“What is your plan, then?” I asked.
“It is calculated to end in the conquering of the Zards, and as such, only an unexpected and unrelenting attack at the very heart of their strength will succeed. Anything less will only bring them to a full alert, and then any battle will have to be drawn out with excessive casualties on both sides. Therefore, we have decided upon an attack on Nunami, their capital city and main strength, being the center and majority of both their population and economy. Yet an outright siege of the city is impossible for those very reasons, it being so self-contained that it can resist bitterly, and its military is so clustered that it can be brought into action almost instantly.
“Considering those problems, it was deemed necessary to draw the Zards away from the city and destroy it in their absence, so that they are left destitute of the means of war and sustenance, and rendered weak. To do this, we have spent the last several years stockpiling huge quantities of liquid fervidus flamma, an extremely combustible substance. It is stored in an underground reservoir in the foothills of the mountains, connected via aqueduct to Lake Umquam Renatusum. When the time is ripe, we will empty it into the lake and set it aflame, and our calculations show the flames reaching a height of five miles for a length of six hours, which should be enough to gain the Zard’s preponderance,” Wagner explained.
“But wouldn’t it catch the forest on fire and burn down your whole empire in the process?” I asked, alarmed at his apparent lack of vigilance.
“We have been treating the trees on a ten mile radius with an anti-flammatory solution for several years as well, and it is quite impossible to set them on fire.”
“Which explains why you dared to have a fire pit in the trunk of a tree outpost.”
“Yes,” he laughed, “We aren’t so foolhardy as we may seem. Appearances can be deceiving.”
“The exodus of the Zards from Nunami is almost guaranteed by the mortal’s natural curiosity and delight in the calamities of others,” I said, “But how do you plan on leveling the town before the remnant raise the alarm and the mass of the people return?”
“Atomic anionizers,” he returned.
“Which are what? They sound like they are beyond my level of understanding.”