hold forever. Your power, I suspect, is not infinite. Eventually, we come down."

  "I'm aware."

  "Then how do you plan to get off?"

  Eirik had been working on that question since they passed forty feet.

  The answer was ugly but functional.

  He would use his remaining mana to carve a series of interlocking runes into the platform's underside—starburst patterns oriented downward, designed to fire in sequence during descent. Each detonation would push against the air beneath them, slowing their fall in stuttering increments.

  It would be painful. But they would not die.

  Probably.

  "I have my methods," Eirik said. "You'd do well to listen to what I have to say before I'm forced to demonstrate."

  The General laughed.

  It came from somewhere deep, and it shook his shoulders, and it did not stop for several seconds.

  "There is no need for that."

  The General rose.

  The transformation began at his shoulders.

  His frame expanded. The simple robe tore and fell away as his torso widened, deepened, stretched beyond any proportion a human body could hold. His neck elongated. His jaw distended, then reshaped.

  Wings unfolded from his back, each one wider than the platform they stood on. They caught the wind and held it.

  The platform cracked under the weight.

  Eirik stumbled backward. His heel found the edge. For one sickening moment he hung over eighty feet of empty air, arms wheeling—

  A claw closed around his torso.

  The grip was firm but careful. Eirik felt the pressure of each talon against his ribs, holding him the way a man might hold a sparrow.

  The dragon's head turned to look at him.

  Its wings beat once, twice, and they were climbing. The city shrank. The Khorath encampment spread out below them in its full enormity—not thousands of tents, Eirik realized, but tens of thousands.

  The General—the Black Dragon—was showing him the problem.

  This was what he'd been asked to solve.

  They climbed higher, and the cold bit deeper, and the Sunless City became a small thing surrounded by the endless hunger of its enemies.