“Marshal Sergei,” Aleksandar said. “Columns are mustered. We await your orders.”
The Marshal was a man of fifty, pitted and worn from two decades of constant warfare. His head was brick-shaped, his face just a touch too small. The sigil of House Ostrovska decorated his breastplate; a black gryfon clutching broadswords. Still glowering at the map, he grabbed a handful of salted meat from a bowl on the table and tossed it to the wardogs at his feet. The hounds remained motionless, licking at drooling chops.
“The slavers have retreated behind their walls, as expected,” Sergei said, tapping a finger on the Dragon fortress. “The castle is well defended, easily held even by a small host.” He raised one thick eyebrow at Mother Natassja. “You saw thirteen sky-ships, Holy Mother?”
“Aerial reconnaissance reported only six,” the Majór said.
“Seven more lurk in the clouds over the keep,” Mother Natassja murmured, running one finger down the claw patterns carved into her face. “I see them. They wait above, higher than your ’thopters can fly. Heavy ships. Well armed.”
“The storm will grow fiercer close to noon.” Sister Katya’s glowing stare was fixed on the Kapitán. “I see lightning bright as sunlight. Airships burning in the tempest.”
Aleksandar met the woman’s stare, trying to show no emotion. Katya was easily the most fearsome of the two Zryachniye, her reputation well proceeding her. Where the Holy Mother wore soft leather adorned with totemic trinkets, Sister Katya wore flayed Guildsmen suits like armor, helms beaten flat on her shoulders like spaulders. He almost pitied the Lotusmen who’d crashed near the northern lightning farm and fallen under her blades.
“We wait until noon, then.” The Marshal barked a command, and his warhounds pounced on their meat, drool flying. “We attack frontally once our ’thopters have cleared the walls. The Blood-blessed will run in the vanguard. You will lead the attack, Mostovoi.”
“Your command.” The Kapitán thumped his fist against his breastplate, turned on his heel. Mother Natassja’s voice pulled him up short.
“Aleksandar Mostovoi. Slayer of Kirill, alpha of the Blackwood. Victor of Iron Ridge. Thrice-blooded in the service of his Imperatritsa. Son of Sascha, daughter of Darya, Matriarch of House Mostovoi.”
He turned slowly. “Yes, Holy Mother?”
The woman’s right eye was luminous, rosy light spilling into the ritual scars on her face. The glow turned her features vulpine, all hollowed cheeks and sharpened teeth, smile like a bruise on her skull.
“Your sons will remember this day. How they remember is up to you.”
“… Thank you, Holy Mother.”
“Blessings of the Goddess to you.”
“And you, Holy Mother.”
The woman blinked, the glow in her eye fading like sunset’s light. The room seemed colder for its absence, her gentle smile failing to hide the sadness in her voice.
“I will not need them,” she said.
Aleksandar turned and marched from the room.
*
It was a storm sent by the Goddess herself.
Just as Sister Katya had said, the winds began rising near noon bells, vast clouds blotting out Shima’s accursed red sun and plunging the land into freezing gloom. Lightning lit the skies as if the Goddess wished a clear view of the slaughter to come. As the column commanders formed their lines, Aleksandar looked over the ruined city before him and smiled.
The Shima sky-ships were descending just as Sister Katya promised, tossed about as if in the grip of frost giants. One crashed into the keep walls thanks to vicious crosswinds, another was struck by lightning as it descended, burning to cinders. A bloodthirsty cheer had gone up from the lines as the cloud ship incinerated, hymns to the Goddess rolling down the ranks. Surely She’d sent the storm to punish these faithless pigs. Twenty years of slaughter. Twenty years of plunder and slavery. Payment long overdue.
The Blood-blessed were restless, pounding their mallets on the ground, the flayed skin draping their shoulders stained gray by the putrid rain. Aleksandar had tied a kerchief around his face, but his lips were cracked and burning, skin raw where the downpour leaked through his armor. Some of his soldiers had been so badly affected, he’d ordered them back to the medical stations and the ministrations of the Mercy Sisters. Every man in the legion was eager to get the attack under way—the less time they had to spend in this bastard storm, the better.