The border town of Gim. Now — Forward Operating Base "Sloboda."

  Where ruins had smoldered just a few weeks ago, an impregnable fortress now stood, seemingly having sprung up overnight. Engineering and construction battalions, working in three shifts, had performed a miracle. In place of destroyed houses, rapidly deployable modular barracks had been erected, capable of housing several thousand personnel. Next to them, on information boards, hung posters with military ranks, guard duty regulations, and safety measures. Above the entrance to the command bunker, a huge banner was stretched, bearing a quote from Suvorov: "Hard in training—easy in battle."

  Inside the bunker, amidst the hum of ventilation and servers, Major General Alexei Voronov was reviewing the final calculations for the start of Phase 2 of Operation "Union Shield." The first phase—the destruction of Louria's forward forces and the occupation of the border line—was considered complete: reconnaissance had confirmed the withdrawal of the enemy's main troop concentrations. On the tactical screen, real-time data from Orlan-10 drones and intelligence reports blinked: targeting times, aviation approach corridors, artillery support zones. Everything was calculated down to the minute—and the general staff and brigade commanders were being brought up to speed on this calculation.

  The plan was multi-staged. The first stage involved establishing air superiority: high-altitude MiG-31BM interceptors took control of the long-range detection and interception zone, working in conjunction with AWACS radar. Then came a series of precision strikes by frontline aviation: Su-34s struck fixed energy nodes and air defense positions with surface-to-target munitions, using modified warheads to destroy runic or crystal nodes. After confirmation of a breach in the defensive barrier, attack aircraft and gunship helicopters would finish off the wyvern stables and their prepared deployment sites. Only then—under the cover of aviation and air defense—would the ground units move in to secure the results.

  Sergeant Major Sergei Petrov, a man in his forties whose face resembled sun-cracked earth, quietly cursed as he wiped an oiled cloth over the receiver of his old but perfectly cleaned AK-74M.

  "Look at this bullshit," he grumbled to a young contract soldier, Private Oleg Kravchenko, who was doing the same next to him. "You see this, Kravchenko? The conscripts, the 'greenhorns,' they get brand-new AK-12s with Picatinny rails and red dot sights. And us, the battle-hardened wolves—we get the 'paddles.' Classic."

  Kravchenko, a guy in his mid-twenties who had already been on a couple of "business trips," gave a crooked smirk.

  "So what? The conscripts are only here for six months, for reinforcement. They'll look at some dragons, shoot at some plywood targets, and then go home to mommy to show off their demob albums. But you and me, Petrovich, if it comes to it, we're the ones going into battle with these 'paddles'."

  "Alexander Vasilyevich was right, oh, he was right," the sergeant major sighed, lovingly stroking the stock of his rifle.

  "About what, Comrade Sergeant Major?" Kravchenko asked.

  "'A quartermaster can be hanged without trial after five years of service.' And our warrant officer, the bastard, is living proof of that," Petrov quoted Suvorov. "Although, you know, you should be glad we got even this. I heard some geniuses in headquarters were seriously proposing to arm the second-echelon units with SKS carbines from long-term storage. 'Against an enemy with swords, that'll be enough,' they said. 'We've got plenty of 7.62 rounds, and we should save the Kalashnikovs.'"

  Kravchenko froze for a moment, then laughed.

  "Seriously? The SKS? Did they want to give us Mosin-Nagants too? Fix bayonets and charge?"

  "That's what I'm talking about," Petrov nodded, his face turning serious again. "They sit in their warm offices, look at pictures from drones, and think this is a video game. But here, on the ground, it's different. Yeah, they have swords and spears. But they are warriors. They're fighting for their land, for their gods. And their magic… it's no joke. So I'd rather have a trusty old 'Kalash' in my hands than some fancy new toy that'll jam from a bit of dust."

  He finished cleaning, racked the bolt to check the mechanism, and slung the rifle over his shoulder.

  "Alright, enough chatter. Let's go check the posts. War, Kravchenko, it always starts suddenly."

  "A few hours after the airstrikes began, the first alarming reports came in from the frontline zone via secure channels: the magic shields were failing, and multiple breaches were being recorded in various sectors. Louria's communication lines were going down one after another.

  The messages came in intermittently: 'Losses in the barracks,' 'shield breached,' 'panic in the port.' In the capital, these lines were listened to with growing disbelief."

  Kingdom of Louria. Castle Haark. Emergency meeting of the Royal War Council.

  The huge throne room, which had recently witnessed drunken toasts to future victory, was now filled with a heavy, oppressive atmosphere. The tapestries depicting the triumphant victories of King Haark's ancestors seemed like a bitter mockery. On the polished table, where goblets of wine had once stood, maps and dispatches scribbled in a hurried, panicked hand were now scattered.

  Prime Minister Maus, his face ashen with fury and helplessness, nervously tapped his knuckles on the armrest of his chair. The army commander, General Patagene, sat with his head in his hands, his usual bravado evaporated, leaving only the shadow of a broken man. And the court archmage, Yamirei, whose face was always a calm mask of wisdom, looked like a man who had peered into the abyss. The rout at Gim was not just a military defeat. It was the collapse of their entire worldview.

  "This is a catastrophe!" Prime Minister Maus's voice cut through the oppressive silence. "We didn't just fail to hold Gim, we lost the entire Eastern Army there! Forty thousand of our best soldiers! How will we report this to His Majesty?!"

  "I… I don't know…" Patagene rasped, not raising his head. "He'll remember my words… about how we'd be ruling Rodenius in a month… that only peasants live there…"

  Maus snorted in irritation. He knew the King's wrath would fall on all of them. He turned to Archmage Yamirei, who was standing by the window, gazing into the night sky.

  "They fight like cowards! They hide behind their devilish wagons and rain fire on our soldiers from an unreachable distance! Lord Yamirei, you are the head of our magical order. You are obligated to understand the nature of their power better than us simple warriors. What was that? What kind of spell can wipe an entire city off the face of the earth?!"

  Yamirei, the old, withered archmage, slowly turned. His eyes, usually calm as forest lakes, burned with a feverish fire.

  "From… the reports of the survivors…" his voice was barely audible, as if each word caused him physical pain. "'Fire arrows that hunt their target'… 'The earth exploding from within'… 'The sky burning with white fire'… These are not individual spells. This is… a system. A system of destruction, based on principles we thought were only myths."

  He fell silent, his lips trembling.

  "'Guided light arrow'… 'Magic of total destruction'… In the ancient texts, there is only one mention of such a weapon. A weapon that…"

  His gaze went vacant. He almost whispered, and that whisper sounded like the toll of a funeral bell in the dead silence of the hall:

  "…that was used by the Ancient Magical Empire of Ravernal. They… they have returned."

  The archmage's whispered words, spoken in the tomb-like silence, struck like the toll of a funeral bell. The Ravernal Empire has returned. For several long moments, a stupor gripped the hall. The faces of the generals and advisors froze into masks of primal terror.

  "You… you're right, Lord Yamirei," Patagene finally forced out, his head sinking low. His voice was hollow. "Only that can explain… everything. Our losses… our defeats…"

  "But don't the legends say that on the day of Ravernal's return, the sky will darken?" Prime Minister Maus said slowly, as if weighing each word. "That didn't happen. On the contrary, our astronomers reported a strange glow in the north a few months ago. If this were the Ancient Empire, they wouldn't have bothered negotiating with the pathetic savages of Qua-Toyne. They would have simply incinerated this continent."

  Yamirei was quiet for a long moment.

  "You may be correct," he said finally. "The prophecies of return describe signs that have not manifested. And their behavior—treating with Qua-Toyne, requesting permission before striking—does not fit the historical accounts of Ravernal's methods." He paused. "But the weapons match no other description in any text I have access to. If they are not Ravernal, then what they are is something we have no category for. Which may be worse."

  He sat down. The question did not leave the room.

  "Babbling about myths and legends won't save our kingdom!" This voice, like the crack of a whip, made everyone flinch. General Smark, commander of the Western Military District, who had been sitting silently in the corner until now, leaped to his feet. His face was purple with rage. "We are suffering defeat after defeat not because of ancient empires, but because of your senile foolishness, Maus!"

  He slammed his gauntleted fist on the table with a crash.

  "Remember those Russian ambassadors?! Their calmness! Their confidence! Their steel wagons! Did you analyze any of it?! No! You, Maus, you threw them out the gates because they dared to make an alliance with 'dirty half-breeds'! You stepped on a bear's paw without even bothering to find out how big its claws were!"

  Smark breathed heavily, his burning gaze sweeping the hall. The others sat with their eyes lowered.

  "Our king prepared for this war for six years!" he continued, his voice thundering. "He went into debt with Parpaldia, he extorted his vassals, he squeezed every last drop out of this country! Six years! And all of it, you, gentlemen of the council, have flushed down the sewer in one week of your criminal incompetence!"

  He looked around the table one more time. No one met his eyes. He turned and walked out. He did not slam the door. He closed it behind him with precise, controlled force, which was somehow worse.

  Silence once again filled the hall.

  "Perhaps… we should throw him in the dungeon until he cools off?" Patagene suggested warily.

  "No," Maus answered curtly. He rose slowly, his eyes glinting coldly. "There is some truth in his words. We underestimated them. But something else is more important now. The Russians could launch a full-scale invasion at any moment. General Patagene, double the patrols on all borders. All remaining forces to full combat readiness. As for me… I will go to the king. I have the most difficult conversation of my life ahead of me."

  "As you command, Lord Prime Minister," the generals replied in unison, bowing their heads respectfully.

  Maus walked slowly towards the exit. His footsteps echoed in the empty hall. He was going to report to his king not of a great victory, but of the beginning of the end of their kingdom.

  Qua-Toyne Principality. Naval Command, Port Maihark. Admiral Nouka's Office.

  The report had arrived by manacomm relay at the second hour past midnight. Nouka had read it standing at his desk, because he had not yet sat down when the operator brought it in.

  He read it a second time sitting.

  The Russian operational group had initiated Phase Two without requesting Qua-Toyne countersignature. This was consistent with the treaty language—Phase Two had been pre-authorized at the joint command meeting eleven days ago, and the authorization did not expire. The Russians had acted within the agreed framework.

  He knew this. He had reviewed the treaty language himself.

  He was still sitting at his desk with the report in his hand forty minutes later when his duty officer knocked.

  "Admiral. The air action over the Northern Port is confirmed complete. The Lourian naval air arm appears to have been eliminated in full."

  "Appears to have been."

  "Our observers confirm no wyvern activity in the sector. The port is burning."

  Nouka set down the report.

  "Send to Prime Minister Kanata: the Northern Port has fallen. Recommend he authorize the humanitarian coordination team to begin preparing for deployment. The Russian advance will reach populated centers within days." He paused. "Also note—for the record—that Phase Two was initiated without prior notification to Qua-Toyne command. This is treaty-compliant. I am noting it for the record."

  "Yes, Admiral."

  The duty officer left.

  Nouka looked at the map on his wall. The Lourian kingdom, six months ago, had seemed like an insurmountable strategic problem. It was now, by all available indicators, a matter of days.

  He tried to identify what he was feeling and settled on: *unresolved*. The problem that had threatened to destroy his country was being solved. He should have felt relief. He would examine why he didn't when there was time.

  There wasn't time now.

  Kingdom of Louria. Northern Port.

  In the central square, next to the town hall, a scaffold had been hastily erected. On it, in tattered, filthy rags, stood a man. His body was covered in scars and unhealed wounds—the marks of days of torture in the dungeons of the Lourian secret police. But his spirit was not broken. In his eyes burned the flame of an unquenchable, all-consuming hatred. He looked at the crowd gathered for his execution and saw in their eyes not sympathy, but a dull, animalistic curiosity.

  This was Arn, the leader of the demi-human underground resistance, captured several weeks ago. For Louria, his execution was to be a symbol of their unshakable power. For him—a final chance to defy his tormentors.

  "You have angered the gods!" his voice, amplified by pain and fury, swept over the square, making the crowd flinch. "You will receive retribution for your vile deeds! For the blood of my brothers! For the tears of our children! Pray to your false gods, for they will not save you!"

  At that moment, above the horizon, slicing through the low, leaden clouds, they appeared. Twelve dark, predatory silhouettes, flying in a perfect formation. They were Su-34 frontline bombers. Their powerful engines roared, and this sound, unlike anything these people had ever heard, grew into a thunderous roll that made the windows in the buildings tremble.

  The people on the square instinctively raised their heads. Their faces went pale. Panic, until now dormant, began to stir. They didn't know what it was, but they felt it—these were the heralds of death.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Arn had stopped speaking. He was looking at the sky.

  He had spent forty-one days in the dungeons of the Lourian secret police. He had learned, in that time, to distinguish between things that were real and things his mind was constructing to survive. The objects in the sky were real. He could feel the sound of them in his chest before he could hear it clearly. The frequency was wrong for any animal he had ever encountered. Wrong for anything in this world.

  He had heard rumors in the cells—whispered between prisoners in the brief windows when the guards were not listening. Steel ships. Fire from unreachable distance. An army from the north, in wagons that moved without horses.

  The executioner looked up. The crowd began to move in the specific way crowds move when they cannot yet decide between standing still and running.

  "HAHAHA! THERE IT IS! RETRIBUTION! DIE IN THE FIRES OF HELL, YOU FILTH!" he roared, his voice rising above the drone of the planes.

  The executioner looked at him once, then at the sky again, then dropped his axe and ran. But it was too late.

  Guided munitions—modified Kh-59s, designed for precision strikes on stationary energy nodes—flew from the aircraft. The strike was carried out on coordinates obtained from electronic warfare and the crews of the Orlan drones. The missiles were aimed not at people, but at the only powerful source of magic that the Russian EW systems had detected—the giant mana crystals that powered the port's defensive barrier.

  A few seconds later, the missiles struck the towers, the impact shattering the crystal collectors and their conduits: the energy dome of the port's defense collapsed, disintegrating in a series of bright flashes and dazzling discharges. The port's defense lost its main source of power and control.

  And then, following them, the main strike fell upon the defenseless city. Arn stood on the scaffold, and in his eyes, reflecting the fiery apocalypse, was not pain or fear, but pure, unadulterated happiness. He had waited. His vengeance was at hand.

  In the headquarters of the Lourian Navy, all hell had broken loose. The signal crystals had gone dark, the mana link with the outside world severed.

  "What is happening?! Why has the shield fallen?!" the fleet commander, Admiral Hoyle, shouted. There was no panic in his voice, only icy fury. "Contact air command! Scramble all wyverns! Immediately!"

  An aide, pale as death, rushed out of the room. But it was too late. The next wave of strikes hit the barracks and stables of the dragon riders precisely. Concrete-piercing BETAB-500 bombs tore through the roofs of the buildings and exploded inside, turning the elite of Louria's air force into a bloody mess along with their dragons.

  "Faster! Get airborne! To the wyverns!" a surviving squadron commander shouted, trying to rally the survivors. But Su-25 attack jets were already diving on them from the sky, showering the runways with a rain of unguided rockets and fire from their 30mm cannons.

  Hoyle stood at the window of his office and watched as his fleet, his pride, was reduced to a flaming ruin. He didn't know who was attacking them. But he understood one thing: this was not just an attack. This was a methodical, professional, and merciless annihilation. And he, the admiral of a great fleet, was utterly powerless.

  Coast of Rodenius. Combat Information Center (CIC) of the frigate Admiral Essen.

  In the dim light of the CIC, flooded with the cold glow of dozens of monitors, a tense silence reigned. The ship's commander, Captain 1st Rank Nikitin, stood at the central tactical plot. On it, overlaid on a map of the coastline, real-time data was being displayed from an A-50U AWACS aircraft circling at an altitude of thirty thousand feet.

  "Yastreb, this is Sokol-1," the calm voice of the air group commander came through the speakers. "Suppression of enemy air defenses in the 'Port' sector is complete. Observing takeoff of surviving air targets from alternate positions. Approximately fifty in number. They are moving to intercept our attack aircraft."

  "Sokol-1, I copy," Nikitin replied. He looked at the screen, where fifty red icons were slowly crawling across the map. "You'll provide long-range cover. I'll handle close-in interception."

  He turned to the air defense officer.

  "Comrade Captain-Lieutenant, do you have the targets?"

  "Yes, Comrade Commander," the young officer replied, his eyes glued to his monitor. "The Shtil-1 complex is tracking fifty low-speed subsonic targets. Their movement parameters are erratic. Classified as 'wyverns'."

  "They don't know what's coming for them yet," Nikitin muttered quietly. He knew that right now, the Lourian riders, blinded by rage and desperation, were flying straight into the kill zone of his anti-aircraft missiles. "As soon as they enter the guaranteed engagement envelope, engage all targets. One missile per target. Fire at will."

  "Fire at will, aye!"

  Nikitin watched as the red icons on the tactical plot crossed an invisible line—a range of thirty miles. The next moment, from the frigate's deck, hidden from the crew's view, dozens of "fiery spears" erupted with a roar and flame.

  This was not a battle. This was mathematics. The outcome had been decided the moment the Lourian riders decided they could challenge steel and fire with leather, bone, and magic.

  Forward Operating Base "Sloboda," Kingdom of Louria border.

  Major General Alexander Voronov stood on the improvised command tower, erected by combat engineers on the ruins of a border town's city hall, and looked out at the army spread before him. This was not just a column. This was the armored fist of the 1st Guards Tank Army, poised to strike at the heart of Louria. In the front ranks, like predators ready to pounce, battalions of T-90M "Proryv" tanks stood frozen. Their turrets turned slowly, almost lazily, as their "Afganit" active protection systems scanned the horizon. Behind them, lined up in perfect marching columns, were motorized infantry in BMP-3s and BTR-82As.

  Further on, as far as the eye could see, were the barrels of "Msta-S" self-propelled artillery units and the launch pods of "Tornado-S" multiple rocket launcher systems. And in the low, gray sky, flying at treetop level like circling hawks, were flights of Ka-52 "Alligator" attack helicopters.

  "Falcon-1, this is Nest," the calm, almost indifferent voice of the air group commander crackled in his headset. "Airspace over the enemy capital is clear. Their 'air cavalry' on wyverns has been eliminated. Suppression of air defenses is complete. The corridor for the advance is open. How copy, over?"

  "Nest, Falcon-1 copies," Voronov replied. "Thanks for the good work, guys. Now it's our turn."

  He stepped down from the tower and got into the command vehicle. The encrypted channel was already open.

  "All units, this is Voronov. Phase Two is authorized. Execute on your marks."

  He clipped the handset back to its mount and looked out through the command vehicle's narrow forward viewport. The column was already moving—the T-90Ms had received the same authorization signal simultaneously and needed no further instruction. That was what training was for.

  The steel mass began to move.

  The tanks were the first to lurch forward with a deafening roar, their engines kicking up clouds of dust and dirt. Behind them, maintaining their distance, the rest of the vehicles followed. Thousands of tons of steel, guided by the will of one man, surged west, into the very heart of enemy territory, leaving deep, unhealing scars of their tracks on the foreign land.

  Voronov watched them go. He knew this would be no cakewalk. The Lourians were fanatical, brutal warriors. They would fight for every city, for every hill. But he also knew they didn't stand a chance. Against the power that was now about to be unleashed upon them, their swords, armor, and primitive magic were nothing more than children's toys. This would not be a war. This would be peace enforcement. Brutal, bloody, but necessary to save their allies and to show this new, savage world that Russia was not to be trifled with.

  Airspace over the Northern Port of Louria.

  At the same time, having received the panicked report from the port, the Lourian command threw its last trump card into the fight—two squadrons from the strategic reserve, based nearby. Another hundred elite dragon riders took to the air and rushed to reinforce, hoping to catch the Russians in a pincer movement.

  Captain Kaiden, the youngest flight leader in the second wyvern squadron, led his men into the attack. Rage and a thirst for revenge for his fallen comrades drowned out his fear. Below, on the ground, their barracks were burning. Ahead, in the sea, four enemy ships were visible. They were the target.

  "All flights! Spread out! Attack from different directions! Don't let them get a lock!" he shouted into the manacomm.

  At that moment, in the heavens above, at an altitude unreachable for them, something flashed. As if new, cold stars had been lit. A moment later, dozens of fiery trails streaked towards them from these stars.

  "What… is that?!" was all he had time to think.

  They were R-37M long-range air-to-air missiles, launched by MiG-31BM interceptors that were patrolling at an altitude of sixty-five thousand feet, remaining invisible to the Lourians. The missiles, traveling at Mach 6, reached their squadron in a matter of seconds.

  To Kaiden and his riders, it looked like the wrath of the gods. The sky exploded. Half of his squadron, twenty-five wyverns, instantly turned into fireballs, without even understanding what had attacked them. The shockwave from the explosions threw the others about like leaves in the wind.

  Kaiden's wyvern, seized by primal terror, instinctively dove towards the ground, ignoring all of its rider's commands.

  "What are you doing?! Back! Into the fight! Don't disobey me! Aaargh!" he shouted, trying to stay in the saddle as the dragon plummeted in panic.

  They crashed awkwardly in a field outside the city, skidding for several dozen yards. Kaiden, thrown from the saddle but saved by his safety harness, hit the ground hard.

  "Ah… that hurt…" he moaned, getting to his feet. He turned to his wyvern, which was lying there, trembling, its face buried in the dirt. "What's wrong with you?!"

  The dragon, breathing heavily, only let out a frightened whimper, its gaze fixed on the sky. Kaiden looked up. What he saw made him freeze. This was not a battle. This was a hunt.

  High in the sky, invisible and unreachable, were the hunters—the Russian interceptors. Below, like hounds, circled the Su-34s. They didn't engage in a dogfight. They simply launched their "fire arrows," which with relentless precision found and destroyed the remaining riders who were trying to escape in a panic. One after another, flashes lit up the sky, and with each flash, another burning body fell.

  Kaiden looked at his trembling wyvern. And he understood. Its animal instinct, its fear, had just saved his life. He walked over to it and, kneeling, placed a hand on its scaly neck.

  "Thank you," he whispered. "Thank you, you saved me."

  While Kaiden was trying to calm his trembling wyvern, a soldier in chainmail stumbled out from behind the nearby trees. His helmet was dented, and his face was a mask of horror and disbelief. He was one of the garrison soldiers who had survived the first attack. He ran up to Kaiden.

  "Hey! You… you're a dragon rider? Are you okay?" his voice was hoarse.

  "I'm not wounded," Kaiden replied, getting to his feet. "Knight of the second squadron. My wyvern… it got scared and left the battlefield." He said this with a sense of shame. He, an elite warrior, had fled.

  The soldier looked at him intently, and his gaze was full of a strange, frightening pity.

  "You… you were lucky it got scared," he rasped.

  "What do you mean 'lucky'?" Kaiden asked, on edge. "I abandoned my comrades!"

  The soldier sighed heavily, and his shoulders slumped as if under an unbearable weight.

  "There was no one left to abandon," he said quietly. "All of them… all your comrades… all the royal riders who were in the sky… They're all dead. It looks like you're the only one left."

  "What?!" Kaiden grabbed the soldier by the collar of his chainmail. "Don't lie to me! Fifty riders of my squadron?! And the first squadron that went to reinforce the port?! How can that be?!"

  The soldier didn't resist. He just looked at Kaiden with empty eyes.

  "We saw it from the city walls," he said, and there was not a shred of doubt in his voice. "From the sky… fire arrows rained down on them. Dozens. They exploded, and… there was nothing left of them. It was… it was like a reaper scything grass. Fast. Merciless. It was over in a few minutes."

  Kaiden released his grip.

  The sky above the port was empty. The smoke was rising from six, seven—he stopped counting—separate fire points along the waterfront. He could not see any wyverns. Not fleeing, not regrouping, not diving. Nothing.

  He sat down on the ground. Not dramatically. His legs simply stopped holding him in the efficient way they had while he had still had a coherent tactical situation to respond to.

  The garrison soldier stood nearby, not speaking. He was looking at the same sky. After a while he said: "I was on the south wall. We saw all of it from there."

  Kaiden didn't answer.

  "Your wyvern," the soldier said. "The one that bolted."

  "Yes."

  "It was afraid of them."

  "Yes."

  The soldier thought about this for a moment. "Animals know things," he said. It was not a philosophical statement. It was the observation of a man who had grown up around animals and understood that their fear was information.

  Kaiden looked at his wyvern, still lying with its face pressed into the dirt, breathing in rapid shallow cycles. He had been furious at it for three minutes. He was not furious anymore.

  "I need to get back to command," he said. He didn't move yet.

  "There may not be a command to get back to," the soldier said. He said it without particular emotion. He was a garrison soldier. He had watched the admiralty building stop existing. He was processing facts.

  Kaiden finally stood up. He had a wyvern. He had a manacomm. He had a duty to report.

  He didn't know what he was going to say. He would figure that out on the way.

  At the same time, at the headquarters of the Lourian Navy.

  Admiral Hoyle stood on the balcony of his office, staring into the sky where the tragedy was unfolding. Fury, disbelief, and a soul-chilling powerlessness warred within him. His eyes, accustomed to the endless expanse of the sea, could not believe what they were seeing. The pride of any power—the wyvern squadrons—were being annihilated. Wiped from the heavens as easily and casually as if they were not kings of the air, but a swarm of annoying flies.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the choked cry of his aide, who, trembling, handed him a spyglass.

  "Admiral… they… they're already here… In the sea…"

  Hoyle snatched the spyglass from him and aimed it at the horizon. And what he saw made his heart stop. There, on the horizon, four gray, predatory silhouettes were clearly visible. Ships. The same steel demons he had read about in the panicked reports of the survivors from SHaarkun's fleet. He was sure—these were the Russians. No one in this world built such ships. Even in the Parpaldia Empire, where he had trained, their "hundred-gun ships-of-the-line" were just clumsy wooden boxes compared to these… these leviathans.

  He stood, paralyzed with terror, watching as the Russian ships, at an extreme, unthinkable range for his artillery, turned broadside. His officers were shouting something about an alarm, about an immediate evacuation, but he couldn't hear them. His military mind, honed over decades, was frantically trying to find a solution. But there were no solutions. His fleet, docked in the harbor, was trapped like rats in a barrel.

  The instinct for self-preservation screamed: "RUN!" But the admiral's pride, his duty, nailed him to the spot. He was the commander of this fleet. And he would share its fate.

  He saw lights flash on the decks of the Russian ships. And then, an eternity that lasted only a few seconds later, hell descended upon his port.

  The first shell hit the admiralty. The building, for centuries the heart of the Lourian fleet, simply ceased to exist, exploding into millions of stone fragments. Then the salvos fell upon the ships at the docks. 100-millimeter high-explosive shells tore through the wooden hulls like parchment and exploded inside, turning the decks and holds into a bloodbath. Powder magazines began to detonate, and one after another, fiery mushrooms grew over the port.

  Hoyle's aide was pulling at his arm, shouting something about evacuation, about the lower levels, about the escape route through the service corridors.

  Hoyle did not move.

  This was not courage. It was a failure of the mechanism that converts information into action. He was an admiral. He understood trajectories and ranges and the physics of artillery. He had looked at the ships on the horizon and done the mathematics, and the mathematics had told him that there was no position in this building that constituted a defensible location. The aide had not done this mathematics. The aide was still running.

  The first shell hit the fleet anchorage, not the headquarters. The sound was wrong—too sharp, too fast, nothing like the deep boom of a naval gun he knew. His mind tried to categorize it and failed.

  The second and third shells were closer. He heard them in sequence, which meant he had survived the first two.

  He turned from the window at last. He was going to follow the aide. That was a reasonable decision.

  He had made it four steps when the headquarters received a direct hit.

  The frigate's targeting system had flagged the building as a command node based on mana-emission signatures detected by the ship's electronic warfare suite—a secondary detection protocol added to the Admiral Essen's loadout specifically for this operational environment. The assessment had been correct. The strike was accurate.

  What remained of the Lourian Naval Command was a structural ruin. The aide, who had reached the service corridor, survived. He would spend the next several days walking west, and would eventually be among the first prisoners processed through the Russian forward holding facility.

  The fleet in the harbor continued to burn for two days.

  Third Civilized Area. Parpaldia Empire. Office of the Director of External Affairs.

  The Director had called the emergency briefing for the third hour past midnight. The room contained four people: himself, the Deputy Director, the senior analyst who had been recalled from leave, and the head of the Maritime Intelligence Section.

  The Maritime Section head spoke first. He had been awake for twenty-two hours.

  "The Lourian Northern Port fleet has been destroyed. Based on relay reports from our trade observation network, the action was completed in under forty minutes. The Russian naval element involved consisted of four frigates. They engaged at a range that places them well outside the theoretical maximum range of any artillery platform we have in our inventory, including our hundred-gun ships-of-the-line."

  The Director looked at the analyst.

  "Your assessment."

  The analyst—Ferris, the one who had been sent on leave for catastrophizing—had prepared a single page. He set it on the table.

  "Three weeks ago, Russian ground forces destroyed a twenty-thousand-strong cavalry army in under five minutes, from a position eight to twelve kilometers behind their own lines, without leaving their perimeter. Ten days ago, they took a fortified city in a single operational day, with confirmed zero Russian casualties. Tonight, they eliminated a naval force and its air component simultaneously, using four ships, at ranges that require us to revise our understanding of what naval artillery is capable of."

  He paused.

  "I have been trying to identify a comparable reference point in our military history. There isn't one." He looked at the Director. "I had previously recommended reassessment of all threat calculations. I now recommend something more immediate: we need to determine, before the Russians complete their operation against Louria, what our posture toward them is going to be. Because when they finish—and they will finish, probably within the week—they will be the most powerful military force in this hemisphere, by a margin that I cannot currently calculate because I don't have a ceiling for their capabilities."

  The room was quiet.

  "What are our options?" the Deputy Director asked.

  The Director looked at the single page on the table.

  "We have the same options we always have," he said. "We negotiate, we avoid, or we confront." He picked up the page. "I'll need a full brief for the Emperor by morning. The Emperor will want to know which of these three we're recommending." He set the page down. "I'll tell him we're still assessing. That buys us perhaps a month."

  "And after a month?"

  The Director stood up.

  "After a month, we'll know more. That's the best I can offer at the present time."

  He walked out. The analyst remained sitting at the table for a moment after the others had gone, looking at the page he had prepared.

  He had been right. He had been right for six weeks, and no one had listened until it was no longer possible to argue otherwise. He was not satisfied by this. Being right at the wrong speed was functionally identical to being wrong.

  He turned off the light and went home to sleep.