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.