Kingdom of God: A Quest of Holy Revolution

The Zealots of Our Liberation


Nachivan erupts. Mobs run from street to street, some of them incited by HaKhofshim and Ma'on but others simply ignited by the shared excitement. In Sasan Bazaar, the merchants join the uprising, break the doors down of the customs office, and burn its inside to nothing more than ash. On the streets, self-proclaimed zealots go from door to door in the wealthy neighborhoods, calling them to join into the battle for God. Within only half an hour, many of the rich are on the street against their will, if only to avoid being a target themselves. The bakers, in an attempt to save themselves, open their bakeries and bake 'san-san buns', in honour of both the Sanhedron and Santsarran, handed out for free.

Nurse-nuns from the Order Hessenine organize logistic lines to lead the wounded to their hospitals. Grandfathers retrieve old rifles on mantlepieces, and masons hammers from their work. It is the screaming and the shouting that hits one most. Nachivan has woken up, and whatever stillness was promised by Orlachag has been made opposite. So says the first book of Amalgast, that 'the believer may break observance when their soul is under threat', and there has never been a great danger to the collective of God's eternal city.

The children are led out by Dvorah and other kindly volunteers. The Yeladada Clan of smugglers which the sect has so fostered strong relations with opens their doors to dozens of the boys and girls. The family matriarch Delada promises candy and treats for the nervous and the crying toddlers, and beds for the elderly. The Yeladada are proud zealots, she proclaims, and they will never bow to the dogs of Sword-Altar.

Scouts scramble out past the barricades, runners screaming that the Jurors come, that all should go to arms. Other scouts rush to the edges of the city, climb up onto roofs and through the alleys. Some do not return but many do, and shout of Juror columns coming to Septuagant Square, and from Yataryn Gate, that another column coming directly for the komandir Sarbadgar, come to put him down.

Another band of adventurers use the riverside streets, rush into Little Eyskhir, with clippings of a newspaper articles from days past carried to their breast: their target is the ironclad Ship Sakarog, monster of the sea. But the naval Grandmaster of the Order Karaban has lifted up the drawbridges and Alangan is again an island: mobs shout from across the Temple of Mirrors but Jurors and armed guards of the naval order fire warning shots and then aiming shots at any who dare try and swim the gap. On the water the ironclad Dread Tagami has set out with hand-picked crew, and patrols the river against those who would dare stand against blasphemy: The navy has turned for Sword-Altar, and the Grandmaster Trevagon damned himself to hell.

But then, from the side, two men come and call out for the Khoffers, pull them into an alley: members not just of the Amalist sect As Hahayiim, with their green and golden turbans, but two heroes none had known were in Nachivan: Tall and muscular Chief 'Cannons'-Canassatego, his black hair in two ponytails and his hand upon a pistol, and short and neurotic 'Fire Friar' Muri, with scruffy red hair and fingernails bit down. Naval titans of their age, leaders of the Azami portage that crossed the mountains of Kutan to ambush a Mare fleet at anchor with torpedo-carrying war canoes near to the end of that war, they are legends in the city. Here to bring a petition to the Patriarch and now embroiled in the uprising, they intend not to leave without giving 'these sons of bitches a bloody nose to fill a tub'.

The senior of the Khofshim, a young excitable girl by the name of Elana, bobs her head up and down several times at Muri's plan as he complains they lack munitions, then produces the modern rifle she's hidden in her dress, and other Khoffers unveil ammo kept in baskets and their own rifles kept wrapped up in their rags. And Muri and Canassatego share a look, and then produce two warm smiles.

"Then, dear brothers and dear sisters, the time has come to row our boat to Sakarog's salvation."

Prison of our Lives


Vikrag Prison is a place of primeval dread, a cursed hill which has held the malefactors of Vaspukaran since the inception of the Second Patriarchate. In its dark cells, observed by onyx petrified angels, have been held both fighters for freedom and the most accursed traitors. The Antipatriarch, the child sons of the last Gushan Rohir who are said to haunt it, the Tearer of Old Nach, and even the Pontiff-Prelate Amalgani Samangan, who was sent here merely for challenging the orthodox position on matters of obscure theology. Around it is a shallow moat replenished with the waters of the Hadit. But the prison has seen better days, and years of neglect after the Temple Coup have left it with growing vines of ivy and cracks in its facade.

It has also left it vulnerable. Sword-Altar standard has been organized into blades and shields, the blades to attack and seize positions in the city and the shields to hold strongpoints. But the shield that has been left for Vikrag is exceedingly under-garrisoned, the Standard drawn thin across the many forts of the city and having to commit its main forces to the main offensive on the Mount. Almost immediately Galavani Chana, leading a mob of armed and angry nuns and Nachivanis joining in the fight, sees that they're distracted. On the water, Bambisnan's Revenge, the flagship of Elder Edagar Teoch of Eykal moored in Old Nach, has taken to the river and is firing cannon-shot at the Jurors on the shore. Vikrag's guns are trained on it, and soldiers shoot ineffectually into the water, panicked at the sudden appearance of a hostile naval ship.

Rav Bukak of the Ravs of Labour, smoking his pipe with the intensity of a man at war, has already closed off the streets behind with expert efficiency and workman's focus. Furniture and torn cobble, pews and unused altars, cabinets and carts, even upturned carriages have turned the neighborhood of the HaKhofshim and the House of Creation to a maze bristling with shot-corridors. Now, with their defense secured, Chana goes against her orders, and sees an opening unlike any other. She prays to God, and holds the little wishbone Yoni gave her on the night at the museum, then waves the standard Six-Shin Aluf and directs the mob to storm across the moat before the drawbridge closes. She counts on one fact: Vikrag is built as a prison, not a fort, and has never endured a true attack.

It is a critical moment, as she orders them forth. The Starshy appointed as Vikrag's shield shouts down at his men to close the bridge, after waiting too long, gobsmacked by the massive mob. They try to, but a nun of the Eucharist, skirts lifted, jumps across the gap, catches the drawbridge closing, and cuts the rope down with the slice of a knife. She is shot dead, and drops down into the water, but the rope, already half-rotted and frayed, snaps. The drawbridge falls back down, with a slam, and there's a scream as the mob charges.

The Jurors of Sword-Altar, clearly unprepared for the attack by the people with such ferocity and bloodlust, try to hold the gate. There's a near-stalemate, but a local artisan has an idea: he calls them to pull down nearby bronze statue of a High Priest of the Synod. 'We may at least use their thick heads for good', he roars to ecstatic laughter. Tied forward at the head and back, the statue is carried forward, rammed into the gate, once, then again, then a third time, and then at last it breaks and the Jurors behind fall back. With ululating cries and bloodcurdling screams of vengeance, the mob descends on the Jurors, many of whom were not chosen in this garrison for their great capability. Those not killed instantly retreat to the keep, as prisoners bang cups and yodel down from their cells within the central jail. The Starshy refuses to dare immolate the Sword-Altar Standard and admit martyrdom, and his men fight with some discipline, killing dozens as they are pushed further and further back.

But it cannot be enough. None expected this, least of all the people: there is a kind of frenetic insanity that takes hold of them as they cut down the Jurors, an enthusiasm that goes beyond mere violence. It is the fanaticism of the emancipated, zealots scrambling atop one another as they carry the Six-Shin Aluf up. The cells are opened and criminals go free, losing themselves in the crowd or carried forward like heroes. The central keep is breached, and all descends into a gruesome melee. The starshy is stabbed near to twenty times, passed around from person to person to cut and spit upon as an apostate until he collapses to the ground dead. The remaining wounded Jurors are either killed or tied up and left to rot within the cells, while the mob sticks the heads of the officers on pikes. Chana leads them out, now outfitted with the arsenal of Vikrag, screaming:

Justice, Justice, Justice for Yoni, Justice for HaKhofshim, justice for Ma'on, Justice for us all!

The Six-Shin Aluf flies from Vikrag Prison. The main Juror garrison inside the Navel falls. And at once, everything changes. This is not a simple coup. It is not a surgical and clever effort to capture the Patriarch.

This is the flood, unleashed by its first unwitting targets.

Man of Bones


The Scourge of God marches with Ilyon northwest to rescue Sarbadgar and they find him in the midst of battle. A blade-column of Jurors of Sword-Altar, with their lacquer unblinking white masks, push into fortified positions held behind toppled carriages and the outer wall of Karogen Academy. Having hoped for an ambush, the blades of Sword-Altar did not have enough time to set up machine guns and artillery: Sarbadgar does not make the same mistake. Atop a battlement of Karogen Academy, he watches statuesque with his hand within his jacket as a bulletsplitter crew shreds the flower of Nachivan's Juror nobility, smoke rising and distant screams drowned out by the trilling fifes and throat-singing howls of the Pale Horse. Above them, a demonic standard stands, fluttering amid gunsmoke:

Komandir Sarbadgar greets Ilyon with a strong grip on his shoulder, and Akov with a firm bow. He looks behind Akov, at the huge horde of fighters, greasers, gangsters and deserter Jurors gathered, many thousand strong, leading back into the street.

"I see Nachivan has come," he says, then turns back to commanding against the column. The first attack has been blunted, the ambush doomed by the blast of the horn of ages and an officer's quick thinking to bar the academy's doors. The second is not nearly so haphazard, and now Sword-Altar brings out its artillery and own machine guns, blowing open a hole into the side of the academy and attempting bayonet charge. Sarbadgar himself is at the front lines, cutting back and forth with a sword on horseback, but in the melee Ma'on shows its worth: Fighters armed with knuckledusters, knives, maces and mauls push their way forward. The disciple Old Strong Belman, enraged that this coup has cancelled the Great Ghadi Tournament, smashes a Juror's mask into his skull with a huge maul and kills several more with nothing but his fists. Even so, it shows the limits of an unarmed militia on the offense: Many of the mob are nervous and undisciplined, and start to break when a chance grapeshot blast from a Sword-Altar cannon shreds an attempted counter-attack. A volley downs Sarbadgar's own horse, though he evades being crushed beneath it.

Initiating another charge, Sword-Altar plunges for a third time into the breach created in the wall of Karogen Academy, only for the sound of nearby twin-flutes and trumpets to cause them to wheel about. From the alleyways stream a new group of fighters, with swords and lances, halberds and coil-whips, muskets and revolvers. Samurai in their ironwood armor fight with katanas, cutting down the routing column of Sword-Altar as it retreats beyond the walls of the See of Nachivan. At the head, with a turban massive and a moustache well-oiled, is Bhadan Hadat, once exiled, now returned as grandmaster of the berserker Trance-Knights of the Divine Mystery. Beside him, held high and lofty, is another, novel banner: The branches of the Tree of Life descending into a singular Spiral of Truth root at which is said to lie God.

As Hahayiim, the Mystic Amalists, are here.

With the Jurors routed and Pale Horse rescued, Sarbadgar finds himself another horse and rides atop it, shouting orders to his men to prepare the guns: They open up huge crates brazenly labeled with 'sporting equipment', and inside reveal the instruments for the deadliest sport of all, with field cannons, ammunition, and more bulletsplitter guns. Akov steps forward and asks Sarbadgar whether the defenders of the city should be honored and respected for their defense, and Sarbadgar, after a moment's hesitation, agrees and flashes in understanding. Ordering all assembled to kneel, in the heady heat of the deluge, he responds to Akov's beginning of the oath of the Jurors with his own: Demanding of each man before him to vow to defend Nachivan, to defend the Patriarch, the Sanhedron, but above all, and before all, to defend the Home of God.

And each man answers with a cheer and an affirmation of the vow, hand held before his chest, and Sarbadgar then declares: With the power vested in me as a Komandir, I declare you, replacing the accursed Sword-Altar Standard, the Mass Jury of Vaspukaran, each of you made Jurors here and then!

And with sudden euphoria the mouflons, and low priests, even penitents and witches, all accept their title, and as Sarbadgar rears his horse back, draws his sword, and points towards east, they rush forward, banners fluttering as they march to save the Sanhedron.

This is the flood, and now it has an army.

Battle Hymn of the Apocalypse


It is a desperate defense, organized not by soldiers or sect fighters but by the ordinary sons and daughters of Nachivan. Clerks and monks, toilers and tillers, lawyers and high priests, all united against the black blades and masked faces of origination. Behind them is the Muvad Mekdash, the spire temple that holds the Sanhedron: before them is their doom. They do not have great arms, or training, but only the spirit of a world that could yet be made free. This is Kedesh, strangers to war who have committed themselves to the hardest battle. Kardon Hadi himself is among them, rallying them on a pack moa, shouting at them to hold firm even as the column of Jurors, bloodied by the massacre at Yovan Gate, will not hesitate to kill them all. Inside the Sanhedron, the doors are barred, and Elder Samangan yells unfazed that they will not surrender till God carries them to heaven in a chariot of fire: electing him Nasi, or speaker, of the Sanhedron, the assembly holds a session under siege. Outside, the banner of the illumination of Vaspukaran flutters in defiance of the dark:


Overturned carts and wagons cannot hold the Jury of Nachivan at bay. The Metropolitan Temple has already fallen, and the Pontiff-Prelate of Nachivan bought off by Sword-Altar, betraying the city he was charged to shepherd.

The Yovan blades of Sword-Altar are not afraid to use artillery, and begins shelling them at once: The Muvad Mekdash's walls shudder and shake as cannonballs that miss barricades slam into its well-built butresses. On a major plaza, the Muvad Mekdash is poorly defensible, and Kedesh's efforts have been tuned more to pamphleteering as any militant defense, but still they hold. Nurses pull back the wounded and carry them away and the women's choir of the Muvad Mekdash, refusing to retreat, sings in defiance of the end, raising the spirits of those still outside even as some drop from the impact of stray bullets. Barricades ring the building, and the first few charges of Sword-Altar are repelled, but after the bulletsplitters are brought forward and a wind blows away the gunpowder smoke protecting the barricades the first line is eradicated: Kardon Hadi falls below his moa, wounded, and panic takes hold. Some contemplate to unbar the doors and at least let the elders flee, but then, a warhorn, and a familiar banner: Here is the Six-Shun Aluf, and the Hand of God, and the Western Navel!

Guru Wendam leads them as he led them at Kutan, and he is just as intent to fight against the odds, against the impossible. With their rifles and rudimentary training HaKhofshim turns the tide: Not expecting so many guns, Sword-Altar pulls back, then returns fire with its bulletsplitters, but the smoke soon clouds the air and the barricades are reinforced by hordes of fighters. Ma'on brawlers, lead by their street gurus, lead teams of Zekheri Kedeshim around the flanks of the Jury, attacking by surprise and forcing them to retreat. But Sword-Altar pulls itself together, closes ranks, and pushes forward: Emplaced now with their own barricades and spearhead on the street, they fire volley after volley, and one well-aimed cannon shot even breaks in the front door of the Sanhedron, to which Elder Massima Rachel reacts by calmly shouting, hands trembling that the Sanhedron has not given them leave to enter, and yells for the elders to fortify the doors with their own seats, as this is the time to stand and fight.

It is pure desperation, now. Bodies litter the plaza. The Jurors of Sword-Altar move forward and despite their losses have the upper hand, having committed significant manpower to seize the Sanhedron. Those who are not killed immediately are dragged into alleys where they will be smeared against the walls: several Elders fighting at the first row of barricades are shot so soon as they are identified. There are no plans, you soon realize, to take hostages: the Sanhedron will be cleansed, and made again. Wendam holds the eastern section, and fights off several Jurors, but advises the Khofshim to fall back to the Mekdash itself, to fight within the building.

But then, from the west, storming through the thoroughfares, beneath the banner of a spiral and an angel and a hand and a pale horse, the saviors of the Sanhedron. Blowing on a trumpet, accompanied by throat singers and standard bearers, Sarbadgar gallops forth, leaps a barricade, and beheads an officer with the swing of a saber: Behind him, the Scourge attacks and machine-guns are emplaced, emptying into the now retreating men of Sword-Altar as they break and flee to the north.

Riding his horse into the cleared-away gates of the Muvad Mekdash, Sarbadgar rides forward, and the elders gaze down at him. For a moment, there is tension, even fear: who is Sarbadgar really, and what kind of man is he to them? But to sighs of relief, Sarbadgar dismounts, walks before Samangan, and bows, cap doffed. And Samangan, who has never liked Jurors, always despised them, truly, raises him up by the shoulders, and pulls him into an embrace, as the elders of the Sanhedron burst into tears. Impromptu, composed and sung first by the choir outside of whom half the members have been killed, the Sanhedron breaks into a song: They will call it, in time, the Battle Hymn of the Apocalypse.

This is the flood, and now it has a psalm.

Guardians of Heaven


Two columns of Sword-Altar march down, one to Septuagant Square, Yatoni Temple, and then the Mount, the other on a straight shot from Yataryn Gate down the avenue of death where the Jury once accomplished the first temple coup. Against them, a grandmother and her adopted children, and the faithful of Nachivan. Baba Tanda leads the defense, holding her revolver up and asking if any would not dare not to fight if a grandma like her is willing to risk her old bones. None challenge her, and all join in. A few disciples volunteer to go to Yatoni Temple to check the museum and academy, and there they find students, shaken but defiant: Fighting for the future of the Spiral of Truth, the students have rolled out several war exhibits. A bombard from the Weeping Years, and a hwacha of the Great Western Coven, and new experimental rockets from those students advancing both military and natural theology.

Still, it will be a slaughter, and the disciples come here now the students are well and surely doomed: The fortifiers of Septuagant Square have already broken and fled before the rush of Sword-Altar's onslaught. Baba Tanda is erecting barricades further south, nearer to the Temple Mount, where the increase in elevation and the more time they'll have will grant them a better chance of success. The students are alone, and for all their ingenuity, will surely die for all their bravery.

And then, the hands of the clocktower of Yatoni turn suddenly and without reason to noon, the minute and hour hands connecting to the pinnacle, and it begins to bong. The students look around confused, and so do the disciples, for noon has not yet come. Behind them, though, streaming from the southern neighborhoods, prompted by the signal, the tune of an orchestra that has not been heard for seventy-five years begins to play, and the remnants of a vanished world emerge from the shadows: Before the Sanhedron, before Santsarran, before Petrifor, Maravan...before the Temple Coup, they were the dreamers of a world of utopia. A world of truth. A world of wonders.

A world of standard time.

The Clockwork Section, the descendants and revivalists of the failed army of the Infallible Patriarch. Persecuted and prosecuted with extreme prejudice for three-quarters of a century, the lifting of prohibitions by Patriarch Santsarran has allowed them organize openly under the sect of Melecha. Now, with their ancient cells and cabals reunited, and their brothers and sisters mobilized, Melecha is back, and prepared to fight against its old enemy. With the signal of High Noon they stream onto the streets, from their legal practices, bureaucratic offices, and seminaries, both old dogs whose fathers were killed by Sword-Altar to young bloods who can only imagine the universal priesthood. Not just for the possibility of the fulfillment of the old dream of High Confession do they rally, but for this new and bristling freedom that they have only just begun to taste. Armed and dangerous, the militant Clockwork Section amasses several hundred veterans, a machine gun, several cannons, and an absurd supply of grenades, lobbed straight into the center of Sword-Altar's column from back-alleys.

Reinforcing the students, the Clockwork Section holds the line with deep ferocity. The Bombard explodes and a building falls, and the hwacha thrums, and the rockets sometimes whistle harmlessly but in a few cases collide hard and even set fire to a bulletsplitter. The Clockwork Section will not leave themselves behind in the past: they will not let their nostalgia deny the future. These restorationists, fanatical and trained in secret, nevertheless know in their heart of hearts that they fight not just for the Patriarch but the flock that they dream of accomplishing one day a priesthood of all believers. And it is they, today, who fight the Sword-Altar Standard to such a standstill that the column is delayed and then diverted, avoiding Yatoni Temple altogether.

Instead, they ram straight into, to their shock, the well-prepared barricades of Baba Tanda and an entrenched urban army. Even with their largest column, Sword-Altar is facing the single largest mob in all of Nachivan: Tens are swarming around the Heavenly Mount like bees of an angry hive, holding the Mount not just with their guns but with their bodies, ready to throw themselves to defend their Patriarch. With the time bought by the vicious stalwarts of the Clockwork Section, the column of Sword-Altar is delayed, hopefully to give time for the Patriarch to flee or for the Mothguard to secure the Mount: None know what is happening inside, for the gates are sealed.

Even with the mass before them, however, Sword-Altar cannot hope to succeed but to seize the Patriarch, and so they still push onwards, firing artillery in closed quarters, demolishing whole blocks, blasting their way through. Screaming men and women flee with lost limbs and shrapnel scars, and Baba Tanda struggles to keep order as any restraint left to the Standard has been lost.

And then, from the Mount, a bugle sounds.

Flight of the Butterflies

Noyan Kobatai never felt himself deserving of his post. Exiled from his sich from some petty intrigue, arrested for stealing fungus from the Patriarch's own stash, fighting as a mercenary abroad, and then plucked as a Mothguard following some false heroism in the War with the Coven eleven years past, he is the most unlikely of commanders for the hallowed Mothguard. His only virtue was denying the bribes that turned many of his fellows to Sword-Altar as informants and as traitors. And he has in every way today failed: He did not anticipate the bomb that killed so many of his men, and did not anticipate the coup that even now threatens to doom them all. He knows that everything wise that has happened today is not of his making, that the trap set for Sword-Altar was not his but that komandir's and Kenturah's. He still recalls their conversation, the whispered words she had for him the night before, her golden hair shining in the lantern light of the temple garden:

"Maintain the mystery, my Noyan, and I and God will handle all the rest."

He felt like such a fool as he accepted her favor, not knowing what she meant. And now he knows, knows the trick, knows the madness. He knows the coursing fever that gripped when he looked into the Patriarch's Chamber, and he knows now what his task is. He knows his duty now is not to Him who is the prophet of the holy God but to the people of the city, knows it is the frightened and shaken families of the priesthood who take refuge in the Mount. They will all surely be put to the sword or held hostage by these blasphemers of God. He knows what will happen if he fails. Knows what will happen if the Jury of Nachivan discovers what has happened.

Through all his life, Kobatai has denied he has had a mission, that God has had a plan for him. He has been an apostate, even, at his lowest, a denier of God himself. But now, now. He grips the favour as he mounts his horse and a servant flares his wings, as he gathers up his men at the gate.

Now, he knows what the mission God has planned for him is, and what moment he has brought him to. And as he orders his men to couch lances, and orders the gates opened, he knows by what instrument he will execute God's own will.

By the trample of his hoofbeats, and the fury of his charge, like a legend of the Cham Yataryn, come again.

For this is the flood, and now it has its legend.

Banner of the People

Sword-Altar breaks. Impossibly, against the surprise cavalry charge of the Cheshvan Mothguard, Sword-Altar shatters, and the Mothguard do not all die in one glorious last sortie. Not expecting so many to have survived the bomb and rallied, or perhaps simply taken aback by the insanity of charging out when their Patriarch should still be defended, Sword-Altar's column from Yataryn gate falls back from the wedge, and its column from Yovan Gate breaks and routs entirely. The Six-Shin-Aluf, joined by the Sigil of Melecha, marches north. Eleswhere, mobs push back the too-divided and split Juror Columns who did not expect such resistance.

The Mount is held. The Sanhedron is held. Vikrag Prison has fallen utterly, and its arsenal appropriated by the mob. Bambisnan's Revenge is locked in naval combat with Dread Tagami and the Yugarana, and has already sunk a navy clipper, Gyri. Edagar Teoch's flaming beard can be seen from shore: On his mast, a new flag is raised, something unique and never before seen, and those watching from the shore rush to replicate it, for it is such a striking image:

A patchwork of the colors of Vaspukaran, arranged from black to white, hastily conceived and put together by weavers in Old Nach and held aloft by Teoch for his ship, the sevensquare is the promise of the new. Vaspukaran does not need only the implements of the old, to appeal to old rites and old demands, but to create a Kingdom of God on earth by reforging the covenant with the Lord above.

This is the flood, and now it has its flag.

The Dam

There is elation in the streets, hooting and hollering. It seems as though they have done it. More barricades are erected everywhere. The Jury of Nachivan retreats to its fortified positions, sans the fallen Vikrag. Left-behind supplies and munitions are seized and more volunteers gathered into the Mass Jury, with Sarbadgar as its impromptu Komandir. Rowboats bring news from some of the cut-off districts. In the northeast of the city, Tata Targon is alive, unharmed, and reportedly, 'mad as God's fiery hell'. He proclaims that 'those who dare aim at the mighty should have a mighty aim', and has gathered an army of what he calls 'Tata's Trousiers', workers from the factories called for their weathered pants who are eagerly taking their revenge on the Jury of Nachivan's spare few columns sent that way. He has ejected the other exarchs from the east bank and is preparing for attack into Gabbana and Kineveh with a rapidly ballooning force of tens of thousands. In Old Nach and Wisdom's Heart, efforts by Sword-Altar to disable the local sects has failed utterly, and they have retreated back to their fortifications, though why they think that wise is not clear. There is no news yet from the Sakarog, but the Grandmaster is now holed inside his fortified offices on Alagan, as the sailors have gone into revolt and the drawbridges have been forcibly pulled down.

But it soon becomes clear why Sword-Altar has retreated. News come to the city, as concussive rumors passing through like lightning The first since the beginning of the day, it is a tale that strikes despair and wrath: The circles of Titarkulan, Ralabarak, and Warabad, either out of malice or in the confusion, perhaps believing the Patriarch dead, have declared for the Originating Principle and the Great Synod. On every side but the south, the city is surrounded by cowards, traitors, blasphemers.
There are claims that each of these circles is experiencing unrest, and yet it is unknown if this will truly stop them from aiding forces to the vile effort of Sword-Altar. Makha, the Kedarkan High Jury, and Komandir Akabar Morsi remain silent, as does Usral, with no news. If Dhagan House sent out messages before the bomb exploded there and cut the hub of the city's telegraph network off, it is unknown. And the Patriarch himself, the shepherd of the people, who should be rallying them to his defense, is silent, though the Mothguard and its Noyan Kobatai, startled he is still alive, has retreated to the Mount and has now opened its gates to move supplies and munitions from its arsenal to the people of the Navel.

And then the other sword drops. Soon after noon, the remaining golems ring again, and in the distance, the smoke-trails of locomotive after locomotive, coming for the city. From the west. From Warabad. From Tendavara. Standards from Sufgar, who had gathered ostensibly to fight Metamoa, but now instead march on Nachivan itself:


Gore-Mastodon Standard, spoken of with reverence in the holy books, that fought beside Amalgast, is here.

Jaekelopterus Standard, that crushed the hope of the Pugilist rebellions, that is feared across the west, is here.

Opabinia Standard, that broke the Iconoclast advance and captured the Antipatriarch, that is known for its artillery, is here.

And Sword-Altar, that never intended to act alone save for a mismatch in timing, that now has a further 20,000 men massing at the Tzinhas Barrack, that plotted with these standards since the beginning, that never intended them to be used for Tendavara but to be brought to bear on Nachivan as an axe against a neck, is ready.

The Battle for the Navel is over. But the Battle for Nachivan has just begun. As the leaders of Nachivan, from every sector, every walk of life, gather together at the Sanhedron, you must prepare your final defense.

The flood is tumbling forward. Now, it must break through the last, and toughest dam.

The future of Vaspukaran depends on it.

Riot rules are still in effect. Your vote counts in both proportion and absolutes. Choose wisely. It may be the difference that rescues the apocalypse.

[] Support the Sailor's Uprising [As Hahayiim will be supporting this action].

Hadat Bhadan: "Good brothers and good sisters, the sailors of the west are in rising, and the drawbridges are dropped - now is the time to aid them, and ensure their rising comes to great fruition! They who fight for us on the water, let us fight for them on the land!"

[] Support the Hendar Uprising.

Rav Bukak: "We have toilers who have seized control of their factories and are contesting their neighborhoods outside the city walls. Remember we are fighting for everyone in Nachivan - save them, and we save the spirit of the g-d-damned sanctity of labour."

[] Escort the Sanhedron to the House of Creation.

Nasi Amalgani Samangan: "People of Nachivan, I beseech you: The elders of the Sanhedron admit we are not immortal, and the Muvad Mekdash far too close to the enemy lines. Escort us to the House of Creation that our fine fellows have fortified, and there hold a session worthy of your arms, and fitting of the irony of the location!"

[] Charge Mushad Bridge [Pale Horse will be supporting this action].

Varhan Sarbadgar: "Men of the mass jury, now is the time to break this block to our united front and let the southern section of the city up. Vikrag has fallen because your sisters, wives and mothers have fought: now show yourselves as men as well, and break the bridge beside it!"

[] Attack the Hanaga Bridges.

Kardon Hadi [from a stretcher]: "Now I know y'all are in a stupendous situation and you're probably not in the best mood to be acceptin' of High Priests, but the god-darned Tata Targon is waiting on the other side with who knows how many pantsmen. We're in need of 'em, and in need of him."

[] Fortify and hold the Central Navel [Kedesh & Melecha will be supporting this action].

Abbess Tessel Tori: "To arms, to arms, to defend the sanctum of our God and the center of our city! Even as the Patriarch surely remains inside, we must not also forget the thousands on the Mount beside him, and the position it holds in the city! The center must yet hold, or we are lost!"

[] Fortify and hold the Western Navel [Ma'on will be supporting this action].

Guru Bluff: "If we're moving the Sanhedron west, we will defend the west. If we are not moving west, we will still defend it. This is our home, and HaKhofshim's home as well. We will not yield it to these sons of whores who betray everything that we hold dear. To arms, to the barricades and to the world to come!"