Black wings waved in the wind.

Inferior dragons, Wyverns, thousands in number, enough to taint the sky in splotches of black, danced about the five city sized Skithblathnir.

Gaius watched them from where he stood atop the tallest of the cliffs facing Muspelheim’s beaches.

Standing at his side were his men, all of them trained in Jupiter’s long practiced arts for killing dragons and their kin.

The Wyverns did not frighten them, they were born to face them and raised to do it well.

What did frighten them, if anything at all, was their own inexperience.

They had never fought a real war, unlike their elders.

For that purpose Gaius turned his eye to his companion, the oldest of Jupiter’s Generals, Aegis of Apollo.

The wizened elder turned his eye to him and gave a nod of calm approval, at which point the Commander sounded his horn.

All of the Centurion forces present below were then alerted to the danger flying for their shoreline.

They realised en masse that they didn’t need to wait for the Skithblathnir to reach the beaches.

The older among them knew very well already that The Nidhogg Empire had an airborne army, and they were well versed in the practice of bombarding their foes with it.

Gaius put his horn aside, then turned his eye back to the camp as it started to stir.

He observed the key players: his Lord, Prince Erus of Jupiter, the other General, Mortuus of Pluto.

Together with Aegis, these three titans were ready and waiting at their respective stations.

Aegis manned the cliffs due east of the beaches, Erus manned the beaches themselves and Mortuus was stationed in the medical tents further back.

He turned his eye next upon the tent where the couple lay; The Lady of Venus, Rusalka, and her Lord Consort, Alexander.

He didn’t know what role these two would play in the battle to come, frankly he didn’t have much in the way of expectations either.

They were but Gold Class, inferior to himself, his Lord and both Generals, indeed inferior to many of the men in service to The Forces of Jupiter.

From where he stood, they were people who should be relying on them, not someone to be relied on, but this was a war they had to fight.

He was not without his principles, and he pitied their plight, he did not hold their fate in spite.

“I know what’s on your mind, Gaius,” Said Aegis.

The younger Commander could do little but turn away and hide from the old man’s smiling glance.

What he couldn’t get away from, however, was the man patting him on the shoulder right after.

“Watch over them,” He said, and then he whispered, as if to let no others hear his final word, “Those two might just surprise you.”

Only then was it that Gaius remembered the fact that Aegis had fought beside that couple back when Venus fell.

He’d seen their abilities, and as a result he actually had faith in them.

Indeed, in spite of all logic and reason, this man who stood at the peak of their nation actually saw something of value in that young couple.

 

O

 

The women of Venus began to scramble to their stations.

Each one among them was a beauty, and they stood far shy of six hundred strong.

Indeed, their numbers had dwindled since the day they left Venus, and not by just a little.

The Lord Consort, Alexander, sat in his tent, meditating to prepare his heart and mind.

The laws of Jupiter branded them sinners, and blamed them for this war.

He did not spite them for this, but rather he was thankful that Erus had shown an uncharacteristic degree of accommodation in spite of his station and their plight.

He turned his eye to the bed, where his love lay in slumber, and swept his palm over the Notices of Pregnancy and resulting requests to abandon the front line from other maidens of Venus’ descent.

He smirked derisively but did not in truth begrudge a single one of them.

For some time now, he had tried to get his own wife to abandon the front with the same excuse, but only recently did he learn she’d been thwarting him deliberately.

Whenever he went to Mortuus for medicine to make the job easier, she had asked for drugs to make it impossible.

Then, finally, she found medicine to help him slumber, and she kept the deed from happening at all until this day.

He felt like a fool, he only wanted her to stay safe.

She had other plans, it was as simple as that.

“It’s time, Lord Consort,” Those words called out to him, to Alexander, the husband of Rusalka, wielder and master of the goddess blessed blade.

He heeded the call from a female soldier, then turned his eye to the cliffside on high.

“I heard it,” He said, referring to the horn.

Still he turned to face his slumbering bride.

The soldier sensed his worry, and placed a fist to her chest in salute.

“Have no worry, Lord Consort, we will guard her well.” The man shot her a glance.

This woman was one of the many who had chosen to stay, she was of a mind with Rusalka in that regard. Hence, he wanted to ask her, but the need did not arise.

She saw the notices laying under his palm, and then she shot him a knowing smile,

“I’ve a husband here in this place, Lord Consort,” She told him, “Others too, we would never abandon those men, no matter what peril we might face in our own lives.”

The man kept his silence, but he smiled once he was out of her sight.

He knew about it long ago, in truth, that was to say, Rusalka’s reason to stay.

She wanted to face it together, come what may.

He felt a heat inside his chest, a warmth he couldn’t shake.

He reached for it, that sapphire glow.

The Goddess’ aura swept over him, warming his body and soothing his tightened nerves until they were tensed up no longer.

His tall frame rose then, and he was a towering figure, taller than all but the tallest of his peers.

He reached out to his sleeping bride.

His palm glowed with that sapphire light, the paleness of her skin turned bright and pink at his touch.

He gently stroked her cheek then, and he bid her,

“Wake up soon Ru…or you’ll miss all the fun.”

His soft spoken tone turned firm upon the second line uttered.

He didn’t speak a word of criticism toward her, not that he didn’t have it in him to try.

He turned to face his subordinates, the Women of Venus and the remainder of the men who had married in, men who were just like him.

His sight raised high to their destination.

There he spied two figures.

One was Aegis, who’d be leading them, and the other was Gaius, who he rather didn’t like.

That said, he did not mind having to fight with that man side by side on this occasion.

They were all neighbors at the end of the day and when an invading army came to their kingdom's shores, to fight against them was every man’s duty.

He took but a select few with him to the cliffs, the rest he commanded to stay and protect their sleeping lady.

The mercenary-like men, who had so famously married in, also followed after him.

Though they were but few, thirty give or take, each and all were strong and capable.

That’s not to say no weaker men had numbered among them once, but their kind had long since died during Venus’ purge that fateful day.

The memory was burned into all of their minds, the image of Nidhogg’s Sapphire Dragon, Dahaka, and its rider.

What he did that day made everything clear; Cain might’ve carried out the purge, but they were but the pawns of the Nidhogg Empire.

Starting from here then, the survivors of Venus had nurtured a burden of revenge.

Today they would reap themselves a bloody vengeance.

 

O

 

The light of day shone down from on high. 

Wyverns filled the heavens, a dragon beckoned its rider. Great wings of sapphire, bathed beneath a crimson glow, its name was Dahaka.

Once, like Fafnir too, he had been a man of mortal flesh.

Few men knew the true story, not even Ahzi, who was the dragon’s rider, was privy to the knowledge.

The beast greeted him, its master, General of Nidhogg and Patriarch of the thousand year old House that shared its name.

That house, one of the founding ten of their vast empire, represented a full fifth of its modern might, and was owner of one of the remaining Skithblathnir.

The great vessel in question did not shake under the might of the raging waves, for it was massive as a city and housed a force fit to match.

The floor creaked beneath his feet as the general marched forth.

Armour clad his form, he and his dragon stood alone.

Only for the briefest moment did he turn his eye to the shores of Muspelheim.

He had last been here only about one year in the past.

That time, he lent his blood to the dissident Mourn of Mercury, then relayed the will of his Emperor to Uriel and her kinfolk of Cain.

He didn’t act in person until the very end, and though Cain might well have done it for their own reasons anyway, the destruction of Venus City was still something he asked of them.

That had all been in preparation for this very day, when they would lay his people’s oldest and most hated foes to a ruinous end.