V13: Chapter 3

  …

  Interlude: She Who Runs Red With Promise

  …

  For a moment, the sound of thunder and screaming metal paused, and what remained of our forces found solace in the silence. Some ran, others fell to their knees, and a few laughed, believing that they passed a great test.

  However, in the darkness from which a vast fortress was faintly outlined by falling stars, there came a rumble.

  Then, suddenly, amongst our ranks there was screaming.

  I turned my gaze and beheld our own dead beginning to move.

  The ancestors once called upon the dead as their armies. They waged war across the stars with relentless zeal. A force that grew stronger as they slew their enemies. While the ancestors made use of beasts as auxilia, their main force was the dead, so they made use of beasts even in their passing. Some were granted more intellect and magic, but the vast majority were nothing more than cadavers made to move and kill.

  Now, that army was let loose upon us.

  Why would the ancestors accept inheritors who could not surmount the masses they use? They drown their foes.

  I understood their reasoning, yet I could still barely look as the fallen arose, screamed, and rushed at their former comrades. Many were just bone held together by scraps of flesh, greatly weakened from the torrent of magic and ancient technology thrown our way, but they came from our many dead. They beset the wounded first, killing them and adding to their number. Soldiers who still had their wits and were hale fought and slew them with ease, but after the first dozen came another, and they were subsumed beneath the tide.

  But most of our force were believers who wielded spears and were lucky to have leather armor.

  Against an enemy that wore the faces of their friends, neighbors, and families, they could only be consumed and torn apart.

  For every warrior that fell slaying dozens, dozens of the faithful died without slaying one of the Undead.

  That alone was enough to shatter the army’s will, and calls for retreat resounded.

  But that was not enough.

  From the dreadful fort cloaked in darkness, which spat out flying knives and thunderous projectiles upon us, gates were opened and giants came forth. Each one as tall as a house and just as wide, they were covered in chainmail and covered in overlapping plates of black armor. They were not ogres, trolls, or other monstrous beasts. Their large forms were too elegant and refined, even if they were bulky. Not only that, but their steps were measured, they moved with easy grace, and each one carried a different weapon on their person, each one suited for their immense size; thus, they were closer to battering rams than mundane armaments.

  Our faithful’s cadavers were naught but a means to slow us for the true vanguard.

  But against them alone there might have been some hope.

  Officers were rising to the occasion. They were rallying people, gathering beasts, and calling for retreat. Warriors were carving a path, and the injured were ready to delay the coming giants.

  But that hope faded with the outpouring of power unlike anything else I ever felt in my life.

  It was greater than even the greatest of rituals, where thousands of beasts were sacrificed to keep whole cities powered for years. The font of power was so mighty that it drove away the night and cast everything in the harshest splendor. My eyes became wet with tears as I beheld a great pillar of golden light arising from the center of the fortress. The dreadful construct of overlapping walls bristling with monsters rather than mere beasts was writ small as I strained my eyes to look upon the center of the pillar of light.

  She was divinity without question. A beautiful form sculpted to evoke sensuality, motherly affection, and lethality all at once. Upon a perfect skeletal frame without flaw were bands of muscle with perfect symmetry and parallelism. Fat and skin worked in concert to garb the muscle and bone to showcase divinity through strength and grace. A living, breathing masterpiece sculpture with a visage that would make most weep and a form that entices all onlookers.

  Garbed in living vines and leaves, as well as flowing fabrics that shielded her but tantalized at the same time, she was undoubtedly what our ancestors spoke of.

  The divine entity that we must bring to heel and elevate our people beyond even what we once had.

  She was here now.

  But we were insufficient; our curses still weighed us down, and so we cannot hope to take her for ourselves to seize the future.

  Motes of light began to fall from the sky.

  And a great and terrible flame descended upon the battlefield that began to burn all. No larger than snowflakes, they fell and fell like rain upon the army. All who remained had been enraptured by her beauty and grace. All present knew the same as I—that we looked upon utopia personified, our ultimate dream made manifest—and we all knew that we were to be judged… and that we were still unworthy.

  As we began to burn, I wondered how many felt betrayal.

  How many believed that we should have had the chance to seize the Citadel before facing our final dream?

  As the titans began to move forward, as the whole battlefield was covered by radiant motes that burned away all, I knew that we were not betrayed by our ancestors.

  This was a test of the whole of the empire, and we came here with a fragment of a fragment. Over countless centuries many were lost to us. Our teachers were bastardized and used by others to sway the multitudes. Innovation begat comfort, and we forgot our curses while focusing our gazes on our neighbors and peers who looked to our own lands. We even fought against one another and perished by the hundreds of thousands in innumerable wars before the current dynasty.

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  No, our ancestors did not fail us.

  We failed them.

  We forgot.

  We broke.

  Now, with the greatest hubris, we tried to breach paradise with insufficient force.

  A mere frontier army bolstered by levied faithful.

  Not the entire might of the nation.

  As the motes struck me, as I began to fall from my perch, I surrendered myself to oblivion and cast myself down.

  I could only pray that the rest of my people would see the truth and strike at this place with all that we had.

  Otherwise, we will falter and fail.

  And be consigned to an eternity in darkness.

  …

  Right.

  I overprepared.

  The force that came here really wasn’t ready for a valley-spanning artillery fortress, the army manning it, and the two Divine Engines I had on standby. Hell, from what I was seeing, I doubted that Eminent and Pinnacle were needed. If the enemy kept advancing, then the buried Citadel Guardians would’ve come into play and swarmed them. Given how badly they were mauled by combined arms, I doubted that they’d have survived the flood of living razor blades that followed, let alone managed to break through the first curtain wall.

  At the very least, I confirmed one of my theories.

  If enemy mages were hit with enough artillery at a constant enough rate, they’d be forced to use barriers instead of attacking. It vindicated my choice to have my own mages on standby and at the ready while letting my artillery deal damage. Once the enemy mages were dead, or at least retreating, that’s when I’ll use my own mages to supplement my artillery to lay waste to what remained.

  Usually, in games, I use light cavalry and sacrifice them to kill enemy artillery. If they were being chased, then I hit whoever was chasing them with a spell, or maybe lured them into some entrenched infantry. Artillery goes on the enemy artillery because they can suppress each other, and it takes time for them to aim. It was also stupid to keep artillery in reserve, since if they were hidden and in reserve, the enemy would just shoot at your army with their own.

  But that’s just me recalling easier days when I could just restart battles until I won.

  “Ayah, recall ‘eminent’ and ‘pinnacle.’ They’ve done enough.” That was an understatement. Eminent’s amalgams hit the remnants of the army like a bunch of toddlers wading into a town filled with miniatures. There was no resistance, only bodies being thrown around, and time being thrown straight down the drain. The Summon Undead and Holy Radiance intro spells almost cracked the army, but the amalgams covered in armor and wielding real, oversized weapons routed it. Now it just needs to be cleaned up. “Tell all the mages and artillery crew to practice some long-range fire.”

  My commands went through the room swiftly, and within minutes even the mages were firing into the enemy’s retreating lines.

  “Shall we pursue, your majesty?” Ayah suddenly asked, and I turned her way. “The enemy is routed, but they may yet return.”

  “No. We will not underestimate them. Even with this poor showing, they fight better at night, and they will find use in any soldiers that they capture. Kill them all at range, and those who escape… can be put down by our auxilia.” We knew these guys were coming thanks to a lot of Iterants stationed in secret in the ‘no man’s land’ between the mountains of the continent and the rest of the world. The stretch of land once occupied by ancient defenses was starting to grow some foliage, and that was enough for some of our own to be stationed there. They communicated with signal lamps, which were just handheld oil-powered lamps with shutters and an attached telescope. It was a recent innovation by my scholars, but it was already proving its worth. As slow as it was, flags, banners, messengers, and drums were reaching their limit with our army sizes. “Let those who survive warn those who will come after that only death awaits them here.”

  Ayah relayed my messages, while I considered the other two crises that we were going to face.

  The Ascendant corridor into the continent was between former Scholar lands and the Guardian’s main region. In all honesty that was the iffiest of the entrances, so stationed Ilych, Morgan, and Rita there along with a lot of field cannons. Overlapping fields of fire, larger mines, and most of our new aircraft were there, along with reserves of what was left of our flying cavalry corps. Ascendants were weak to aircraft just like the Demons, but they caught on more quickly and deployed anti-air guns. Not as effective as having their own aircraft, but still decent. That’s why I ordered the planes to be built with armor upgrades in mind. I was willing to give those in the Ascendant corridor Citadel Alloy armor if the composites we were trying to make weren’t good enough. Their invasion is conventional, like the Demons, but with a focus on overcoming high-armor enemies and anti-army Champions.

  After the Ascendant there were the Stymphalians. They had a nasty habit of having multiple places of entry. Lore-wise they had methods to create slipstreams that carried large flocks with a lot of materials up and over the mountain ranges. They couldn’t take much with them, but if given time, they’ll take over a small province, set up a landing zone, and suddenly they can be reinforced on your front lawn. They put that mobility to use, too. They ravage tiles, take populations from cities and towns, and are a massive nuisance that needs to be crushed swiftly and decisively.

  If you ignore and don’t defend the land route while you’re chasing them down, you’ll find full army stacks walking on through. Their units are fragile but have high damage over time, and they kill morale very quickly. They use their swarms of slaves to hold ground decently, and if they aren’t killed in battle, the Stymphalian units will eat them to recover. Meanwhile, they had spellcaster Champions, whom you either had to face down when they’re low on mana after killing a lot of people in a city, or you had to face at full power before they killed a lot of people in a city.

  It was good that their initial expeditions were stopped and they didn’t have forward operating bases, though.

  The Stymphalians can jump over the mountains, but in the lore their slaves came through the ground route. Without a forward operating base, they can’t regenerate as fast and will suffer more heavily from attrition. There was also the fact that I had numerous outposts clearing the fog of war all over the continent and swarms of Guardians ready to dogpile any base that they build, along with Conqueror quick reaction forces armed with Citadel anti-material rifles. If they leapt into my lands, they were going to be in for a nasty surprise, especially since I have trained militias and holdout bunkers in every town so that I had to curtail any ‘foraging’ that they might do.

  The Ascendant corridor, however, was the bigger problem. But not to me. The Guardians of the Moon had them and the Sahuagin as their two main crises. If my defense of the pass against the Ascendant held, that would mean that they’ll focus on Celia’s lands. There was no way she was going to hold her own chokepoints. She simply didn’t have the industrial capacity or the time to build up fortifications. Not to mention the fact that she didn’t have much anti-armor capability.

  A part of me wanted to get on over there and help, and I even considered conceding the pass, but I decided against it.

  “Send word to Celia to prepare. This is only the start.” Celia needed a trial by fire, something that’ll test her and give her forces the veterancy and experience they needed, especially since I handed her three Citadels. She needed the prestige of winning more battles without allied help, and more importantly, the Goddess of War needed to grow stronger. If the Goddess of War usurped Celia, she’ll still be bound to the alliance if she was anything like she was in the game, and the new units she’ll bring out will at least hold the Citadel regions. If the Citadels are besieged, though, that’s when things will get complicated, and I’ll need to betray whoever’s in charge to secure them. Not even one must fall. “Inform her that we can provide no military assistance. With these passes held, we will be launching an offensive.”

  Ayah didn’t respond immediately, so I looked over my shoulder at her.

  Something close to shock was on her features, though the smile forming on her face was unnerving.

  “An offensive? Truly? Not just Iterant sabotage?”

  Must be because of its grudge against the crises.

  “Correct. We have taken the initiative by destroying their initial forces. Now, we will go forth and destroy their ability to make war in the regions closest to us.” I confirmed easily and gave her a nod while moving out of the command center. “We will go forth, we will destroy what we can, take what we can, and burn all that is left.”

  A sea of radioactive cobalt suddenly came to mind… But I didn’t want to let the Red Mist out of the bottle unless necessary.

  No.

  A firestorm will do.