A/N: There is no possible excuse for how long this has taken me, so please accept my apologies, and enjoy the chapter.

Chapter Two

Goldshield moved in front of the video screens, barking at the techies. "Get me a picture."

"Working on it now, General!"

"Work faster."

The sound came through first. "… broadcasting to ... Orleans, please come in this is ... calling New ... -nyone? Anywhere? If you can ... come in!"

Goldshield spoke as one of the technicians gestures for her to begin talking. "This is General Goldshield, commander of the United Human Resistance. You've reached our headquarters – now who are you, and where are you?"

The static on the screens wavered and flickered before a fuzzy picture appeared. The sound began clearer. "– thank God! We thought we were alone out here, we had no idea anyone else had survived, it's been so long since we had any hope of a signal, I can't tell you –" The picture came on, flickering to fuzzy life. The man facing her looked to be military, early fifties, grizzled and old before his time. Apparently he could not see her; he was still glancing over his shoulder at his men as he spoke, making similar gestures to those she had been a moment before. "You said you were the commander of the resistance?"

"I did."

He laughed, a little incredulously. "So there is a resistance then?"

"There is; we've divisions all over the world. One more now you're alive again. Where in Poison- America are you? How many people do you know of are alive out there? How have you survived the fallout?" Her voice bullet-pointed the questions, each one stabbing the air perfunctorily. "Are you still being attacked by fae? What weaponry and defences do you have? Is there any–"

"Uh, General, I'm not sure I can answer all of that at once," the man said with a nervous laugh.

Goldshield failed to see what was amusing. "Try."

"I have to refer you back to my own command. Honestly we didn't expect to get through–"

"Who is your commanding officer?" she snapped.

"That'd be Colonel Harper. A messenger has been dispatched to him, it shouldn't be too long till he–"

He was already arriving, younger than the one she had been speaking to and better presented; his face clean shaven, hair combed and his uniform neat. Goldshield wore combat fatigues as a matter of course, as did everyone else under her command. This was a fulltime war. But the attitude of this American was promising. He immediately demanded to know how they were talking to, how, and why he couldn't see her.

One of her techies spoke to her. "We're having some trouble with our signal, General – that could be why they're not seeing you."

"Strengthen the signal if you can."

The American now before her saluted. "I hear you're commander of the United Human Resistance, General Goldshield."

"That's correct."

"Colonel Harper, ma'am, at your service."

"I'm glad to hear it. At ease; I don't need formalities, I need information. Can you answer some of my questions?"

"Some of them, yes. We're in an old bunker buried under Wisconsin, or what's left of it. I know of – or knew of – eight others dotted around the U.S. The last functioning government had them constructed in a hurry when Europe was going down. Each one holds five thousand people."

Forty thousand. Forty thousand additional soldiers to her cause. Goldshield's mind raced, her heart beating faster. Surely Silverlance could not command the appearance of such numbers. If they could clear out Poison Province, get them all to Australia and into military training … The bright hope of victory reared up, dazzling her and temporarily stealing her voice. Then she realised what he had said, and a cold spike of dread intruded into her vision. "You said you 'knew' of eight others? Why the past tense?"

"We lost contact with the New Orleans bunker almost two weeks ago."

"Why?"

"No idea. They just went dark."

Definitely not good. And it was one sign of a magical attack; communication was blocked or the people bewitched into simply not fighting. Harper obviously did not recognise the critical situation he found himself in.

"We're looking into gathering the resources for an expedition now, but radiation suits are hard to come by nowadays."

"Leaving that bunker is the last thing you should do," she said. "New Orleans has gone dark because they are all dead; the fae have attacked them. You and the remaining seven bunkers are all in mortal danger. Get word to them, get any and all defences you have in place, and put yourselves into lockdown."

"What? How can you know–?"

"I recognise the signs. Colonel, it is very possible that he's coming."

"Who?"

The question was so unexpected that for a moment Goldshield did not know who she meant. There was only one 'he'. There had only ever been one 'he'. One Devil, one demon, one enduring foe for as long as she had a memory. Only one. Perhaps it was going to be harder than she had thought to turn these Americans into her weapons. "Silverlance. He cannot afford for forty thousand new humans to suddenly exist."

"Silverlance … do we have an intel file on someone named Silverlance?" Harper asked one of his men.

"Uh, sort've, sir. But it's sketchy. The name was mentioned a lot before the nuclear launch."

"Silverlance is Nuada Silverlance, the Prince of Bethmora, purger and destroyer of humanity," Goldshield bit out. "He was the one who resurrected the Golden Army, and he is the one who has united all of fae-kind against the rest of us. And if Silverlance gets there before I do, then you're all dead."

The certain finality in her voice stopped all the Americans at their work, and they all looked where Harper was looking, regardless of whether they could see her or not. "You're coming here?" Harper asked.

"Yes. Getting America safely evacuated is now the most important task the UHR has to complete. Transmit your coordinates to us, along with any others you have. If they get there first then you fight like hell. Hold on, don't be afraid – we're coming for you."

She turned to her communications officers. "Get their position. Stanner, find out how many men we can afford to send to Poison Province for the evacuation."

"Going yourself?"

She nodded. Wherever she went, Stanner went too; she had never assigned herself a bodyguard, but he had acted as one for years. If he hadn't been a comrade, then 'servant' might have been the right word. He never left her side if he could help it.

"Board won't like it."

"Let me worry about the board."

Sure enough, the board didn't like it.

"Sending even half a dozen men into that toxic wasteland would be too many!"

"We have radiation suits."

"For a few hundred people! Not for the army that it would take to evacuate all those people, and certainly not one for every one of them. It would be suicide, and if the radiation count isn't so high that it kills us immediately, it would shorten lifespans by years."

"Yes, because having our lifespans shortened is a major problem when the entire globe is an active warzone," Goldshield retorted. The council member facing her raised an eyebrow, and she sighed sharply. "I apologise for the sarcasm."

The board was comprised of ten members, of which Goldshield was only one. Technically she was the chairwoman, but there were also politicians of the old world, medical experts, other military personnel of the air forces and navies, as well as a few civilian representatives. Mainly they went along with her plans, left with no other option. However right now, there was another option, and they were all striving hard for it. Apart from Admiral Yamada and Air Marshal Gardiner, who agreed with her that more resources were not something they could afford to pass up.

"We are having enough trouble holding Tehran. Opening another front in Poison Province would be suicide. We do not have the manpower or the resources to make it a successful operation, especially not if they are already under attack."

"That they're under attack is why we have to take action now," Goldshield pointed out. "There could be thirty thousand people there, more. We cannot possibly allow them to die when we have the power to save them. Do you, any of you, have any idea what we could do with thirty thousand more troops? The fae wouldn't have a chance at victory after that!"

"There are other ways to achieve peace," one of the civilian members said timidly.

"We tried that before, if you remember," she replied coldly. "A delegation of fifty diplomats who were welcomed into Bethmora by Silverlance, for peace talks. A delegation of fifty diplomats who were then murdered in the most brutal fashion before they could speak a word. I and others like me advised against that, and we were ignored. Don't ignore me now."

"It's … it's just unsustainable."

"Fighting this war without them is unsustainable! We are losing, and we're losing because we've forgotten how to simply survive as much as anything else! These people have survived, against everything Silverlance and their own foolishness threw at them. We need them to teach us as much as we need their numbers to destroy the fae-kind. Added to that, their numbers outmatch us five to one. In a few years the skies will be so thick with dragons no aircraft will be able to move. We cannot give them that chance."

"I suppose … more people would help us rebuild, afterwards."

Goldshield could not think of an afterwards. There was nothing but this conflict. There had never been anything but this. "I couldn't care less if they all end up dead, as long as they help us defeat Silverlance doing it."

No one frowned at her attitude; they were all too used to it by now. She meant what she said, heartless as it was, but she also got results. She had always got results. Humanity was safer under Goldshield than it had been in decades.

"Alright," Admiral Yamada said, "all those in favour of helping the people in Poison Province?"

Goldshield gritted her teeth. She didn't need the council's approval; their role was purely ceremonial. They were there to offer her advice, should she seek it, and then to obey her like the good little citizens they were. But reminding them of their own irrelevancy probably would not help matters right now. Some of the people liked to keep hold of their traditions, however illusionary they might be. Most of them were happy to put their faith in her name and the legends that went with it.

They all voted in her favour, apart from the health experts. "Eight votes to two."

Goldshield pushed away from the table. "More than enough. Excuse me, I have a rescue operation to plan."

Gardiner and Yamada came with her, and they and their personnel fell immediately into logistics. "Our primary objective can't be to rescue the people. As long as they're in their bunkers, they're safe. There's a problem when it comes to getting them out because of the radiation, but we'll cross the bridge when we come to it. The problem is the attack that is already underway."

No one pointed out there was no proof of this attack. They had all come to trust in Goldshield's instincts implicitly.

"Colonel Harper said that New Orleans had gone?"

"Yes."

"Then we have two possibilities," Yamada said, "either they've come by water, in which case the Mississippi River would be the best route for them to take, or by air."

"But the dragons are still above China and Japan," Gardiner said. "According to our last verified reports, their mating rituals are only about halfway done."

"And how old are those reports?"

"Almost a month."

Goldshield frowned. Not good enough, by far, but also better than nothing. They had to just hope that the dragons were still out of the picture. And she hated no word more than she hated hope. Except maybe faith. "We assume they came in by the river then, and attacked with land troops from there. Obviously we'll need ships for the evacuation, but for now we take the air force we can, repel the attack."

"How? We have no idea where they are."

"The Americans should have given us better intel by now on the layout of the land – Stanner?"

He handed her a data sheet which she scanned through. It gave the exact coordinates of the New Orleans bunker, as well as the others and a rough inventory of their weapons. "Something strike you as odd?"

She looked at it again. "No nukes."

"Not one left in America. Apparently."

"Hmm. We'll see about that."

After the people were out, of course. One of those weapons could utterly obliterate Bethmora after all. Not something they could afford to leave rotting underground somewhere. There was little chance of them developing or salvaging another one anywhere else. The other nuclear arsenals were either deep in enemy territory, or had been destroyed. No one could accuse Silverlance of not learning. After Poison Province had destroyed his Golden Army, he had destroyed every nuclear weapon he'd come across. Another reason Tehran was so important. Iran had never managed to produce a nuclear weapon in the old days, before the Golden Army attacked. But they had the facilities for nuclear enrichment. So did North Korea – but the Far East was off limits to anyone human. Really, to anyone not dragon; they were fiercely territorial when mating.

"We'll fly high altitude recon flights above the eastern states. From New Orleans, the nearest bunkers are in Missouri and Virginia. Silverlance could send his troops in either direction. I'm inclined to think Virginia is in the greatest danger though."

"Why? If they came up the Mississippi," Yamada said, "then it makes sense for them to sweep westward and up to the north before coming east again. Less chance of them missing any people."

"Yes, but Silverlance is coming from Bethmora. They'll head to his easiest access point, here," she said, finger stabbing on the Potomac River. "Assuming they know exactly where the other bunkers are."

"If they sacked the New Orleans one properly then they would have found coordinates. Might take some time to translate them though. Fae have no idea how to read maps."

Everyone smiled at the jibe except Goldshield. Her green eyes had gone distant, dark in the overhead lights. They all knew where her thoughts had gone. It was obvious in the way her muscles had tensed, the way her mouth had tightened. The way she had suddenly been crafted of stone. To say she was focused on killing Silverlance would be a gross under-estimation. He was her obsession. Even Stanner, who knew her as well as anyone could claim to, suspected he did not know how much of her mind worked furiously toward that goal. Every moment was consumed by the thought of killing him. In his darkest suspicions, Stanner thought she did not even care if humanity won the war. She certainly did not care about personally surviving it. Just as long as her war ended with her blade buried in the elf's gut.

"We go in by air. Yamada, send as many ships as you can across the Pacific, and we'll send updates as to our position when we can. Gardiner, what troop carriers do you have?"

A/N: I doubt I have any right to ask, but ... review please!