Calendar of the Displacement. Year 0001, April 11. Evening.

  The forward camp of the Eastern Subjugation Army of the Louria Kingdom.

  At dusk, as the two moons began their ascent, painting the sky in tones of violet and silver, the camp of the Lourian army buzzed like a disturbed hive. Tens of thousands of rough canvas tents stretched to the horizon. The air was thick with the smell of campfire smoke, the sweat of horses, and damp earth. Diplomatic dispatches from Qua-Toyne, with their desperate pleas for peace, went unanswered. War was inevitable.

  General Pandur, commander of the vanguard, stood on a small hill, surveying his host. His face held an expression of cold satisfaction.

  "Tomorrow, Gim will fall," he said, addressing his aide-de-camp.

  Before him stood thirty thousand soldiers. True, many were raw recruits, but they were supported by a steel backbone of five thousand heavy infantry, two thousand cavalry, and a battalion of siege engines. And soaring above it all, the crown jewel of their might, were one hundred and fifty wyverns—a force capable of turning any city in Qua-Toyne to ash on its own. It was rumored that most of these wyverns were a "gift" from the mighty Parpaldia Empire, but that did not concern Pandur. What mattered was that they were at his disposal.

  Not far from the general's tent, in the shadow of a siege tower, another, quieter conversation was taking place.

  "Lord Adem," hissed a man whose face was concealed by the deep hood of a black cloak. "My congratulations on your appointment as commander of the assault forces. A great honor."

  Adem—a tall, athletically built man in masterfully forged gothic armor whose blackened plates seemed to swallow the light—did not even turn. His icy gaze was fixed on the enemy territory.

  "Your flattery is as false as your piety, Emissary Kaios," Adem replied, his lips twisting into a contemptuous sneer. "I can feel your bloodthirsty smile even through that rag."

  "Use the wyverns my Empire has provided with all possible cruelty," Kaios purred.

  Adem laughed coldly.

  "I don't need your advice on how to exterminate demihuman filth. It is the one thing that brings me true pleasure."

  He turned and, without a word of parting, strode toward the command tent, where General Pandur was bent over a map.

  "General," Adem's voice was devoid of all emotion. "Regarding the protocol for spoils and prisoners in Gim?"

  Pandur, without looking up from the map, waved a hand dismissively.

  "I leave that to your discretion, Adem. You know what must be done to break their spirit. I require results, not reports on the observance of proprieties."

  Adem gave a short nod. Returning to his own commanders, he issued his orders. His voice, amplified by a touch of magic, carried across the camp, chilling the souls of even the most hardened veterans:

  "I command that this be communicated to all personnel! After the capture of Gim, the city is yours for three hours. You are permitted everything: looting, rape, murder. Sate your thirst. But after those three hours have passed—a total cleansing. Put every inhabitant to the sword. Leave no more than a hundred alive, so they may spread the word of our wrath. The families of knights, officials, and mages are to be executed publicly and with extreme cruelty. We must burn not just fear into their souls. We must burn out the very thought of resistance."

  His words hung in the night air. There were no shouts, no cheers. Only silence, and then, a low, contented rumble from thousands of throats. The predator, which had been caged for six years, had been unleashed. And it was hungry.

  Calendar of the Displacement. Year 0001, April, Day 12. 01:00.

  The Principality of Qua-Toyne, the western region. The fortress-city of Gim.

  A pre-dawn fog, cold and clammy, clung to the stone walls of Gim. In the deathly silence, broken only by the distant hooting of an owl, Captain Moizi stood atop the main watchtower. He was a beastman, a descendant of the lynx clan, and his heightened senses detected what was imperceptible to others: the scent of fear wafting from the city, and a low-frequency vibration in the earth to the west—the tremor from the hooves of thousands of enemy horses and the measured tread of legions.

  His garrison numbered only three thousand five hundred and fifty-four warriors. The elite of the Western Corps: infantrymen, cavalrymen, twenty-four wyvern dragoons, and thirty war mages. The best of the best. But against the thirty-thousand-strong horde from Louria, reinforced by hundreds of wyverns, they were but a handful of brave souls condemned to death.

  In the dim light of a magical crystal, Moizi looked at the manacomm operator, a young elf whose fingers were trembling on the communication runes.

  "Any news from their camp?" The captain's voice was hoarse from a sleepless night.

  The operator flinched and shook his head.

  "They are silent, Captain. Completely ignoring all our hails."

  Moizi clenched his fist so tightly his knuckles turned white.

  "And what of reinforcements from the capital?" he clung to this last hope like a drowning man to a straw. "Have they abandoned us?"

  The operator hesitated for a moment, then, gathering his courage, replied:

  "A new order has arrived, Captain. We have been commanded to… evacuate the civilian population and hold the line to the last man. Reinforcements… they will come, but not soon."

  Moizi felt an icy coldness grip his heart. "Hold the line to the last man." It was a death sentence. He was to sacrifice himself and his garrison to buy the capital a few precious days. He looked at the faces of his officers gathered in the tower. They all shared the same understanding.

  He stepped out onto the tower's balcony, and his magically amplified voice carried over the pre-dawn city, where his warriors were already assembled in the central square.

  "Warriors of Gim."

  His magically-amplified voice carried across the square, and then he stopped. He looked at them — three and a half thousand faces in the pre-dawn dark, most of them younger than he wanted to think about — and he understood that there was nothing he could say that would make this acceptable.

  So he didn't try.

  "The capital has ordered us to hold. There will be no reinforcements before the battle. You already know this." He paused. "Your families are on the eastern road. The evacuation started an hour ago. Each hour we hold is another hour of distance between them and what is coming."

  He said nothing else.

  It was not a speech that would be remembered. It was not meant to be. What happened in the square over the next few minutes was quieter and more terrible than any battle cry — men returning to their posts in silence, with the particular steadiness of people who have stopped hoping for a different outcome and have decided what they will do with the one they have. The fear did not go anywhere. It simply became less important than the other thing.

  Moizi came down from the tower and walked to the eastern gate to watch the last of the civilian column disappear into the morning fog. He watched until he couldn't see them anymore. Then he turned around.

  They knew they were going to die. But now they knew what they were dying for.

  In the square, behind the soldiers, stood their families. Men silently bid farewell to their wives; women clutched their crying children. The old, with grim faces, passed their old, nicked swords to their sons and grandsons. It was the farewell of an entire city.

  Soon, the evacuation began. Thousands of refugees streamed eastward along the single road, carrying only their most precious belongings. And behind them, the city began to prepare for its death. On Moizi's orders, the inhabitants set fire to their own homes on the outskirts, creating a fiery barrier intended to slow the enemy. Black smoke billowed toward the gray sky. Gim was burning, though the enemy had not yet even reached its walls.

  The soldiers returned to their posts. Each of them was filled with a cold rage. They had been sentenced. But they were ready to take as many of the enemy with them to their graves as possible. The battle for Gim had not yet begun, but it was already lost. All that remained was to decide what its price would be.

  Calendar of the Displacement. Year 0001, April, Day 12. 6:25 AM.

  The fortress-city of Gim.

  Gim had become a ghost town. Through its deserted streets, which just two days ago had been teeming with life, now only a cold morning wind stirred, scattering the ashes from the houses still smoldering on the outskirts. The entire civilian population had been evacuated. Only the garrison remained. Three and a half thousand warriors, prepared to die.

  A sentry, a young man from the militia, stood on the western wall, peering into the pre-dawn fog. His hands, in leather gloves, gripped the shaft of his spear until his knuckles ached. Suddenly, through the gray haze, he caught a glimpse of movement. It was uneven, mechanical, completely unlike the march of infantry or the charge of cavalry.

  "What is that?!" he whispered, his heart beginning to pound.

  Strange, angular silhouettes slowly emerged from the fog. They were enormous green carriages, moving without horses, emitting a low, rumbling drone. On the lead vehicle, he could make out two flags fluttering in the wind—one was the familiar banner of Qua-Toyne, and the other… the other was that same white, blue, and red tricolor that had been the subject of whispers throughout the city.

  "ALLIES!" His voice broke into a shout, filled with disbelief and a sudden, overwhelming hope. "HELP HAS ARRIVED!"

  He bolted from his post, paying no mind to the path, and burst into the command center located in the city's town hall.

  "Captain! Captain Moizi!" he yelled as he ran into the hall.

  Moizi, who was in the middle of giving final orders to his officers, spun around.

  "What is it?! Have the Lourians begun their attack?!"

  "No, sir! From the southeast! Strange green carriages! And… and they're flying our flag!"

  Moizi froze for a moment. Reinforcements? So quickly? He had been told to expect them in days, if not weeks.

  "…Let's go and meet our… unexpected allies," he said, and for the first time in many days, his voice held not only steel, but also hope.

  A few minutes later, a column of armored vehicles approached the main gates of Gim. In the lead was an R-149BMR command and staff vehicle, followed by three BTR-82A armored personnel carriers, two BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles, and four "Tunguska" self-propelled anti-aircraft gun and missile systems, their twin 30mm cannons and radar arrays pointing menacingly at the sky. The warriors of the garrison, who had rushed to the walls, froze in reverent awe. To them, these steel monsters, covered in a strange, mottled pattern, seemed to be the very embodiment of a power that was unknown and almost supernatural.

  The hatch of the lead vehicle opened, and a man in a helmet and pixelated camouflage emerged. Slung over his shoulder was a short, black "staff," which the locals could not possibly identify as an AK-12 assault rifle.

  The man surveyed the gathered crowd, and his voice, amplified by a megaphone, boomed across the square:

  "Who is Captain Moizi?"

  Moizi, in his wolf-themed armor with a two-handed sword sheathed on his back, stepped forward. His ears flattened instinctively against his head, betraying his agitation.

  "I am Captain Moizi, of the western garrison."

  The Russian officer jumped down to the ground.

  "Major Spiridonov. Commander of the consolidated tactical group. We are here to provide you with support," his voice was loud and confident, and that confidence seemed to spread to everyone around him.

  A murmur went through the crowd, and then, as the reality of the situation sank in, the square erupted in joyous cheers. Soldiers and militiamen who, just an hour ago, had been preparing for death, were now hugging each other, laughing and crying. The space, which had been filled with fear and despair, was suddenly illuminated by the light of hope. They were no longer alone. And, just maybe, they now had a chance not just to die with honor, but to win.

  Calendar of the Displacement. Year 0001, April, Day 12. 6:45 AM.

  The fortress-city of Gim.

  The dawn sky, until then gray and lifeless, was suddenly set ablaze with a sinister crimson. But this was no sunrise. High in the sky, directly over the border, a magical signal flare exploded, leaving behind a slowly descending column of red smoke. A sign that the invasion had begun.

  Almost simultaneously, the manacomm crystal in Moizi's command post shrieked. It was not the steady voice of an operator, but the death rattle of a watchman from the border post:

  "An enormous swarm of Lourian wyverns! They're coming in waves! The infantry… there are thousands of them… they've crossed the border! We're trying to hold them, but… Aghh…" The connection broke, leaving nothing on the air but a crackle of static, like the hiss of a dying snake.

  Major Spiridonov, standing on the fortress wall next to Captain Moizi, did not even flinch. He calmly pulled a slightly bent cigarette from his breast pocket and lit it with a lighter. He offered one to Moizi. The captain looked doubtfully at the smoking paper tube, but seeing the major's calm expression, he awkwardly took it and, copying the motion, took a drag. The bitter, acrid smoke burned his lungs, bringing on a fit of coughing.

  "It's begun," Spiridonov said calmly, releasing a stream of smoke. He looked at Moizi, who was still trying to recover from the unfamiliar taste. "You know, Captain, on our way here, we came across a column of refugees. Your wife and daughter were among them. They're very worried about you. We escorted them to a safe zone. They're alright."

  Moizi froze, his eyes widening. He looked at the major with gratitude. That short sentence meant more to him than the promise of an entire regiment.

  "Now, listen up," Spiridonov's tone became hard and professional. "My job isn't to defend this city down to the last stone. My job is to inflict maximum damage on the enemy with minimal losses for us and for you, and then to ensure your withdrawal. The plan is simple. Your men will hold them at the walls. As soon as they're engaged in the fight, my vehicles will hit their advancing formations from the flanks. We'll 'soften them up,' make them believe there's a serious defense here, and then…" he paused, "…when they bring up their main forces and start deploying their siege engines, you and I are pulling out. We'll withdraw through a pre-planned corridor. And for those who enter the city after us, my engineers have already left a few 'surprises'."

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Moizi didn't fully understand all of Spiridonov's colloquialisms or what kind of "surprises" he was talking about, but he grasped the overall meaning. The Russians had no intention of dying here. They were going to strike a blow and withdraw, saving the lives of his soldiers.

  "I… I understand, Major," his voice was hoarse, but for the first time in days, it held a note of firmness. "We will be ready."

  He dropped the cigarette butt onto the stone ramparts and crushed it with his boot. There was no longer despair in his eyes. There was only the cold fury of a warrior who had just been given a chance not merely to die, but to take as many of the enemy with him as possible. The war for Gim was beginning.

  The fortress-city of Gim. 7:15 AM.

  The first wave of the Lourian vanguard, consisting of light cavalry, cautiously entered the city through the ruined western gates. They were met by a ringing, unnatural silence. The city was dead. The charred skeletons of houses, abandoned carts, and not a single soul. This emptiness was far more nerve-wracking than any fierce resistance would have been.

  The commanders of the forward units, following their standing orders, began a systematic sweep. The soldiers, splitting into small groups, entered the houses, checking basements and attics. And then, all hell broke loose.

  The first explosion erupted in the building of a former tavern. It was not loud, but a muffled, contained boom, as if a giant bubble had burst. The squad that had entered simply ceased to exist. A few seconds later, thick white smoke poured from the windows and doors, and those standing outside began to collapse, choking and coughing up blood. It was a thermobaric mine.

  Then, explosions began to echo throughout the city. They were varied. In one place, a soldier opening a door was cut to pieces by the shrapnel from a MON-50 directional mine set up in a hallway. In another, an entire squad, bunched together in a square, was blown up by an OZM-72 "bounding" anti-personnel mine, which leaped from the ground and sprayed hundreds of steel ball bearings at chest height. And in the narrow alleys, tripwires connected to F-1 grenades awaited them, turning the enclosed spaces into deadly meat grinders.

  The Lourian soldiers, accustomed to honorable combat with swords and magic, were confronted with something beyond their comprehension. Death was invisible, impersonal, and inescapable. It lurked behind every door, under every stone. Panic, cold and clammy, began to spread through their ranks. They didn't know where to go or what to do. Any movement could be their last.

  General Pandour and Lord Adem watched the unfolding chaos from a hill where their command post was located. Pandour stared in fury as his vanguard, his elite assault troops, were being annihilated without even seeing the enemy.

  "What sorcery is this?! Some kind of cursed runes?!" he roared.

  But Adem, whose icy eyes never left the city, was silent. He saw no flares of mana. He saw something else—a system. A cold, calculated, merciless system of destruction. This was not magic. This was tactics. Tactics they had never been taught.

  "General, orders to all units! Evacuate the city immediately! Everyone fall back behind the perimeter! Now!" Adem suddenly shouted.

  Pandour looked at him in surprise. Retreat? When they had almost taken the city?

  "Are you out of your mind, Adem?! We cannot retreat!"

  "It's a trap, General!" For the first time in a long while, notes of an almost animalistic fear entered Adem's voice. "Don't you see? They lured us inside! These explosions are just the beginning! They want us to bunch up at the exits, to panic! They're waiting to deliver the main blow!"

  And at that moment, as if in confirmation of his words, cannon fire erupted from the eastern flank, from where no one had expected it. Dozens of 100mm shells from the BMP-3s and bursts of 30mm rounds from the BTR-82As rained down on the Lourian troops who were crowded near the city walls, awaiting orders. The slaughter began. Soldiers trying to escape the deadly labyrinth of the city were caught in the withering fire from the flank.

  Adem seized Pandour by his armored collar.

  "To the horses! We have to get at least the reserves out of here! Immediately!"

  Pandour, finally realizing the full horror of their situation, complied. He respected Adem not for his cruelty, but for his animal instinct for danger. And right now, that instinct was screaming at him to run. They leaped onto their horses and, shouting desperate orders to retreat, galloped away from Gim, abandoning their vanguard to be torn to pieces by an unseen and merciless enemy.

  Gim was left behind, shrouded in smoke and the screams of the dying. Its silence and its deadly traps had taught the Lourians their first, bloody lesson: war in this new world was fought by entirely different rules. And cunning, multiplied by technology, had proven to be more terrifying than any magic.

  Calendar of the Displacement. Year 0001, April, Day 12. 8:15 AM.

  The outskirts of the city of Gim.

  Heavy, leaden clouds hung over the battlefield, which was shrouded in smoke and screams, reflecting the horror unfolding on the ground below. The Lourian soldiers, having escaped the fiery trap of Gim, were retreating in a panic when a low, growing drone sounded above their heads. It was not the roar of a wyvern, nor the whistle of the wind. It was a sound they had never heard before—the sound of the approaching end of the world.

  They raised their heads and, in the gaps between the clouds, they saw them. Twelve dark, predatory silhouettes, flying in perfect formation. At first, they mistook them for a new, unseen species of dragon, but then they made out the sharp, razor-like wings and the twin tails of fire erupting from each one. They were Su-34 frontline bombers, piloted by the best naval aviators of the Black Sea Fleet. They flew at an altitude unreachable by any magic or arrows, remaining nothing more than ominous shadows to the men below.

  The warriors of Louria, accustomed to considering the sky their domain, the fiefdom of their wyverns, froze in a state of primal terror. The speed of these iron monsters was blasphemous. They moved so fast that it seemed as if time itself was warping around them.

  At an altitude of five thousand meters, in the cockpit of the lead Su-34, the pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Gromov, looked at the thermal imaging display. Below, on the ground, the panicking army looked like a cluster of bright, scattering dots.

  "Target is in the engagement zone," his voice over the helmet radio was calm and businesslike. "Deploying OFAB-250-270s. We are engaging the advancing formations. Rear elements will cut off the routes of withdrawal. Execute."

  The aircraft broke formation, approaching their targets from different directions. Dark, cigar-shaped objects detached silently from the underwing pylons. They did not simply fall. Equipped with basic correction kits, they smoothly adjusted their trajectories, homing in on the largest concentrations of the enemy. To the Lourians below, it looked as if predatory iron hawks were diving upon them from the heavens.

  The first bombs struck the center of the retreating column. The earth heaved. A fireball, hundreds of times more powerful than any magical firebolt, engulfed an entire detachment of heavy infantry, instantly vaporizing men and horses. The shockwave, visible even from a distance, swept away everything in a radius of dozens of meters, and a deadly rain of red-hot shrapnel blanketed those who were further out.

  A methodical, merciless hell had begun. The ranks of the Lourian soldiers dissolved into chaos. Burning figures, like living torches, ran across the field until they dropped dead. Deafening explosions tore screams of agony from their throats. The bombing was not indiscriminate. It was surgically precise. Strikes were directed at command posts, at cavalry formations, and at squads of mages who were attempting to conjure protective shields, which were useless against hundreds of kilograms of high explosives.

  General Pandour, galloping at the head of the retreating reserves, watched in horror as his army, his pride, was being turned into a bloody pulp. He saw one of the bombs hit a detachment of siege engines, and the giant wooden catapults were blown to splinters like children's toys. This was not a battle. This was an execution. Carried out by faceless, unreachable gods with iron wings.

  In the cockpit of the lead Su-34, call sign 'Rook-1.'

  Lieutenant Colonel Gromov had been flying combat missions for nineteen years. He had flown in Syria. He had watched, on thermal display, the signatures of human bodies in the moment they ceased to be human bodies, and he had learned — out of professional necessity — to process that as information rather than as an event. Most of the time, this worked.

  Today was not the cleanest application of that training.

  Below him, the thermal display showed a mass of bright signatures — men and horses and something he had never seen on a display before, the irregular heat signature of the wyverns, hotter than horses, moving in panicked spirals between the concentrated ground formations. His objective was decapitation and demoralization, not annihilation. He repeated this to himself because it was true, and because it was useful to remember true things at moments like this.

  The initial strike with the OFABs had broken their formation, and now it was time for surgical work.

  "Rook-2, this is Rook-1," his voice over the helmet radio was perfectly calm. "We are beginning engagement of priority targets. I have a concentration of mages, grid seven-three-delta. Deploying 'Cassette.'"

  "Rook-2 copies," his wingman responded.

  Two Su-34s smoothly altered their course. What detached from their underwing pylons were RBK-500 cluster munitions. Gromov had queried the weapons loadout the night before — specifically the cassettes — and had been told, briefly, that the target profile justified them and that the authorization had come from above his level. He had not asked again. He was a pilot, not a prosecutor.

  Opening at a predetermined altitude, the dispensers released hundreds of submunitions across the area where the Lourian mages were desperately trying to conjure a protective dome. The dome, whatever it was made of, did not stop shrapnel at high velocity. The result was predictable, and Gromov moved his eyes to the next target grid.

  Dozens of small explosions turned the elite of the magus corps into a bloody sieve.

  "Rook-3, Rook-4, your target is the cavalry on the southern flank. Do not let them escape into the hills," Gromov continued to command.

  The bombers operated like a well-oiled machine. They weren't just dropping bombs. They were methodically taking out command posts, destroying the siege engines that the Lourians were frantically trying to deploy, and cutting off all routes of retreat. To the Lourians on the ground, it was incomprehensible. The enemy wasn't just striking from a distance. They seemed to know their every move, their every thought. They didn't realize that they were being watched not only by the aircrafts' optics, but also by an Orlan-10 drone, hovering at an altitude of ten kilometers and transmitting the tactical situation in real-time.

  At that moment, a message came in over the secure communications channel from Major Spiridonov on the ground.

  "Falcon, this is Golden Eagle-1. We are withdrawing. Corridor is clear." A brief pause. Static. "We have a two-hundredth. Sergeant Kuznetsov. Wyvern breached our perimeter during the mine engagement — got in close before the Tunguska could track it. Thermal lance at point-blank range.

  In the cockpit, Gromov was silent for a moment.

  "Copy, Golden Eagle-1. Kuznetsov noted. Godspeed."

  He switched channels without further comment. There was nothing useful to add. The mission had been completed at a cost his superiors had considered acceptable in the planning stage, and he had no authority to disagree with that calculation from five thousand meters.

  "All Rooks. Allied forces have cleared the zone. Target is the city of Gim. Deploying 'Vacuum.' Total suppression."

  Gromov nodded, though no one could see him.

  "Copy that, Golden Eagle-1. Godspeed." He switched channels.

  "All Rooks. Stand by."

  He switched to the encrypted command channel.

  "Moscow-Relay, this is Rook-1. Requesting final authorization, 'Vacuum' application, Gim urban area. Ground forces confirm full clearance. Civilian evacuation confirmed by QT command and our own drone feed. Awaiting go."

  Three seconds.

  "Rook-1, this is Moscow-Relay. Authorization confirmed. You are clear for 'Vacuum.' Record the feed. Full documentation for the after-action file."

  Gromov noted that they wanted documentation. That meant someone at a desk, far from here, was already thinking about what this would look like when a report was filed. He understood the instinct, even if he found it difficult to think about reports at this particular moment.

  "All Rooks. Authorization received. Target is the city of Gim. Deploying 'Vacuum.' Full suppression. Execute."

  Now that no one remained in the city but the enemy, it was time for the main "surprise." Four Su-34s, approaching from a new direction, released their Fuel-Air Explosive (FAE) bombs, the ODAB-500PMV. These bombs, nicknamed "vacuum bombs" by the soldiers, did not just explode. First, they dispersed a cloud of flammable aerosol into the air, and then ignited it.

  General Pandour, watching in horror from what he thought was a safe distance, saw a blinding white sun flash over Gim. In the next instant, a fireball expanded, engulfing the entire central part of the city. A shockwave, visible even to the naked eye, ripped across the ground, leveling the remaining buildings and turning everything living to dust. Even from several kilometers away, he could feel the heat on his face.

  The vanguard of the Eastern Subjugation Army of the Louria Kingdom, which had numbered thirty thousand soldiers, had ceased to exist. This had not been a battle. It had been a one-sided, impersonal, and brutally efficient execution, carried out with surgical precision. The Lourian soldiers had not just died. They had been erased from the face of the earth, without ever understanding what power had descended upon them from the heavens. And this lesson in terror was only the first in a long line of discoveries they were fated to make in this war.

  Command post of the rear guard of the Eastern Subjugation Army of the Louria Kingdom.

  Chaos reigned in the command tent, located ten kilometers from Gim. Messengers on foam-flecked horses brought back fragmented, panicked reports. The map, which that very morning had been dotted with the confident icons of advancing legions, now looked like evidence of a massacre. Generals and staff officers rushed about the tent, their faces pale with horror and disbelief. They had not been defeated. They had been annihilated.

  "Thirty thousand…" one of the strategists whispered, staring at the emptying map. "An entire vanguard… destroyed in an hour…"

  "It wasn't a battle! It was an execution!" another shouted, his voice verging on hysteria. "Fireballs from the sky! The earth exploding beneath our feet! How… how are we supposed to fight that?!"

  At that moment, General Pandour staggered into the tent. His armor was covered in dust and ash, and the horror of an eyewitness was frozen in his eyes. He collapsed onto a chair, unable to stand.

  "I saw it…" he rasped. "They… they burned the city. All of it. With a single strike."

  A dead silence fell over the tent.

  It was at this moment that Lord Adhem spoke.

  He was sitting in a corner of the tent on an upended crate, his helmet off and his eyes staring sightlessly into space. There was blood on his right gauntlet—not his own—but he was oblivious to it. For thirty seconds after Pandur's report, he did not utter a word, and the officers standing nearby began to suspect that he, like the others, had fallen into a stupor.

  Then he stood up.

  "Stop this panic."

  His voice was low. There was no need for it. There was something in his even tone—the sound with which a man, having already overcome his fear, steps out onto the other side, into something colder—that cut through the noise in the tent.

  He walked over to the map.

  "What we witnessed was not magic. It was a weapon. A long-range weapon. They struck from a distance at which we are defenseless."

  "But how can we possibly counter it?!" an officer demanded.

  "We can't," Adem replied simply. "Not in open country. They made us believe that Gim was our objective. But the real target was us. They lured us into a kill box."

  One of the mages attached to the command staff dared to object.

  "But such a weapon… it must require a colossal amount of mana! They cannot use it indefinitely! It must take days, if not weeks, to recharge!"

  Adem slowly turned to him.

  "And what if they don't use mana? What if their power… is inexhaustible?" His words hung in the air, filled with a sinister meaning.

  He looked at the map again.

  "They have destroyed our vanguard. Now they expect us to retreat in a panic. But we will do the opposite." He jabbed a finger decisively at the ruins of Gim. "We will go back. We will occupy what is left of the city. We will begin to build fortifications. We will dig trenches and shelters. We will make them believe that we are preparing to make a stand here."

  "But why?!" Pandour was baffled. "They will just destroy us again!"

  "Precisely," a grim smile appeared on Adem's lips. "Let them think we are predictable idiots, ready to walk into the same trap again.

  "And while they are watching the ruins of Gim, our main forces will outflank them in a wide arc through the hills to the south. The terrain will provide concealment from those flying things. They cannot see through rock."

  He said this with conviction, because it was true as far as he knew. What he did not know — what no one in the tent knew, because no one in their world had yet conceived of an unmanned flying machine the size of a large bird, capable of hovering at altitude for eighteen hours — was that the Orlan-10 drone that had been observing the battlefield since before dawn was still in the air. And that everything he had just said was being relayed, with a twelve-second delay, to a screen in the command post at Sloboda.

  He had made a correct tactical decision with the information available to him. It was simply that the other side had more information.

  We will not strike their forward units. We will strike their base. The very same 'Sloboda' that our intelligence reported."

  A stunned silence filled the tent. It was a desperate, almost suicidal plan. But it was a plan. And in a world that had just collapsed, any plan was better than panic and flight. Adem had no intention of winning this battle. He intended to make the enemy pay for it in blood.

  Calendar of the Displacement. Year 0001, April, Day 12. 9:40 AM. Six kilometers east of Gim.

  The column had stopped on a low ridge. Behind them, where the city had been, a column of black smoke rose straight into the still morning air. There was no wind. The smoke climbed without deviation, as if it had somewhere specific to be.

  Major Spiridonov sat on the hull of the lead BTR and watched it.

  Beside him, Captain Moizi had been watching it for several minutes without speaking. The lynx-eared beastman had not said anything since they cleared the withdrawal corridor. His garrison — two thousand nine hundred and forty-one men, down from three thousand five hundred and fifty-four — was arranged in a loose perimeter on the road behind them. The others had been accounted for. Some had fallen during the fighting inside the city. Others had not made the corridor in time.

  Spiridonov understood that two thousand nine hundred and forty-one men walking away from a battle against thirty thousand was, by any reasonable military calculation, an extraordinary outcome.

  He was aware of this. He was also aware that he had a dead sergeant, and that somewhere in the administrative system, a notification was already being processed and a family was going to receive a visit they were not expecting. Kuznetsov had been twenty-four years old. He had shown Spiridonov a photograph, once, of a dog he was apparently very worried about leaving behind.

  The smoke continued to rise.

  "Your city," Spiridonov said finally. Not a question. Not an apology. Just an acknowledgment.

  Moizi was quiet for a moment.

  "It was already burning when we left," the captain said. "We lit the outer districts ourselves." He paused. "So that they would slow down."

  "I know."

  Another silence.

  "The people," Moizi said. "They will need somewhere to go."

  "We'll sort that out," Spiridonov said. He meant it. He also knew it would be someone else's department — the civilian reconstruction people, the embassy, the people who handled that kind of thing. His department was the column of smoke, and the two thousand nine hundred and forty-one men on the road, and the dead sergeant, and what came next.

  He slid off the hull of the BTR.

  "Let's move. They'll be reorganizing."