"Things will remain the same until I change 'em"
-Dr. Dre
The pallid, flickering gleam of the light bulb shining down against the surface of the table coursed over Cypress Dreadslay's features with both the faintest and the sharpest of clarity - as he stood with the attention of the other commanders within the Mutiny Alliance's Expeditionary Force into Galen Thal - the vanguard of the vendetta that was about to errupt across the North Eastern reaches of the continent.
Dressed entirely in nighted anti-coloration - from the shimmering surface of his new ebony leather coat, that falls openly about Cypress' upper body, down to about his hips, to his loose-fitted black khaki pants which hung to the base of his polished and shining black combat boots, the High Commander of the M.A.F. takes in a smooth drift of smoke from the cigarette clutched between a pair of slender, pale fingers as his opposite hand points to the positions of attack which, within a matter of hours will be hellish firestorms dotting the Galen Thal map.
New Camelot was one of Cypress Dreadslay's personal favorites, as far as territory goes. Awarded to the Mutiny Alliance as tribute of war after Cypress crushed Camelot in their final altercation many years ago, the mountainous landscape of castles and fortifications had grown to include the citadel of the Alliance itself - coming to connect all of Galen Thal with one another before the end, before the Warlock Order. Liberating this country from their crumbling, yet tightening clutches, would be a milestone for the M.A. And it would serve to compliment Archos' offensive in the South with a sister assault in the North. The Warlock Order was being crushed between the vice grips of two former enemies.
He marks the lacerations of the future with the tip of his shining, razored longsword upon the map - giving the medieval-industrial feel of the room its masterful centerpiece, as Cypress taps various locales upon the vast, detailed map of Galen Thal - an anachronistic version dating back to pre-Warlock Order occupation. In Cypress' own, strategizing and sharpened mind, beneath the cold smile that gleams serenely upon his youthful and alabaster features, he is already sinewing his hated enemies piece by piece. Thoughts were always the most dangerous weapon in his arsenal.
* * *
The factors
The naval meat-grinder in the Arctic waters south of frigid and Alante-held Odindrust. The Marauder fleet and the armada of both the Warlock Order and the Mutiny Alliance, respectively, were smashing themselves into ruin in a stalemate with no winners save those individuals fortunate enough to survive such a clash.
Archos' superbly executed offensive had, in effect, Damned both the Southern half of Galen Thal and the entirety of Odindrust, as well as the Middlelands. The Warlock Order could not afford to play imperialist and spread their forces along multiple continents any longer. Swift surrenders of demoralized and almost annihilated forces trapped between the Great Allies' various movements, in Odindrust and the Middlelands had given them both over to the Vennish confederation wholesale. And now, Venway was perhaps the safest place to be of all of these positions. Laughable irony, indeed.
The Order's concentration of troops in Galen Thal was not even working - at all, by any accounts what so ever.
And, with their forces lined up for the Godslayer army to roll over in the Hagalz line, the Northern coasts and interior was so sparcely guarded that Archos had already attacked there with a very small expeditionary force. Cypress did not know the exact numbers or really if there were any deeper motives to the Godslayer brigade attacking the North coast, but he intended to use the situation to his full advantage. Archos would not have sent so little men if they were going to be crushed by a quarter of a million positioned soldiers. That meant one thing - the North was a sitting target, and a direct route from the Winterlands to Galen Thal could be used once all of Cypress' pieces were assembled and in their correct place.
For now, the Mutiny Alliance's quiet seeming had been a shroud over their actions. The Winterlands counter-offensive was a success. But the soldiers there were thinned in number, exhausted from the viscious and drawn-out campaign of guerrilla warfare in the frozen wastes. The Middlelands, on the other hand, was already a source of fresh soldiers and training grounds, of readied supplies and of sheer morale. The swiftness at which the Order had been swept off the board here and the way the Godslayer and Dreadslay houses dramatically liberated these small, formerly virtually defenseless countries from the iron fist of a bloody empire had endeared the people there to the Great Allies' cause.
And so, companies of new recruits into the Mutiny Alliance's forces were raised weekly from the thick concentration of villages, hamlets, and towns in the countryside of the Middlelands, as were multitudes of supplies. Set in with the freely-thriving industrial base of the Venway isles, this made for a lethal triad to back the war effort.
The war had been taken to Galen Thal - where the hated invaders' original campaign of genocide and slavery had seemingly spawned. That same symbol of hate had now been seen in Odindrust and the rest of the Middlelands. Document after document of the bravery of the Alliance's ultimately successful but brutal crusade to defend the Winterlands has been filtered through out the Middlelands and pressed to the public eye. Many families already had their own sons and husbands in the field there. It became a matter of duty of patriotism and of revenge, as it already had in Venway. And so, Cypress' tool of manufactured hatred was at work again.
Parades came first, then even more militant marches, and now the Middlelands was in the bloodthirsting frenzy. The militaristic atmosphere only darkened, never lightened, as the black and silver standards of the Mutiny Alliance were seen more and more often, amidst chanting crowds, in the uniformed sword and machine gun units marching and riding through the streets of their cities in "patriotic campaigns" which really were just rallies of hate to fuel the populace's hyped up anger versus the Order's regime.
Now there was a sizeable army trained and readied for the direct invasion of Galen Thal. They awaited in the coastal towns of the Middlelands - which were the most rigid and frenzied in their chanting and parading.
* * *
Cypress read the latest reports of his "work" from afar in that once-peace loving country and he shrugs briefly and distantly. He smiles grimly, with a hollow and frigid essence, or lack of essence, into the mirror of his own chambers in Snowkaap, as he tilts his face upwards to stare with saphire eyes forged in an undying lust for vengeance and victory back at those very same, said eyes.
"The Warlock Order is the blame for this. They forced my hand... Peace is an illusion and a peace-loving state in an age of war is nothing more than a victim. It's kill or be killed, my friend. Kill or be killed. You have done nothing but help these people become something greater than victims - you've helped them become saviors..."
He spoke the words with quiet emphasis and direction. They were mood swaying and sharp and direct and wrought with a dark visionary's fanaticism to the end. However, beneath Cypress' voice there was nothing but practiced repition. Now he was manipulating himself. That darkness within his very spirit - a spirit irrevocably drenched in hatred and bloodshed, in murder and thievery; this spirit was after one thing and one thing alone.
Cypress' staring, unblinking saphire spheres look back into the mirror and his smile fades into a fatalistic countenance of calm but deadly resolution.
"I will destroy you, all of you - Warlock Order. I don't care who I have to drag down with you, even myself. Even God himself. But I will destroy you."
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