Cataclysm War | Chapter 94: Devastation of Expectation (First Draft)

Friday, August 12, 4 S.E.

Aylar paced quietly in her warplate, eyes fixed on the table as the Legion-Masters and their staff conferred, shifting representative figurines within the Dawnhaven map in accordance with reports, and removing others based on casualties. So far, the removed figures belonged entirely to the enemy for the most part, though the Aegis of Avalon was suffering losses on both the Sunrise and Moonrise battlefronts.

Only the Prosperity Gate seemed to be gaining momentum, which was heartening to see, given her husband had taken command personally. A small part of her was terrified of what might happen to Leonidas when facing the forces arrayed at the front of the City, but the greater majority of her held faith in her husband. His experiences on Elatra made him uniquely equipped to manage the battle there, and she chose to put her faith in that fact.

She wasn’t ready to lose the man she was sure she had fallen in love with.

“{Do we have any new reports on Uriel and Ceruviel?}” Aylar asked, halting her pacing enough to walk to the table and eye the two figurines rendering the Venerates in exacting detail.

“{Only that they are still engaged with the Svartfenn Ascendants, Your Majesty,}” Legion-Master Colquen replied steadily, his eyes glancing between the two sally gates as he spoke. “{By all reports, the Shield-Hosts are proving their worth in reinforcing the positions at the Moonrise and Sunrise battlefronts, and the Royal Guard are pulling their weight in kind.}”

Aylar exhaled and grimaced.

“{But the Moonrise and Sunrise battlefronts are the most hotly contested, are they not? The Svartfenn have considerably more high-ranked Cultivators than the Terran force does.}”

Legion-Master Endymion inclined his head at her words.

“{That is true, Your Majesty. If not for the Shield-Hosts, we would be in a more dire situation—but the King’s foresight has provided us with a reliable resource in the form of the Shield-Hosts. They lack the expertise and discipline of the Army or Aegis of Avalon, but their numbers are a weapon unto themselves.}”

Aylar nodded and turned her eyes toward the Prosperity Gate.

“{Then everything will be decided at the King’s battlefront,}” she said finally, reaching out to idly touch Leonidas’ represented figurine without conscious thought. “{My husband will need to carry the day there and reinforce the Venerates before they are overwhelmed.}”

The Legion-Masters nodded in silent agreement, and Aylar sighed in frustration. She wanted to be out there with her friends, not staying safe in the War Room—but the chain of command had to be maintained, and she had promised Leonidas she wouldn’t gallivant out. Even ignoring that, it was an Alteran precedent: her mother had fought in conflicts, but the Heroine-Queen had been an exception. Aylar and her immediate siblings hadn’t even been conceived when her mother had fought for Eldormer.

She wasn’t pregnant to her knowledge, but the signs would take far longer than a few days to appear. Her cheeks heated traitorously as she considered that she and Leonidas had hardly been failing in their marital duties, either. If she were pregnant, she might not have known, and it was important that she not take risks—just in case.

Her right hand settled unconsciously on her armored stomach.

The Realm came before her desires for personal glory, regardless.

“{Legion-Master Endymion!}” the sending rod officer said, drawing their gazes. “{Orders from the King: You are to depart immediately to the Prosperity Battlefront, and to be prepared for an overwhelming show of force.}”

Aylar’s eyes snapped to the Legion-Masters as the Viscount simply nodded and the Marquis clapped him on the pauldron.

“{My lords?}” Aylar interjected with steely calm. “{Why has the King summoned the Second Legion-Master?}”

Both men turned to her and then bowed their heads in apology.

“{It is a devastation of expectation, Your Majesty,}” Randul Endymion explained without visible concern. “{As Ascendants, Marquis Colquen are both tasked to remain here as much to defend the palace as to be on hand in case of unexpected developments. I believe the Archon-King is about to move to break the enemy at the Prosperity Gate, and wants me to assist in shattering their morale.}”

Aylar’s elegant right eyebrow rose imperiously.

“{And that is all there is to it, my lord?}”

The Viscount bowed more formally, then straightened as he answered.

“{I swear it is, Your Majesty. Frankly, it is not something I would expect from someone as young as the King when it comes to a judgment call, but I cannot say it is the wrong one.}”

Aylar scanned his face, then the Marquis’, and finally nodded.

“{Then I apologize for keeping you, and I thank you for your explanation. May the Divines be at your back, Viscount.}”

Randul saluted fist-to-heart and then turned to sweep from the room, materializing new equipment over his robes as he marched toward the exit, and summoning an immense lance into his right hand as he stepped out of the War Room. A second later, a subtle whomp of displaced air from outside the door, followed by a faint rattle of motion within the room, heralded his acceleration toward true Ascendant speed as he raced for the battlefield.

“{You are not wrong to be worried, Your Majesty,}” Marquis Colquen said calmly a moment later, drawing Aylar’s gaze to him. “{You and the King are both young, if you forgive my impertinence in saying so. Nonetheless, I have served your honored Father in War before this. If you forgive me the temerity, I would say that your husband, Your Majesty, is definitely the more terrifying of the two.}”

Aylar frowned at the words and tilted her head.

“{I take no insult at the truth, Marquis, though your assessment does leave me a touch confused. Why do you believe Leonidas to be the more terrifying? By all reports, my Father was a renowned Bannerlord.}”

The Legion-Master nodded in agreement and turned his eyes to the map.

“{That is true, Your Majesty, but there is one factor that separates the King from your renowned Father.}”

“{That being?}” Aylar asked curiously.

The Marquis returned his gaze to her and smiled wryly.

“{Have you ever heard the phrase ‘Suicide by Archon’?}”

*

The slam of the battering ram shook the gatehouse again, and Istarius inhaled, wiping the sweat from his brow at the rising heat and working to push the pylon back into its mount. The battle above was no better than when the Venerate had first arrived, and even with their people able to ingress following her occupation by Matriarch Yvrain and the Ascendants, there had been no sign of real progress in taking the walls.

Sporadic reports of golden warriors cleaving through the ranks of the climbing Svartfenn had reached him, but he’d had no time to verify or seek elaboration; too focused on making sure the battering ram did its duty, and a second front was opened for the Starhold to make ingress.

His armored hands worked diligently after the next strike, helping to push the pylon back into position with the rest of his Heartwarden compatriots, while his mind mentally counted the time since they’d first attacked. Almost an hour had passed from the first moments of the assault, and the sheer strength of the gate doors defied all rational comprehension.

The amount of [Aetherium] that must have been invested was staggering.

They were not even made of wood, but of some kind of metallic alloy that defied all attempts to breach them. Not manastone, but something else. They were thick and unyielding, and Istarius wanted to know simply so he could make a suggestion that the Starhold invest in them after they won the [Aetherium] from the assault. Nocturne only knew how useful such things would be for their home.

The chaos of the battle and the sounds of clashing steel and death screams echoed from above as his complement continued to batter at the gates, protected from the spells and projectiles of the murder-holes by the Truthguard Testaments and Maidenguard Cadres defending their flanks. Even just as a sally gate, the entire construction was immense, and would be easily rated as a main gate in a smaller settlement.

These lightlanders are defensive maniacs, he grumbled mentally as he set the pylon back into its acceleration cradle. If we worked with them, we’d probably be unstoppable, lightlanders or not.

He wisely kept the thought to himself, however, as he stepped back from the ram. It was one thing to consider the option, another entirely to give it voice. He’d been relatively young when he’d left the Nightlands, and had only entered the Heartwardens after coming to what the locals called Terra, what the System dubbed [Unclaimed Planet 42]. There was no point in voicing his opinions: he’d just sabotage his career in the eyes of the Matriarchs.

When the ram accelerated, a sound like rupturing wood met their ears, and Istarius turned to stare at the gate in momentary disbelief as it finally warped under the impact. For a moment, he was stunned silent, until realization and relief overrode his momentary dissonance.

Istarius let out a raw-throated cheer a moment later when he fully processed that the gate had bent, finally, under the slam of the pylon—the material curving inward at the point of impact as the massive five-meter doors groaned from the force of the ram’s strike.

Istarius hurried forward afterward, hastily helping his Cadre to reset the pylon as his heart thundered in his chest under his dark warplate. Finally! They could finally open the second ingress and overwhelm the defenders. Thank Nocturne, the sweltering hell of the gatehouse would finally be left behind. He hated the heat on Terra; it was antithetical to a creature from the ever-cool Nightlands.

“[BE READY TO BREACH!]” Istarius called back to his kin, who passed the word with victorious cries as the pylon was returned to its acceleration mount, the matrices activated, and it smashed the head of its ram home once more—blowing the doors open with a thunderous boom.

Istarius drew his sword when the doors swung open, hurrying forward as the Maidenguard and Truthguard protecting his cadre rapidly refocused and surged ahead of them, charging into the breach and momentarily obscuring his view from what lay beyond. Based on intelligence reports, they’d be entering what the locals called the Moonrise Quarter, which had a straight pathway to the massive Palace and the riches therein.

His nightsteel longsword felt good in his hands as he stepped forward behind his Cadre leader and marched after the Maidenguard and Truthguard, who had halted several meters into the approach. He still couldn’t see past them, thanks to his relatively diminutive height, but he felt his confusion rise. What was stopping them? Were they just waiting for the Heartwardens to claim first glory? That was probably it.

I suppose it’s only proper, but I really wouldn’t worry that much about—

Istarius’ thoughts stopped dead as a roar met his ears, and his eyes widened beneath his helmet. A sea of people stood awaiting them, holding immense tower shields in the front row, bristling with lethal spears, while more unconventional weapons were visible in line after line of what appeared to be a majority of Terrans, mixed with numerous other species, forming an immense bulwark that spanned the entire width of the thoroughfare, twenty people across, and countless ranks deep, with their shields overlapping perfectly.

It was a complete devastation of expectation.

They had entered the City expecting a clear path to success, and instead found an entire army, easily twice or more their size, bedecked in a strangely unnerving mismatch of equipment that vaguely informed his trained mind that they were facing not just trained soldiers, but the very citizens of the City they were trying to conquer—citizens that looked anything but afraid.

“SHIELD-HOST MOONRISE!” a Terran voice thundered. “FIRST DIVISION, FORWARD! TEACH THESE BASTARDS THE MEANING OF FUCK AROUND, FIND OUT!”

Istarius’ eyes widened in horror as a roar accompanied the command, and the front ranks started to march toward them, slamming their shields down with every step and chanting “FUCK AROUND, FIND OUT!” in such impassioned intonation that, even though the language was faintly lost on him, it chilled his blood.

Behind him, the Starhold’s forces poured into the breach, and Istarius braced his longsword in unspoken horror as his Cadre formed ranks with shouted orders, while the rest of the Starhold forces raced to get into position upon seeing what they were facing. The armed militia, if that’s what it was, had left no gaps, no egress, no chance of escape.

Each slam of their shields was like a doom-filled drumbeat, filling the air with echoing steel as they advanced, step-by-step, toward the Starhold’s forces. “FUCK AROUND” followed each step, with “FIND OUT!” inserted after every shield-slam, in such a coordinated way that Istarius felt a mix of bewilderment, shock, and fear race through him at the sight.

Sweet Nocturne on Talrinar, he said into his mind. What is wrong with this planet?!