Prometheus's war of attrition proceeded with the same pace that most such wars do - that being a very slow one. With little infrastructure prepared for the task, it took years for Prometheus to smith enough steel weapons just to arm his personal guard, a process that was greatly slowed by Hekate's guerilla tactics. At some point, Hekate clearly figured out what Prometheus was planning, because she began to make a point of targeting ships heavy with iron, and destroying caravans traveling to Knossos from Crete's various mines.
Ultimately, Prometheus decided that if he was ever going to succeed at his endeavor, he needed to remove his dependence on vulnerable trade routes from the equation.
Before Kronos had ascended the throne in Knossos, he'd lived with his wife, Rhea, in a palatial home on the Lasithi Plateau in eastern Crete. That home was not as well fortified as Knossos, but it wasn't defenseless, and the plateau overlooked Selakano valley.
Selakano had fresh water, abundant wood in its pine forest, fertile slopes for growing crops, and the Dikti mountain range that surrounded it was rich with iron ore, provided one had the means to extract it. It took some pressure, but Prometheus eventually convinced Kronos to give him his former abode. Prometheus stationed his personal guard there, and during a lull in the war he focused on fortifying the Lasithi Palace, turning it into a military stronghold. As far as the iron ore, Prometheus decided to take the risk of exploiting his foresight to furnish the humans with an explosive powder. It was dangerous to work with, but allowed them to dig deeper than would otherwise have been possible, and Selakano valley became the seat of Crete's most prolific mine. Prometheus also treated it as something of a social experiment - the valley was filled with human farmers, woodsmen, miners, smiths, engineers, and soldiers, and Prometheus took the opportunity to show what humans could do with more 'divine inspiration' and less wrathful oppression. Although a war raged on the island, the little valley became an almost idyllic refuge.
Much to Prometheus's surprise, his little community went unmolested for over a year, as if Hekate wanted it to succeed. Eventually, though, whatever grace period Hekate had given them must have expired. Prometheus was looking over the valley from the walls of his stronghold at twilight when he saw an orange dot appear across the valley - then another, and another. One of Prometheus's projects had been the construction of signal towers that used large sheets of hammered bronze to direct the light from bonfires within them. Now, the fires were lit, and their light was trained on the entrance to the valley.
Prometheus's troops didn't wait for a signal from him - they began to mobilize and secure the Lasithi Palace as soon as the fires appeared in the distance. Prometheus allowed his men and women to follow the drills they'd established, and focused his attention on the area painted by the light from the signal fires. As if expressly intended to confirm the warning, a blast of crackling blue energy shot out of the forest floor and struck the closest of the towers, felling it in a tumbling explosion.
Kasios had arrived.
Prometheus did have some lesser Titans on hand, and made good use of their shape-shifting abilities by sending several of them out to spread word of the attack to Knossos and their other strongholds, and the rest into the forest to keep tabs on the invading army.
While his scouts and couriers went to work, Prometheus descended to his stronghold's war room, where a large table bore a sculpture of the surrounding mountains and the valley below. His best soldiers, Typhon and Echidna, were already waiting for him.
"Status?" Prometheus demanded.
"Kicked everyone out of bed and sent them to the armory," Typhon said, "They'll be battle-ready within the next ten minutes."
"They'll be armed within the next ten minutes," Echidna said, "It's been a while since the troops here had anything more than our drills to keep them sharp."
"Have faith," Prometheus said, "We created those drills and stuck to them for this very reason."
"Yes sir," Echidna nodded, "Scouts report that Kasios has advanced through the valley's entrance with two thousand cult soldiers at his back."
"Two thousand?" Prometheus asked. It was a bewildering number - the war had ground on long enough that Hekate probably didn't have more than six thousand fighting men and women left at her command. Their guerrilla tactics had allowed them to effectively terrorize the island's countryside for years, but the reality was, they were a small faction.
"Commander Typhon is worried," Echidna said, "But the way I see it, this is an opportunity."
"A third of Hekate's remaining cult forces walking into our valley with only one way in and one way out..." Prometheus agreed, "Opportunity is an understatement."
"I would agree," Typhon said, "But the reality is that our numerical strength here is not great. Your personal guard numbers no more than three hundred, and while the terrain and fortifications are to our advantage, we'll have to spread our forces thin to make use of them."
"Yeah, three hundred to two thousand are bad odds," Prometheus said.
"But with the advantage of positioning, and our steel weapons, we have a good chance to wipe them out," Echidna said confidently.
"You're assuming our advantages will allow us to match their forces 7-to-1," Typhon said.
"Worse than that," Prometheus pointed out, "Seven kills for every man lost still costs us most of my personal guard. That's a narrow victory, if it could even be called a victory at all."
"You want to withdraw then?" Echidna said, "Pull out of here and return later, the way we did in the cities?"
"No," Prometheus said, "We have countless civilians that would struggle to retreat down the back of the ridge. Kasios and his troops would capture this stronghold and then attack down-hill at us. We'll have given away one of our major advantages to the enemy."
"We can't march down into the forest and face them head on," Typhon said, "Kasios will massacre our troops, even if his army doesn't."
"Where is Tiamat?" Prometheus asked.
"Last intelligence report put her off the shore of Zakros," Echidna said, "That'd be a seventy-click march to get here overland, and if she was doing that, we'd be up to our neck in reports from the countryside."
"Good," Prometheus said, "We don't need to worry about being flanked - what we see is probably all we have to deal with. At this juncture, we need to accept that neither retreat nor attack are options, and focus on delay and defend. Kronos will be on his way here soon with his Titan Guard and probably more helot troops - if we can keep Kasios's forces contained in the valley below, our reinforcements can seal the valley off and wipe out the opposing army."
"It's been over a week since we had a good rain," Echidna said, "I could take a few men behind Kasios's forces and start a fire in the woods."
"I like it," Typhon said, "two thousand men running panicked from a forest fire, straight into the sights of our archers..."
"As much as I love fire," Prometheus said, "The resources in that forest support this stronghold - we need to save the forest as much as we need to save this citadel. And that's not even considering how many noncombatants we will likely still have down there."
"Well..." Echidna studied the map, "If we can't drive them towards our defenses, maybe we can lure them? If we douse the lights at some of the outlying forts, we can make it look like they've been abandoned."
"So that Kasios leads his troops up to take them," Typhon nodded.
"Water follows the path of least resistance, right?" Echidna said, "Same is true for armies, more or less."
"Okay..." Prometheus said, "I like it. Deploy our best archers to Echo and Iota forts."
"Those forts both guard mine shafts..." Typhon said.
"Exactly," Prometheus said, "Which means Kasios can do very little damage to us in the long run if he succeeds in taking them, and he won't have much luck looting them. Moreover, we're going to prepare a little surprise for them..."
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