Pascal looked down to examine his arcane pocket watch. He could hear its faint ticking, managed by a combination of mechanical durability and magical precision. The device had a reputation for being faultlessly accurate, which meant that he had been standing outside, in the heavy snow, for nearly two hours already.

He wasn't really bothered by it. Every mage had at least one set of enchanted clothing that kept him comfortable and dry regardless of weather. Such conveniences were just another part of the Holy Father's blessing for those who carried the burdens of leadership.

Prayers from the blessed to the Holy Father have ended with Noblesse Oblige for as long as Hyperion history remembered. Certainly, there were always some who forsook their duties and flouted their privileges. However, it was a matter of necessity that mages always stood where they were most needed. Magic was simply too vital, be it for military conflicts or economic prosperity. Any culture whose mages failed to uphold their civic duty were quickly conquered by others whose elites still held onto the spirit of true nobility.

Nowhere else in Western Hyperion was this more true than in Weichsel. Thanks to the Writ of Universal Conscription and their meritocratic traditions, Weichsel boasted a higher ratio of Magic-Capable Officers to enlisted commoners than any other military in the west. And tonight, this was on full display as thousands of Weichsen soldiers manned the fortifications of Nordkreuz, organized in platoons to provide the city with much needed anti-air defense.

The remainder of the army -- those who lacked either the equipment or training for skyward volleys -- were sent to encamp several kilopaces east of the city. There, they pitched tents to rest for the land battle tomorrow. Meanwhile their presence was hidden beneath Mirage Figment spells that imitated shallow, snow-covered hills.

To minimize their chances of being detected, they were forbidden from lighting any fires. Needless to say, this was not a great way for the troops to stay warm in the midst of a blizzard. Thankfully, the men of Weichsel could at least be confident that they were adequately provided with winter equipment. Every soldier who answered the call-to-arms had been given a thick, sheepskin winter coat, two extra wool pants, several pairs of wool socks, and other improvements such as extra stuffing for their bedrolls.

It was in moments like these when Pascal's appreciation for General Wiktor von Falkenhausen rose to new heights. Many in Weichsel's army -- especially the hot headed officers of the cavalry corp -- mocked the dhampir chief-of-staff as the 'Accountant General'. Yet, without his logistical wizardry, how were their men supposed to win battles with their stomachs empty, their toes frostbitten, and their lips sealed by frozen snot?

Now such logistical work paid its dividends. Tens of thousands of men had to spend tonight in the open, with only a thin tent between them and a raging blizzard outside. They might be cold and miserable, but Pascal could at least be confident that few were outright freezing to death.

"Skagen drake riders have been spotted to the northeast by familiar scouts," Pascal heard a signal officer announce. "They're splitting up into four groups."

"The enemy is likely to hit us at different timings," spoke another signal officer, whose fingers were pressed against his temple as he maintained a Farspeak spell with the main command post at the eastern gatehouse. "General Wiktor authorizes company commanders to make the judgment call on first volley."

"Pass the word," Brigadier-General Bernard von Konopacki, Pascal's commanding officer, declared from his command post atop the city's northern gatehouse. "Signal all anti-air groups to raise wards. Charge ammunition with Legion Stormblessed spells. Arrows won't fly far in this weather without it."

Within Weichsel's military hierarchy, every company had a dedicated signal officer attached to its command squad to maintain Farspeak communications. Battalion command squads had double that, and brigade command had over two dozen. Command units also used other means, including flags, bugles, and illumination spells. However it was the signal officers who played the most pivotal role.

It was expensive to dedicate many of their mages to communications, but the value of reliable inter-unit coordination -- unhampered by visibility, noise, and other environmental factors -- could not be overstated. When Pascal first told Kaede about this, the familiar responded with a wry, nostalgic smile: "Every tank needs its own radio. We Russians learned that the hard way."

Kaede had to explain to Pascal what a 'radio' was after that, and the young lord was shocked to hear that her homeland's most 'reliable' form of communications was broadcasted in the open and could therefore be intercepted and decoded by the enemy. Farspeak spells had no such weakness -- it was yet another trait that proved the superiority of magic in Pascal's view.

Summoning his runes, Pascal activated one ward after another as he layered defenses on top of the brigade command staff. Several other officers also cast their own spells and added it to the mix, but 'entrenchment' was definitely a field where runic magic held superiority with its prepared spells.

Meanwhile, a platoon of infantrymen raised their arbalests skyward. The soldiers moved in unison as they pointed towards wherever their commander did with a thin beam of guiding light. Several troopers who manned the scorpion ballistas did the same. Even the two bomb mortars -- barrel-sized tubes packed with blast powder and stuffed with a bag of steel pellets -- were tilted towards the northeast where they anticipated to see the enemy.

"DRAKES SIGHTED! INCOMING!"

The shout came from a spotter who stood at the edge of a gatehouse. Even with Snow Sight extending his view, it was hard to see two hundred paces in the raging blizzard. His third word indicated that the enemy flyers were already unleashing their payloads.

"MANA SEEKER!" Brigadier Bernand drew his sword and cried over the howling gales.

"Mana Seeker!" A dozen officers followed, including Pascal himself.

The same phrase could be heard from the next tower, the one after that, and even the top levels of several buildings inside the walls. Had it not been for the vision-obscuring blizzard, dozens of structures spraying hundreds if not thousands of glowing projectiles skyward would have made a stunning light show.

The Brigadier waited a moment for the wave of seekers to depart before shouting a second spell, to ensure that it wouldn't be disrupted by his allies' antimagic.

"Solar Burst!" He cried before shouting: "All units SHOOT AT WILL!"

Pascal and another captain followed the lead, and the skies above them were soon lit by three eruptions of red-orange light. Snow melted into vapor in the wake of the searing flare, which would have blinded anyone in view who failed to shield their eyes in time.

...Or in the case of the officers on the gatehouse: if they hadn't been sheltering under a Sunward Screen, a spell traditionally used by dhampirs to avoid sunburn.

The trio of high-powered spells cleared several hundred paces of obscuring snow and revealed three drakes that were pulling out of their dive. The lieutenant who led the arbalest platoon immediately directed his guiding light towards one of the drakes. His weapon released a glowing tracer bolt infused with antimagic at its tip, which was soon followed by over three dozen armor-piercing bolts and several offensive spells.

A thundering roar came next as one of the bomb mortars opened fire. Its explosive, powder charge hurled out a blast of steel balls in a high-angled cone. The steel pellets tore through the wings of the drake it aimed at, as the beast's wards had already been stripped away by the dispelling bolt.

Amazingly, the drake didn't crash straight towards the ground, but tried to fly away in a limp. However before the other artillery could pivot its aim and open fire, two carpets of runestone bomblets fell upon the gatehouse.

The very first rock actually hit a customs building just inside the gate. It disintegrated a hole through the roof, fell through, and then exploded into fiery pellets that set the entire structure ablaze. Dozens of other runestones also overshot the gatehouse, falling upon the stone-hewn road just inside the city. However, a handful of runestones landed on top of the protrusion where the bomb mortar was placed, and one of them was a Lightning Blast that shot out in just the right direction.

The officer in charge of the mortars had left a hole in their ward coverage for the weapon's discharge. A bolt of evoked lightning blasted straight into this gap and made contact with the barrel of the mortar. The blast powder inside the barrel ignited prematurely, before two of the crew members -- who had been readjusting the weapon -- could cower from the cone of discharge.

Two decapitated men fell besides the mortar as the blast tore off their heads at point-blank range.

More explosions came from the wards covering the command group as a carpet of bomblets fell directly onto them. Their detonations came in such rapid succession that it was impossible to tell them apart. The erupting thunder of dozens blended together, forming a cacophony of destruction that stifled all other sounds. Mana flashed and vaporized as dozens of spellshields and protective screens were torn asunder in the blink of an eye, tearing holes through the defensive wards that sheltered those underneath.

The arbalesters who stood near the crenelations were the next to fall victim as only a Legion Resistance ward protected them. Entire squads cried out as they were consumed by multiple fire and lightning spells. The intense bombardment was overpowering their defenses through sheer brute force, and they fell in screaming agony as the raw elemental discharge roasted them alive.

Yet this was merely the beginning...

One of the un-shrunken barrels crashed into a battered spellshield overhead, spilling its contents into a volatile mixture of airborne liquids. Two individually-stable alchemical compounds soon mixed together and reacted with the air. Combustion was nearly instantaneous, and it transformed a falling carpet of rimefire that burned its way through remaining wards as though consuming oil-soaked sheets.

In one moment, a half-dozen young signal officers -- some of them not even twenty years of age -- stood near the head of the Brigadier's bodyguards where they relayed commands to the various air defense groups. A second later, they were but shrieking humanoid shapes of burning flesh, collapsing amidst a pool of flames in the very vision of hell.

Holy Hyperion...! Pascal was barely able to stop himself from crying out.

Not even a seasoned officer could witness such calamity and remain unshaken, and Pascal was anything but a veteran as he backed away from the grotesque, burning flesh. Brigadier Bernard had been pulled out of the way at the last split-second. However even one of his saviors had been in the wrong spot and suffered a gruesome fate.

"<Pascal!?>" He heard Kaede's urgent voice through their private, familiar bond. He had left her back at his own residence, to maintain communications with the anti-air platoon stationed there.

Clearly, he had sent his horrified cry over telepathy instead. But as the young lord stood in a brief moment of intense shock, he found himself unable to respond.

Pascal's legs were trembling as his dazed eyes looked towards his beloved hometown. The raging blizzard made it impossible to see, but he could hear the thundering cacophony throughout the city. Cries of dying men intermingled with the sound of buildings being blasted apart. Bursts of intense light lit up the night sky as waves of explosions blanketed the streets and structures.

"<I made a mistake...>" The young landgrave thought in horror as realization hit him. "<I made a BIG mistake...>"

He had been so focused on planning for the destruction of Skagen's skywhales that he completely underestimated just what kind of devastation could be delivered by over one hundred drakes in a single air raid.

As one of those drakes flew by and strafed the gatehouse with its fiery breath weapon, only his combat training made him pull out and activate another spellshield rune in time.

The remaining mortar crew had been reloading their weapon when the flames crashed into them. The powder exploded just as two soldiers were adding it to the barrel. The blast tore the poor souls into pieces, which splashed bits of human remains over Pascal and those close by.

"<Pascal?>" He heard the confused voice from Kaede. "<Are you okay?>"

"<It's no wonder Asgeirr Vintersvend named his book Massive Strike.>" Pascal thought as he stood in a daze.

...And then, as if things couldn't get any worse, the very earth began to move.

It didn't just shake and rattle. It convulsed violently. Had it not been for the blizzard, Pascal would have seen the very streets pitch and yaw as though the paved stones now rode stormy seas.

"<An Earthquake?>" Kaede remarked unhelpfully.

Of course, Pascal realized. "<The Admiral is a geomancer!>"

They had been too occupied by the fact that the attack was coming in from the air, too concerned about the danger of Admiral Winter reaching the Nordkreuz ley-line junction with his skywhales. They failed to consider all the other ways in which archmage-level geomancy could be used. Most of their preparations had been focused on reinforcing roofs, not beams and pillars!

How do you even defend against someone who can hit from every angle?

Now, the urban districts buckled under earthquake tremors that were magnitude eight at least. Several buildings that Pascal could see inside the walls began to wobble and sway. One of them then collapsed and its crumbling pillars brought the others down in a chain.

Even the city's stone walls, which were nigh-invulnerable to conventional siege weapons due to its permanent, ley-line powered wards, began to crack and break as the earth heaved. This included the reinforced gatehouse which Pascal stood on top of, which tore apart at its center as though an unseen giant bent it like a twig.

"<I should have dedicated more attention on how to better defend the city!>" Pascal berated himself.

What would the city known as the 'Jewel of the North' even look like once the blizzard cleared? Will there even be much of it remaining? Pascal feared the worst as he heard the sounds of more and more structures collapsing. He could even hear the stone tower to their east crumble as the men stationed on top cried out.

Then, just as he thought that at least Kaede seemed to have been spared from the worst of the bombardment, he heard the girl cry out in telepathy:

"<D-drakes! waAHHHHHH!>"

"<KAEDE!>"

With his thoughts focused on his familiar, Pascal channeled his senses to connect with Kaede. A view of the girl's gaze laid over his own vision, just in time for him to see the scorching breath of a volcanic drake.

The familiar's wards flared as the flames poured over her. The cover provided by her Spellshield Fortress blocked much of the flames, and Barrier Armor stopped more from making contact. Her Elemental Body of Earth provided even better defense against the elements than the far simpler and more commonly used Resistance spell.

Pascal felt relief as the most Kaede would suffer were some singed clothes and a mean sunburn. However her fear had cost her the best chance to retaliate as the drake flew past and vanished back into the snowstorm.

She's too green... just like myself, Pascal couldn't help but reflect upon the mistakes each of them made.

The difference however was that his error affected tens of thousands of lives.