Chapter 634 – For They Are Silent
The choice is rather simple. The sheer cost of adequate garrisons in every city is prohibitive. Not once throughout our known history has such a strategy resulted in increase protection. The only thing it breeds is resentment towards the local forces. Right now, the Imperial budget is already being strained. An expansion of the police forces and their militarization is likewise prohibitive. They are not military officers, nor do we intend to make them into military officers. The sheer logistical strain on the military itself, during a time of war, would assure Tartarus the victory.
Yet at the same time, the information we have received from Malam of Hatred cannot be ignored. The fact of the matter and the reality is that we have been exceptionally lucky as to deny Tartarus so far. We cannot assume that this will last. The reports of the One-Seventeenth in Ibya have proven that local militia forces were invaluable to their survival. We cannot deny that this is not an option.
So I propose, whether as a temporary measure for the war or a permanent one to build a land of fighters, that we distribute arms to the population. We are incapable of handling every front, every city, every town, every village at this time. Unless we plan to bankrupt ourselves, we have no way of truly mounting a defence of everywhere, all at once. And that is what we need for the Empire to survive. There is no turn of phrase, flowery language, or exaggeration involved. The Empire needs to be everywhere, all at once.
And so, just as the general population trusts us to win the war for them, we need to trust general population that they are not going to stab us in the back. I say it clearly now, the defence of the collective must be done from the individual level. Spare arms are left-over from Epan Separation and small arms are easy to mass manufacture. The battlefield needs to be expanded. It is not that our army be invincible and unstoppable. The warzone will eventually expand to cover every square inch that lies within our borders. The choice we have on the topic is how that warzone will look.
For I know how I see it:
A rifle through every window. A rifle waiting at every door. A rifle behind every blade of grass.
- The “Everywhere, All at Once” speech, given by Goddess Kassandora to the Central Strategic Council.
Maisara idly hung in the air as Anassa carried her towards the town of Terajillo. At this point, they had been engaged in a dozen small skirmishes, Maisara’s axe had not tasted blood once yet. Anassa could be in multiple locations at once, and Anassa used that skill to make sure that at least one set of her eyes was always upon the Goddess of Order. The woman could hold entire frontlines by herself, it was no surprise that she had stalled the Peacekeeping Invasion of Kirinyaa back then.
And now that Maisara got to see how things looked like from the other perspective, it made her question how she ever thought she had a chance. Without Elassa or Allasaria or Leona, without even Iniri, then what could she have done against Anassa back then? Maisara would stand with the troops, prepare for a charge as Imperial troops held, and then Anassa would suddenly appear in the air above, right above the enemy ranks, to simply end the battle in a slaughter of cutting crimson sorcery. An artist would call it beautiful, Maisara called it merely pretentious.
But pretentious thought it was, it was difficult not to appreciate the sheer extravagance that Anassa put into her killing. Killing, for that was what she did, soldiers fought. Maisara knew she liked to think she fought, but she assumed that mortals would say she did killing too. But no. When put up against Anassa, then Maisara was downright nobles. Crimson butterflies would materialize around Anassa, each flutter of their wings sending a stabbing bolt of lightning that exploded into great beasts. Those ripped gashes through the ranks as sorcerous snowflakes amalgamated into floods of daggers, or steamrolling avalanches. Any balls of flame, any arrow, anything that Tartarus managed to send up to meet her would be effortlessly swiped away by the flick of a wrist which materialized a grander hand, a shield with wings, a lion, any creation that Anassa currently had her mind upon. And every time, the torrent of bright crimson would eventually disappear to reveal the streams of dark red which were all that left of whoever Anassa turned her gaze upon.
Maisara kicked her legs through the air as she thought of command. That was her job. Menith had assigned it to her and for as much as Anassa could show off, she could see why. The Goddess of Sorcery simply did not do command. At first, Maisara had wondered whether she could and simply didn’t want to, or whether she was just ignorant on the topic. Eventually, know, with a sentence there, a suggestion here, a word close by, Maisara was simply starting to think that Anassa was downright stupid. “Do you always carry people like this?” Maisara looked down at her armour, Terajillo far below her. She was held aloft by a giant claw. Maybe it was ominous to lesser Divines, definitely to mortals, but it had not impressed Maisara the first time. At this point, it had grown long past simply not being impressive and was starting to become actively aggravating.
“Of all the people to complain, I did not think you would be one.” Anassa replied. The Goddess of Sorcery hovered through the air as they started to get closer to the ground after passing over the town of Terajillo. It was still Imperial, the lamps moving along the streets, both from handheld torches and from large vehicles indicated so. Yet the local lieutenant hand called them over, that he had lot a force in the south. That they had been simply stormed over by common grunts.
“It’s uncomfortable for the sake of being uncomfortable.” Maisara still complained, even as her eyes focused on the small team that had disembarked from the back of a pair of heavy trucks. Their kits were all for the heavy snows of northern Epa, but they did well in these grey lands of ash as well.
“That’s your own fault for being unable to fly.” Anassa said and Maisara rolled her eyes. In some grand scheme of things, she supposed it was. Fate had not bestowed her with flight, to complain now would be like a beggar complaining that they received the wrong style of meal. Maisara stared down at the ground and kicked her legs through the air as the cold wind curled around her skin.
“Do I make things purposefully uncomfortable for you?” Maisara asked. There was a dance to Anassa, she had figured it out relatively quickly. The Goddess got angrier if she wasn’t pushed back. The moment one put up any sort of resistance, as long as fear wasn’t shown, then Anassa seemed to appreciate it.
“You check me if I am sure.” Anassa growled.
“Then we’re even.” Maisara replied. There was a dance, and the dance was not hard to play. Maisara did not even have to think about her words, she simply spoke as she would without reservation. Anassa stopped moving for a moment. Maisara swayed in the air, her legs swaying as she saw the crimson turn to her in some sort of… what was it anyway? Almost every conversation would end this look.
“I hate that I agree with you so much.” Anassa said. Maisara did not reply. She just turned to look at the grey ground. Scattered look was easy to make our now. As well as broken bodies and a tank that had been hammered in. The troops there were already collecting the dead and inspecting the bodies.
Anassa, rather predictably, did not have the decency to set Maisara on the ground. The last few metres were a simple drop. Maisara landed with a heavy thud, the ash going up around in a cloud to reveal some of the pale-yellow Esberian stone underneath it. And Anassa, rather predictably, did not have the decency to come down. She never did. Maisara did all the talking with the troops. She picked out the captain immediately. His rank was on his shoulder, on his cap, on his breast. Unofficially, but far more revealing, was the fact he had a sabre on his belt and only a pistol instead of a rifle slung across his back. “Goddess!” He came to Maisara before she did, with a clean salute.
At this point, any weariness or hesitation to the Imperial salute within Maisara had been burned away by demonic flame and choked out by the ever-present swirling black skies above. “Captain.” She looked down at his name tag. “Etienne.” Underneath was his blood-type: A+. “We had word that there was a battle here.” Maisara said and looked at the corpses. There were a good amount of Tartarian ones, but something seemed off immediately. There were simply not enough compared to usual battle when they charged against troops. The bodies were riddled with too many bullets as well: did they use their own dead for cover? “It seems we were late.”
“Everyone was Goddess.” Captain Etienne replied. “We mustered reinforcements in time but they had already been wiped out.”
“Do you have a video?” Maisara asked, then turned to Anassa. “Inspect the dead!” That was for principle, and to take the glare off Maisara’s back. She could practically feel the bile within Anassa come down upon her.
“We’re still recovering it from the tanks.” Captain Etienne said sheepishly. He turned around, then looked to Maisara. “We have our video though, from a distance.”
“Do you have the footage on you?” Maisara asked as Anassa disappeared. Several copies of her blinked into existence across the battlefield. Sorcery started to sift through the bodies as they looked for any identifying marks. Maisara could already see a problem. There was not a single banner on the ground: Tartarus had little respect for their own dropped cloth. Not unless it was important and most of their armies were simply fodder. Captain Etienne shouted in Rancais to one of his men, who ran over with a small tablet in his hands. He selected a video and passed it to Maisara to watch.
Even this tiny screen, made for human hands, displayed the issue. The sound was there, the audio wasn’t broken, but there was sound missing. Gunshot and tank cannon sounded like war drums, and against it was footstep and footstep alone. It was like watching War’s Orchestra that Kassandora called upon from a distance. Yet it was a War’s Orchestra that aligned the other side. As the men fired, the advance did not slow, there were no drums, no chant, no roar. It was a silent charge. At the distance this video had been filmed at, all that was visible were flashlights being snuffed out in the distance and the tank being covered in bodies. Eventually, the hatch was ripped out and… The demons passed it to each other instead of throwing it haphazardly.
“We have a problem.” Anassa said.
“We do.” Maisara said as she watched the video. They must have reached the same conclusion. Suddenly, a few corpses of the Tartarian horde landed on the ground by Maisara. Captain Etienne jumped back as Anassa reappeared, on the ground this time.
“Do you see it?” Anassa asked, extending her arm towards the crimson bodies. Utterly riddled with bullet holes, as if they had been picked up and used as shields.
“I see it in the video.” Maisara said. “They’re silent.”
“They’re the same.” Anassa said, pointing to their faces and horns. “There’s some variation, but it’s a select few copies back there.” Another pair of bodies landed. Maisara turned to see seven different Anassa’s pick bodies up from the ground with rings of red sorcery as if she was lifting bags of fertilizer. Some would be dropped, those two disfigured from the damage to be recognisable. The ones that at least had the face were set to other in lines. Maisara turned back to Etienne. She had seen it in the Great War, there was no reason to pretend this was something else. Nor was there any point at feigning confusion, Anassa had worked it out as well.
“Which way did they head?”
Captain Etienne spoke as if he was disbelieving what he was saying. “North.”
Maisara took a deep breath, the conclusion was obvious and immediate. Maybe the Captain wasn’t aware of the full-scale maps, but Maisara had given them a glance and a glance had been enough. “Which way north? Do you know?” She asked. “North east or west.”
Anassa, Maisara realised, was actually stupid. She may have been a genius when it came to sorcery, but that was all her power ever amounted to. To ask her opinion on anything but sorcery would be akin to asking the opinion of a slug. “What, he’s going to march into the Ashfront?” Maisara rolled her eyes, took a step forward and pointed towards the hills now covered in a thin of ash.
“That way?” Towards north west, where the town of Terajillo ruined stood. It had been half-toppled by the passing, every building had its glass windows smashed straight through, doors had been blown off their hinges. Even a few cars sat upside down, but there was obviously activity there. Torchlight sweeping through the streets and the glints of clean rifles and scopes on the roofs.
Maisara worked it out before she even asked the next question. “Or that way.” Along the highway, not towards any major settlement but towards a target far worse. There was no activity on that road. Military trucks had been driven off the road. Even from here, Maisara could pick out a few corpses laying on the ground. Imperial ones.
“That way.” Captain Etienne confirmed Maisara’s second direction, towards the north east. “I don’t know why though.” He turned and pointed to the small town of Terajillo. “Maybe they’re going to try and encircle? I don’t see how, there’s mountains in the way and no roads, it could be a counter attack, or maybe they just moved away when they saw us coming and wanted to recuperate after a battle.”
Maisara tuned the man out, Anassa’s annoyingly shrill voice tried to once again interrupt her thoughts, but she tuned it out. “So? Should I follow then? I’ll scout then and catch up, they can’t have gone that far.”
And Maisara just stared. That North-Eastern road had a direct intersection with a railway line. Trains no longer ran on it, but it led north, to tunnels in the mountains. Maisara’s eyes turned north, the Ashfront itself wasn’t visible but it’s faint rumbling orange glow was. It made the horizon into a series of jagged black spikes. Even the activity of the Imperial army did little to stem it. North east, then straight north. She turned to Anassa. “Ana, go back and report to Menith that Legion is intending to breach the Ashfront.”