The battle sted all day, and it wasn’t even clear until almost evening that Tenebroum’s forces would win. At this point, the oute of the war was not in doubt, even if this desperate battle still hung in the bance. In the broadest se wouldn’t matter if it took otle or five of them to secure their doom. However, if it gave the mages breathing room, it would almost certainly affect the quality of knowledge that it would be able to pilge from the pbsp;

  That was what drove the Liore than anything at this point. A victory for the mages, while meaningless in itself, would give them hours or days to address the corpses that littered the interior of the Magica Collegium. Every head they mao burn on a funeral pyre would be one less mage that it could add to its library. While both men and undead abominations were repceable, the are knowledge tained in the minds of some of these men was not.

  That was what drove it to scrape together whatever reinforts it could, including drudges fit only fging tunnels. It would send another wave the following evening, even if only to keep the mages pinned. Fortunately, that proved unnecessary. A few minutes before the blood-red suhe final mage was torn to pieces where he was hiding in an alcove ohird basement floor. Out of the hundreds of deathless warriors the Lich had sent to unch this surprise attack, only seventeen of them still moved, and none of them were whole, but it was enough.

  Thanks to what it had doo the flows of magic, it had been able to aplish with a small force what it probably wouldn’t have been able to do with the ey of its army if magic had worked properly. It had even wouhe Goddess Lunaris herself, which was, in its mind, worth nearly as much as the sag of Abenend. Both were victories worth celebrating, and it immediately ordered Verdenin to have his acolytes and sightless monks do just that. What was the point of having a gregation or worshipers if not for moments like this?

  Sadly, the Lich could not begin to iigate its spoils immediately. Instead, its minions had to disable all of the dark obelisks and dread monoliths that it had spent so long installing. Then, ohat was do had to wait weeks for several storm systems to dilute and dissipate the poison that had taken so long to build.

  Tenebroum spent that time listening to the songs and the ts of its growing priesthood as it lurked among the uemple. Most of these rites involved human sacrifice, at the moment of cresdo, but these were rgely war captives taken from isoted vilges, or tribute that had e to it from the Voice of Reason by way of Tanda. None of those lives mattered, of course, at the best use of them was for moments like this.

  Tenebroum aowledged that suents were indulgent, but they passed the time, and it had no other pressing tasks to aplish. Most of its ever enrging empire proceeded on autopilot at this point, leaving it free for new experiments. The Lich did not have to travel east to stantinal to ehat the produ of its armies were proceeding on schedule, any more than it had to travel north to where its armies were marg across the desert, one night at a time.

  Ihe only thing it paused to do besides bask in the adoration and the fear of its worshipers was to study the stain on the face of the moon. Because of the way her phases ged, and she moved to hide the darkness, it was hard to see, but even so, Tenebroum could very clearly see the shadow's long tendrils crawling across her surface. Its on had found its mark, and though it spread slowly, it was still spreading, which meant that the Lunar Goddess of magid prote still hadn’t found a way to fully bat his vile sorcery.

  That was wele news, highlighting that she was every bit as unprepared for him as Siddrim had been. So, while the Lich listees that celebrated his final victory over the st holdout of the area, it mused and deliberated over various pns that might be used to end her ond for all before passing them off to its library so they could be refined and implemented.

  It was only three weeks ter wheaint in Abened had fallen by more than y pert, that the Lich approached the school in a body that had been prepared for this enviro. Though ly built for bat, the abomination it walked the world once more with had been fortified and reinforced with a leaden skin that had been embedded with hundreds of cast iron ruhat were meant to warn and protect against the worst of the miasma’s effects.

  This form carried no ons with it beyond its metal fists and its powerful runes of prote. Indeed, it was armed only with a golden colr that it had made for its quarry, should it really be here.

  Tenebroum wished to see the ir of its enemy with its own eyes, but it would not do so in a foolhardy way that would see it crippled for weeks or worse. Its enter with the Tempr and his dragon fire had left an indelible lesson in that regard.

  Still, if those mages had so many powerful ons that they could use them so casually, then it was that much more important that it carefully dissected their holdings itself. That was why it did not delegate this task to a lesser mind and journeyed from the cavernous beachhead its minions had dug several miles from the school to the charred gates themselves.

  The way was not far ahrough the partially rebuilt ruins of Abenend, but the faint glows that spread across the Lich’s leaden skin revealed nothing it o be ed about. The school itself, though, was another matter. There, iain hallways and in pces where the fighting had been thickest, the miasma still g to the corpses of the fallen, and it was forced to backtrad take new paths to its goals.

  In its wake, it left drudges with any number of orders: this up, gather those books, harvest and preserve these heads. There was always a flurry of activity in the Lich’s wake, but whe was examining something important, it was always alone so that it might deliberate in stillness.

  The Collegium was a mess but an impressive one. From the outside, the Lich had viewed it as a castle and a bastion of war for so long that it was easy tet that it was a school with lodging for hundreds of students and dozens of teachers. It took quite a lot of space to support all of those people, as well as the servants who cooked and ed for them. On top of all that facilities to support that mass of humanity, there were also innumerable warehouses, store rooms, study halls, libraries, workshops, and s.

  After almost a day of wandering the premises, the Lich was fairly sure that the pce was rger on the ihan it was oside. That realization was enough to make it recall the unfortable battle that occurred with the city god of stantinal so long ago. For a brief moment, fear of that inexplicable infinity shot through it. If the spaside the Magica Collegium was distorted in simir ways, might there be simirly inescapable traps?

  The thought put the Li guard for the several days, but it was not afraid. The mere idea that something might exist was not enough to merit retreat. After all, despite all the battles that had taken pce here, it had never seen evidence of a small god associated with the Collegium. It was certainly old enough to have one, of course, but it was also entirely possible that the mages had done something to prevent one from taking root.

  Tenebroum might find the ao those questions when it began to ransack the memories of the mages that lived here, but for now it put it out of its mind and focused on the present as it desded ever deeper into the dead hallways of the school.

  Along the way, the Lich found dozens of objects of i, from magical relics that it did not fully uand to books that had been bound shut for unknown purposes. Every one of these was collected, but it was only otom floor of the deepest basement that the Lich finally found what it was looking for.

  There, past remains that had been interred in Sepelchurs that dispyed the honor or dishonor that led the mortal remains of some a sorcerer to be interred in such a spot; the Lich finally saw the stone sarcophagus it had been searg for, sealed in lead and lying undisturbed for who knew how long.

  The runes of its magic-resistant body glowed a dull, angry red down here. That wasn’t because the whole floor was guarded against evil with yered entments. They might be enough to make a lesser drudge cease to fun or crumble to dust, but against the Lich, all they could do was express their displeasure as it moved past them.

  When the Lich reached the Sarcophegus, it ripped the stone lid off without much effort at all. For a moment, the entments that warded the lid screamed against its touch, but even as its current body’s fiips began to melt, it hurled the thing aside, letting it shatter against the far wall.

  There, in the tainer, was a rge, desiccated hound that might have been nearly the size of a pony bound by rusted s. The Lich had half expected it to e to life on the spot, but when it sat there like little more than the mummified pet of a long-dead king, it pced the colr around the neck of the a hound’s corpse, then picked up the animal and began to carry it toward the exit. Obviously, the magid wards were still too stone down here, and it would o be revived elsewhere.

  The wards that Tenebroum had bypassed easily enough did not like this turn of events and glowed all the fiercer as it tried to leave, f the Lich to deface several on his way out the door. The mages here had truly pnned for everything; well, everything except for it, Tenebroum thought darkly.

  The Lich brought its burden to a dining hall on the first floor. It was empty and save for a single feature, utterly unimportant. It just happeo be just below the room on the sed floor where Tenebroum had ordered its drudges to gather all the unimportant bodies.

  So, it set the hound down in the ter of the floor, and then, with a thought, the Lich ordered one of the reavers in the room above to punch a hole in the floor above, allowing all the blood that had started to pool up there to rain down on the a creature.

  At first, nothing happened. It was only after almost a mihat Tenebroum noticed that the desiccated corpse was drinking in that awful vitality and slowly returning to life. Moment by moment, its muscles bulged, and its tissues became more supple until it was finally strong enough to shatter the s that bound it.

  Slowly, like a newborn fawn it found the strength to stand, and stood there on shivering legs. Then, when it turned and saw the Lich standing there, it growled a deep, bone chilling growl that resohroughout the room. It took a moment, and then it slowly advanced on the leaden struct with its teeth bared.

  Before it got halfway to Tenebroum, though, the Lich spat a and. “Sit!” The word echoed through the room briefly, and then a momehough the giant hound clearly didn’t want to, it did exactly that.