“You said half the size,” Ares said to Asyllia.

“I did,” Asyllia said. “I did not see the rest of them.”

“Well… they did come from the other side, I can’t blame you.” Ares sighed as he looked out to all the beastfolk that had gathered on the other side.

There were thousands more that had joined the enemy. More from each race that had already been there. Ares rubbed his chin as he stared at them all.

“I will accept whatever punishment you give me,” Asyllia said.

“There’s no need for punishment, you did nothing wrong.” Ares crossed his arms and then hummed to himself. ‘Well this sucks.’

They were now outnumbered at least seven to one, or at least that was Ares’ estimation. They would lose even more now, and the moral of the people would be low. Ares supposed he’d need to prime his army, the mercenaries, and then also deal with the battlefield.

Ares went to meet with his officers. They seemed nervous, and no doubt they could sense the nervousness on Ares too.

“Thank you all for being here, it’s a pleasure to see you all,” Ares said. “As you can see, the situation does not look favourable for us.” Ares smiled. “This will be quite difficult, but I am sure we can handle it.”

“Without Heria, I fear we may have a far more difficult time on our hands.” Torak, for once, did not have the children with him.

“Yeah, well…” Ares shrugged. “We can’t rely on her at this moment in time. It’s regrettable that the timing was so bad.” Ares glanced between them all. He could see the mood was quite sour between everyone. “I do hope none of you plan to let Heria come back to a set of ruins and Rivea aflame.”

“I don’t think that they want Rivea to be aflame,” one of his officers said. It was a tall and thin oxfolk man.

Ares looked at him and narrowed his eyes. “Yes, I know. That is not the point.” Ares tapped his finger on some stone with each word in order to accentuate it. “I hope you all understand what I mean by such a statement. There is no option to allow for such a future. Keep that in mind.”

They all agreed on such a sentiment, though their nerves did not falter. Ares sighed. He could safely assume why they were all nervous and he couldn’t blame any of them. Ares turned to Torak. “Torak, you’ve been with me for some time now.”

Torak nodded. “I have.”

“What do you think?”

Torak remained silent for a long while. Everyone else looked towards him. Torak had been a close confidant of Ares for a long while, so his opinion carried a lot of weight with the others. Torak then looked up into Ares’ eyes. “I think I would like to see how you manage to pull this off.”

Ares smiled. “It won’t be easy.”

“It never is with you.”

The large rhino leader was being carried forward by the others, but at this point in time Ares was eating. He made the rhinoman wait, nothing was going to interrupt his food. Eventually though, it seemed the enemy army began to move and so Ares was forced to move.

He turned into a phoenix and then flew off towards the rhinoman, though brought with him some food that he shifted into his ring and then back out once he had landed.

“Couldn’t wait to see my pretty face?” Ares asked as the enemy army stopped advancing. “Or did you smell what we had cooked up?”

“Your head. I will only kill a hundred of your warriors, the rest will be free to leave or join as they please.”

Ares blew out a puff of air and then began to tap his foot against the ground. “You drive a hard bargain, let me tell you…” Ares took a bite of his meat and chewed on it as if in thought. “I’ll offer you something even better. I’ll let you offer your head and a thousand of your men, since a Rivean is worth ten of any other. Then I’ll let the rest go, they will be free to leave or join as they please.” Ares smiled.

The rhinoman snarled at Ares. “You are outnumbered!”

“Seven to one, maybe more.” Ares nodded. “A fair fight.”

“You are a foolish King,” the rhinoman snarled and then tossed some bones at Ares. They did not reach Ares, disappearing into thin air.

“It was nice speaking with you. Don’t trip on the way back.” Ares leapt up into his phoenix form and flew back as a shower of arrows followed after him. Unfortunately for them, they disappeared before they neared too close to Ares.

Yet it wasn’t just the arrows that disappeared. Ares had created a sunken path through the centre of the field, heading towards the fort. The path went down quite deep, and the earth that he had moved from creating it, spread out on the sides to create two hills that were rather steep. There were three paths made to head to the fort, from the centre and the two sides, where as the hills blocked off a rather large amount of the fort.

One more little surprise were all the dead human bodies that Ares had filled some of the hole with. A warning for the beastfolk invaders that their bodies would join them should they choose to assault the fort.

Ares dropped down onto the fort walls, which still came higher than the two mounds he had created. Ares clapped his hands together. It would be quite easy to fill in the hole later once they had dealt with the invaders.

“Good work, huh?” Ares said as he admired the paths he had created.

Torak looked out to the mounds, the paths, and then the enemy. “I can see why you did what you did.” His tone of voice was disapproving. “Unfortunately you have given their archers better ground to fire from.”

Ares looked out to the two hills, the other sides protected the enemy from their own arrow fire. “Oh… right.”