“Seer-tral, testing, testing. s Check, over”

  “Raptor-One, firmed, s work, over.”

  “Raptor-Two, firmed, over.”

  “Peli, firmed, cargo loaded, over.”

  “Seer-tral, Atny has given the green light. Luck is in the air. I repeat, Luck is in the air.”

  Helenna stood and watched in silence. Helenna stood as she watched Alsaria decre Essa as being temporary leader of the White Pantheon. Helenna stood as she watched Alsaria prepare her team of thirty-five iions. Helenna stood as Sceo pushed the clouds away from Olympiada. Helenna stood and watched as a few Divines gave their goodbyes and good luck to Alsaria and to Leona. Helenna stood and watched as Alsaria proudly marched with Leona in tow.

  Helenna stood as she watched the thirty-seven Divier their white and gold pnes. Simple oversized jets, the sort that fabulously wealthy mortals would use. Helenna stood and watched the speakers came on. “Yiven permission to take off. Good lud safe travels.”

  Helenna stood and watched as mortals guided the powards the runway of Olympiada’s skyport. Helenna stood as one purs jets on. Helenna stood as her red dress was whipped by the bst of air. Helenna stood and watched as the first pook off, it accelerated from a plete stop to liftoff on the runway, and glided off the mountain befaining altitude. The sed followed, thehird, the fourth and fifth. They waited for the whole team before assembling into a V-formation, making a sharp bank and flying south, towards the midday-sun.

  Helenna stood and watched the five pnes grow smaller as they flew further, from the massive pieces of the world’s fi engineering to the size of birds, then dots, and finally they disappeared behind hills in the horizon. Helenna stood and watched the sky. The mountain was silent, it was always silent, Helenna hated the sile wasn’t fit to be a pce that was the seat of the Gods, it was a dysfunal household, with each family member locked away in their own quarters and only ing out for the odd meeting. Helenna stood and watched the slowly travel across the clear blue sky. It wasn’t even the magnifit deep blue that procimed dominance over the world, it ale pastel that retreated and only made the Sun into a giant blinding fshlight.

  Helenna stood and watched, and finally made her mind up. Today, the White Pantheon would be shaken, the world ge, and her name would be engraved eversting into the annals of history. This would be the single greatest event of the millennia, greater than the God-killer, it would rival Arascus’ Great War.

  Today would be remembered as the day the Pantheon fell.

  Helenna turned ahe skyport. Through the silent corridors, past the maids, half of them she knew by name, all of them served as her eyes and ears in this mountain. Past Alsaria’s Seeker proudly standing in formation as Essa gave them a speech: “The Padins have built a fortress, the Guardians sharpen their spears, the Clerics are at ates. We will no-“ Helen, she had no wishes to listen to a woman who could not even handle a modicum of versation, glory should be left to those who did not lose all of their humanity in some vain pursuit fical knowledge. The best Essa could hope for is ever-being a court schor and a jester-witch, anything more would be an embarrassment for the whole court.

  Helenna walked to her own quarter. A grand pace, colourful, with carpets and paintings of ndscapes and noble heroes and herself. With aper on the walls and a plete agical mps. Tall windows, wine in every et, chocote in every other. A pce she tried to make homely, although it was difficult t home to a job site. She walked through the corridors, where easy-going maids and butlers were smiling and chatting as they worked and finally entered her private room.

  All wooden furniture, the carpets all crimsohe apers patterned with roses. A firepce that was growing cold, three empty bottles oable before it. Kavaa and Iniri were already there. Of Health itle-armour that had served in the Great War, simple pte with a green cloak embzoned with a blue cross, a mark for clerid healers. A bde that would have been called a greatsword by mortals although by Diviandards, it was merely a simple duelling bde hung on her waist. Her round shield was already fixed to her forearm, her helmet was donned and pair of pale eyes stared out through slits. Iniri was much the same, but in a wardress, it ropriate for her station as the Goddess of Food & Bounty. It befit the titles she had abandoned when the Great War ended and the new age of Peace began. A green cloak that hung to her feet covered in entments and magical entments, reinforced with strands of living wood that curled and twisted with every movement.

  “Alsaria has left. She has taken Leona and thirty-five iions. Three ho, they won’t turn baow.” Helenna skipped the pleasahe expressions on her friends’ face said they wouldn’t appreciate them anyway. “It is time.”

  Kavaa took a deep breath and stood up from the purple armchair. “So it is.” She said. “How long?”

  “Three hours as was decided.” Kavaa responded with one nod. Her eyes cold, grey aionless, she made the same eyes when she healed people.

  “I will get ged.” Helenna took off her dress and opened her wardrobe. There was going to be battle, there was no doubt about that. The two Goddesses watched her pull out a armour that had been locked away and used only whenever Alsaria decided to make a mascot out of them in parades. A gold breastpte, a mail skirt. A belt with daggers strapped to it, tall bronze boots to her knees, each with a bde in the foot. Gaus with more bdes hidden within, another pair of daggers strapped to her thighs underh her skirt. A red cape for throwing and distra, it could be detached with a mere click of a shoulder button. , Helenna had never liked c her face.

  She looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair itch bck today. It fit the mood. “Iniri, you will guard the prisorance. Kavaa, you clear a path. I will free Kassandora.” She saw the refles of the other two nod. Kavaa turo leave and stopped at the door.

  “Good luck.” She said to the two Divines behind her.

  “We are led by the Spirit of War, the World’s Greatest Strategist. Luck will not be a factor.” Helenna said it more for herself than for Kavaa. Of Health only replied with a silent nod of affirmation.

  Kavaa shut the door ahe two inside. Helenna looked at the clock, they would set off in two hours, thirty minutes. She knew already Iniri was in no mood for chit chat.

  It would be a long and silent wait.

  Helenna stood, and Helenna waited.

  “Raptor , Raptor , this is tral Arika rep. Luck is above us. I repeat, Luck is above us.”

  Kavaa watched her Clerics assembled. Almost twelve thousand men, hardened by the trials of Arika where they ventured into juo kill beasts as much as they healed the sick of disease and wounds. Twelve thousand men. Kavaa wondered how many of them would die today. Was it waste?

  It could be a waste, she was exging their lives for her own freedom. But they had sworn to fight and die for her. They knew what they were signing up for. The Clerical Orders were not Guardians or Seekers or Padins who lured in with promises of gold and glory. To take Kavaa’s vow, to bee a full-fledged Clerie had to be willing to enter nds of epidemics, to withstand the sight of diseases which ate flesh and rotted ans, to fort the families of those who could not be saved, to be willing to give one’s life when the cause called for it. To be ready for a death agonizing and fall to the very illhey were trying to cure.

  Wheuation called for it, Kavaa’s vow said to kill and ease suffering.

  The Clerical Orders were looked down upon, spat upoled as mere battlefield doctors. In an age of Peace, they had lost even that, now they were mere idealists fighting a fruitless war against ever ging diseases. Twelve thousand men, ie armours of their respective orders. Some with swords, with hammers, some with spears, some with shields and some without, some with spiked clubs. They looked at their Goddess with cold gazes, the sort that ropriate for a surgical amputation. No. They were men who had seerue horrors the world had to offer. Not beasts ons or bandits, but the tears of family, the expressions of those who lost limbs in their sleep. They had heard men dying of t illnesses when medies ran out, they were there for when men begged to be rid of illness and they were there for when men begged to be rid of pain. And they still came baore.

  They deserved a speech. Just as a doctor would rally the trainees out of panic, she should rally them. They were her men. This was her army. They lived for her. They died for her. They would die for her. She remembered Kassandora’s rea to when she asked what sort of speech it should be. “They’re your men, who am I to take them from you?” It was exactly the sort of words Kassandora would say, it treated her equally as a Divi was the exactly the sort of words Alsaria had never said. Kavaa opened her mouth as the Sun fell and clouds returo Olympiada. The shadow of the mountain fell upon them.

  “Clerics!” She spoke. She had never been one for speeches. Helenna was much better at swayis. Iniri had a way of being homely. Kavaa knew she was too cold, she usually had to feigion in the White Pantheon, the horrors of healing had dulled her in that regard. But these men had gohrough everything she had, heard and seehing she had. “Healers!” She shouted again. That fit more. Heads turned and the crowd fell silent. Even the helicopters in the back slowed their rotors aled down. Kavaa tinued.

  “We serve the ailing diseased and the feeble wounded! We serve the afflicted, the rotting, the tainted and the defiled! We serve the sick! We have not, do not, and will never serve a Pantheon! We work with the Pantheon but we are not part of the Pantheon! Who the Divine Mountain fets, we remember! Where the Divine Mountain looks away, we are there! We have been there in Arika fighting alone! No support came from Alsaria and her glorious Seekers! No help from the mages of Essa! A ti broiling in war, left alone by the Goddess of Peace, a ti ever on the brink of Chaos which Maisara turns her nose up at.” Kavaa took a breath as she looked at her Clerics. Every single oared at her with bated breath.

  “Is that the Pantheon you wish to work with?” She spread her arms out and the Cleriswered.

  “NO!”

  “Is that the Pantheon you were promised?”

  “NO!”

  “Is that the Pantheon you wish to die for?”

  “NO!” Kavaa pulled out her sword and held it forwards. It glittered remorselessly in the sun.

  “We serve as doctors, we kill disease where we see it! Today, the Pantheon is our patient! Today, the Pantheon is sick!” She got a chorus of cheers, of spear butts hitting the ground and of ons g against shield. Kavaa finally spoke agaihe cheerihe air. “We heal where we , we give the ultimate reprieve where we ot. But we are one Order! We are a doctor devoid of tools!” Her arm twisted and she raised the sword to the sky. “Just as a vae is an illness made to fight a disease, today, we our acquire vae.” Kavaa held her breath. This was it. The words just said could be expiaken back. Alsaria would not kill her for a mere speech. The sentence was the jump off the cliff.

  “Today, our vaation is the Divine Kassandoddess of War!” Kavaa turned, her bde aimed at Olympiada. She could not look at the faces of her men and her expression broke, her lips quivered, she closed her eyes and listeo the silence.

  It sted for a mere moment.

  Twelve thousand Clerics cheered.