by Garon Whited
We’re not tackling a unified empire of the Church of Light. We’re tackling one city at a time, just as we’re tackling Zhoka.
So here I sit, on a hilltop, the only visible threat, holding up a flaming sword atop a gleaming horse, with a cloak waving like a huge, black flag in the nonexistent breeze. Behind me—well, to my left—three thousand men and their horses faced away from me, the men shielding their horses’ eyes with strips of cloth.
Heydyl nodded grimly and raised his hand when he saw me looking, then turned away his own eyes.
It bothers me to no end how they trust me to know what I’m doing. I don’t think there’s anyone down there who has the least bit of nerves. They’re just waiting for the signal to begin the slaughter. Some are eager, some are not, but none of them has qualms about the part they play.
I’m a bundle of nerves and hope like hell this works. I probably spent more time than I needed getting the spectrum-shifting spell exactly right. If only we could have done this at night. At least the priests we brought along were good for something—the skies were overcast and the morning light relatively dim. It might make a difference.
Horns signaled the charge. The mob surged forward, sprinting across the open fields, waving whatever weapons they had. And they always had weapons. A carving knife is a weapon even if we think of it as a kitchen implement. A length of chain, a chair leg, even a fist-sized rock—whatever amplifies the effectiveness of a blow is a weapon.
As the horns sounded, I lowered Firebrand and pointed it at the extreme left edge of the advancing horde.
Now?
“Now.”
Firebrand blazed white. It exerted itself, trying for a bright, white flame, since that was easiest to convert.
The light-handling spell was a hyperbolic reflector, turning the omnidirectional radiance from Firebrand into a broad beam. The spectrum-shifters took in almost the entire output and slid it up the frequency range into the ultraviolet—black light, if you want to call it that. Worse than that, I was targeting the ultraviolet-C range, about two hundred and seventy nanometers. Invisible, it was nevertheless highly damaging to the structures of the eye. It’s even more damaging when the waves of light are traveling in lockstep, a coherent beam.
There’s a reason welders wear special goggles. Given the power Firebrand was pumping out, I wasn’t sure welding goggles would matter. For my part, I was behind the light-handling spells—I’m not a complete idiot—and had a spell on my visor to shift ultraviolet into visible light so I could see where I aimed it.
I played my invisible laser searchlight across the mob, back and forth as they ran toward us, working over the front ranks on the first sweep, farther away on the next, and the next… It was a long way to run, so I had time. At first, I couldn’t tell if it was having any effect. If I was right, they were being almost instantly blinded by something they couldn’t even see. It ought to work. After all, the only thing they looked at—the only thing to look at—was me.
Scattered people tripped and fell. People behind them tripped over their fallen fellows. Rapidly, like watching a freeway accident or a train crash, people piled up on each other in spreading chain reactions. In the course of a minute, ninety percent of the oncoming horde turned into the thrashing, fallen, obviously blinded horde.
I blew the horn Seldar gave me. I blew it once, which warned everybody we were about to move. Cloth came off the horses’ eyes and knights mounted up. The sound also attracted attention from everyone out there on the field. I gave the most distant addicts another slow sweep with Firebrand’s beam, just to take maximum advantage of the blinding effect, and dismissed the spells. Firebrand dimmed rapidly to mere metal.
“How are you?”
I’m okay. A little tired.
“Thank you.”
No problem, boss. I haven’t had much reason to go super-hot. It’s fun!
“Glad you’re enjoying yourself.”
I blew the horn again, twice in close succession. The knights rode out through the break in the earthworks to our rear. Bronze and I went down the outside and into the few attackers who managed to reach the ditch before falling into it.
I didn’t cut at anyone. Bronze simply stomped her way along the ditch like a bulldozer clanking over a field of pumpkins. We made one pass through the ditch before circling around the mob to hit the city slums outside the wall. Firebrand and Bronze torched the buildings, a swath of fire hundreds of yards long, sending up flames and billows of smoke between the wall and the battle. Their wizards might watch the carnage, but the spectators on the city wall would have to wait and wonder.
The cavalry circled the blinded mob, blowing horns, shouting, making noise to distract and confuse them, to draw them away from the earthworks and the noncombatants still within. We swooped close, cutting down pseudopods of people stretching out from the main body. Not all of the mob was blind, of course. Those last few hundred or so still emerging from the city had no exposure to the beam. They still had to navigate the flames and smoke of the burning slums, and we were ready for them.
For the main body of blind men, squads of riders circled constantly, veering out to cut down anyone simply charging off in a random direction. The rest of us made quick stabs, directed by the Big Three from the earthworks. All this movement and noise kept the mob guessing about which way to attack as we killed them. They had zero coordination. It was every man for himself, each trying to find something to come to grips with. Some of them even attacked each other, mistaking their fellows for an enemy. Most spread out, trying to find someone—anyone—to fight.
It was a slaughter. It was a massacre. If it happened at night, I’d call it a bloodbath.
Seldar insisted on capturing more test subjects—people, I mean—for the anti-addiction experiments. I didn’t argue with him. He has hope for them, which is more than I have. He usually knows his business, too. In the early afternoon, when the bliss-spell was wearing thin and their numbers were more manageable, we rounded up the last of the survivors. These we shuffled off through one of the shift-tents, sending them to the Temple of Shadow in Vios—I almost said “Karvalen.” It’s not easy, getting used to this new nomenclature.
We sent them off for three reasons. First, they were a security risk and Kammen didn’t want them in the camp. Second, Torvil pointed out they were another several hundred mouths to feed—a logistical burden we didn’t need. And third—my reason—was having them on holy ground meant my altar ego could get a better look at them.
By the time the slums finished burning and we lost our smokescreen, we were all lined up and looking intimidating. In front of us, the bodies were neatly stacked at about the arrow-line, forming a rough a pyramid. Each layer alternated direction and included whatever wood we had lying around. I had a heat-reflecting spell around the pile, along with a rudimentary air shield. It was open at the bottom, to allow air to be sucked in, and open at the top, to encourage air movement. If you’re going to burn something, you need to give it air.
Bronze reared and screamed like shearing metal. Helmeted heads popped up over the wall, all along the length of it. We waited a minute to maximize the visual impact before Bronze breathed fire on the pyramid of bodies. Firebrand did its thing, amplifying and encouraging the flames.
Burning a body takes work. People are mostly water and other gooey bits. Most of it doesn’t burn. It boils and evaporates. However, fat gets hot enough to ignite fairly quickly. This is why burning a corpse usually doesn’t leave just bones and ash. You get a charred, crispy, charcoal-looking corpse. To reduce a human body to powder, you need temperatures in the mid-to-high thousands Fahrenheit and to maintain it for a while.
Bronze and I walked around to the front of the pile, faced the city, and waited. Firebrand kept doing its encouragement thing. I could hear the roar of the flames as they spread. We waited while the fires swelled and grew to engulf the entire stack of bodies. We also waited for the city to make up its mind.
The corpses burned awa
y over the course of an hour or so. Black smoke and ashes darkened the skies and the fields. Still nothing from the city.
I sighed.
Not impressive enough? Firebrand asked.
“Apparently not.”
The hard way?
“The hard way.”
I nodded to Seldar and he gave the orders. We returned to our camp, sorted out the horses, ate something, all the usual things… and then got to work chopping trees and building siege engines.
I had one of the dusks—Heydyl—write out a note for me while I asked Seldar about a bow. He’d arranged with Beltar to have mine brought along. Better to have it and not need it, apparently. I knew I liked him for more than his charming manner.
I fired a couple of ranging shots from our earthworks. I’m not completely untrained in archery, but Robin Hood I am not. It took me three tries to get an arrow in the nearest gate. I plunked two more into it before I accepted the message arrow from Heydyl and shot it into the gate.
They waited a while, to be sure I wasn’t going to keep shooting, before they opened the gate and fetched in the message. They didn’t bother to remove the arrows. Too much of a hurry, I suppose.
It was the same basic message, phrased a trifle differently. Give us the priests and their followers and we will not destroy your city.
In the meantime, we cut and carved and lashed and built.
I had an idea. I considered the leaf-spring longbow in my hand and thought about it, turning my idea over and over in my mind. It was a horrible thought, but it ought to work. It really ought to. It might be a can of worms if anyone figured out how I did it. If nobody thought of it before now, that was a good thing. I didn’t relish the idea of wearing even more protective spells all the time.
Diogenes provided me with a heavy iridium frame suitable for fitting a pocket mirror into. He also provided a long rod with clamps on both ends. I retired to Seldar’s tent and enchanted the frame into a gate locus. Diogenes already engraved the Rethven ideograms on it, and it was only going to be a point-to-point gate, not a world-to-world gate.
I clamped the rod to the bow, mounted the frame, and fired a few test arrows through it. It only took a couple of adjustments before the arrows went cleanly through the center of the frame. Then I slid the mirror into place on the far side of the frame. Sighting down an arrow, I could see my reflection. Perfect.
With a scrying spell on the mirror, I hunted through the city, looking for targets—excuse me, I meant to say “priests.” There were quite a few out exhorting the not-quite-so-faithful to defend the city. Trying to gain new converts, probably. The first one I found, I put the scrying sensor on top of his head. His hat made it difficult to see his bald spot, but I wasn’t interested in the view. I opened a brute-force gate and launched an arrow straight down into his head, neck, and torso. It successfully shut him up.
It was a brute-force gate, yes, and therefore somewhat power-hungry, but it was small, had an enchanted frame, had a scrying channel to follow, and wasn’t open long. It was power-intensive work, but it was like shooting a target three feet in front of me. I suppose it was possible to miss, but as long as I didn’t fumble the release, someone died. All the aiming was done with the scrying spell, and I picked stationary targets.
True, it didn’t work anywhere with scrying shields. This meant the local lord’s palace was safe, as was the local building they used as a temple—they were still building a formal Temple of Light. Privacy shields are pretty standard. Everybody who can afford it has hired a magic-worker to block spying spells.
On the other hand, any priest of Light out on the street and standing still longer than a minute was a target. Twang-thunk-thud!
Forty-seven priests. I don’t know if that’s a lot for a city this size, but no doubt the higher-ranking priests were in the palace, discussing matters with the local lord, or desperately besieging heaven for advice. I didn’t kill those, but all the foot-slogging versions, out doing the dirty work, I murdered, flat-out and without hesitation.
I put the mirror in my pocket, put the bow away, and tried not to think about it. I’ve done worse things. No, that’s too kind a comparison. I’ve done worse things deliberately. I’ve chosen to do things even worse than this. Seldar tells me I need to be a bit more ruthless, more focused on the ends rather than squeamish about the means. I trust him like I trust few other people, and I’m sure—objectively—he’s right.
I still try not to think about it.
Night fell and Malena went off-duty. The poor lady has to sleep, after all, which suited me fine. I was about to do dangerous things and I doubted any mortal could keep up.
Seldar came in as I finished cleaning up.
“The catapults are almost ready,” he reported. “Those not involved in their construction have been preparing the ammunition.”
“They’re counterweighted, so, technically, they’re trebuchets, not catapults—nevermind. It would only matter to Flim or his sons. What sort of ammunition?”
“Many fires have been built. Around them, large pieces of wood, unsuitable for our construction needs, have been enspelled with the Thousand Hammers.”
“The Thousand Hammers?”
“The spell that absorbs the blows and releases all of them at once?”
“Oh, that one. Go on.”
“In this case, we are filling them with the heat of the campfires.”
“And when they hit something, they’ll get all that heat dumped into them at once.”
“I believe they should start fires, Sire, but we have not tested them.”
“Seems reasonable. Although, if you put enough heat into them, they’ll explode—the moisture in green wood will vaporize and give you a steam explosion. Flaming shrapnel, possibly. At the very least, there should be flaming chunks of wood lying around even if they don’t explode.”
“I am gratified to find my thought finds favor,” he acknowledged, bowing slightly. “May I inquire as to your plans?”
“Since they haven’t given up their priests, I can only assume the priests have seized power. If the priests are in charge, they’ll never surrender. So, we start bombarding the place as soon as we’re able. Don’t hurt the gate or the walls. Aim for the city. Create confusion, chaos, panic, and disorder. Encourage them to come out and fight. They’re not going to defeat us in the field.”
“I agree. May I suggest we bombard their temple, specifically?”
“Why?”
“The general populace has not risen, only those devoted to the Church. If we limit ourselves to the temple, it will further sway any who are undecided about your intentions.”
“Fair point. But they don’t have a formal temple, do they?”
“They have a place where they worship. It is right next to the construction.”
“Okay. Go ahead.”
“I see you are dressed for adventure,” he added, nodding at my armor. “May I inquire further about your plans?”
“While you’re bombarding the temple complex in Zhoka, I’m going to circle around, go over the wall, and see about killing anybody who seems to be both in charge and unlikely to be reasonable. I’m hoping I can find someone in the local palace who isn’t a brain-fried pleasure-junkie.”
“How will you be able to tell?”
“You’ve had a bunch of prisoners on hand at night. I examined them, if you recall, while you were experimenting with them.”
“I recall.”
“I think I can now spot the differences in their spirits. I also have a spell to detect the fingerprints of the Lord of Light. So, pusher or buyer, priest or follower, I’m reasonably certain I can find them. I might not necessarily be able to tell the difference without taking time to search them, but I’ll identify them. If I can, I’ll try to wipe out anyone who is likely to be a command-level problem until we get down to someone willing to discuss ruling the place without the Church.”
Seldar opened his mouth, paused, closed his mouth, paused to think.
“I was about to make a comment on your willingness to wipe out whole families of nobility.”
“And?”
“It is a war. I did not expect you to be this… This. I agree to the necessity, however.”
“I don’t. I only agree I haven’t got a better plan.”
“The difference being?”
“By not having the brains to figure out a better way, I’m failing,” I admitted. “This is just the best of bad options.”
“Perhaps you are too hard on yourself?”
“Or maybe I see myself more clearly. How long until the… the siege engines are ready?”
“Two are already complete. The other six will be shortly.”
“You may launch when ready.”
Bronze stayed with Seldar. If anything went horribly wrong, she was my ace in the hole. If necessary, she could lower her head, dig in with her hooves, and simply run through any gate in this city. With all the bombardment arcing high overhead to hit the Church of Light’s temple, the gate guards might be expecting an attack, but certainly not a ten-ton battering ram at over a hundred miles an hour. If it came down to that, a couple thousand cavalry pouring in the ruined gate would be a perfect diversion while she rescued me.
I, on the other hand, wore almost every stealthy spell I knew, from the Not-My-Problem spell to the color-shifting thing to help me blend in. In theory, I have an actual invisibility spell. In practice, it’s more of a “blurry spot” spell, unless you’re holding perfectly still. I think it’s generally not worth the effort to cast it.
The bombardment started before I did. Large chunks of wood arced through the air and thudded down in the town—and nothing happened. Of course, these were ranging shots, not armed warheads. This gave me plenty of time to circle about a third of the way around the city. Once they adjusted their aim with a couple of volleys, that’s when the pyrotechnics started. From the sound of it, they did indeed put enough heat into those storage spells to vaporize the water. I always said there is no kill like overkill, but they may need to be told it’s not always the best idea.