Two hours before dawn, Govannon shook Brin awake with orders to report to the front. He quickly stood and dressed and when he remembered the state of his old armor, hoped that this would be one of the last times that he would need to wear it to combat. There were several holes punched straight through the metal, and his helmet was near useless. It had been torn to pieces with the goblin [Paragon's] final attack and while Meredydd has sort of banged it back into place, it had more holes than a straw hat.

The rest of the men weren't looking much better. Brin started to summon glass to fill in the gaps of the armor, but Cid grabbed his arm. "Don't bother. That will just make it more annoying for the armorers when they repair it or melt it down. Besides, if today goes like yesterday or the day before, it won't be an issue."

"What do you mean?" Brin asked.

It was Govannon who answered. "He means grab a good book or something, because it's going to be boring as hell."

"I definitely do not mean that you should grab a book. This is an active battlefield we're talking about. After a manner of speaking. He's right that we're in for a boring day, though," said Cid.

Brin tapped his torn breastplate, thinking. Well, if push came to shove he could patch everyone's armor with his new superglass shield in two seconds flat. "What book? Or was that just a turn of phrase?"

"Have you read Sword of the Grasshopper or The Idle King?" asked Meredydd.

"I've read those," said Aeron. "But yesterday I got my hands on a copy of Sir Elatore of Argonis that I haven't gotten a chance to start."

Brin looked between his Lancemates, stunned. "Wait. What? You guys read?"

"Of course we can read! Why would you assume we couldn't?" Hedrek said, maybe a little too sternly.

"I didn't," Brin said. Well, he hadn't doubted they could all read before, but now he thought Hedrek was being a little too defensive... Brin decided to take pity on the big [Knight] and didn't press. "It's just, you know, I can read things without looking at them with my eyes, and I can project my voice into your heads so no one else can hear. If you want--"

Cid plugged his ears. "I'm not part of this. I didn't hear anything. I'll be coordinating with command most of the day, anyway, so I hope everyone stays focused on the mission while I'm away."

Brin grinned, meeting the eyes of the men. That was basically permission.

He donned his armor, found his weapons, and then followed the Lance out the door.

Outside, the army was a flurry of activity, but it almost seemed like the preparation for a parade rather than mustering for a battle. In the Order’s camp, pages other servants ran back and forth delivering messages, and while several other Lances were heading the same way as Brin’s, it wasn’t the whole of the Order.

Outside the camp, commoner soldiers moved in tightly disciplined ranks, marching in step. It was a little strange when Brin’s Lance crossed paths with a hundred armored soldiers, and the soldiers stopped in place to let the knights-at-arms pass by first.

The frontlines weren’t far from the camps, and Arcaena’s hordes were waiting for them. Legions of undead, big and small, stood facing them in eerie silence. Some armored, some clean and well-formed, others rotting and falling apart. There were tens of thousands of them, from levels starting in the tens going all the way to a few mighty-looking undead warriors at level fifty or more. And that was just the undead. Past them, the professional human army stood in ranks. These were all high leveled and wore gold-trimmed armor that made the best armor in the Order of the Long Sleep look mundane by comparison. And then, flying in the sky above, were great winged dragons, giant bats, flying snakes, and undead monstrosities.

The enemy army was so vast that it was liable to make Brin’s blood go cold–assuming he didn’t know it was all fake. Which was, of course, the first thing he noticed. [Know What’s Real] told him it was all illusion.

That information seemed well-understood by the general army as well. Only a single line of defenders had been standing guard against them during the night, and they were being relieved as the fresh soldiers filled in.

The army on Brin’s side was nowhere near the strength that it had been that first day. There was no sign of the war machines, only a small scattering of war beasts, and few Rare Classes of any sort. Most of the soldiers were commoners, and only about a quarter of them were there. Brin’s Lance lined up behind the Commoners. He expected that this was just a pause while Cid figured out where they were supposed to go, but after five minutes he realized that this was it; they weren’t even going to be near the front.

Other knights-at-arms were in similar positions to the left and right of them, but they were all mounted so they’d be able to respond to any threats quickly.

“Why aren’t we mounted?” Brin asked.

“Don’t ask,” said Cid. “Sir Derec is still hopping mad that we lost two of his horses. We’ll be lucky if we ever ride again.”

Brin’s Invisible Eyes told him that the commanders were watching from far in the back, and he noticed an interesting man in black robes that covered everything including his face, surrounded on all sides by attendants in similar robes of white. [Inspect] called him Joazin, the [Archmage of the Creeping Death].

He honestly looked like the sort of person that should be fighting on the other side, and Brin wondered if he really wanted to see what “creeping death” magic looked like.

Still, it made him feel a little bit reassured to have an [Archmage] looking out for them. Even knowing it wasn’t real, the vision of horror that was Arcaena’s illusionary army was starting to get under his skin.

Then the music started. [Bards] were mixed in with the soldiers, one for even five hundred or so, and they all played together, a soothing melody that erased much of the fear.

Why had they said this was boring? Brin looked around, wondering what would happen next. He scanned the illusions, trying to find something real among them. Sure, maybe most of the army was fake, but it was also a disguise. Arcaena could launch a real attack through the army at any time, and it would take them completely by surprise.

The attack didn’t come. The music kept playing. Nothing else happened. Until the dragon attacked.

One moment, Brin was standing around bored, and then next, Marksi was slamming into the side of his neck, hugging him around the gap in his armor and nearly pulling him to the ground. He hugged the dragonling back, but Marksi was too excited to stay in one place, even for scritches, and crawled all around Brin, overjoyed to see him.

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

Marksi was getting bigger, and the weight was a little awkward, but he wasn’t at any risk of falling over, not with his Strength.

At last, Marksi pounced onto the ground and made a gesture with his claws as if to say, Well? What did you pick?

“Oh, it’s awesome! I can’t wait until you see what I can do!” He looked around; this was hardly a private venue. “But maybe later.”

Marksi nodded and pounced up on Brin again, this time accepting scritches. “And what have you been up to, you little devil?”

Marksi swung his claws like he was swiping at some invisible enemy. Brin was pretty good at deciphering Marksi-ese, but this time he had no clue what the dragonling was trying to say.

“Maybe you’ll have to show me.”

Marksi seemed fine with that, and was content to sit and demand more and more scritches.

After a half hour, a page came by to fetch Cid, and he left them with orders to stay put unless otherwise directed.

As soon as he was gone, Hedrek said, “So did you mean what you said? About the book?”

“Sure,” Brin said with a shrug.

Aeron passed the book to Rhun, who handed it to Hedrek, who gave it to Brin. Without looking at it with his eyes, Brin opened it and spun up a few directed threads. One to look at the pages with an Invisible Eye, one to read, and one to talk to them with Silent Voice. The thread broadcast his voice into his own ears, just like everyone else, and this way he got to enjoy the story the same way they did.

Marksi looked at it with suspicion, but Aeron said, “Oh, you’re going to like this, too, Marksi. There’s a dragon in it.”

Hearing that, Marksi tapped where his ears would be if he had ears, telling Brin that he wanted to listen, too.

The book got off to a rocky start, all things considered. Out of nowhere, Sir Elatore ran into an elf who’d captured a beautiful maiden and was dragging her back to his forest palace, where she would become his slave. He challenged the elf into a contest of riddles except they were the most cliched riddles of all time.

I can run but not walk

Brin interrupted his own voice to say, “Oh wow it’s the river one, huh?”

“Shush!” hissed Hedrek.

I have a mouth but cannot talk

I have a bed but never sleep.

What am I?

Sir Elatore handily defeated the elf in the contest of riddles, who turned into a raven and flew away, crowing promises of revenge as he went. The maiden, of course, was actually a rich heiress to a Count, and fell instantly in love with Elatore.

Sir Elatore traveled with her to meet her father and ask for her hand, but the father was one of those absurd over-the-top villains who hated Elatore on sight. He gave Elatore three tasks, each more impossible than the last, to win the hand of his daughter.

At that point in the story, Brin paused, as there was movement in the army. A call came down from the command tents, repeated a few times until it was taken up by [Criers]. “Deploy the Eveladis!”

[Slingers] who’d been positioned at key points across the army let fly, flinging potion bottles into the illusionary army. They broke open when struck, releasing the bright, clean and clear light. The undead and other monstrosities evaporated wherever the light touched them and empty bubbles of green grass appeared in their ranks. The bubbles expanded, growing further and further until they all met together, and a wall of Eveladis light stood between the allied army and the remnants of Arcaena’s illusions. Every second, scores of the enemies disappeared, until there was nothing left in front of them for a third of a mile.

Past that, the army dissolved and the illusion became a wall of mist. They could see a bit ahead with the Eveladis, but Arcaena wasn’t giving them so much as a glimpse of her queendom past that.

Even then, nothing much happened. No new orders came out. The Eveladis light hit Brin, tearing away his ability to maintain his illusions. That was annoying, but it didn’t hamper his ability to split his mind.

When he saw that there wasn’t going to be anything new, he started reading again, this time with his natural eyes. He kept his voice down, but from the looks of things he was far from the only person not taking this seriously.

The first of Elatore’s tasks had him fighting a giant, and while the story had struggled up until this point, Brin had to admit that the combat was excellent. The epic back and forth between Elatore and the giant got Brin’s heart racing, and he was thoroughly addicted.

It was a bit like professional wrestling. At first, Mark had just watched it to make fun of it, and then he’d stopped noticing how cheesy it was, and then he started forgetting that it was fake at all, until eventually he was talking to the other kids at school about how Stone Cold Steve Austin was finally going to take down Vince McMahon.

The army marched forward, but not far. They walked until they were about halfway through the area that the Eveladis had cleared, and then stopped. Then they waited again.

The sun climbed in the sky, and Elatore completed his second task. It was noon, and Elatore completed his third. He married his love, and went on more adventures. Marksi started to pout that the dragon hadn’t yet appeared in the story, but Aeron swore that it was coming.

Brin was about three quarters of the way through the book, and Elatore was in a weird but hilarious love quadrangle with his wife, a princess he’d rescued, and somehow, his own son.

He stopped reading mid-sentence, because something finally happened with the war.

A pack of undead wolves, each as big as a horse, burst out from the wall of mist. The soldiers in the front line braced themselves behind great shields, but before the wolves reached them, a quick-moving projectile flew from the mist and crashed into them. Brin only saw it for an instant, but he swore it was a screaming decapitated head, glowing from the eyes and mouth. It exploded when it struck the front lines, incinerating the shield-bearing soldiers.

The wolves had easy access to the less-protected soldiers behind them and opened up a hole in their ranks, tearing through with wild abandon.

The soldiers were in chaos, the nearest ones trying to get away with the furthest ones not understanding what was going on and not seeing where the attack was coming from. Brin wanted to go out and help, but he couldn’t do much from this distance, and besides, another three Lances were already on their way.

The closest Lance all activated [Knight’s Charge] from horseback and tore up the space with unnatural speed. They crashed into the wolves, carving long furrows into their flesh.

The foul magics animating them weren’t so easily undone. Flesh knitted back together as quickly as it was sliced open, and the undead wolves surprised the attacking [Knights] by retaliating with unnatural speed and ferocity. Only the animal instincts of their mounts protected them, hopping back from the wolves' attack.

Before the [Knights] could rally and turn to try another assault, the undead wolves were already running back towards the wall of mist. The [Knight’s] elected not to follow them into the dark, and so every single one of the attacking wolves escaped, leaving at least twenty dead soldiers behind.

The watching army held its breath, and almost on cue, another glowing head flew out of the mist. This one turned to dust and fell apart, before bursting harmlessly on the shield of a defender. Brin couldn’t figure out why it hadn’t exploded like the other. Was the dust some new trick? But it didn’t seem like it.

Moments later, a third head flew from the mist, and Brin shot off [Wyrdic Inspect] just in time. He still didn’t have a good idea of what the projectile even was, but he got enough of a glimpse to see what was happening. The projectile was hitting some kind of defensive magic, a protection spell or maybe a Skill.

Brin didn’t know which it was, but he was impressed that the allied army had put together a countermeasure so quickly. He glanced back at the [Archmage of Creeping Death], but if he was the one responsible for the defense, Brin got no clues from the cloth-covered face.

Brin didn’t feel much like reading after that, and no one asked. Four more hours passed, and no new terrors came from Arcaena, and the allies didn’t take another step forward. Fresh soldiers came to defend the new front, and the ones who’d been here were relieved, starting with the commoners.

Eventually Cid came to find them, and told them their work for the day was done.

“A whole day, and twenty lives lost, and all we got was eight-hundred feet,” said Brin.

“That’s more territory than anyone has claimed from Arcaena in more than two hundred years. Be proud.”

Later, when they were well on their way towards the Order’s camp and he could speak without being overheard by anyone not in his Lance, Cid looked at them all and said, “I can’t say everything they’re talking about over in Command, but there’s a reason Grimwalt is taking things slow. It won’t be like this forever. These are the easy times; let’s enjoy it while we can.”