No Man's Land fell. War continued.

The following account is taken from historical records.

Episode Nineteen – Rising Pressures

At Rene Ponit, the mage closed his eyes and opened his mind to the world. The battle began.

News of Commander Reglan's disappearance had hit General Manus iw Elbirt hard. Marquis Vitix ar Gerrind could see it in his eyes as he rode. The savour was gone when the Marquis served breakfast, and there was only a semblance of habit, rather than appreciation and praise, when rice pudding was served to him, hot with chocolate sprinkles.

Only a few within the General's army had been permitted to hear of it. All they knew was that No-Man's-Land had been taken and purged, so morale was high. And as far as they were concerned, Commander Reglan was still fighting bravely to the north.

In the south, the Army of the Kingdom had met little resistance, mostly handfuls of Paladins or scouts. Many Paladins charged; some fled. All the scouts fled. Almost all died. Manus insisted one escape, to spread fear among his fellows... 'the Kingdom is coming in their hundreds and thousands, and nothing can stop them'.

Whether or not it worked, none could say. General Manus was employing a brute force approach to scouting; instead of sending one or two men, he would send a whole Quarter or Company. While all students of warfare in the Kingdom knew there were subtleties to battle strategy, Vitix would have to agree this method had merit: instead of risking one or two men to be killed silently by Aisorbmian scouts, leaving the Kingdom army blind, he risked twenty-five or a hundred, making sure that whatever was learned by one stayed learned by the others.

A week of fighting against low resistance initially led Vitix and campfire-mates of his to conclude the Aisorbmii had finally fallen from whatever dark pacts had kept their nation so powerful. Yet Manus would insist they were building up their forces. Vitix respected this judgement, even though he didn't believe it.

On the day an entire Company was massacred, he believed it.

The armies met at the south of the great forest. General Manus iw Elbirt stationed himself on a hill to oversee the battle, accompanied only by his own Quarter. The rest of his Company would be at the forefront of the battle, a dozen other companies of cavalry and infantry beside them.

On a hill to the east, he could see his counterpart, the Prime Minister. He too was accompanied by a bodyguard. Around him several hundred Paladins anmd Marshals were ready. They were outnumbered, Vitix thought.

Manus signalled to his bugler to sound the charge, but the bugler did not. He stood dumbfounded, as did they all, when the words came over the horizon.

'Theeay jovdacoo star dwill star t' now!'

Somebody asked Vitix what the words meant, then another voice, but when he looked around all the men around him were doing the same, none of them knowing who had said the words. The chatter increased, and Vitix was able to pick out words such as 'What's going on?' and 'Who said that?' and many other variations of these. They overlapped, some of them shouting, all of them sounding like a nearby voice. Someone said, 'Aisorbmii magic.' It began to quieten as they realised the magic used against them.

But silently the Aisorbmii had charged. The bugler remembered his orders and blew the bugle, which promptly thundered through Vitix's head, and apparently many men around him: he clamped his hands over his ears to no effect.

Then the ground moved-

Ranger Bitokatiwopa and his unit struck silently and true upon the hill-top. All had been hiding, grass-backed cloaks covering their locations, until the spell was cast by the mages; then they put on the charms which would reduce all noise to background volume, and then they struck.

Somewhere in the distance, to the east, three mages walked forward around the edges of the battlefield, trying to reduce the impact of their spell within the Aisorbmian army.

Archers on both sides fired arrows into the horde. Other forces, readying themselves for combat – Bitokatiwopa could hear the picnics being disturbed in the west – were scrambling to find the source of the spell. Somewhere in the west other Rangers were waiting for their own turns to strike.

The General's bodyguard fell, man by man, at a point in full view of the Kingdom army. Bitokatiwopa slew the bugler and caught his bugle, blowing into it as hard as he could. The more the Kingdom army could be disrupted, the greater the advantage of the Aisorbmii, and the greater the glory bestowed by Prime Minister Terovaniceti.

He underestimated High General Manus iw Elbirt's ability to fight, however.

Prime Minister Terovaniceti observed the Kingdom general fighting on the other hilltop. Blessed with keener senses by one of the mages, the seventy-year-old general watched the Rangers rise up, watched them fight and kill, watched them die. Only the general remained.

Hundreds of warriors charged into battle. The unskilled, the unlucky... they began to die in their dozens. Many young Aisorbmii men and women, fired by rousing speeches and believing in their own immortality, were surprised to find their lives suddenly torn and then oozing away by blades, by arrows, by fists and rocks. Many young men and women of Kingdom, empowered by righteousness and determined to settle the grudges of a score of generations, were forced to watch – some for instants, others for agonising hours – as their opportunities to right the ancient wrongs was taken from them.

Following in the footsteps, eager for the fray, hundreds more young Aisorbmii men and women and hundreds more young Kingdom men and women charged into the fray.

The mage opened his eyes. The Reaper, Kadocasitari, was squatting before him wearing a concerned expression on his face.

'How long have I been gone?' asked Ardosilitidu.

'Two days. Did you find out what it meant?' Kadocasitari asked.

'No. The individual words still make no sense. I consulted spirits from ages past, both those who studied the prophecies and those who made them, and I have no answers. Worse, it has cost me all my remaining days just to return for a little while and tell you of my failure.'

'You have not failed, friend. You have given your life for the cause, as we all must. You explored the ether, when none of us could. Now we can focus elsewhere to find the answers.'

''Theeay jovdacoo star d'will star t' now.'' I had hoped to find an answer.'

'Rest, my friend.'

'You will go to the City of Elders, as summoned?'

'Yes.'

'Leave Cafi and Fer here. Cafi must take care of Hopa for me.'

'They will stay anyway. A war is no place for them. And Hopa...'

'Raise her, Kadocas. I do not mind if she believes you are her father, or if she knows she is adopted. All I must ask is that she be loved.' He paused. Whatever time he had left, at least it appeared he had enough time to take care of his affairs. 'I hope Cafi can cope with two babies, instead of one?'

'She's stronger than she looks. I think she'll exceed your expectations, my friend.'

'More than any of us know,' he agreed. 'For the cause, Kadocas. For the cause.'

'For the cause', replied the Reaper. He left, in preparations to depart. He had many things to do before arriving at the City of Elders.

Sat on the aged stones of Rene Ponit, the mage collapsed, exhausted, onto his side and went to sleep.

His passing was by far one of the most peaceful of the age.

There is a need within us to belong to something larger than ourselves. Sometimes that something larger is good for us, and sometimes it steers us right, and sometimes it does not.

For most of us it manifests as family. And for many, the mistakes made in our youths drive us to teach our children not to make those mistakes. We are not always successful, and so the human race remains fallible and imperfect.

One mistake, made by the ancestors of both the peoples of the Kingdom and the Aisorbmii, is to allow hate to thrive. And so they fought for generations.

The Reapers sought to learn from the past. They learned to ask questions about their histories, and understand them. Their intent was always to find a way forward: to find answers to present problems, and find methods to prevent future disasters.

Watch Kadocasitari closely. Think of him as a... researcher, if you will.

Through him, and his research, we may yet find the answers we seek.

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