Frederick’s head snapped upwards as another explosion shook the sky, a shimmering shield intercepting the strike a safe distance away. Luckily, the Custodian had not abandoned them. The young knight had no idea how his meagre power would contend with such powerful weaponry, but he didn’t have high hopes.

He wasn’t doubting Eternity’s power, of course, merely his own mortal flesh.

Returning his gaze to the fortress, he winced. It was a miserable sight. The front walls had enough holes that you could, quite literally, march an army through them. The defenders were even worse off, with nearly half of them dead or wounded. Such grievous losses would be enough to break most armies, but fortunately, the Terrans had cut off their path of retreat. The less-motivated soldiers were well aware they had no chance of breaking through on their own. The assault on the rearward wall during the second attack had not been a one-off either.

The rear was calm now, though. However, even now, Finlay was fending off an assault on the front wall, or its remains. She and the hundred or so of temple knights with her were doing an admirable job of it, but everyone here knew this wasn’t a real assault. Just an attempt to deprive them of proper rest.

Frederick was on watch duty, while their remaining two compatriots rested furtively in the keep’s dungeons. An ignoble place to sleep, but a safe one.

In the courtyard, lesser soldiers worked hard to stack the corpses. Whether ally or enemy, all went to the pyres now. They weren’t able to get rid of the dead fast enough regardless.

Despite their admirable start, no one was doubting the outcome.

The only question that remained was how long to fight. Frederick had already heard whispers of treason amongst the common soldiery, but the nature of the siege and the presence of him and his fellow chosen was enough to suppress such intentions for now.

With five chosen here, they could almost certainly break through the encirclement on the Archduchy’s side, as the enemy had not ferried enough troops there, but that would mean giving the heretics unfettered access to the rest of the continent.

The other passes were supposedly still holding strong, with only token forces besieging them. With access to flying vehicles, such could change quickly, but realistically, only a single of the border fortresses needed to fall.

Without a defensible position, they’d be forced into a retreat regardless. A state of affairs the Custodian had foreseen.

Nonetheless, Frederick was loath to allow the heretic hordes into the north.

Each of their steps closer to the First Temple was an affront to the divine.

Frederick’s heart told him to fight to the last, but his brain was more cowardly.

As Finlay finished the last of the attackers, Frederick began muttering prayers for guidance.

----------------------------------------

Watching the mustering natives, Colonel Navarro wrinkled his nose.

What a pathetic sight.

He stood along with a few bodyguards at the local command post, safely behind friendly lines.

There were tens of thousands of the savages and now, without Ashwood’s meddling, they could finally be put to good use.

“That’s… Our casualties are already terrible,” One of the local ‘commanders’ spoke. Prince of the local kingdom, if his briefing was not mistaken. Or sabotaged.

“Our enemy lies exhausted, they’ll break if we push hard enough,” Navarro explained slowly, translating half of his words with the help of his helmet, his grasp of the local language nowhere near perfect.

‘Then we can finally move on.’

He left that thought unspoken. That the march of the Republic had been halted by a medieval fort for even a minute was a disgrace.

Suddenly, a great battle cry resounded from the fort.

The wall breach was filled by dozens of horsemen in the next instance, an energy shield flickering as the men he tasked with watching the stronghold opened fire.

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

“Looks like they want to make things easier for us,” he muttered in English, the horsemen already reaping a bloody toll across native lines.

His comms crackled to life the next instant, “Scout 3 reporting! The enemy is breaking through the back, at least two priority targets are present, local forces insufficient!”

Navarro smiled, ignoring the panicking Prince as well as the other so-called commanders. It seemed that the battle was won.

“Strisores, ignore the frontal attack, intercept the retreat,” he commanded while watching as the assaulting force continued advancing deeper into their lines. As the gunships took flight, the enemy continued advancing. Closer and closer to his position, in fact.

Maybe he had been a bit hasty sending the two gunships away. Whether a few barbarians escaped did not matter overmuch in the grand scheme of things.

“Sir, we should retreat. You saw what one of those things did on Cerberos,” his second-in-command down here spoke up, “There is no way we can stop their charge without blowing up our allies.”

Navarro turned to look at him, “These primitives have embarrassed us one too many times.”

Not like they had that many options anyway. That witch was apparently somehow intercepting any attempt at orbital bombardment, though Navarro did not really believe that. Some sort of an advanced planetary defence grid seemed a much more likely option, making the entire moon unfathomably valuable.

If such a thing could be replicated elsewhere…

Nonetheless, it left them somewhat underequipped. Ground wars only occurred when whoever possessed orbital supremacy did not want to blow everything up to kingdom come and the army’s standard ordnance reflected this. Worse, transporting heavy armour through space was uneconomical to the extreme. Colonel Navarro suppressed a scoff at that. Unfortunately, a bureaucrat would always find flesh to be cheaper than steel.

Fortunately, that still left them with plenty of options.

“Blow up the ground in front of them,” Navarro commanded, putting his hands behind his back.

The enemy advance was still somewhat bogged down by the natives, but most of them had already scattered anyway, unwilling to stand in the way of one of the so-called chosen. The casualties would be acceptable.

A few seconds passed, but then his soldiers acted, causing Navarro’s smile to widen.

The squads he had positioned around the native force prior to the battle fired their rocket launchers. Though quite the antiquated term, the weapons themselves were very much modern. Multi-purpose, their payload could be switched around depending on your target. Of course, there was little point in using anything other than high explosive down here.

Explosions rocked the ground a moment later, causing the prince to stumble and shout, “What did you do?!”

As the smoke cleared, Navarro’s grin grew even more shark-like.

Though much of the force was unharmed, the front had been decimated. Most survived the explosions just fine thanks to their strange technology, but their energy shields were of little help when it came to stopping their horses.

The lead riders had crashed hard, their horses losing their footing as they encountered the craters gouged by the rockets. Horses fell and crushed their riders and were in turn trampled beneath the hooves of the animals behind them.

A moment of silence descended upon the battlefield as both sides were stopped in their tracks by the attack, before Navarro’s bark broke it, “FIRE!”

His men started shooting immediately after.

Lacking the protection of their miracle technology, the remaining riders were unable to do anything but die under the barrage.

Colonel Navarro nodded to himself, before tasking two squads with checking the remains of the enemy force, “Chuck a few grenades when you are near. No reason to take chances with those freaks.”

There would be no repeat of Cerberos on his watch.

His smile disappeared as the shouting prince approached.

Navarro opened his mouth to rebuke him, but he never got a chance to, his attention attracted by an inhumanely powerful scream.

----------------------------------------

Frederick’s right arm was smashed to a pulp. His horse had fallen on it in the chaos, crushing it. Instinctively, he had channelled Eternity’s power and yanked his arm out from beneath the writhing animal.

This made things much worse as in his haste and panic, his inhuman strength resulted in Frederick nearly tearing his arm off.

Of course, that was when another horse crashed into him head-on.

Mercifully, he had blacked out. He had not expected to wake up again.

Frederick had been mistaken.

Awakening in a pit filled with crushed bodies and the screams of the dying, he had not even the time to scream when one of the explosive orbs the Terrans liked to use landed near him.

He had just enough time to shield himself, but the explosion still threw him back to the ground.

His vision had faltered then, but he had stayed awake, now with an extra covering of viscera.

The pain and horror caught up to him then.

A scream tore its way out of his throat, strengthened, like the rest of his body, by Eternity’s power. It was this strengthening that allowed him to be conscious at all.

He knew deep inside his bones that it was only Eternity’s power keeping him conscious right now.

Grabbing one of the swords scattered on the ground with his left hand, he held it with enough strength to warp the grip.

His eyes, filled with hate and blood, turned towards the heretics.