The combined might of Amistad, all that it was, stood sallied beyond the gates. The walls would not hold this force and what had remained of the great barrier cast from many generations of combined effort was rattled by great mana engines until they'd accepted the challenge. Of a city of a million citizens, only twenty thousand had risen. Twenty thousand souls with hearts frozen in fear, weapons grasped in clammy hands.

Here to die, and they knew they would, and yet they still remained convinced that they were on the righteous path, here so as to not allow what had been done onto great Amateus to be done onto them. For surely it would.

The first ten thousand were drilled men, half of shields and spears and the others of bows and other ranged implements. What artifacts they could scrounge up from the armories they'd been given access to, lesser things. Their militia, those trained by Tiber who sat with steely eyes at the head of their formation. Tight as armies shouldn't be, but the other ten thousand were mages, with eleven Archmages at their back refusing to surrender their holds and estates.

Perhaps out of hubris or greed, but it did not matter, men were proud and they would slay many.

And facing them... The largest army the modern world had ever seen, four hundred thousand men from kingdoms far and wide. To snuff out the 'great evil' of the mage state, to cleanse the taint of Tyr Faeron who was the Cursed Primus and Red King. The Brotherhood with their heavy infantry, the Baccians with their lightly armored skirmishers here to avenge their home, Kriegers and Milanese with their pikes and crossbows, all poised to drop into the crater and end this thing once and for all.

The climax.

“It's quiet,” Sigi gritted her teeth, a white knuckled grip on her mighty jorunn. Quite except for the flapping of so many banners on the crater's edge that it sounded like and oncoming storm, and what an apt metaphor that was. So would come a hurricane of screaming men, soon.

“War is a funny thing,” Samson stood beside her, so tall he dwarfed all other men in their armor, only Valkan who remained nearby by stood any larger. “Men will want for it, wish for it, talk about it their entire lives – only to find themselves unprepared for the horror.”

“I am ready, Sam,” Sigi replied with a steely glint. Melancholic in the face of never seeing him again, but there would be no more repeats of a slaughtered city so long as she had any say in it.

“Aye,” Samson nodded with a chuckle. “You and I are of the same mind, little Sigi.”

He'd tried to convince them to evacuate alongside Tiberius, but the women were proud and would not bend.

And with them came their young friends, 'Sam' was melancholic too.

Brenn who stood at attention in the ranks of the faith militant that had opposed this vile action. Glistening with the rest of them, men and women from the elemental houses, the faithful of Vestia, Aphrosia, and Aotrom. A glorious few, several hundred at best, full of righteous fervor and the zealotry that cursed men and drove them unto death.

But Samson of the proud Awowogei was no hypocrite, he too was here for his Ooni. His god.

Tythas who sat cross legged, aloof and alone on the flank, looking lonely and mournful in his tight fitting black robes and sad gaze. Behind him stood Orlando and the death knights, some thousand prepared for battle in perfectly still ranks of black armor and baleful burning eyes.

Micah, who stood beside Nala, Okami, and Ayla, more calm than one might expect. Even Nala had stayed, but only to ensure that her new mate did not fall to the conflict.

Alex, wrapped in gauze and leaning against her fearsome ranseur, she glared out at the opposing army with a single, wrathful eye. There was great purpose in this, and she did not see this premeditated slaughter of innocent mages not protected by the Twin Empires as just.

Goroshi, looking a bit bored as he honed that nodachi of his with practiced hands alongside Rafael and Lina.

Jura who stood with what remained of the orcs, five hundred of their number and not discouraged in the slightest, riding atop that suddenly massive terrormaw of hers, larger than a horse now. All dressed in the feathers and trappings of her people with her spear held loose at her side.

Valkan, his features granite but eyes lit with anticipation, flexing the gilded plates of his heavy gauntlets alongside Lernin and Kael, the once betrayer now forgiven for their lack of able men. All the others, the alfen who yawned, what beastkin served Ajax rattling in their armor, but not with fear. This was a great war that men would sing about for generations and no Primus to ruin the moment, save for Iscari who remained at the van, shining in a suit of crimson plate with a gloriously wrought ebony spear resting over his shoulder. He looked a hero king, and so his inappropriate presence was not complained upon, for this was a primus who was noble, surely.

And Astrid... What a glorious sight she was, the one the Dawnguard who yet remained flocked to. With their white plate to match her own refinished armor. A host of snowy matte and blue tabards, no consistency in their armaments. She was standing at the front, or more appropriately soaring above them on feathered wings of white, spear held aloft with one hand and shield resting low in the other.

Like an angel, the most striking of them all, forged anew through the blood.

“Men of Amistad!” She cried, addressing them all with her piercing blues – removing her helmet to let her sakura hued hair flap in the wind like the crusade banners. And those men below her felt as though they gazed upon a living goddess. “I am Astrid of House Faeron, Stalvarg, Goldmane, the Laughing Moon, and wife to the wavekin!”

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She nodded to Kirk, the maxxid all bedecked in that wicked tank of a battle suit below, grinning at his claw raised in appreciation.

“I say men, but what is man!?” She turned, pointing her spear at the crusade army. “Is it them? If that is man, then leave me out of it!” Astrid cried with an uncharacteristically sardonic laugh. “I see only children playing at games of fools and gods, but we! We! We are the greatest mage state to ever exist! We are the orcs, beastkin, telurian, kijin, Anu, halfling, gnome, dwarf, and alfen! Look to the warrior beside you, see the conviction in their eyes, you are all brothers now!”

Jura stared up at her with a hard heart, remembering similar words come from the mouth of her lost husband. A man forsaken for his crimes, but most of all... A coward who had fled at the worst possible moment. At least she had wives she could count on, if nothing else.

The men below Astrid cheered, some loud and throaty but many more nervous and shaking, it was the beastkin and orc who celebrated her with the greatest fervor. For them, this was in their way a rebellion that had been coming for more cycles than any man could count, those who had been stepped on and abused.

“Ah!” Astrid laughed loudly, full of joy and mirth, the infectious kind that bled into the men below her until they were laughing as well. “See how this token force separates themselves from the Crusade!? Come to parley no doubt, because they fear us, and they should!”

And they did come, a knot of men separating and dropping down the lip of the crater bedecked in reds, golds, and gunmetal grays. All led by a man mounted on the largest lion Astrid had ever seen, loping onward until they were only a scant few meters from the prepared forces. Astrid had no idea why they'd come so close, until the man spoke, urging the men not to loose spells or arrows on them. Thankful the mages were kept at the back on their raised pillars so as not to give way to panic.

“I am Raddick, Warrior Priest and Highlord of the House of Fire, leader of the brothers and sisters at my back!” The man on the lion called out, his mount licking its chops and rumbling with audible violence. No normal lion at first inspection, its eyes glistened like firelight and its mane moved even when the wind did not, all black from tip to tail. A guardian beast like Okami, or so it would seem. “Who among you would name yourself leader of this proud host!?”

Nobody answered, not for a long while, there was no leader. The presumed leader of the force would've been Iscari, but he did nothing to assert this fact. Astrid, while risen, had no predilection for asserting herself either. In lieu of them both, Alex did, marching between the ranks and facing him stoically with her spear resting in the ground. Black armored and helmeted to obscure the bandages about her face.

“Ah, Lady Goldmane!” Raddick called out. “It is an honor to official meet the wife of the Wolf!”

“I am wife to none!” Alex replied angrily, sweeping her spear before her and lowering herself into a fighting stance. “And there will be no parley, Pillar scum!”

“Parley?” Raddick laughed aloud, raising a tremendous axe into the air and joined by his many men, perhaps not enough, but there were some several hundred regardless. The Warrior Priests of Agni, Mako, Astarte, and more, the sons and daughters of the Sacred Flame. “I am not here to parley, Lady Lion, I am here to join you in your fight against the crusade, as commanded by my Lord above!”

“...”

Judging by the rising panic erupting at the fore of the crusading army, and the whispered words of the faithful on Amistad's side of things – this had not been expected.

–

“Be that as it may...” A proper rider from the Crusade had arrived, scheduling the exact date and time the culling would commence so as to allow people to flee should they want to. Of course anyone who did would be killed, but it was enough to shake any army, several hundred of theirs had tried to take advantage of that second chance and had been cut down, mages and common soldiery alike. Without remorse they were butchered as soon as they'd lost their heads, whittling down what little manpower they possessed. “We are outnumbered eleven to one, at least, and that's not accounting for the mana engines they brought. Nor the Heroes...”

“And more will be coming,” Samson rumbled at the side.

Another meeting in an endless series of them, all held within the command tent of an army without a commander.

“No. This force...” Raddick sighed, making himself at home on the sofa at the side, cutting slabs off of a wheel of cheese with a knife. “They are a joke, all of we on the Path have abandoned it except for those of Indura's faith, more will be coming to your aid as well.”

“Meaning?” Alex asked, her face was healed of all wounds but not of the scars, choosing to remain bandaged. She'd make for a grisly sight otherwise, every word was hissed and hoarse now, barely able to open her warped lips, let alone bark as she might have in the past. And so she was here to either win, and make it all worth it, or die trying.

“Meaning they are led by a gaggle of inexperienced children, nepotistic choices to command the Crusade over far superior options. Anyone with even a lick of strategy in their brain would smash this host and become a legend overnight, did you know they plan to come at you all at once? No auxiliary, no plans to flank or harry your significantly less mobile force with outriders, no skirmishing to tire your mages. They want to swarm in all at once and bury you in bodies.”

“It's a valid strategy all considered,” Tiber remarked, mages were a terror on the battlefield but they were not infinite in what they could do.

“They could...” Sigi frowned, not quite understanding the point of his lackadaisical quips and whimsical consideration of the fact that they were all about to die. They all knew, Sigi was aware that this was her last day if not one of few, but she would never run as she had from her homeland. “But why should we trust the word of a traitor?”

“Ah, ah, ah...” Raddick sighed. “I'd heard much about you, Sigi Mornstone, but never that you were possessive of a dull mind. My lot do not betray, we fight where we please, all that matters is that we struggle and neither Astarte nor Agni has condoned this Crusade. As it stands, enough mages have been culled to throw back the Fog, all this is, now, is posturing, a power play of the Pope to not stop until his grand ambition is met. And whatever foul plan Hastur has in store for those men he is so intent to send to their deaths. We reap, but we do not sow at the command of actual traitors, and it has been determined that he is a traitor to all mankind. I would not stand at the van of a villain, I only see heroes here.”

“...I see,” Raddick was charismatic and articulate, if a little long winded at times, but Sigi couldn't formulate an argument for that. Paladins of the flame, or their merger of warrior and priest, they did not stab allies in the back. Once an agreement was made under their god, they stuck to it. Many times they'd even fight their own brothers, and this was no treason – that was what they called the Path.

In many ways they were mercenaries, ones that did not need payment, only a conflict.

“Our plan remains the same, regardless,” Alex said, trained from birth to lead military forces if not a legion sized host. He was wise to strategy, anything involving war was his mien – even diplomacy to avoid it at times in contradiction of his faith. Worthy challenges, whether by blade or bow or simple penmanship, that was the shtick. “We will count on you to hold your own, Raddick of the Flame.”

“I'll do more than that, my Queen,” Raddick winked, still nonchalant because to them to die in glorious battle was the most honorable of all deaths, “And we'll have a good reaping in the morn, I promise you.”