Rise of the Undead Empress (Volume 3)

Chapter 1

After midnight, once the buzz around the event announcement had died down, the channel gradually went quiet.

The Lords finished summoning their daily units and turned in while they still could.

The night deepened, and the whole world seemed to hold still.

Lilith expected it to pass as uneventfully as any other.

Then, in the small hours, a strange glow seeped through her window.

Pale blue light brushed across her face. She stirred beneath the covers and rolled away from it, too tired to care.

A moment later, still half-asleep, it hit her that something was wrong.

Lilith forced one eye open.

The room should have been pitch-black. Instead, a dim light behind her cast a hazy shadow across the floor.

Her exhaustion evaporated.

"Where is that coming from?"

She had spent enough nights in this world to know how absolute the darkness became after sunset. Without a torch or a spell, she could barely see her own hand.

And this was no ordinary firelight.

The glow was pale blue—almost spectral.

Lilith rolled out of bed and went to the window.

Dense trees blocked most of the view, but she could tell the light was coming from due north.

A heartbeat later she stood atop the castle in her nightclothes, staring toward the horizon.

Understanding settled over her face.

"The Frostlands again."

Something enormous seemed to be glowing among the distant mountains. Its light traced the outline of the peaks and bathed the whole northern sky in a faint wash of blue.

Whatever was happening out there, it had to be connected to the earlier omen.

"Is something about to emerge?" Lilith murmured.

If so, that was bad news.

The Frostlands were about to become a battlefield, and her Territory wasn't nearly far enough away to sit this one out.

With Morwen still absent, Lilith summoned Eldran instead.

The Bone Overlord arrived moments later and dropped to one knee.

"Eldran, go to the Frostlands immediately. Find out what's happening."

"Yes, Master."

He rose and headed straight for the Portal.

Lilith returned to the castle and went back to bed.

As a Lord, though, she was still an outsider to this world.

She had no idea what a second Frostlands omen meant to the native powers surrounding it.

...

Far to the south, deep in the stone forest of the badlands, the Goblins were the first to react.

Bonfires flared to life across their largest stronghold, bathing the settlement in orange light.

At its center stood a broad hide pavilion where the tribe's shamans and priests had been called to an emergency council.

Tallow lamps smoked inside, filling the air with a greasy haze.

None of the priests spoke.

They stood in silence until heavy footsteps approached from outside.

A massive figure shouldered through the entrance.

Only after the High Chieftain took his seat did the others settle around him.

"High Chieftain," one priest began, "the Archpriest's prophecy may be coming true. Whatever sleeps beneath the Frostlands could surface soon. Should we send scouts again, as we did last time?"

"Scouts?" another priest snapped. "By the time they crawl back, some other race will have carried off the relic."

"We already sent a patrol after the first omen. And what became of them?"

No bodies had ever been recovered, but everyone in the pavilion knew the patrol was dead.

This time, most of the priests favored sending a warband—one strong enough to seize the treasure before their rivals could react.

"High Chieftain," another voice cut in.

The speaker was the young priest who had investigated the plague at the edge of the stone forest.

"I have confirmed what destroyed the Ragtooth Tribe. It was an undead plague."

The pavilion went silent.

"Undead?" a nearby priest demanded at last. "There are no undead in this region. You've made a mistake."

The High Chieftain finally spoke.

"The Ragtooth Tribe's blood debt falls to the Thornstake Tribe."

The young priest belonged to Thornstake.

He bowed his head. "As you command."

He left at once to muster his tribe's warriors. His orders were simple: follow the trail of death and avenge the fallen tribe.

The High Chieftain then named a second tribe to travel north and investigate the Frostlands omen.

Goblins kept much the same hours as humans, and they moved by daylight as a rule.

Yet tonight, they acted without hesitation.

That alone said how much the rumored treasure was worth to a race their size.

And they were not the only ones on the move.

At that same hour, the official powers of the Stormcrown Empire—the human rulers of the region—were mounting a response of their own.

One of the empire's great border fortresses stood northeast of the Blighted Forest, guarding a mountain pass into the frontier.

The distance from that fortress to the remote Frostlands was far greater than any map suggested.

But the Stormcrown Empire commanded the most advanced magic and arcane engineering in the region.

Two streaks of light tore across the night sky at tremendous speed, arrowing due north.

The Frostlands marked the edge of Stormcrown territory and bordered two other great regions besides.

With the second omen blazing over the mountains, every power within reach had drawn the same conclusion.

Whatever had been hidden there was close to emerging.

The Stormcrown Empire would not be the only force to act.

From the northwest, two hostile races—each formidable in its own right—were already converging on the Frostlands.

And the native Frost Sabertooths had waited longer than any of them.

They had been preparing since the first omen.

Now they moved before every rival.

The Frostlands had once lain as still as a frozen lake.

That calm was gone.

Faction after faction poured into the region, each one tipping the balance a little further.

Soon, the entire frontier would erupt.