Ragnar looked at the cyan as though he had forgotten he was there. He considered for a moment. “No, stay here. I will find a use for you.”
Two days later, a scout dressed in blue reported to Ragnar’s command tent. He saluted with one raised hand. “Weard Groth, the Domus army has turned around.”
“They will never reach us before we take Domus,” Odveig murmured, slapping a mosquito.
Ragnar took a good look at the scout. Odveig was clearly not used to being out of Flasten Palus. He was a history scholar, a teacher at the Flasten Palus Academy. He was enduring this march poorly in spite of his magic, but the mosquitos seemed glad to have him. Some of the other wizards joked that Odvig kept the mosquitos away from them by presenting such an irresistible alternative. His face and hands were a mass of bite marks.
“How far away are they?” Ragnar asked carefully.
“Three hundred miles or more. We had to relay scouts.”
It would take them more than a month to move that distance, Ragnar thought. It took them two months to get out there. They would all have to be able to teleport to reach us.
So Ragnar put it out of his mind until the next afternoon, when the report said the Domus army was less than two hundred miles away. The same blue delivered it. Ragnar thought his name was Rolf Entsen. Or is it Odulf Entsen?
“A hundred miles a day?” the dux’s son mused. “They will be exhausted when they catch up. If they catch up.”
Odvig Spitz scratched his face. “We could move our men with Mobility, too.”
Ragnar shook his head. “We would be sitting ducks to anyone who came upon us. The only reason the Domus army is not being annihilated by Drakes is because they killed all of them on the way out. They collapse into the mud every night.”
But Ragnar ordered the Flasten army to stop and make camp a day ahead of the Domus army. Unless Domus had enough control over its twenty thousand wizards to call a halt with very little notice, they would arrive and be surrounded on three sides by his carefully deployed troops.
Chapter 28
“Early Marduxes supported scholars researching spells with military applications by granting them charters to claim any village with a population of less than five hundred as a research domain. These charters provided the first magocrats with a place to live and work where their basic needs could be met by the mundane population, but many wizards became petty tyrants over communities that lacked the authority to expel them.”
— Weard Gilda Kronas,
The Rise of Magocracy
Ragnar wished for one of the reconnaissance stones the Mardux’s army was rumored to have.
He wandered the north side of his army relaying messages and listening to reports from his amber and cyan commanders. A quarter-mile south, another line paralleled this one, and to the west, the bulk of his army waited. North and south would envelope the Domus army. A retinue of twelve blues trailed him, eyes peeled for anyone aiming a stick in their direction.
He was thus employed when the message arrived from the far south edge: “The Domus army is turning.”
“How in Marrish’s name?” he cried, calling upon his retinue to help him in a reconnaissance spell.
The Domus army was indeed turning, slowly, inexorably bending to the north. But the southern side had clipped his southern flank and spun, like a log in a whirlpool. It would slam into the northern arm.
To his runners, “West side collapse on the north flank. South side march north. Attack Domus wizards on sight.” Then he used Mobility to run east, to beat the Domus army to his flank.
He arrived as the armies clashed.
Domus greens appeared on the edge of his vision out of nowhere. Then they vanished, and before he could blink were behind his carefully structured line, its wizards still drawing on Energy for a blast.
The Flasten wizards’ spells hit empty air ahead of them as they themselves were slammed face-first into the mud from behind. Then the Domus wizards were gone again.
Ragnar drew his marsord and joined the army, shouting at the top of his lungs.
They were moving way too fast. Standing in a line is not going to work.
The generals of a thousand years of wars in his nation and others screamed tactics at him. But this kind of battle was beyond their experience; he would have to adapt.
Walls of Power met the next wave of greens. As they fell into the mud, Energy ignited their cloaks.
Now Domus will come more cautiously.
* * *
Horsa hovered out of sight with a hundred wizards.
It is my own fault. I should have stopped us an hour earlier, figured out exactly what Flasten’s position was.
In any case, his order to turn the army had come too late, and now smaller groups — never more than a hundred, usually much smaller — were scattered amid Flasten’s crescent defense.
He used Knowledge to ascertain where any gap was in Flasten’s defenses. The north flank of his army had been able to move, but the south flank’s momentum had been too great to steer it out of the way of the crescent.
Finally, it appeared a gap would open for them.
I must get these people through alive.
“Go in thirty,” he whispered, and the words swept out from him like ripples in water. “Spare your magic to save your companions and to move faster.”
Three … two … one.
The force moved as one, a school of fish appearing and disappearing every hundred yards. It paused a hundred feet before the straggling line of Flasten’s army and leapt two hundred feet beyond it.
They made it.
Horsa hopped back to the line, looking for more wizards. He chanced a recon spell. Another large group of Domus wizards was ahead. He found them quickly.
“Follow me,” he ordered and turned to take them to safety.
Explosions sent mud flying from the rear. Trees sailed up into the air.
Flasten’s south flank has arrived, Horsa thought. “Quickly!”
An arm landed in the mud in front of him. He ran over it and prepared to teleport away. He let a few people pass him, shouting orders, as an invisible wall of Power swept up everything in the swamp — trees, shrubs and Mar alike. Ahead, another wall filled his vision from horizon to horizon.
Cannot go through it. “To the east! Move! Get out!”
They raced as the two walls came crushing down on them. Horsa jumped onto a tree limb, his cloak catching on a bramble bush. Then he was on top of a pile of trees. He could see the edge of the walls, where the motes were sparser. It will hurt, but ...
He slammed through the edge of the wall and tumbled through the mud. Rising as fast as he could, Power stripped the mud off him.
About a dozen had survived with him. He gathered them to himself and summoned every bit of the myst he could. Grabbing the weards, he whispered, “Marrish, help me,” and teleported them all to the rendezvous point.
They appeared four miles to the north, in what was rapidly becoming a clearing. As Horsa ordered his twelve to find their division, a lavender ran up to him.
“Weard Verifien, we have a preliminary count,” she said.
“Of what?” he asked, staring at another group of weards who had just arrived.
“Casualties.”
Horsa received the casualty count with dulled ears. Today at least a thousand had died, those caught in Flasten’s flank and reactions.
Marrish, grant me strength. Lord of Wind and Fire, keep my soul steady. He sat in a clearing designated for him while the four lavenders waited on him to give orders.
But we saved hundreds today. Thousands. More than nineteen thousand remain to fight. What do I do with them?
Take them and retreat to a town? There was no town big enough to hold them. They must meet any army on the field.
Attack Flasten? The Flasten army was at nearly full strength, and it was well-rested. They had been caught by surprise today and still killed a thousand of the Domus army. What kind of casualties had t
hey suffered?
Horsa put his head in his hands, prayed. I am no general. How do I direct these men?
“Flasten’s army is regrouping,” the report came from the weard guarding the recon stone. “They look to be building defenses.”
He raised his head. That general knows what he is doing. But we have the advantage in leadership. I can split our army four ways, and each of those divisions can be split again, down to the very groups of eight the Mardux instructed me to make them into.
He paused in his thoughts, looking at the lavenders.
“We could attack him in a fortified position,” Horsa said.
They nodded, giving him advice on doing it. But he decided there would be too many casualties.
“When the Mardux attacked the advancing gobbels … ” someone said, and Horsa raised his hand to stop the lavender as the answer appeared in his head.
A moving army is more difficult to defend. We must find a way to get his army moving.
He nodded to himself, gave thanks to the gods. Then he summoned the lavenders before him and began issuing orders.
* * *
“How are the defenses coming?”
Ragnar had ordered traps built, trenches dug and the camp raised out of the swamp several feet so most types of teleportation would not work. He had learned enough from his first encounter with the Domus army to understand how quickly it had crossed the vast distance between them.
I will not be caught unaware again.
Shouts rose from the northeast, and Ragnar grabbed his marsord and ran there.
Domus weards clashed freely with the Flasten weards. The Domus weards appeared to flicker in and out.
“Walls of Power!” Ragnar shouted, heeding his own advice and throwing up the blue wall that hundreds of Domus wizards had slammed into during the first battle.
But those did not stop the Domus wizards this time. They dodged them. Suddenly, Ragnar realized what was really happening here, even as shouts rose from the northwest.
“Regroup! Don’t follow them!” The defenses were destroyed. Many weards were singed and being healed by a comrade. And many more touched Mobility and followed the token Domus assault out into the swamp.
Ragnar swore, summoned Mobility and chased down a group of Domus weards. Nine of them, he noted as four of them struck his shield with bolts of fire. He targeted the ground below them with Power and Energy, which exploded, drenching himself with mud and leaving four boots behind. He moved on, trying to gather his men.
But the Domus commander had done his job well. Eight groups of a thousand had sliced through the Flasten camp, shaving chunks of a hundred or more off each time to chase and — Ragnar had to assume — die before the army they followed.
But if I did my math right ... Ragnar reappeared in the center of his camp.
“Order the army to march north,” he told his commanders. He pointed at a cyan. “Take a thousand north as quickly as possible and strike through the center of the Domus army.”
The cyan nodded and left.
“We divide the rest of the army into seven groups, chase down those others who came in. And when I say chase, good weards, I mean hunt them as though they were gobbels who had just kidnapped your daughter.”
* * *
Horsa sat in his clearing, three of the lavenders in attendance.
What can I do? he thought, staring at the reconnaissance stone. The plan had worked. The Flasten army was obviously dividing, even more than his groups had taken it. They were engaged with the slices they had drawn away from the enemy army, each a mile or more from the Flasten camp.
The divisions will attack those weards. We must get them to return here as soon as they are through.
But his gut said they should move sooner.
Then a blob of Flasten’s army flickered dead toward them. It flickered again, much closer.
“A thousand approach from the south,” Horsa told one of his commanders. “Make sure we don’t splinter.”
The lavender nodded and strode away.
Then shouts came from the east. Horsa’s head snapped back to the stone. The Flasten thousand had shifted, come in from the east. He almost moved, but then, as quickly as it had come, there was silence. Then shouts of victory.
“A thousand attacked in the east,” the report came. “They killed three, injured more than a hundred, who are now healed. Then they retreated.”
What happened? Where did they go?
From the northwest, shouts.
Oh, Marrish, will we have to keep a watch all night of every man?
He suddenly felt anger rise in him. This is the Mardux’s battle. He should be fighting it, not me. Too many Mar will die.
Then somehow I must save as many as I can.
The revelation hit him like a bowl of hot soup on an empty stomach.
Their general will not negotiate. Not yet. We must ... What must we do?
The shouts to the north turned to cries of victory again, followed by the sounds of battle to the west.
“Engulf them,” Horsa said finally. “Mark them, and follow them. When we are regrouped, we will deal with Flasten.”
* * *
It took about a span, but the two massive Mar armies were soon thoroughly entangled with each other. They were less than twenty miles south of Domus Palus. They were each about nineteen thousand strong. They both had generals whose knowledge of war stemmed from stories they had learned as children and books they had read during their apprenticeships.
The Flasten army clumped, but Ragnar had divided it into three main divisions. The first assault that divided the army would not work again. He kept them maybe a mile apart, drifting slowly east and west for supply reasons, and sent forays of a hundred or so north to check the Domus army’s defenses. They had reconnaissance stones now, but Ragnar was certain Domus’ were better.
In this teleport war, spreading out over four thousand square miles now, it was a serious advantage. But using the edge of his reconnaissance spells, he could even triangulate Domus’ location while being more than fifteen miles from them.
The Domus army was spread much more thinly. There were nine obvious divisions, and each of those could break down, and down again, to component groups of nine.
Nonagons: Four to attack, two to defend, two to heal or rest, and one to move them all. Ragnar had seen enough of them to copy them more efficiently. Pentagons: Two attack, one to heal, one to rest, one to move. Defense came from healing.
But they were at a standoff. Ragnar not only had to defeat this army, he had to take Domus Palus. Despite his attempt to contact his father without heading back to Flasten Palus, Ragnar had not received a reply. Every time he made plans to move, he would barely have finished his preparations before a raid would sneak into his camp.
These were particularly vexing. Nothing he had read gave him a response against the tactics the Domus army used.
No more than thirty at a time would appear a few yards into his camp, blast his wizards in the throat, eyes and mouth with Energy, then jump a few hundred yards deeper in. They would not retreat. Not until they had gone all the way through his men and out the other side. And then come back. His weards were hard-pressed to do much of anything during the ten or so seconds the enemy was among them.
This didn’t happen just one invasion at a time. It would happen two or three at a time and then stop.
What game are you playing? He cursed the leader of the Domus army. They had good reconnaissance. He could get nine miles out of his best wizard, and if Ragnar lost that weard, he’d be lucky to find one who could manage six miles.
The good news was that only one wizard had died over the last four days of these tactics, and that was because he had passed out in a puddle. No matter how many throats were melted shut, there were always ten more wizards prepared to heal them. More would die from konig worms than would die from these magical tactics. That was certain.
Now Ragnar thought strategy, even as another raid brought scr
eams from the west. Vaguely, he ordered a counterstrike. Someone will break through.
I should march on the Domus army.
He would have to eventually. Right now, he barely knew where they were. He could be surrounded.
I should teleport whoever I can into Domus Palus, force the Domus general to divide his loyalties.
And split them up even more? He would be as a bootless mapmaker heading for the Fens of Reur in a striped cloak carrying only a candle.
He grabbed his marsord and a whetstone and started polishing it. The blade was nicked in places, dulled in others.
Ragnar wore a marsord because he was a leader. He had spent most of his life studying books by foreign generals who knew the strategy and tactics of their lands. He had trained himself to win this war. Or any war. A war against men or Drakes. He had studied the works of all the great Mar generals. He knew about ravit and gobbel tactics.
He knew how to lead men. He understood what he had to do. And despite that, many of his men had run off when they were attacked by the overpowering numbers of Domus troops. Still, in the thick of a fight, they listened and obeyed. Casualties were ridiculously low.
He put the sharpened marsord down. I need to regain the advantage. I need Domus to come when I call, to move where I tell it to. He looked at his sword. What are the resources in this war.
The stone rasped against the sword. In terms of numbers, the two armies were nearly the same size. As for weapons, Ragnar knew the Domus army could beat him in Mobility and Knowledge, but he had an edge in Vitality and Power. They can dodge, but we can heal.
He drew an oiled rag from his belt and wiped at the blade.
We need an edge, he thought, staring at the blade. Magic tires us out; if we could use less, we could heal more. If everyone had a marsord …
Suddenly he grinned.
* * *
The latest report to Horsa was just as empty of promise as the previous thirty. No Flasten weards killed. For every one whose flesh was seared to the bone with energy, a dozen more jumped to save him.
Ragnar has that edge: Vitality. But we have Knowledge. Horsa’s reconnaissance stones saw for five miles more than his opponents’, the yellow was sure of it.
His advisers thought they could keep this up. Four or five nonagons cutting through the Flasten army would wear them down. Horsa knew the opposite was true. Domus would be worn through first.
We have been peppering him with small strikes, Horsa thought as his generals babbled on. A hammer blow now might break him. And … if we were to disappear …
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