Fortia and Maisara turning to the Empire is of no surprise to anyone who has served in the White Pantheon. The two naturally with Arascus on their values and their ambitions, every eting which descended into a shouting match between us would inevitably have one of them ntion how Of Pride would never act in a certain way, or how his Empire would solve a problem in so idealised manner, or so other aningless statent comparing our collective failure in the White Pantheon to his singular success.
Neither Of Peace, nor Of Order, believed in the vision Allasaria was trying to propagate. Both of them, true to their ages, profess reford-tyranny as so model of governnt to uphold. Both would treat Paraideisius and Tartarus as invaders from another world, who should be grateful for the chance to even breathe Ardan air. Pantheon Peace was Allasaria’s idea, Maisara and Fortia rely helped enforce it. They are such opponents of pacifism that the only way to secure to their help all the way back then was to give their Holy Orders exceptions from Arda’s demilitarization. Whereas Pantheon Peace failed recently, it was dood from the very beginning, when those two, along with Kavaa, simply refused to bend and go along with it.
If Arascus were in the White Pantheon, then I very well could have been describing him right now. The only difference would have been one of skill, Arascus, at the very least, attempts to make his ideas palatable. The bitter regi is kept sweet by the honey of aesthetics and results.
Why Maisara and Fortia joined the Pantheon is obvious, there is a grander question hidden that I have co across in a discussion with Zerus and Sceo, and it is one I cannot find an answer to: Why did Arascus take them on in the first place? Much worse, when he did take them on and then proceed to give them authority that they do not deserve, power they should wield and confidence they should not have?
Spectating the defence of Ainai and seeing strategies and tactics that Fortia used in the Great War is an awful feeling. I have no other words for it. I am watching the Goddess I have fought now use her abilities for the enemy we once defeated together.
I doubt the Sun shall ever burn out, but it does feel like I am waiting for a dawn that shall never co.
- Written by God Alkom, of the Sun.
Fer took another step as she humd a joyful tune to herself. The sands of Ainai below her feet, a clear sky above her, her pack behind her baying and growling and huffing as they maintained pace, the sound of engines from the tanks and the trucks that kept up by their side, at the foot of the massive valley between the sand dunes. She was getting a tan, of that, she was sure at this point, it would fade within days after she left the desert sun, but she was so certain that a precious bronze, almost like Fortia’s eyes, was developing on her arms. Fer took another step, the humd tune reached its bombastic chorus.
Of Beasthood’s ears shot up upwards, aid directly forwards. The hairs on her back and arms stood up. Her eyes sharpened, the pupils growing sharp as the wind shifted and the sll of sulphur hit her nose. Sulphur, sweat, sand, tal and the odd sweetness that was associated with demons. Her ears sharped and she raised a fist into the air. Behind her, the pair of convoys, one at the zenith of a dune, one in its valley, ca to a stop.
The sound ca after the sll. Feet marching in a haphazard unison. A low thudding that reverberated through the desert. The satyrs picked up again, closing in on the Goddess of Beasthood in a sprint. “Goddess! Goddess!” Cried Yirius, Fer had learned the nas of each and every one over these past few nights of advancing through the Ainai, maybe they had already crossed the Kht border, maybe they were still in the desert. Either way, they would have at least a week of delaying and skirmishing. “What is it?”
Fer stood, her eyes pointed forwards, trying to pick out the sounds individually. Demons all collectively had the sa sll, succubi were the only odd ones out, they were tinged with a sweet spice aroma in addition to the sulphur that coated their bodies. The slls all blurred into one another, but the sounds… The sounds were different. The wind carrying the sound distorted it sowhat, but it was enough.
“There’s an advance party ahead of us.” Fer said. “Radio the convoy, tell them to prepare like they do.” What did they do even? Organise a firing line? Kassie usually handled these things. Beastn were one thing, organised armoured companies were another. “Then set up along the ridge, dig in, get low to the ground, set up sand-banks to give yourselves cover. Prepare to run if they get too close.”
Fer took another step forward as Terion, the satyr with the massive square backpack on his back and a smaller carbine in his hands that could be held with one hand, started issuing the command. A mont later, the tank convoy restarted again, the vehicles got into a criss-crossing line, one ahead, then a gap, and then one so distance behind. They drove off the sand as the truck and other armoured vehicles began to make distance. “And you Goddess?”
“I will ensure they have no magicians to hit us back with.” One step followed another, then another, Fer left her team behind as she descended down one dune and up another. She turned around to inspect the troops, several of the tracked vehicles were slowly clambering along the sand for better positions, her beastn were digging out a flat terrace in the massive golden hill.
That was the final look, Fer crested her own dune, the sound was getting here, she was beginning to make out a marching song. They were a few miles away then, the sound reverberating through the ground carried further than that in the air. Fer kept up her run, knelt down, for a mont, her body tensed, her stomach beca as hard as stone. In the next, she released that explosive tension and jumped from one dune to another.
The arc took her high to look over the horizon and see the swarm of bodies that gave off the sll and sound. She crashed back into the sand, then dove for the next dune. And the next one. What was the range on Imperial tanks? Fer still had to be close enough to receive supporting fire, right? Behind her, small quad—bladed drones began to ascend into the air. Scouts and caras to feed the armour information. Fer didn’t particularly care as she landed, raised her head and finally saw her prey.
Of Beasthood’s eyes tracked a pair of succubi setting off into the air. Another team of them were on the ground. Incubi too, with burning spears. A flaseerer was in the back. Cavalry too. Behind this first group, there was another, behind that, a third was appearing over the horizon. Two more groups to the south, four to the north. A full welco party, these groups would get larger and larger and then coalesce, until it was one unending wave of troops.
There was no point in delaying. Fer picked out a route imdiately, as long as the magicians were down, Imperial troops could shell and fire from safety with no worry of retaliation. The Goddess of Beasthood made one final jump, she hurled herself threw the air, eyes aid straight ahead at a succubus who must have spotted her already.
A barrier of fla began to materialize, too slow. Fer shot through the fire like a battering ram moving with the speed of lightning. The sand from where she had jumped exploded upwards in a huge crash, the succubus in midair exploded a mont later, ripped apart by claw and tail and tooth into a series of bloody chunks that jumped fell down onto the demons below them. For a mont, the army stopped moving as Fer carried on in her flight-path and crashed into the ground on the other side. Another explosion of sand, driven into the air solely by the mass of the Goddess of Beasthood, hid her location for a mont.
Fer picked out by pure sound and sll. This close, she could tell the directions from her senses, she found the oddly cooling, perfectly controlled, honey sll of Tartarian magic from the air, it was there on the ground, but too mixed with all the other scents to pick out correctly. And again, she dived out of the sand, the claws that had grown from her nails already crimson with blood.
This ti, she slamd her entire body through the flas and into the succubus, the sudden weight of an additional creature stalled her flight for a mont, she fell right into the mass of demons that was reorganising. The commanders were blowing horns, war drums were being beat, the marching song had fizzled out of existence in the chaos of an attack.
Fer crushed a pair of demons when she landed back down on the ground. Their black tal armour bent out of shape, her tail wrapped around the neck of a third and crushed it. Sand launched up into the air as the demons cried in disaster. This first attack was free, the other groups would hear the carnage though, and they would be more prepared. Fer’s eyes danced across the demons. She ignored the helms and the tal shoulder-plates, the spears and the cleavers that were waving around. The shieldwall that had ford at the start began to collapse as the demons realised the target was behind them. Fer found the flaseerer for this battalion, a grizzled demon with a ring of fire already him. Crimson eyes of prey locked with the gold eyes of predator.
Fer launched herself through the demons, knocking over whoever stood in her path. Bodies flew up in the air behind her, the unlucky ones were broken in two under her sheer bulk. She reached down, her jaw hooked around the demons neck as flas tried to lap at her body. One swing to the left, one to the right, one to the left again, the demon fell down, his body a boneless pile of broken limbs.
Through one demon, into the next, another succubi that was looking around, trying to find the source of the destruction that had just found cut a line through their ranks. The demoness did not see Fer even as a claw split her body in two. And suddenly, the hum of giant wasps. Blades which cut through the air with a steady, high-pitched buzz. Fer looked back around, she saw dots in the sky. The drones of the armoured company that had been released. That was the cue to get out of her. The troops had been told to ignore her, pretend she didn’t exist. Fer was Fer’s responsibility.
Of Beasthood threw the demon she had been holding in the against another and then jumped out of that mass of swarming bodies. They definitely saw her leave, if they didn’t, then they would have seen the next burst of sand which cascaded upwards, a split-second waterfall that defied gravity. Fer jumped out of it the mont she felt heat and slled a slight shift in the atmosphere. Magic-sll as she knew, ozone as today’s science wanted to call it.
One, two, three pillars of fire burst out from where she had stood. Her land beca a duck which beca a roll, sand got into her hair and she jumped once again, biting and itching and getting everywhere. The hum of oversized tallic wasps got slightly further away. Fer made another roll, and another, as the pillars of fla exploding under her feet followed. One of them beca a log that slithered across the dune like a striking snake.
The drums that Fer had expected to be coming eventually finally sounded. A single fast-paced thud of gunners who were synced up but not in the perfect unison of War’s Orchestra. Tiny black dots appeared across the horizon. Fer dodged another set of flaming pillars as her eyes tracked the shells in the air, then turned back to the other groups. They had stopped, moving, a few picked up in speed. The ones further to the north would try to encircle the sa way wolves did when they hunted. The ones ahead were coalescing into a mass of bodies and arms. Fer took a step forward.
The ground shaking from the explosions which wracked through the demon’s lines woke her up from the bloodlust. She herself could dive in, but against a force that large? With that many magicians? It would sting.
So began Fortia’s planned skirmishing stage of the defence of Ainai.
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