"We won," O'Connor said. "I can't believe it.”
They all turned and walked back towards the boat—but as they did, Indra stood there, eyes still wide with fear, looking over their shoulders.
"Do not boast too soon, warrior," Indra warned.
There arose from behind them a sound that made the hairs on the back of Thor’s neck rise. It was the sound of a thousand bones clattering.
Slowly, Thor turned, almost afraid to look.
There, he was horrified to see, were all the bones of the defeated skeletons, slowly beginning to rise up from the ground, and re-attach themselves. One bone at a time, the entire army of the undead was coming back to life.
"As I said,” Indra said, “you cannot kill what is already dead."
Thor watch wide-eyed as the entire army began to reassemble itself, to prepare for yet another attack. All that fighting, all of their victory—it had all been useless. These monsters would just keep regenerating themselves, until finally they tired Thor and his men out, and killed them all. They might not be as good fighters—but they had something that Thor and his men never would: endless endurance. And at the end of the day, Thor knew, endurance would always triumph.
"Back to the boat!" Thor yelled, stepping backwards slowly with the others.
As one, they all turned and jumped back into the boat and gave it a good shove from shore, paddling harder than ever. The tides picked up, and soon they were rushing downriver, gaining distance from that shore. Thor and his men ducked as they passed into yet another canal, leaving the cavernous room, just in time to be out of reach of the advancing army.
It was the first time in Thor's life that victory had been meaningless, and as they entered yet another tunnel of darkness, he wondered, with a futile feeling, what other horrors could await them around the bend.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Gwendolyn stood on the broad stone landing of the lower city of Silesia, surrounded by her generals, soldiers and Silesian citizens, all of them looking out in ominous silence into the vast expanse of the Canyon, watching the second sun drop in the sky. They had not heard a peep from the Empire's men all this time, and after a long, agitated panic among the crowd, slowly, they had settled into a deep quiet. The tension hung thick in the air, each of them lost in their own world, looking out at the sky, facing their own mortality. It was the quiet of a thousand souls in the eye of a storm, of people who knew they had nowhere left to go but to their deaths.
The silence from the Empire scared Gwendolyn more than their attack. She knew that Andronicus was up there somewhere, plotting something, and she knew it was only a matter time until he executed it. He was as ruthless a soldier as she had ever seen. The worst part was that, even if he did nothing, there would still be no way out for them but death. How long could they survive down here, until their provisions ran out? They had nowhere to go but up. And up was not an option.
Andronicus knew that, of course. He had them all by the throat. He would make them wait it out. Allow their panic to set in. He was probably reveling in it right now. He had them exactly where he wanted.
Gwen supposed she should be pleased with herself for at least fending them off as well as she had in her first battle, for taking out so many of them, and for saving so many of her people in the evacuation. But she was not pleased with herself at all. She felt she had failed.
Nearby stood Srog, Brom, Kolk and Godfrey, along with the other soldiers, and beside her stood Steffen and Kendrick. They all looked out at the Canyon, faces grim. She wished she knew what to say to them to cheer them up, wished she knew where to go from here.
"Do you remember that one time with father," Kendrick answered softly, nostalgically, looking out at the sky, "when he was trying to teach you to swing a sword? You refused. You said swords were for weak men.”
Gwendolyn smiled.
"Only vaguely," she said. "I must have been very young.”
Kendrick smiled.
"Father got so mad,” he continued. “He ended all of our training sessions for the day. Back then, it seemed like you’d said the dumbest thing in the world.”
He sighed.
"But you know, now that I'm older, I realize there was great wisdom in what you said,” he added. “The simplest battles are won by swords. The most complex ones are won by other means. By strategy. By logistics. By willpower.”
"I'm sure I was not hinting at all that when I said that as a youth," she smiled.
He smiled back.
"No, I am sure you weren’t. What you’d said was wise beyond your years. Even then.”
He turned and looked at her.
“I just want you to know that you fought this battle brilliantly,” he said. “We killed twenty times our ranks, and lost far fewer of our own than we should have. For any other leader, that would be a victory to be remember for all time. Don’t feel badly. Their numbers were too vast for any army to conquer.”
"He’s right, my lady,” said Steffen beside her.
“Truer words were never spoken,” added Srog.
"Thank you, my brother," she said to Kendrick. "I want you to know that I've always thought of you as my brother. My true brother. We share the same father. And that is blood enough for me.”
Kendrick looked back to her and he could see in his eyes how much her words meant to him.
"And what now, my lady?" Srog asked. “I'm afraid we have no other contingency plans beyond this. Now, the people look to you. Now, the decision is yours.”
"It would do us little good to surrender as a people to Andronicus," Gwendolyn said. "We all know his reputation: he does not keep his prisoners alive. We must wait it out.”
"And if hunger finds us first?" Brom asked.
Gwen sighed.
"Then we fight a different kind of death," she answered. “Unless one of you has other ideas?”
They all stood in the glum silence, listening to the howling of the wind. No one had anything to add.
Kendrick finally cleared his throat.
"When we joined the Legion,” he said, “and then the Silver, we took a vow. It was a vow to fight, even when there was no chance left to win. It was a vow of honor. A vow of glory. That is what we have achieved here today. Not victory, but glory. And sometimes, long after the victor has left, it is the glory that remains, that is sung of, not the conquest. Sometimes, glory is greater.”