Arcanist

by Terry Mancour

  “I surround myself with loud and obnoxious fellows to distract my enemies from knowing what I’m doing,” I riposted. “Keep it up, you’re doing an excellent job.”

  “It’s nice to know my education wasn’t a total waste. Seriously, Minalan, this spat with Gilmora could have long-term consequences,” he said, completely seriously. “I’m as pro-Alshar as anyone, but Castal has had a grip on the country for fifty years, and it doesn’t look any less tight. If you go putting ideas of liberation into their heads, the pro-Alshari aristocracy may end up emboldened, and then do something rash.”

  “It’s necessary. The long-term consequences don’t concern me. Anguin would love nothing better to take Gilmora away from Castal, but he’s preoccupied, right now. And if Alshar could not support their claim, then it would be foolish for the Gilmoran aristocracy to stage an uprising, right now. Particularly with what is happening in the Westlands.”

  “Apart from cotton, Gilmora’s greatest treasure is its foolishness,” Astyral insisted. “Hence my amazement that Count Anvaram actually managed to lead an army. I wouldn’t credit him with the wit to find his arse with both hands. Yet he has done something no other Cotton Lord has: to my knowledge, this is the first time Gilmora has invaded somewhere else, instead of being invaded.”

  “They aren’t really a concern, at the moment,” I admitted. “The news from Megelin is the outer bailey has been breached, and the gurvani are pushing toward the inner castle wall.”

  Despite his cheerful demeanor, Astyral winced. “I thought Azar wasn’t going to let that happen.”

  “Azar didn’t. But it did happen, and the Megelini have had to pull back. Azar did get one little cavalry charge out of it, though, and had evacuated most of the civilians when it became likely the wall would fall. But now they are assailing the castle, proper. Oh, and Marcadine is still holding out Preshar Castle, even though the lake that protected it was the one used to destroy Iron Hill. Not that it did the enemy much good – marching across a muddy lakebed and then up a steep incline against a twenty-five-foot wall isn’t going to be much fun. Not when Wilderlords are shooting at you. Terleman expects Marcadine to be able to hold out indefinitely.”

  “Well, we’d best not put this off much longer,” Astyral sighed, and stood. I followed suit. “I’ll have your horse brought around – we captured a few, when we intercepted the prisoners. And we have a few renegades who were lingering around to escort our colleagues to Korbal. The usual Penumbra scum who don’t mind making a profit from both sides. I thought you might like to question them at some point, so we’re dragging them along with us as we march. In chains,” he added.

  “They can be put to work digging latrines, when we arrive,” I chuckled.

  “Where are we going, anyway?” he asked, curious, as he put away his new stone. “Some of the fellows were asking, and I ran out of inscrutable things to say a few hours ago.”

  “Terleman is still being obscure about the preparations, but are orders send us to two miles from the Anfal River. Terleman thinks we can make an initial stand, there. Some place called Stanis Howe.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The Mistress of the Field

  Believe it or not, I didn’t mind marching at night. I’d done it in Farise, often enough, before Cats Eye spells were common or easy. Back then the night marches were respite from the oppressive heat and humidity, trading the inconvenience of rain for the challenge of marching on sizzling hot rocks or volcanic sand. The insects were slightly less active at night, too.

  This time, I was mounted on a decent horse leading a column of infantry, and the weather was neither oppressively hot nor wet . . . yet. The skies were still clear, though I could feel the change in air pressure Forseti had foretold. The stars were brilliant guides, along with a sliver of moon, as we quietly traveled overland toward our destination.

  Astyral had used his new witchstone to cast the wards that prevented our troops from being seen by the enemy. He had discovered, during his arcane investigation of the thing, certain patterns of observation the Enshadowed used in their scrying that we were unaware of. Some of them were effective in scrying past our wards, due to their different approach. Astyral fixed that problem with some tweaking of the magical field of the warding spell, and we were underway without much danger of being observed.

  Of course, physical scouts could still see us. The cloud of dust that inevitably arose as a thousand men and a score of horses tromped by would give us away, at least in the daylight. Hence our nighttime movement.

  It was an organized march, too. The peasant militia and men-at-arms of Iron Hill weren’t particularly disciplined, but the Iron Bandsmen who marched with us were, and they helped keep the lines orderly and the column from becoming stretched out. We had such an abundance of warmagi with us that a cavalry force to screen our advance would have been redundant. Morale was likewise good, though they had just escaped the destruction of a strong castle with their lives. Looting the treasury and storehouse of a despised liege lord can do wonders for a peasant’s morale. More than four hundred had died in the attack. It would have been nearly four thousand, had they not escaped through Iron Peg’s tunnel. A long march on a warm spring night was not too high a price to pay for that.

  Toward midnight we encountered the first of the additional bands that we would be joining, a thirty-man detachment of militia who had been on the way to Iron Hill when the siege began. They were grateful to be joining such a large group, after dodging gurvani patrols for a week. Around dawn we found the second, a dozen horsemen from someplace called Tarwell who were late in heeding the banner call. I had no idea where Tarwell was, or who was in charge. It occurred to me, not for the first time, that I was still largely ignorant of the realm I now ruled.

  My gentlemen and I spent the time on horseback discussing the tactical plan, as well as speculating on contingencies that might arise. When we exhausted that topic, we turned to news and gossip, and then to war stories. By the time we made camp on a small rise, just after dawn, we had ridden more than twenty-five miles.

  The next day we slept and rested until early afternoon, and we then pressed on. In the early evening we encountered a troop of gurvani on some foul errand – or, I should say, they encountered us. A hundred maragorku warriors, nearly man-sized and well-armed, were moving across the field when they stumbled into our vanguard. They attacked, thinking they were merely mopping up resistance . . . and then suddenly had a thousand humani warriors thunder down on them, slaying them all. It was a much-needed victory for our footsore soldiers, and by midnight the column was underway with spirits much lifted by the fight.

  Just after midnight, we met the first of the Tower Companies that Terleman had deployed. He had ordered each of the Towers to send all but the last of their reserves to join us, and the one farthest from the field was the one that arrived first. The banner of the Eastguard Tower flew over the long caravan of supplies and a lamentably small detachment of infantry.

  But one doesn’t count magi like one does lances. The reason for the early deployment was Eastguard’s stern commander, Mistress Marsden. While some tower keepers ran their keeps like a school or a workshop, Marsden ran hers like a military camp. She had recruited a sizable garrison at Eastguard over the past four years, many selected from escaped slaves. Indeed, her facility had become known for the quality of garrison soldier it trained. That led to the other Towers hiring men from Eastguard for their own garrisons . . . while Marsden kept the best for herself. She was known as the Mistress of the Field for a reason, and it had nothing to do with crops.

  So, it was no surprise that when the call came to move, Marsden’s people were on the road before the day was done. She led them herself, on the back of a gray gelding, in full armor. She wore a dark yellow cloak over her shoulders, and her helmet bore a long horsehair crest in the style of some mercenary companies. Her jaw was set defiantly in the moonlight, and she saluted as we approached.

  “Count Minalan! Baron As
tyral!” she boomed when we came near enough to be heard. “Welcome to the field!”

  “Mistress,” I said, returning the salute. “In truth, we’ve been afield for a while, now. Thank you for joining us. You received Terleman’s orders?”

  “I did, and it’s about time we brought our forces to bear!” she said, proudly. “Eastguard is ready to defend.”

  “My lady, forgive me for noticing,” Astyral said, his Gilmoran accent coming out when he was being gracious, “but this seems a small number for a tower as important as Eastguard.” Indeed, there were only a hundred infantrymen behind the wagons that lined the road.

  “That’s because I sent the other four hundred directly to the meeting point,” she said, matter-of-factly. “I saw no need to run their boots off when a small escort for the Spellmonger’s troop would suffice. We’re here to give your people cover,” she explained, as her horse joined ours.

  “You have a report?” I asked the doughty warmage.

  “No doubt the absence of the Iron Hill garrison was noted by Shakathet’s army, when they finally took the walls. According to intelligence, they have broken camp and are pursuing you with all speed,” she replied. “The armies at Fort Destiny have also taken to march and are headed in this direction. And from my last discussion with Megelin Castle, now that the outer bailey is breached the scrugs think they have the place beaten. They’re redeploying a goodly number now that they’re starting to realize that there is another army afield.”

  “Well, I’d hate for this war to be too easy,” Astyral nodded. “What is the most recent plan?”

  “You’re to head to Stanis Howe,” she directed, manifesting a magemap in the air. “We’re to cover your movements . . . and then add some adjustments to the wards to confuse the issue. I’ve got my troops at Stanis Howe already, including a hundred heavy infantry who are itching for a fight. We’re to hold that hill until Terleman’s order. Then we break and head east, for the river.”

  “Where Mavone’s stolen bridge will let us cross, but not Shakathet,” Astyral nodded. “The Anfal is deep around there, too. Not much chance of a ford.”

  “So how many at Stanis Howe?” I asked, as we rode.

  “Thus far? Only a few thousand,” Marsden said, shaking her head. “But there’s more on the way. Three thousand reserves should arrive before we get there, and another two thousand after we arrive, perhaps more. The others are preparing our retreat. Our mission is to stand up to whatever legions Shakathet sends against us, bloody their noses, and then run like hell.”

  “The idea is to get them to bring their secret weapon out in the open so that we can challenge it,” I explained. “Terleman knows that their control over it is tenuous, and they can likely only use it once. We’re to give them the best target we can to lure them to do so. And run their legs off so that they’re tired once they get to the battlefield we’ve chosen.”

  “It’s a sound plan,” Marsden agreed, as she took her corncob pipe out of her belt and packed it. “We’re finished, if we try to win this through enduring a siege. I heard what happened at Destiny and Iron Hill,” she added, grimly. “It’s clear that ordinary castles are just not going to survive, even without dragons. But this will give us a chance to show what we can do in the field. My people have been preparing for this sort of thing for four years, now,” she assured. “Carmella has had all the fun, up to now. It’s our turn!”

  I appreciated her eagerness for battle, even if I didn’t share it. I’ve been in all sorts of battles, but I prefer to be behind a wall or a ditch or a rather large army – or, preferably, all three. As much as I trusted Terleman, I was concerned. If Marsden was straining at the bit to cross swords with Shakathet, well, that was something.

  She proved good on her word, too. One of the first things that she did was deploy two wagons behind the column, each configured to cast and carry a sophisticated array of battlefield enchantments. After she had a long mind-to-mind conference with Terleman and got a better idea of what he desired, strategically. Then she consulted with Astyral and Landrik over the insights they had divined from their acquaintance with their new orbs. That allowed her to tune the enchantments to tell the enemy only what we wanted them to know. Or believe.

  “It’s not that we don’t want them to see us,” she explained to us, after she set the magic in motion, “we just don’t want them to really see us. When scrying, the enemy will see our column . . . but offset by two miles to the west and south. And every mile we travel, it appears as if our force grows by a tithe,” she said with satisfaction. Inaccurate scrying was always an issue, on campaign, I knew from experience. But the issue usually lies in detecting enemies, not in detecting enemies who were not there. As a result, many commanders elected to add some number of foes to the intelligence scrying reports they received on the belief that they were missing some.

  Marsden’s wards countered that, and added more to our number, if you were casually scrying us out. While it was true that we were adding to our numbers as we marched, as smaller units joined us, our numbers seemed far increased with every step we took.

  “More,” she continued, eagerly, “we’re projecting a number of spells to confuse direct observation. These woods and fields are filled with scrug scouts,” she assured me. “When we’re in range of their observations, they will see and report very different troop compositions. Some will tell of our large artillery train, while others will comment on the number of heavy infantry or perhaps a troop of cavalry. Regardless of their observations, their reports will confuse the issue badly, back at their headquarters. They won’t know where we are, what we are, or where we’re really going until we get there. They will move their troops accordingly, and that will give us the time we need to get into position.”

  “Won’t they feel disappointed when they arrive, and there are far fewer of us than they thought?” Astyral asked, conversationally.

  “One would hope,” chuckled Marsden. “That’s part of Terleman’s plan. To get them to commit their reserves against a force they think is much larger than it is.”

  “Of course, being such a smaller force, we’re going to have to take some damage,” I sighed. “At least, that’s a possibility.”

  “If my people do what they’re supposed to do, and things play out the way we plan, that should be a minor consideration,” Marsden suggested. “The goal here is to get them to throw their best blow against a target that will fold up and leave them staggering. And while they’re recovering, we run like hell across the river,” she said, nodding. “That forces them to cross the river to face us.”

  “And then what?” Astyral asked.

  “Terleman hasn’t really told me,” Marsden confessed. “But I’m sure it will be good.”

  “Terleman likely hasn’t figured it out,” Astyral chuckled. “Not that I have any brilliant plan, but those who think Terl knows exactly what he’s doing are mistaken. I applaud his ability to visualize his goals, but he’s wise enough to keep them fluid, until events reveal themselves.”

  “A sign of a good commander,” Marsden approved. “Perhaps in a siege you can plan and plot, but things can change quickly on the field battle. Adaptation and improvisation count for more than strategy, or even tactics. I find myself well-served by Magelord Terleman’s command,” she insisted.

  “I’ve had worse commanders,” Astyral agreed. “How far to Stanis Howe?” he asked.

  “We should reach it by dawn,” Marsden assured. “Anguin’s Tower arrived first and began constructing redoubts. Carmella’s folk are there, by now, erecting the siege engines. I’m looking forward to her field artillery – that’s much different than siege artillery,” she informed us. “But all of it will have to be abandoned, when Terleman commands. I hope she’s prepared for that.”

  “Much of it will be portable by hoxter,” I pointed out. “Carmella knows what is at stake.”

  We marched along with determination, but the pace slowed by necessity just as we arrived at Stanis Howe. Not
because the men were exhausted – they were – but because we encountered a line of wains and horses attempting to gain entry to the battlefield. The Free Company of Vorone, as it turned out.

  I left the Iron Hill troops to Astyral’s command and rode forward with my original team because I was the Spellmonger and I hated waiting in line and I could do that sort of thing. I didn’t really think much of the site, as I rode along the side of the trail, passing wagons and troops shuffling forward. That is, until I made the rise and saw why Terl had chosen it.

  Stanis Howe is a low hill, no more than seventy or eighty feet high. But the slopes that led to the crest were steep and broad, giving those at the top a commanding height over any who dared to assail them. The fields around the hill were mostly barren of trees, as they had been used for pasture by the locals, but the crest was crowned with a thick grove of trees that provided significant cover.

  Our forces had taken command of the little forest at the peak and occupied a circle a hundred feet beyond the tree line. Already, ditches and redoubts were being built to protect the rise, where a growing number of our troops were preparing to make a stand. A small village of tents and canopies bloomed across the western edge of the forest, and I could see in the light of the dawn a number of magical field fortifications – like the Sudden Fortress, only smaller and more numerous – as well as a few small engines being assembled.

  It was a busy place, with a frenetic feeling somewhat like Spellgate had last autumn, when we were preparing for war. In the fields below the summit, a squadron of warmagi was placing enchantments and spellfields, while peasant militia built small redoubts or moved rocks and dirt to prepare the battlefield appropriately. Cavalry, mostly Wilderlords, patrolled the edges of the site screening for spies and snipers.