I ot think of a worse sario, of a situation more miserable, of any sario worse in warfare than urban fighting. In the same way that a man only say he knows how to swim after being thrown into waters in which he drown, a general only say he knows how to lead after being tasked with sieging a city. War is sometimes called a crucible for men, then urban fighting is the hottest point of that crucible.

  To defend a city is noticeably easier. The two biggest mistakes novices in this art make are the following: One, pns are made to be too plicated, with dozens of fallback lines and locations iy to hold. A strategy followed is always better than a strategy fotten or, worse yet, misremembered and fused. Your soldiers are men, they are not automatons to be programmed.

  And Two. They give emotion to brid mortar. That is a mistake. Brick is brick. Mortar is mortar. No one cries over a broken bri stru, no one should cry over a broken bri war. Almost every defender I have ever fought against has falleo this mentality. They move out of position to try and prevent fires, they fortify colpsing buildings to try and salvage them. Defensively, this tacti be applied to. What sort of prote does an invading army have whereets themselves are rigged to blow? When the homes around them are set abze, what invaders do but retreat?

  Principles of Siegecraft, written by Goddess Kassandora, Of War, during the Great War.

  Damian Sokolowski turowards the ofront from the top of his tower. Arascus would be watg, the General was sure that the God of Pride would not miss a moment of this battle, but Kassandora had told him that he ersonally responsible for the defence of Nanbasa. That if the city fell, his head would fall with it. Arascus would e in, he would help, but he was an indepe auxiliary. Nothing more, nothing less. This was the one point Kassandora had driven home to Damian. Everything else could be rationalized, could be worked around, everything else was rather flexible.

  Not Arascus though. Do not rely on Arascus, do not call on him for aid. Arascus was a better general than Sokolowski, if he chose to assist, then it would be because of a reason. If he chose to stay put, then likewise, he would have a reason to stay put. So Damian pushed all thoughts of calling for the God of Pride out of his mind.

  Frankly, this early on, Arascus was not needed anyway.

  Alsaria was h terribly high in the air, watg the city from afar. It was out of the range of anti-air and the Goddess was too small to be locked on by the heat-seeking missiles. So Damian Sokolowski stood in his vantage point. It was a skyscraper in Nanbasa’s south. The building had been evacuated, a good amount of the windows had been taken out, and now his team stood around him.

  Wiktor was w the radio that had bee up in this apartment’s living room. It was a cumbersome thing, all boxes and wires and odd antehat threateo poke eyes out, but it had served in Melukal, so it would serve now. Mateusz and Pawel were both looking at the water through their own pairs of binocurs, all the men were dressed in dark clothes. Nothing pitch bck, that stood out too much, but dark enough to look as fade into the shadows of the apartment they were in.

  “Certification.” Pawel said, his binocurs aimed at Alsaria. “Would.”

  “Cssic.” Mateusz replied as he looked over the o. Damian Sokolowski ighe two men, both had shaved their heads for this operation. Kassandora had reended for the whole army to shave, they would most likely be engaging in melee bat. Even a sirand of hair that an oppo could tto would prove deadly. Mateusz finished his s of the dark blue waters and looked up at the Goddess of Light.

  Alsaria stood there, in a dress of white and gold. It both awed and terrified Damian. Any other Divine, and he would have called them an amateur for ning armour. But he had seen how much Kassandora respected Alsaria’s strength. He had seen the amount of preparation that ut into tingens that were to be done if it was only Alsaria who was sieging Nanbasa, he had been in those meetings more than once. So he khat if Alsaria had decided to e in a dress and not armour, it wasn’t some stupid y. It was a simple show of force.

  “KAF is on the lihey have tes sortied! Ready to intercept at your eneral!” Wiktor shouted from the abandoned apartment. Rifles and spare ammunition, along with kits for first aid y strewn about. Damian Sokolowski gave on final g the Goddess of Light. He was sure she could see him, but he had absolutely no way to firm it. Frankly, simply standing here with her up there, in the air, was enough to set his heart rag in panic.

  “Which Squadrons?” Damian asked. It wasn’t important which squadrons they were frankly, fighter jets would either turide of the war for them, or they wouldn’t even put a dent in Alsaria. All that was left was to discover which way the tide would flow.

  “Ohrough Three.” Wiktor replied.

  “Send Squadron One ihem to go in from different angles and at the same time. ris on firing.” Damian said, his eyes went to the water as Wiktor started to repeat his ands to Ground trol. They would be beaming it up to the jets. But Damian did not care a si at how effit the system was. He could not turn his eyes away from the deep blue o uhe cloudless light blue sky. Past Iniri’s tremendous seawall, that Damian had helped reinforce with steel and crete himself. He watched the water.

  Something was in there. As if a tremendous whale had decided to move onwards, onto Nanbasa. Damian put it out of his mind as Wiktor shouted from behind him. “Squadron One is ing in now! From the North and South!”

  Damian looked up, he saw Alsaria turn her head at the sounds of jets ing in from either side. The General then caught the sight of the jets, like three spearpoints, two from the south, one from the north, flying in from odd angles and at odd intervals. The closest of those jets let out its thunderous buzz as its mae guns opened fire.

  Alsaria only lifted her hand. A fsh of light blinded all of Nanbasa for a moment, as if someone had mao stretch out the instance of a lighthouse shining directly at you across the sky. And there were only two pins remaining. Alsaria moved her hand. Another fsh of light. And only one pin remained. Alsaria moved backwards with all the agility of a bumblebee. She went from standing io rag across the sky in an instant. Bullets flew by her, as did the pin.

  Another fsh of light temporarily blinded Damian Sokolowski. When he recovered, it was as if there had never even been a Squadrohere was n wreckage, no plume of smoke, no oil spilled into the o. Alsaria had simply evaporated the three jet pnes. “Call off KAF!” Damian quickly shouted. If three jets barely forced her to move, then a dozen would barely get a scrat her. He was not about to trade all of Kassandora’s Air Force for a single drop of Divine blood.

  And there was a greater threat approag. From the depths, that patch of darkness started to rise out of the water. At first, Damian thought he was looking at a submarine rise out of the o. Then he saw the two tremendous bck cws, eae as rge as a bus. He saw the s dangling from a on, fastened onto a piece of carapace as dark as oil. He saw fmes as that on fired, the s tore off and it nded bato the o.

  Damian saw the seawall buckle as that on’s single volley hit it. And he finally realised what he was looking at. A ginormous crab, easily the size of aire building. It hefted one great cw out of the water. And it smashed it into the wall. Damian quickly began issuing orders. “Fire all artillery on that monster!” He shouted to Wiktor, then thought about the shells. “Two rounds of high-explosive! Then a volley of bunker-breacher!”

  Wiktor quickly transmitted the and as the crab moved its massive to the air, and then smmed it down on the seawall. The structure buckled as the defenders on it opened fire at the soldiers of Uriamel leading the crab. “FIRE! FIRE! BRING IT DOWN!” Damian shouted into the radio. The ground around him shook. The entire building quivered as if it was about to colpse. For a single instant, Nanbasa seemed to fall silent before someone on the wooden seawall opened fire again. The rapid drumming of mae guns quickly followed, another wave of lead unched in Alsaria’s dire from behind Damian. From the turrets on the buildings and the various self-propelled AA pieces that now roamed Nanbasa’s pnation.

  All Alsaria did was raise her hands again. Damian had to close his eyes against that blinding fsh of light. He opehem, he saw Alsaria standing as she stood, without even a single scrat her. Once again, she had simply erased the bullets from existehe General swallowed and readjusted his cap. How exactly where they supposed to go up against that? The Goddess of Light was nothing if not invincible.

  But his attention was stolen away. The artillery that had sounded moments before began to desd. Shells started to scream through mid-air as they accelerated. Alsaria lifted her arms, palms ft and pointed away from her, and bsts of light quickly shot out of her. They seared the air, they almost reached the buildings before finally ending, and they simply deleted whatever shells they mao catch within themselves.

  But for every shell that Alsaria mao catch. Five got through. They impacted upon that giant crab, the first few shells exploded in tremendous fmes against its carapace shell as it lifted its cw to swing at the seawall again. More of Uriamel’s inhuman soldiers floundered around its legs, swords and shields ready to swarm in as crete dust poured from the cracks in Iniri’s wood. If Kassandora had not given the order to reinforce it, then that monster would have been in by now.

  Damian watched shell after shell hit that monstrosity as Alsaria stayed at a safe distance. She removed ining shell were she could, but she did nothing more than that. For a brief moment, the explosions died down and Damian saw the splintering shell. The back of that giant crab atchwork of wires and s that once held the on on it. Now, pieces of its thick bck carapace fell off every time its massive cws battered the wall.

  There ause in shells. Damian Sokolowski knew what that meant. The bunker-breacher ammunition was being loaded. After a few dozen seds, the set of whistles came flying back down. Damian didn’t even bother pulling up his binocurs to see what was happening, he could make the picture out from this vantage point. That giant crab took a step back, it swung that massive cw again. It roared as its limb once again got stu the wood. It pulled away.

  And the bunker-breacher shells made impact. A dozen different rounds had mao get through Alsaria’s ter-fire. A dozen different rounds smashed into the shell, the deys on their fuses started to ki as the solid lead tips peed the natural bone of carapace. Damia himself hold his breath.

  Ached the crab explode. Owice, a dozen different times as each shell blew up. Great d piece of carapad leg and eye-stalk and massive an and crab-meat unched into the air, charred by the tremendous fme as the strength gave out in the monster’s legs. It colpsed on top of the Uriamel natives around it, senteng them to a death by crushing.

  Damian Sokolowski watched Alsaria looked down at the unmoving body of her living siege ehe Goddess of Light sighed, turned, a Nanbasa, she eventually disappeared behind the horizon.

  The walls held for now. Damian wondered how many more attacks they’d be able to st for. If they were all like that, he didn’t expect a lot. Already, the inside of Iniri’s seawall showed signs of crag and damage.

  He just hoped they would send more than one or two at a time.

  Alsaria had to report what she saw. The great-ons needed better mountings if the crabs were to serve as mobile artillery.