Great Invasion (1)

With the fighting done, Vritannis soldiers comb the city for damage and stragglers. Owen rides through the streets and notes that the fallen Daka and makara have reverted in death, the Daka to ordinary Kushan men and the makara to huge blue whales. The absence of monstrous corpses unsettles him, and he wonders whether the creatures were only an illusion. Beyond the walls, the armies of the Holy See muster to guard their ruined base, troubled that no one can locate the nobles who attended the previous night's ball, when a soldier spots Kushan banners rising over the hills.

The approaching Kushan host is immense, divided into dozens of battalions of hundreds each. Among them ride Silat and his four Tapasa, who debate whether to report the Band of the Falcon's movements to Ganishka, all of them uneasy that their emperor is himself an Apostle. Silat ignores the discussion and stares into the distance. Owen leaves the city to see the enemy for himself and concludes that defending Vritannis in any orderly way is impossible given the scale of both armies. Ganishka rides concealed in a gigantic elephant-drawn transport large enough to hold hundreds of soldiers, and orders his men to wipe out the Holy See's army. A volley of hundreds of Kushan arrows kills countless defenders, and the pikemen advance behind mounted war elephants bearing archer towers.

The twenty-page chapter opens the field battle of the Millennium Falcon Arc and was printed in Young Animal issue 18 on September 8, 2006. It reintroduces Silat and the Tapasa on the Kushan side and reinforces their discomfort with serving an Apostle emperor. The reverted corpses give Owen an early clue to the illusory, astral character of Ganishka's monstrous legions.