"Change of plan! We are not waiting for the breach to reach us. We are making one!"
Vane commanded.
The officers around the command post froze. The panicked shouting died in their throats.
"But, Sir?" the ash-covered lieutenant stammered.
"We are launching a counter-strike,"
Vane locked his eyes onto the center of the enemy formation in the plaza below. Three bloated Blood-milk Hulks were methodically battering the outer gate with pulverized masonry.
"A wedge formation. We punch straight through their center, shatter their heavy vanguard, and buy the civilian convoys the time they need to clear the inner district."
Vane snatched the primary speaking crystal from its bronze mount. He channeled his magical voice directly into the earpieces of the disparate unit commanders across the besieged wall.
"All units, listen to my voice! We are pivoting to offense!"
Vane's tactical mind raced. He slotted his remaining, battered assets into a desperate, suicidal gambit.
"Wing One and Wing Two," Vane ordered, looking up at the swirling, chaotic mass of lesser angels fighting in the smog.
"Pull back from the vanguard! Harass their deep flanks. Do not engage the Death Knights directly. Blind the Death Warriors. Keep their heads up and their blades pointed at the sky."
"Level Fours," he whispered into the crystal, looking at the high-altitude Principality Peace squadron hovering like frozen stars. "Hold your altitude. Wait for my visual flag. You are the hammer."
Vane physically turned toward the southern rampart. He addressed the ragged line of exhausted priests and mages.
"Casters! I need a corridor! Stop firing into the mass! Layer your denial zones.
[Wall of Holy Fire] on the left flank. [Chains of Light] on the right. Melt the cobblestones if you have to! Give me a road of glass right down the middle!"
"And the Regulars?" the lieutenant asked. The blood drained from his face.
"If we open a corridor..."
"Pull them back," Vane commanded. The words tasted like dry ash on his tongue. He was ordering a localized retreat that would look exactly like a rout.
"Pull them out of the center. Funnel them into the side kill corridors. Let the enemy's momentum carry them straight into the middle."
"That leaves the center completely open to the gate, sir! The Hulks will walk right in!"
"No," Vane said softly.
He drew his broadsword. The heavy steel sang a clean, sharp note in the polluted air.
"That leaves the center for the Paladins."
Vane looked down over the inner lip of the wall. And stared into the courtyard where Sir Kaelthas, Valerius, and the other elites waited in absolute silence. Their eyes were locked on him. They understood the math. And they were ready to die.
"Paladins! Wedge formation on my mark! You are the battering ram! Split them open!"
Vane took a deep, shuddering breath of sulfur and death. He reached down with his off-hand. His leather fingers traced the small, intricately carved wooden symbol of the Earth God tucked securely into his belt.
Forgive me, Rona, Vane thought.
A piercing memory of the smell of baking bread in a sunlit kitchen flashed through his mind. It was a memory that belonged to a ghost. It did not belong in this world of blood and iron.
I am spending the gold.
Vane raised his glowing broadsword high above his head. The celestial canopy above shifted, bathing the steel in harsh white light.
"OPEN THE GATES!" Vane roared.
The massive iron-wood doors of the inner courtyard groaned. Chains rattled violently as the portcullis was hauled upward.
In the plaza below, the exhausted Regulars broke rank and fled to the sides. The center of the battlefield opened. The advancing line of towering Death Knights turned their horned helms toward the yawning archway, their crimson eyes narrowing.
"CHARGE!" Vane screamed, dropping his blade like a headsman's axe.
Fifty Vanguard Paladins erupted from the shadows of the gatehouse.
They did not shout. They did not sing. They hit the killing field in absolute, terrifying silence. Fifty points of blinding, concentrated divine light hurtled directly toward an ocean of absolute black iron.
The two forces collided in the center of the molten glass corridor.
The impact was deafening. It was a kinetic detonation that shattered the remaining windows in the gatehouse.
Sir Kaelthas drove his tower shield directly into the chest of a Death Knight, the holy steel violently crushing the dark carapace. Beside him, Valerius swung his molten claymore, severing a Death Warrior in half before the creature could raise its blades.
The fifty Paladins drove a wedge of blinding white light straight into the throat of the darkness.
The true slaughter had just begun.
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