Kassandora sat down as she typed up a report for Arascus. A letter of request rather. The battle had forced Fortia’s army into retreat, it had been a perfect opportunity for a swift follow-up attack on the western army that fielded Zerus and Sceo.

But that opportunity had ended. Artillery was powerful, but it was slow. It needed time to set up and time to aim. It devastated ground instead of securing it. She needed new vehicles for this.

Iliyal leaned back in his office as he sighed. It was a small room, but he had sat in smaller. The furniture was plain, but he had worked with worse, the TV wasn’t the biggest, but he remembered a time when television was so far-fetched it wasn’t even fantasy. The lights were bright, but he had fought in the shadow of Allasaria’s burning powers. The chair was comfortable though, that, he couldn’t complain about.

Iliyal flicked the TV on as he finished today’s pieces: ‘With this leadership, can we even win?’ was the star of the show, a scathing and emotional critique of Fortia’s recent disaster of a battle although ‘Divine right to die!’ and ‘Sixty thousand for what?’ were also documents he was proud of. All catchy slogans, granted those it was his team came up with instead of him. One was being translated into Lubskan, another into Rancais, and then the third into Dosch. Scheduled release was tomorrow evening, it was the end of the work week and people would be settling down to catch up on the news that this week brought. Epa would not be happy, that much he was sure of.

Iliyal leaned back and made himself another coffee, spruced up with whiskey. One to keep himself awake, the other to get the words flowing. The simple fact of the matter was that no piece mattered much, the goal was to inundate all of Epa with anti-war rhetoric. The populations were against the war, but populations needed an example to follow. In Lubska and in Rancais domestic partisans had already started following Iliyal’s anti White-Pantheon script.

Iliyal sipped the drink from his glass and listened to the television. “third day of President Artois’ illness, his party has confirmed that Artois is recovering and will be ab-“ Iliyal switched the channel. Illnesses, he cared little about unless someone was going to die or unless it was himself. He switched over to KTV, the three hosts were celebrating, shamelessly waving small Green-Red-Blue tricolour flags of Kirinyaa as they recalled the battle that had taken place two days ago.

Kassandora herself had leaked it, although it would have come out eventually. Fortia’s casualties were simply too great to cover up. Already scandal being brewed in Doschia by the relatives of the lost. Fortia knew how to fight a military war, that both Kassandora and Iliyal would readily admit. The Waeh-plot had been insidious, the kitsune spies were unprecedented, it was only pure luck that Peace’s war plan had failed. But a war was not just a series of skirmishes. That was what Kassandora had taught Iliyal, and now Rilia was loosening the Ausa embargo. The death of sixty thousand was a mere drop in the flood of precedent King Aimone had just set as he all but gave the middle finger to the White Pantheon and their policies.

One of the Iliyal’s men appeared in the open doorframe to his office. Kassandora had given him thirty at the start, now the number had more than tripled to almost a hundred. Clerics, most of them, although there were a few Kirinyaans who could be entrusted with working at WPW as Kassandora had called them: The War Propaganda Wing. Unofficially, they were Nanbasa’s newest taxi company: The Grands.

“General.” The man saluted. No one here experienced direct combat but Iliyal maintained a level of discipline that he knew wouldn’t even be seen on the frontlines. Men who sat in comfortable seats too long got soft and someone to come with a stick and wake them up. Iliyal looked away from the television and sipped his whiskey again. This was Thomas Rauld, from an ex-Allian Clerical Order. Iliyal knew the names and profiles of everyone who worked underneath him, it was part of the reason why expansion had been so slow.

“At ease.” Iliyal stood up to return the salute. He was a head taller than the man, although he was a head taller than everyone here. If there was anything he’d change about this assignment, it would have been the cover. He enforced a dress code, white shirts and black trousers, but anything more professional than that would raise questions about what sort of taxi company they were if everyone was dressed up in suits.

“I’m ready on the piece to be sent off to Allia. Translated and everything.” Iliyal nodded as he sat back down.

“You report to Malcolm, who reports to me.” Iliyal said as his fingers tapped his wooden desk. Kirinyaan redwood, expensive in Epa but cheap here, fragrant and eye-catching, if not particularly durable. But it didn’t have to be too durable. A pistol was in one of the cabinets and Iliyal’s sword was always next to his seat.

“Yes General!” Thomas responded. “I do normally, but I got a… a man wishes to see you.” Iliyal raised an eyebrow, his green eyes analysing Thomas as the young man trembled under his gaze. They were all young, the oldest amongst the men under his command was fifty. So not even a twentieth of Iliyal’s age.

“And?” Iliyal asked. Soldiers always understood better when you let them reason their own way into a solution, even if that solution was the most obvious thing on Arda. Of course men wanted to see Iliyal, he was the Iliyal Tremali. But chains of command existed for a reason. “Can Malcolm not handle it?”

“Malcolm is currently at KTV and the man said he cannot wait.” Thomas responded quickly, he somehow managed to stand even straighter. It was downright amateurish, no soldier should tense so much as to make their own veins pop.

“At ease.” Iliyal said slowly. If Malcolm was missing, and Thomas himself wasn’t at the bottom of the ladder, then he wasn’t breaking procedure. “Who is it?”

“He refuses to identify himself.” Thomas answered quickly. “But he did present this.” Thomas pulled out a small badge Iliyal recognised instantly. Thomas should have too, but it was just a matter of the man’s inexperience he did not: a medallion of gold, bearing a flowering lily. The badge all Rancais government officials when they entered office. “But he has bodyguards.”

Iliyal only smiled. How many assassins had held he felled? During the peak of the Great War, it was considered a slow year if there were only four attempts on his life. “Are they mages?” Iliyal asked, if they were coming with Rancais government officials, he doubted it.

“I apologise, but I do not know.” Thomas replied and Iliyal nodded. He sighed and turned the TV off, there wouldn’t be any news on KTV he didn’t know of already. The entire country was celebrating Kassandora’s victory, and they would celebrate for another week until the next one came. Fortia and Maisara had been defanged with the losses sustained. The Great War began in the same manner, armies of Divine Orders smashed into each other until both sides had bled themselves dry, then both sides started conscripting their peasantries to bolster their ranks.

“Do not apologise, if you don’t know then you don’t know.” Iliyal said as he thought about the situation. How was he even found? This needed to be reported. “Who did they ask for?”

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“The man asked for you, by name.” Iliyal nodded. So he had been found out. So there was a snake or a breach of procedure somewhere. Snakes were common enough, Fer had reported them already. Iliyal sighed again and waved his hand.

“Send him in, bodyguards too. I don’t mind.” Frankly, if they weren’t mages then they’d be in for a surprise. “Close the door on your way out and make sure everyone looks professional, hide the documents first, make him wait if you need to.”

Thomas saluted, Iliyal returned the salute from his chair and the man turned and marched out of the small office, he pulled the door close as he left. Iliyal immediately tucked the pistol into his belt and narrowed his eyes. He finished his whiskey-coffee and put the bottle on the table with another glass. His documents were cleaned up, and Iliyal put a photo of himself and Kassandora onto the table, her arm around him and both of them smiling. It was taken just before he had been sent off here. If they knew who he was, they would know of Kassandora’s favouritism of him, but it was better to have a reminder in case anyone did not.

Clean up lasted half an hour. If a guest was unannounced, it was always good to make them wait. That set an immediate hierarchy. They were working around Iliyal’s time. Eventually though, there was a knock on the door. It was Thomas again. “General Tremali, you have guests.”

“Send them in.” Iliyal shouted back as he leaned back into his seat and spread his arms out over the table. The door opened and three men entered. Iliyal’s eyes scanned the guards immediately, it was a force of habit, but it had saved him more times than he liked to admit. Lean men, obviously fighters. With short hair and hard faces and cold eyes. Mouths tight, that was always a good sign, it meant nervousness. A nervous man was an amateur killer at the most.

Then he scanned the man in the middle, his face was hidden under the headwrap of traditional desert wear, but the slit for eyes revealed pale Epan skin. The clothes were obviously nothing excellent, a shirt and trousers as any common man wore, but common men had creases and signs of dirt. Their shoes had dirt, their shirts would be only loosely tucked in, their belts were rarely of real leather. If they had watches, they wouldn’t be a simple silver design that simply reeked of wealth.

Iliyal stood up, he said nothing, only took long steps towards the bodyguards. A head taller than either of them, he looked them up and down. Muscled, one man on his shoulder that his shirt failed to hide. The skin was still pink, so it wasn’t any older than a month. Iliyal said nothing, he merely returned back to his seat and sat down with a word, then put his sheathed on the table. “Just so we know we’re we are standing, many men have tried to kill me.”

All eyes went to that blade. One of the guards tightened his fists, then took a deep to calm himself. Iliyal smiled at them as he idly brushed the picture of himself next to Kassandora. “You know who I am, I do not talk with people who don’t reveal themselves.”

The man in the headscarf nodded and took off the garb covering his face. A handsome face, but one that took on an onslaught of stress and time that came too quickly. Blue eyes, hair neatly styled and skin pale that had been lightly tanned. Iliyal made a terrible smile at the man. “It is my pleasure, President Artois.” Iliyal had seen the man on the news more than a few times, he looked better in real life than he did on there, more real.

“Likewise, General Tremali.” Artois readjusted his posture and pointed to the chair in front of Iliyal’s desk. “May I?” Iliyal extended his arm towards the chair.

“Please do.” The elf poured them both a large glass of whiskey. “How did you find me?” Artois did not have a calm demeanour in the first place, but whatever levity the man had, it faded away upon hearing Iliyal’s cold tone. “Well?”

“I asked Helenna.” He replied coyly. Iliyal leaned back and put his hand on the sheath of his sword.

“You asked Helenna?”

“I tried discussing the matter first with her. She told me it’s not her department. I asked for Arascus. She said that won’t happen but suggested you instead.” Iliyal’s green eyes merely focused on the man’s blue. That was a story he could believe in. Of course Helenna would know of him, and Helenna wasn’t difficult to find whatsoever, everyone knew where she was staying.

“Understood.” Iliyal said as he pulled out his phone and searched for Helenna in his contacts. He pressed ring and put it on loudspeaker. The phone buzzed twice before Helenna answered.

“Hey Iliyal!” Helenna’s voice chirped through the phone as the elf set it down on the table. “What are you calling for?”

“I have a guest.” Iliyal didn’t take his eyes off the bodyguards. One of them shifted under his gaze, the other took a step to the side as if in an effort to dodge it. Amateurs, not soldiers. Police maybe, faced with arresting drunks and not a man chosen by Kassandora.

“Is it a man?” Helenna asked.

“It is.”

“Rancais?”

“Yes.” Iliyal leaned back. So the man’s story was true.

“It’s Artois, isn’t it?”

“It is, did you send him to me?”

“I did, that’s all I’ll say over the phone.” Helenna said. “And Kass has told me to tell you there’s a change of plans, you’re to be in CR in two days.”

“Understood, that’s all.” Iliyal switched the phone off. So Artois had not been lying, Iliyal hadn’t supposed he did, but the after fighting Leona for a century, he didn’t like to leave anything up to chance. What was not certain was left up to luck, and luck rarely favoured him. “I double check everything, you must understand.” Iliyal said flatly as he sipped his whiskey. Artois had already tasted his.

Another sign of amateurs. Iliyal would never drink from a bottle he didn’t trust unless he saw someone else’s lips touch it first. Artois nodded as if impressed. “I understand perfectly.” The man took a sigh and waved his hand. One of the bodyguards pulled out a folder stuffed with papers from the inside of his shirt and handed it to the President of Rancais. “I… well…”

Iliyal drank some more of his whiskey. The man obviously needed confidence, he sometimes forgot what sort of aura he had himself. It was like this in the past when he would enter cities and see people kneel in submission. “I’m not going to kill you. This meeting, I don’t think either of us have to say is off the record.” Iliyal crossed his arms. “But now that you’ve come, Kassandora and Arascus will both know by the end of the day. I’ll ring both of them the moment you step out of this room in fact. Kassandora is on the frontlines, Arascus is busy managing the war economy. Neither have time for you, if you wish to relay something, you’re going through me.” Iliyal spread his arms out to either side. “So here I am.”

Iliyal smiled as he leaned back and stared down at the man. The differences in height, in age, in experience, the simple fact one was an elf and the other a human, that one wasn’t simply blessed but chosen by a major Divine. Some people liked to reason and fiddle words out of others through a slow build of confidence. Iliyal preferred a swift backhand that got men into action.

“Right.” Artois said. “Right, of course.” Iliyal sighed. A politician this was, not a soldier, not a general, not a man of action. A politician through and through, no doubt the man could endlessly scheme sophistry but now that he was placed in an environment unfamiliar, look how he crumbled.

“So?”

“This is not my plan.” Artois said. “But I vouch for it. It is signed on by Wissel of Doschia, Jozef of Lubska, Aimone of Rilia, Edward of Allia and myself, representing Rancais.” Iliyal raised an eyebrow.

“And?”

“We need weapons.” Artois said then caught himself. “We don’t need weapons, we need your rifles. Now to manufacture but to use.” Iliyal raised an eyebrow. Was the man joking? Why should he ever give up the rifle design to an Epan nation? Even Kirinyaan engineers had to sign an NDA before they started work on the manufacturing lines. And this man just wanted them?

“Are you joking?” Iliyal said. “Do I even need to explain why you’re not going to receive anything?”

“This is the plan, you see, our stamps as heads of state. Only we have access to it, unforgeable, it’s your copy to keep.” Artois said as he handed Iliyal a piece of paper. The white eagle of Lubska was there, the black eagle of Doschia, the Allian Lion, Rancais’ flowering lily and Rilia’s crown of towers. They did in fact look real.

“And this plan?” Iliyal did not even read, he merely tapped the piece of paper, eyes still on Artois. “Sell me on it.” Iliyal doubted Artois would have another word of value to say, but Artois hardened his tone, took a deep breath and spoke quickly, as if he wanted to say everything because the voice of cowardice in his mind silenced him.

“We’ve found the location of Arascus’ Divine Armoury. We’re certain it holds the Weapon Incarnation Divines. We want to free them and use them to have leverage if the White Pantheon treats us as they treat Kirinyaa.” And the man shut up. He took a deep breath and collapsed into the back of his chair, then finished the glass of whiskey. He poured himself another one, drank half of that too.

Iliyal leaned back, speechless. There would be no phone calls tonight, this sort of information required a face-to-face meeting immediately.

- - - End of Arc 5: Fires in the Desert - - -