The armored General Ahzi looked into the fray.
He watched on in silence as his wyvern riding kinsfolk fell one by one from the sky.
Why couldn’t they break through, even though Saturn, Jupiter’s eye, was meant to have betrayed their liege and come over to their side?
He saw them on the cliffs, Aegis and his men in a line.
The nephew of Saturn’s Lord stood there, his beyond human senses served as a good stand in for his absent people.
The General of Nidhogg took stock then of the women among the ranks of his foes.
Though he sneered, he had to admit that he might even be impressed, just a little bit.
Frankly it was a revelation most worthy of scorn.
Even before Saturn turned traitor, this youth, whose name was Alexander, must’ve already begun to share his secret techniques with the masses in his wife’s care.
Such a thing was just not done, and yet it had paid off for the men of Jupiter only on this one occasion.
He signaled for his men to drop their bombs into the sea.
The things weren’t much good now, and they could but weigh down their speedy wyvern’s wings.
Then they scrambled with that hill as their destination.
They set about slaughtering not the old Aegis who shot them dead together with his men, but rather aimed for Alexander and the women of Venus who learned his arts from him.
They put the wizened general out of mind without meaning too, and then came his signature skill and power: Barriers.
Countless domes, nay, spheres of Ash expanded, several dozen together started forming layer by layer.
The dragon smashed through ten, the wyverns shattered three, but then the wall just kept on coming.
They were trapped, but the rush didn’t stop.
Each barrier faded at a set distance from its point of origin and the next came forth like a battering ram soon after.
Dahaka growled, its fury erupted into a sea of crimson fire.
Aegis, looking cloaked and bearded like a wise white wizard, only laughed amid the orange glow.
He raised his weapon then, his signature bow, and took aim upon the beast’s open maw.
The breath collided with the arrow, burning it to nothing, but Aegis and his men kept shooting.
Ahzi sensed that the struggle would not end in their favor, despite the might of his companion, so he leapt forward.
The General of Nodhogg’s smaller but still armored form shattered more of the barriers layer by layer, and this time Aegis couldn’t stop him.
The old General of Jupiter smiled at the end when it came.
His head parted bloody from the rest of his body, but until the final moment he did not seem to complain.
His death was short, swift, and matter of fact.
Alexander watched the scene as it unfolded to his horror.
He had known Aegis for over a year now, it wasn’t really that long.
They were both survivors of Venus, and he was a kindly old man towards whom the young Lord Consort carried great respect.
Now he was dead, and it happened in an instant.
“O Goddess,” He beckoned to her, to Authun, with a calm and quiet seething anger, “Keep his spirit in love and peace, forevermore…and grant me strength to pay his wage in blood this day.”
The blue aura of Authun roused itself into being, and the Lord Consort of Venus leapt forth bathed within its glow.
He had no Ash to form his armor, save a single sleeve on his weapon wielding arm, and also carried a sword that was much too big for any man.
He clashed with Ahzi, a Platinum Class General of the Nidhogg Empire, and did not die.
Gaius leapt forth to guard him, his shield parrying the sword of their shared foe.
They had no need for words, even if they hated each other in peace time they were comrades in war all the same.
Ahzi backed away from them.
Even in the face of two foes he turned his gaze in bewilderment to behold that the barriers had yet to fade and his companion was still bound firm by Dragonslayers holding Gleipnir chains.
Leading those figures was a woman whose grey eyes were full of sneering and vindictive mockery.
Irene, who enjoyed a certain reputation during Rusalka’s more quiet past days as Venus’ Acting Lady, was standing there.
The General of Nidhogg never imagined he couldn’t call on his companion even now.
Help wasn’t coming, not from Dahaka nor the wyverns and their riders.
He frowned, then forced back his assailants who were far more than fifty in number.
‘I’ve been had,’ He realised, ‘Aegis wanted to die…clever fucker.’
He had no choice but to acknowledge it, for by that death Aegis had lured him into a nigh inescapable doom.
The Nidhogg General’s body leapt forward into the fray.
He fought like a wild beast doing his best to get out if the encirclement.
The slope down the cliff beckoned, and beyond that the commander’s tent, where no doubt he thought must lay the Prince of Jupiter.
Neither Alexander nor Gaius could truly put a stop to him, he managed to press past them, and the number of casualties increased with every swing of his blade.
Still, they pursued him down the slope, they could not miss this chance, nobody wanted to let such a dangerous foe get away.
Amidst this confusion then, the Dragon, Dahaka let loose another breath, it shattered the barriers and burned its way into the camping grounds some small distance away.
O
The burning smell, feel and roar of flame assaulted her senses.
The light from heaven erased the small islet she once called home.
Venus was laid to ruin by the men of Cain.
The Blue Dragon spread its wings, burnt to a crisp any who were caught by its sights.
There stood Ahzi, pale headed and adorned in armor of blue.
The misery of watching Melany, her mentor in the art of military, staying back to hold the line as she herself was forced to flee.
The horror of seeing Amelia, her mentor on spywork, assassination and the wiles of women’s charm, broken with her body hollow and her organs falling out like a shattered doll.
The fear, dread and hatred she could never forget stirred her awake like a voice screaming in her head.
She remembered Dire, the Einherjar who had promised her the power to wield the arts she’d inherited from Melany, arts that required a unique kind of body structure, had indeed modified her vessel for her.
“They’re waiting, Princess, this is no time to wait for your Prince Charming’s kiss to wake you up. He’s too busy fighting, he may even end up dying.”
Dire’s voice, she wanted to shut her up, but she couldn’t move even a single muscle.
She sensed the Einherjar hovering over her and leering down.
“Pathetic,” She said, “look at you, I did ninety percent of the work and you still can’t get off your fat ass?”
Her fingers gripped at the covers, that was when she realised she was laying on a bed.
Her eyes opened to behold a blurry world, a hazy and disquieting reality.
Dire stepped back, beside her stood a suit of armor with fifty four jeweled studs, and behind that lurked the blurry ghosts of fifty four women warriors.
“They gave their last trace of power to you. They could’ve become Einherjar, Gods, like me, but chose to forgo the opportunity. They did that for you! Are you going to spit on their sacrifices?” Their staring eyes shamed her, and so she sat herself up with a struggle.
She hated that armor, it only reminded her of what she lost.
Whatever the reason, it felt morbid to think the thing was literally haunted by the ghosts of her fallen friends.
One such ghost stood right in front of her, staring down in a ruthless anger.
She took her Lady’s hand and then the world grew calmer, a tranquility set in through the raging fire.
“She lies,” She said.
“We only wanted to protect you,” Said another.
“We only sought to help you.”
“There is no need to avenge our deaths.”
“We gave ourselves to you, willingly.”
“So wake up, Lady Ru.”
“Your man’s waiting for you,” The last one told her in a teasing tone.
Yes, she had sensed him at her bedside, when he came she was at ease.
Countless times she was actually awake, yet her eyes were too heavy to pry themselves open and her lips were too paralyzed to speak.
“Yes,” Came the voice of Melany, her mentor, who held out her hand to wake her at last, “The boy’s waiting, Ru, it’s past time you…”
She didn’t finish, couldn’t, because Rusalka raised her hand to silence her.
“I miss you,” Said the little Lady of Venus, who was but twenty.
Her eyes were wet and watery, but she didn’t break down, she didn’t sob,
“I miss all of you…but I’ve slept long enough.”
O
Rusalka opened her eyes.
There she lay on the bed where they left her.
Flames raged outside, the Lady heard it, smelled it, felt the heat and then raised her head.
These were not just ordinary flames, they were familiar…
General Ahzi and The Dragon, Dahaka.
The warriors of Venus rushed about with buckets and blades.
Fires were put out by Ash or by bucket, and Wyverns were shot from the sky by Apollo’s arrows.
She glanced through the gaps in her torn and tattered tent to sight the fighting figure of a dragon on the cliffs as The Chains of Gleipnir came to bind it time and time again.
Her crimson lips parted to breathe just a little.
She braced herself to face it, faced herself to wear that dreadful suit of armor.
Her naked form rose from the bed.
She collapsed in the middle of her first tread, but she did not stay weak.
She crawled, her altered body looked no different to the untrained eye, but the changes to her motor functions were evident enough to cause a brief unfamiliarity.
Thanks to Dire, however, she had to deal with but a tenth of the burden, she did not have to learn to crawl from anew.
She began to stand, then to limp, then to walk.
Soon enough, she was moving with her regular confidence.
Her naked form stopped before the garment, she held out her hand to touch it, hesitating only briefly as though shocked by static electricity.
O
Flames consumed the tent of their Lady, and yet the Women of Venus did not fear for her.
They saw her standing there, clad as she emerged in an armored garment.
The oldest survivors of their line thought they saw her mother, Lady Nymph, the war hero, standing in her place, while the rest saw Melany’s shade looming, approving, beside her in all her regal glory.
She turned her eye to the cliff on high as Ahzi came rocketing by.
The Nidhogg General’s target was Erus, their Prince, the Heir of Jupiter, and he was fast on his way to the place where that regal figure lay.
Rusalka saw both her husband and Gaius following swift in their pursuit, both men were primed and ready to slay if only they could reach him.
Ahzi parted from his dragon, who could not extricate itself from the constant efforts to bog it down.
Rusalka’s boots trod the soil wet with blood and charred with soot.
Disks of Ash surrounded her ankles, Melany’s techniques, which before she couldn’t master, came to her aid now as effortless as though an extension of her own will.
She leapt through the air, practically flew over the heads of the masses.
With but a slight curve, she moved to meet Ahzi in that place, the tent of their Lord, their Master, their Crown Sovereign to be.
