“Let us not pretend the situation is anything which it is not. The White Pantheon has invaded us!” Mwai looked around at the Kirinyaan politis in their national assembly. All grim faces, all hard, all wearing the green armbands of the Recmation War. “We have stood, and we will stand. Kirinyaa will not kneel!” It was the first time he ever saw everything stand up before him. Every person gave Kassandora’s salute.

  Damian Sokolowski looked through a series of binocurs from the inside of one of Melukal’s t blocks. It was an ugly city, existing only because of a trading route and nothing else. Not particurly rge but her small. Tight is how he’d describe it. Tight and taio the north and south stretched twe highways, be enough for four vehicles each, then towards the eastern front of the city y its cim to fame. Five railways heading north into Khmet, and towards the south, four went straight and one split into two to veer west.

  All the buildings were a dull yellow, all ft topped. The cities’ sole ndmark was the Gates of Kirinyaa, a grand archway in the middle of the city. Supposedly built to symbolize entering the try, Damian had given it one gaken one image, a it at that. In the east was the train station, the rgest building by far iire city. Bigger even than the local hospital and the schools.

  This room had once been residential areas. One of the men had knocked down two of the walls with a sledgehammer to make it into an observation post. Damian walked past the couch were two men, Pawel and Mateusz, were smoking and iing the images they had taken as he circled to the southern windows. Another man stood here with a camera, Wiktor. Ex-Twi Cleric, as all the men in Damian’s inner circle were. Tall and once pale, now tanned by Arika into a shade of warm brohat tanning had happeo all of them though, it was nothing to ent about. “You got a shot of that?” Damian asked. The southern road was the evacuation highway, cars and trucks were slowly trundling along it. Somewhere further down someone had crashed and there was a traffic jam. Some of the sorcerers had beeo clear it.

  And the other road was the supply route. There, it was truck after truing in with supplies from the south. Kirinyaan volunteers, explosives, the new hedgehog ndmines, napalm shells too. Although only four Binturongs had bee as a cover for the ammunition.

  Wiktor didn’t reply, he only pulled a series of images from his coat and hahem to Damian. One shot of the soldier’s cordon as they anised people into trucks. Another was of trucks leaving, filled with people. Some had been taken earlier from the ground. Shots of people entering buses, their faces a mix of anger and fear. Women g as they held onto babes. More of Melukal’s mayiving a speech to the popution. “This one’s good.” Damian said as he picked an image. Two soldiers, swords sheathed on their belt, hoisting an old man on a wheelchair onto a bus.

  “I know.” Wiktor said. He lifted the camera and snapped another photo. Kassandora had supplied them, apparently Helenna had been gifted too many to handle and now she was donating them away. An image was immediately printed out, of an unhappy sorceress in mid-air.

  Damian wished they had sent Anassa. Or Kassandora. Or anyone else but the sorcerers. And especially not all fifty-two of them. He looked from Wiktor’s camera to the outside. Fleur was there, simply standing in mid-air as her red dress and bck hair whipped about in the wind. Those cold blue eyes gazed at Damian, then she poio the window. “Brace for wind!” Damian gave the warning to the rest of the team as he unfastehe window locks.

  Immediately the desert winds roared through the room as Fleur slowly hovered in through the windoers were sent flying, bottles and gsses were knocked over. Fine vodka illed, what a waste! Fleur snapped her fingers and the window shut closed while Wiktor held the camera close to his chest as if it was his own child. “Traffic jam unblocked. Evacuations go ahead at full speed again.” Did this sorceress girl think she eaking to a crowd? There were five of them here, her included in that number. “Lyca’s and Eliza’s team have also ran out of hedgehogs to pnt.” She crossed her arms and stared at them angrily. “What sort of name is that anyway?”

  “We don’t choose the names.” Damian tried tue back. Anyone else, he would have met with a salute, but there was no reason to salute to her, she never saluted to him. And they weren’t even in the same branch of the military. All Damian knew about her was that she took orders directly from Anassa. heless, he tried to maintain some level of hospitality to her. Kassandora could break an arm with a snap of her finger, Damian had seen her hold aion for thievery too, but there had never been a moment where he ever thought Kassandora would turn on him. The sorcerers though, all of them were like rabid tigers on thin leashes. And Fleur was the worst of the lot, one wrong word with her and she made those eyes which simply told you she was thinking on how to kill you. Even Anassa wasn’t so bad, she had only e round a few times during training, thhly thrashed them about, called them ants, and the.

  “Well I don’t like it.” Fleur said. More sorcerers appeared outside. Fleur’s team of twelve souls. Damian wondered what sort of crimes they had doo be assigo her. They hovered there, breathing heavily with sweat dripping down their faces. One of them said something and Fleur turned immediately. “I didn’t e to shout at you this time.” Fleur said as she looked at the sorcerers, somewhat calmer this time. She turned back to face Damian again once her team went pale and straighteheir postures. “Fortia is approag from the north, Edmonton is trag her. She’ll be here around su, what’s your progress?”

  “Station and the north is done. We’re w our way through the city tre now.” Fleur crossed her arms as Damian tried to crack a smile. That smile withered away when he saw her face.

  “You’re slow.” Slow? Slow? Slow? They had pwenty tons of explosives already. More than a thousand napalm shells were iy sewers ready to blow! The sapper teams were w around the clock with four hours of sleep a day! Slow? It was made twice as bad by the fact the girl sounded her age, how old was she even? She couldn’t be any more than pushing twenty! Damian was almost twice her age! And she had the gall to talk like this?

  “I appreciate the pliment.” Damian said. “But we’re going as fast as we .”

  “Then we’ll buy time, Eliza said the hedgehogs be pnted in city blocks. She smother them with weakened asphalt, will that work or no?” Damian turo his men. Obviously his own soldiers had not even thought of that, they weren’t going to be pulling tarmac up anytime soon. But then, they weren’t sorcerers were they? Wiktor shrugged. Pawel nodded.

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “Alright, we’re not going to risk our lives pnting them on the front ohe battle starts. They have heavy mage support.” She stepped to the window then stopped. “Anassa gave me this, you may . I’ve read it already.” She pulled out a little book, barely palm sized and thin, from the inside of her dress and threw it to Damian’s feet. The man looked down at it ahe title: How to Kill Gods. And at the bottom was the author. Anassa, of Sorcery.

  Damian pulled out his version immediately, he finally saening to build up some rapport with the girl. “Then take this.” He said, he knew off it by heart at this point, and everyone in his forces had been given one anyway. The Strengths and Weaknesses of White Pantheon Diviactid Strategies to be used. In the er was a little K. That was all Kassandora had signed herself with. Fleur turned, gave the booklet a quid shook her head.

  “We have that ooo. Keep it. Ours is…” Fleur giggled to herself. “It’s different, that’s how I’d put it.” Damian picked up the book and opened a random page. Zerus: Trap and engage from behind, do not try to engage in a duel with Zerus. He may not look it, but the man is terribly smart... Fleur stepped at the window and turned baian. “We’ll pull out if we take heavy losses. Anassa’s orders.” Fleur said. “When you unch the red fre, we’ll retreat. Anything else we have to know?”

  “Remember to up the Binturongs on the way out.” Kassandora had given that order. To make sure the equipment would not fall into enemy hands, the sorcerers were to thhly destroy it.

  “Don’t worry, we won’t fet.” Fleur said. And then she did something Damian had only dreamt of. She pulled a salute. A perfee, two fingers outstretched to just above her head. “Good luck General.” The window behind opened by itself, the wind howled in again as Fleur left. The window closed, Fleur approached the man who had been talking and he suddenly bent over and grabbed at his chest, then screamed out so loud he could be heard from inside of Damian’s little lookout.

  It sted a few seds, then stopped. Fleur’s team of twelve sullenly followed behihrough the air. “Well look at that, she be nice.” Pawel said, then scratched his stubbled as if ihought.

  “You call that nice?” Damian made a mock-accusatory tone.

  “She did leave us another manual. The others haven’t.” Wiktor took a photo of the booklet in Damian’s hand. Damian threw it at him.

  “And she gave us good luck.” Mateusz added. The fourth man of the and team. In charge of radios, he had set up a station of ptops in one of the kits but was doing nothing with them so far. There was no point running iions on people who already had orders. “You know me, I’m a an but I think I’m in love.” He said in a swooning, sarcastic, mog tone.

  “Certification:” Pawel said slowly as a grin appeared on his mouth. Damian already knew what word was going to e out of it. “Would.” They all burst out in ughter.

  “Why did you want the cameras?” Helenna asked Kassandora. She had missed out on a lot of the pnning with her frequent travelling to meet with Kirinyaa’s richest. The munition needs, artillery, ammunition, guns, Kassandot from the gover directly. But then there were things she said she could never have enough of. Trucks were ohe woman already had enough heavy vehicles to mount the Clerics twice over, but it apparently was not enough. Another was good food. The gover sent rations, and then the rich sent chocotes. Alcohol and cigarettes were two big ohose went quickly and Kassandora said there was no easier way to raise morale in a bad situation.

  But cameras? Helenna had met three different film directors duriint in Nanbasa. They were all rich, and they were more than happy to give her supplies, but cameras? What was the woman even pnning? Kassandora sighed as she looked up from her desk. Three maps sat before her, all so interspersed with arrows that Helenna’s eyes gzed over wheried to figure out what was going on in them. It was as if the Goddess of War had drugged spiders and thehem run rampant as they drew cobwebs of different colours onto the diagrams.

  “How do you build morale Helenna?” Kassandora asked. She chewed the end of her pen cap as she leaned bad put her hands behind her head. “I’m actually curious, how?”

  Helenna answered the question as holy as she could. “Create a cause. Something people love and would die for, then grow the idea. I mean, what’s the question? The principal of it or the details of speeches?” Kassandora shook her head.

  “No, you answered it very well. You create a cause to fight for. Now how do you pick it?” Helenna shrugged. With anybody else, it would have been an annoyahat questioned Helenna’s authority, but it was a matter of toh Kassandora. The Goddess of War somehow mao sound as if she was actually curious and just respectfully asking.

  “I ’t tell you that. Everything in text, something will e along and then you exploit the idea.” She had do in the past.

  “When you fought us, what did you pick?” Kassandora asked.

  “Freedom.” Helenna answered immediately. Everyone loved freedom, and Arascus had not done himself any favours back then when he tralized his empire around him. It made his forces into a powerful foe otlefield, but in the propaganda war, it wasn’t hard to defeat him.

  “And now?” Helenna thought for a moment. What would do in this situation?

  “Justice.” Helenna said and Kassandora slowly nodded. She took the pen out of her mouth, wiped it on her shirt and passed it to Helenna.

  “Draw me freedom and justice if you would.” Helenna stared at the pen, then at Kassandora.

  “We both know I ’t do that, they’re not material things.” Kassandhed as she threw her hands up into the air, the pen was unched somewhere into the tent and Kassandora took a new o of her cup.

  “That’s the biggest differeween you and Mam.” Kassandora said. “You prefer having an ideal you craft into reality, Mam has reality she crafts into an ideal. You know, I asked her this once, she drew both for me. Shackles for freedom and a murder-se for justice.” Kassandora started drawing, she made a quick figure of a man lying dead on the ground, a sword stabbed through him. “What does this inspire?”

  “Heroism.” Helenna said. “Revenge? Righteous Anger? Sadness? I don’t know, what’s the text?” Helenna asked and Kassandora wrote the words down. She circled them, then the picture.

  “Now whie is more effective? The words or the image?”

  “The image obviously.” Helenna said annoyed. Of course it was the image, she wasn’t a new pyer to this game. Frankly, she was better at it than Kassandora. The Goddess of War could give speeches and rally, but not like Helenna could. She could do armies, Helenna did nations. “What’s your point?”

  “Very simple Helenna. Melukal is going to be sieged today. It will fall in about a week. Why do I need cameras? Because I’m going to give you your pictures. So that your speeches will be filmed on a backdrop of our soldiers evacuating civilians, so you’ll talk about justice as we see Fortia cut men down, so that you talk abhteous anger with the image of a burning city behind you. How’s that for inspiration?”

  Damian looked through his binocurs north as a line of men started to crest the sand-dunes in the distahe highways and rails separated them, but oher side it was simply wastend. They were marg down the main road, some men and women in long shawls and cloaks floated in the air above them. At least the men on the ground had a cohesive scheme. All in golden-broeel, the men of rank had cloaks. Damian wrote it down into his notebook as he g the men in the room. Pawel, Mateusz and Wiktor were all dressed in green shorts and shirts. Wiktor was snapping pictures with his camera of the approag army. Those in the air were horribly mismatched in colours.

  Kassandora had taken him, Zalewski and Ekkerson on a leadership course. Personally traihem, and now that he was aware of the things she had told him, it simply raised his opinion of her even more. It was the small things that separated the talented from the masters. Amateurs forced their soldiers to always be in full-armour and always bat-ready, Kassandora had made the three generals stand at attention in the midday Arikan sun in full battledress. They were supposed to st two hours, they managed forty minutes before Zalewski fainted from the heat. Damian could only imagihe fatigue of those men approag him if they had just marched across that desert. “I see her!” Pawel shouted. “On the hill, left from the road.”

  Damian turned his gaze to look left of the road. Several ranks of men in their gold-bronze armour were there. With long spears and tower shields and casting long shadows in the sun. And then that giant amongst them. A woman, tall aiful, with golden hair. Not as vivid as Fer’s, but straight and elegant. She wleaming golden armour and held a spear in her side. It had a tiny red ribbon tied just uhe spearhead itself. “Certification:” Pawel said as he looked at her. “Would.” They shared a few chuckles among themselves, but it was hard to find mirth when you faced a Divine.

  “That’s Fortia, isn’t it?” Mateusz said.

  “Fits the description.” Damian said. Twice the height of a man, gold armour, spear, gold hair. He couldn’t make out the eyes, but he was sure they were a dulled gold too. “Radio the men, hold fire, keep the sappers w. We’re just deying her.”

  “Do you think she’ll move in right now?” Pawel asked as Mateusz disappeared through a hole in the wall.

  “Kassandora said she prefers daytime fighting. I think she’ll set up camp to start sieging us.”

  “Aye aye.” Wiktor said as his camera clicked away. He printed off the picture after picture and stuffed them in his jacket.

  “Kassandora expects those back.” Damian said. “Don’t crease them.”

  “Kassandets them digitally when I send them.” Wiktor tapped the breast pocket stuffed with pictures. “These are for me.”

  “You starting an album or something?”

  “I ’t?”

  “Not saying you ’t, but should you?” Damian shook his head as he looked at the Guardians e to a stop before the city. “Tomorrow m, but prepare for battle right now.”

  “Are we letting the men sleep?”

  “We are, don’t ge the lookimen. Have the local police take over evacuations. Move the evacuation teams to the north of the city.”

  “And if they unch a sneak atta the night?”

  “We have an arm system, don’t we?”

  “We do?”

  “What are the hedgehogs if not that?”