His sword went through the wall like a sharp knife slices the belly of a fish; slowly at first; then deeper, then gliding easily, almost without friction.

Once he had it deep, he began to walk along the apparently infinite corridor, dragging the Fell Sword through the entrails of Ash’s thought.

He couldn’t help himself. He began to laugh.

He allowed some of Thorn to surface, to see what they were doing, and Thorn laughed, too.

And then they began to vandalize Ash’s subconscious.

Ash had lost his enemy; and he turned away in the air above the dark hills, his great eyes searching the path of steaming ruin left by his breath, but he could see no sign. His adversary might have translated again; or might be dead.

Ash was confused, because there at the end, his adversary’s casting had more and more resembled that of his acolyte, Thorn, whose passing Ash regretted the way an old woman might regret a lost love, with unrealistic half-memories of splendour.

But even while the part of him devoted to immediate combat turned and searched, his consciousness had other demands on it, and he passed one more time along the line of hills, breathing unquenchable fire into the dark and snowy woods and rising on a wave of heat to look north, to the walls of Albinkirk.

His great armies were in disarray, but his plans were maturing. The armies of men were contesting the areas around the gate. His slaves needed orders. The will was utterly distracted, its full attention on forcing the gate.

Best of all, Orley and his little army were entering the field from the north; inconsequential in their numbers, but Ash had prepared five commanders for this very moment, and he reached out through the aethereal and filled them with purpose, examining, analyzing, passing information and command to each.

Every one had a chosen bodyguard of antlered knights. Each of them could run all day and all night, at the speed of a horse.

Ash sent one south, to his army of bogglins on the south side of the river. He sent another south and east, to lead the attack on Penrith, the obvious key to the army of men. A third he sent to crack the walls of Albinkirk. Orley himself he sent to attack Lissen Carak in the real; a necessary component to Ash’s end game. The last of them, neither the least nor the greatest, Ash sent to the head of his legion of black trolls; the stone trolls of the highest mountains. To go to them, and stand silent.

Because Ash had learned that reserves were the key to battle. And although he couldn’t foresee a need for such a mighty reserve today, he knew that victory today only meant that there would be other days and other foes among the million spheres.