Thirty days had passed since Lorgar's return. Under his leadership, the rebellion liberated city after city.
Each time the King of Swift Dragons burst from the depths of the earth, it devoured the Covenant's holy forces stationed there. The liberated slaves, witnessing this "miracle," fervently joined the rebellion. This virtuous cycle caused the rebel army to swell ever larger.
Even the Forsaken Ones heard that a saint capable of commanding the King of Swift Dragons was waging war against the Covenant, every day, new tribes of the Forsaken joined his ranks.
They freed hundreds of settlements and cities, and tens of millions had joined their cause.
The Covenant's cities lay strung along the coastline of the Polar Sea, all connected by a single ring road.
Five days ago, the rebels liberated the two coastal cities closest to Vharadesh, Asahol and Tesheresh.
Now Vharadesh could no longer receive reinforcements from other cities; the holy city of the Covenant stood completely isolated.
Between the Low Desert and Vharadesh stretched vast plains. The ancient ancestors of Colchis had carved an underground irrigation network that transformed the desert into terraced fields and flowing wheatlands.
Though that ancient civilization was long gone, the seawater purification and filtration systems they built had continually supplied water to the city and the land within fifteen kilometers of it. Thanks to these fertile fields, billions could once live on this desolate world.
But the Covenant could no longer maintain them. With time, irreparable damage and failures multiplied.
The once-fertile lands had degraded into wilderness and scrub, patches of gray and red sand spreading like scars through the greenery.
Nairo pointed to the hazy sandstorm swirling on the horizon. "That's Vharadesh, the City of Grey Flowers."
Lorgar's eyes pierced the storm, fixing on the Covenant's last and strongest bastion. The city was encircled by twenty-meter granite walls; two towering obsidian spires rose like giant sentinels before its gate.
Thousands of temple spires pierced the heavens like blades, the layers of towers forming a silhouette of steel thorns that dwarfed the city walls themselves.
And on the Prophet's Mountain, the city's highest point, stood a golden-tipped temple over a kilometer high, its spire piercing the clouds. In the storm's gloom, it flickered with a sickly light, as though it sought to rend the sky and open a wound into another realm.
The City of Grey Flowers, also known as The Perfect City.
The Perfect City was faith's beautified illusion.
Boom!
The King of Swift Dragons erupted from the ground, its mountainous body tearing open the earth, hurling sand and smoke skyward.
Its fanged maw gleamed under the sun, rending through the twenty-meter granite wall and swallowing the Covenant's artillery and gunners whole. The acid dripping from its mouth corroded the wall, leaving behind a jagged, smoking scar.
The twin obsidian towers roared to life, their heavy cannons thundered, shells raining upon the beast's scales. Rounds that could shred tanks burst into sprays of blood upon its armor. The creature writhed in pain atop the wall, crushing entire squads beneath its titanic weight.
As the defenders focused their fire, two more Swift Dragons erupted from below.
One rammed an obsidian tower, shaking it violently; another reared up, its serrated maw yawning like an abyss, biting off the spire and grinding both gun and tower to dust between its jaws.
With a deafening crash, the obsidian towers collapsed. The Covenant's morale shattered with them. They stared blankly at the falling debris, the light of faith in their eyes devoured inch by inch by fear.
"I thought the Covenant would have some secret weapon," Medea said dryly. "I gave them too much credit."
For thousands of years, Medea had lived in terror. Yet now, it was almost laughable, ancient human-made bio-boring beasts could tear through the Covenant's strongest defenses like paper.
The Covenant had inherited none of the ancients' destructive might.
Lorgar turned to her. "If the Covenant is so weak, what are you afraid of?"
"You know who I fear."
"You won't even speak their names."
"You said it yourself, it's them."
Caelan thought they were both being ridiculous. Lorgar, marked by the gods, showed no fear, yet Medea, the Iron Woman, lived in constant dread. The shadow left by the fall of the ancient civilization was too deep to ever heal.
The Swift Dragons breached the walls, but Lorgar forbade them from destroying the city further. Too many innocents remained; he would not spill needless blood.
Akshida led the rebels' left flank like a tide of steel, tearing through the Covenant's line. Espaea commanded the right, her forces thrusting into the enemy's belly in a pincer maneuver aimed at the Prophet's Mountain and its golden spire-temple.
Erebus and the Circle of Ash swept through temple after temple, their bullets answering the priests' hysterical curses.
As bookshelves toppled, centuries of sacred scripture went up in flames, painting the city hell-red.
The faithful hid in their homes, peering through windows as the temples of a thousand years collapsed into fire. The tearing agony of their uprooted faith broke their souls.
In the dark prisons, slaves clutched their chains, stretching skeletal arms through iron bars toward the sky. The reflection of firelight shone in their murky eyes, and the clattering of chains became a long-awaited symphony of liberation.
"I curse you in the name of the gods! The Powers will witness your destruction from their holy throne!" screamed the Archbishop from the temple hall, clutching his scepter.
"Your life is but a candle in the wind," Lorgar replied coldly. "Did your gods glance your way? Did they punish me when their scriptures burned to ash? When Vharadesh fell, where were they then?"
The Archbishop's eyes widened in despair, then snapped shut as Lorgar crushed his neck.
"I've changed my mind," Lorgar said. "Espaea, withdraw the army. Broadcast to the citizens, tell them they have one day. One day to flee. Those who remain will be buried with this city."
He turned away, the city's suffocating incense and prayers clawing at his throat. Every tower, every brick reeked of blind devotion.
But he would show humanity the truth: the gods were not worthy of worship.
He gave them one day.
Two million slaves fled like a flood bursting its dam. Rebels waited ten kilometers away with water and bread for the freed.
But the faithful… even by the seventh hour, only three hundred thousand had left.
The rest clung to their scriptures, convinced the holy city would never burn, that Lorgar dared not destroy the Covenant's sacred heart and Colchis's last fertile land, the breadbasket that sustained millions.
They were wrong.
At Dawnaway, Lorgar spoke the city's sentence.
"Medea, destroy it."
The city was vast; even the Swift Dragons could not raze it in one day.
But Medea had recently repaired an ancient orbital defense cannon, the only surviving weapon of its kind. After days of calibration, it locked onto Vharadesh.
The faithful never expected judgment from the heavens.
A beam of searing light tore the sky apart. The City of Grey Flowers was consumed by brilliance, then silence. When the radiance faded, nothing remained. The city had melted into a glassy crater glowing with faint light.
In orbit, among the ruins of shattered rings, the cannon exploded, its final act complete.
The weapon of ancient Colchis ended two eras with one shot: the Covenant's age of blind faith, and the gods' ancient tyranny.
"Rejoice! A new age has come!"
Freed slaves and faithless masses listened in awe as their liberator's voice thundered through the desert.
"I swear this," Lorgar's voice echoed across the skies, solemn through the static, "Until the last false idol is shattered, the last filthy temple razed, the last corrupted scripture burned, and the last fallen priest executed, until faith, the parasite festering in mankind's marrow, is torn out by its root, this war shall never end! Humanity and the gods shall never make peace!"
The fall of Vharadesh would forever scar the history of mankind. The collapse of the Perfect City was a shudder in the wheel of fate, one that would steer countless futures away from their destined paths.
One hundred days after Lorgar's birth, the last city on Colchis surrendered.
He had unified the world in less than two Terran years, one and a half times faster than Konrad Curze.
Yet the victory brought him no joy, only unease.
"What are you afraid of?" he asked himself.
The Emperor's arrival? The Great Crusade?
No. He feared Caelan's departure.
He turned to the bench where Caelan sat, Medea shamelessly seated beside him.
Lorgar hated her, but that was the point. He needed her to watch over Caelan when he could not.
A father must govern his realm as he raises his children, and Colchis demanded his rule.
"Caelan," he called.
"I'm here," Caelan replied.
It was the first time Lorgar had spoken his name. Once, he had tried calling him "Father," and been rebuked. He'd never tried again. Caelan had been quietly disappointed.
"I just… wanted to say your name," Lorgar said.
He had imagined this moment countless times, walking with Caelan through the rebuilt Emerald Forest, or gazing together at the restored orbital ring. But reality was different.
He was too busy. Caelan's lessons had grown fewer.
"Can you still teach me?" Lorgar asked.
"I have nothing left to teach," Caelan said.
But even if Caelan thought so, Lorgar didn't. Caelan's very presence reminded him to hold fast to his heart.
Yet, like all his brothers, Caelan would one day leave.
Lorgar could beg, threaten, or weep, but that would only prove Caelan's teachings had failed.
Still, how could he keep him from leaving, without being childish?
"Lorgar!" Medea's voice snapped him from thought.
"Do not worship gods, we have our own savior."
Nairo preferred being a teacher to being a liberator.
Once, he had taught the Covenant's doctrine. Now, he taught children why humanity needed no gods.
Lorgar placed great hope in him. The adults of Colchis were too steeped in faith's poison to be cleansed, but the children could be shaped anew.
Just as Lorgar's brother built his Midnight Phantoms from the young, Lorgar would form his Circle of Ash from these children.
Nairo loved his work, and Lorgar's trust filled him with pride.
He lifted his cup, drank, and turned back to his lesson.
Then his fingers brushed the gilded cover of a book on his desk, and froze.
'Where had this come from?'
Bang!
A sharp pain exploded in his head as he was slammed to the floor. Gray-robed youths pinned him down; his brittle spine cracked under the pressure.
He looked up, his eyes reflecting phosphor flames devouring the podium and the gilded book atop it. The fire licked away the golden letters as it consumed both text and lies.
His gaze filled with horror. The believers, though, mourned only the burning of the book.
Espaea and Akshida still commanded the army, but now it was no longer a rebellion. It was the Colchis Auxiliary Corps.
Lorgar had renamed them himself, so they could "get used to the rhythm of the Great Crusade."
Medea had provided them with a military manual titled "Militia Training Handbook (Published 532.M24)." The army had been retrained accordingly.
Now, Espaea and Akshida led opposing corps in a mock battle on the desert plain.
"The one who wrote this manual was a genius," Espaea said.
"Sadly, it bore no author's name." Medea only said it was a relic from the ancients.
True enough, their weaponry was far from the ancient legions' might. They couldn't even use proper "regular army" tactics.
As history shows, formations require muskets, trench warfare needs artillery and wire, and blitzkrieg demands tanks.
Technology defines tactics.
Without it, the most advanced strategy in the galaxy is meaningless.
Even so, Espaea adored the manual, studying it even during exercises.
Kurta planted a blue flag on the sand table; the enemy's right flank had shifted. They were nearly surrounded.
"I'll adjust deployment," Espaea said. "Third and fifth regiments move east to reinforce the right. First, second, and fourth break the blue line's center. Sixth holds reserve. Akshida won't have time for a second line. Once we punch through, we'll encircle them."
They knew each other well. Akshida was aggressive; Espaea was cautious. Her forces always seemed passive early, but she made up for it with sheer battlefield brilliance.
She turned a page of her manual and froze.
The golden letters twisted, shifting before her eyes into new words: "Guidelines for Joint Operations Between Men of Iron and Men of Stone (Published 999.M23)."
An alien force seeped through the pages, connecting to her mind. A powerful longing rose within her.
If she opened it, she could know every tactic in the galaxy. She could lead Colchis's regiments to conquer the stars. She could become Lorgar's high priest of war and build his Perfect City!
'Yes, Lorgar was God!'
'He deserved temples! He deserved worship!'
"For Lorgar…" she whispered.
A boot slammed into her ribs. Kurta had kicked her aside.
The book flew from her grasp. A young Circle of Ash soldier smashed a vial of burning phosphor upon it.
Flames swallowed the tome.
"What happened to me?" Espaea gasped, clutching her side as clarity returned.
From within the fire came a terrible, screaming sound, the book twisted, writhing as if alive, its gilded letters glowing like dying eyes begging for rescue.
But none came.
.....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
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