by Ava D. Dohn
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From the hill near the gate, Treston could see to the distant western part of the Silent Tombs. He knew Sirion was somewhere out there, for her evening song drifted upon his ears. She must be singing her lament to Periste. Treston hurried down the hillock toward the distant grave.
The sun was sinking below the hills when he arrived at the trail leading into the shallow ravine. Already, the shade of twilight made the pathway obscure. But he was sure now that Sirion was down there. Treston quietly sank into the shadows.
The little brook bubbled away as the water splashed into the pool below but its tune chilled Treston’s heart with foreboding. He stopped to listen for Sirion’s song. Ah, there it was. But its melody was unsettling and disjointed.
Making his way cautiously, Treston turned the corner in the path. Sirion sat on the ground, facing away toward the darkness of night. Her song was now guttural and crude, the words she sang incoherent and raspy. Why was this maker of such charming rhyme crying out like some dying beast? He softly called Sirion’s name.
A bloodcurdling wail rose from Sirion’s mouth. She jumped up and faced Treston, angrily screeching curses at him. “Why has it come to us? Too late! Too late! Go back to the damned! Go back! Go back!” She clutched her head, crying, “This is the fate of all! Of all! Stop it while you can or this is the fate of all!”
Sirion lunged at Treston. He stared in horror at her deformed face covered with ugly, black, cancerous sores. She screamed again, “Too late! Too late! You must find the truth or it will be too late for us all!”
A roaring engine and screeching tires drew Treston’s attention to the crest of the ravine. At that moment, PalaHar’s command car came careening into view. A sudden, violent explosion cast the auto end over end, just missing him. Someone was thrown out of the machine, crashing to the ground a few feet away.
Treston rushed over to see it was Ishtar clutching the side of her face, crying “My head! Oh my head! It has hunted me here to kill me!”
Before Treston could respond, there appeared a sudden flash of light across the sky followed by the haunting call of a ghostly voice. “My son… My son… The blood of all my daughters rests in your hands. Save my children or all the world shall pass into darkness.”
Treston shot up from his blanket, crying aloud, sweat running down his face as his hands began to shake uncontrollably. Instantly, Sergeant Daisho was by his side.
“Colonel! Colonel Treston! Are you all right? It’s that dream again, isn’t it?”
* * *
EPILOGUE
For the Children’s Empire, the battle for MueoPoros will forever be called ‘The Black Victory’. Every objective was met and then some. The PrasiaOdous Naval Base was securely established, assuring Eden’s Gate would remain in the Empire’s hands. HerpetonMnema, ‘The Spider’s Lair’, was now in the Children’s possession. Even though of no military value, High Command chose to maintain a standing army there, surrendering to the voices decrying its abandonment.
Fighting to the south of Memphis lasted for months, Legion finally being forced back to his pre-battle positions. Although the battle for the Silk was heroic and costly, it paled in comparison to the total percentage of deaths and destruction caused by the savage fighting in the southern battle. Of all combatants engaged on the field during the first week’s fighting, a casualty rate of thirty percent was seen. Of that number, over twenty-five thousand were killed in action or died from their wounds.
After sixteen months of trench warfare that cost thousands more casualties but achieved no military objective other than prove to Legion the tenacity of Lowenah’s children, High Command pulled it forces back toward the west and away from Memphis. The hill from which the Glitter Brigade charged the enemy became the army’s eastern-most position, with the territory between it and the enemy a vast no-man’s land of constant skirmishing.
The navy’s successes were resounding but costly. Not as cataclysmic as the Day of Tears, percentage-wise it was as deadly. Fighters and heavies played a greater part in the battles than in the Day of Tears, and the attrition rate among those crews was staggering. The First Fleet lost fifty percent of its fighters and seventy percent of its heavies. The combined death toll for the First, Second, and Fourth Fleets from fighters was over five hundred pilots. The heavies suffered thirty-seven hundred fatalities within the crews.
The death knell had been sounded for the heavies. Never again were they to play a major role in front-line combat operations. A slightly smaller version of Sarah’s Mosquito Class WolfPack Marauder soon replaced the heavy bomber. And those ships, although supported and harbored by the carriers, carried out operations in similar fashion to their bigger sisters under the centurion general’s command.
The horrendous loss of life needed to attain this victory was bad enough, but it wasn’t the entire price paid by the Children’s Empire. To prevent Asotos from winning back MueoPoros, High Command stripped its colonies of much needed forces. Candletoe was overrun, as well as several colonies and planets in the Outer Corridor and the Trizentine. Desiah was besieged. Pilneser and Stargaton were harassed by commando raids and Navy bombardments...all this while Asotos’ armadas raged unchecked across half of the Empire.
As ecstatic as Asotos and his lieutenants felt about these lightning victories, the bells were already tolling for his kingdom. Instead of all these setbacks discouraging Lowenah’s loyal children, it welded them into one seething, fighting machine. For the first time in the Empire’s history, the vast majority of children threw themselves upon the altar of war. Like a gathering fist being drawn back to strike a blow, new armies were assembling for battle, while Garlock’s war machine was just gearing up to flood the universe with its weapons of war.
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