The wizards' new hiding place turned out to be a good one, and the University proctors never came close to discovering them. They had word from the priests and their acolytes and assistants of strange wizards turning up here and there across the countryside, asking questions in all the sparsely inhabited, little known places, but in all the weeks that Tragius and the other renegade wizards were hiding in the Samnian fortress monastery they were never once interrupted in their work by a proctor getting too close. It seemed that it never even occurred to the University’s police force that they might have been taken in by the priesthood of Samnos.

     It took them a surprisingly short time to settle in to the extensive cave system that underlay the monastery, and a mere week after their arrival a visitor might have been forgiven for thinking that they’d always been there. The caves turned out to be ideal for high level magical work, the thick walls of rock separating the caverns proving to be excellent at shielding out stray magical energies, so that the experiments carried out by one wizard didn’t interfere with those carried out by another. More importantly, it prevented them from reaching the surface, where they might have been detected by the constantly searching proctors.

     A large central cave, used by the priests to store large stocks of food in preparation for a possible siege, was used as their common room and council chamber. They met there once a day to compare notes and discuss possible new avenues of research, and the acolytes, who were training to be priests themselves one day, were given the tasks of serving their every need, which included cooking their meals and washing their clothing. It was an ideal environment in which to carry out their studies, even better than Elmias’s mansion in the plane of stone, which had been built as a retirement home and a secure refuge rather than a laboratory.

     Tragius’s only regret was the need to keep the priests ignorant of the object of their research. Rak transformation, even with Resalintas’s blessing, was not something they would be able to countenance easily, and so they'd decided to keep them in blissful ignorance, something that pained the old wizard and seemed to him to be a poor return for their hospitality.

     It also meant keeping the priests away from certain areas, and that ran the risk of arousing their suspicions, even though they could handily explain it as the need to protect them from dangerous stray magics. Priests of Samnos had a talent for spotting when they were being lied to, and they knew that the wizards were hiding from something, else why weren't they doing their work in Lexandria with its all its resources and laboratories? Resalintas had told them that they weren't to inquire, though, and that the work they were doing, vital for the war effort, could be done nowhere else, and that was all they needed to know.

     Working in peace and safety, therefore, and paying no consideration to the suffering of the rak’s soul as they grilled it for the information they needed, they soon learned the secret of how a living wizard could turn himself into a rak. They were shocked when they learned exactly what it would involve, the efforts that would be required from them and the sacrifices that would have to be made, but to their relief they found that they already possessed everything that they would need in the supplies and equipment they’d brought from Elmias’s mansion. All that was needed was the time in which to carry out the work, and they prayed that they had it.

     As soon as the rak’s soul was no longer needed, it was replaced in its crystal prison for greater secrecy and security, and there they intended it to stay. So long as it could be prevented from returning to its ark, the theory was that its body would be unable to reform. It could no longer threaten the world and, more importantly from their point of view, it would not be able to inform the other Shadowraks of what they were up to. In the meantime, it would be treated as carefully and cautiously as a canister of radioactive waste and would, in due course, be buried in the deepest, darkest mineshaft they could find, to be sealed up for the rest of time.

     Time passed. The Shadowhosts returned to Bula Pass, as they’d known they would, and now that the defenders no longer had the Sceptre to use against them the legions that had been held in reserve in the Shadow were finally sent into battle. The strategy of sending only a portion of their total strength against the forces of civilization, just enough to force the Beltharans to use up the Sceptre’s three charges, had succeeded, and now there was nothing to stop them from using everything they had in an all out drive for victory. The men watching the lands around the Shadow through the Lenses of Farseeing up on Kronos cried out in shock and horror when they saw the size of the armies marching on the besieged outposts of Belthar and Fu Nang, and soon the air all across the continent was buzzing with panic stricken Farspoken and scried messages as the word spread.

     Resalintas was in his tent in the warcamp of the seventeenth Beltharan infantry regiment in Bula Pass when the trembling messenger came for him, his eyes wide and his face white with the knowledge he was carrying. “Sir, Field Marshal Haines asks for your presence in the command tent at your earliest convenience, sir.”

     Resalintas nodded. “It’s happening?” The messenger merely nodded, his mouth too dry and his throat too tight with fear to speak. The old priest patted him on the shoulder. “Courage, lad. We can only do our best, and if we fall, we fall with honour and glory. Now return to your duties.” The young man nodded and left.

     Resalintas buckled on the Sword of Retribution, tucked his helmet under his arm and walked calmly and sedately to the huge command tent where he found officers from all the military units currently stationed in Bula Pass waiting for him. “How bad is it?” he asked without preamble.

     “We’ve just had word from Kronos that several columns of troops of all races are converging on our positions from several sites along the western boundary of the Shadow," Haines replied. "Their total strength is estimated to be at least a quarter of a million.”

     “Oh Gods!” whispered a Colonel, and several officers made superstitious gestures of warding and protection. “It’s an invasion force,” said another, his voice carrying a heavy load of despair. “They’re expecting to take the valley and storm through into Belthar itself.”

     The Field Marshal nodded. No good would be served by denying the obvious. “Fort Dirk cannot long withstand such strength, not even with the Orb of Proofing. It is my decision, therefore, that we do not try to defend it. Any such attempt would result only in the deaths of all its defenders, the swelling of the enemy’s zombie army and the loss of a major part of our remaining strength. Instead, I have decided to take advantage of one of the few advantages we have over them; the Kronos observatory. We will evacuate Fort Dirk, and the other fortresses guarding Bula Pass, and we will set the Orb to seal the fortress city, as we did with the Orb in Fort Battleaxe. We will destroy the other fortresses so that they cannot be occupied by the enemy. We will then withdraw from Bula Pass completely and allow the enemy to pass through unmolested into Belthar.”

     “What!” exclaimed a young Captain as the whole room seemed to shake and tremble with disbelief. “You’re not serious!”

     “Once in Belthar, the Shadowarmies will split up, in order to cover such a large country. They will expect us to split up as well, to try to defend every target they attack, but we will not. Instead, our army will remain as one unit. Kronos will keep us informed of the size and movements of each individual Shadowarmy and we will attack just one of them, ignoring all the others. If the Gods are with us, we will destroy that army, and then we will move on to the next, and the next after that. By sending our entire army against one small portion of theirs after another, we will wear them down by degrees.”

     “And meanwhile the rest of the Shadowarmy will be sacking Belthar!” cried the young Captain in outrage. “It’s madness!”

     “And what if the Shadowarmy does not split up?” demanded another officer. “What if they advance as a unit to Tara? How well do you think the rest of the country will hang together if the capital falls?”

     “If we can't defend Fort Dirk, how can we fight them in the field?” demanded a third. “They’ll walk all over us!”

     “The only hope for Belthar is for us to hold them here,” declared the first. “To abandon the excellent defensive positions we hold here without a fight is madness! Madness!”

     “We cannot hold them here,” said Haines, trying hard to control his voice. “There are a quarter of a million of them. If we try to take them all at once they will destroy us, and then Belthar will be left undefended before them. Our one hope is to use our greater intelligence gathering capability to greatest effect, and the only way to do that is to break them up, scatter them. With all of Belthar as our battlefield, they will have to search a million square miles for us, but thanks to Kronos we will always know exactly where they are. If there is still any hope of victory for us, then that is the path we must take. Those are the orders I am giving. You will make immediate arrangements to carry them out.”

     The room exploded in indignation and outrage, but the Field Marshal ignored them and marched out of the room, knowing that the majority of them would realise the wisdom of the plan once they'd had a chance to think about it. He could understand how they felt, though. The purpose of the army, in any civilized country, was to protect the civilian population, but his plan was to sacrifice them, cynically and in cold blood, in order to avoid an otherwise inevitable military defeat. The fact that their defeat would mean the deaths of all civilians everywhere helped his conscience only a little.

     He felt a presence behind him, and looked around to find that Resalintas had followed him out. “You have given orders to evacuate the civilians westwards?” the old priest asked.

     Haines nodded. “For all the good it will do. There’s only so far they can go before they run into the Black Mountains, the wall at the edge of the world. The enemy will catch them.” He sighed heavily. “Who knows? It may save some of them.”

     Resalintas nodded. “It’s a good plan. Against a quarter of a million, Bula Pass is indefensible. I’d like to suggest one minor addition to your plan, though. That young man was correct when he said that we should try to hold them here as long as possible. Bula Pass is a bottleneck through which the enemy must pass if they wish to enter Belthar, unless they decide to go south through Ilandia or north through Stonn. We would be fools if we didn't try to put some kind of obstacle in their path.”

     “What kind of obstacle if not the army?” asked Haines.

     “There are twenty six priests of Samnos currently in Bula Pass. Enough for a Holy Summoning. I’d like to bring a minion of Samnos here to guard the pass after we go.”

     Haines was thunderstruck. “You can do that?” he said incredulously. “I’ve heard of it, of course, but only in old legends. You think you can do it today?”

     “We can try,” replied the old priest. “It places a terrible toll on us, however, which is why it is not done except in the direst emergency. The priesthood archives tell of priests being aged years by the rigours of the ritual, of thirty year old men at the very pinnacle of their careers being left with grey hair and arthritis, of older men dropping dead or left crippled and senile. It is no trivial undertaking, I can tell you.”

     “But you're already old, if you don’t mind me saying. Will you survive the ritual?”

     “If it is the will of Samnos.” He took a deep breath, let it out in a long sigh. “Do I have your permission to proceed with the Summoning?”

     Haines knew that the request was a pure formality. If Resalintas wanted to do something, he’d do it no matter what anyone else thought. He obeyed Samnos Himself, and no human could outrank a God. Any commander with any sense recognised the fact, though, and put up with it, as priests of Samnos were far too valuable as allies to alienate them, and no-one had any doubt as to how long they would continue to fight alongside the armies of Belthar if they tried to force them to go against the wishes of their God.

     “You have my permission,” he said therefore. “Proceed immediately. This creature, whatever you call it, can cover our retreat from the valley.” The old priest nodded and left.

     As Resalintas marched away, he brooded over the other reason he had for wanting to make the attempt. Despite weeks of soul searching and prayer, he was still unsure whether Samnos approved of his plans to become undead and enter Arnor. There was a part of him, a strong part, that still insisted that to deliberately become undead was a highly sinful act and that, not only was the attempt doomed to failure, but he was also damning his soul for all eternity. His own soul and those of the others he intended to talk into accompanying him. He had no doubt that any priest of Samnos he approached would follow him sooner or later, after some initial protest about the state of his sanity. He knew his own reputation among the other priests, knew the awe and respect in which they held him. But what gave him the right to make other people take a course of action that might very well end in the loss of their very souls?

     Resalintas hoped that the Summoning would answer the question for him. The rigours of the ritual would leave him either dead or aged beyond the ability to participate in battle. If the latter, he could still become undead and carry out the plan he had devised, with who knows what consequences for his soul. If the ritual left him dead, though, then that would be the end of it. Samnos would have made His will known. If he lived, he would take it as proof that the God of Righteous Warfare approved of his plan, allowing him to put fear behind him and devote himself fully to the undertaking. Whether he was justified in that assumption, of course, was another matter, but he didn’t let himself think about that. The ritual would be the test. The ritual would answer all his questions.