Summoning America

Chapter 14: Pandor's Surrender

Eastern Lourian Subjugation Army, Gim

Pandor eyed Adem as his silhouette slowly shrunk into the distance. He was concerned by Adem's abrupt change in behavior; Adem was usually not one to cower from a fight. Despite his nasty personality, he was still a brilliant tactician. Naturally, Pandor became worried about the United States of America. Due to the absurdity of the reports regarding their Navy's surrender, he had doubts. However, as time progressed, clues surfaced — evidence pointing to the validity of these rumors. Not a single ship or transmission from their great fleet returned, nor did any of their forward scouting elements return.

While he was strategizing, one of his assistants walked up to him. "My lord, the Qua Toynians are marching here. We could not ascertain exactly when they departed due to the loss of our scouts, but they are currently maintaining a position five kilometers from Gim's walls."

General Pandor raised his eyebrow. "And the Americans?"

"We have not discovered any of their strangely uniformed men, nor their vehicles."

Pandor breathed a sigh of relief. "Well then," he said smiling. "Let us meet the Qua Toynians on the battlefield. What have they brought?"

"Their army consists of ten groups of 300. 3,000 men total, with 24 wyverns."

"Ha! That's laughably small. They've had one victory with the help of their allies, and now they have grown overly confident. I pity the men who have to follow such an idiotic commander."

Pandor walked back to the manor to inform his subordinates. Using a manacomm, he relayed his orders to the entire stationed garrison of 10,000 men. They were to assemble outside the city walls and wait for their own wyverns to strike the Qua Toynians. With a mage bombardment and volley of arrows to follow, the Qua Toynian's numbers would be hopelessly thinned. In doing so, he could turn his advantage in numbers into an overwhelming, unscalable cliff; this could reduce the chances of his army suffering casualties from magic-proficient elves and other physically strong demihumans.

With the order given, he ventured out to survey his troops. The opposing army still maintained their position, unmoving. With an army as vast and well-trained as his own, he wondered if the enemy was having second thoughts about their assault. Of course, he'd rather crush this army so he wouldn't have to deal with it when assaulting Ejei, but if they were to retreat, that would signify a great victory with regards to morale.

From the manacomm, he was informed that his wyvern knights were ready to strike, and he gave the order to commence the operation. Simultaneously, his men marched forward, intending to reach firing range for their spells and arrows by the time the Lourian wyverns completed their attack run. Then, he saw trails of smoke in the distance — the same trails of smoke described by all the fallen Lourians throughout the past few weeks. His blood ran cold as he watched the trials move toward the sun, where his wyverns were positioning for a strike.

He put his hand up to his eyes, squinting to maintain visibility of the light arrows, which curved to follow his wyvern knights. Their evasive maneuvers were helpless; the manacomm became saturated with the panicked screams of the dying. Blasts echoed one after another as the light arrows found their targets, reducing the pride of the Lourian military to mere chunks of burnt flesh and shards of destroyed armor. His troops heard the explosions as well and glanced upward. Pandor sighed deeply; he could sense the morale of his men plummet, wondering what had happened to their aerial support.

While Pandor wallowed in regret, desperately trying to salvage the operation, he noticed several dots appear in the distance. Accompanied by a rumbling sound, the behemoths eventually came into view and struck a neuron. He realized their identity: these were the same harbingers of death that felled the Eastern Lords Division. He felt a sharp pain in his heart as he recognized that he was in fact the idiotic commander. The Qua Toynian army was used as bait, to lure out his army and goading him into thinking that it would be an easy victory.