Stormward Talismans had long been distributed, save for the few spares Zel had, and these she kept for herself, to give to whoever proved to be particularly capable in the impending battle. Despite these discordant forces, by some miracle, a cohesive battle-line managed to form. Heavy machinery, First-model tankmen, statues, and cultivators at the tip of the wedge, with defensive artillery and the more normal people among them standing as a backline meant to pick off any Clay Soldiers that got through.

A surprising number of the Kargarians who had stayed when the Serpent’s Head left had chosen to fight alongside them rather than leave as well, even further bolstering the non-militia Irregulars. Zelsys saw a hovercraft among them, even a familiar giant lizard whose back was now bare rather than carrying the owner’s home. The great lumbering beast was guided to the forefront of the line, and the Watcher of the Wall, the greatest of the statues, was made to ride upon its shell, even its ten-meter frame dwarfed by the twenty-something meter animal.

The clarion call of horns carried on the wind. Willowdale was roused to war. A voice there soon followed, booming out from… The same speaker system that had been removed from the stage, now mounted atop a tank.

“BRAVE MEN AND WOMEN OF WILLOWDALE!

“THE FOE WHICH WE FACE TODAY ARE NOT PEOPLE, THEY ARE NOT ANIMALS, THEY ARE NOT EVEN LOCUST-MEN. THEY ARE THE DESECRATED CORPSES OF THE FALLEN, WRAPPED IN CLAY, BEING PUPPETED BY UBUL HIMSELF.”

“YET, EVEN THEY HAVE HEARTS, HEARTS OF GEMSTONE, AND THESE CORES ARE THAT WHICH YOU MUST SHATTER TO STRIKE THEM DOWN! THEIR HEARTS ARE NOT WITHIN THEIR CHESTS, THESE CLAY SOLDIERS’ CORES MAY BE ANYWHERE. DISMEMBER THEM, DISCERN WHICH PARTS STILL MOVE, NARROW DOWN THE CORE’S LOCATION, AND SHATTER IT.”

“KEEP THEM APART FROM ONE ANOTHER, LEST THEY MERGE INTO GREATER FORMS.”

He kept going on about the battle plan at large, to employ artillery in the initial defense and then push forward. This roused some tangential memory in the back of her mind, this formation - a formation designed specifically to reverse a defense into a rout of the enemy, to best exploit Ikesian technological superiority against an enemy still using traditional field tactics. Something about a three-pronged assault with the central prong being the Tip of the Spear, and the outer prongs being the Left and Right Horns. Crovacus’ speech went on, and even after it was long over, the raucous noise of an assembled army continued. By the time it hit ten-thirty, she saw familiar faces joining them near the tip of the spear.

First came the mustachioed cook whose name she still knew not, wearing a thick coat with chainmail and metal shod brigandine both noticeable underneath, adorned with the fur of a bear, and carrying…

“A Captain’s Cleaver?” she asked, bewildered, to which the cook smiled and nodded.

“Didn’t think you were the only one, did you? These were mass-produced, after all,” he said, proudly holding out his weapon for her to see. Its first half was single-edged, with a true back edge beginning halfway up the huge mass of cold-iron, its point curving into a hook-like shape. Its original guard and handle had been replaced with a handle carved from bone and a basket-like handguard made from a bear’s skull, reinforced with metal plates. “With this, I skinned and butchered alive the bear I served you back then. Some clay men will be no issue.”

Right by his side, Bherad the Tailor also arrived, clad in meticulously tailored and antiquated clothes, doubtlessly armored in some subtle way, and on his hip was a guardless rapier, its handle barely thicker than the blade’s width. A curious hole was to be found at the base of the handle, and from it, a nearly invisible thread reached to the Tailor’s back, upon which sat a clockwork spindle of some sort. His standoffish nature persisted, even now. A few minutes later, Strake’s unmistakably massive blood-red walking tank stomped to the very forefront of the Left Horn. On the right side, mere minutes later; an entirely new machine. It was one of the Iron Brotherhood tanks, that was for sure, but it ambled about in nearly as smooth a manner as Zero, and it bristled with more guns than she could make out at this distance. When it turned, Zelsys could make out a bright-yellow Wendigo’s head on its frontal plate with two Tyrant Muncher shotguns crossed under it. That had to be Collier.

Zelsys had, at first, anticipated that Ozmir would stay behind with Nesgon to look after the sect just in case, but this was not the case. He showed, but… He had no apparent weapons. Instead, he carried a single, simple silken bag and when questioned, he answered, “I may not look it, but my insides have been mutated beyond recognition. A single bite of what’s in here, and I may call upon any of a myriad mutations.”

Ezaryl, too, could be seen, having joined the Irregulars, being that they were her countrymen.

Gradually, over the course of the better part of two hours, the formation stabilized. Forward scouts were sent out, to serve as forward warning, equipped with flareguns and aetherwave comms both - one a tankman, one of the Eagle-men, and some old man with a pair of curved swords at his hip. In this timespan, Zelsys made several observations of what was happening. Those few capable of geomancy were raising temporary soil walls, Willowdale’s sparse population of magic-users was banding together to scrape glyphs onto artillery shells, and people carrying backpacks full of alchemicals were just handing out things like Liquid Vigor with Makhus’s recognizable seals on them to anyone who didn’t have some, telling them to drink a bit now and save the rest for later.

As if to serve as warning, distant thunder from the Fulguric Denial Zone broke through the ruckus, silencing all but the relentless march of engines. Then, one by one, bright-red flares rose into the sky.