of arrogance. He was a leader finely-tuned to this specific crisis. That exact moment in human history.
He doubted Stone would have made a good President or Premier or even King. Yet at the same time, Armand doubted any other person in all of human existence could understand the nature of their predicament with any more clarity.
“Twenty more of them coming in from the southeast sector! Damn it! They are riding those things again! Shit! Man down! Man down-”
Armand saw that difference for the first time when they found Voggoth’s armies disappeared from the battlefield. Apparently Trevor had anticipated that disappearance, but initially kept it to himself as if knowing no one in the court of Camelot would have believed it until they saw with their own eyes.
When they did, Stone’s credibility surged.
And when he said “we march” he meant it.
No waiting around for supply trains to gather, no delays in beginning their trip. Mere hours after the fall of that first Duass blockade the cavalry started out followed by a column of armor and trucks full of infantry. By the next morning the remaining forces from Murol joined the crusade and brought Danish armor, Italian horse soldiers, and German motorized infantry.
Armand sent couriers around Europe to call out all who would come, but the legion would not stop to wait. A Swiss artillery regiment met the group on the third day. Belgium troops barely found the rear echelon on day four, and a column mixed with Austrian citizen-soldiers and Hungarian regulars made contact in Prague on day five.
Armand eyed a split in the dusty path and signaled his riders to turn north. Their maneuver to the rear of the enemy neared its final stage. The motorcycles bounced over the rocky surface that one old map dared label a road.
Armand remembered how annoyed Trevor appeared on day seven when Alexander insisted they halt the advance outside of Krakow to wait for a battalion worth of hard-nosed Turkish soldiers to fly in on aging NATO cargo planes. Their numbers swelled that day, but Trevor reacted with only the slightest hint of approval.
Instead, he kept repeating that they must keep moving; that time served as their number one enemy. Armand could see part of that concern for time revolved around what might be happening in North America. The other part focused on the most important weapon in their arsenal; surprise.
After breaking out of the Duass’ choke hold on the countryside around Murol, they expected to encounter Voggoth’s great army; the army sent-according to Stone-to knock the Europeans down before The Order dealt a death blow to The Empire. That great army had vanished, possibly reappearing in North America although no lines of communication existed to confirm that suspicion.
Stone said on more than one occasion that Voggoth would not have pulled those forces from Europe had he not believed Trevor dead onboard the submarine. Yet as the days passed and the army grew in size it seemed Voggoth grew suspicious.
On Monday, June 8 ^ th — the same day, unbeknownst to Armand or Trevor, that Nina Forest set The Order’s Olathe compound alight-the Europeans crossed into Ukraine. Twice in the three days since they encountered large gatherings-‘forces’ would be too strong a word-of alien creatures blocking their way.
First came a pair of giant Goat Walkers which descended from the Carpathian mountains and intercepted the column at the airport just north of Pustomyty. Choppers and shoulder-fired AT weapons killed one of the beasts and drove off the other.
Two SU-24 Strike fighters from the remains of the Belorusian Air Force landed at the airport and joined the ragtag army. The planes were low on armament and would need to leapfrog between landing strips, but were welcome nonetheless.
At Rivne a mob of primitive Ghouls numbering nearly 500 charged the convoy’s flank. A contingent of Irish infantrymen and Italian cavalry bore the brunt of the assault and suffered a couple hundred casualties. Many of the injured were left behind under the care of volunteers so as to not slow the march.
After that battle Gaston’s intelligence unit traced the attack route of the Ghouls to an abandoned automotive manufacturing factory where he found hundreds of blobs of green goo.
If Trevor were to be believed the Ghouls had traveled through space and time from as far away as Cincinnati, Ohio; from the time when Trevor’s Empire seemed unstoppable in its expanse Voggoth, it seemed, scrambled to blunt the European advance.
And now came Zhytomyr where a couple hundred Mutants-the humanoids with big ugly mouths, beady eyes, and hover-bikes-manned barricades in the ruined city.
The easy part of the maneuver ended. Armand’s attention refocused on the mission. He radioed, “Tighten things up, everyone. Heavy weapons teams hurry to your mark and dismount. The rest of you with me to keep these bastards busy.”
The motorcycle cavalry gained speed as they swung in unison to the west again, riding fast for the destroyed city. Heaps of bricks and collapsing walls remained where buildings once stood-telephone poles lay splintered and toppled-roads were pot-marked with craters and lined with rusted Avtovaz sedans-bones here and there from various species-these were the sights of Zhytomyr.
An artillery shell burst in the blue afternoon sky in a puff of black and gray. Then another. The rat-tat-tat of assault weapons echoed over the ruins answered by the deep booms of alien flintlocks.
The cavalry spread into a skirmish line. Their approach did not go unnoticed.
A line of Mutants onboard hover bikes raced from the shadows of a shattered warehouse and rode to intercept in numbers nearly equal Armand’s troop. The aliens seemed a warped reflection of the human cavalry: both wore leather, although the Mutants’ gear appeared harder and bulky. Both brandished weapons: maces, chains, and clumsy pistols for the aliens; assault rifles and swords for the humans.
The forces raced toward one another across the fields east of the destroyed city, weaving and swerving to avoid piles of burned bodies and the weed-infested fuselage of a crashed passenger airliner.
Armand lowered his head as if he might be a human battering ram.
The two formations of riders smashed into one another. Rifles shot Mutants from hover-bikes. Maces smashed helmets. Collisions sent rides of both flavors into death spirals.
The cavalry pushed through.
While the remaining Mutant bikers swept around to make another pass, Armand gazed at the battle ahead. He saw hordes of the aliens huddled around barricades of tires and steel beams trading fire with soldiers. He saw 15-foot tall dinosaurs shooting streams of flame from barrels seemingly screwed into their necks with Mutants riding in saddles high on the creatures’ shoulders.
He saw what Trevor saw: an obstacle to be smashed and cast aside so that the mission could be complete. Armand saw purpose.
“Heavy teams, dismount and cut these bastards down. The rest of you, follow me!”
Night fell over Zhytomyr. The city that had been broken and torched at the outset of Armageddon burned yet again, although it surprised Alexander to find any kindling remaining among the rubble.
Overhead, a legion of peaceful stars belied the confusion below. The army marched forward, kicking up clouds that joined the smoke of a battle won to create a foggy ceiling nearly blocking any view of those heavens. The entire place smelled dusty, like an old closet opened for the first time in years.
Alexander walked hastily away from a group of officers in eclectic clothes who gathered beneath one of the few remaining ceilings in town. He left behind their campfire that cast a yellow glow over the chipped plaster of what had once been a small cafe.
The European leader carried what he always carried: his clipboard and a shoulder’s worth of worries.
The growl of truck motors, the drum of marching boots, the whirr of an unseen helicopter, and the occasional crack of distant gunfire played as background music to Alexander’s thoughts. Unhappy thoughts at that.
They had finally punched through the Mutant blockade just before nightfall, but his army had grown into a nearly unmanageable snake. The rear most elements-if they could even be identified-were just passing through Rivne, nearly 100 miles behind. Additional units spread to the north and south; a few completely disappeared due either to misdirection or attack.
And they kept coming. Volunteers poured in with the latest being dozens of Russian partisans traveling in horses and carts. Their knowledge of the lands to come would prove valuable but Alexander could no longer be sure he possessed an accurate roster.
That reminded him. Alexander erased the listing for “Romanian armored car group”. Their pair of light military
