Chapter 1008 — The Move

The mechanic agreed wholeheartedly, and the pilot once more opened the communicator set in a corner of the control seat; and while their attention was drawn to the clouds outside the cockpit, in a corner neither man noticed, several runes in the cockpit's mental protection system lit up of their own accord—the glow was faint, barely discernible to the naked eye, yet it pulsed slowly like breathing.

……

Clement Dart stood on a high hill, looking down at the land nearby that still belched smoke and flame, at the wreckage and banners scattered among the black earth and white snow, and for a long while said nothing.

Only minutes later, when a gust of wind came howling and swept up the loose snow on the hill, did this Typhon nobleman speak gravely to the mage attendant beside him: "That is the destruction wrought by the Cecilians' weapon?"

"Yes, my lord," the mage attendant answered, head bowed. "According to intelligence, the Cecilians call it 'Rainbow Light'—an arcane focusing ray of high purity, high intensity, and long duration, with terrifying power and extraordinary range. At this time last year the technology was still immature; limited by heat dissipation, the Cecilians could only mount it on fixed emplacements or aboard ships, but this year they have mounted it on their mobile fortresses..."

"Mobile fortress..." Count Clement narrowed his eyes. High above his head, a mage's eye was turned toward the direction of the Winter Wolf Fort defense line, and in the cold, detached center of its "pupil" were reflected the railway and blockhouses on the distant horizon, and the armored train moving southward. "I can see it—truly an incredible creation."

"Yes, incredible... and that incredible thing has already inflicted several heavy casualties on us, even directly destroying several of our forts—swift in movement, dreadful in power, with formidable protection besides, always surrounded by a host of other war machines in escort. It is a steel fortress armed to the teeth, mounted on wheels and running fast, and we have no way to deal with it," the mage attendant said with a sigh. "Count Palin Winter Fort once organized an air raid; we nearly succeeded, but fell short for want of preparation, and afterward the Cecilians immediately learned the lesson and began using those flying machines to guard against our air raids."

Clement manipulated the mage's eye, searching the distant sky carefully, and at last locked onto the small dark dots darting among the clouds.

"It doesn't matter... we are here to solve that problem," he said gravely, and at the same time raised his head to look with his naked eyes toward the northwestern sky—in his sight, a vast mass of cloud was rapidly taking shape and moving toward the Winter Wolf Fort defense line. "A miracle of war, is it... Go and ask those priests—when will the 'miracle' they speak of be fully formed?"

"I asked just now. The priest presiding over the ritual says all is proceeding smoothly, and that the god has responded very positively to this prayer—they suggest you set out in twenty minutes."

Clement nodded slightly. "Very good—in ten minutes, tell the mage corps and the gryphon knights to make ready."

……

Near the hill where Clement stood, in a large assembly ground, the sacred ritual had entered its final stage.

A war-god priest in a priest's robe stood in the hall of the circular assembly ground, leading nearly a hundred priests in the prayer of the final chapter; the deep, solemn intonation echoed through the hall, drowning out even the howling of the cold wind outside. At the center of the hall, on a platform slightly raised above the surrounding floor, flames blazed in a great brazier, and amid the leaping fire a layer of iron-gray luster was gradually rising.

The war-god priest walked one last circuit around the flames and stopped at an exquisitely precise position and moment; he turned to face the fire, his back to the priests bowing in prayer, and on his face delight and fervor had already surfaced beyond his control.

He could feel that his lord had cast a gaze of concern upon this world.

These were precarious times, dark and oppressive, and the situation seemed to have reached its absolute worst. In Aldernan, and across most of the Empire's heartland, public gatherings and prayers to the God of War had been crudely banned. The faithful and the priests had tried to resist, but they could not stand against the Augustus family, who held the military firmly in their grip. Many priests were left utterly disheartened, and some were even punished for conceiving thoughts of forsaking the gods.

But here, the priest felt hope once more.

That tyrannical emperor had not, in the end, dared to fully forsake the gods; he still knew who had sheltered Typhon for hundreds of years. Here, in this place closest to the front lines of war, the priests could still pray, could still conduct these grand sacred rites, could still commune with the gods... What could be more heartening and inspiring than this?

The northern front was cold and bitter, certainly no match for the comfort of the warm cathedrals in the rear, but to a devout priest, wherever one might draw nearer to the gods was the most comfortable place of all.

This battlefield was the place closest to the gods, and every devout priest of the God of War could feel it here: as the war dragged on, as order was reestablished, on the Winterwolf Keep–Winterhold front they sensed the breath of the gods with ever greater clarity. Without a doubt, this entire region had become a sacred place—like the "holy realms" mentioned in the scriptures. This battlefield, closest to the truth of the gods, had become the place in the mortal world nearest to the divine kingdom.

A smile spread across the war priest's face. He gazed at the brazier before him, mirth overflowing from the six eyes on his face and the three rifts that served as his mouth, and within the blazing flames he saw the pontiff he had always revered—Malm Dhunit—standing there, bestowing a gentle, loving smile upon the priests praying devoutly in the assembly ground.

The prayers around him finally reached their closing passage. The invisible bridge had been established, and the connection between the world of the gods and the mortal world grew unprecedentedly strong within this assembly ground.

Without hesitation, the priest drew an iron dagger and cut a deep wound across his palm. Before the wound could writhe and close, he sprinkled his blood into the brazier.

The blazing flames leapt abruptly higher, and an iron-grey hue spread swiftly through the fire. In the next instant, every flame in the brazier had taken on that steely color, and an aura of majestic, vast authority descended upon the assembly ground.

"O Lord! Let your miracle descend!"