Chapter 105 – The Caretaker Arrives

To wage war against Kassandora would require a mind beyond what even most Divines are capable off. Her tactics are baffling, it is not that she cannot make advanced movements, it is that she refuses to engage in that sort of behaviour. They are always devilishly simple. Always reliant on thousands of variables that had been decided before a battle, if a fight goes on for too long, she will not hesitate to give up land and issue a retreat.

The woman has no honour, no sense of pride about her, no bloodlust nor courage nor fear. All her choices are perfectly logical, as if she had no emotion within her body. Her captured forces seemingly know nothing of her plans, nor have we ever been able to find anything important of hers written down. She sends letters that are mere orders, with no reasoning added, and her men follow along without question.

To see Kassandora on the battlefield is a clear sign that the battle has been lost before it has been started. The only battles that she has actually “lost” are because her forces were simply outgunned and outmanned and overwhelmed. They should have been decisive victories in our favour, instead they were all pyrrhic victories.

- Excerpt from the secrets texts in the White Pantheon’s closed library. Written by Goddess Fortia, of Peace: ‘How to Wage War on War.’

Kassandora sat on a hill with Neneria, Fer, Kavaa, Iniri and Helenna. It was sequestered far away from the camp, the lights of cars and campfires burned like tiny little glow bugs in the distance, they pranced about in the darkness of night, although night here had never been dark. There were too many stars in the sky, and the moon today shone exceptionally brightly.

Fer had carried Iniri and Kavaa here, but it was a needed private location away from prying ears. A single word overheard would put all the goodwill she had built up in the two and a half weeks since the Reclamation War began to be wiped away in an instant. The meeting had already began, the Goddesses sat on logs or the ground or simply stood as Kassandora drew out what she remembered the Caretaker looking like on the ground. “My initial theory is that it will be attracted to us, since we’re Divines.” Kassandora finished.

“You have little to base that off.” Neneria crossed her arms and looked down at the drawing.

“It does not target the coastal cities that hold scheduled burnings.” Kassandora said. “If it was simply protecting the Jungle, it would have smashed their firewalls centuries ago.” Neneria shrugged and rolled her eyes, she obviously did not like the reasoning, but there was little else Kassandora could say. It was simply a shot in the dark, there was little else that could be said about it.

“It wasn’t fast.” Fer said.

“No, if we stay close to the main camp, move no more than ten miles north or south, we’d be able to intervene if it comes here.” Kassandora said. That would cover all the bases then. “Neneria, I want you to scout out locations with your Legion, see the terrain and report it to me.”

“I’ll hand in a report tomorrow morning.” Neneria said flatly.

“Do you think the Binturongs will be able to stop it?” Kavaa asked. Kassandora answered as honestly as she could, there was no reason to hold back information with this lot.

“We’ll have to see, it was plant-like, it should burn. Why? Do you have any other ideas?”

Kavaa looked around awkwardly, then finally said, or rather asked, what was on her mind. “Baalka’s blood could kill it, couldn’t it?” Fer and Neneria both looked at her as if she had just broached a topic she shouldn’t have, they leaned in, Neneria’s face going colder than it usually did as Fer’s eyes sharpened. Kassandora answered before those two could start an argument. Sisterhood was always a sore topic for them, they could say the worst things about each other, but as soon as someone else suggested something about even touching one of theirs, tight ranks formed.

“The Jungle assimilates, Baalka’s blood could kill it, or it could birth a monster. That’s not a risk I’m willing to take.” That shut down any further conversation of using Baalka. Kassandora narrowed her eyes though, that was an idea she had not thought of. Baalka’s blood was limited, even with Kavaa’s healing to accelerate the blood production, it could only fill up maybe a dozen shells.

She kept her face cool. This wasn’t the first time she had gone behind her sister’s backs, it wouldn’t be the last. A dozen shells of Baalka’s blood would do. Kavaa and her would simply do it privately.

“And if you can’t stop it?” Kavaa asked.

“I do have a plan B.” Kassandora hoped she didn’t have to use it.

“And that it?” Kavaa asked.

Kassandora crossed her arms. She did not even want to talk about the other option, it was an ace among aces, she simply didn’t want to deal with the fallout. “It will work. Now for the plan.”

Helenna readjusted her black HAUPT suit. It was the same as Kassandora’s, but with the skull and sword emblem. Instead, hers had come with a flowering rose. She stepped in front of the camera. The KTV reporter moved out of her way as Helenna took up the entire screen. “We have pushed back the Jungle in this area ten miles from where it once sat. The Reclamation War is going steady, however, like with all wars, setbacks are expected. Now, the advent of ash is a major block to our logistics. The Binturongs themselves can handle traversing the deep ash, but supply trucks get struck, we will develop ways of quickly clearing the land.” She took a breath.

“The staging area will be moved twenty miles to the south, where we will proceed on clearing more of the Jungle immediately. Ash clearing operations will begin soon, after which we will return to drive a pincer into the Jungle and clear it from the inside.”

That had been only part of Kassandora’s reasoning for changing the firing locations, but she could not reveal the whole story to the public yet, it could cause panic.

Kassandora stood on that small hill between the camps and Jungle, a pair of binoculars hanging from her neck. She wanted the Caretaker to arrive, but until it did, she would prepare. She turned around and looked past her camps. Eight large trucks were arriving, each one a massive moving watchtower, a ladder on them reached up for the driver to enter the cabin. Each one pulled an eight-wheeled trailer. Their loads were secured on the back, the massive cannons strapped down, the treads with blocks underneath them to stop the cargo sliding off.

Eight more Binturongs had arrived.

They had twenty four guns now, hopefully more would arrive. She hoped for it, but she planned around only having the bare minimum. That was how wars always were planned, you hoped for everything, you worked with what you had.

Arusei, along with Kimani and Jebet, followed Kassandora to the government camp. It had been closed off to the public, only a select few had access to it without prior notice. Kassandora was one of them. She stepped forwards by a large bus and tapped loudly on the door.

It slid open with a metallic hiss of pistons and a cheerful voice called from inside. “Goddess Kassandora, come in, you’re always welcome here!”

Kassandora stepped in and indicated for Arusei, Kimani and Jebet to follow. It was cool inside, pleasant, well furnished, with carpeted floors Arusei tried not to get too dirty with Arika’s red dust. Kassandora had no such qualms. She stood in front of the five people sitting around a table and stepped to side, her arm extending to the three who had followed her in. “This Arusei, Kimani and Jebet.” Kassandora began coldly.

“Greetings.” The men and women in the cold suits replied.

“These people live their entire lives fighting the Jungle, their opinions on the topic are worth more than any of your scholars or academics. I can vouch for them as being my personal advisors in this matter.” Kassandora crossed her arms and nodded to the one-eared man. “Arusei, tell them what you know of the Caretaker.”

Kassandora walked to the planes. She had made her own design for a weapon of war. It was based off something long in the past. The engineers should be able to design it even in the desert. After all, once you had the planes, how hard was it to make them simply drop things?

Fer caught up to Kavaa by sense of smell. The Goddess of Health always smelled good, never was it an overpowering sweetness, instead a cool refreshment, something like mints and lemons. “Fer?” Of Health was in her silver armour today, she had been for the past two, since Kassandora had given them the plan to fight the Caretaker on the hilltop.

“I have something for you.” Fer said.

“What is it?”

“For assistance in the Jungle, when we rescued Iniri and Baalka.” Fer fiddled and revealed the cloak she had been carrying behind herself. It was a heavy blanket of panther-hide. Light, strong and warm to protect from the Arikan nights. Fer had made it herself, from the hunt to the tanning, gifts always required some effort or else they weren’t gifts. “Thank you.” She bent her head and indicated twice for Kavaa to take the present.

“Oh.” Kavaa said, her eyes covered in surprise. “I didn’t…” She stopped, then looked up and smiled at Fer. Those silver eyes of hers shone like two pearls. “Thank you Fer. It’s a wonderful gift.”

Kassandora stood on top of one of the tall Arikans mountains. It wasn’t really a mountain, but she had no other way to describe it, it was simply a giant rock, rising several hundred feet into the air with cliffs on all sides. The natives could scale these, but heavy equipment could not, that did not really matter though once helicopters came into the fray. They had carried tents and radios, camouflage netting, rangefinders and small radars to this rocky outcrop, and two others, one to the north, one to the south.

The Goddess of War looked around and inspected the view around her. Two thousand of Kavaa’s Clerics had been organised into small teams of two, then formed a massive cordon around the area. No civilians, not even the Kirinyaan government had been allowed here. The government didn’t even want to, not after they heard what Arusei, Kimani and Jebet had to say about the issue of the Caretaker.

With twenty four Binturongs working around the clock, they had burned down a rectangle, five by ten miles of Jungle here. The Binturongs worked like never before, they broke down like never before too, but that was why they had been divided into three batteries of eight. Kassandora could see them all from here, battery one and two were firing from the ash, battery three was off to the North, clearing more of the Jungle’s edge. Four men per gun, another four to assist with loading, thirty dedicated engineers to each squad, with a host of vehicles to supply ammunition needs.

Where each battery theoretically needed only thirty two-men, with the auxiliary and support squads, they quickly jumped to over two hundred. Kassandora had finally implemented the first traces of hierarchy in her army. Sokolowski was in charge of the first, Zalewski the second, a driver by the name of Ekkerson who Kassandora saw talent in had been put in charge of the third. Each captain had a radio, a compass and a large pick-up truck to serve as a command vehicle. Some famous millionaire who had grown sweet for Helenna had been more than happy to donate them from his private collection after she batted an eyelash and said a few pretty words.

The trucks themselves were mounted with a radar, rangefinder and broadcaster, and had been painted a light green, with stripes of red to be identified from the distance, and Kassandora had ordered them to always be parked in the centre of the battery. Zalewski had been the first to work out why, although that was expected from a man who once flew planes. Their exact coordinates were transferred every ten seconds to the men besides Kassandora.

She had taken a team of twelve with her, although that had been because she always liked easily divisible numbers. Three would have been enough, four would have given them leeway. Now eight of the men stood around and looked through binoculars at the Jungle with little to do. Two operated the radios, two more wrote down coordinates and moved boxes and lines on the map behind Kassandora.

This was done much like in the past, a map of the terrain laid out on a table large enough for Fer to lie flat on. Several compasses lay on it for easy reach, one close by to each red rectangle that represented a battery of eight Binturongs. Kassandora clicked the earpiece in her ear, custom made for Divines. Only Fer lacked one, and that was because they would fall out of the tall ears on the top of her head. She simply had a pair of men trailing her, with their own radios. “Radio check. Binturongs. Over.”

“Team One, loud and clear copy, over.”

“Team Two, loud and clear copy, over.”

“Team Three, loud and clear copy, over.” Kassandora smiled at how perfect their organisation was. True, it was untested in real battle yet, but they had the foundations down.

She clicked her earpiece again. “Neneria, radio check.” A click came a second later to indicate Neneria was broadcasting.

“Loud and clear Kass. Nothing here.” Neneria had been tasked with nothing in particular, she was the strongest Divine they had, she simply had to be here in case her presence could drag the Caretaker away. And her Dead Legion could be called on to support. Kassandora didn’t know how much it could do, her pocket-army killed mortals. How many mortals would it take to fell a titan? Countless amounts. Without mage support, it had usually been impossible.

Kassandora did not reply. She checked up on Fer’s men. “Kassandora. Radio check, everything fine? Over.”

“Everything fine and clear, over.” One of the men replied. Kassandora knew it was, she could see Fer from her location. The woman was taking a lazy walk. Fer was here for the inevitable time when a Binturong would get stuck in the ash or the dirt. If it broke down, she was to simply get the crew out and leave the machine. She had been outfitted with a loose cloak, and then grew herself a thick coat of fur to protect from the Sun’s heat. She had actually wanted to go naked, but Kassandora forbid that, it was bad for the attention of her men, and she needed at least a belt for the canteens of blood. Same as when they entered the Jungle, but far less. She had four canteens of Kassandora’s for strength, and two of Kavaa’s for injuries.

Iniri was to help her with her command over nature. That Goddess was meandering about in between Batteries One and Two, it was easy to make her out when she wore her colourful green wardress against the cold ash she stood on. Originally, Iniri wanted to fight, Kassandora expected she would fight anyway so no order on non-combat was issued, but Kassandora did not expect much from Iniri. The woman herself said the Jungle was not her demesne.

The Binturongs themselves wouldn’t be a loss, they were far too unreliable to be used in a real war. Kassandora liked them, but now that she had stayed with them from more than two weeks, she had grown to know their faults. The crews would be the real losses, not out of same vain moral cause to safeguard life but because Kassandora had spent almost a month training them. How they worked now was a league to how they worked then. The gunners and loaders especially. It was like this in the past too, production could be scaled almost infinitely but training was simply a hard slog that required time. It always did, it always will.

Kavaa was walking about down there too, leading a team of three dozen healers trailing behind her in a tight formation. She was in charge of healing and strengthening men with her blessing for when the battle started. Like the other Goddesses, extremely easy to spot, although this one was from the pristine silver armour she wore that glinted brightly in the Sun. Helenna was close by, although Kassandora could not spot her. She had come just as Neneria had, for support and for having yet another Divine here to lure the Caretaker.

“Goddess!” One of the men on overwatch said. “I see something!” He pointed west, out onto that great sea of green that made up the Jungle. Kassandora squinted, then gave up and looked through her own binoculars.

A dark mountain was rising out of the horizon. Kassandora felt her lips twist into a smile and her eyes start to burn. Her heart beat faster, her cheeks turned red, she grew excited.

It had arrived.

Arascus and Olephia made their way to the Raptors.