The only close-quarters Dermei Diranth saw that battle was after the end, in which he had taken his mace to smash in the head of a diseased corpse that wasn't quite dead enough yet. The Veil-worshipers still used the the zombies to make final use of their dead, but had long ago ceased killing their own for the bodies.
First, goblins practitioners of the Ordine Medicos had made the once-terrifying effects of the diseases much less frightening. A few herbs smuggled through the Clan lands, some strong and reinforced chicken or pig broth, and a potential epidemic was staunched at a number sick and a few dead at most. The Veil-worshipers had turned to summoning pit-beasts instead: while no match for an iron-armed Orc or even an unarmed Ogre (not that there were such Ogres in his kingdom), they did more damage and havoc than the zombies.
Second, Dermei and his hoard gave them all the corpses they needed.
He had had help, Dermei had to admit. He had long since gone beyond suspecting that the better-disciplined of his soldiers were more than just runaways from the Grigori west, come to join a green-skin kingdom. They didn't share the conquest-spoils like the others, tended to keep to their own groups too much... unless they tried to using extensive arguments to make a native goblin or ogre come to their way of seeing. And then that goblin or Ogre would join those fires, and sooner or later half the army would pretend to be civilized while the other were the brutish and more stupid.
Dermei liked intelligence. It and an excellent sense of self-preservation were why he remained alive and powerful today.
But Dermei was also smart enough to recognize that he needed dumber strong-men to be powerful himself. An ogre smart enough to debate the worth of worshiping gods in general had long-since become smart enough to realize that he could still get his war spoils and meat if he overthrew you and took your place himself, and that then he would get even more spoils. You needed brutes just smart enough to fight well, but dumb enough not to get any stupid ideas. Stupid ideas like, say, supporting the overthrow of a goblin war-chief.
Dermei much more preferred the iron weapons the Grigori sent. Those didn't have dangerous ideas, but made his ideas far more dangerous. No one questioned you when you were flanked by two massive ogres with iron war hammers. (Or maybe they were forge hammers, but they were stained red enough now to be either.) Even better, the Yokaido didn't bother sending cambion with mithril weapons out to the frontier, and with no iron deposits of their own Dermei often enjoyed the rare goblin advantage of having better weapons than his enemies.
No weapon the Grigori could send, however, could match the two adventurers that sat around his campfires at night. Surprisingly, they didn't sit around the one with the 'civilized' converts: though they sometimes did, Groo the Wanderer made sure to bond with all the men. Despite openly admitting that he was a Grigori here only to help shape the war, Dermei could relax around the massive ogre. He had a comfortable grin and accent that reminded Dermei of home. Groo, if he ever changed sides, would let you know first, and then strike you from the front. He was a reliable broad sword in Dermei's forces, making bonds with everyone very easily.
Needles, sharpening his knife beside him, bonded with no one, even the civilized ones. Dermei had once tried to entice the other goblin into his personal service, but had stopped after seeing the way Needles had been looking at his vitals. Just what or why Needles followed the Grigori, not even Dermei could figure out. If it had been for the job of killing, the followers of Esus in the Svartalfar woods would have accepted him. If it had been for the Grigori philosophy, Dermei would have expected him to share it more. Once, but only once, Dermei had once been about to jokingly ask if Needles was Aeron's Own, Chosen by the god of warfare to hand out death on Mazera. Then he had considered if he really wanted to know, and had asked another question instead.
These were the two warriors that Deremei Diranth walked up on the post-battle field after crushing the last zombie. As he had expected, they were gathered around the corpse of the leading Veil Profane, searching through his body as they did for every practitioner of the supernatural that they found on the battlefield. Deremei knew better than to ask why: the messenger hawks that regularly came to and fro carried enough written paper in both direction to tell that the two were searching for any useful clues.
Groo spotted him first, waving a hand in greeting. His other still gripped a longsword of pure mithril, taken from the Yokaido front and delivered all the way here by Cassiel's own command. Deremei suspected some sort of enchantment assisted the blade, but Groo insisted that it was just the power of mithril. Having no base of comparison, Deremei was in no position to disagree.
Needles was still searching this last corpse with one hand, idly twirling his poisoned knife in the other while whistling a Grigori rhyme. He didn't even notice Deremei's presence until after he had already scanned through the letter and handed it to Groo.
"Anything important from this lot?" asked Deremei.
"Not in the battle," Needles answered. "Typical Profanes. So confident in their arcane powers, they don't notice any deception. Good work on the ambush today, by the way: I didn't expect you to pull off the ambush in their own town." Coming from Needles, it was rare praise.
"From any distance, a fully dressed Orc can be passed off as a hume. They heard the replies, they saw the men on the ramparts, we opened the gates..." Deremei chuckled. "I bet they never expected the portcullis to divide them so. It was too easy after that, and the zombies were just stuck outside."
Groo just shook his head, still reading. "Idiots," he muttered. "They should have believen the people who ran." It wasn't quite what someone expected to hear in such broken speech, but anyone who underestimated Groo's mind was a fool.
Deremei was about to ask another question when Groo frowned, his face darkening visibly. Groo turned to Needles and asked "You see this?"
Needles nodded. "That's why I gave it to you. Doesn't sound good, does it?"
Deremie held out his hand expectantly, and Groo handed over the missive. "Read the end," he instructed.
'And finally,' the message conveniently resumed, 'go to Miyun and secure it from that accursed Goblin's forces. For now, don't worry about securing the countryside or pushing him back: when the Ceremony is complete, they will fall before us like ashes in the wind.
~Todou, Palace Adviser to His Majesty
P.S.: Do not worry about searching for more sacrifices. We already have enough at hand.
Deremei considered the message as he handed it back to the Adventurers.
"They're planning something big," he reasoned. "So big, they think we're a negligible distraction. Something big... and probably aimed at your people," he reasoned, and both Needles and Groo nodded. "I have heard that the Yokaido have been fighting for time in the mountains, and this might be why."
"Very well," Deremei ruled. "Go and send your messenger hawk to Cassiel. It might be important for him to hear of this."
As Needles called for one of the 'civilized' goblins to fetch him a messenger hawk, Deremei realized that not-completely loyal goblins and ogres might well be the least of his problems.