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| ===Chapter 7 - The Polar Cross===
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| Kaede stared in awe at the dense patch of fog that engulfed the center of the stone circle. Even among the mist that clouded their surroundings, the shimmering haze stood out with its fractured, otherworldly light. Within it space bent to distort the very fabric of reality itself, and through it emerged one wagon after another as they rolled onto the grassy knoll.
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| Her own journey through it had been surreal, to say the least. It was as though gravity had began to shift the moment she had stepped into the fog. Within seconds the pull had reached ninety degrees, accelerating her horizontally through the fog and into a twilight forest at breakneck speeds. There she had flown, her twists and turns guided beyond her control as countless trees of ethereal light rushed pass in blurs.
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| Then, before her queasy stomach could even curse her with motion sickness, she had soared into another fog and decelerated into reality. In the span of but a few dozen seconds, her physical existence had leaped across the country, emerging among the foothills of Avorica near Rhin-Lotharingie's southwestern coast.
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| Had it not been the steady shout of "keep moving", the dazed Samaran who had materialized from the haze would have stop there, dumbfounded, until the next person collided into her. Thankfully, the spectral mounts which now pulled the wagons through were mindless evocations of magic; they would follow their drivers' last order to keep going no matter how unnatural the experience became.
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| But in the meantime, Kaede could sense Pascal's helpless concern as the Princess' labored breathing grew increasingly erratic.
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| The ''Cerulean Princess'' stood at the edge of the mist, casting white-blue embers adrift from just inside the stone ring. Her entire body surged with ether as she struggled to hold the portal open. She had been aided by Elspeth earlier, until the smaller girl had passed out from ether exhaustion on the other side of the fog patch and had to be carried away by medics. Now, the task of maintaining the arcane bridge that spanned thousands of miles fell squarely upon her thin shoulders.
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| It took another minute before the final rider emerged from the haze. Captain Ostrowska of the logistics company had waited until the column's end, her hand holding a Black Dragon banner that instantly signaled the end of the task force's transit.
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| "She is out!" Pascal cried the instant Captain Ostrowska stepped clear. "Let it go!"
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| Heeding his call, Sylviane took a step back from the mist and severed her fuel links to the magical portal. Then, as though her strings had been cut, she collapsed butt-first onto the grass soil.
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| "Everyone made it through safe. You did great," Pascal smiled encouragingly as he strode over to lend a supporting hand for her shoulders.
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| Within seconds, the shimmering haze had lost its otherworldly sparkle. Meanwhile the light mist that had engulfed the entire hill also began to fade away.
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| "Thanks... to Elspeth," Sylviane huffed out in between gasps of air. "She had poured... all her ether in first... so I could conserve mine."
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| "Parzifal said she will recover in a few days," he added in reassurance. "She just needs rest, and so do you."
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| Sylviane gave a light chuckle, as though voicing her doubts of 'like that's going to happen'. Leaning back against his support, she turned towards Colonel von Mackensen who stood but ten paces away:
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| "Any report from the scouts?"
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| "No sign of hostiles yet, or any friendly concentrations," the man stared back with an imperturbable expression under his black bearskin hat. "However, there is a long column of refugees moving down the road, escorted by scattered squads of Avorican light cavalry on both sides. The scouts who made contact could not understand the language; they need another minute to get their linguistic spells active and attuned."
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| "Remind them that half the people in Avorica speak only Brython, not even Lotharin," Sylviane added. "The nobles should speak enough Lotharin and Imperial to get by though."
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| "If there ''are'' any nobles left among them," the Colonel replied, his voice oddly tinged with solemn reverence. "Captain Müller had trouble just finding an officer."
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| It took a second before Kaede could realize what he meant: ''there weren't many officers left because they had mostly been killed.''
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| For valuable cavalry units to be delegated to mere civilian escort duty, these formations must have been depleted to mere skeletons of their former strengths.
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| As she considered how exhausted such troops must be after weeks of skirmishing, the mist surrounding their hill had lifted enough to reveal the local 'road'.
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| At barely a kilopace away, Kaede's enhanced vision could see the disheveled figures making their way across. In stark contrast to the proud military men and women who just arrived through the faerie paths, these civilian refugees were dressed in dirty, tattered clothing that had been worn down to little more than rags. Their feet and legs were caked with mud from the unpaved, rain-soaked trail. Their hair lay matted with signs that they haven't washed in weeks. Yet with gaunt faces thinned by malnutrition and dulled expressions laden with fatigue, they marched on. Some still pulled children or carried what little belongings they could bring with them, others barely dragging along their own two feet as they clung onto hopes that they might still escape the invasion with their lives.
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| As her vision broadened, Kaede began to make out the scattered carts and wagons abandoned on the road. Many of them had simply fallen into a deep puddle of mud, before being discarded by owners who must have been too exhausted to pull them out. Next to some of them lay the ghastly remains of dead horses, their carcasses barely dragged off the road before they had been carved open for meat by starving refugees.
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| "Welcome to Avorica," Sylviane muttered grimly from behind her, undoubtedly seeing this same vision of filth, misery, and death, even if her sight held the blessing of less clarity.
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| ''The unsung battles of war,'' Kaede thought as she bit down on her lips to quell her queasy stomach. ''The inglorious reality that every belligerent's propaganda seeks to erase.''
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| "Colonel! Your Highness!" A signal officer called back after receiving a new ''Farspeak'' message. "A lieutenant of the 7th Avorican Light Cavalry Battalion reports that Saint de Lyonesse is currently leading the army, deployed just eight kilopaces to the south in rearguard action!"
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| "Rearguard?" Sylviane stared back, puzzled. Then, as she exerted herself to stand back up, aided by Pascal's arm in support: "Rearguard to what? She's the commander of this entire ''front''! If she has the army with her..."
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| Then, as she gazed upon the column of refugees that stretched as far as the eyes could see, her pupils began to widen with anguished disbelief.
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| "''Damn'' that Edith!" the Princess fell to uncouth blasphemy as she gritted her teeth. "This is what happened when you send a ''saint'' to fight a war!"
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| As if on cue, the rumbling of explosions and spellfire that suddenly erupted in the south began to reach their ears. The battle had began, and there was no doubt of its location as a blazing Trinitian cross in bright cyan lit up the distant cloudy skies.
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| The ''Polar Cross'' Oriflamme was renowned across Hyperion as the modern hero of crusading action. Her moniker came from the personalized illumination spell that inspired all from across the Trinitian realm -- a horizontal cross in the sky that always pointed south toward the Holy Lands. Idolized by the army and beatified by the Church, she was the among the few figures entrusted with one of the most powerful relics of the faith: one of the seven holy swords of virtue.
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| But in the pragmatic arts of statecraft and war, a woman 'infamous' for her piety and virtue... wasn't really a good thing.
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| "Armigers!" the Princess called out as wings of blue-white flames sprouted from her back, barely missing Pascal's cheeks as he dodged out of the way.
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| "Sylv, do not be ridiculous! You can barely stand!" he pleaded with her to see reason. "Fighting a battle in your condition is impossible!"
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| "It's not impossible! It's ''essential''!" she retorted as Hauteclaire's magic carried her aloft. "I need that army in one piece! Colonel von Mackensen!"
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| "Yes Your Highness?" The stern aristocrat snapped his boots together in salute as a ferocious grin of approval lit up his face.
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| "Mount up and stay hidden at least a kilopace behind me. I don't want the heathens to find out that Weichsel has entered the war unless we have to. But if I give you the attack signal, then charge in and unleash hell with everything you've got!"
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| <nowiki>----- * * * -----</nowiki>
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