Thus, being aggressively proactive against an equal opponent is a coin-toss. There are some louder opinions on this topic, but the simple fact of the matter is that warfare is like a duel. Once it begins, everything from the weather to the competitor’s morning meal to who is sitting in the crowd can play a part. It is a classic folly to be pushed to action when there is nothing to gain from action. We have seen this in the first forty years, Kassandora thrives in the chaos of warfare more than anyone. To play this game with her of tiny engagements is to suffer a death by a thousand cuts, I have no shame in saying that I cannot defeat the Goddess of War in her own field.

Thus, the Chipping Doctrine is proposed. Frontlines will be static and move only upon approval from the highest authority responsible. Tiny engagements will not be responded to, instead grand battlelines will be fortified. The White Pantheon will dominate through the might of its industry and its ability to overwhelm, rather than on the fickle talent of its elite leadership. While I am sure I am capable of finding someone as talented as Iliyal Tremali, Kassandora has a natural gift for picking characters out of her ranks.

Offensives will only take place upon openings, whether these are from the immediate losses of the opponent, sustained after a battle or the logistical shock that is an introduction of new weaponry. The goal of offensives will be the seizure of as much easily defendable territory as possible, followed by their immediate fortification. Initiative will not be maintained through pre-emptive action against the opponent’s plans but through an outpacingly quick advance. Until the offensive stalls, after which frontlines are re-fortified.

Kassandora is a mountain, blow-by-blow, chip-by-chip, we will topple that mountain.

- Excerpt from “How to Fight Kassandora: The Chipping Doctrine”, written by Goddess Fortia, of Peace.

Maisara walked through the city of Burest, the capital of Dakia, six thousand Paladins behind her swept the streets. A light protest had been put up, to support the Epan Coalition. A light counter-protest had been put up, to support the White Pantheon. Both had crumbled when Maisara’s Paladins crossed the horizon and appeared in viewing distance from the city. Maisara’s looked over at the sandstone buildings, each one a marvellously detailed art piece of a wall, three or four floors tall and filled with apartments. In a grid pattern, each block of towers having their own communal park, it was a nicely organized city.

But Maisara did not come here to sight-see. Her eyes were fixed on that marvellous structure ahead of them, one of the greatest palaces to ever be constructed, only thirty years old, a modern marvel that tried to harp back to the great palaces of the Pre-Great War era. Its walls sheer and bare, taking elegance in its simplicity, all sharp angles and tall blocks, rising high above the city. Dakia’s Palace of the Parliament.

Dakia had not chosen a side yet. Not the Coalition, nor the Pantheon. Unfortunately for Dakia, it lay in too important a position to be simply overlooked. The country’s east was a straight route to Lubska, and a simple promise of non-aggression was not good enough for Maisara. Maybe Helenna would treat this job as an alliance-making operation. Maisara’s great-axe appeared in her hand and she looked up at that marvellous palace. They should build more buildings like this, it really was beautiful.

Maisara was not here to secure friends or alliances for the Pantheon. The time for those sorts of negotiations had long since passed. No. She was here to enforce Order, to keep the natural hierarchy of the world.

She stepped on the first step leading to the Palace.

Dakia announces full-cooperation with the White Pantheon, and issues an official denouncement of the Epan Coalition.

Fortia looked up at the cliffs before her. This was one of Rilia’s most southernmost points, but maybe that was good. Now, she didn’t have to fight a two-front war, going both South and North from the nation’s centre. Now, Peace’s steamroller only had one direction to go in. With Alanktyda securing the waves, her flanks and rear would be safe. Although Rilia did not even have a military navy to take advantage of its own long coasts in the first place.

Fortia closed her eyes as she felt the wind pass by in a peculiar way. There it was, a light explosion from the west. The sound indicated it was some forty miles. Five hours over this terrain for Fortia, two days if she had to wait for her Guardians. Fortia looked up at the air, her eyes scanned the edge of the tall cliff. Nothing, no one. This was one of Rilia’s poorest areas, the closest city was several hours drive away. She had not expected an audience, and she got none.

And that was perfect.

Fortia looked up at the sky. Another explosion came. One of the diversionary forces were being shelled. It was only forty men. Not a lot, but they were asked to spread out quickly, and buy as much time for Fortia’s vanguard as possible. The Goddess of Peace turned to the ocean, it was still being carved by Alanktydan magic to create that tunnel underneath the water. “Onto the cliffs! Secure the area!” Fortia shouted. Two thousand men she had brought. Two thousand to secure the road for fifty times that.

Fortia’s vanguard force steps foot on southern Rilia.

Theosius looked up from his forge and onto the horizon, it was a simple thing, just a flame, a stream nearby for fresh water, several assistants stood about to pass him whatever he needed, and that was it. Olympiada had grander forges, that was for sure, but without Elassa or Iniri there to pull water onto the mountain, it borderline impossible to forge. He preferred his own place anyway, the recent event had tainted Olympiada for him. And besides, it was the skill of the man behind the hammer that made the metal.

He crumbled the piece of mithril in his hands and crushed it into a ball. That was a failed experiment anyway. Three different musket prototypes sat besides him, two had been pulled out from Great-War storage, the third he had hand-made only a few hours ago. They all worked, he would be fine arming men of the past with them, but he had seen the weaponry Kassandora had put on her army. Those muskets were simply not good enough.

Theosius took a heavy breath and stepped away from the forge. Frankly, he needed a break, and he wanted to enjoy that view. The blue ocean, the bright sky above it, the countless small islands that littered the coasts here. And the hundred ships. Some large transport tankers. Other small boats. A few had sails, other had engines. A research vessel recalled from Artica. Container ships, now empty. All sailing at the same pace, south from Atny, all proudly flying the White & Gold of the Pantheon. That was Fortia’s army.

The White Pantheon Navy sets sail for the first time since the Great War.

Fortia stepped on the tracks as they started to shake. They had seen enough of this gigantic Rilian artillery to know what it could do, and they had seen enough of it to know what it was coming. Aerial drones said there was four different wagons in the south. Today, number would change.

Fortia felt the thick wood of the tracks creak under her weight as the small team of Guardians she had brought as an entourage retreated further up the hill. Only two dozen men, and then it was simply to keep watch and help catch prisoners if they found any. Fortia looked down the tracks, it really was a beautiful land here. The trees plentiful yet tiny, as if trying to fade into the grass. The hills rolled into one another, then suddenly gave way to sharp ridges and cliffs, then started to roll again. There were two small villages in eyesight, maybe three or four hours march at a human pace from this location.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

That didn’t matter though, local uprisings had never been much of a problem for her forces. The Sun slowly started to go crawl behind one of the mountains, and Fortia held out her hand. Her spear materialized within it, she took position, ready to throw, straight down the track.

That massive train artillery came hurtling down the track. Its huge cannon pointed straight forwards. The driver must have seen her, as the vehicle’s mad horn started to blow. Fortia took no notice of the horn, nor the vehicle. All her muscles tightened and then she released the spear. The boom came first, as it always did when her spear broke the sound barrier.

And then the second sound filled Fortia’s ears. Of metal madly screeching, of pistons wildly hissing, of men shouting. Of ammunition tumbling. Of an explosion. Of fire. Of the rail tearing as the heavy train-artillery pulled them down the mountain with its fall. Forta held out her hand, and her spear rematerialized in it. She looked at the damage, that giant scar of oil and loose rock and fire and tumbling dirt the train had made. It exploded at the bottom of the valley like a pile of fireworks, shells setting off shells in a chain reaction.

Fortia’s vanguard force sweeps through Southern Rilia

Maisara watched more of her transport planes land. Those hulking behemoths were ferrying a few hundred Paladins to her with every trip. Trains were bringing more men up to Dakia’s north. And day-by-day, the number of trucks here was growing. She climbed onto the back of one such eight-wheeler, first onto the back and then a hop onto the cabin and watched her army.

Allasaria had always said that what Maisara did was a waste of her own money. Even Fortia sometimes complained about it. That was nothing to say about the rest of the White Pantheon. For some eight-hundred years, they had called her mad for keeping an armoury. For updating it when new technologies appeared. But this was why the Paladins in Kirinyaa had received the least support from Arcadia, even though they had the largest front. If Elassa had not gone mad, thinking she could stand up against Anassa and Fer and Olephia whilst they were backed by Kassandora’s thinking, then that war would have still been continuing. Frankly, Maisara could see herself reaching the coasts by now. It was true she had taken casualties, but the trade only needed to be one for one. Kirinyaa would run out of men to spare sooner than the rest of the world did.

Maisara stood in her silver armour as the Paladins worked in perfect unison, in their perfect camp, in their perfect armour, all moving in their perfect silence apart from the short shouts when commands had to be relayed. She was the Goddess of Order, so she did things as they should be done. Pantheon Peace, she may have not agreed with, but it was set, so she had followed. Just as she had never once broken a promise, she would have followed it till she tied. It was a matter of pride at this point. There was no other Divine alive who could claim to have never once said a lie.

It was simply a matter of principle to her. Pantheon Peace was the exception, the default state of humanity was disagreement. That meant the default state was war. So she had prepared for it. Maisara watched the Theosius’ war-automatons, the bulbous centurions with three legs and four arms each, the automated ballistae and catapults. She knew these wouldn’t last through this war, technology had simply outpaced them too far.

But if she was not going to use them now, she would never use them. So she may as well pull out all that a thousand years of preparation had given to her. Maisara watched one massive grey plane take off, another quickly land. Two hundred men ran off it in a minute. The plane was already taking off as the next was landing. She turned and she looked north.

Keeping Order had been easy in the past. A thousand years ago, simply showing off her executioner’s axe to the local ruler would quell a rebellion. But a millennium of Peace had made mortals forget what it took to maintain that precious, ever-so-orderly, Peace. Tomorrow, she would remind them.

Maisara begins the long march through Epa

It had been a long time since the last war in Alanktyda. Nothing as mad as Allasaria’s enforced thousand-year peace, but long enough to where only oldest mermen could remember it in any great amounts. Tasaidien swam through the waters, the lower half of his body had transformed into a red-gold fish, the bright scales a sign of his lineage. More mermen swam by his side.

The North Sea was cold and dreary, the waters were much better further south, but there was nothing to complain about now. His seers had intercepted one of the ships heading from Allia to Doschia, through a particularly shallow bit of ocean. Tasaidien wondered if that was the humans themselves deciding to take the shallow waters, or whether Kassandora had told them of the great sea-serpents under his command. Those weren’t going to be awoken for this war, not yet. There was no need when he could just use his own mages.

Tasaidien’s party of twenty quickly caught up to the ship, guided forwards by dolphins that themselves were being guided by the seers trailing the vessel. They looked up at that huge hull from beneath, it was painted a bright red, although from underneath the colour darkened to the tarnished crimson of spilled blood. Tasaidien gave the orders through his gills, the words bounced throughout the water like a whale song. He got a reply from the other members of the team.

They spread out, coral staves were drawn, catalyst-pearls started to glow, the ocean started to swirl. Tasaidien watched as the ship started to tilt from side to side. Up above the surface, the water was already starting to splash onto the containers carrying arms for Epa. And the mermages put more power into it. Long ago, only this would have been enough to crush the wooden boats surface-dwellers used. These steel behemoths were much stronger.

But they weren’t strong enough.

The mages, half-fish half-human, grit their teeth, their faces turned red with effort even in the cold waters of the deep. They started to groan under the water. But as they groaned, the steel above them started to scream.

Alanktyda starts raiding Allian shipping

Maisara looked at the small outpost checkpoint that marked the end of Dakia and the start of Lubska. If it was Kassandora, she would have not come this close. If it was Kassandora, the location would have a single team of Paladins be sent to it to check it for traps or ambushes. If it was Kassandora, Maisara’s forces would have already sustained losses from raiding by now. If it was Kassandora, the hundred thousand men behind her would have shrunk to ninety thousand already.

But Kassandora was not leading the Epan Coalition. So while there was still good reason to be cautious, there was no need to be paranoid. Maisara kept on standing, on the back of the truck, her own meant that the roof of the cabin only reached up to her belt. She gave out her orders. The trucks stopped. Two teams went ahead. They investigated the small checkpoint. It was only a small building with an even smaller hut by the road. Mountains to the west, endless plains and thick forests to the east. The Sun was starting to rise in that east, that was good. Maisara had estimated she would to the border around day-break.

She saw the Lubskan flag, bearing its proud eagle, be lowered. The White and Gold bicolour of the Pantheon went up in its place. And the Long March through Epa continued onwards.

Maisara enters Lubska

Fortia stayed still as she listened to the great horns of her transport fleet. The White Pantheon did not have a fleet like in the past, where it could bombard shores and have engagements, but Pantheon Peace ensured no one did. The transport fleet was enough. Two huge ships were approaching the beach at a quick pace. Theosius’ design, these naval landers were. From a few hundred years past, but they worked as well now as they did then. The ships had retractable stilts to balance when beached, and small tugs would pull them back onto the open ocean.

The area around them had been secured. The rails had been blown at least four dozen miles out in all directions. There would be no shelling from that dreaded Rilian artillery today. Not whatsoever. Fortia watched the entire front of the two massive ships slowly open up. She watched her Guardians march onto the sand, in their perfect gold-bronze armour. She watched trucks drive off too. The heavy equipment that would be required. Theosius’ Sentinel-Centurions slowly marched down. The beach started to fill up.

And this was only two of the main landers. She still had eight left.

Fortia’s main force arrives in Rilia

Kassandora sighed and looked down at the list before her. Olephia was for Kirinyaa, she would cause too much of a mess in Epa, and if Uriamel sent something large, she should stay. Fer would do well here or there. Anassa, same as Fer. Arascus would stay here. Kassandora smiled as her eyes glanced over Kassandora, Of War. She would be staying in Kirinyaa. Epa would need to win, a long war would be good for them. A general should be chosen, and Divines to support. Sorcerers too, these Kirinyaans did not make very good sorcerers. Morale would also be an issue for them, here in Kirinyaa, Arascus could rally the population but Epa would start feeling wartime’s terrible fatigue the longer their conflict went on for.

And as Kassandora sat there, looking at her list of names, she blinked. And she got an idea so devilish neither Fortia nor Allasaria would ever predict it. They would call her mad for it even. It was…

It was truly revolutionary.