Eastern Kazan-Night/Morning of the Ourtai Offensive.

Combined Atlantean and Ourtai Field Headquarters

00:12 AM second day of the ORM Offensive.

It was a wild and frenzied night upon the eastern steppes of Kazan. Hexarar, priest of Sugaar the Dragon, looked skyward and made the claw of defense, avoiding the wrath of Ortzi the Sky God, and brother to Sugaar. Known as“Battler or Bringer of Storms.” Ortzi guarded the back of his older brother the Dragon. But his wrath was known to be indiscriminate and dangerous. Lighting strikes filled the horizon as dark patches of rain filled the nose with the smell of wet growing things overlaid by a scent of ozone generated by lightning bolts.

Aye even the Gods are wrathful, but tonight is for earth magic, the oldest magic. Not for calling down the fire from the heavens. I serve the Dragon and I do his bidding.

The Ourtai Scouts attached to Atlantean Military Command avoided the Shaman from Atlantis, refusing to look directly in his eyes, and fearing his touch. Hexarar's body was covered in green tattoos of serpents, which appeared to writhe and coil relentlessly around his near naked torso. They seemed to move and writhe if one looked too closely, thanks to the tailored nanite ink used on his body.

The Riders of Maktul had earlier thrust a bound slave captured from fighting the Hegemony at the demonic looking shaman. She had struggled in the grasps of the riders who had brought her strapped on the back of their fearsome Terror Bird. Walking up to the bound woman, the priests of Sugaar made soothing noises, like one would a frightened horse, he reached out with his fingers, stroking her hair and running his hands down her neck. Hexarar kept secret items embedded within his hands and torso. He used one now to touch the frightened woman on the neck. A quick painless injection quickly caused her struggles to cease. She became calm and docile.

“Ah! This one shall do nicely. Leave me alone till I am done. Let none approach lest I am forced to steal their souls to be used as spirit slaves at my command!” Turning the woman from the men, Hexarar forced her into his tent, where his instruments lay.

****

Long was the night. The two bearded Ourtai Scouts were not allowed to leave the area until the death shaman of the Atlanteans had spoken once more to them. They huddled under leather cloaks as lightning and rain whipped the high ranges into an amazing display of atmospheric frenzy. Strange lights danced among the tent's flapping door, and bilious green and purple colored fog poured from under the tent flaps. A long undulating scream of horror, obviously female, issued from the depth of the tent. A few minutes later the scouts recoiled in fear, while crossing their fingers to ward off evil spirits and curses as the Shaman of the Atlantean stepped out of his tent in the chill of a false muddy dawn.

The captured soldier turned slave stepped from the tent following her master. She was naked like Hexarar from the waist up. Writhing snake designs and spirals covered her torso, most disturbing of all, her eyes had become two milky orbs blind orbs.-Yet they seemed to be able to see and discern what was around her.

In a graveyard dead voice she intoned, “The one that you search for is in the south-west.” Lifting her arm she pointed behind the riders in the direction of where the Sun went to bed.

“Time to kill the Cat of Kapoor! Ride! Ride sons of Maktul, like your very souls depend on it!”

****

*****

Combined Atlantean and Ourtai Field Headquarters

04:00 AM Second day of Ourtai Offensive.

A tall man of a large and heavy muscular build stood off to one side stroking his green dyed beard. His facial tattoos marked him as a proven war leader and a ranking officer of the line. The activity he silently watched made him twitch inside his camouflaged body armor as he witnessed the dramatic tableau of his troops marching out from the tunnel in front of him. Lost in thought contemplating the monumental disaster in planning he was doing everything in his power to correct. “May my eyes forever be lowered! I hope and pray that all that is holy and good, this disaster in the making can be turned before we are all carried off to the frozen ice bound depths of hell!

General Abantza was furious. His supposed allies the Ourtai, Goat screwing Barbarians! Had kicked off the offensive against the Hegemony and Republic of Kazan two days early. Sugaar only knows what spooked those superstitious omen chasing idiots!

General Abantza considered himself a man of piety and devotion to Sugaar, as he watched the Political Officer Hexarar shouting and waving towards their allied light cavalry scouts, called the 'Riders of Maktul.' Shortly they rode away on their specially bred Terror Birds. An evolutionary half step between the time when giant lizards and dragons once ruled the earth and the mammalian life which dominated it now. They were living nightmares, two meters tall, fast as a scout car, with a beak capable of shearing an Auroch into two halves and most disturbing of all you could see in their eyes they reasoned. But it was seeing the slave covered in scrolling runes and ancient Atlantean script which made his skin crawl-it was an atavistic fear installed from generations upon generations having to live with servants of a God who could take anyone and turn them into zombies.

“Damn! Hexarar made an Aatxe spirit slave. Father Dragon of us all, I know he is your servant, and I should follow his direction to all things unseen but this magic shit makes my beard itch. I want my meat fighting me, so the victory is sweeter in my mouth. Not complacent and willing for the blade to open their veins.”

Growling and chewing on unpleasant thoughts, the General turned to face the “Priest” Hexarar who had silently arrived with his slave following him like a puppy dog. Hexarar was in fact a Commander of the Special Operations Command, Political Branch commonly referred to as the Hades Commandos.

“Well General that should keep our barbarian friends busy, seeing how they kicked off the offensive early.”

“Where did you send those idiots?”

“West. I sent out a heavy squadron of riders yesterday, with a couple of my better operators. I haven't heard from them since they gave their last situation report in the morning. However good news, thanks to the Hegemony being ill equipped at finding our listening posts and intercept gear; the last whereabouts of Tamari Kapoor was in one of two regions. She is either coordinating operations from Camp Maratha, or in one of six different villages between us and the capital. I sent them to scour the villages.”

General Abantza turned to the Hegemony soldier, now a functioning zombie. “And this?”

“A nice opportunity to use sociological-political theater. I interrogated her, and squeezed her brain of any information she might have had. I didn't learn much. A day or so and the drugs will wear off. I will send her to the creche pits of the Ourtai. They can use her for sport or food for their damn hatchlings. She was good at impressing the locals.”

“When will you know something?”

“Hopefully before midday. I sent a couple of our better operators with them and a communication tech team to update me.”

“Keep me apprised of what you find. I have a country to invade and the better part of three Imperial Lances worth of troops to squeeze through a keyhole so I can get them out in the field.”

Both men turned and marched to the gaping portal in the ground where soldiers and equipment poured from like angry ants who had their nest kicked over. Rank upon rank of men three abreast poured out of where their tunnel boring equipment had daylighted or breached into the open. Each man was heavily laden with equipment and load carrying packs. Their fit forms could be seen to struggle with each step.

Pointing to his men exiting the tunnel General Abantza said, “See Priest. Thanks to the ORM and whatever damn superstitious portent spooked them, my men went from being Mechanized Infantry to Light Infantry. And make no mistake, Light Infantry is anything but Light. They are carrying everything they have to have on their backs and on their bodies!”

Case in point Hexarar could see teams of men dragging light pneumatic tire wagons filled with ammunition and rations behind every fifth rank.

“Surely your men are trained on Tactics and should be able to carry any force they come across.”

“And that is exactly the difference between a Political Officer and a Field Officer. Tactics are how you take an objective. Strategy is how you win a war.” Feeling his anger bubbling to the surface, General Abantza smiled a smile that sharks and other predators would have envied. “Priest, Logistics not Tactics will determine our coming battles. We will fight when and where we can best hope to win. Our deeply buried armories, and supply bases are in the West! Instead of conducting a lighting strike across the country we have to march to combat like my ancestors did a hundred years ago. We can only fight with what we can carry and whatever we can manage to drag out of those damn tunnels of yours. I only pray our equipment can catch up. We have roughly two days worth of full combat capabilities before we will begin to run out of ammunition. Do you understand what I am telling you?”

“Yes I do. You fool. You have already given up on this crusade to bring the collar and yoke back to those who thought they had escaped us! Watch your step General. Continue down this path and I will string your family's eyes around my neck on a silver chain, and make you watch me as I do it!”

Bowing from the waist, Hexarar spoke with a convincingly subservient voice, “I understand and hope but to serve our Emperor. May his will be done!”

Inside his head Hexar intoned, "I will gut you like a grappler fish and pull your entrails out before your very eyes, if you threaten my family once more, Priest!"