Chapter 695 — Brushing Past the Blade's Edge

A blinding white orb tore through the darkness, hurtling skyward through wind and rain, bursting apart against the backdrop of heavy, sullen clouds into a bright flare visible even at an immense distance.

In the northwest of the Palemel Heights, at the center of a position screened by terrain and woods, an enormous and oppressive engine of war lay quietly dormant upon its rails, dense curtains of rain lashing and washing over its dark armor plates; the flash of the Typhonians' signal flare played across the wet steel and set a film of light shimmering over it.

The Iron Throne had shut down all its major exterior lights, and opaque shutters had been raised over the windows of every car. In the gloom only a few faint signal lamps glimmered on the hull, their feeble glow shrouded by the curtain of rain and the dim light of the sky, so hazy that a hundred paces away they were all but imperceptible.

In the tactical section of the armored train, a commander came up to Philip. "The Typhonians' lead knight order has signaled."

"They're signaling the superhuman legions waiting in the rear," Philip Pinhsi said. "Tell the armory section to make ready; all main guns to bear on the eastern plain of Longwind Keep."

"Yes, General."

Philip turned back to the holographic projection nearby. Above the crystal that gave off its faint blue glow floated the view outside the train, relayed from the external monitors.

The rain fell harder, the sky grew darker still, and a cold wind bore the curtain of rain across this land so near the border.

Thanks to this rain, the Iron Throne had reached its designated position northwest of the Palemel Heights half an hour earlier, then gone silent and waited until now.

In the wind and rain, night had gradually come on.

Now all that remained was to wait for the Typhonians' superhuman legions to enter the buffer plain. Whether they were the Iron River Knight Order or the Black Steel Knight Order, once they entered their massed charge they would inevitably have no time to raise their shields, no time to withstand the main-gun bombardment of the Iron Throne. The fire of four fortress-grade main guns, plus the light and medium magic cannons Longwind Keep currently fielded—no legion could do anything but fall on the road of its charge.

"A pity this rain has hampered our scouting too," an officer remarked at his side. "The armored griffins can't take to the air in this weather, or we'd have a clearer grasp of the Typhonians' movements."

"The Typhonians are worse off than we are. At least we have the watchtowers along the Longwind line; they have only griffins that can't fly," Philip said. "Wait patiently for Longwind Keep's signal, and don't overthink it."

He said so, but after hearing his subordinate's remark, Philip could not help but feel his thoughts stir.

The armored griffin was a compromise between the traditional arms and magical equipment, yet the limits of the griffin itself had predetermined the limit of that compromise. The war on the Holy Spirit Plain had already proven the great value of air power, and it was said the Magical Technology Research Institute had been working all along on an aircraft built entirely on modern techniques... Who knew how long it would be before that craft emerged from the laboratory...

On the triangular plain west of Winter Wolf Fort, the magical radiance rising in the distance lit the rain-soaked armor and weapons of the knights. Amid the waxing and waning of that light, Count Moglock, commander of the Iron River Knight Order, swung up into the saddle; the clatter of armor was the only sound among the silent knights.

Gazing quietly at the magical radiance in the distant sky as it spread out among the clouds, Count Moglock slowly raised the longsword in his hand, and his command rang through the whole order: "All units, third formation—advance at the walk, gathering speed!"

Not a single man in the order made a sound, yet every knight and every warhorse beneath them answered the command at the same instant. With the rumble of hooves striking the earth, the square formed of thousands of knights began to move forward.

Under the dark, heavy light of the sky, the silent knights seemed like six thousand statues drawn up in perfect array, beginning slowly to gather speed in one direction. Their armor, forged of fine enchanted steel, wore a deep, somber sheen in the rain, gloomy as ink; only when lightning split the sky did that steel over flesh and blood take on a reflection unlike the mud and the puddles—like an iron river surging, still and solemn.

And as the whole order gathered speed, the ubiquitous flow of magic abruptly quickened. Vast energies, channeled by these thousands of knights who had trained together, been schooled together, and lived together since childhood, slowly condensed above the formation into a vague cloud of high energy, its leading edge pointed far away toward Longwind Keep.

Behind the knight order, a second force began to move forward as well. This was an army wearing no metal armor at all, yet the magical light flickering in every one of their eyes would keep anyone from slighting their role on the battlefield. They wore short cloaks of blue-black, carried mage's shortswords and mass-produced grimoires at their belts, and held oaken wands; several black banners flapped without cease above their ranks against the wind and rain.

Count Palinwinter, clad in a robe of stars, raised his staff high: "Black Banner Mage Order—forward!"

Unlike the slow-moving mages of many people's imagining, the battle mages of the Typhon Empire also received a considerable degree of horsemanship training, along with defensive swordsmanship and a certain amount of physical conditioning. This was because soldier-mages typically mastered only a limited one to three combat spells, and the extra training was the necessary guarantee that they could play their part on the battlefield.

On the foundation of that training, a mage order skilled in horsemanship could march in perfect step with a knight order. Unless the latter launched a charge, the mage order would keep fighting in synchronization with the knights, providing uninterrupted ranged support.

Anluo could not see the movements of the Iron River Knight Order, but she knew that once the signal went up, the Iron River Knight Order and the Black Banner Mage Order must already be on their way.

The Cecilans at Longwind Keep might already have received intelligence of the Empire's advance, but how did they plan to meet the coming legion-grade magical strike?

The Eastern Legion, once as firm as iron, was gone; the cunning Silas Loren was said to have vanished on the battlefield of the Holy Spirit Plain. With only a batch of Cecilan soldiers not yet firmly established, they could certainly not hold Longwind Keep... If they could hold it, there would have been no need to set up so many dummy positions around the fortress to play at mystification.

Anluo swept her hand to part the lines of rain around her, inwardly rejoicing that her advisers had promptly discovered the anomalies in the Cecilan positions; otherwise the Empire's officers and men would likely still be kept in the dark by those blustering tricks, and the Empire would miss the best chance to throw open the gate of Ansul... of the Cecils, at one stroke...

But just as she was lamenting thus, a doubt that surged up all at once made this young wolf general frown.

Dummy positions could never truly hold a frontier. So simple a truth was clear to her, and the Cecilans must surely understand it too.

They had made these dummy positions plainly not to resist Typhon, but to buy time...

To buy time—which very likely meant the Cecilans truly did have reinforcements. They were not truly empty; rather, the reinforcements needed time to reach the border.