be looking for?’
Artemisia was looking at the elders, who were conferring and gesturing to their table. Were there maps on there?
Suddenly the liquid began to bubble slightly, then simmered, though Brynd could feel no heat from the container. He looked at the expressions on his comrades’ faces, and they were as cool as his own.
‘Look down into the cauldrons,’ Artemisia called.
The liquid began to change tone — its mirror-like qualities dissipated, and in their place appeared images of small black dots.
‘What are we looking at?’ Brynd enquired.
‘These are the. . Boats?’ she looked to Brynd for confirmation of the word and he nodded. ‘These are being sent out, as we converse, across the waters towards the coast of Folke.’
Brynd looked down again into the liquid. He could now see that while there was a cloud around the perimeter of the cauldron, the liquid was in fact the surface of the sea, and there were hundreds of small dots. ‘Just like Villiren,’ he breathed. ‘Where did the boats come from, another Realm Gate?’
‘Not this time. These were contained within a limb of their vessel.’
‘So the enemy has launched their offensive already?’
‘They have indeed.’
Brynd’s heart skipped a beat, but he wanted to be sure. ‘How are you acquiring such. . such pictures? Moving ones, of that.’
‘We have our. . surveillance beings, not dissimilar to your garudas. They are equipped in a fashion that means what they see is transmitted to these cauldrons.’
‘What size is this force?’
‘There are approximately ten thousand ships heading to the shore in the first wave, and one of your hours behind them lies a second, larger wave. Our estimates suggest the first will arrive in two hours.’
‘Most of our forces will take another day to meet us. They’re currently protecting towns situated further from the coast, where the populations are dense.’
‘They will be of more use there, for we have tens of thousands of our own people ready to meet this. We will, however, require your guidance. The elders,’ Artemisia gestured respectfully towards them, ‘will need to know what this terrain of sand is like.’
‘It’s nothing you want to fight on ideally,’ Brynd replied. ‘Depending on where they make landfall, however, your best bet is to assault them hardest as they land on the beaches. The waters are shallow, which means that the boats won’t be able to penetrate deep enough. If the ships are of the same type as those that hit Villiren, they’ll probably run aground thirty or forty feet before the low-tide mark: this means wading through water.’
‘We will need to know the quality of your water. Is it saline?’
‘It is.’
‘We have oils that will be useful here. Liquid fire, commander.’
Brynd raised an eyebrow. ‘That will be more than useful, if it does what I think it might. After this, I suggest holding them up as best you can with airborne assaults, archers, catapults, anything to keep them from establishing a position on the beaches. It will be messy. We’ll have the advantage as there will be nothing for them to shelter behind at first. They will suffer a lot of casualties if you’ve the numbers to keep the attack up.’
‘Be assured we do.’
‘Good. I’m guessing your enemy knows this already since they’ve split their assault into two sections.’
‘At least two.’
‘So why do they not send their sky-city to deploy ground troops?’
‘It doesn’t move well across water.’
‘You could have mentioned this earlier!’ Brynd snapped.
‘The. . forces it uses require it to be above land, otherwise they have to adopt different fuel sources and it can very much inhibit their mobility. This works to our favour, for it may be that our attempt to land on board will be far simpler.’
‘And are we to attempt this boarding while the war rages?’ Brynd asked.
‘Yes.’
‘It feels wrong. We should be on our islands, protecting our people and our land and our children.’
‘This is not the time for seeking glories.’
‘This is not,’ Brynd growled, ‘about glory. This is about doing our
‘You will have time for such matters, if you wish,’ Artemisia replied coolly, ‘but we should concentrate our primary efforts on where their communications are most focused.’
‘The sky-city,’ Brynd said. ‘I’m guessing that their military will mostly be concentrated on the invasion, leaving the sky-city less defended?’
‘Indeed that is so, much like our own. We strike when the battle is at its most intense, but it will not be simple,’ Artemisia replied firmly, and with outstretched arms she gestured to the cauldrons once again, which bubbled furiously.
A new scene then presented itself: there were clouds or white smoke at first, a hazy bird’s-eye view of landscape, rolling hills, snow-covered tundra perhaps, it wasn’t easy to discern. Then, dark patches of land.
‘What are we looking at now?’ Brynd enquired.
‘This is our army,’ Artemisia said, with pride. ‘One and a half million individuals, made up of several different races, all of whom are trained. . soldiers, I believe your word is, though we would call them mercenaries and conscripts, too. It is all we could muster at such short notice. More are coming, but we are currently engaged in the business of evacuating our largest city. It is not, as you may appreciate, a simple and clean effort.’
‘Indeed. .’ Brynd peered once again into the liquid, only to see a clearer context now: there was the coastline, along which Artemisia’s forces were gathered.
‘We are adjusting our tactics according to your advice,’ she announced.
‘I can sense you are wondering how this may be so,’ she continued. If she was capable of pride, she was certainly capable of smugness at how her culture was more advanced than Brynd’s.
‘Not really,’ Brynd grunted. There was a chuckle from one of his soldiers. ‘But since you mention it, what facilities are you using?’
Artemisia described a complex system that seemed to cross shamanism with high technological genius. The elders were connected telepathically to the generals on the ground, where they in turn had cauldrons and methods of viewing the entire operation. There was a vast system of communication that her army depended upon, and Brynd remembered how the Okun, too, relied on an elegant form of contact with each other. It maintained their uniformity, their progress. Their devastating force.
Artemisia concluded, ‘We shall settle final tactics on the ground, then for our own operation — for which we have gained new intelligence and our cartographers have supplied us with internal maps of the Policharos. After this discussion, we may watch the first wave of conflict.’
‘What, we just sit up here and watch the war like spectators? Shouldn’t we be down on the ground, rallying the troops, boosting their confidence, giving direction?’
Artemisia translated this statement to the elders, who seemed greatly amused.
‘Our people do war on an enormous scale, Commander Lathraea. More often than not, if we are on the ground, any information we give would be too slow and ineffective. No, it is better we stay up here, and view progress through our usual means.’
Brynd did not like this at all. It was his way to be on the ground, with his own people, protecting his towns and cities from whatever forces assaulted them. It seemed an artificial warfare, conducted from a distance, as if he were one of the ancient gods.
