She knew it was a suicide run, but it still pained her to see so many good soldiers fall so quickly. The reanimated corpses fell with solitary arrows piercing their heads or torsos, but still Viola smiled. They had to be running low on arrows. It had been frantic, but by sheer force of will the violet-clad general had managed to pull her champion back before he committed himself to the suicide run and wasted his strength. He was the main reason behind her throbbing headache right now. He couldn’t attack her directly, but he could dedicate as much of his rotted will as possible to disobeying her orders. It wouldn’t matter for much longer, though. The division of giant spiders and dur’taigen had started making their bridge.

The docks on the far side of the river exploded in fiery blazes, and the twisted general released a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. There was more than one reason she had sent her forces far down the bank to ford the river. Even though the spiders did not typically work together, under Viola’s watchful will they coordinated their webbing into a slick, streamlined process. Two dozen spiders leapt most of the way across the river, webbing anchored firmly to the starting bank. Once they reached the far shore, they trimmed their webs, anchored them, and one dozen walked back across the silken strands, weaving another row of silk. The process continued rapidly after that with more and more spiders crossing and weaving back and forth.

A great “pulse” of magic beat in the skies across the bridge, visible like the noonday sun to Viola’s necromantically enchanted eyes. It was all the warning she had to realize something big was about to happen. Her mind flashed back to the circle she had seen in her initial scout; it seemed to match the general origin of the now-spreading ice floes. Hurried mental commands to her fording party got them to stall the bridge for just a moment as the water solidified. A single ship was moving westward now toward her force, but it was traveling much too slow to reach them in time. The bridge of webbing could hold two spiders across at a time, and half of them were already across. The spiders walked with their bodies held high above their legs as a single file of dur’taigen tore across the webbing underneath each spider line. Their orders were to leave the web bridge, not as an escape, but as a hindrance to the ship headed their way. It wouldn’t do too much, but even slightly tiring a bard would be a help.

Her main problem now was waiting for her troops to get fully into position. The reaper of cities was terribly impatient when it came to delays in her conquests. Ten hawks screeched from somewhere behind her, and with the effort akin to blinking, the command to take flight was transferred from her mind to their will. A flurry of feathers later, half a score of black hawks took to the skies at a height where even an elf would have trouble shooting them down. Casually they flew; gliding along the currents until a pair suddenly and unexpectedly arced higher than the rest. A rapid flip at the pinnacle of their climb sent them plummeting to the ground at speeds faster than they could reach in life. Lifeless black eyes were trained on the wizard in the center of the circle.

Make the wizard feel my pain! Show him a life of eternal darkness!

Her orders were clear and concise, and they left no room for deviance. Beaks longed for the whites of the man’s eyes; talons lusted for the tender flesh of his neck and arms. While he may not have been quite as powerful a figurehead as the woman commanding the mass of troops across the bridge, he was still a figurehead. Generals wielded power greater than simple commands; they were the lifeblood of their troops. A direct assault of the mage who could easily have been a general for the power he wielded would be a strike against more than his flesh. She would strike the very heart of her adversaries.

Out of Character:
Main force:
250 Spiders
38 Dur’Taigen
260 ants
30 hawks
Derris

Flanking:
300 Spiders
300 Dur’Taigen