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.
