Dawn of the Epoch

Chapter LXXVII - The War Ravages On

A violent storm blew over the Ligurian Alps to the East of Genoa. The unnatural cloud surrounding the city had grown. It began moving north toward Alessandria. The newly allied military forces fighting for Italy had been tracking the clouds with baited breath. The general consensus was that the storm had increased the power of the unnatural cloud encompassing the city. The cloud moving north defied normal wind vectors. The general consensus among the Allied military leaders was that it masked an army. The Allied Forces began fortifying the Province of Alessandria. The troops were spread thin because they did not know what part of the mountains the ghoul army would come from.

Within days, the fears of the generals were realized. An army of ray-gun wielding ghouls swarmed over the mountains and hit the lower Alessandrian valley with an unreckonable force. The ghouls not only crossed the mountains quickly on glowing hoverboards; they had full-sized hovercraft. Some box-like armored personnel craft carried fifty ghouls packed in like sardines. They flooded out into the lower-valley towns like the Allied Forces flooded out of their amphibious craft onto the Beaches of Normandy in 1944. Within hours, Ovada and Novi Ligure had fallen. The next day, Nizza Monferrato was taken.

As victory proved more elusive with each battle, a raucous debate broke out among the generals. A vociferous contingent wanted to quarantine the entire area with a scorched-earth policy. This group advocated the bombing of the plains. They could wipe the ghoul army out along with millions of acres of prime farmland and thousands of farmers and hundreds of small, rural communities. The Italians adopted a diametrically different approach. They refused to allow a single bomb to wreak havoc in their beautiful countryside. This desire to preserve the countryside ultimately defeated the bombing advocates. The tactical understanding was that bombing would win battles, but not the war. Unless the generals could figure out how to beat the ghouls on the ground, they would never retake Genoa. If they could not retake Genoa, then the ghoul army would only grow. Tacticians speculated that a ghoul army would appear in a new city and that the cancer would spread. The obliteration of Genoa itself was off the table, at least for the time being. The answer was clear; a way to defeat the ghoul ground forces on the ground, at their own game, was the only way to truly defeat the ghoul armada.

The army became concentrated in the city of Alessandria. The tension over the situation reached extreme levels. In the upper echelons of the ad hoc alliance of worldwide military forces, an unnerving fear set in. If Alessandria was lost, then they may have to resort to bombing. They may have to admit that their best infantry stood helpless against the technologically-advanced onslaught. They may have to resort to destructive measures that would forever scar the world. The tension and the fear led to a fanatic attempt to fortify the city. Hundreds of thousands of troops garrisoned the buildings. Very few citizens remained. Those who remained served the billeted infantry.

The fear and the tension may have clouded the judgment of the experienced leaders because, in their frenzy, they failed to consider the implications of the storm itself. On the day that they felt sure Alessandria would be attacked, they received a transmission. The storm had cleared the Ligurian Alps and descended over Parma. When the storm left, the city was in Ghaelvord’s hands. The attack on the Alessandrian valley had been a feint. The real storm provided the air cover needed for the real ghoul army to sack Parma with minimal effort and very few casualties. The plot thickened as heads rolled. Behind closed mahogany doors, in sovereign halls, decorated military leaders were excoriated relentlessly by perplexed politicians.