Dragon Horse

“They called the serpent Anguis. The steeds stole his wings from him, so he grew strong enough to swim without them. However, his scales still remembered what the feathers felt like. He would not sleep until he turned the tides and took them back.”

(Anonymous, "Two," Aithon Anguis)

The gates of Elisus pry themselves apart.

The Sub-Equatet army marches through them, roaring and raising their weapons towards the sky.

"Salis et Sanguis! Salis et Sanguis! Salis et Sanguis!"

Sklodowska salutes them sharply, standing in the midst of the other Red Tide survivors.

In the back, Tanvir rubs his eyes, his Pachycrocuta sniffing his crossbow, which sits still at his side.

"Salis et Sanguis." He stifles a yawn. "Salis et Sanguis, Salis et Sanguis..."

The Sub-Equatet army splits in two, each side standing at attention as the last soldier – or is it the first? – strides through the gates.

Sklodowska's scaled eyes widen in shock, then she draws her pistols, furiously stabbing them towards the sky and screaming with all her strength until her throat is hoarse.

"Salis et Sanguis! Salis et Sanguis! Salis et Sanguis!"

Tanvir's eyes widen in alarm. Then, he hurries away from the rally, keeping one hand on his crossbow and the other on the collar of his Pachycrocuta, which is right on his tail.

Kali. Kali. Kali.

The Commandant's galea, plumed with black horsehair, gleams in the red-hot sun. In one hand, she wields a dragon-headed staff, and in the other, a single-edged sword. The brand of the serpent Cetus snakes across the side of her jaw and down her neck. Scutes line her angular armour. She salutes the split sides of her army as she strides through them. She steps up onto the platform that shatters the surface of the silvery waters as it comes up in the central canal, the forked tongue of the serpent which cracks apart under her shadow. She scans the rows of roaring recruits below the platform, her skeletal smile spreading like scarlet over a uniform, her teeth bared like a war animal warning its target to back down while it still has the chance.

She taps the platform with the end of her staff three times.

"At ease."

The soldiers lower their weapons, the wave of silence sweeping over them in an instant.

"Cetus. Mensa. Fornax. I have received reports that our ground forces have seized the northwest sector, including the arctol capital city of Helike." Her voice stays steady for the most part, but there is a tremble beneath it. Not fear, but fury. "Then, I received reports that morale has dropped among our troops after the recent Red Tide."

The recruits shift uneasily under their Commandant's steely stare. Sklodowska hooks her thumbs through the straps of her harness to lessen the heaviness of the gas canisters.

"Cetus tells me that they are weakened by hunger." The Commandant's helmet swivels left. "Mensa reports that their Chimaera cannot adapt to the rising levels of radiation." She swivels towards Sklodowska. "Fornax has somehow lost their ability to innovate because their water is contaminated." Her stare shifts right and she points the dragon of her staff at the Cetus troops.

"When the boy Temujin, his six siblings, and his mother lost his father and were left to starve, he was not weakened. He united the warring clans of Mongolia into an army that swept across Ukraine to Korea. Siberia to Southern China. Asia to the Adriatic Sea. You now know him as Genghis Khan."

The dragon slithers over to the Mensa troops.

"Experiments conducted by our scientists on Arctolean soldiers have shown that a dose of two hundred to three hundred rem is lethal for them. However, it has no effect on the hundreds of Sub-Equatet street children with the same concentration in their blood. Your cells adapted from the second you were born. If you can mutate, your Chimaera will surely survive as well."

The dragon hangs over Sklodowska.

"Japan bombed America in the second world war. Thousands of military personnel and civilians were killed. Eight battleships destroyed. Did they let their minds succumb to self-pity?" The Commandant stares straight at Sklodowska. "Answer me, soldier."

In the Commandant's shadow, Sklodowska stares right at her, even though she trembles at the feet of the platform. "Negative, Commandant. They created another weapon. One that decimated their opponents in three days and two strikes."

The Commandant's eyes linger on Sklodowska for a little longer. She sets down her staff, drumming her fingertips on the dragon. "That…is an answer."

Then, she unsheathes her single-edged sword, spinning it. "I have another question for you all."

The sword stops spinning.

"Do you think the north will win this war?"

The soldiers do not answer.

"If you think the north will win, let me tell you why they will lose. They will drown, not because I flooded their city, turned their soldiers into our machines, or because I’ve bombed their plants." She sweeps her sword over the masses. "Because I swear to the sea, and I swear to you, that I will put out their northern star, their god of war, General Chiyou."

The sword begins to spin again.

"The north began this war, and it will end with them. In one-hundred and sixty-eight hours, we will Hyalocinate the last of our prisoners and commence our final attack on the arctols."

She spins the sword faster and faster.

"As your Commandant, and as the Commandants who are with the waves now have done, I will provide the morale that you lack. I will have a competition, held in the old weapons testing fields."

It spins like the turbine of a Eurofighter Typhoon.

"You have seven days to prepare for the final strike. Three of them to prove yourself the most capable soldier in this army. When you do, I will give you a naval, terrestrial, or aerial division of your own. I will brief you on your objective, you will have authorization to all our weapons and security, and you will earn the rank of Legatus."

She stares straight at Sklodowska again. "You will be my Khan, my mutation, and my nuclear strike."

Sklodowska's thumbs slide out from under the straps of her harness, tracing the muzzles of her pistols instead.

"Do not forget what the north took away from you. They reduced your nation to ruins and called you a terrorist. They took away your autonomy. They will take away your freedom next."

The Commandant sheathes her sword. "Now the tide is turning, and with the salt in your tears and sweat, with the ice in the blood of the Arctolean people, you will take it back." She points the dragon's head to the sky. "Will you take it back?"

The crowd of recruits below her scream with all their strength, raising their weapons towards the sky. Sklodowska's voice rings the loudest of them all.

"Salis et Sanguis! Salis et Sanguis! Salis et Sanguis!"