A Real Goddess Would Let Nobody Die

<Hostiles headed your way, from the south,> the Sunset God warned. <Two groups of six, in transports, following the river along the same bank as you.>

Having an all-seeing True God on your side really was the best kind of cheating.

Pem connected to his mapping bracelet, and did a search. What popped into his mind was mostly a river lazily flowing through rolling hills of pasture, along with some herds of grazing animals, but knowing to look closer, and having an idea of where to look, he found two boxy transports hurrying north, still a ways south.

"I see 'em. How many do they think they're up against?"

<A lot more than two.>

Pem shared a smirk with his one-and-only comrade, Alf. Having the True Goddess of War on your side could make two seem like a platoon. They weren't invincible, and using brute force meant running out of power quickly, but, well, their equipment made the false gods' minions cry tears of frustration, at the unfairness.

Poetic.

<Even sending so many, they're expecting to be outnumbered, but given the situation, they can't spare more.>

Damnation did put a strain on manpower, didn't it?

"The supervisors up ahead, at the next village--they still got no clue?" Alf asked.

<All they know is their communicator isn't working. This group was sent to check their status, and give them an update.>

"'The Sky Goddess has damned us all,'" Alf mocked them. "'Can't run. Can't hide. The whole domain is going to shit. We're all doomed.'"

Pem snickered. Putting together a big alliance to 'reclaim the stolen territories,' then trying to offer a truce when it, uh, didn't go so well, was an interesting strategy, that was for sure.

So, here they were, in the Hretzi domain, as agents of Her damnation. They were far ahead of the main front, which was probably still back east in Vanic territory. Or, what used to be Vanic territory. Not all the alliance members were close enough to strike at directly, not yet, but these two were.

The best part of it was the Hretzi minions wore black uniforms. No, actually, the best part was the Hretzi Matriarch's husband was the Limbot Patriarch's younger brother. Well, whatever. Point was, this was exactly what Pem had signed up for. It was perfect. Although, after spending a year working with 'Keyic security,' he did feel a little regret that being so deep in enemy territory meant he wouldn't get to see those guys doing their thing at the main battles. They spent a lot of time standing around playing pretend, yeah, but they weren't just for show. They'd proven that, many times over.

But Pem and Alf had their own job to do, a job that badly needed doing.

They climbed a hill that had a good sightline southward along the bank of the river, and hid on the northern side. It was about half as tall as the new brick housing back in First Blessed, and was the northernmost of a half-ring of similar hills that wrapped around a little depression, a hundred paces across, which butted up against the river. There was no better option for an ambush, in such open terrain.

"We focus our fire on the first, and hope the second stops?" Alf suggested.

Hmm...The important thing was to make sure neither made it past them. Chasing and shooting and not getting killed, all at the same time, would be tough to balance. Maybe trying to eliminate both in the opening attack was greedy, but they might need to try.

<If attacking the first makes the second driver consider stopping, I can try to coax him into it.>

Pem did so enjoy having a True God on his side.

"Let's go for that, then," Pem agreed. "Launch charges, same time, on the leader. There's no way these grunts have shielders good enough to protect from a double-hit, not something transport-sized. If any get out of the second one after it stops, we pick 'em off. Otherwise, we're free to reload, and it'll be an easy target."

Alf peeked up over the hill and held out his left arm, wrist bent downward, rehearsing the moment of ambush. The charge launcher tubes, weapons of the Sacred Realm, were mounted on the left forearms of their armor, which was custom-made by the Sky Goddess for each of Her Paladins. The explosive charges, shaped kind of like teardrops, hung from their belts. On their right forearms, there were carvings of flames spiraling from the elbow down to the wrist, which could make fireballs come out of the palms of their gauntlet. Lightning rods were clipped to each thigh, like sidearms, which they could use when fireballs and explosives weren't precise or fast enough. Or, they could be lent to anyone who wanted to join the fight, just like Pem once had.

<Be careful,> the Sunset God urged. <If you're hurt, She will never forget, and never stop grieving, for the rest of eternity.>

That sent chills down the spine, the raw truth of it. Accepting this armor meant accepting heavy responsibilities.

Pem's hand drifted to his shielding sphere, mounted near his neck on his left shoulder so he would always be able to activate it, no matter his injuries, whenever there was any chance he was still alive. In the same place on his right shoulder, for the same reason, there was a healer carved in the shape of a crescent Moon.

He smiled a little, remembering the Full Moon Goddess' animated instructions.

"All these general-purpose blessings can do is stimulate your natural healing, to keep you from bleeding to death before you get to me, understand?! Don't be one of those meatheads who thinks, 'Rawr! Me tough! Rawr! Me no bother Goddesses. Scars manly! Rawr!'" She dismissed that attitude with a twitch of Her wrist, over Her shoulder. "Hmph. Nonsense! Battle scars make Suri sad."

The Sky Goddess was calm and unreadable, always thinking and planning and worrying. The Full Moon Goddess pranced around with giant flowers in Her hair, beaming and gesturing and chattering. And neither could be more different from the fakes.

Anyhow, Pem planned not to need to use the healer in the first place.

Not only were all of the Sky Goddess' creations way better than anything the supervisors had, She had also given Her Paladins treasures that the fakes couldn't even imitate, that no enemy even knew about: the teleportation medallions flush against their breastbones. Getting the hang of using them had been way harder than anything else they'd needed to learn, but it was worth it. These medallions were what made facing two Sky Paladins feel like fighting a platoon of wraiths.

"They're almost here," Alf said, tracking them with his own mapper. "Looks like they'll pass between us and the river. Really hugging it close."

"Makes sense. Near the river is the most level ground, and it'd be easy to get lost out in the fields," Pem pointed out. Every direction looked the same, straight to the horizon, except for that river. "We should fire as soon as we have a shot."

"Aye."

Pem joined Alf in rehearsing the ambush, repeatedly popping up over the top of the hill, and lining up a shot toward the gap between the river and the southernmost hill in the ring. The transports seemed sure to pass through that gap, very soon.

Very soon. Pem and Alf ducked behind the hill.

Alf tapped his left arm. Pem nodded, broke the link with his mapper, and linked instead to the charge launcher.

...There was something special about linking to Her weapons, that feeling of divine power, real divine power, vast as the sky, gleaming in his mind, begging him to use it to punish the unforgivable.

Melara would never see another fireball for the rest of her life. No supervisor would ever trample on First Blessed's flower garden. Pem would never again shove his face in the dirt.

<Five seconds,> the Sunset God said. <I'm ready.>

"Four," Pem muttered. "Three, two, one..."

Pem and Alf popped up over the hilltop, found the target about a hundred paces away, exactly where they'd expected and as they'd rehearsed, and launched their charges.

Two hits, and...better safe than sorry, but one charge would have been enough. Only smoking rubble remained of the lead transport. Black-uniformed supervisors leapt out the back of the other, before it had even finished coming to a stop, and scattered.

With a grim smile, Pem ducked back into cover, behind the hilltop. Breaking the link with the charge launcher, he linked instead to the medallion on his chest, and touched a hand to Alf's shoulder. An instant later, they were hanging in the sky, behind and well above their targets. The top of the hill they'd just left began exploding with fireballs and lightning bolts from the supervisors' weapons.

By the time they'd fallen sixty paces, Alf had shot three fireballs toward the ground. Pem left the shooting to his partner, and stayed linked to his medallion. If they were noticed, he could teleport them out of danger before they took return fire, and more importantly, it was best practice not to put yourself in a situation where you would need to re-link before hitting the ground.

Alf hit his unsuspecting targets--fireballs didn't need to be aimed perfectly. The screams of people burning alive were all-too-familiar, to both of them. They didn't flinch.

'Bring to Justice those who lack compassion, cause harm, destroy livelihoods, spread corruption, or exploit the vulnerable.'

Had Pem and Alf not been here, it'd be a village burning alive, a few minutes from now. 'Liquidation.' Pem had learned what that word meant.

'Scorched retreat.'

'Resource denial.'

So many fancy words, when 'massacre' would do just fine. The denial of reality went deep, for the fakes and their minions.

Before they splatted on the ground, Pem teleported again, killing their momentum. They landed on the southern slope of the southernmost hill, opposite from where they'd started.

"Ambush!"

"Where?! Where?!"

"Spread out! Stay in cover!"

The surviving supervisors were shouting over the screaming and the sounds of their own blasts, as they sprayed fire and lightning all along the tops of the half-ring of hills.

Smug, power-tripping bullies when they were the only ones with weapons. Panicking cowards in over their heads when they were not. Every time.

<The driver's still in the transport. He might try to escape, any second.>

Not missing a beat, Alf unclipped a teardrop from his belt, and started fitting it into the launcher.

"I'll shield," Pem said. "They could get lucky."

"Aye."

They climbed the new hill, both of them now coated in a gleaming blue film, although it was hard to see against their armor if you didn't know what to look for. Alf poked up over the top, and scored a direct hit on the second transport. It was a much easier shot, with it not moving, and at much shorter range.

"Shit!"

"North and south! North and south!"

It would be risky to drop the shields, now. A single stray bolt, and their Goddess would never stop grieving.

"Two left, I think," Alf said, taking out his lightning rod. "Just keep us shielded."

Pem almost laughed. Alf's mind was in the same place!

The strategy was sound, anyway. Against so few, whose weapons were nothing special, the Sky Goddess' shielders would hold even against concentrated fire, so long as Pem stayed close, and there was no need for complicated plans when a simple one was sure to work.

Instead of going over the top again, Pem and Alf descended to the base of the hill, and swung around through the same gap between the slope and the riverbank that the transports had driven through. Since the survivors were fixated on the hilltops, Alf had a second to find his targets before he was spotted. Both were crouching behind smoking remnants of the transports, toward the river side, thinking that direction was safe.

So many false beliefs.

"They never tried shields," Pem noted, once the battle was over. "You think they just panicked, or have they figured out that Her weapons are too strong for what they've got?"

"Dunno," Alf replied. He shrugged. "Maybe the Hretzis don't have enough shielders to go around, and these guys weren't priorities?"

Pem shook his head. Of course. It was easy to forget that the shielding sphere on his shoulder, or any of the other sacred treasures he was wearing, could have bought him way more than twelve times over. Easy to forget, because those treasures weren't what the Sky Goddess would never stop grieving if he didn't make it back.

<The supervisors at the village heard the battle. Hurry.>

It was a good thing Sky Paladins could move quickly when they needed to. They leapt into the sky.