Outside, the jungle air had grown thick and musky. And a sound was bleeding the eardrums of the waiting army.

Marcus ran the length of the Plantation’s grounds towards his waiting troops – perfectly aligned in their formations – only to find that they were beginning to scatter and hit the ground. Only Mari remained standing, ushering her General towards cover.

“Mari!” he shouted. “What’s happening?”

Her face betrayed the answer. She looked to the skies – to the dark cloud gathering in the North, slowly descending on their position.

Then, as Marcus’s eyes adjusted to the site, he saw that it was no cloud at all.

It was a cabal of flying monsters.

First their screams came – belched from their torrid throats with enough bile to break the spirit of any infantry troop. Marcus was immediately put in mind of the German Stukkas and their Jericho Trumpets – except these creature’s piercing screams had the ring of biological fury behind them. In the darkness of Thea’s moonlit sky, he could make out their conal skulls garbed in brass and the slitted, sulphuric eyes that gleamed from within. Their torsos were unarmored – presumable to allow them enough speed to maneuver in their air with the grisly payload they carried in their claws: a copper-clad Hakka bomb. A bomb which each Yokun pilot strapped to the back of each pterodactyl-bomber was preparing his creature to drop…

Scatter! Marcus commanded. Wide-formation! Don’t cluster up! Find any cover you can!

His voice was almost entirely drowned out by the shrill, animalistic screams of the storm of Keth-Tari as they broke formation and dove towards the base, letting their bombs fly from their claws.

DOWN!

“Marc!”

Mari pushed him into the barracks adjacent to the HQ tower as the first bombs fell. A wave of searing heat hit their backs and both of them were propelled down the stairs into the barracks proper, reeling from the impact of a bomb that had gone of just outside the doorway, surrounding it in gelatinous, all-consuming flame.

“M-Mari!” Marcus shouted as he coughed through the smoke and debris. “Are you -?”

Another payload being dropped on them silenced his throat, closing it up instantly as another deluge of fire snaked its way through the buildings interior. Marcus worked quickly – aiming his sparking hand at the seeking flames and blasting through them, managing to nullify them enough to grab Mari and pull her up.

“Keth…Tari,” she spat. “Nagoya’s Viceroy’s insane!”

Marcus nodded as the grim reality of their situation kicked in, hearing the bestial squeals of their squadrons outside as they burned, no doubt seeking shelter just as they were inside the crumbling, melting buildings all around them.

“He’s willing kill kill his own Prince…”

Mari’s words stuck with Marcus as he pulled her up and helped her to the door, noticing that a certain creature had decided to come and join them.

“Hialjia!” Mari shouted.

The great Tauron cleaved through the flame-covered doorway of the barracks and nodded to them both, her voice the roar of a raging bull against the shrieks of the firebirds above.

“Hilajia told you you could use her on the frontlines,” she said as she helped them out, revealing the unconscious form of Prince Nagoya under her arm.

“Hialjia…”

“Hialjia not hurt fancy snake much,” she huffed. “He is still alive, no thanks to his own people!”

Marcus grimaced as he looked around outside, seeing nothing but smoke and the staggering forms of burned men and women – their furred skin peeling from their bodies like hot wax.

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But the army was still there – it looked like Karliah had managed to guide most of them under the reinforced North walls. They looked to Marcus and Mari and screamed something that was lost in the explosive discharge of yet another bomb.

“Crazy bastards…” Mari scoffed. “This…we didn’t plan for this.”

Marcus looked to the skies, seeing the Keth-Tari units turn and begin to circle back for another pass now that their first payloads had been dropped. He saw their riders load another bomb into their waiting, willing claws.

“Air superiority…this isn’t the first time my own tactics have been used against me.”

He turned to Mari and let her see the determination that possessed him in this moment – his face filled with soot and grime.

“I’ve had worse setbacks, Mari,” he told her. “Help me show these beasts that not even a rain of fire can keep us Shai-Aluds down.”

Mari flashed him as smile as she nodded.

“Alright, Princess,” she told Hialjia. “I think me and the General will be needing a ride.”

“Hmpf!” Hilajia said as she picked them both up, placed them on her powerful shoulders, and took off towards the waiting forces. “Is Hialjia nothing more than a pack mule to you?”

Behind, the Keth-Tair were re armed. Once again their shrieks of doom pierced the night air above the base.

“Trust me Hialjia,” Marcus said. “You’ll be swimming in the blood of these winges beasties soon.”

His next words were telepathed to each individual commander and sub-commander of the waiting units, many of whom were still in shock from the initial blast that had wiped out about 10% of their total numbers already.

Hear me, Pipers! We move into the jungle towards the bridge. Use the treeline as cover, and commence our assault as planned!

There was hesitation – he could sense it keenly. There was still those among them who doubted he could get them out of this. Those who had heard stories of the Masters’ flying demons that ruled the Thean skies – the greatest symbol of Yokun military supremacy over this realm.

But then their eyes saw the image of their commander coming towards them, riding on the shoulders of a giant Tauron while the winged devils swooped down to try and catch him from behind.

“You gotta admit,” Marvin coughed through soot and blood. “That lad’s got some style.”

“’Style’” won’t win us this battle,” Karliah spat. “But…fuck it. Everyone! Into the trees!”

The next wave of bombs impacted along the Eastern walls and blew them clean off the face of the earth. Behind, the HQ tower toppled over and collapsed into the sea, and Marcus felt Hialjia’s hoofs lift off the ground as she leaped to avoid the flying debris and haze of smoke that crawled towards the army.

Use it! Marcus telepathed as he joined his forces running through the jungle. Keep to the smoke and don’t look up. Maintain cluster formation – widespread. Keep up the pace and we’ll make it – all of us.

Marcus wanted to cringe as he made this proclamation – even he didn’t believe they’d manage this now without huge losses being incurred on their part. Meanwhile, the Keth-Tari sailed overhead and banked left above them, their riders loading yet another payload of liquid death to rain down upon their foes.

Lack of visibility counters their advantage in lack of wind resistance, Marcus thought. A nighttime bombing run suffers the same loss of accuracy as it did in our world – arguably moreso considering that those beasts need to toss their payload…

But the power of those bombs, and their spread…Marcus didn’t need to see another demonstration.

So he pushed his forces towards the bridge, hoping to hell that Sakri’s men were in place and hadn’t broken in the face of the attack on home base…

“Shai-Alud!” Hialjia roared. “Can’t Hialjia toss fancy man?”

“Hialjia needs to listen to her commands,” Mari said. “The Shai-Alud is busy. Keep that prisoner close to your armpit. And don’t shy away from giving him a little squeeze every now and then…”

The ridgeline that gave way to the bridge over the Yangzhao river loomed before them, and just as the just as the Keth-Tari were about to open up with another deluge of liquid flame, they stopped, continuing on their flight path with their bombs still intact.

The Pipers breathed a collective gasp of relief.

As I thought. They aren’t willing to risk the destruction of their infrastructure. Apparently, it means more to them than their apparently precious Prince does, unless there’s some nefarious political move being made here. Maybe the Viceroy wants him dead.

That, or someone higher up does…

The Pipers cleared the ridge, hopping over to finally face the weak guard contingency at the mouth of the bridge.

Then they froze, weapons shaking in the hands of their Tauron vanguards.

Because they weren’t looking at a hodgepodge token looking after a glorified toll booth. Instead, they were looking at a line of at least two hundred disciplined Zhurkin marksmen, seven Hakka carts at their backs ready to fire on the exact spot where the Pipers had emerged from the jungle.

“They knew we were coming…” Mari whispered.

Marcus watched along with the rest of the beleaguered army as the Zhurkin commander gave a wave of his hand, signaling his artillery barrage while the Keth-Tari turned in the sky to swoop down and feed on the remains…

“We charge now?” Hialjia asked.

Marcus eyed Karliah and Marvin behind him, both focused on the strange sways of the trees above.

And only when the Zhurkin’s general command was shouted by their leader did Marcus turn to face the reality of their situation:

“KILL THEM ALL!”