Quote:Never read those. Will have to see about acquiring them.
Heh, what it really reminds me of is the Malazan series by Steve Erikson. Where the Evil Empire that wants to Conquer The World(TM) happens to be the good guys, inasmuch as there are good guys. Roman-style army, tribal auxiliaries, mage cadre, allies in the form of summoned demons, immortal dust zombies, and the requisite chitinous-armored-soldiers that fly on giant insects. They're the good guys because the bad guys are really truly atrociously evil, and well...
Scribe-guy doesn't go and carve out an empire for himself because he doesn't need to. His efforts, at the beginning, are mostly towards making up for the colossal cock-up that was the waking of the sword in using it to bitchslap the Outsiders.
_Then_ he starts to realize what sort of power the damned thing really has. You could say he's the very model of the cliche necromantic general. The sort of troops he's got don't really require any support structure, for the most part. Hell, his so called 'army' travels as a group of the generals and a handful of summoned muscle. A bit of it is just re-raised at the next conveniant graveyard/burial mound - just enough to bite into the Enemy forces. Then the casualties on both sides are animated again. Repeat ad nauseum.
Of course, the Enemy wises up and forces a battle on rocky terrain, where there's nothing to raise for a few miles, and we have a traditional two army drag-on-brawl ... I'm getting ahead of myself again.
And what the hell is it about chitinous armored soldiers? I mean, I got caught by that cliche too ... does that sort of armor just give the wearer a karmic 'evil by default' tag taped to his forehead or something? Looks like it from here, anyway.
Btw. people, I'm really liking the picture you guys are painting. Especially the bits about dragons. Hoping to see more of this thing as it forms. What'd the ending be like, I wonder?
-Griever
'inside every living person, there's a dead person just waiting to get out' -mangled quote from a Discworld novel
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm