Kasios twitched his fingers and created another roll of dijoa weed. He put the roll in his mouth, touched it to one of the hot muzzles of his rotary plasma cannon to light it, and took a long slow drag off of it. The best part of the borderline immortality of being an Alpha was the ability to indulge in all the best vices consequence free.
If Hekate's intelligence was accurate, most of Kronos's human soldiers were hunting for him near Agii Deka, leaving only Prometheus's personal guard to defend the valley. Holding not only the main stronghold but also the six fortifications and numerous watch towers that dotted the ridge-line overlooking the valley would spread Prometheus's forces as thin as tissue. Of course, even with the massive numerical advantage he had, Kasios would never have walked into such a vulnerable position on their home world - it'd be like putting his head through a noose. On this world, though, his enemies didn't have artillery batteries, mortars, machine guns, or anti-material rifles. For Kasios, it was like playing a game on "easy" with "god mode" unlocked; it might have been boring, but it was hilarious to watch the indigenous people of the planet run in terror from an oscillating plasma inferno projector, and even funnier to watch the zealots among them fling their frail little bodies against his spiked armor.
There were lots of 'heroes' like that on both sides, but few enemies that could actually do Kasios any harm. Kronos and Prometheus's human soldiers were armed with weapons little better than the tools they used for farming or hunting. Like most Titans, Kasios's natural skin, muscle, and bone were incredibly resilient, allowing him to shrug off most physical attacks. Directed energy weapons and exotic weapons like lasers, thermal-inverters, plasma projectors, electro-magnetic disruptors, or quantum disintegrators could have hurt him, but the humans he was fighting were barely out of the stone age, and Kronos's titans had fallen far from their ancestral roots, leaning more on their shape-shifting abilities than on their conjuration for combat.
No, on Earth the only real threat came from iron or steel weapons, which could disrupt most Titan's bodies - even his - at a cellular level. That was why Hekate had sent him to capture the valley's mines. It seemed a waste of time to Kasios - even if Prometheus could arm every one of the humans with better-than-bronze-age weapons, they'd still be fighting with swords, arrows, and spears. Without any force-multiplication technology better than a bow or a sling, nothing the human soldiers threw at him could penetrate his conjured armor. Hekate had argued, of course, that the iron-based weaponry would give Prometheus's human soldiers a major advantage over their own humans' bronze and leather armor, and that they needed to be more conservative with the lives of their followers than Kronos was inclined to be. That still seemed silly to Kasios - their human troops were really just there to fuel his powers with their awe and reverence, and Kasios got more than enough such sustenance from the fear and terror he spread among the enemy. Still, steep slopes and a host of well-prepared defenders made the valley a more interesting map to fight on than rolling plains, and at this point, 'entertainment' was the main selling point of any engagement as far as Kasios was concerned.
Walking up the slopes to assault the forts would exhaust his human soldiers, and they'd move especially slowly across the ice-dotted talus fields when they broke tree line. Fortunately, it was dark enough that any archers defending the ridge-line would be firing blindly, and Kasios's hoplites had broad shields of wood and hard leather, and helmets of bone and bronze - the armor was antiquated, but adequate to fend off a few glancing arrows.
All Kasios needed to do was pick two or three forts to hammer, and then he'd have a foot hold on the high ground to muster his attack on Prometheus's stronghold. Kasios was considering his options when he saw the lights in one of the forts flicker out, and the lights in another fort - on the opposite side of the valley - soon followed suit. It wasn't too surprising; Prometheus wasn't a fool - he would be cognizant of his limitations, and it would make sense for him to abandon some of the positions to reinforce the others - it'd be the only viable way for him to withstand a siege. Still, it made Kasios's choice easy. He ordered his lieutenants to take one of his four battalions to the abandoned fort to the northeast, and himself led another battalion to the southwestern fort that had gone dark.
It was a long enough hike that he decided to dissolve away his plasma cannon and free up his hands for the march. He took point, basking in the attention and admiration of the human troops marching behind him. The men struggled a bit as they went - the darkness made every wayward rock or uneven stone a major obstacle, and after they broke treeline and made it about a hundred meters into the talus fields, the rocks became slimy - they were slick and sticky, presumably with mud. Kasios was surprised to encounter more mud high up on the talus field than they had lower down in the forest, but inconveniently placed mud was one of the core constants of warfare.
The terrain slowed the advance enough that Kasios wasn't too surprised when he saw his lieutenants on the opposite slope order their men to light torches. Kasios had held off on doing so out of concern that they might be making themselves targets for some clever trap Prometheus had concocted, but after the forces on the opposite slope had marched on for several minutes without incident, Kasios gave the same order to his troops.
Soon thereafter, however, it became clear he'd made a mistake. The wind had been blowing sporadically, gusting, but in the midst of a lull, faint whistling came from the sky above. A swarm of arrows struck from the darkness. With so little warning, the men had no chance to properly shield themselves. The torchbearers fell first, their attackers singling out their fires in the darkness. The men fell, and their torches clattered to the slimy rocks.
That was when Kasios realized he'd made a very big mistake.
The sticky sludge underfoot was pine-tar Prometheus had harvested from the lumber operation in the forest below. The torches ignited the sticky combustible, and flames spread out among the rocks, following the drizzle of fuel the defenders had spread out before them. Pine tar didn't burn as aggressively as lamp oil or dry wood, but it clung to the soldier's feet and produced enough fire to create panic among the troops. It also illuminated the whole army for the defenders uphill.
Kasios conjured his rotary plasma cannon again, relying on his armor to shield him from the paltry arrows, and he began strafing the ridge-line. Firing into the dark was largely ineffectual - Kasios heard one, maybe two men shout in fear, but the soldiers behind him were sustaining far greater losses. Every time the winds across the slope picked up, the fires under foot surged and spread. Every time the wind died down, the defenders fired another salvo. Kasios's men tried to pick their way forward through the fires, but it was difficult to cross the loose, burning rock while keeping their shields ready to fend off the arrows sporadically raining down on them.
Kasios gave a new order - the next big gust of wind, the men were to charge up the slope. Once they were clear of the burning rocks, they'd drop behind their shields and rest for a moment before attacking. They'd be close enough, at that point, that the archers above would have trouble getting a good angle on them. The wind picked up, and the men did as instructed, following Kasios up the mountainside as briskly as possible. It was hard going - the cold wind was blowing down the slope, against their advance, and many men tripped and fell trying to rush across the loose rock in the darkness - some slid and tumbled back into the fires behind them. Still, most of the remaining men got clear of the defenders' kill-zone, and they had a moment to catch their breath.
Then there was a skittering and a rumbling from the slope above. A two-foot wide boulder - excess rubble from the mine above - came rolling down the slope. Kasios tried to shoot it with his cannon, but as it built speed, it began to bounce erratically. Kasios dodged the boulder narrowly, but it tore through the panicked and confused troops behind him, maiming or killing over a dozen men.
More mining-waste followed, bounding down the rocky slope. Hundreds of rocks ranging from the size of melons to the size of men, roared down from the fort, dislodging more rocks as they rolled. Kasios stopped trying to dodge the rocks, and began trying to intercept them, urging his troops to group together behind him and keep their shields up. He knocked the stones aside with his gauntlet-covered fists, kicked them away with his boots, or simply took the blows as they came - his armor provided protection from any iron that might be in the rocks, and his Alpha-Titan physiology made him more than strong enough to weather the man-made rock-slide.
The rumbling of stones died down, and Kasios gave the order to advance an instant before he heard more large objects rolling towards them. This time, though, the sound of the rolling hazards was lighter, wooden, and in the faint light Kasios saw a trail of white smoke accompanied by a faint hissing sound.
"Well shit..." Kasios raised his energy shield as one of the barrels of blasting powder exploded right in front of him. The shield withstood the explosion, but the men behind him panicked and began fleeing back down the slopes - they'd watched him lob all sorts of futuristic weapons at their enemies over the past two years, but none of them had ever been on the receiving end of an explosion. The sound and heat, and the devastating hail of burning splinters, was unlike anything his men had endured before. Some of them thought Oranos had returned and was raining lightning down on them.
More barrels rolled down and exploded, tearing men apart and tossing the remains down the mountain side. The men still struggling to advance through the kill-box below were showered in blood, entrails, brain-matter, and dismembered limbs. Their resolve already at its limit, they too panicked and fled, half-running, half-falling down the mountainside. Higher up the slope, Kasios focused on keeping his face covered and let his armor take the brunt of the blasts. He figured the defenders couldn't possibly have too many of the explosive barrels, and once their nasty trick was played out, he could storm the fort and seize it single-handedly if need be. With the high-ground secured, his reserve battalions below could ascend the mountainside unmolested.
Kasios held his ground, convinced he could still take the fort, until one of the explosions peeled off the armor on his right leg. At that point, Kasios discovered that Prometheus had added a nasty surprise to the improvised explosive devices - unused iron from the mines.
The shrapnel tore into his lower leg where the armor had fallen away, and burned him like white phosphorous. It was time to retreat - Kasios had any number of alternate forms that could have descended the mountain quickly and gracefully, but he couldn't change shape with iron embedded in any part of his body - it would prevent him from recohering, and he'd dissolve into a pile of primordial goo, like a popped chrysalis. Out of options, Kasios began retreating slowly down the mountain, trying to cover himself with his energy shield as he limped down the slope.
Across the valley, he could see that pandemonium had likewise swallowed the battalion ascending the other slope. Kasios bellowed to his troops in the valley below to rally and prepare for a march on the main stronghold - Prometheus had devoted enough resources to defending those forts, he would have left himself vulnerable where it counted the most.
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