Drayya poked her head through the curtain of a hovel. She was met with screams from the huddled group within - women and children, the elderly; those who had refused to abandon their homes in the prideful belief that their city was truly impregnable. Drayya ducked out of the tiny room and waved her hand towards the thralls pouring into the chamber. "We've got fresh meat in this district! Scour the hovels for any signs of life!" She ordered, "Keep an eye on those entrances! I don't even want to see a mouse entering this place!"
The residential district was alive with screams of horror. Gravewalkers shuffled between the honeycomb hovels, killing and maiming as they pleased while Drayya's Deathguards stood watch in the nearby passages and intersections.
"Drayya!" After a fashion, her name was called, "Over here!"
"Hm?" She wrapped a lock of hair around her index finger, "What is it? There's no need to shout."
Her eyes caught a glimpse of crimson shuffling through the horde of thralls plus a familiar half-humanoid shape who towered over the corpses. Marché's features were swollen, purple with bruising, though he wore a relieved expression upon spotting Drayya. Roland and Baccharum followed in his wake, the former of whom was contending with a tide of blood flowing from the horrific gash on his face.
"Marché!" Drayya smirked, "You're still alive. I lost a bet."
"Very funny." He replied, "Roland and I had a run-in with Alberich's brother down in the mines. Did you know that he's a Scion as well? I certainly didn't."
She went wide-eyed at the revelation, "Alberich's brother…? A Scion?"
"Mime is his name." Roland stepped forward to cut the story short, "He deduced that Marché and I were necromancers from a mere glance. Isn't that one of the Scions' powers?"
"-And you survived a fight with him?" Drayya folded her arms, "Not bad at all, you two."
"We wouldn't have." Roland cast a glance behind him, "If it wasn't for this fool."
Baccharum's form was on full display for once. In the thick of battle, he had forgotten to bring his darkness-creating artefact with him. Drayya could see the winces in his expression whenever a torch-touting Deathguard drew too close for his liking. "You flatter me." He said, "I wouldn't say we were victorious, mind you. Mime only retreated for fear of facing three of us down on his lonesome. If he was half as headstrong as any other Dwarf, he would have happily traded his life for ours."
Drayya was gripped by the need to ask, "You can fight?"
"Please. I'm a businessman." Baccharum smiled, "-But with that said, everyone ought to understand a few self-defence tricks for when push comes to shove. I just happen to know a few more than the average person, is all."
"At least you're unharmed…" Drayya waved her arm in the air, "One of you! Come over here and tend to these fools' wounds! Roland looks like he's about to keel over!"
"Don't be ridiculous." The man in question clenched his eyes shut to cope with his worsening headache, "...Where's Lieze?"
"On her way to the workshops to spread the gift of undeath far and wide." She said, "We're operating well ahead of schedule, so we have some time to waste before regrouping with the others. In the meantime, try to keep yourself standing while the Deathguards-"
"Drayya!" A voice called, "Dwarves! Soldiers are on their way!"
The voice bounced up from a passageway leading further into the mountain. Drayya sighed and shrugged her shoulders, "-Or perhaps not. It sounds like you'll be working for your treatment after all."
"I was getting sick and tired of wandering around with a pittance of thralls." Roland smirked, "We were trying to locate the Deathguards who accompanied us on the journey, but they seem to have disappeared. We'll need to find them before we return to Lieze."
"Dwarves first, Deathguards later." Drayya replied, "Grab whatever thralls suit your desires and be ready for a fight."
Plugging the chamber's entrances had been the right decision. With no room to spread out, the only solution for any attackers was to force their way through the rotting tide, transforming every encounter into a commitment demanding heavy losses. Drayya could afford to sit and wait until her vanguard was broken before moving in to mop up the exhausted remnants.
As the song of battle carried up from below, however, she couldn't help but notice the speed with which those Dwarven battle cries were approaching her position. Her ears detected the timbre of something not entirely natural in the air - a seething crackle of static that caused the hairs on her neck to stand on end. Soon, waves of light were capturing the claustrophobic passageway in strobes, transforming movement into statuesque poses glimpsed between blinding flashes.
"What in the world is going on down there…?" Drayya wondered.
From the curtains of rotting flesh emerged a Deathguard, "Drayya! It's bad! The Dwarves are using some kind of strange weapon! Our thralls are being charred to ash!"
"New weapon?" She repeated.
Baccharum, who had been observing the chaos from a distance, stepped forward to comment. "The Dwarves have been toying with the potential of lightning weaponry for quite some time now" He said, "They've always been three steps ahead of every other nation in regards to technology. The Sovereign Cities were using spies to learn their ways, but the secrets of Dwarven engineering have remained stubbornly unveiled."
Drayya grimaced. She was expecting an easy fight, but nothing was ever so simple. "Get out of my way!" She ordered, "I want to see this weapon in action!"
"B-But Drayya, if you expose yourself to the enemy-"
The stammering Deathguard was pushed aside. Drayya muscled her way through the congested tunnel of Gravewalkers, blinking rapidly to regain her composure whenever the passage was consumed by light. Soon, the shaft widened out into a short corridor where both sides of the battle had converged. Drayya pinched her nose at the scent of charred flesh and peered over the shoulders of her vanguard.
Blackened corpses, muscles atrophied beyond recognition, littered the ground like onyx sculptures. Even in true death, their bodies continued to burn and char, as if consumed by eternal flames. A hand fell upon Drayya's shoulder. "Drayya! We need to retreat! None of our thralls can close the gap!" Another Deathguard yelled, "Those weapons can kill a Gravewalker in seconds, and they can attack from range, to boot! We're only wasting manpower by trying to force our way through!"
As if to illustrate the point, an arc of lightning coursed from one end of the corridor to the other, causing one Gravewalker to convulse on the spot as its ragged clothes were set aflame. Seconds later, its rotting features were no longer discernible, overcome with bubbling pustules of rupturing skin. Before it even hit the ground, Drayya understood the threat those weapons posed to her thralls.
"Damn! They're just going to whittle us down if we can't get close!" She paused, "...And we can't use the Dark Casters either. Not without an open space to work with…"
"If we end up being attacked from more than one direction, we're going to be boxed in!" The Deathguard exclaimed, "We need to retreat!"
"Idiot!"
Drayya's fist collided with the cultist's cheek, knocking him to the floor.
"We're in no position to retreat! Our Gravewalkers are too slow - the Dwarves could easily run us down, and then we'd be sitting ducks!" Her knuckles tingled, "We can't retreat… we have to win! It's either that, or we die!"
She bit her thumb and sighed, "What would Lieze do…?"
There was no overt strategy that would benefit them. She considered withdrawing her thralls and placing them around corners to ambush the Dwarves when they followed, but they would have no reason to pointlessly charge ahead when they had ranged weapons to rely on. She couldn't take a force of her own to flank the attackers, knowing full-well they most likely had scouts on the lookout for such a tactic.
What would Lieze do? Was it possible that Drayya had overextended her unit? Had she already lost before the battle even began? The thought of being cornered and defeated after so many consecutive victories terrified her. She refused to die in such a pitiful fashion.
"Lieze relies on everything… she never turns her nose up at perceived cowardice or cruelty…" Drayya picked her brain for a solution, "A battle isn't all about numbers… emotions, fears, desires - everything that can be used against an enemy should be milked for all it's worth!"
She opened her eyes, "Pull these Gravewalkers back."
"Eh!?" The Deathguard cradled his bruised cheek, "But… if we let the Dwarves move forward-"
"I'm sending forward another batch." Drayya interrupted, "As soon as an opportunity arises to close the gap, you need to take it without missing a beat. Hesitate, and you'll seal all of our fates. Do you understand?"
"...I'd be lying if I said I did." He replied sheepishly, "...But I'll do as you say. I trust your judgement, Drayya."
"-Then send these Gravewalkers back." She ordered, "You'll understand my intentions once I send in another group to replace them."
With that, she sprinted back to the residential district. Screams continued to linger in the air as Gravewalkers invaded the hovels and murdered their occupants. Drayya's finger found Marché and Roland preparing themselves for a fight at one end of the chamber. "You two!" She shouted.
"What's going on?" Marché raised an eyebrow as she stomped over, "Whatever that awful noise is, I don't like the sound of it."
"Never mind that. I want the two of you and anyone else with a pair of free hands to scour these hovels for Dwarven corpses." She explained, "I want a group of fresh, exclusively Dwarven Gravewalkers within the next minute or two! Get to work!"
"A-Alright…" Marché relented to her passion, "Roland."
"I heard." He nodded, "Only Dwarves, you say? For what purpose?"
"You'll see." Drayya said, "Time is of the essence, so hurry up! I'll see if I can't find a few corpses for myself!"
Those pitiful, curtained caves were stuffed to bursting with innocent civilians. The expressions of profound horror carved onto their still features may have stirred the hearts of their countrymen, but to Drayya, their corpses represented nothing more than an opportunity. Her necromancy did not discriminate between the young and the old, the strong and the weak - she danced with the Blackbriar in its infinite darkness to raise one corpse after another, until all that remained of those cadavers were emotionless, obedient shells.
Meanwhile, the Gravewalkers forming the first line of defence against the attacking Dwarves were resigned, opening up a clear-cut path straight into the heart of the horde.
"They're retreating!" The commanding Dwarf beckoned with one arm, "Keep pushing up! They can't approach us for as long as we have these lightning throwers!"
Morale surged in the wake of that short-lived victory. But as soon as an attempt was made to push forward, another wave of Gravewalkers descended from the tunnel, identical in ferocity and thoughtlessness but distinct in their appearance, with all-too-familiar faces contorting into expressions of agony and wailing despair stretched over shattered skulls.
Fresh thralls. So fresh that the scent of cologne sprinkling their necks could still be discerned through the cloud of rot. So fresh that, from a distance, their undeath was imperceptible. The calloused hands of those Dwarven warriors banished thralls without a second thought, but now, confronted with the heinous corruption of their kin - their friends, their wives, their children - their hands were frozen in place.
"T-This can't be real…" One such soldier clenched his fist in a fruitless attempt to quell his tremors, "These… these are all civilians! These are all innocent people!"