Chapter 719 – Under (Black)fire
Victory, in the traditional sense, is the completion of an objective. There are too many fools on this world who assume that victory is the mere dismemberment of the foe. That is Hero-Logic and the Heroes are not around anymore. Their Great Cleansing of Divinity served only to galvanize and stratify the Divines that were left standing at the end of Worldbreaking. We can debate the Age of Heroes as we wish, there are no doubt many who think the era should have been avoided, or that the cost of life which was paid was far too great to warrant its happening. There are those who think we should take lessons from it, and so on. The lack of universal opinion proves my point. The Heroes succeeded in their crusades, and they lost their strategic objective.
Divinity has never been so entrenched in human society as it is now. The Reconstruction Authority ensured of that, every dead uberman must be spinning in their graves right now, if they see what has become of the world they thought they were freeing from Divinity. A war may be a complete series of victories and the peace-treaty can make them all hollow. A war may be an utter humiliation and leave the loser in a situation that is far more conducive to continuing the conflict after it is done.
The first question one should ask themselves when waging a war is not ‘how do I win?’, it is ‘what does victory look like?’ That is the lesson learned from the Age of Heroes. They won, for the grand total of a day. And then the Reconstruction Authority ensured that their victory was so hollow that the Age of Heroes shall forever be remembered as a mistake in Arda’s history. Not a conflict but a lesson, for all their sacrifices achieved nothing save for the removal of the greatest problem-Divines for those who are smart enough to exploit their objectiveless victory.
- Excerpt from “Philosophy of War”, written by Goddess Kassandora, of War.
Fer grabbed Maisara, and pulled her along as the hairs all over her body stood up once again. She half-hauled, half-dragged, half-threw the Goddess of Order along with her. Maisara, to her credit, must have realised by now that Fer was far better at dodging Asmodeus’ bolts of darkness than she was. They were coming from the ridgeline, somewhere. Fer hadn’t got a good look and the amount of pressure he put her under meant her eyes had to be focused on the ground, always calculating the next series of steps to take. Anything that would result in a jump or even a hop had to be avoided. At least two limbs always had to be touching a surface so that she could manoeuvre into a series of directions and not just one, Asmodeus would catch the movement, and he would aim ahead.
Maisara followed along with Fer’s movement’s perfectly. When Of Beasthood dropped, Of Order dropped to the ground. When one rolled forwards, so did the other, when Fer stopped, Maisara would not even take an instant to hesitate. Over the collapsed horde of broken bodies they went, some torn asunder by Fortia’s spear, some with clean cuts from Maisara’s axe which looked as if it went through armour or bone or flesh with the same difficulty as it would through butter, some charred by the explosions of naval artillery or simply shot by small calibre rifles. And others which were mangled corpses under the clear blue sky. The spilled blood caught the refracting light from the gemstones that fell in the distance as the ICDT tower transmuted Tartarus’ filthy sky of ash into Arda’s pristine ocean of one and the blood played a lightshow of dancing, cascading patterns.
A body ahead of them, a carcass. Fer grabbed Maisara’s arm again, this time pulling them into a sharp right as a thin sliver of dark energy shot past them and into the body. It set alight a black flame that devoured the flesh faster than the fire itself could spread and carved a small sphere into the corpse. Then again, back towards the direction of the bolt. “Behind.” Fer hissed as a second bolt shot where they had just stood. “It.” The third shot was a complete miss, Asmodeus had anticipated they would continue in the direction of the original dodge.
A sonic boom released from the tower, the naval artillery was still shelling. Two of the heavy cruisers released full salvos. Fer instinctually took the chance. It was a risk but it was a better than nothing and each of Asmodeus’ arrows were beginning to get closer and closer. She grabbed hold of Maisara, nodded towards the corpse and was already in the air before Maisara could react or argue. The hairs the back of her neck stood up.
Fer’s tail wrapped around Maisara’s waist to use the sheer bulk Of Order in the air as a pivot point. Her eyes turned towards that cliff, one palm raised in the air. It wasn’t going for her, it would hit Maisara. An instant was all she had, with both of them in the air and the lack of ground to curl and twist and slither on, Maisara would be hit in the chest. Fer instinctively lunged, her body extending forward, her palm arcing as if about to catch a ball.
And catch she did.
“MAI-“ The pain seared down Fer’s arm as if it was a poison that incinerated and froze at the same time. Fer’s vision dulled, her eyes flared wide as colour drained from the world, she thought her word had curled into a scream, it could have been a roar, or a maybe a howl. The burning blood in her stomach combusted into an inferno as her body searched for any way to try and out heal Asmodeus’ black flame. Her chest, legs and chin landed on something hard. Rock maybe? Or gravel? Or armour? Fer’s palm flinched towards her, she had to use every inch of willpower in her mind to force it straight and away from herself.
All feeling detached suddenly. The pain disappeared, replaced by stinging, Fer finally heard herself painting and she moaned a hum. “You’re alive Fer.” Maisara said. Of Beasthood didn’t know if she opened her eyes, or if the searing darkness was simply her focus being able to return. She looked down at her arm, or the lack of it. A devilishly clean cut had been made at her elbow, the rest of the limb had been thrown away and was burning up a short distance away from them. “I cut it.” Maisara said again. “Hello? Hello?” Fer put her face down into the dirt and realised she was wiping tears away from her eyes. Her uninjured arm swung down and hit Maisara in the thigh. “I’ll take that as you being fine then.” Maisara said. “You saved me, thank you.”
“You saved me too.” Fer mumbled as she rolled her against what felt like a body.
“Are you crying?” Maisara asked.
“It hurt!” Fer mumbled back.
“I’m not laughing at you.” Maisara said. Something thudded next to them and Fer finally turned her head. The battle was still ongoing. Fortia threw her spear again, the ships kept on firing. Sporadic gunfire. A bugle from the south, then the rapid footsteps of a charge. “I assume it did.” Fer rolled onto her side and cradled the arm healing arm across her chest. Maisara replied with a smile, compared to the searing heat that felt as if all the strands of tissue where simultaneously being scolded by boiling water and whilst going through frostbite at the same time, the sharp pain of muscle and bone being cut in a clean blow was downright pleasant.
“We have a minute or two before they reach us.” Fer said. “I’ll heal in then.”
“Alright.” Maisara simply sat down behind the massive corpse of the greater demon. Fer pulled herself up to sit next to Of Order, still cradling her arm across her chest. Bone and muscle and skin were simply regrowing, it was a painless process, nothing like Kavaa and her healing. A little bit of Of Health’s blood would be good right now. “That’s Asmodeus.” Maisara said.
“I know.”
“I can’t fight him.” Maisara said. “I can dodge consistently enough, but not like you can.”
“Oh.” Fer stared at the two miles between them and the ICDT tower. There were more corpses on the way. That was a stupid plan. “We trench to the water.” Maisara chuckled.
“Sounds like a plan.” Asmodeus must have finally redirected his attention. One of the Imperial Navy ships shot a red flare into the sky a moment after solid darkness flicked across the horizon straight into its hull. Then again. And again. “He’s putting holes in the hull.” Fortia’s spear shot outwards again and then the Goddess of Peace dodged to a side, disappearing behind a low rock. Asmodeus’ sliver of darkness burned a hole into the foot of the Cloudbreaker.
Fer looked to Maisara, Maisara looked to Fer, they both stared up at the pulsing white diamond at the top of the tower. And they both saw the moment that the sky was seemingly split by a flash of blackness so black it swallowed the light around it. Once it hit. Then again. A third time. A fourth. Fifth and sixth and seventh. Each time scouring a flame onto the gemstone that devoured everything it touched before burning everything it could burn.
The blue veins running up and down the Cloudbreaker charged up as the tower hummed. An eighth and a ninth shot put more spots into the crystal. A tenth shot was followed by the eleventh. Fortia popped her head out from the rock, saw the tower and scurried away, in the same pattern that Fer did. Her body low to the ground, she dove like a dolphin from each piece of cover and shouted something to the Knights. They scattered putting distance between themselves the Cloudbreaker. Its charging period finished, the constellations of enchantments and runes shown brighter and brighter and…
Fer realised they should have released by now. The humming gemstone at its peak shown like a blinding floodlamp, then a lighthouse and finally a star that had been pulled down onto the ground. And then it shattered. Fer’s ears pressed down into her hair to avoid the cacophony of shattering crystal and Maisara released a deep breath. “How did you normally fight him back then?” She asked.
“I didn’t.” Fer said.
“But you have faced him.”
“Iri or Neneria were the counters.” Fer replied dryly. “Or dad.”
“How long until Irinika arrives?” Maisara asked and both Goddesses turned right to see one of the battleship throw up its own flares. Fer shrugged. Asmodeus had started plucking holes into it.
“Hours? Minutes? I don’t know. Not days though.”
“We don’t have that long.” Maisara said, her voice dry. “How do you dodge it?”
“I don’t know.” Fer said.
“Can you make to the sea then? And dive in?”
“It’s a long time to hold my breath.” Fer replied.
“Same.” Maisara said. “Then it’s a run straight back over the horizon.” She pointed forwards, then flicked her thumb back behind herself, at the corpse of the giant demon they were sheltering against. “I think I could potentially block it with my axe.”
“Could you though?”
“Maybe.” Maisara said. “They’re coming anyway, I can hear them.” Fer could too. The rumbling of the ground under the countless horde of Tartarus restarting its charge. “They have to be held off here, if they spread out over Tartarus, what? We’re looking at a dozen ICDT towers lost? That’s a weeks setback in Esberia. Longer if they develop countermeasures.” Maisara sighed and looked up at the sky. “You should go. I can take a hit, at least one. I’ll aim for three. That should give you the seconds you need.” Fer blinked and looked at Maisara again.
“Excuse me?” She knew exactly what those words meant. And she did not like the sound of them whatsoever. “You run and I’ll dodge then.”
“I can’t dodge in the first place.” Maisara said. “There’s more survivors if you escape.”
“Do you want to die?”
“People die in war.” Maisara said. “Who am I to be different?” Fer’s eyes grew wider.
“You?”
“Me.” Maisara said. “The situation is as it is. I don’t want to die obviously, but that’s the reality of the matter. You have a greater chance of escaping.” She sighed. “Ready when you are.”
“I’m not going.” Fer raised her voice at this fool’s self-sacrifice. What was this even? Maisara dying? Here and now? “You’re going.”
“Then we both die because you’ve just proved you can’t dodge eternally.” Fer opened her mouth and closed it as she tried to think of a counter argument. She had just proved that, hadn’t she? Fortia threw her spear again and the sonic boom drove both Goddesses back to the nature of the battle. A green flare went up around both of the Goddesses taking cover stared at it. Everyone knew what that meant, it was standard Imperial Doctrine: Continue with the plan, hold position. More green flares from both navies on either side of the landbridge answered. And then Fortia rolled down to the ground as a blast of raw red fire exploded around her. Not Asmodeus’ flames but the magic of their flameseerers. “They want us to hold?”
Fer blinked, turned around to look at the corpse of that demon as it began to shake. They were running out of time. Even if Irinika was coming, if she did not appear over the horizon in the next few moments… She flexed her regrown fingers. Most of the blood in her stomach had burned out to pay the price for it. “Can you lie? Or is it just a code of honour?” Fer said. Maisara’s eyes sharped as they watched Fortia roll to the end again. Of Peace moved silently as bolts of Asmodeus’ blackfire followed her. She didn’t even try to throw her spear, the second or two it would take for her to build up the tension in her body and flex was too long a time. Asmodeus put in round and after round as he chased her.
“What!?” Maisara snapped. “Now!? Seriously?”
“I’m dead serious.” Fer said. “I cannot face him. You cannot face him.” Fer looked grimly at Maisara and didn’t finish the sentence. She wouldn’t play along if she knew the plan immediately.
“I do not lie.” Maisara said.
“Really?” Fer asked dryly. Fortia dodged again, Asmodeus had switched from trying to target her constantly. Now, his black slashes across Arda’s blue sky were coming at her every few shots, simply to stop her from throwing her spear at the approaching army. The rest of them were plucking more holes into the ships. One of the small vessels was beginning to visibly tilt, lifeboats had dropped into the filthy ocean around it although their engines were too weak to push through the ashen sludge on the surface of the sea.
“Say a self-evident lie then.” Fer said.
“SERIOUSLY?” Maisara screamed.
“Trust me on this.” Fer said. “And declare me a man.” That was as self-evident a lie as things could get. Grass could technically be red, there was no wiggle room.
“No.” Maisara said.
“Say it.”
“Why?”
“To prove you can.” Fer said. “Or can’t.”
“I can…” Maisara trailed off, she smelled of sweet-sour embarrassment. Fer’s eyes widened. She could not even say that she could say a lie.
“I can kill him.” Fer said. “I will kill him in fact.” She shifted from her sitting position into a squat. “I can keep up with him, almost. But I can’t do it alone. And I can’t do it thinking you’re going to kill me.”
“I’m not…” Maisara trailed off. “You’re not tricking me into saying it. You may grow mad in the future and then who will put you down?” Fer smiled at Maisara, the ringing of the boots got louder and louder. Another heavy cruiser sent out a red flare. Its guns had stopped shooting. The Imperial Knights gave out short bursts of fire, most not even aiming, instead they just held out their rifles from behind rocks and bodies they were hiding behind and fired into the general direction of south.
“There won’t be a future if we die here.” Fer said.
Maisara turned to Fer. “Then it doesn’t matter. Then we fight and we take down as many of them as we can here.” She turned to Fer. “Don’t play games with me Fer. Why?”
“Is truth your code of honour, or is it in your blood?” Fer asked. “Because the former the is worthless, the latter won’t kill me. i” Maisara didn’t seem to understand for a moment, then her silver eyes grew wide as she realised what Fer was getting to. She looked down at her palms, then at Fer.
“You won’t be-“
“SHHH!” Fer pressed her fingers to Maisara’s lips. “Don’t say that. Say what you need to say. And then give me the power to kill him.” A smattering of Irinika’s blood had turned her ears black for decades, Baalka’s blood had almost killed her. Both of those were debilitating but it was because Fer didn’t know if it was over or if she had to just push through it. And after Asmodeus’ blackfire, Fer felt like she could push through anything.
Whether it was Fortia’s series of dodges following a flurry of black arrows, or the heat passed overhead as a snake of flame ripped towards the Imperial lines, or the naval barrage now turning from a constant drumming to a flurries, or the roaring song approaching, something made Maisara take the decision. She slowly held her arm out to Fer. Maybe it was the simple fact she didn’t want to die.
“Fer.” Maisara said. “I declare it now for you to hear, my blood will not kill you.”
Fer’s teeth sank into Maisara’s wrist.