In the midst of the golem army, behind their dense ranks, towered their current master, a ten-meter stone monster, Monjin.
His corpulent body was as if carved from a single piece of white marble, and his head resembled a rounded rectangle stretched to the top and narrowed on the sides, without a face, mouth, ears or eyes. And there was simply no need for them on the head, because the entire huge body of the monster was covered with faces of different shapes and sizes. Old and young, human and not so, faces were as if carved alive on a stone body and lived their own eccentric lives. In the same areas that were not occupied by faces, inscriptions in an unknown language were engraved, which literally covered the body from head to toe.
* * *
Many faces, noticing the man approaching them, turned their eyes on him, and one of them, in the form of an old man, spoke:
"Mr. Wuzhou, have you come to inspect?"
— No, Monjin, I'm only here to watch how these little people will act.
- Clear.
"By the way, have you already mastered the management of this army?"
"Yes, in the month that we walked through the desert, I fully learned how to control these golems. It turned out to be even easier than controlling the stone puppets of the bastion.
- Is it true? It's good," the bald man continued looking somewhere in the distance, "it seems that someone drove up to their frontier post, perhaps it is the chairman and heads of the factions.
"Lord Wuzhou can you see at this distance without a spell?" Amazing.
* * *
"What nonsense…" muttered the chairman, seeing the enemy army towering on the horizon.
"You specified who they are, what kind of flags they shave over their heads," Long Feng spoke to the commander of the outpost.
— No, there is not a single country with such a flag or coat of arms in our registers.
- The exact number of the enemy is known at the moment?
- Yes, chairman, we have made a calculation, the enemy troops number about a hundred thousand soldiers. Judging by the equipment, there are no mages among them.
— One hundred thousand... But who are they, obviously not people?
"We don't know, their steel armor completely hides their faces and torsos. In addition, the distance plays into their hands, there is little that can be seen from here.
"What are we going to do chairman," Long Feng asked, "as commander in chief, you have to decide this issue.
- What is to be decided here, their military advantage is overwhelming, they will capture Hordnock, behind. But judging by the fact that they still have not moved, perhaps we still have a chance to negotiate.
"So why don't you advance on them," said the big-tongued gene. secretary who contacted them.
Why don't you take a breath! Fung Zhen thought to himself.
"Get me an escort of a few mages and white flags of the negotiator, I will advance to them and reconnoiter the situation. At the same time, I'll look closely at these giants, I wonder what they are.
"That's great, chairman," Long Feng said with a smile, "I will single out the best people for you, and yes, in which case, drag out the time until the last one. We have already sent a messenger to the dark kingdom, asking for military assistance. But you do understand that everything takes time. Therefore, go to any tricks in order to get it for us.
"I already know this," Fong Zhen looked contemptuously at the head of the faction and turned around and went to the watchtower.
* * *
Approaching on three screaming birds to an unknown army, Fung Zhen cursed to himself.
These degenerates have always relied so much on the help of the allies in the military question that they almost did not form their own army. Of course, why spend money on troops, because you can shove it into your pockets, drank, and if anything, refer to the help of the kingdom. And at the same time, everyone, they even managed to fuck with this very kingdom, without fulfilling the condition of the supply contract. Traders, in a word, do not understand at all that there are people who put money on the back burner, and who consider the breach of contract a betrayal.
The closer the trinity drove up to the army unknown to them, the stronger was their impression of its power. Each warrior is like a rock, standing motionless towering above the surface. Their huge armor and weapons, being authentic to their size, seemed gigantic to the average person. Two-meter swords, round shields the size of a man, and armor a dozen centimeters thick of hardened steel, made the people traveling to the front line tremble with fear.
Damn, those are golems! - driving close to the border, the chairman said bitterly, - this is even worse than if they were living beings ... Golems do not know fear and fatigue, they cannot be poisoned or burned, they do not need to eat and drink, which means there is no possibility fight on the principle of scorched earth. How the hell do you defeat such an army then?!
The chairman's thoughts were interrupted by a man who suddenly appeared in front of him. A bald man, about 180 cm tall, with a tattoo on his forehead, completely covered with a black robe, standing almost close to Fong Zhen, looked into his eyes.
The guards, dumbfounded by the sudden appearance of a stranger, wanted to act, but the chairman stopped them with a wave of his hand. And with a deft movement, jumping off the screamer, he bowed to the person standing in front of him:
"Hello, I am Fung Zhen, Chairman of the Council of Thirty-Three, the main governing body in the State of Hordnock.
Does he even understand me? Zhen asked himself, worried, "I hope he is an authorized representative or commander-in-chief of this army, otherwise it will be ridiculous if he is just a soldier." Although no, judging by the way he appeared, this is a high-level mage or paladin.
Bowing his head slightly, the stranger spoke:
"I am Wuzhou, authorized ambassador, of the Great United Empire. Do you have any questions for us, Chairman Fung Zhen?
He's joking! Any questions? Their army is in front of our borders! No ... We must calm down and stop being nervous, thousands of lives of my compatriots now depend on me. This man speaks without an accent at all, which means he is from somewhere in the east of the continent... But what a great empire.
"Excuse me, Mr. Wuzhou, can you enlighten this ignoramus about where this Great United Empire is located. And also, can you tell me what this army is doing at our borders? I will be extremely grateful for clarifications.
"It's very simple, Mr Zhen, standing here and looking at me, you already see the expanses of the Great United Empire. The borders of our states literally go right next to each other.
What? Rave! How is this possible!
- And as for the army, then everything is even simpler. This army guards our borders from a country that barbarously rejected the offer of diplomatic relations.
- Rejected? So you sent an ambassador?
"I personally visited Hordnock, two days ago, and I was denied an audience and by official decree I was forbidden to stay in the city. Here are the documents," pulling out several papers, Wuzhou handed them to Wife, "as you understand, this act negatively affected our disposition towards you. Therefore, we could not continue to ignore such a barbaric state, which is located near our borders. And in order to eliminate possible threats in the future, as well as to avoid violations of the borders by outsiders, the Empire decided to transfer part of the troops to the border.
Examining the papers with trembling hands, Zhenu had only one thought:
It's all a dream, it can't be!