Christopher G. Nuttall's Blog, page 28

Stuck in Magic 27

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I didn’t sleep much that night.

It was hard not to think, as darkness enveloped the camp, that Rupert and I were crossing the Rubicon.  We weren’t precisely disobeying orders – it wasn’t as if the city fathers had ordered us to remain where we were, at least until the princess arrived – but I had a feeling they’d take a dim view of us carrying the offensive all the way to Kuat.  They had to know the king was effectively powerless, that he’d been forced to issue orders for us to hold in place and wait, yet if they wanted to take a swing at our necks we’d given them all the excuse they could possibly want.  I’d told Rupert to blame everything on me, if things went wrong, but the blunt truth was that there’d be more than enough blame to go around.  I might have to flee the army when – if – the shit hit the fan.

I tossed and turned a lot, even though the bedding was surprisingly comfortable compared to some of the places I’d served as a younger man.  Doubts assailed my mind.  The army was tough, and we were steadily gathering more and more experience, but if we lost the coming battle it would be the end.  I knew there were more recruits being trained, including a number of former serfs who wanted to fight for their freedom, yet … losing the army would be bad even if it wasn’t a total disaster.  We’d been committed the moment we’d given the warlord a bloody nose.  We had to teach him, and his peers, that they could no longer push us around with ease.  There would be no peace until they got the message.  They had to feel their defeat.  They had to know, deep inside, that they’d been smashed flat.  If we’d hammered that lesson into Germany in 1918, we might not have gone to war with Germany again in 1941.

Dawn broke, like a thunderclap.  I staggered to my feet, splashed water on my face – it was strange to realise a basin of water was pretty much the height of luxury – and gathered myself before stepping outside.  Rupert didn’t look as if he’d slept any better, I noted; I envied the soldiers who were looking disgustingly, and disturbingly, cheerful as they readied themselves for the march.  They knew where they were going, I was sure.  There wasn’t a single one amongst them who didn’t want to kick the warlord where it hurt.  And yet … the lack of grumbling was almost unnatural.  It worried me.

Fallon greeted me as I sent out scouts, her hair hidden behind a scarf.  I had no idea who she thought she was fooling.  She looked as if she’d dressed as a man without being quite sure how to do it.  I guessed she was experimenting a little, now she was well away from her parents.  Magical families were apparently more permissive than mundanes, from what I’d been told, but there were limits.  I wasn’t remotely surprised.

“There’s been no message from the city, save for a routine update,” Fallon told me.  I’d asked her to keep whatever she heard to herself, at least until Rupert and I got the news first.  “Is that what you wanted to hear?”

I nodded.  I’d seriously considered leaving Fallon and her peers behind.  Barrow wouldn’t be particularly well defended, once the army marched out, but their magic would keep them safe … or so they’d assured me.  It was tempting to deliberately march out of communications range, giving us a degree of plausible deniability if the city ordered us to halt the offensive and hold in place.  But it wouldn’t fool anyone.  The city fathers had objected to us taking young magicians in the first place.  They’d certainly wonder why we’d changed our tune on short notice.

“You’ll be riding behind me, again,” I said.  I pretended not to see her grimace.  It would be an uncomfortable ride, even with an experienced rider holding the reins.  “I’ll need you to stay in touch with the rear area.”

Fallon nodded, curtly, as we joined Rupert in the officers mess.  The food was very basic  – Harbin had bitched up a storm, as if he’d expected us to provide him with roast venison or something else equally rare and expensive – and I didn’t feel like eating, but I forced myself to stuff food down my throat until I was full.  Fallon and Rupert were more reluctant to eat, despite my prodding.  They were going to regret it later, even if they were going to be carrying rations in their pouches.  God alone knew when we’d have time to sit down and eat properly again.

Rupert met my eyes.  “Are you sure this is going to work?”

“Yes,” I said, pretending a confidence I didn’t feel.  The warlord’s castle was heavily defended.  Under normal conditions, the defenders would have most of the advantages too.  They could just batten down the hatches and wait for besiegers to give up and go away.  “We can and we will take down the entire castle.”

I grinned at them, then led the way back outside.  The scouts were already reporting back, bringing word of an open road between Barrow and Kuat.  I nodded, pretending relief even though I’d hoped we’d encounter the warlord’s army in the field.  It would have given us an excellent chance to crush the bastard, without ever having to tackle his walls.  I’d read the reports from earlier wars, reports that had made it brutally clear why no winner had ever emerged.  The castles were just too strong to take quickly, forcing the attacker to lay siege to them or bleed his army white trying to take them by force.  Some castles had never been taken at all.  Kuat was one of them.

The army started to march forward in ragged order, soldiers singing cheerfully as they advanced to the front.  I was torn between amusement and horror as I helped Fallon onto the horse, then scrambled up in front of her.  Some of the songs would have shocked the moral guardians back home … I rolled my eyes as the horse started to canter forward.  There was nothing to be gained by objecting, not now.  It would undermine my authority.  Besides, too many of the singers might be dead in a day or two.

I smiled as a handful of horse-drawn cannons rolled down the road, their crews riding carts loaded with gunpowder and shot.  Others were pulled by volunteers, serfs who’d been liberated and then recruited to serve as porters.  I wasn’t too keen on hiring anyone as human pack mules, but I didn’t really have a choice.  We were running short of horses and oxen.  Besides, it would let us slip more money into the local economy and let them think they were contributing to their own liberation.  I’d known people who’d resented being liberated almost as much as they resented the people they’d been liberated from. 

We’re going to have to teach them to think of themselves as individuals, I thought, as the army picked up speed.  And to stop thinking of society as a divinely ordered hierarchy.

The thought festered at the back of my mind as we kept moving, passing through towns and villages that had either been abandoned or liberated by rebellious serfs.  I saw hundreds of signs of places that had been hastily abandoned, refugees fleeing into the undergrowth as they saw us coming.  I didn’t blame them for trying to hide.  They had no reason to believe we were friendly, even if my agents had managed to get this far north.  Hell, they might not even know who we were.  It was unlikely their masters had been honest about their defeats.

Fallon pressed against me as we marched through a shattered village.  “How can people live like this?”

I shrugged.  “They don’t have a choice,” I told her.  The village was practically drowning in mud and shit.  I hoped the villagers had made it out before their village had been raided by a passing army.  “Their masters don’t let them keep anything for themselves, so they do as little as possible.”

And dream of the day they’ll be free, my thoughts added silently, as we marched past a burnt-out manor.  A pair of bodies hung from trees, twisting unpleasantly in the wind.  They’ll have a lot of grudges to repay, now the day of liberation has finally come.

We reached a handful of abandoned fields, made camp for the night and continued the march the following day.  Fallon reported no messages from the city, something that bothered me.  I’d considered trying to waylay the messenger, but there’d been no way to do it – as far as I could tell – without making it obvious.  Still … I shook my head.  There was no hard data, nothing I could use to make my estimates anything better than guesswork.  We’d just have to keep going until we reached our target, then began the attack.  I just hoped we’d get there in time.

The warlord made no attempt to do more than slow us down, even as we began the final march to his castle.  I hoped that was a good sign, although I wasn’t sure.  A smart commander would have had scouts along all the roads, perhaps even spying on our camp from a safe distance.  My cavalry had done what they could to keep prying eyes away, but I doubted they’d succeeded completely.  Besides, we’d been marching north for two days, disturbing everything in our path.  They had to know we were coming.

“It’s impressive,” Fallon breathed, as the castle came into view.  “Is it bigger than Whitehall?”

I shrugged and turned my attention to studying the defences as the army started to spread out and lay siege to the giant castle.  It was huge – the stories hadn’t exaggerated as much as I’d thought – a cluster of stone buildings surrounded by a colossal wall that seemed to merge into the buildings from place to place.  The town outside was smaller than I’d expected, placed neatly within the shadow of the castle.  A handful of people were fleeing as the army spread out further – I sent orders to have them interrogated, to see what was actually happening before they were sent on their way.  It was clear how the warlord had dominated the surrounding countryside for so long.  As long as he could fall back on an impregnable castle, his control couldn’t be challenged.

“Set up the guns,” I ordered.  The walls were perfect killing grounds, but … I was lucky the warlord hadn’t built his castle on top of a hill.  It would have made life a great deal harder.  “Prepare to fire on my command.”

Rupert looked worried as we prepared for the assault.  “Should we send a demand for surrender?”

I wasn’t so sure – killing the warlord and tearing his castle down would send an unmistakable message – but nodded anyway.  Better to at least pretend we were doing things by the book.  I summoned a messenger, told him to take a demand for unconditional surrender to the warlord, then sent him on his way.  The cynical part of my mind insisted the warlord would tell us to go to hell, even if we had a sword at his throat.  Even a truce that left us in control of the lands we’d taken would make him look weak, so weak one of his subordinate aristocrats might go for his throat.  He might prefer to fight to the last, rather than come to terms. 

We waited.  I lifted a telescope and peered at the battlements.  They were lined with men, most carrying swords and shields rather than muskets or crossbows.  I guessed the murder holes, clearly visible along the lower walls, were already manned, archers standing at the ready to wreck havoc on our lines.  The gatehouse was almost a small castle in its own right, looking tougher than the citadel we’d taken earlier.  It would be a pain to take even with modern weapons, or what passed for modern weapons in this world.  A single MOAB would level both the castle and a surprisingly-large chunk of the surrounding countryside.

Fallon caught my arm.  “There’s a great deal of magic woven into the walls.”

I nodded, curtly.  Magical defences, from what I’d been told, seemed designed to cope with magical threats.  It was perfectly possible to punch out – or shoot – a magician who didn’t craft his wards specifically to handle a physical threat.  I supposed it made a certain kind of sense – most people would hesitate to get into a fight with someone who could stop them with a snap of their fingers – but it was a curious blindspot.  If what I’d been told was true, even hardened wards acted like deflector shields.  Every time they were hit, they got weaker.

The messenger returned, looking grim.  “My Lord,” he said, to Rupert.  “They … ah … refused your kind offer.”

Rupert smiled, although I could tell he was nervous.  “And what did they actually say?”

I ignored the messenger’s spluttering – the warlord had probably said something scatological or worse – and snapped orders.  The cannons started to boom, hurling heavy shot towards the walls; the musketmen unleashed a furious volley, sweeping dozens of men off the battlements and causing the rest to hastily duck.  I cursed under my breath as the cannonballs struck the walls and shattered, or bounced off, without doing any noticeable damage.  The walls were either thick enough to take the blows without shattering, which seemed unlikely as I couldn’t see any cracks, or the magic reinforcing them was strong enough to keep them intact.  I hoped the noise was doing at least some damage.  I’d been in tanks that had been under heavy attack.  Their armour had stood up to the hammering, but the noise had threatened to drive us all mad.

“The magic is holding,” Fallon told me.  “You’re not hitting it hard enough to take it down.”

I nodded, watching grimly as the second volley was no more effective than the first.  The only success was a cannonball that went over the walls, crashing down somewhere within the keep.  I hoped it had done some real damage, although it was impossible to be sure.  A handful of archers were trying to shoot at us, but finding it hard.  My musketmen fired at them every time they showed their faces.  I hoped they’d stay well back.  I needed the cannoneers to keep firing into the castle.

“Aim the canister so it lands in the courtyards, then add some fire arrows,” I ordered.  The flaming arrows were coated with something magic, something – I’d been assured – that was hard to put out.  “And order the sappers to start their work.”

My lips twisted into a grim smile as the noise grew louder.  I wasn’t expecting the canister shot to do much of anything, although it would be great if the flaming arrows ignited a barrel of gunpowder, but it would force them to keep their heads down.  The defenders might even be assuming I was wasting my time, expending gunpowder and cannonballs in a fit of  bad temper before I had to withdraw before I ran out of supplies.  Reading between the lines, I had a theory that most of the warlords had done pretty much the same at one time or another.

Rupert stepped up to me.  “How long can we keep this up?”

“Long enough, I hope,” I said.  I’d drilled him in logistics.  He wasn’t a bad organiser … I wondered, idly, if he’d make a good Pompey the Great.  Pompey had lacked the flair of his arch-enemy, and he’d been hammered when he’d fought someone who was his tactical superior, but his grasp of logistics had been magnificent.  “We just need to keep them from realising what we’re really doing.”

I glanced at Fallon, then issued more orders.  The skirmishers would have to take the lead, when we poured into the castle.  I wished, not for the first time, that I’d spent more time on basic weapons training … or that we had more than a handful of flintlocks.  We were going to be fighting the bastards on nearly even terms, when we got into the castle.  And yet … I braced myself as the sappers returned, reporting success.  The gunpowder was in position.

“Stay back,” I ordered Rupert.  “You do not want to be caught in the fighting.”

Rupert looked mutinous.  I understood.  Harbin – damn the man – had at least managed to die bravely.  Rupert’s reputation would be dented if he didn’t lead the offensive in person.  But there was no choice.  I needed Rupert to remain alive.  And besides, if we won the battle, we could easily compose narratives that made Rupert the hero.  Reality was more than a little flexible.  The story would stick because we wanted it to stick.

“Their wards are still holding,” Fallon commented.  She sounded oddly impressed.  “Their walls are barely damaged.”

I nodded, pretending to be unconcerned.  The magic might be beyond me, but it clearly had limits.  I could easily imagine a shield that only blocked attacks from the outside, allowing their archers to stand up in the open air and shoot their bows in perfect safety.  It didn’t seem to be possible.  The locals might not understand modern technology, but they sure as hell grasped magic.  It was such an obvious concept that I was sure that, it was possible, it would have been done.

“Send the signal,” I ordered.  The enemy didn’t seem to have realised what we were doing, but that could easily change at any moment.  For all I knew, time was about to run out.   I wasn’t sure what they could do about it, but I didn’t want to find out the hard way.  “Detonate the mine.”

A moment later, the world seemed to explode.

Stuck in Magic 26

Chapter Twenty-Six

“Harbin is dead?”  Rupert looked conflicted.  “I … what happened?”

“He died well,” I said.  “He died in the midst of the fighting.”

It was true enough, I supposed.  He had been leading a frontal attack into the enemy defences when I’d put a bullet through his skull.  I’d written detailed reports of his death, trying to establish an unquestionable narrative as quickly as possible; I’d flattered the dead man in ways that would make Saddam Hussein blush.  I had a feeling that, here, the reports would be regarded as nothing more than his due.  Harbin’s family had been trying to paint him as the victor of the first engagement ever since they’d realised the battle had been a decisive victory.

Rupert frowned, unconvinced.  I kept my thoughts to myself.  Rupert knew – had known – Harbin.  He knew Harbin had been a coward at heart.  He knew … I wondered, idly, if Rupert would guess the truth.  A smart man might quietly keep it to himself, silently relieved Harbin had bit the dirt before he’d had a chance to really screw us; Rupert was smart, I knew, but his experienced was very limited.  He might blow the whistle without realising it would do more damage to the war effort than anything Harbin could do.

I let him consider the matter as I watched the army marching into Barrow.  Rupert had pushed the men hard, but it had still been several nervous days before the troops had hove into view.  We’d liberated the town and the surrounding farms, but the rebellions further away had either stalemated or simply collapsed.  The serfs didn’t have the firepower to win in a hurry, nor the supplies to keep their former masters penned up until they ran out of food and surrendered.  I’d drawn up plans for systematically smashing the fortified manors and tiny castles, one by one, but I was all too aware that would be taking my eyes off the prize.  The warlord had refused to surrender or even consider asking for terms.

“I suppose he died well,” Rupert said, reluctantly.  “And his family will be pleased.”

“They’ll credit him with winning the battle,” I said.  It might even be true.  The charge had certainly broken whatever was left of the enemy morale.  “We’ll name a castle or something after him.”

Rupert smiled, rather thinly.  “Let’s not go that far.”

I grinned, then left him with his thoughts and headed over to assess the marching army and reorganise the struggle.  The makeshift logistics system had held up better than I’d expected, although we were still on a shoestring.  We simply couldn’t source most of what we needed from the liberated territories, not in a hurry.  I had no doubt blacksmiths and craftsmen, free of the prying eyes of their former masters, would start churning out cannon and muskets and everything else, but that would take time.  I’d done what I could to kick off assembly-line manufacturing, rather than tiny little cottage industries … I shook my head.  It was going to take years for the idea to really catch on.  The craftsmen had been strongly against it right from the start.

Fallon smiled at me as I passed her tent.  “The city has promised reinforcements,” she said, holding out her chat parchment.  “And they’ve declared a day of mourning in honour of Harbin’s death.”

I nodded.  It stuck in my craw to honour a man I knew to have been a rapist, a rape-enabler, a tactical disaster and all around entitled piece of shit, but it was a small price to pay for keeping the truth buried.  By the time it came out, if it ever did, there would be so many people invested in the lie that the truth would hopefully be lost without trace.  I doubted anyone would even come close to guessing the truth.  The muskets were so inaccurate that even if someone realised Harbin had been shot in the back, they’d assume it was a hideous accident rather than deliberate murder.  The best shot in the musketeers, bar me, couldn’t have been sure of hitting the broad side of a barn …

“We’ll hold a parade in his honour, when we get home,” I assured her.  “Right now, we have to continue the war.”

Fallon bowed her head.  It occurred to me, an instant too late, that she might have realised the truth.  Women tended to be very perceptive, much more perceptive than men gave them credit for.  Women’s intuition was nothing more than the subconscious mind putting together clues the conscious mind couldn’t or wouldn’t acknowledge.  Fallon certainly knew what kind of person Harbin had been … she certainly knew I’d had excellent reason to arrange a little accident for him.  And … she might have access to magic she could use to dig up the truth.  The thought hadn’t occurred to me, when I’d shot the bastard.  The only upside, as far as I could tell, was that the battlefield had been contaminated by the other magician.  It might made any sort of forensic activities difficult.

They might not even figure out what actually happened, I told myself.  There was no need to panic.  Not yet.  Even if they work out he was shot, they’d have problems understanding precisely how it happened.

I tasked Fallon with a handful of messages, then continued marching through the ever-growing camp.  The cannoneers were emplacing their weapons, preparing the town to stand off an enemy counterattack; the infantry were digging trenches, in some cases churning up the enemy trenches we’d destroyed, and assisting the locals to rebuild their town.  I was mildly surprised the former serfs were cutting down trees and fixing the damage, although I suppose it was a way of demonstrating their new ownership.  I hoped it would last.  We could, and we hopefully would, kill the former masters – or, at the very least, drive them into exile – but the city fathers were already arguing over the proper distribution of the spoils of war.  I hoped that didn’t get out of hand.  The serfs would be happy to work with us, I was sure, but not trade one set of masters for another.

And they have better weapons now, I reminded myself.  Anyone who takes them for granted is going to regret it.

I kept myself busy as more and more reports came in.  The revolts were spreading, some serfs taking up arms while others simply downed tools and walked away from the land.  Hundreds came to join us in Barrow, while the remainder started to head back to the city.  They’d probably find it a great deal easier, now we’d scattered the patrol and shattered the warlord’s grip on his southern lands.  The city wouldn’t be sending any more serfs back to their former masters, not now.  They’d voted to abolish the whole cursed practice shortly after our first victory.

Horst met me as I started to walk back to the command tent.  “The men are ready to continue the offensive.”

I nodded, silently pleased that Horst and his peers had come along so well.  I’d worked hard to keep them in line, rewarding the ones who did well and busting the failures – or bullies – back to the ranks, but I was still uneasily aware the system was very far from solid.  I needed more experienced NCOs … I didn’t have them.  There was something so ramshackle about the arrangement that my old drill instructors would have been utterly horrified, then start screaming for me to be court-martialled and kicked out on my ass.  And yet, I had to admit it was working better than I’d expected.  Victory had a habit of encouraging people to paper over the cracks in the edifice.

“We’ll continue the march shortly,” I said.  Warlord Aldred was based at Kuat, a castle that was supposed to be impregnable.  If the reports were even halfway accurate, and hadn’t grown in the telling too much, I could see why the locals would see it that way.  “Have there been any major issues?”

“Not matter,” Horst said.  “There were a handful of men who ate unripe fruit and got sick; a couple more who harassed the locals and got forced to run the gauntlet, but nothing else worth mentioning.”

I had to smile.  Horst wouldn’t have said anything, back when we’d been guardsmen, if his peers had stolen from the shops and stalls.  It had been one of the perks of the job.  I made a mental note to keep an eye on the situation, just in case he slipped back into old habits.  Horst was no fool – and he was being paid very well to uphold the new standards – but he might start to slip.  It wasn’t easy to get rid of bad habits, not when they’d been allowed to fester for years.  I’d known a man who kept swearing mighty oaths to give up the booze, but rarely managed to keep himself from drinking longer than a week or so.

The thought nagged at me as I toured the lines, spoke briefly to a handful of men I remembered – Napoleon would have been proud of me – and inspected the guns.  The army looked more like a mob than anything organised, although it was largely an illusion.  Their uniforms were dirty, their faces unshaved … I wasn’t too concerned.  A unit could be good or it could look good, but rarely both.  I’d sooner the former than the latter.  My men would stand, unbeaten and unbowed, when a fancy unit would break and run.  I glanced at a handful of flasks, gave their wearers a sharp look that told them to be careful, then turned away.  As long as drinking didn’t get out of hand, I’d turn a blind eye.  And if it did, the drinker and whoever had supplied the drink would wish they’d never been born.

It was growing darker when the messenger found me.  “Sir, you’re wanted in the command tent!”

“I’m coming,” I said.  Command conferences had been a great deal less acrimonious since Harbin had fallen.  “I’ll be there in a moment.”

A large horse, wearing the most elaborate caparison I’d seen since we’d marched out of the city, stood outside the tent.  I frowned as I studied the heraldry.  I was no expect – the local aristocrats had a dizzying series of sigils and coats of arms – but the presence of drawn swords was clear proof the messenger represented a warlord.  Warlord Aldred?  I couldn’t imagine any of the others sending a message to the army, not when they’d find it easier to send the messenger directly to the city itself.  If, of course, they knew what was happening.  It was unlikely they realised how far and how fast we’d advanced, although it was impossible to be sure.  They could be using chat parchments too.

I pushed the flap aside and stepped into the tent.  Rupert sat in his chair, facing a young man – he was barely entering his teens – wearing a fancy outfit that had clearly been designed for a much older man.  The unkind part of my mind whispered he looked like a purple and gold grape, before hinting the young man had been sent because his master feared he’d be executed the moment he rode into the camp.  It was hard to believe the messenger was someone important.  He wasn’t even old enough to shave!

Which might be meaningless here, I thought.  He speaks with his master’s voice.

The messenger’s eyes flickered over me, then turned back to Rupert.  “My Lord?”

Rupert kept his voice mild.  “You have a message?”

“Yes, My Lord.”  The messenger sounded as if his voice hadn’t broken yet.  “My master wishes to inform you that His Majesty has commanded a formal truce, between the forces of Damansara and himself, and that his daughter has been dispatched to meditate a permanent treaty of peace.  He proposes that your forces hold your positions until a settlement has been agreed.”

I snorted.  “Oh.  He does, does he?”

The messenger looked, just for a second, as if I’d committed some hideously indecent act in public.  “Yes, My Lord.”  He addressed his words to Rupert, not to me.  “His Majesty commands it and we must obey.”

He held out a scroll.  Rupert took it, then nodded.  “The guard will escort you to somewhere you can wait,” he said, as he unfurled the scroll.  It was written in Old Script, not a single English letter to be seen.  “You’ll have our answer shortly.”

I waited until the messenger had left, then frowned.  “What does the letter say?”

“The same thing, except more floridly,” Rupert said.  “King Jacob of Johor has declared a formal truce, ordering both sides to hold their positions and wait for his daughter to arrive so she can handle the negotiations.  And it would be treasonous for us to refuse.”

“Shit.”  I forced myself to think.  “Do we know the letter really came from the king?”

“It has the royal seal.”  Rupert held it up for me to see.  “The magic woven into the seal makes it impossible to duplicate, let alone forge.”

I wasn’t so sure, but there was no time to worry about it now.  I’d wondered what the warlord would do, now we were deep within his lands.  It shouldn’t have surprised me that he’d gone running to the king.  Bullies always ran, if you hit them hard enough.  I had to admit it was a neat solution.  Twist the king’s arm to force him to order us to stop, then draw out the negotiations long enough to rebuild his army or simply cut our supply lines and starve us out.  It would work too.  The lands we held couldn’t feed the army, not for very long.  We might lose the war without fighting another shot.

“They sent the message directly to you, not to Damansara,” I said.  I was fairly sure that was true.  If the city had gotten the message, they’d have relayed it to Fallon or one of her peers.  “That’s … interesting.”

Rupert studied the scroll.  “They’ll have sent a copy to the city,” he said.  “It’ll just take longer for their messenger to reach the walls.”

I nodded, slowly.  Messengers were meant to be inviolate, but – right now – no one was doing more than making a pretence of following the rules.  I could see a messenger, galloping down the road, being waylaid and killed by a gang of runaway serfs, or perhaps even one of my patrols if they mistook the messenger for a spy.  And yet … my thoughts churned.  The warlord was clearly trying to buy time.  It couldn’t be allowed.

“We have to press on,” I said.  “There’s no choice.”

Rupert gaped at me.  “Defy a direct order from the king?”

I snorted.  “And how much power does the king actually have?”

He said nothing.  I didn’t blame him.  It was never easy to admit the emperor had no clothes, even when it was blindingly obvious.  The king didn’t have the power to compel his nobles to do a damn thing, not when they didn’t want to do it.  As long as the warlords remained united in their quest to keep the monarchy weak, that was never going to change.  Damansara couldn’t rely on the king to do anything to help them, not when the warlords had the king under control.  If we stayed where we were, or retreated back to safer territory, we were effectively conceding defeat.

“This is just a ruse to buy time,” I explained.  “He’ll force us to expend our food, then retreat in a hurry or start taking food from the locals.  Either way, he wins.”

Rupert met my eyes.  “And when the city fathers order me to bend the knee to the king?”

I grinned.  “The message can’t reach the city for at least another two days, right?  They’ll need that long just to get the message, longer still to decide if they want to accept the king’s orders.  We can use that time to press the offensive ourselves.  We’ll arrive at his door before he has a chance to do anything, even if he realises we’re coming.  And then we’ll crush his castle and win the war in one fell swoop.”

My smile widened.  “And we can even send back a message offering to discuss terms,” I added.  “It’ll keep him from realising we’re on the move …”

Rupert shook his head.  “We can’t afford to break the laws of war too openly.”

I sighed, inwardly.  I understood the importance of keeping the laws of war.  At the same time, I also understood the importance of making sure everyone else kept the laws too.  I had no qualms about misleading someone who’d tried to mislead us …

“Then tell him you’ll consult with your superiors,” I said.  “They’re not expecting you to make policy for the entire city, are they?”

“You are.”  Rupert smiled, but there was no humour in it.  “If this goes wrong …”

“Victory has a thousand fathers,” I told him.  I understood his reluctance.  Rupert and his family had a great deal to lose if everything came crashing down.  And yet … there was no middle ground, no space between victory or death.  The warlords knew, now, how dangerous the cities could become.  They’d be quick to garrison the others if they had a chance.  “Defeat … you can blame everything on me, if you like.”

“Believe me, I will.”  Rupert shook his head.  “And they won’t accept it for a second.”

He stood.  “I’ll tell the messenger that we’ll discuss the terms, then send a messenger of our own back when we’re done,” he said.  “And … if you’re right, we’ll be on top of him before it’s too late.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.  If we lost, we’d be declared rogue.  “We’ll begin the march at dawn.”

Stuck in Magic 25

Chapter Twenty-Five

And why, I asked myself, do I feel as if I’m about to rerun the Battle of Little Bighorn?

I clung to the horse for dear life as we galloped down the road, heading north as fast as our beasts could carry us.  Harbin’s cavalry took the lead, followed by my company of mounted skirmishers, men I’d trained to ride horses to the battlefield and then dismount when the fighting actually began.  The concept had puzzled the locals, with Harbin and the other traditionalists sneering at it, although some of the younger aristocrats had started to see the value.  Battles were often determined by who got there first, with the most, and horses were the quickest way to travel unless you were a powerful magician or had them on your payroll.

Fallon’s grip tightened as we picked up speed, dust billowing in the air.  I tried to ignore the feel of her breasts, pressed against my back.  Taking her was a risk, yet it had been one I’d been forced to accept.  I needed a communicator and she was the only one with a chat parchment linked to the northern rebels.  And there was no way we could put her in a carriage.  The odds of a wheel breaking – or worse – as the horse-drawn carriage careened down the road were just too high.  I wished I’d been able to pass her to someone else, but who could I trust?

I scowled as my eyes sought out Harbin’s back.  He’d been very enthusiastic about the operation, helping me to throw it together with astonishing speed.  Rupert seemed convinced Harbin was looking for a victory, a way to gain enough prestige to challenge Rupert for overall command, but I wasn’t so sure.  The idea of letting Harbin take command of the operation didn’t sit well with me.  If nothing else, he and his men would give the revolting serfs a poor impression of the army and then all hell would break loose.  I’d heard enough jokes about the serfs being revolting, in all senses of the word, to fear what would happen if Harbin was left unsupervised.

The horse kept going, somewhat to my surprise.  I was no horseman – my military service hadn’t included anything on horseback, at least until I’d found myself in a whole new world – but I was sure the beasts should have been slowing by now.  Harbin’s bragging had struck me as exaggerated, back when we’d been planning the operation, yet … I was starting to think he might have been right.  We were covering the distance at astonishing speeds.  It was possible, I told myself, that the horses had been bred – or enhanced – for war.  Magic could do a lot of things I hadn’t considered possible.

Fallon shivered against me.  I hoped she wouldn’t lose her grip.  Rupert had taught me how to ride – apparently, half of it lay in confidence – but I didn’t even begin to have his experience.  I almost wished I’d brought him with us, rather than leaving him to bring the rest of the army in our wake.  He could have carried Fallon without any real problems, although … I shook my head.  There was no point in second-guessing myself.  I’d made the right decisions, based on what I’d known at the time.

The landscape started to change, becoming greener.  Barren and dying fields gave way to green croplands, planted with everything from wheat to fruit-bearing trees.  Small channels carried water to the crops, carefully tended by the locals.  We galloped through hamlets and tiny villages, the largest so small it would have vanished without trace in the city; I gritted my teeth as we rampaged through fields that, before we arrived, looked to be ready to be harvested.  There was no point in trying to stop Harbin.  We had to get there before it was too late.

And besides, I told myself, never give an order you know won’t be obeyed.

The landscape grew darker, I noted, as we kept going.  Here and there, farmhouses were nothing more than burnt-out ruins.  I spotted a handful of serf cottages and barracks that had been hastily abandoned.  From what I’d been told, the serfs were nothing more than chattel, treated as little better than property.  They had no rights; their marriages were little more than words, their children could be taken away at any moment, they were forbidden to own anything, even the clothes on their backs.  I didn’t blame them in the slightest for rebelling against their lords and masters, their owners.  My ancestors had done the same. 

I shuddered as the battleground came into view.  Bodies lay everywhere, scattered over ruined fields or destroyed shacks.  The majority were clearly serfs – the men wore drab shirts and trousers, the women wore dresses that looked like shapeless sacks – but there and there a more aristocratic body lay on the ground.  They’d been stripped of everything they’d carried, save for their clothes.  I puzzled over that for a moment, then shrugged.  The serfs might be able to make their way to another plantation and slip into the crowd, but if they were caught wearing fancy clothes they’d be broken on the wheel.  Or simply shot out of hand.

Harbin called a halt as we reached the remains of a large farmhouse.  I allowed myself a sigh of relief – my body was aching in places I hadn’t known existed – and slipped to the ground, holding out a hand to help Fallon as she clambered down too.  She had even less experience on horseback than me.  I made a mental note to ensure that changed, then asked her to contact the rebels and ask for an update.  If there was no answer, we might be too late.  We’d have to retreat in a hurry if the rebels had already been defeated.  I was all too aware we were out on a limb.  Without the big guns, the warlord’s troops could overwhelm us with ease.

“Put out scouts,” I ordered, as I limped towards Harbin.  I didn’t miss the look of scorn he shot me.  He’d been in the saddle since birth.  To him, the wild gallop had all been in a day’s work.  “If the battle is still going on, we have to find them.”

“They’re still fighting,” Fallon said, looking up from her chat parchment.  “But they’re pinned down in a small village.”

“Get details,” I said.  The local mapmakers were idiots.  Half the villages within the region were either unnamed or simply left off the maps.  The locals didn’t always name their villages … to them, their villages were simply the village.  “Where are they?”

A scout cantered back, waving his arms.  “Over there,” Harbin said.  I heard the dark amusement in his tone and scowled.  “Or at least something is going on in that direction.”

I raised my voice as I heard the sound of battle in the distance.  “Mount up,” I snapped.  I practically threw Fallon into the saddle, then climbed up in front of her.  “And hurry!”

The sound grew louder as we started to move again.  I forced myself to think.  I’d given the rebels several crates of outdated muskets and gunpowder, as well as instructions on how to make more.  I wasn’t sure they’d had the time to produce more gunpowder, but a local blacksmith should have been able to start churning out more muskets as well as bladed weapons and other surprises.  As long as they were careful, they should have managed to evade detection … clearly, something had gone wrong somewhere.  I told myself it didn’t matter.  We weren’t too late.

Smoke rose in the distance.  I took the telescope from my belt and peered towards the battle.  The rebels had made a deadly mistake, choosing to turn the town into a strongpoint rather than try to vanish into the countryside.  I understood their thinking – the terrain wasn’t really suited for guerrilla warfare, particularly when the overlords started handing out heavy punishments to anyone who dared collaborate with the rebels – but they’d allowed themselves to be pinned down.  The forces besieging them looked tiny, compared to the army we’d crushed only a few short days ago, yet its commander clearly knew what he was doing.  He’d surrounded the town, dug a shitload of trenches and started to tighten the noose.  And his archers were hurling flaming arrows into the town.

“Skirmishers, dismount,” I snapped, as the enemy army started to take notice of us.  They hadn’t heard we were coming, judging by their positions, but they couldn’t possibly have missed us after we appeared near their lines.  “Cavalry, stand at the ready.”

I forced myself to think.  I didn’t have the forces to break the siege.  My skirmishers could start digging their own trenches, rapidly expanding our lines under cover until we met their lines and tore into them, but  … my men weren’t trained in hand-to-hand combat.  I hadn’t had time to train them as anything more than musketmen.  I kicked myself mentally as I glanced at Harbin’s sword.  I’d been so convinced the days of swordsmen and knights in amour were already over that I hadn’t thought to train my men how to handle a sword.  And even if I had, I wouldn’t have had time to do a proper job of it …

“Form skirmish lines,” I ordered.  There were a handful of enemy soldiers within clear view, unaware they were in danger.  “Prepare to fire.”

Harbin swore.  I looked up, just in time to see a man stand up and start waving his hands towards us.  A tongue of flame shot through the air, turning rapidly into a whip that scorched three horsemen and threatened many more.  Fallon let out a gasp of horror.  A magician, I realised dully.  A living weapon of mass destruction.  I heard panic starting to spread through the ranks.  My skirmishers were tough, but they weren’t ready for magic.  I didn’t know anyone who was, save for the magicians themselves.

“Muskets, target the magician,” I snapped.  There’d be no such thing as accuracy, once again, but – at the very least – he’d be forced to duck.  “Fire!”

The skirmishers fired a wild volley.  I saw light flare around the magician, an instant before he stumbled and collapsed.  His magic vanished at the same moment.  My skirmishers continued to fire, sweeping bullets across the enemy lines.  Harbin let out a yell, then led his men forward.  I had to admire his nerve, although the risk wasn’t as great as it looked.  The enemy had been shocked by their death of their magician, their morale breaking even before the cavalry galloped towards them.  They were a terrifying sight if one didn’t have the weapons to stop them in their tracks.  I knew, all too well, how the French must have felt when they’d faced the German Panzers for the first time.

“Cover them,” I bellowed, drawing my pistol.  “Keep firing!”

The din was overwhelming.  I was dimly aware of Fallon pressing her hands to her ears as she sunk to the ground, of gunshots barking … the sound echoing through the air in a manner that made it hard to locate the shooters.  I tracked Harbin as best as I could, taking careful aim at his head.  My heart started to pound.  I was a good shot, one of the best in my unit, and yet if I got it wrong …

I pulled the trigger as Harbin crashed into and over the enemy trenches.  The pistol jerked in my hand, the noise unnoticed in the racket.  Harbin plunged forward, falling from the horse and striking the ground hard enough to destroy all evidence of the shot.  A horse stamped on his corpse a second later, crushing his remains into the mud.  It would look like an accident, I was sure.  The locals didn’t have any experience with modern weapons.  The bullet would have gone straight through his head and out the other side.  Even if it was discovered later, it would be hard for anyone to work out what it actually was, let alone what it had done.

The battle grew louder.  I lowered my hand, carefully making sure no one had seen what I’d done.  The combination of smokeless powder and the sheer confusion on the battlefield should have made it impossible, but … I allowed myself a sigh of relief.  Harbin was dead and gone and no one could pin the blame on me.  Probably.  There’d certainly be no dispute that he’d led his troops into the fight and died bravely.

And he’ll be hailed as a hero, I thought, as the fighting started to die down.  His family would get more mileage out of his death than they’d ever gotten out of his life.  It just isn’t fair.

I snorted at the thought – the world wasn’t fair – and watched as the enemy troops started to break and run.  My skirmishers advanced, shooting at the enemy backs; a couple of men fell but the remainder kept running until we lost them completely.  The last of the shooting died away as the cavalry took possession of the trenches, horsemen slashing their swords through the handful of surviving soldiers.  I shuddered, even though it suited me to have them blamed for Harbin’s death.  And I doubted they’d have been allowed to survive for long regardless.

“Sir.”  Harbin’s deputy – I thought he was called Lucas, although I wasn’t sure – saluted me.  “I beg leave to report that we have taken the trenches and scattered the enemy.”

“Well done,” I said.  I meant it – and not just because the confusion had given me enough time to rid myself of a problem.  “Put out a line of scouts, make sure the enemy doesn’t have another force within striking distance.”

“Aye, sir,” Lucas said.  He sounded a lot more reasonable than Harbin.  “I’ll see to it at once.”

I allowed Fallon to send a message to the communicator within the half-destroyed village, then walked across the remains of the battleground.  Bodies lay everywhere, as always; a number had clearly been cut down when they’d been trying to surrender.  I grimaced, making a mental note to address the issue later.  The magician’s corpse lay on the ground, his body faintly odd to my eyes.  It wasn’t something I could put into words.  I counted the wounds – four hits, out of thirty shooters – and then walked on to Harbin’s body.  His skull was a shattered mass, blood and brains leaking onto the ground.  There was no trace of the bullet, no hint of what had happened to him.  As far as I could tell, I’d gotten away with it.

Alas, poor Harbin, I thought.  I knew him.

I put the thought firmly out of my mind as I started to issue orders.  Harbin’s body – or what was left of it – would be put aside for his family, while the other bodies would be buried within the remains of the trenches; the former serfs, starting to emerge from their town, were left strictly alone.  I spoke quickly to their leader, another of my agents, who explained there were a whole string of revolts either underway or about to break out.  I hoped it shattered the warlord’s lands, although I feared the worst.  The vast majority of the revolting serfs wouldn’t have the weapons they needed to take out the castles and fortified homes, not before it was too late.  I’d have to do something about that, but I had no idea what.

“We’ll have to continue the offensive,” I said, finally.  If we won quickly, we should have enough time to consolidate before the other warlords decided it was time to stop us and formed an alliance to do just that.  “I need a list of every skilled man under your command.”

Fallon waved to me as the former serfs hurried away.  “I just heard from Kyra,” she said.  “They’re on the way, but they won’t be here for a few days.”

I nodded.  I’d expected as much.  The army would be a great deal slower than the mounted cavalry.  And once they arrived … I mentally reviewed the maps I’d seen.  We weren’t that far from the warlord’s seat.  His castle was meant to be huge, the largest in the country, but I wasn’t impressed.  We should have enough gunpowder and cannons to take down his walls and smash his castle into rubble, if he didn’t surrender.  I would have talked truce, if I’d been in his shoes.  It would take longer than he had to put together an army that could do more than slow us down.

Particularly if serf revolts are breaking out all over, I told myself.  That’ll make it harder for him to call on help from his clients.

“Tell them to hurry, but not to take risks,” I said.  If the warlord was thinking, he’d hit our supply lines.  We couldn’t afford to be thrown back on what little we could carry with us.  “And send a message to the city.  Tell them we need more supplies.”

Fallon nodded.  “Yes, sir.”

I watched her go, then turned my attention to assisting the serfs.  They’d done remarkably well, although they would have been screwed if we hadn’t come to their rescue.  I watched grim-faced men carrying bodies to the graves, while the women prepared food and planned for a mass evacuation if things went badly wrong.  I told myself they’d be fine.  We’d carry on the offensive, straight into the heart of the warlord’s territory.  And that would be the end.

And Harbin is gone, I thought.  I took no pleasure in killing, particularly shooting someone in the back, but I wasn’t going to waste time mourning him either.  Without him, things will be a great deal smoother.

Stuck in Magic 24

Chapter Twenty-Four

“The slattern is lying, of course,” Harbin said.  “All she wants is a bastardy bond.”

I groaned.  It had been an hour since the messenger had arrived with the bad news and it had only managed to get worse.  And worse.  The accused rapist was a cavalryman – that was bad enough – but he was a very junior aristocrat whose family had been Lord Galley’s clients for centuries.  Harbin was obliged to defend him, even if he didn’t want to and I was pretty damn sure he did.  He didn’t give a shit about the townspeople, or the war effort, or anything that threatened to get in the way of the aristocracy’s right to do whatever the hell they wanted and to hell with anyone who objected.  I rubbed my forehead as Harbin went on and on, mustering arguments that would have been thrown out of court back home.

Rupert shifted uncomfortably beside me.  He knew precisely what sort of person Harbin was, and he knew what Harbin had tried to do to his sister, but he was caught in the middle between the aristocracy and the imperatives of war.  I’d done my level best to convince him that it was important we didn’t mistreat the local population – we didn’t need them rising in our rear or disrupting supply lines – yet if he came down on the accused rapist like a ton of bricks he’d be condemned by just about every aristocrat in the city.  They were above the law.  They couldn’t be held accountable by their inferiors or the entire system would collapse into a pile of rubble.  I felt sick.  The system deserved to collapse.

And far too many people will believe she wanted money from a noble family, I thought.  Back home, people had talked about women getting pregnant to force the father to marry them.  Here, they insisted the women wanted child support payments from the father of their child … I shook my head.  It was disgusting.  They’ll believe she seduced him because they’ll want ti believe it because the alternative is too disturbing to contemplate.

“Perhaps we should get the facts,” I said, after Harbin claimed – for the third time – that the victim had seduced the attempted rapist and could therefore be reasonably be blamed for everything that had happened to her.  “Fallon, what actually happened?”

Harbin tensed as the sorceress-journeywoman stepped forward, her hands clasped behind her back and her wand hanging from her belt.  A magician was, at the very least, a social equal to a high-ranking noblewoman – and, thanks to magic, probably equal to a nobleman as well.  It would be hard to discount Fallon’s testimony on the grounds she was – shock, horror – a commoner as well as a woman.  And yet, if Harbin failed to defend his family’s client, he’d wind up in deep shit.  I saw his eyes flickering back and forth as he thought desperately.  It might be too late to give the victim a great deal of money in exchange for keeping her mouth firmly closed.

“We were making our way back to the town hall, when we heard a scream,” Fallon said, calmly.  “We hurried to the source and saw a man pushing a young woman against a wall, her dress pulled down and his hand up her skirt.  I reached for my wand, intending to stun him, but Allen and Gus got to him first and knocked him to the ground.  At this point, it was discovered that he was a soldier and he was frog-marched to the command tent.”

Harbin glowered.  “And who’s to say she didn’t seduce him?”

Fallon’s eyes flashed.  “She screamed,” she said, flatly.  “If she’d wanted it, why would she have tried to resist?”

Harbin snorted.  “We all know woman make a show of resistance …”

I cursed under my breath as I felt the tension in the room.  The rapist might just have ruined everything.  The townspeople would regard us as enemies if the bastard got away with it – and who could blame them? And yet, if the rapist was punished in any way, his family would demand satisfaction … I wondered, suddenly, if I should go outside and simply kill him before the argument could get any worse.  I could make it look like an accident if I did it with my bare hands.  I hated rapists.  The bastard deserved to be castrated, then hung.

Fallon’s hand dropped to her wand.  “That was not a show,” she snapped.  “She was trying to escape a man stronger and nastier than her!”

“We need to hear from the other witnesses,” I said.  I didn’t want to interrogate the victim if it could be avoided.  “And then we need to decide what to do.”

“Agreed.”  Rupert’s voice was very quiet.  “Bring in the other witnesses.”

I forced myself to listen as the story was told and retold.  There were no obvious discrepancies, no suggesting the story might be nothing more than a put-up job.  I’d seen terrorists and their supporters claiming our troops had carried out all sorts of atrocities, but the vast majority of their stories simply hadn’t held water.  This one did.  I could easily believe the cavalryman had decided he was going to have sex and to hell with what the girl wanted.  I shuddered in disgust.  Even a very junior nobleman, a step or two above the merchant classes, could have easily found a willing partner.  Damn the man.

The man  himself didn’t help his case, when he was brought before us.  He veered back and forth between insisting she’d wanted him and acting as if he was the victim, simply by being forced to answer for his conduct.  It might have been more effective if he’d stuck to one story, I reflected; his entitlement complex, fully a match for his superior’s, made it clear he hadn’t cared in the slightest about the poor girl’s feelings.  I’d known too many men like him.

“He’s innocent,” Harbin said, when the witnesses were ordered to wait outside the tent.  “Let him go.”

“He doesn’t sound innocent,” I pointed out.  “And we need to bring him to book.”

Harbin shrugged, dismissively.  “What is one slattern compared to the war effort?”

I had to keep myself from lunging at him.  “My Lord,” I said with icy patience, “the war effort will be badly hampered if we are seen as … predators.  Here comes the new boss, they’ll say, just like the old boss.  We need the support of the townspeople, and everyone who dwells within enemy territory, if we are to win the war.  If they turn on us, we might lose.  We need to make an example out of him.”

“And if we hang him for a little bit of fun,” Harbin pointed out smoothly, “the war effort will be damaged anyway.”

“I can see your reasoning,” I conceded.  It was hard to hide my disgust.  “But if we lose the war, his family – and yours – will be for the high jump anyway.”

“It was a little bit of fun,” Harbin said.  “What does it matter?”

“It matters to her.”  I felt my temper snap.  “We came as liberators.  We made it clear to the troops that atrocities will not be tolerated.  That … that bastard has ruined her life and left her damaged and …”

“It isn’t as if he took her maidenhead,” Harbin said, dismissively.  “It didn’t get that far …”

Rupert straightened.  “Hang him.”

Harbin coughed.  “Rupert, are you quite out of your mind?”

“No.”  Rupert looked at me.  I saw grim resolve on his face.  “Hang him.  Now.”

I stood and bowed.  “Yes, My Lord.”

Harbin coughed, again.  The confusion on his face was clearly visible.  He’d assumed Rupert would support him, conveniently forgetting that he had tried to rape Rupert’s sister.  Perhaps, without that experience, Rupert wouldn’t have understood how bad things could have become … I grimaced as I made my way through the door and onto the street.  The poor girl might not have lost her maidenhead, and her chance of a good match, but the rumours would damage her anyway.  And the war effort would be damaged too.

And if Rupert takes the blame for hanging the bastard, I thought, it will be harder for anyone to question it.

I winced, inwardly, as I started to bark orders.  The rapist stared in disbelief as I took a rope, wove it into a noose and slung it over the nearest tree, then started to shout.  I wrapped the noose around his neck, then pulled the rope until the noose strangled him.  I felt sick.  I’d killed men before, but this … it had to be done, I told myself.  It had to be done.

The body dangled in front of me.  I tied the rope into place, then stepped back to allow the townspeople – and the soldiers – to stare.  We hadn’t had a choice.  The rapist bastard had been guilty, but if we hadn’t punished him we would have been guilty too.  And … I hoped my men would learn the lesson, before I had to hang another.  It would have been a great deal harder to keep them disciplined if they’d watched an aristocratic rapist get away with it.  I knew idiots who’d openly asked why they couldn’t do things they’d seen others do …

Harbin stormed out of the tent, looked at the body and glared at me.  “I’ll see you pay for this.”

“For obeying an aristocrat’s orders?”  I cocked my eyebrows, wondering if he’d take a swing at me.  I might have to grab a horse and run, if I punched his lights out, but it would be incredibly satisfying.  “Or for doing what I had to do to make sure the war effort doesn’t falter?”

His glare grew worse, somehow.  “After the war is over, I’ll make you pay.”

He stormed off.  I resisted the urge to make a rude sign at his retreating back.  There were just too many watching eyes.  A smarter man might have tried to turn the whole affair to his advantage, sneakily blaming Rupert for overriding him after he’d done everything in his power to save the rapist’s life.  He’d probably get his wrist slapped for failing, but … it wasn’t as if there’d be real consequences.  I sighed, inwardly, as I turned back to the command tent and stepped inside.  Harbin was going to have to go.  There were no other options.

Rupert looked up at me.  “Did I do the right thing?”

“Yes.”  I was sure of it, although I knew his family – and the other families – would disagree.  “If the townspeople turned against us, it would have made it harder for us to win.”

Rupert shook his head.  “I didn’t do it for them.  I did it for Gayle.”

“It doesn’t matter why you did it,” I assured him.  “All that matters is that you set a good example to the troops.”

“Hah.”  Rupert stared at the map for a long cold moment.  “We’d better win another victory quick before his father hears the news.”

“Yeah.”  I considered, briefly, asking the magicians not to send any messages from Harbin, or simply lose them in transmission, then dismissed the thought before I could try to put it into action.  They’d be in real trouble if Harbin realised what they’d done.  Besides, Harbin was a horseman first and foremost.  He’d send a letter with one of his men.  “And we need to regroup and continue the offensive as soon as possible.”

I checked the map, then summoned messengers and started to issue orders.  The cavalry could head north, deeper into enemy territory, while the infantry readied defence lines and prepared themselves to resume the offensive.  I was fairly sure the warlord would have dispatched troops as soon as he heard we were on the march, perhaps before he’d realised just what we could do.  I liked the idea of him impaling himself on my defences.  I didn’t want to meet him in the field if it could be avoided.  My men just weren’t experienced enough for a fluid battle.

Although they’re getting there, I told myself.  We’ll have plenty of experienced troops soon enough.

We finished laying our plans, then emerged from the tent to walk the streets and speak to the junior officers and soldiers.  The rapist was still hanging where I’d left him, his body a silent warning to anyone who ignored my orders; I was mildly surprised none of the cavalrymen had tried to cut him down and cart his body back to his family.  Perhaps they hadn’t liked him or … I frowned.  I’d made sure to scatter the cavalry, sending them out to scout the landscape before Harbin had any bright ideas about launching a coup and seizing control of the army for himself, but they hadn’t all gone.  Harbin himself was sulking in his tent, probably composing angry messages to his father.  Or trying to convince Lord Winter to ally with him to remove Rupert from his position. 

The town felt … safer, I decided, than many of the places I’d seen in the Middle East, although there were still only a handful of women and children on the streets.  I wasn’t too surprised.  The locals carried swords and daggers openly, something that would have gotten them arrested and executed only a few short hours ago.  They’d taken them from the dead bodies, I guessed.  Only a handful carried muskets and pistols, almost all from us.  My agents were, even now, preparing themselves to head further into enemy territory.

I left Rupert in the command tent, then crossed the boundary line and headed into the army camp.  It was very makeshift – two-thirds of my men were going to be sleeping on the hard ground, rather than under canvas – but it would suffice.  They’d made sure to dig latrines and enforce strict sanitation, rather than letting the men crap where they liked.  Horst was barking orders at the newer recruits, directing them to dig more trenches along the edge of the town.  I nodded in approval.  It was always better to keep the troops busy.  I knew from my own career that bored and aimless soldiers tended to go looking for trouble.

“Sergeant,” Horst greeted me.  “The men were very impressed with how you handled the shithead.”

I nodded.  That was good, at least.  They’d seen me hang an aristo.  If I was willing to do that, I would have no qualms about hanging a commoner too.  “Did you make it clear they’d be hung too if they did the same thing?”

“Yes, Sergeant,” Horst assured me.  “I think they took it to heart.”

I hoped so.  I very much hoped so.  I didn’t want to have to hang any more of my men.

We toured the camp, then I headed back to the town as night started to fall.  I’d ordered additional patrols, just to be sure the enemy didn’t have a chance to sneak people into the town or the army camp, but I was all too aware we didn’t know the land as well as I would have liked.  The locals would make good scouts, given the chance, yet … I wasn’t sure we’d have time to recruit them.  They might be reluctant to commit themselves openly.  If their former masters returned …

Two days passed.  Nothing happened, not even a rebuke from the city.  I fretted about what they might be thinking, then relaxed – slightly – as our supplies arrived on schedule.  The troops replenished their supplies, then continued to prepare for the next advance.  I moved from unit to unit, speaking to the men as I kept a wary eye on Harbin.  He’d been very quite since our last meeting.  I was sure he was up to something.

Rupert greeted me when I returned to the command tent, after spending the morning inspecting the troops.  “Harbin has asked if he can join us for lunch,” he said.  “I said yes.”

I nodded, silently checking I was still carrying my pistol.  Harbin might be doing something stupid, but … there was no way I could say no.  I’d scattered most of his men and I doubted my men would take orders from him, not without checking with me first.  I didn’t think he’d had time to actually plan something, but …

“The locals seem to think they’ll be in charge of these lands, after the war,” Harbin said, as he joined us.  “They don’t understand we’re going to claim them for ourselves.”

“Best not to tell them,” I said, dryly.  Harbin was going to die.  I intended to make sure of it personally.  As soon as I came up with a plan, he would be a dead man.  “We need to keep them onside.”

Harbin gave me a look that suggested he’d seen more impressive people lying in the gutter outside a particularly vile – and cheap – pub.  “Do you think you’ve won anything?”

“The war isn’t over until we make the warlord kiss our ass,” I said, keeping my voice under tight control.  The aristocrats might speak of peace, once we’d convinced the warlord to take us seriously, but I knew better.  We were locked into a fight to the death now.  The warlord had to be crushed, to convince the others to leave us alone, or he’d crush us.  I had no illusions about how long we could keep our advantages, such as they were.  We had no monopoly on cannons or muskets or even anything else.  “And that means we need all the help we can muster.”

I heard something rattle outside the tent.  My hand dropped to my pistol as the flap opened, then relaxed – slightly – as Fallon stepped into the tent.  Her eyes were grim.

“My Lord.”  She looked unsure who she should be addressing, so she kept her eyes fixed on the table.  “We just received a message from Barrow.  The serfs are revolting and they want our help.”

I blinked.  “Barrow is quite some distance away,” I said.  “It’ll take us hours – days, perhaps – to march there.”

“Not on horseback,” Harbin said.  “We could get there very quickly.”

“Yes,” I agreed.  “And if we help the serfs to win, we might just shorten the war.”

Stuck in Magic 23

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Chapter Twenty-Three

Unfortunately for us, if not for him, Harbin didn’t get himself turned into something small and slimy – which would have been a little redundant – by the time Furness hove into view.  My advance scouts had already cantered around the town, making sure there wasn’t a relief force within marching range, but I took the time to stop and survey the defences for myself before committing my troops to the attack.  Furness was, according to the maps, a teardrop-shaped town, with a small castle – a citadel – resting at the pointy end.  The ever-growing shantytown surrounding the walls – too low to make an effective defence, even if the hovels and shacks weren’t pressing against the stone – made it look more of a smudge.  I shuddered in disgust as the wind shifted, blowing the stench of piss and shit and I didn’t want to think what else towards me.  The town was asking for a disease outbreak, if one wasn’t already raging within the walls.  I was surprised the townspeople hadn’t demanded their overlord remove the refugees from their lands.

He probably doesn’t give a damn what they have to say, I mused.  He has the entire town in a stranglehold.

My eyes lingered on the citadel for a long cold moment.  It was small, certainly when compared to the mansions of Damansara or military bases back home, but I had to admit it was effective.  The walls were invulnerable, if one didn’t have magic or gunpowder.  The warlord’s troops could simply retreat behind their defences, if there was a serf revolt, and let the rebels batter their heads against the walls until relief troops arrived or they simply gave up in despair.  My spies had told me there was a small middle-class community within the town, big fish in a small pond, who would happily support a revolt if there was a real chance of actual success.  Right now, their chances of victory were pretty damned low.  They simply couldn’t get rid of the citadel.

I smiled, coldly, as I shifted my gaze to the rest of the defences.  The town hadn’t been designed for defence, not when their overlord knew the townspeople would turn against him if they thought they could actually win.  His troops were frantically digging trenches in front of the walls, pushing refugees into the town or forcing them to flee into the barren countryside.  I guessed they’d been too afraid to try to make their way to town.  The warlord’s heralds had been telling everyone that the cityfolk were going to kill, rape and burn their way through the countryside.  I was fairly sure the vast majority didn’t believe the lies, but … I shrugged.  Right now, it didn’t matter.

A cannoneers rushed up to me.  “Sir, the cannons are in position, ready to bombard the citadel.”

I nodded.  The citadel was the final defence line, as far as the defenders were concerned.  They hadn’t realised how vulnerable it was … hell, they’d cleared most of the refugees away from the citadel, unaware I’d hesitate to fire at human shields.  Harbin wouldn’t have any qualms about slaughtering innocents, I knew, but me … I liked to think there was some honour in way.  My lips twisted in disgust.  Cold logic told me that wasn’t true.  And besides, if we let the bad guys think human shields would deter us, they’d all start rounding up serfs and turning them into shields.

“Good.”  I looked at Harbin, who was studying the defences with a disdainful eye.  “Have one of your men take a demand for surrender.”

Harbin turned to his juniors and barked orders.  I listened, even as I turned my eyes back to the defences too. The local rules of war, such as they were, called for the attackers to offer the defenders a chance to surrender and march out with full honours, perhaps even give their parole before they were allowed to go home.  Apparently, aristocrats could even be released after they promised to pay a giant ransom when they got back to their own lines.  I’d assumed they always broke the agreement, once they were safe, but the history texts insisted the ransoms were generally paid.  I supposed it made a certain kind of sense.  If you broke the rules too openly, no one would accept surrenders and promised ransoms in the future.

My eyes narrowed as I studied the defence lines, while a horse and rider galloped towards the citadel, lance raised in a parley pose.  They seemed designed to soak up bullets, although it was clear they hadn’t seen just what massed cannons could do.  I’d made sure my people knew how to fire canister shots and grapeshot, even scattershot … although that was very much a last resort.  It was unfortunate, for them, they hadn’t started taking their defences seriously until very recently.  I rolled my eyes.  Damansara hadn’t needed me to point out the advantages of taking the offensive.

The rider tumbled backwards, an arrow protruding from his chest.  Harbin let out a cry of shock.  For once, I agreed with him.  Shooting a man on parley was a declaration of unrestricted war, all the more so as the cavalryman wasn’t a commoner but a born aristocrat.  They’d just told us the battle was going to be fought to the bitter end.

Unless the townsfolk rise up behind the lines, I thought.  We’d tried to slip some weapons into the town, but it was difficult to say what would happen.  The locals might sit on their hands until it was clear we were the winners, just to make sure their former masters were in no position to take revenge.  We have to send them a very clear message.

I glanced at the messengers.  “Cannonballs to the citadel, canister to the trenches.  Fire!”

The air seemed to boom as the cannons fired a ragged volley.  I heard screams in the distance as the first cannonballs slammed into their target, severely damaging the citadel.  The trenches, oddly enough, were tougher  – the soil absorbing much of the canister shot – but started to weaken rapidly.  I snapped more orders, watching coolly as more and more cannonballs found their target.  The citadel’s walls started to collapse, cannonballs punching deeper and deeper into the interior.  Archers appeared on the battlements, trying to get into position to shoot  the cannoneers.  My musketmen greeted them with a barrage of musket balls.  Their accuracy was shitty, but they were firing so many balls that it hardly mattered.  I felt Harbin’s discomfort as a handful of archers fell from the walls, dead before they’d even had a chance to return fire.  Cannonballs could take down the walls of Damansara as easily as they were breaking through the citadel.

A low rumble split the air as the citadel started to collapse, chunks of heavy stone slipping from the walls and crashing to the ground.  I had a glimpse of halls and barracks within the building, before they were obscured by smoke and dust.  A man ran through the open, waving his hands frantically; a cannonball passed right through him, practically vaporising his body before slamming into the far wall.  The poor bastard hadn’t had the slightest idea what had hit him, I reflected, as I turned my attention to the defences.  He’d been grossly unlucky and paid the price.

The trenches were wavering, men either massing behind rapidly-weakening defences or running for the inner walls.  I didn’t blame them for breaking.  Their leaders were bully-boys too used to doing what they pleased to realise they’d run into someone who could fight back, while the majority of the troops were either raw recruits or mercenaries.  The latter would be thoroughly pissed at their nominal commanders.  By shooting down all hope of a parley, they’d ensured their troops wouldn’t be offered any terms.  The best they could hope for was unconditional surrender.

“Order the advance,” Harbin said.  He turned to a messenger.  “The heavy cavalry are to advance and break their lines.”

“Belay that order,” I said, without looking at him.  “The cavalry are to stay where they are!”

Harbin snorted.  “You don’t want to break their lines?”

“There’s nothing to be gained by throwing the cavalry into a meatgrinder,” I said.  I might have thought better of it if Harbin himself had been leading the charge.  He was something of a coward, true, but if the order came to advance and he didn’t … he’d be finished.  His own men would disown him.  “Let the cannons wear them down a little more.”

My eyes drifted over the gathering troops as I beckoned to the messenger.  “Order the 3rd Cannons to load canister, then wait for the enemy charge,” I said.  “They are to fire when the enemy troops reach the halfway point.”

“Yes, sir.”

I smiled grimly, although I knew the carnage was about to get worse.  The enemy didn’t have many options left.  I’d surrounded the town.  They could fall back and force me to assault the town directly, which would probably lead to the townspeople putting a knife in their backs, or charge my lines.  They’d made damn sure surrender wasn’t an option.  We’d be quite within our legal rights to mutilate, enslave or simply execute anyone unlucky enough to be taken prisoner.  I sighed under my breath.  It would have been so much easier if they’d let the messenger deliver his message, then send him back with a rejection.  Harbin would probably make a terrible fuss if we accepted their surrender …

The enemy troops charged.  I sucked in my breath as they advanced in a ragged line, screaming and chanting as they came.  A handful of shots rang out as the musketmen, their positions now half-shrouded in smoke, opened fire, but the enemy troops kept coming.  They didn’t really have a choice, I reflected as I counted down the seconds.  Their own commanders had seen to it.  I hoped the bastards were leading the charge in person.  They deserved everything that was about to happen to them.

I winced as the cannons boomed, unleashing a hail of canister right into their lines.  It disintegrated, men dissolving into bloody mist as the cannons tore right through them.  The attack stopped dead, the muskets petering out as it became clear the attack had been completely shattered.  I’d hoped to see at least one or two wounded men trying to crawl back to their lines, or raise their hands in surrender, but it looked as if the entire force had been slaughtered.  I felt a surge of hatred for their commanders, to the point I hoped they’d stayed behind just so I could hang them personally.  I’d met a few officers who’d made me want to roll a grenade into their bunks, but none of them – not even the one who intended to be the youngest general in the army – had sent their men to their deaths so blatantly.  I wanted to wrap my hands around their necks and squeeze.

Instead, I looked at Harbin.  “You can send the cavalry in now.”

Harbin turned and barked orders, summoning his horse as his subordinates charged forward.  There was no resistance as they crashed across the former lines, scattering what remained of the defenders.  I only saw a handful of men as the cavalry maintained their advance, pushing all the way right to the walls.  They seemed to be consumed with fighting … I hoped that meant the townspeople had risen, determined to free themselves before we did it for them.  I told myself  that was a good thing.  They’d find it easier to press their claim to their own town if they liberated it themselves.

I sighed, inwardly.  There were factions in the city who thought taking over the warlord’s lands was an absolutely brilliant idea, parcelling the farms and plantations out amongst the noble families and landowners.  It wasn’t going to be easy to dissuade them, not after the warlords had repeatedly cut supply lines to ensure the city remained under their thumb.  And yet, they’d be storing up trouble for the future.  I made a mental note to see what I could do about it, then summoned my bodyguard as the rest of the fighting died away.  It was time to advance into the town and take possession of the citadel.  The former citadel.  Right now, it was barely anything more than a pile of rubble.

“Impressive.”  Rupert sounded disturbed as he surveyed the ruins.  “That could happen to our walls, couldn’t it?”

I nodded.  I’d told him as much, time and time again, but he hadn’t really believed me.  The sheer destructive power of modern weapons was hard to grasp emotionally, even if one understood – intellectually – what they could do.  Rupert would have to tell his family, and the rest of the aristocracy, that times were changing.  They’d have to come to terms with the lower classes, and make room for them, or be swept away as the new world took shape and form. 

Horst came up to me.  “Your orders, sir?”

“Detach a company to take possession of the citadel, but keep the main body of the troops outside the town,” I said.  I didn’t want any incidents.  “If anyone survived the bombardment, they are to be taken prisoner – if possible – and held until I can take a look at them.  If not …”

I smiled, grimly, as I summoned our bodyguards and led the way down to the town.  The trenches had been utterly shattered, torn and broken bodies littering the ground … it was hard not to feel sick as I realised the bodies had been so badly damaged I couldn’t tell how many men had been killed.  Young and old, aristocratic and commoner … they were equal in death.  I snapped orders to a messenger, commanding him to organise work parties to bury the bodies before they had a chance to decompose.   The last thing I wanted was a disease outbreak in my rear.  It would be an utter disaster.

Rupert looked sick as we made our way to the walls.  The shantytown had been devastated, dozens of makeshift hovels torn to shreds by the cannons and the retreating soldiers.  The walls were damaged too, great chunks of stone lying everywhere in mute testament to the sheer force of the offensive.  The streets beyond were occupied by Harbin’s troops, a handful of men in commoner clothes and a single woman.  Fallon, I guessed.  The junior sorceress – I’d been told she was barely a journeywoman, if that – was wearing a commoner dress and carrying a wand in one hand.  There were no other women within view.  I feared that wasn’t a good sign.  The townspeople feared us as much as their former masters.

Fallon stepped forward.  “My Lord,” she said, curtseying to Rupert.  “This is Allen, leader of the rebels.”

I saw Harbin’s lips twist in distaste as Rupert nodded to Allen.  He was a stranger – I guessed he was a merchant, someone who’d made a fairly good living – but the man beside him was one of my agents.  I hadn’t really expected that much from them, beyond intelligence reports, yet … I smiled to myself as Rupert and Allen spoke briefly, sorting out how the town would be occupied for the next few weeks.  The army would have to move on as quickly as possible, I told myself.  The longer we stayed in one place, the easier it would be for the warlord to cut our supply lines and starve us.  It was a cowardly tactic, but pragmatic.  The warlord had to know – now – his troops couldn’t meet ours in open battle.

It didn’t take long to come to an agreement.  We’d already sorted out what we wanted from the townspeople and none of our demands were particularly unreasonable.  Allen hurried away to take the good news to his fellows, who would be relieved we didn’t intend to conquer the town or simply burn it to the ground, while Rupert and I headed towards the citadel.  A handful of prisoners, all wounded, sat on the ground in shackles; the remainder of the garrison, I was sure, was either dead or running for their life.  They wouldn’t get far.

“There’s no one I recognise amongst the prisoners.”  Rupert sounded disturbed.  “Did the commanders all die?”

“Probably,” I said.  They might have holed up in the citadel, unaware that it had become a death trap.  “Or they might have led the charge in person.”

I occupied myself surveying the damage, occasionally giving orders to messengers as they found me and made their reports.  We’d smashed the fortress to rubble, but at a very high cost in cannonballs and gunpowder.  We might be able to recover some of the cannonballs … not all of them.  Some would have shattered or been warped out of shape on impact … it would be easier, at least in the short term, to have more brought from the city.  I sent orders to have the logistics expedited as fast as possible.  Once the warlord realised our greater weakness, he’d move to take advantage of it.

“We’ll continue the offensive as quickly as possible,” I said.  It would take several days to march to the warlord’s core castle, his seat of power, but it could be done.  The real trick would be smashing the castle into rubble before the warlord’s subordinates came to their master’s rescue.  “We have to keep him off balance and …”

A messenger ran up to us.  “My Lords!”

I felt my heart sink as the messenger started to genuflect wildly.  This wasn’t going to be good.  The poor bastard clearly thought he was going to take the blame.  I didn’t really blame him.  Shooting the messenger was a fun pastime around here, as petty and short-sighted as it was.

Rupert, bless him, reacted calmly.  “What’s happened?”

“A soldier tried to rape a girl,” the messenger said.  “And all is chaos!”

I swore.  It really was going to be bad.

Stuck in Magic 22

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Chapter Twenty-Two

Two days later, the army – two-thirds of the force I’d built up over the past few months – marched out of the city and headed into enemy territory.

I sat on my horse, riding up and down as the men tramped down the road, pretending not to hear the grumblings from the more experienced soldiers.  The last two days had been a nightmare as we’d rushed to get everything we needed, from dried meat and purified water for the troops to entire cartloads of gunpowder, ammunition and medical supplies.  The local chirurgeons might be butchers, or at least staggeringly ignorant of even the basics I’d been taught in boot camp, but at least they were better than nothing.  I’d spent a few days, during the Phony War, writing down everything I could remember about basic medical care.  The wounded might survive and recover, if the chirurgeons actually took care of them.

The wind shifted, blowing a sandy scent towards me.  My private spies had reported that the first bodies of enemy troops had already reached Furness, suggesting that the city’s official intelligence agents were – at best – wildly behind the times.  It was a common problem in my experience – spooks liked to pretend they knew more than they did, often at the expense of the troops – made worse by the information blackout.  The warlord had made it clear that anyone who entered his territory would be searched and harassed, if not told to take their unwelcome presence somewhere else.  The fog of war had truly descended across the land.  It was hard to be sure what might be waiting for us, on the far side of the horizon.

I did my best to look confident as I rode past the cannoneers, even though I feared the worst.  The cannons were new technology, as far as the locals were concerned, and they hadn’t worked all the bugs out yet.  A handful had exploded during trials, injuring or killing their crews; others hadn’t been cleaned properly by the cannoneers during test shots and wound up rendering themselves useless.  I’d shown the new recruits precisely what happened to careless gunners – I’d made them look at the injured men – but I was all too aware the poor bastards could do everything right and still wind up badly injured or dead.  The musketmen had an easier time of it.  I’d drilled the first musketmen in cleaning their weapons and now it was rare to see a dirty weapon.  Anyone who slacked would be put straight by their comrades a long time before the sergeant laid eyes on the dirty gun.  I was confident …

… and yet, I was all too aware of my weaknesses.  Harbin had done a good job in raising more cavalry – I silently commended him for something, even though he’d been a colossal pain in the ass while we’d been drawing up the battle plans – but we didn’t have anything like enough horsemen covering our flanks.  We’d practiced drawing up in battle formation, if the enemy cavalry located us and decided to charge, yet I had few illusions about what would happen if we were challenged in the field.  The army had expanded too rapidly for my peace of mind.  I’d scattered my experienced men amongst the great mass of raw recruits, giving them additional rank and pay to encourage them to set a good example and stiffen their nerve when they came face to face with the elephant, but I was uneasily aware I just didn’t have enough of them.  Morale was a slippery thing and there was no way, with the resources I had on hand, that I could really show them what they’d be facing.  If panic took root in the ranks, the entire army would waver.  It might even break.

I pushed the thought out of my head as the army marched onwards.  It was crude and rough and short of almost everything it needed, but I knew we’d done a good job.  I certainly had more faith in Rupert, and Harbin, than I’d ever had in the local troops and militias we’d raised and backed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.  They had always been unwilling to commit themselves – they’d feared, not unreasonably, that one day we’d simply abandon them to their fate – while the cityfolk knew they’d be for the high jump if they lost the war.  It helped, I supposed, that I couldn’t run too.  It would mean abandoning everything I’d done and starting afresh somewhere else, if it was even possible.  I’d learnt a great deal more about how the world worked, by talking to magicians as well as merchants, but I was still very aware of my own ignorance.  The stories from the west, where I guessed my predecessor had arrived, were so wild it was hard to take them seriously.  I simply didn’t know what was really happening beyond the kingdom’s borders.

And the more songs I introduce, the greater the chance I’ll draw attention, I thought.  The tunes I’d taught the bards were catchy – and, to a cross-dimensional traveller, they’d be familiar.  There was no United States in this world.  What were the odds of someone writing their own version of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, with nearly every word precisely the same?  If my counterpart hears the song, they’ll know what I really am.

The thought mocked me as I rode beside the army.  There was no guarantee the other cross-dimensional traveller was from my world.  The world around me was living proof there were other worlds, other timelines.  The other traveller could have come from a world where Hitler won the Second World War, or the South won its independence during the War Between the States, or the American Revolution was squashed by Britain, or … if the timelines had diverged even further back, perhaps when the Spanish had tried to invade Britain or Julius Caesar had led his troops on Rome or Alexander the Great had invaded Persia, it was hard to believe we’d have anything in common.  My counterpart might think the songs I’d plagiarised, with only minimal edits, were all mine.  We might not even speak the same language.

Rupert looked tired as he brought his horse alongside mine.  “What happens if they bypass us and attack the city?”

I shrugged, wondering who’d put that thought into his head.  Harbin?  It struck me as unlikely, but … if Rupert had a military advisor, why not Harbin?  He could easily have hired a mercenary to give him advice, with strict orders to keep his head down and claim absolutely no credit for himself.  Harbin had insisted on bringing several cartloads of supplies and a number of servants with him, I recalled with a scowl.  I’d thought he was being silly – the supply carts would have to be abandoned in a hurry if things went badly wrong – but there might have been a deeper purpose to his demands.  Or perhaps I was just giving him too much credit.

“The walls are heavily defended and the gatehouses are secure,” I reminded him.  I’d made sure of it, once we had enough muskets and cannon to outfit the army.  “If he chooses to hurl his army against the stone walls, they’ll be chewed to ribbons.  It’ll shorten the war in our favour.”

I allowed myself a cold smile.  The warlords might not have realised it, not yet, but their castles weren’t the priority target, not any longer.  It was their armies that were going to be targeted.  If the asshole wanted to bleed his troops white by hurling them against the walls, giving my army a free hand to tear though his lands, liberate his serfs and destroy his power base once and for all, it was fine by me.  Napoleon once said, never interrupt your enemy while he is making a mistake.  It was advice I intended to take. 

The marchers kept inching forward.  It was hard not to feel as though we were dawdling, even though I knew there was no point in trying to run.  The men were carrying heavy packs, as well as their muskets, powder horns and ammunition.  There was nothing to be gained from forcing them to move faster and a great deal to lose.  And yet, I was sure the warlord already knew we were coming.  Carver and his peers had taught me a great deal about what magic could do.  A lone magician in the warlord’s service could spy on us from a distance and there was nothing we could do about it.  The magicians had suggested using magic to block their vision, but a blank spot would be just as revealing – I figured – as an army advancing straight towards Furness.

But we don’t want the warlord to get cold feet and sue for peace, I reminded myself.  Not immediately, at least.

I sighed, inwardly.  The warlords rested their power on military skill and brute force.  It would be hard for them to make any concessions, not least because it would weaken their position beyond repair.  And yet, what if they did?  There were plenty of old ladies of both genders, back in the city, who’d sooner make peace with the warlord rather than risk fighting it out to the finish.  I didn’t want to give them the chance.  The warlord would say whatever he had  to say to buy time, while gathering the forces and supplies he needed to crush us when the next war began.  There was no point in trying to appease someone who could never be appeased.  They just saw it as a sign of weakness and demanded more.  We should have learnt that lesson with Adolf Hitler.

A horse galloped up beside me, the rider looking oddly uncomfortable.  “Sir, the chatterers are requesting your presence.”

“Good,” I said.  I’d termed the magicians accompanying the army the chatterers, if only to confuse any spies in the ranks.  And, perhaps, to keep the troops from wondering why the magicians didn’t win the coming battle with a wave of their hands.  “I’m on my way.”

I winced, inwardly, as I spurred my horse towards the carriage.  There hadn’t been that many magicians who’d been willing and able to accompany the army.  Carver hadn’t lied, I’d discovered, when he’d told me most of the promising magicians had been scooped up by the distant magic schools or taken as apprentice magical craftsmen.  The remainder had been willing to help, in exchange for extremely high pay and a certain degree of independence.  I hoped that wasn’t going to cause problems, but I feared it might.  And that was only the start of it.

The magician pushed a head – her head – out of the carriage.  I’d been reluctant to recruit women in any role, certainly on the front lines, and I would have avoided it altogether if there’d been enough male magicians willing and able to serve.  There would be trouble, when the troops realised there were women amongst them.  I’d done my best to encourage the girls to dress as men, insisting it was part of their uniform, but I doubted they’d fool anyone willing to look past surface appearances.  It was just a matter of time until something went really wrong.

“I got a reply from Fallon,” Kyra said.  She’d been destined for magic school, from what Carver had told me, before her parents had put their foot down and told her they couldn’t afford it.  She was clever, I’d been told, but it was useless without proper education and there was no way she was going to get it.  Her parents had also vetoed her applying for a scholarship or simply promising future services to someone wealthy enough to put her through school.  “She says the army has already arrived in Furness.”

I nodded, curtly.  I’d be surprised if it really was the army.  The locals knew how to count, naturally, but anything above two figures was often simply rendered as lots.  It was incredibly frustrating.  Fallon was as smart as a whip – apparently, she’d been a child when her parents had fled the serf plantation – yet there were limits.  She had to stay out of sight, pretending to be a serf woman rather than a city girl or a magician.  I doubted she and her comrades had seen more than a small fraction of the enemy force.

“I expected as much,” I said.  I’d done my best to calculate how much time we had, before the warlord mustered his forces and launched the offensive, but there were no truly reliable answers.  My most optimistic calculations suggested that he’d already mustered several hundred soldiers and marched them to Furness, not enough to lay siege to Damansara but enough to cause real trouble if he used them aggressively.  “Tell her to try and get an accurate count if possible.”

Kyra smiled, then winked.  I sighed inwardly.  Kyra seemed determined to regard the march, and the war, as nothing more than an adventure holiday, rather than something that could end with her dead – or worse.  She really needed more seasoning and we didn’t have time for that either.  I put the thought aside, telling myself she’d learn soon enough as she scribbled words on a chat parchment.  It was strange, watching the ink fade right in front of my eyes.  Even now, months after seeing my first spell, it still felt eerie. 

I heard galloping and glanced back, just in time to see Harbin heading towards me.  I pasted a calm expression on my face as he leered at Kyra, who giggled and blushed, then looked back at me.  I’d suggested he stay with the rest of his men, sweeping the lands in front of us in search of possible threats.  It let him feel useful and kept him out of my hair and, besides, there was a possibility the warlord had started to set up an ambush.  I’d hoped to keep our destination a secret, to the point I’d promised dire retribution to anyone who so much as breathed a hint of it to anyone, but word had spread through the city anyway.  Not that it mattered, I supposed.  The warlord would have to be stupid not to guess at our first target.  Furness sat on a crossroads, strategically important even if it wasn’t being used as a military base.  Once he got over his shock at being attacked, he’d work out what we were doing and react.

“I just heard from the scouts,” Harbin said, as Kyra pulled her head back into the carriage and closed the curtain.  “There are hundreds of troops in Furness.”

“We have thousands of troops,” I reminded him.  “What are the enemy troops actually doing?”

“Digging ditches and preparing tents, if the reports are accurate,” Harbin said.  I was surprised he hadn’t taken the reports at face value.  “The archers drove my men off before they could get a good look.”

“Digging ditches or trenches?”  I doubted he could answer.  To a layman, a ditch and a trench would look almost alike.  “Did they spot any sign of cannons or muskets?”

Harbin shook his head.  “No,” he said, with a sneer.  “There were no modern weapons.”

I kept my thoughts to myself.  Archers weren’t quite as effective as modern snipers, but they were pretty damn good.  I’d seen a trained archer hit a target that would have daunted William Tell.  If the archer had wanted to hit the horseman, there was a very good chance he’d succeeded.  But then, we’d killed a number of trained archers during the last engagement.  It was possible the replacement simply weren’t up to the task.

“Then we continue as planned,” I said.  “We have to take the town as soon as possible.”

Harbin shot me a sharp look, full of displeasure.  Rupert and Lord Winter had given me tactical command, overriding Harbin’s objections, but I had no doubt he’d cause trouble if I gave him a chance.  My fingers itched.  I was seriously tempted to just draw my pistol and shoot him.  It would be disastrous and yet … Harbin was an attempted rapist, a prideful ass and all-around danger to the war effort.  The sooner he was gone, the better.

“Of course, Your Majesty,” he said.  His voice dripped honey and acid.  “Whatever you say, Your Majesty.”

I swallowed a number of extremely sarcastic responses that came to mind.  Harbin glanced at the carriage, his eyes speculative.  I gritted my teeth, hoping he was doing it to annoy me rather than seriously thinking I’d brought the young women – girls, really – along as something other than communications officers.  Kyra and her peers had magic, I reminded myself.  They could take care of themselves, if they didn’t care for his advances.  Even Harbin had enough sense to leave them alone … right?

His family can’t complain if he gets himself turned into a frog, I told myself.  And it would solve an awful lot of our problems if he did.

I inched the horse forward, mentally recalling the maps I’d studied over the last few days.  Furness wasn’t heavily defended, somewhat to my surprise, but the citadel would have been a major headache to any conventional attacker.  To us … it was just a target.  I silently drew up my plans, considering them as best as I could.  I’d have to take a closer look at the defences, when we reached the town, but …

If he’s only sent an advance force to the town, we can take it and prepare the town to stand off the main force, I told myself.  I had no doubt we could take the town.  The defenders simply hadn’t had the time or the resources – or the will – to make it impregnable.  And if he’s sent his full army already, we can win the war in a single day.

Stuck in Magic 21

Also -https://authornuttall.com/viewtopic.p...

Chapter Twenty-One

And so began the Phony War.

I could not, of course, allow myself to forget that it was just a matter of time before Warlord Aldred – Warlord Asshole, as everyone was calling him now – resumed the offensive.  I had too much to do, from training troops to little projects that might – or might not – win Rupert’s approval if he ever found out them, but the city fathers weren’t keeping themselves so busy.  They seemed torn between defiance and surrender, between an awareness the citizens would no longer tolerate appeasement and a fear that trying to fight would result in utter disaster.  I feared there would come a day when they revoked the triumvirate’s authority, told Rupert and Harbin to go to their rooms and sent me into exile.  Again.  The only thing that kept them from doing just that, from what I’d heard through Gayle, was the fear the citizens would revolt and that no amount of grovelling would save them from the warlord’s anger.  His son was dead.  And he knew it.

Weeks passed, moving so quickly I could feel the warlord breathing down my neck.  I moved from place to place, training troops, placing orders for newer and better weapons, discussing tactics with Rupert while arguing with Harbin, encouraging broadsheet writers – reporters – to write favourable stories, ‘composing’ songs for the barracks and taverns and recruiting runaway serfs for my long-term plans.  The runaway spokesman – he finally told me his name was Boris, although I was fairly sure it was a nom de plume – worked hard to make sure I knew as much as possible about the surrounding countryside, as well as recruiting dozens of people who’d stayed behind when he’d made a break for freedom.  I tried to warn him about cell structures and operational security, but the serfs already knew the concept even if they didn’t have a name for it.  Anyone who talked to the local baron – even the village headman – was a dead man walking, the moment his peers found out.  There would be no mercy.

I – somehow – found time to start other programs.  Most of my early recruits couldn’t read, not even the phonic letters the first cross-dimensional traveller had introduced.  I arranged for some of the newer recruits – the ones who did know – to give lessons to the older recruits, then for the newly-taught recruits to teach their peers.  I had to smile when I realised I’d effectively reinvented the Vietcong’s method of teaching their recruits to read, although I had no qualms about stealing good ideas from wherever I found them.  I’d have sold my soul for a few hundred AK-47s and a handful of T-34 tanks.  They’d dominate the battlefield, as long as the ammunition held out.

Be careful what you wish for, I told myself, sharply.  You might not like the people who brought them to you.

It was my relationship – if indeed relationship was the right word – with Gayle that gave me the most headaches, although Harbin was a very close contender.  Gayle seemed to always find a few minutes to visit me whenever I was alone, in the city palace or her family’s mansion, offering me a few useful tips on politics and insights into what the city fathers were thinking before vanishing again to avoid her brother or more distant relatives.  I didn’t know what she was doing, or how much her father and brother knew of what she was doing, or anything.  It was strange.  I had to keep reminding myself that she was from a very different society.  She might have a completely different way of thinking about things than me.

Which is the problem with meeting people from different cultures, I reflected.  It isn’t so easy to predict how they’ll react to well …anything.

The other upside of my new status as a war hero, I discovered, was that it allowed me to talk to magicians as something close to an equal.  Most magicians maintained a social barrier between themselves and non-magicians – they called them mundanes, which I supposed beat muggles – and rarely lowered themselves to talk to anyone, unless they were paying customers or extremely well-connected.  It actually took some doing to convince an enchanter to talk to me, despite everything.  I had the distant impression Carver and his ilk thought it didn’t matter, not to them, who won the war.  They’d remain in their heaven and leave the rest of us to the seven hells.

“It’s not easy to send a message via magic,” Carver explained, patiently.  He was young for an enchanter, I’d been told, although he was probably around the same age as me.  It was hard to tell with magicians.  “Crystal balls require considerable effort and resources to craft, let alone emplace in the twinned locations …”

I frowned.  I’d done my best to read a handful of magical textbooks, but they’d been completely incomprehensible.  I had the feeling they were trying to explain colour to a man born blind.  Vast swathes of technobabble were mingled with details that made very little sense to me.  I told myself it didn’t matter.  I didn’t have to know the how and why.  All I needed to know was how it could be put to use in my service.

“I see, I think,” I lied.  “I understand there are such things as chat parchments …”

Carver looked irked.  “You do understand how chat parchments work, don’t you?”

“No.”  I saw no point in pretending otherwise.  I was fairly sure the concept had come from my mysterious counterpart – the chat parchments reminded me of cell phones, rather than anything more mystical – but I didn’t understand how they actually worked.  The textbooks hadn’t even mentioned them.  “Why don’t you explain it to me.”

“It would be pointless,” Carver said.  “You couldn’t even understand what I said.”

I resisted the urge to point out he’d assumed I did understand, only a few seconds ago.  “Try me.”

Carver snorted and sat back in his chair, trying to come up with a simplistic explanation that would actually worked.  I forced myself to wait, my eyes wandering around his shop.  It looked like a weird cross between a standard carpenter’s workshop and something right out of Harry Potter, piles of wood, metal and mundane tools contrasting oddly with magic wands, potion jars and devices I couldn’t even begin to comprehend.  Rupert had warned me to be polite, when he’d arranged the meeting.  A magician’s home was his castle.  A man who entered without permission, or a visitor who acted as if he owned the place, would be lucky if he was simply kicked back onto the streets.  I felt a twinge of envy, despite everything.  Magic was the key to a better life, here.  Even mundane-born students had a chance to make something of themselves.

“Magical artefacts are designed to either carry a magical charge, which severely limits their lifespan, or draw their power directly from their owner,” Carver said, finally.  “It’s possible to design something that draws power from background magic, stockpiling the charge within the spellwork until it is finally used up, but there are very clear limits on how much you can actually do.  A trunk might last for years, perhaps even decades; a wand designed to allow the wielder to cast a handful of basic spells, even without magic of their own, won’t last very long at all.”

He paused, considering his next words.  “Magic runs through a person’s blood, which makes  blood one of the most versatile and yet dangerous magical substances in the world.  It is linked so closely to the donor that even non-magical blood has its uses, although most of them are linked closely to the dark arts.  I could use a drop of your blood, for example, to locate you, or influence you, or simply kill you at a distance.  It is different, but it can be done.”

I shuddered.  I’d seen how the locals were careful with their blood, but I’d never heard the reasoning stated so bluntly.  “Is there any way to block such spells?”

“Yes.”  Carver smiled, suddenly.  “I’ve crafted artefacts designed to protect mundanes against such attacks, although they have their limits.  The blood link is hard to cut completely, particularly if the blood is stolen before the ritual is completed.  It is relatively easy to stop something lethal, but a more subtle suggestion can get through even the toughest defences.”

“I might have to buy one of those,” I commented.

“I’ll be happy to sell you one,” Carver said.  “If they don’t work, you’re welcome to come and complain to me.”

I snorted.  If he was telling the truth, if someone could kill me from a distance, I wouldn’t be around to complain.  “What does this have to do with chat parchments?”

Carver brightened.  “Put simply, chat parchments are bonded to their users, who donated blood to the spell that linked the parchments into one.  Once the first spell is in place, and the overall link is set up, the chat parchments draw their power from whichever user writes on them.  That’s why the chat parchments are so difficult to hack, let alone block.  The spells that power them are very advanced, but also very subtle.  Even modified wards have trouble keeping them out.  They are so closely linked to their users that they seem to be part of their users.”

“So the spell can’t tell the difference between a chat parchment and someone’s hand,” I mused.  “Why can’t I use them?”

“Because the chat parchments draw their power from the user,” Carver said, bluntly.  “And you have none.”

I cursed under my breath.  “Is there no way to send messages through chat parchments without a magician?”

“Not easily,” Carver said.  “The spellwork is very delicate.  It isn’t easy to craft something that’ll carry a message, not without magicians at both ends of the link.  Crystal balls are fantastically expensive because they’re so complex and even they have magicians to fine-tune the spellwork every so often.”

“I see.”  I’d wondered why the Allied Lands had a Pony Express-style messenger service, when they had something akin to a magical internet, but I understood now.  Their ‘internet’ wasn’t anything of the sort.  “How powerful do the magicians need to be to power and operate a chat parchment?”

“Not that powerful,” Carver assured me.  “A newborn magician could handle the task, if an older and more experienced magician did the hard work.  You’d just need to ensure they could read and write.”

I nodded.  “And if we were to recruit a handful of newborns, could you help them set up chat parchments?”

Carver grimaced.  “You’d need to recruit the ones who didn’t get invited to a school,” he said.  “And that could lead to all sorts of problems.”

“So could an enemy army ransacking the city,” I pointed out.  “Could you be sure your shop would remain untouched?”

“My wards are strong,” Carver pointed out.  “And the Compact remains in force.”

I heard a hint of doubt in his tone.  I didn’t pretend to understand the Compact – reading between the lines, I had a feeling that both magicians and mundanes didn’t understand it either – but it was clear the barriers between magical and mundane society were weakening rapidly.  Magic was just too common, and magicians too numerous, for any form of segregation to take hold.  And if the city was attacked, the magicians would be caught in the fighting too.  Their wards might not stand against cannonballs and catapulted rocks.

“I’m not asking for much,” I said.  “I just need a way to coordinate my forces from a central location.”

Carver nodded, although I wasn’t sure he understood.  It wasn’t easy to command a sizable army, one so large it had to be broken into several detachments.  Battles tended to turn into melees because the commanding officers lost control of their troops.  The set-piece battle I’d fought, earlier, had only worked because the enemy force hadn’t realised it was about to ride straight into a meatgrinder.  The larger army I’d been putting together, over the last few weeks, was going to be cumbersome as hell.  I didn’t know how Grant and Lee had managed during the War between the States.  They’d clearly had one hell of a lot of trust in their subordinates.

They didn’t have much choice, I reminded myself.  They had to trust that their juniors knew what to do.

It took a little more arguing, and the promise of a hefty bribe, but Carver agreed to start recruiting young magicians and teaching them how to create and operate chat parchments.  I made a mental note to keep an eye on them, watching for newborns who could pretend to be serfs long enough to get into the villages and send information back to us.  I just hoped they’d be ready in time.  Carver had made it clear the vast majority of trained magicians wouldn’t take part in the war.  I found it incomprehensible, although I suspected the city fathers would be relieved.  The stories of sorcerous warfare were terrifying.

I kept working, training the raw recruits, supervising the new sergeants, silently noting who might have officer potential … and studying maps, considering the possibilities.  The warlords didn’t seem to have banded together against us, although combining their forces offered them the best chance of outright victory.  They hated and feared each other more than they disliked us.  I guessed the other warlords, the ones further away, suspected the stories of our victory were grossly exaggerated.  They had a point.  I’d heard tales of the engagement that claimed we’d slaughtered millions.  The warlords knew perfectly well those stories couldn’t possibly be true.

And then, all of a sudden, the Phony War came to an end.

I was asleep – of course – when the messenger arrived, summoning me to an urgent meeting with the military council.  I jumped out of bed, dressed hastily and mounted my horse for the ride back to the city.  The gatehouses were heavily defended – I’d urged the triumvirate to make sure the warlords didn’t have a chance to slip a small army through the gates, taking the gatehouses and bypassing the walls – but the streets beyond were quiet.  The parties were over now.  I wondered, as I cantered towards City Hall, if the locals were starting to think the war was over too.  It wasn’t as if any of the warlords had done anything more than shake their fists and promise bloody revenge.

“We’ve just had a message from Warlord Aldred,” Rupert said, when I joined the military triumvirate.  He held out a scroll.  “The message is long and flowery, but” – his lips quirked – “it basically says give me what I want or else.”

“Bend over and take it, more like,” Harbin growled.  He looked to have been roused from his beauty sleep too.  I rather wished he’d been allowed to stay in his bed.  Lord Winter was an amiable buffoon; Harbin was actively poisonous to everyone unlucky enough to encounter him.  “His troops are finally mobilising.”

I rolled my eyes.  Warlord Aldred had – had had – a small body of trained and experienced troops, a cadre he could use to lead raw recruits drafted from the farms and villages.  The battle had shattered them, killing dozens and leaving the remainder deeply pessimistic about their future.  I’d heard from my spies that the warlord was having problems recruiting mercenaries to fill the gaps in his forces, let alone take the lead as he advanced towards the city.  They wouldn’t be able to spend whatever he was paying them unless they survived and … I smiled.  Mercenaries were generally realists.  They knew a lost cause when they saw one.

“Took him long enough,” I commented, lightly.  “He should have been moving a great deal quicker.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Harbin said.  “He doesn’t have to take the walls to beat us.  If he cuts us off from the farms, we’re going to starve.”

“Yes,” I said.  It was hard to keep the surprise off my face.  Harbin had veered between insane optimism and complete depression, coming up with wild schemes that would get us all killed and then deciding we were going to be killed anyway.  It was the first piece of awareness he’d shown that military realities were actually a thing.  “So we have to get there first.”

I traced a line on the map.  “He’ll be bringing a large body of troops towards us,” I mused, “which means he’ll have to mass them here, at Furness.  The town is close enough to the border to serve as a base and yet far away enough to give him some plausible deniability, if things go badly wrong.”

“Or let him get his troops back to his heartlands if one of his rivals puts a knife in his back,” Rupert said, thoughtfully.  The lessons I’d been giving him on long-term thinking were starting to pay off.  “We’re not his only enemy.”

Harbin looked unconvinced.  “And what do you suggest we do?”

I smiled.  “We take the offensive,” I said.  “He expects us to just sit still and wait to be hit.  Again.  It’s time we hit him first.”

“But …”  Harbin swallowed, hard.  “If we lose, we lose everything.”

“You said it yourself,” I reminded him.  “If we let the bastard lay siege to us, we lose.  We have to take the offensive.  We punch our way into Furness, we beat his army in the field, we take the war as far as we can, right into the core of his heartland.  We take his lands, tear down his castles, free his serfs and make it impossible for him to wage war on us – on anyone – ever again.”

“The king will not be happy,” Lord Winter said.  “If we strike outside our borders …”

“And what,” Rupert demanded, “has the king ever done for us?”

And, on that note, the decision was made.

US Liberates Britain, 1944

This idea was mentioned on a discussion board I visited.  I started to think about it.

US Liberates Britain, 1944

Basic Concept

Britain was successfully invaded by the Nazis in 1940, with the remnants of the Royal Navy and the British Government fleeing across the Atlantic to Canada, but this didn’t bring an end to WW2.  While Italy and Japan sought to snatch up isolated and suddenly vulnerable parts of the British Empire, along with smaller countries like Spain, Turkey and Iran, Hitler struck east in early 1941 (early than OTL, as Italy didn’t invade Greece in this timeline) and found himself bogged down in a nightmarish war against Russia.  Hitler did take Moscow, thanks to the earlier start, but managed to lose it again as the Russians counterattacked in early 1942.  The war seesawed back and forth since then, with neither side gaining a decisive advantage.

Much to Hitler’s chagrin, the US entered the war in 1942 as a naval clash between the USN and the Japanese Navy turned into a major conflict … and US defeat, as the Japanese aircraft sunk the US battleships more or less effortlessly.  Hitler, still convinced the US was a paper tiger, was quick to declare war on the United States, a major blunder as the US was rearming quickly (faster than OTL, as lend-lease wasn’t sent to Britain or Russia) and managed to defeat a Japanese invasion of Australia in late 1942.  The US is also arming the ‘Free British,’ as well as a dizzying array of Indian factions who claim to remain loyal to the Raj, but are – to all intends and purposes – effectively independent. 

The US knows it has to carry the war into the lair of the fascist beast.  It isn’t going to be easy.  Iceland is a US base and heavily defended, but Ireland is effectively neutral (the Irish would prefer to side with the US, but the Germans are closer) and there aren’t many other options.  FDR, who needs a major victory (as well as airbases close enough to the Reich to eventually drop the a-bomb), has authorised the US to prepare for Operation Washington, the liberation of Britain.

Points to Ponder

What would have happened to the remnants of the Royal Navy, RAF and army in this timeline.  The navy would have been able to retreat to Canada or Gibraltar, although it is unclear how long the bases would have been able to sustain the fleet without supplies from the homeland.  The army would have lost much of its heavy material – how much manpower could be pulled out in time and how many men would actually want to go?What would ‘Vichy Britain’ look like?  Oswald Mosley is the traditional British Petain (he insisted he would refuse the dishonour, if asked, but that was after the war was over and everyone knew the Nazis would lose).  How much of Hitler’s madcap plans for stripping Britain bare would actually be put into operation?  How many people would collaborate, because they saw no other choice; how many people would do their level best to resist, hide the vulnerable, fight back?How much of the British Empire would remain loyal?  Spain would probably be able to take Gibraltar very quickly.  Italy would be able to snatch Malta – Egypt might be a harder target in the short term, although an Egyptian revolt in the rear might lead to disaster and fights between Jewish and Palestinian factions in Palestine.  Turkey would take advantage of the chaos to snatch northern Iraq; Russia might invade Iran; Japan might target the East Indies and Singapore (at the very least, they’d be able to stop supplies making their way into China.)  India would be harder for anyone to invade, at least in the short term, but British weakness would probably lead to a major power transfer (the best outcome) or complete chaos (the worst).  Dominions like Canada, New Zealand and Australia would be thrown back on their own resources and probably get much closer to the US.How would the German-Russian War go in this timeline?  An earlier start might let Hitler get to Moscow before winter, and a shortage of lend-lease would definitely weaken the Russians, but there were just too many other problems with Barbarossa for them to be fixed quickly.  The Germans would snatch vast swathes of territory, even if they managed to keep Moscow, but they’d find it hard to keep their conquests long enough to exploit them.  That said, they’d probably be able to draw on more manpower from Italy and Spain if the former wasn’t fighting in North Africa on quite the same scale.How would the US develop in this timeline.  Germany would look a lot scarier – Japan too, if the first battles are more one-sided than OTL.  (And Japan wouldn’t have looked to have launched a surprise attack too, possibly impacting the US’s response.)  That said, America is still staggeringly powerful and, once its people start getting experience, they will get more capable very quickly.Ireland would probably snatch Northern Ireland as quickly as possible, perhaps under the guise of keeping the Nazis out.  The locals won’t like it – the Irish might try to keep British troops in place, but this would be politically difficult and likely to upset the Germans.  Ireland would probably prefer to side with America, when push came to shove, but the Germans are much closer.  Will this change?Getting the US army to Britain will be difficult.  Landing will be harder.  If Ireland is a base, a landing in Liverpool might make sense (port facilities); if not, what about Glasgow (quite some distance from Europe) or Plymouth?The USN could run a diversionary operation, perhaps claiming the troops are going to North Africa rather than the UK.

Thoughts?

Child of Destiny is DONE (Well, Drafted)

“Well,” Emily said.  “Let’s go make history.”

Yesterday, I finished the first draft of Child of Destiny, which marks the originally planned endpoint when I drew up the overall arc.  24 novels, 5 novellas and lots of little bits of background … I feel very pleased with myself, even though Emily’s story isn’t quite over.  I do intend to get into the fallout from CENSORED, as well as finish Stuck in Magic and turn The Cunning Man’s Tale into a full novel (and perhaps the start of a trilogy.)  I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it, at least as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

Come to think of it, that’s around 3030000 words!

Anyway, my current plan is to write a short story, add more to Stuck in Magic, then write The Prince’s War (The Empire’s Corps) and then Standing Alone (Cast Adrift II).  Or … I’m not sure what I’ll be doing.  I do have some ideas I want to develop, but I don’t know if they’re worth trying. 

What do you think?

Chris

Quick Questions (SIM Novellas)

Hi, everyone

Now that Fantastic Schools III is out, I’d like to pose two questions to my readers.

One – do you think I can expand The Cunning Man’s Tale into a full novel (with the events of the novella serving as the first quarter of the novel)?  If so, does the first-person format work for you or should I switch back to third-person?

Two – for Fantastic Schools IV, I’ve decided to write something less connected to the mainstream storyline (as I hoped to have FS3 out before The Face of the Enemy, which didn’t happen).  Would you rather:

-The Chaperone’s Tale.  The only way common-born Juliet can afford to go study magic at Whitehall is by agreeing to work as an unofficial (and technically forbidden) servant for Princess Mariah.  Unfortunately, Mariah is a brat with a knack for finding trouble …

-The Laughing Girl’s Tale.  Basically, the story of how Laughter Academy was founded.

-The Muckraker’s Tale.  A young would-be broadsheet writer starts a newspaper at Whitehall and finds herself discovering a truth many students would prefer to keep hidden …