Major Dreven Vorgai considered the map before him.

They’d stolen it from the village hall, more accurate than the years-old one they’d been given in preparation. Scribbled-in tunnels filled it out, although both were by now inaccurate. He just wanted something to focus on while considering the problem of what to do next.

There was one target left, albeit one likely to give them the most issues. Lewis Johnson, a sworn high priest of the Goddess of the Dawn, Healing, and Summer, Illatriel. One would think him the weakest, but he was the one the Major feared the most. The Traveler had made oaths restricting his actions, but that only made him more powerful, not less, in return for accepting those restrictions. The most powerful was a self-resurrection ability that couldn’t be overcome.

Most resurrection skills had a weakness of some kind, some form of restriction. Being a High Priest of Illatriel, the Healer had none outside of perhaps necrotic, a damage type they didn’t have available. Injuries that he would have to pray for to heal in others would be done automatically by his patroness, so status debuffs by way of crippling wouldn’t work.

And come noon, he could fully heal his companions. So there was that time limit as well.

Illatriel would resurrect her High Priest once daily at least, possibly at full mana. No, they’d have to do something else. There was a plan for it, but pursuing that course wasn’t something to take lightly.

The HQ was deserted, the small underground room essentially gone. Graeceling lay in a bed, sleeping. She was supposed to stay up, keeping the radios working after Jairvin had been turned into ash by the Healer.

He’d come back to find her asleep and had let her sleep. There were two hundred of them left, most of them wounded in one capacity or another. Those he’d deliberately kept down here, support staff, medics.

He wanted her to get her rest, but it had been three hours. They needed to finalize a plan.

“Captain, up. The plan we discussed about the Healer, you are still confident it will work?”

Graeceling blinked the sleep out of her eyes, getting up from the cot. “Confident? No. Is it a better chance than any other one we’ve put forward? Yes.”

“Some would argue that trying to overwhelm with what forces we have left might do the trick, Captain.”

She frowned. “Possibly. And I understand that’s the argument you’d be up against. But the chances, I’d argue, would be even slimmer. The Healer won’t come into the Town with sunbeams blazing and ready for action. He’ll be more cautious. Especially with his three friends crippled and at our mercy if we find them. He might try leaving.”

“He won’t,” Dreven answered. “He’ll want to find out what happened to the townsfolk. With the right kind of bait, I think we can tempt him in. He’s young. He thinks he will return from any death. We count on those. After we arm the trap, the rest of you leave, and I’ll make sure he falls into it.”

“Major, there is no reason for you to be the one to handle it. I could fulfill the role just as well. Anyone else could.”

The Major shook his head. “No. The responsibility falls on me for that. Besides, headquarters would kill me if I got you killed. You’re worth more than me in this.”

It was just a simple statement of fact. She could see systems and builds. He could not. It was a talent highly prized. Even if the list of people to take advantage of it were dwindling.

Trust that the other groups were being just as successful in crippling the Aetherians main advantage. That the other nations they warred with were taking advantage. They had to hope that these sacrifices would not be in vain. It was the only way to keep going.

Most of those left were the youngest. The Major had spent the veterans first on the slim hope if he could get anyone out, those who had just arrived would be them.

May the souls of those Dreven had condemned tear him apart for making such a decision. He neither expected nor welcomed sympathy when he arrived in the afterlife. Or whatever the forced butchering of their gods had made of it. Would there be nothing there but ash and the souls of the dead?

Before coming here, he’d walked among the tunnels where the only survivors guarded the entrances from above, all recent draftees whose only conflicts before this had been Trost. Most of them had eschewed their masks. Young faces turned to face and saluted as he passed down the line. Most of them bearing much fewer scales than him.

There had been theories about why the younger generations following the outbreak of war had started being born with less and less scales when the reverse had been the case just before. There were many theories about mana levels, possible cycles, and sins, but for the Major, one explanation was the right one.

They were dying. Not literally, but Scaveria as a concept. Deities slain, symbols of national pride destroyed, land taken and converted to what it had not started as. Many other things add up to it.

Could the process be reversed? Maybe. But they’d lost so much of their homelands, so many of their deities and most powerful members slain. The Aetherians were thorough, he’d give them that. Did they even realize what they were doing, or were things like forcibly changing Scaveria’s landscape to fit their ideal of what the world should look like simply an accident?

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Some of it was self-inflicted. Mass conscription as Travelers and the Aetherians had chewed through more and more of their forces. He believed the societal changes forced by the war were ultimately good, but with the war going on for nearly seven years, never dipping at intensity, it had stretched their country to its seams.

Trost had fallen partly because of the constant attrition of their nation, partly because of forces needed to prevent revolts over that constant attrition. Scaverians had been called ironclad for their discipline and their unwavering natures. The limit to those unwavering natures had been found.

He’d been at the side of wyrms when they passed. Some of them had said things, things he could only hope were not dying visions of the possible paths they traveled down. The last Scaverians, unwilling to give up their heritage, are forced to flee underground.

Further and further until they changed into worm-like things, changed to animals by their environs and desperation. They would return to have their revenge then, incapable of understanding the concept of it.

He’d thought he’d imagined most of it. He’d heard the story from others, though. Other wyrms, in their deaths, had seen it. Prophecy was a fickle thing. Ethereal. But the possibility of it being true was frightening enough.

“Are you okay, Major?”

Graeceling’s question shook him out of his head. “Yes. Apologies, Captain, I was just thinking. We still have the scrying bowl prepared, yes?”

The Scrying Bowl was another gift from the Bursans, powerful enough to communicate even through the web of Aetherean magics that usually prevented such magics. Hopefully, this would not be the best of times for the Aethereans. Since the portal had closed, they couldn’t run a phone line like earlier.

“Refilled it earlier today, sir. You want me to step out?”

“If you would?” Not that he didn’t trust Graeceling, but the bowl was only supposed to be used and viewed by Dreven and him alone. Dreven walked to the table, holding it as Graeceling left the room, closing the door behind her.

Silver and hexagonal, filled to the brim with water and blood. He tapped the side of the bowl, hitting the activation rune.

Item activated. Casting Single-target Scry automatically.

The image from its twin came into focus, a silver mask in a snarling dragon’s visage. General Trieste.

“Major Vorgai. An unexpected call. Status report?”

“General. I can confirm the death of the Juggernaut and the crippling of the Lancer, Stormsummoner, and the Blade. The latter three are crippled to the point where they’re practically ineffective in combat.”

“The Healer is alive and still active Major?” The reply he had not hoped for.

“We have a plan for him General, the one submitted to you before we left.” He forced his tone to be even, calm.

“The revised one, I hope,” the General replied. “The rough one was…not something high command enjoyed reading. You cannot be certain it works.”

“No, I cannot. However, regardless of whether it does, the presence of a few dozen remnants of my unit will not contribute to the plan.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line, then “If the Healer finds your unit while you’re evacuating, kills you all, then steps through and calls upon the Sun Goddess’ power to obliterate a swathe of Scaveria now that he would not have any reason to hold back? Will your assurances matter then, Major?”

“No,” the Major answered, mouth dry. “But he is weak, General. Noon will not have arrived by the time he steps through. With a force waiting, it would spell his demise.”

“We are assuming a lot here with a Traveler, a goddess’ chosen champion. The assumption that she will not intercede to bring him back at full strength.”

“Has she yet?” The Major asked.

“No.” The general sighed, drawn out as the metal mask betrayed no hint of its bearer’s emotions. “I’ll allow it, Dreven, out of respect for your accomplishments. You’ve delivered more than we expected in that regard. Four disabled out of five.” A pause on the line, then “Three hours. Everyone must be through by then. Except those who are needed to execute the plan. You have those selected already?”

“Myself,” The Major answered. “There should be no need for anyone else.”

“I approve. Ambitious. Usually, I’d demand you assign this to someone of lower rank, but I imagine you’d disobey. I imagine the same if I insisted you come home and have someone else do it.”

“Captain Graeceling has volunteered to take my place if absolutely necessary, sir.” Not quite a truth, but his tone conveyed exactly how truthful the conditions of her volunteering were.

“Absolutely necessary? I’m sure. More certain is how both our necks would be put in our noose for sacrificing someone with systemsight. Has anyone else in your unit volunteered?”

“No one has stepped forward, General.”

“And I imagine even if they did, the Sun’s Chosen would suddenly gain the ability to inflict deafness upon you. Point taken, Major. Still, if you wish to simply come home….we can tolerate that. It’s not like there we are spoiled for living officers.”

“The offer is appreciated General, but no. I’ll contact you with times to activate the portal on your end sir.”

A claw through the liquid disrupted the scrying, returning it to a reflection of the Major’s face.

Graeceling was waiting for him when he left the command center.

“Get everyone organized and prepared to head above ground. We are leaving.”

“Major?”

“The withdrawal has been approved. But first, we just do something else. How certain are you that the Travelers are asleep? And that they won’t wake up before we are gone?”

“Certain. Three of them are wounded beyond the ability to keep watch. The Healer is likely tired from expending that much mana. They already entered the area tired from three weeks of combat at Trost.”

Graeceling considered the buildings, and the Major felt the gaze of something on his system for a moment. “The Blade’s set up a cloak for them, wherever they are. Enough that I can’t pinpoint their location. But they are asleep. Or out of it, at least. The Healer wouldn’t be hunting either way.”

“Not while his companions could be at our mercies,” The Major agreed. “I still want a rearguard. A few squads, just enough to raise the alarm if he decides to investigate. Fill a truck with the remaining explosives. Bring it around to the portal. The moment any of them show up, blow it up.”

“We expended a lot of explosives in the fighting.”

“It doesn’t need to be too much. Just enough to disable the portal. We need to do something first though. Rouse Marva. I hate to disturb her recovery, but we will need the townspeople for this. Open the passages. It’s time.”