The command post at Dunwich was dimly lit. Its only illumination came from the constantly flickering screens clustered around the tactical sand table like petitioners, and a scant few dim torches exuding the scent of sandalwood.
The rear wall of the command post had been removed after the fighting began, revealing the adjacent temple.
Ben Lier, now a fifth-circle elder of the Blood-Worship Cult, was alone.
No one dared disturb him while he was deep in thought, because the anticipated slaughter had now become a war—a war he could ill afford at this moment.
Though he had boasted before the many elders of the Blood-Worship Cult, the war itself had left him deeply troubled.
Not because defeat was possible, but because they had actually been pinned down on the battlefield.
The plan he had prepared long ago should have wiped out everyone he believed would not support him in the future holy war in a single stroke.
Yet cracks had appeared in that once flawless plan.
Some Kaimon Church inquisitors had sent warnings to loyalist troops, while certain turncoat officers had been assassinated and their units taken over by loyalist NCOs.
And Mountbatten...
He still remembered the fear radiating from his spy when the man came to report on that damned "hero." The spy had feared that the commander's fury would bring his life to an end.
The messenger had limped into the command post, his hooded head bowed.
"What is it?"
Ben Lier, who had been actively directing his troops in slaughtering loyalists, demanded.
"They... they escaped the Ork encirclement. Mountbatten and Bronz."
"What do you mean?"
"Bruce of the Shadow Blade withdrew his troops from Dunwich University. Mountbatten escaped as well. I personally checked every corpse... he wasn't among them."
"You said they escaped?"
By then, his fury