Warrior (The Key to Magic)

by H. Jonas Rhynedahll

  "Dead is dead," the younger Gaaelfharenii affirmed with unruffled certainty.

  "Yes, Wilhm," Lord Hhrahld agreed with a bleak expression, "I certainly cannot argue that."

  After a few more steps, the Prince-Protector asked, "What shall we call our war band, Mhiskva? Shall we give it a heroic name or just continue to call it 'the marines and legionnaires?'"

  "If this were Bhrisnia, our force would be of a size to be styled a war band. That is sufficient for now."

  "I fear that there is no poetry in your soul, Mhiskva," Lord Hhrahld accused.

  "I think that you would be right in that, my lord,"

  Upon reaching the trees, Mhiskva and his companions made the rounds of the scattered units. He checked with each unit's commander to make sure that no difficulties had been encountered while Lord Hhrahld and Wilhm circulated to confirm that the marines and legionnaires, but especially the inexperienced latter, were not doing anything that would betray their presence to the Shrikes.

  The legates and subalterns, though all young, had been trained well and the bivouac took shape in an efficient fashion, with a picket of guards stationed around the perimeter, latrines being dug at least two hundred paces from the spring fed creek that wandered down the slope, and food brought from the skyships and distributed.

  "Some of that new armor on the legionnaires is a bit shiny," Lord Hhrahld opined when he and Wilhm had completed their chore and joined Mhiskva on a rocky prominence that provided a partially obscured view of the skyships and the pasture.

  "Especially the helmets. They glint in the sunlight. I have told them to cover themselves in their greatcloaks when they take their ease. The rough gray leather fades into the shadows better."

  As Mhiskva anticipated having to march his small force once they crossed the Sand River, each of the armsmen had been outfitted with a full kit for the field. Each carried a bulky shoulder satchel with dried trail rations, various small implements, camping sundries, a canteen, and a rolled, wool-lined leather greatcloak that could be slept in. Each section and troop also had distributed amongst its members an assortment of shovels, wood axes, and saws to build temporary shelters and fortifications.

  Making his way through the underbrush, Mhiskva started back down the hill. "When the press of the war is not so great, it might be advisable to look into draping a green or brown tabard over our armor. If an armsman on foot must skulk in the weald, then he should be difficult to see, just like the wolf and the hare."

  "It might be better to use some sort of thin cloak that could be worn even in the heat of summer," Lord Hhrahld mused. "Perhaps dappled in different shades like the khadacthyl."

  "I have read about those, but never seen one."

  "It is a cat bigger than a wolf, twice as smart, and nigh impossible to see even in the brightest daylight. In the jungles along the southeast coast of Szillarn, a man does not dare tramp about alone for fear of winding up in one's belly."

  As they continued downward, the intervening foliage thickened, blocking sight of the Empress Telriy, but when they were just twenty paces from the edge of the pasture, the underbrush, pruned no doubt by wandering kine, cleared out.

  The Shrike came out of the south, popping below the scattered clouds so quickly that its shadow passed over the Empress Telriy between one eye blink and the next.

  "Alert the others!" Mhiskva shouted as he started running.

  He crossed more than a hundred and fifty armlengths of tall grass in less than five seconds, but did not reach the Empress Telriy in time. With what must have been a truly heroic effort by Third Officer Keiarh, the skyship leapt from the ground just beyond his reach and began a sharp rise into the sky. The still attached tows dutifully followed along and he could only stop and watch as the transports fled, knowing that they had no real chance of escape. The crews of all four were still aboard.

  The Empress Telriy had only made eight manheight of altitude, her keel barely clearing the fence row trees at the northern end of the pasture, when the Shrike flashed over again, blasting out twin streams of black cylinders.

  Mhiskva saw the line of magical projectiles smash the masts and rigging of the tows and then run the length of the big skyship. Explosions of splinters burst in showers from her deck and hull and then the Empress Telriy split apart into several large pieces that crashed uncontrolled onto the farm track beyond the fence row, dragging the tows down as well.

  FIFTY-ONE

  143rd Year of the Reign of the City

  Ninthday, Waning, 3rd Springmoon, 1645 After the Founding of the Empire

  Steo Hills

  Number One had crossed nearly a hundred leagues in two hours, and Ghorn, no doubt along with everyone aboard her, had thought that the violently shuddering skyship might burst apart at any moment. The king stopped only for the scant moments that it took to disembark Ghorn.

  Experiencing a guilty moment of relief at leaving the combat vessel, Ghorn jumped from the open cargo hatch before the skyship stopped completely, landing on the deck of the log mooring tower that extended a manheight above the treetops.

  As the skyship zoomed away, the king declared with a magically broadcast voice that echoed across the treetops, "I have brought Prince-Commander Ghorn. He will command this army. Obey him as you would me."

  Ghorn had not had much time to survey the encampment from the air and as he clattered down the tower's rough steps, he looked about. The three corps of the First Army were encamped with little to no overall organization or cohesion over a roughly circular area of vales and hills that he judged must measure nearly a league in diameter. The heavy forest prevented him from discerning much of the exact layout of the camp, but it was immediately clear that the precept of concealment that had been the stated reason for the location of the army was being violated in numerous ways. Most significantly, the thick smoke rising from the field kitchens sited around the base of the tower could likely be seen for miles. Also, a work force that must have numbered a full legion in size was in the process of clear cutting a large, roughly level area in a draw to the southeast. He guessed that to be intended as a parade ground, which might be deemed a necessity according to traditional protocols but which he thought was a blatant invitation to aerial attack.

  When he reached the ground, he found that a gaggle of legion commanders and their subordinates had gathered. Nearest the bottom of the stairs, Commander Tresh of the Defenders and Vice-Commander Rhel of the Reapers stood together with another, somewhat older officer who had to be Commander Dhyag of the Elboern Legion. The rest were not drawn up in echelon as they should have been were this a proper ceremony to invest a new commander, but rather segregated into small, apparently partisan and occasionally adversarial groups.

  Commander Tresh immediately saluted, an action copied in either a smart or perfunctory manner by the rest.

  "Glad to see you alive, my lord prince!"

  "Thank you, commander! Introduce the other legion commanders quickly, if you would."

  The four legions from Suhr were commanded by middle-aged but otherwise fit looking aristocrats, the Lords Mhaertymlel, Norst, Buhrstaen, and Tyldreyn.

  The officers from Lhinstord, Emrae and Pyliu, were older and had the soft look and expanded waistlines of bureaucrats. Their armor was ill fitting and new.

  Though not indicated as such by Tresh, the commander of the combined legion from the southeast island princedoms, Hhlendt, was a tall and flame haired Cahlaborii and almost certainly therefore a mercenary.

  The five commanders of the legions from the Inland Mercantile League all had a professional look about them, but were clearly at odds. Khlavio and Jhakat, big men alike enough to be brothers, stood together, but the other three, Merchant Lhurismigeonir, a wiry man, Plhe, short and squat, and Lord Sahmosthreacs, a cultured dandy from the oiled ringlets of his black hair down to his manicured nails, waited at a good distance from each other and the first two.

  The various junior officers orbited their respective leaders and in some
cases formed buffers between opposed factions.

  Ghorn knew that he had no time for anything but strict military discipline and obedience and he had never been one to pamper egos. He let his face slide into frown as the last officer was named.

  "Though I can well understand that you may not yet have had sufficient time to integrate your legions in an efficient manner," he groused, "that is no excuse for presenting such a slovenly formation. Form an inspection rank!"

  While all the jolted officers moved immediately into two more or less straight lines, with the senior commanders in the front rank, some of them showed looks of muted surprise or affront.

  "Snap to it! Dress those lines!" Ghorn barked. "I have seen trainees do better!"

  The officers, many of them tightlipped, shifted to something that he would have judged to be only marginally better as he made a formal march along the front rank, giving each legion commander a quick up and down. Their armor and weapons were in perfect order, of course, but he would have been surprised if they had not been. At the end of the rank, he pivoted about, marched back to the center and turned to speak.

  "The monks have attacked at Lhinstord. The First Army will advance at once to the Sand River. Commander Tresh, who is forthwith promoted by order of the king to the rank of Knight-Commander, will be in command of III Corps, which will consist of three legions from Mhajhkaei and two from Suhr. Lord Mhaertymlel will be Commander Tresh's second. Lord Buhrstaen will command IV Corps with Commander Emrae as his second. Lord Sahmosthreacs will command V Corps with Merchant Lhurismigeonir as his second. Tresh, Buhrstaen and Sahmosthreacs will remain with me. The rest of you are dismissed to your legions. Strike camp. We march within the hour."

  Save for Tresh, Ghorn had no notion of the command abilities of the others that he had selected to lead his corps, but he was constrained in his assignments by the entrenched traditions of the military culture of the Principate. The nobles had an uncodified but unimpeachable privilege to superior rank and he would only have the right to remove them from command if and when they had proven themselves inept on the battlefield.

  As the other officers scattered through the trees to their units, he addressed the three corps commanders.

  "I Corps has been defeated before Lhinstord and is in retreat. I do not have any more information than that. The Emperor is flying to the relief of the city. Our orders are to establish a defense on the western bank of the Sand River. We must move quickly but will remain under the cover of the forest as long as possible. I want to reach the river in no more than two days. Questions?"

  "What sort of supply train should we prepare, my lord prince?" Lord Sahmosthreacs asked.

  "We have mules?"

  "Yes, each corps has fifty mules that we requisitioned from Lhinstord."

  "Each corps will take sufficient supplies for one week. After that we shall resupply as we can."

  "My lord prince, will the corps march in column?" Tresh asked.

  "No. We have no defense against the Shrikes and will separate into groups no larger than three sections and advance in a broken line. Each group will maintain contact with the groups on its flanks but keep a minimum gap of fifty paces. We will attempt to remain hidden as much as possible until we leave the weald."

  "Sounds thoroughly disorganized," Lord Buhrstaen disparaged in a garrulous tone. "We will have a mob, not legions."

  Ghorn had visited Suhr with some frequency in past years and had met the Suhrii noble on a number of social occasions. Buhrstaen hailed from a family that could trace the military service of its sons all the way back to an imperial patent granted by the Emperor Kharghk XIX. They had a unblemished history of service to the Suhrii throne, and their lineage included several well known battle commanders that the Suhrii venerated as heroes. As far as Buhrstaen himself, Ghorn knew only that the nobleman had had a proper military education and had served the current Suhrii prince for twenty years. Importantly, what Ghorn did not know was whether Buhrstaen could do the job that would be required of him.

  He gave the Suhrii noble his best glare. "If you feel that you cannot lead your corps, Lord Buhrstaen, I can straightaway relieve you and appoint another."

  Buhrstaen blustered for a moment, then rallied and said through clenched teeth, "I am fully capable of leading those under my command, my lord prince!"

  Lord Sahmosthreacs ignored Buhrstaen's discomfiture. "My lord prince, what will be our strategy once we reach the river? Will we be constructing earthworks?"

  "No. I do not know but suspect that the monks have brought some new sorcery to bear. III Corps will move forward to attempt to secure the highway and the bridge. IV and V Corps will deploy in skirmish lines to the north and south, taking advantage of any features of the terrain that will provide natural protection. Until we understand what sort of weapons we face, we will decline to engage the enemy in the open field."

  "What if the enemy does not cede us that option?" Knight-Commander Tresh wanted to know.

  "Then we do what is necessary to take it. There is no second line of defense behind us and we cannot allow the monks to continue west. Our objective is to hold the line of the river until we hear otherwise from the king."

  "And if we cannot achieve that objective?" Lord Sahmosthreacs inquired with clenched eyebrows.

  In a time before the fall of Mhajhkaei, Ghorn might have declaimed some bombastic phrase in the manner of "Then we will stand and fight like men."

  Now, he just said, "Then we will find one that we can achieve."

  Ghorn dismissed the officers, then ran up the mooring tower again to procure a final comprehensive view of the First Army. With some satisfaction, he saw that the army, like a kicked anthill, had burst into activity. It would take some time to swing the sixteen thousand strong force, the largest single contingent of armsmen fielded by the Principate in two hundred years, into action, but he judged that most of it would be on the move within the time limit that he had set.

  When he returned to the ground, he stopped a bustling cook to get directions and then made his way to Lord Buhrstaen's camp. It would be impossible to command the First Army without the assistance of a staff and if Ghorn appointed the suspect nobleman as his adjutant, then he would be able to keep a better eye on him.

  Buhrstaen's camp was atop a knoll a hundred paces from the precisely ordered tents of his legion and his personal living arrangements were as lavishly appointed as Ghorn would have predicted, with spacious tents and other amenities not normally found in the field, such as a copper bathing tub and live chickens for fresh eggs.

  Buhrstaen had also procured several horses and when Ghorn arrived, he found the officer already mounted with a second horse saddled nearby. A number of men who were obviously servants waited in a clump, all bearing heavy packs which no doubt contained Lord Buhrstaen's personal accoutrements. Two older but stocky armsmen, both with fugleman's badges, held the reins of the horses and Ghorn had little doubt that both were actually stablemen from Buhrstaen's person household that he had put in armor to justify their presence.

  "I have had one of my spare mounts saddled for you, commander," Buhrstaen mentioned languidly as Ghorn arrived. "I was just about to send it around."

  Ghorn made a sharp negative gesture. "Horses will be unnecessary. We will be maintaining the same marching pace as your legions. The horses will be much more usefully employed to carry messengers. These fuglemen can ride?"

  Lord Buhrstaen drew back, rolling the corners of his mouth down. "Why, yes, but --"

  "Good." Ghorn pointed at the man holding the second horse. "Ride to III Corps and make contact with Knight-Commander Tresh." He swapped his gaze to the fugleman holding Lord Buhrstaen's horse. "You do the same for V Corps."

  Lord Buhrstaen gaped. "But you cannot just --"

  Ghorn cut him off. "Lord Buhrstaen, go around to all of your legions and glean half a dozen junior officers to serve as my staff. I will also want a section of veteran legionnaires to provide security. Now get down off that horse an
d obey my orders!"

  Fulfilling Ghorn's full estimation of the spineless nature of his character, Lord Buhrstaen clamped his mouth shut, bolted from the saddle, and scurried off.

  Dealing with the possibly incompetent officers that he had inherited would be the least difficult of the tasks facing Ghorn.

  He was not sure at all that he would be able to communicate his orders to the three corps in a prompt enough manner to actually affect the outcome of any potential battle. All legion commanders were trained to operate independently and he had little doubt that the individual legions would acquit themselves at their best, but he was afraid that their best might prove woefully inadequate.

  He could not shake the nagging fear that brave men with steel would be useless against Phaelle'n sorcery.

  FIFTY-TWO

  Mar let Number One plummet through the cloud cover, dropping five hundred manheight in less than a minute. When he released the flux bubble that enabled the rapid descent, air rushed in to flutter his hair and clothes and he saw Ulor working his jaw to relieve the pressure imbalance in his ears. Without pause, Mar drove the skyship low in a diagonal path across the highway, allowing the polybolos, which could only depress thirty degrees, enough forward angle to strike their targets. Like an eagle stooping to claw its prey, the skyship made ready to attack.

  Making his voice carry from the steerage to the cabin section, he told Legate Truhsg, "Let them have it!"

  At the legionnaire's hand signal, every polybolos on the skyship unleashed at once, raining ethereal death onto the steel beetles packed upon the wide and straight stone way. Immediately, several dozen of the enemy conveyances were blown apart by direct hits and many others torn and thrown into the air. Spiraling and tumbling, with spinning streamers of smoke trailing, the burning chunks of wreckage scattered all across the highway and the corn fields to either side, decapitating the knee-high plants and gouging out craters and ruts in the cultivate earth between the rows. Behind the devastated head, the beetles of the column fanned out to the north and south in instant, self-evidently coordinated reaction, splitting into smaller groups that followed irregular serpentine tracks as they sought to avoid the bombardment.