"Well, I suppose that's good news," Rohmhelt commented to Grand Marshal Agrehn while he rode with a heavy guard to the northern front, where his brother's armies tried anew to break through along the main road to Karmand.

"Quite so, Your Imperial Majesty," Agrehn replied, cough to clear some phlegm from his throat. "That southern push of those beasts will be tied down, if not destroyed, by Cyrona and Aberos. It makes me feel better about weakening our forces there."

"Apparently you did it without giving it away," Rohmhelt smirked. "My brother seemed to believe we had enough down there to commit that much."

Agrehn's jaw shifted slightly, concealed by his graying beard. It seemed, however, that the Grand Marshal was fighting back a smirk.

"Do you remember when we reorganized our regimental structure over the winter?" Agrehn asked, a note of mischief on his increasingly raspy voice.

"I do," the Emperor answered. "I don't see..."

"We had a number of spare banners from understrength regiments. When we consolidated those, it occurred to me that we could put the unused on the field again in some capacity," Agrehn continued. "There are five times as many regimental banners down there than the corresponding number of soldiers. At least. Your Imperial Majesty will recall that most troop estimates..."

"Come from counting banners," Rohmhelt laughed.

"Quite so. And we placed them prominently enough that I don't think your brother's forces even bothered to see if much was behind them."

"My brother will be very angry at Vildrious and Ventov when he finds out," Rohmhelt chuckled. His amusement faded instantly when he saw the dozens of fiery balls sailing through the sky toward his northern positions. "Though he might not care if he succeeds up here."

The dozens of flaming orbs became hundreds, accented by especially large gelatinous spheres sailing in behind the initial wave. Gorondos. It must have been. No one else could produce anything of that size. It would be mere seconds before they hit Rohmhelt's front lines.

"We're prepared for this, Your Imperial Majesty," Agrehn calmly stated. "Marshal Kordov and I have a plan. A running battle all the way to the very gates of Karmand. An impression of panic in the face of, well, this."

A couple miles up the road, those fiery shots landed upon the ground, exploding in bursts of hot orange and white flame and puffs of smoke. His army had dispersed over a broad enough span of ground to avoid mass casualties from the barrage. Still, some hundreds must have died, incinerated alive, with that opening volley. The Emperor, however, could merely summon a sigh in the face of such power.

"And we aren't without our own responses," Agrehn motioned over to the battery of approximately one hundred wheeled siege weapons much closer to the front lines. Rohmhelt had seen these peculiar new devices just the prior week. Capable of launching projectiles as far as a mile with the assistance of mages, they offered an opportunity to blunt one of Duronaht's key advantages. "And they should be deploying..."

Just then, their springs activated and the great machines shot their deadly ordinance forward. Rohmhelt couldn't make out exactly what they were, but in contrast to the fiery shots of Duronaht's army, these were spears of water with bolts of lightning following just behind them, following a low arc that covered the distance between the lines. Amidst the rising blaring of horns and beating of drums, the Emperor couldn't hear the terrible effect of these weapons on his brother's advancing armies, but he could see it. Soldiers, marching forward in formation, were electrocuted where they stood.

"Very good," Rohmhelt shuddered. Mages and archers from his forward positions loosed several volleys into the enemy lines, but were met with a fiercer barrage in response. Duronaht's army lurched forward after another mortifying blast of horns and a rumble of drums. He had watched enough battles to know by now that this meant a full assault. Over half a million of his brother's troops. All coming forward at once. The ground shook, the vibrations of this great mass moving reverberating up into his spine, even his teeth. "This'll require careful timing."

"Quite so," Agrehn said, his voice trailing off. "What in the High Angel's name..."

Rohmhelt glanced to the southeast where a large column of his brother's forces, including some thousands of cavalry, made for the gap between the northern and southern positions in those rocky hills.

"Isn't that where our Varanian friends are?" the Emperor queried. "Chief Besix said he'd have twenty thousand of his blades there."

"Oh, there are more than that. My scouts reported sixty thousand taking positions there last night and this morning, lying in wait in their changed skin," Agrehn grimaced.

"Sixty thousa... How? Are you sure?!" Rohmhelt gasped.

Agrehn grimly nodded, his beard contorting on the left side of his face.

"Much as I appreciate them so drastically overdelivering, the reliability, or lack thereof, of Varanian words is something we shall have to deal with. This actually makes me wonder something..."

"What's that?"

"We made little effort to conceal that the Varanians were massing there. In fact, I'd been counting on the mystery of what they might be capable of causing your brother's forces to avoid it and the few divisions of regular troops there. That and that miserable rocky terrain," Agrehn paused when the horns and drums of Rohmhelt's army signaled the planned withdrawal channel in the north. "But if they're blundering this badly... this offers a different opportunity."

"Provided that the Varanians listen to us," Rohmhelt let out an awkward laugh.

"Yes, provided that they do. Given that they snuck three times as many warriors past us as they claimed, I'm not optimistic about that," Agrehn's raspy voice was drowned out by the escalating cacophony of the battle as another volley of their siege engines launched toward Duronaht's lines. "In any case, Your Imperial Majesty, we'd do well to stay here with the Imperial standards to make a convincing case we're not running in some planned way."

Rohmhelt surveyed the battlefield, with his forward positions now locked in ferocious combat against his brother's armies across the hilly northern front. When he closed his eyes, he saw strange silvery flashes. He blinked several times, his eyelids clicking. Grand Marshal Agrehn cocked his head at his ruler.

"Your Imperial Majesty?" his voice seemed ethereal and slow.

Rohmhelt shook his head and forced his eyes fully open.

"Yes, we'll stay here," he affirmed. "Until we can't anymore."

~

"VILDRIOUS!" Emperor Duronaht screamed as he pointed toward the divergent path of the 5th Army into the rocky lands between the northern and southern assaults. "What the fuck is this?!"

He glared at Grand Marshal Vildrious as the short and portly leader of his army bumbled up alongside him.

"They're veering far to the south," Vildrious mumbled. "My orders to Marshal Ventov were..."

"Not this!" the Emperor interjected, intentionally covering Vildrious in a warm cloud of spittle. "Now, you tell him to bring his forces back around and hug up tight against the the main push, is that clear?"

Vildrious nodded while his hands shook as he tried motioning toward the whole situation. Even though he expected the Emperor's anger, it was still a fearsome thing to be near.

"Right, but I think he thought it best to sweep up any of the Varanian forces that may be hiding there to..."

"I don't give a fuck about the Varanians!" Duronaht shouted. "What, ten thousand of them? Twenty thousand of them? Skinny little fucks aren't a match for us! Any time Ventov's spending worrying about that is time wasted. Now, I see exactly what Rohmhelt's doing. He has a few divisions there back a bit. He's trying to make it enticing, mysterious, whatever. We've got the superior forces. We concentrate them and crush him where he is. If he spreads us out, we can be beaten."

"Understood, Your Imperial Majesty," Vildrious muttered as he scanned his eyes toward the south. "But, again, Jagreth's pincer seems to be failing in the south. Should we..."

"Omonrel will take care of that," Duronaht sighed. As he finished, an awful rumbling let loose just to the southeast of the command post. Vildrious turned his attention to a lumbering mass of varying colored stone constructs lurching forward with Omonrel floating above them. Each of them some fifty feet tall and numbering in the hundreds, they were apparently animated by naught but the Sculptor Angel's will. In their massive fists glowed a range of hues representing different manifestations of the Auras. "Cyrona's such a fucking nuisance. These'll give her something to choke on, though."

Even a number of the Solnahtern stationed around the command post couldn't help but stare at these staggering new creations that buckled the earth beneath them as they lurched forward in awkward and halting steps.

Meanwhile, to the north, vast pillars of fire burst over the ridgeline where Rohmhelt's forces had been concentrated. Those flaming tongues touched the sky before receding. Then another roaring barrage hit further to the west.

"I see Gorondos is making himself useful," Duronaht loosed a wicked laugh. "Parlon and Myrvaness up there will be enough to deal with Vorlan and the others. All we have to do is keep the pressure on and avoid mistakes. That's all."

"Understood, Your Imperial Majesty," Vildrious bowed and made for a group of riders who were all stunned by the march of Omonrel's constructs.

While Duronaht kept his focus toward the north, Vildrious decided to give the riders only the vaguest instructions as to what to tell Ventov.

"Have him send a message back to me to confirm his orders," the Grand Marshal said to a more grizzled rider. "Again, I'm trying to make sure he understands what he was supposed to do."

"Shouldn't I... simply repeat what you orders are?" the rider asked confused.

"If it were as simple as that, he would've listened to me the first three times. Have him send it to me in writing," Vildrious laughed.

"Y... Yes, sir!" the rider sped off on his horse almost due west to Marshal Ventov's position.

A cold wisp blew through Vildrious's head just as he started to smirk from the whole situation.

"You are up to no good," Myrvaness's voice slithered between his ears. "What do you hope to accomplish here?"

"Removing a problem," he tried to sound confident. "It's at a modest cost. We're going to win this anyway, aren't we?"

"If you could sense what I do, you would not be so confident," Myrvaness fumed, taking on a tone she had not in some time. "I will do what I can, but I cannot make good all of your mistakes."

"You won't have to," Vildrious chuckled. "Again, we've got this under control."

~

With the Karmand plateau several miles to the west, Lyfress and her father Cesord were positioned with a smattering of units near the center of the larger front. Before them was a stretch of rocky, hilly terrain wedged between the main raging battle to the north and the clash between the angels and their hordes of beasts and monstrosities to the south. She had worried about being placed in this odd position, but before she had departed from the main force the Mind Angel Simel told her, "Worry yourself not about this move. The Emperor is following wise counsel."

The Karmandian Matriarch, Yldrina, the strange shrunken woman that she was, seemed to overflow with energy that morning even as the sounds of horrible conflict raged on either side of

"Yes, yes!" the old woman shouted in rapturous joy, her voice scratching at the sky itself. "The moment of deliverance is near. The overwhelming light and glory of the High Angel Forynda will be amidst us again very, very soon!"

Meanwhile, the numerous banners of the tens of thousands of the traitor Duronaht's armies marched forward straight at them. Her father had nodded serenely at Yldrina's assurances, but now stared off from a stone-covered rise at the encroaching horde. He winced at each blast of their whining trumpets.

"The commanders seem very sure of themselves here," he grumbled, his left eyebrow twitching. "We keep hearing about the Varanians. The Varanians. The Varanians. I've only met some in my life. I never had much faith in them, if I'm honest."

"I don't sense anything from them," Lyfress said to Cesord.

"Exactly. They do what they please when it pleases them. No more, no less," her said, just as the Emperor's skirmish lines loosed a volley of arrows before retreating closer to the central force. It seemed a token opposition to the deluge of plate-clad heavy infantry advancing upon them.

"Make ready! FOR METHRANGIA! FOR KARMAND!" a portly but energetic division commander shouted near the healers. His more junior officers and the ordinary soldiers further up the ranks answered in kind. "FOR METHRANGIA! FOR KARMAND!"

As with every battle she had seen thus far, Lyfress felt the air seemingly become thinner as every soldier nearby deeply inhaled, steadying their nerves as best they could. The other healers nearby muttered prayers and jutted their hands skyward, hoping to draw at least a trace of the High Angel's grace that day.

What came instead was a ferocious barrage of flaming orbs, hurled at great distance by the enemy mages. The sizzling spheres sailed into the ranks of Rohmhelt's soldiers, exploding and covering their hapless victims in crackling fire, which had a noise so horrid that it nearly smothered the screams of the men it burned to death. Lyfress was almost glad that the next round of projectiles was merely comprised of simple arrows. At least those she could try to heal. Warbling through the air, they descended and pierced through armor and flesh, felling dozens of soldiers and wounding many more.

"Knock! Draw!" a nearby commander shouted at Rohmhelt's own archers. The several hundred arrayed on either side of the healers did as they were told and dispassionately pulled their arrows back and held them in position, straining to do so as the commander waited for the right moment. "LOOSE!"

The thick torrent of arrows sailed over the front lines and into the oncoming enemy forces, causing the heavily plated men to crash to the ground in a cacophony of clanging metal. Yet, Duronaht's force kept advancing. What had at one point seemed safely far away was already quite close. Worse, the heavy cavalry on either flank now began to charge.

Then, a sound fainter, but far more numerous than the horses' hooves sounded out. Hissing and clicking. More hissing. More clicking. The sound of scales hitting against rocks, first in the dozens. Then the hundreds. Then the thousands. Then tens of thousands.

All at once, the great Varanian host of Chief Besix unveiled itself. What had appeared to be simple bumpy sandstone was now revealed to be a writhing horde of the spindly reptilians, their true colors varying from violet to green to crimson and many others. They grasped their daggers, some of them holding those blades in their mouths, as they lunged at Duronaht's army.

Lyfress was speechless at what she saw. Hundreds, no, thousands, of the Varanians jumped on their stunned prey every few seconds. An endless cascade of whipping Varanian tails and gleaming daggers leapt into a chaotic close quarters melee. Men let out gurgled screams as they choked on their own blood, their throats slit as far back as their spines by Varanian blades. Some of the Varanians used their muscular tails to break the necks of their foes as they sailed through the air to land upon another target with their daggers, teeth, or even claws.

This portion of Duronaht's army was stunned into inaction. While regular line soldiers tried to determine where they might be able to pick and win fights, their more senior commanders were obviously too staggered to manage to do anything. Some, atop their horses, made for easy targets for the Varanians and had daggers flung at them, skewering several multiple times before they tumbled off their mounts. The enemy force thinned so rapidly that few of Rohmhelt's officers seemed to know how to respond, either. At last, however, one of the division commanders took the initiative.

"The whole line will advance! Don't let those scalies get all the glory!" he shouted, immediately having his orders relayed via a brassy blast of trumpets. The commander, wearing full glossy plate and a red-plumed helm, swept up onto his horse and drew his sword. "CHARGE!"

With a deafening yell, the fifteen-thousand or so soldiers Rohmhelt had placed in the center surged forward in three major columns to join the melee between the Varanians and Duronaht's forces. Lyfress, Cesord, and the other healers, despite the building demands to treat wounded streaming back, were still stunned in place by the sudden turn of events.

A jubilant Matriarch Yldrina, seemingly swelling her otherwise diminutive stature, rapturously threw her hands skyward.

"Yes! Yes! This is the first sign of the High Angel's favor this day! More will come!" she joyously shrieked, bracelets on her wrists clanging together.

However, as badly wounded soldiers streamed back to the lines and the healers were forced to begin the grueling work of deciding which of the wounded had viable prospects, Lyfress could only sigh.

~

Empress Evinda, stationed several miles northeast of the Karmand Plateau with the large reserve under Marshal Kordov, watched as the Marshal exchanged frenetic words with a messenger. Amidst the deafening roars of orders, horns, and drums, she could scarcely make anything out from what Kordov said to the messenger. His uniform spackled in mud and singed by flames from Duronaht's fearsome fire mages, the messenger looked almost like a vagrant who begged the impeccably dressed Kordov for alms.

"You're quite sure what Commander Fonetet told you?" Kordov asked during a lull in the maddening noise. "This is very important."

"Sir, I've told you everything exactly as I know it!" the messenger shouted, almost bursting into tears.

Kodov's left hand, placed behind his back, flinched in a nervous spasm.

"Very good. Tell the Grand Marshal we will be ready at his signal, as discussed. Good luck to you," Kordov said before pivoting on the heel of his black lacquered boots. He straightened a ribbon he had earned at Eynond before continuing back to Evinda. The messenger sped off on his horse yet again, almost due east toward Duronaht's main advancing army. "Generally good news, Your Imperial Majesty. Our Varanian friends have delivered quite a trashing to Marshal Ventov's Fifth Army that, for some reason or another, tried to assault our center."

"Thrashing? What does that mean, exactly?" Evinda laughed.

"More than half the army is dead and the other half is broken and routed, best as we can tell," Kordov shook his head in disbelief. "I'm shocked Ventov was that stupid."

"Well, that's very good news! Why did you say 'generally' good news?" Evinda queried, tilting her head.

Kordov lifted his Marshal's hat for a moment and ran his hand nervously through his impressive coif of blue green hair.

"This main thrust coming our way is stronger than I feared. Marshal Bildreht's 9th Army is on the verge of breaking entirely. His 71st and 77th divisions basically don't exist anymore. This might not be as organized of a retreat as we hoped," he grimaced and shot a glance toward the east, which was obscured by the small forest lining the Karmand Road. "I have faith in the Emperor and Grand Marshal Agrehn to execute this proposed maneuver. The strategy is sound, but..."

"You want my permission to go help in the withdrawal?" Evinda asked mischievously.

"My greatest skill is maneuver. I don't need to be modest about it. I should be helping them, right now. This is too important and we can't afford to make a mistake," Kordov quickly spluttered out, almost tripping on his words.

"And if you go there, who directs the attack here when the time comes?" the Empress queried.

Kordov then looked directly at Evinda and impertinently pointed his white-gloved finger toward her.

"You, Your Imperial Majesty. There's no one better here to do so. When Grand Marshal Agrehn sends the signal, three bolts of ice punctuated by a a bolt of lightning over that tree line, give the order. The junior commanders will understand it," he said far too quickly for Evinda to get in a word edgewise in her shock.

"Me?" she asked incredulously.

"Ordering the counterattack is the simpler part, and I don't mean that as an insult," Kordov continued. "We just need to get the timing right. I need to be there to help with the withdrawal. The Emperor and Grand Marshal Agrehn need to be there to keep morale up. You need to be here to give our men reason to charge into this madness. I assure you, you're meant for this."

She was almost speechless, but at the same time wasn't in the least nervous. He was right.

"You have my permission, Marshal Kordov. But do come back alive," she saluted him.

"Your Imperial Majesty, I have no other plans for today than that," Kordov forced a slim smile as he straightened his hat and mounted his horse. "For victory."

"For victory," she repeated and he immediately sped off with a small retinue of his closest subordinates.

She turned back to look at the nearly one-hundred-twenty thousand gathered behind her, all nervously awaiting their commands. Lower officers made light conversation with their men in their massed formations, those immaculate rows that stretched as far as she could see behind her. They weren't scared. They were at peace with whatever would come. If they could manage that, so could she.