And that got me thinking-- not about comparative strengths and weaknesses, armor and weapons, charges and skirmishes -- but about logistics. We were, technically speaking, pretty far from where the lines between our forces had settled. That meant that the goblins were either living off the land (and in this sparsely-settled region of the Wilderlands, that would prove difficult) or they had brought some sort of baggage train. You just couldn’t run a force this large without supplies, and a lot of them.
Ithalia? Have you plotted just where all the goblins are in relation to the tree?
In my spare moments. Why?
Do you see anything that looks like a wagon or a pack beast?
There is a pile of baggage to the northeast of the tree, she answered, after a moment. I believe the trolls brought it up, after their scouts located us. They retire there, every few hours, to sustain themselves.
Is there any way to attack it? Destroy it by magic?
I doubt that will have any immediate effect, Spellmonger, she said. Patronizing again. We do not have the strength to maintain long enough for them to starve to death. At most it would be a minor inconvenience. At worst, it would provide further incentive for them to overwhelm our defenses. She didn’t have to remind me that the Dead God’s minions had no compunction about consuming the flesh of other sapient species, and had a particular taste for Tree Folk, humani, and River Folk. In fact, I was kind of counting on that.
Don’t be so sure about that, I advised. Like I said, you folk lack imagination.
So this is the humani impermanence I’ve heard so much about, she said, amused.
Can you do it? Destroy their provisions? We can do it from this side, but we’d lose the element of surprise. There was another pause.
Yes, it can be done. Give us . . . ten minutes? Then they will be deprived of victuals.
Perfect, I agreed. You do that, my lady, and let us take care of the rest.
I’ve never been rescued by a handsome humani before, she added before she left.
Ishi’s bush, was she flirting with me? Didn’t I have enough female problems?
I cast aside the improbable idea with an annoyed shake of my head, and cut contact. I took three deep breaths to calm down and think before I reached out through my stone to call Tyndal.
Are you still in position?
Of course, Master!
Then move everyone back a hundred yards or more. I want them completely out of bowshot, and well away from any wards the goblins have up.
There was a pause. You have a plan, don’t you, Master?
Of course I do. And make sure the River Folk are safely with you when you withdraw. They’re essential to my plan.
As what? Spies?
No, I smiled to myself. Appetizers.
* * *
While I didn’t see any real sentries, the urgulonosti priests had done an outstanding job of protecting their forces from obvious magical attack. That doesn’t mean that I couldn’t have poured magical fire down upon them without effect, but it did mean that most of the offensive stuff I could throw was going to be weak, at best -- and hardly decisive. Even the knot-untying spell I’d used at Boval Castle, or the blindness spell we’d used so devastatingly a few days ago at Timberwatch were protected against. The Dead God’s servants might be ugly, but they aren’t stupid. They learn quickly.
But so do I. One area which the super-shamans had not found worthy of protection was the more subtle realm of emotions. I found that more than a little ironic, considering they were blanketing northern Alshar with eldritch spells that cast the human populations into fear and despair so blinding that some gave up without a fight. The gurvani were good at that sort of spell . . . yet here they had neglected defending against such subtle power, perhaps obsessed by their focus on the tree.
Trying to make a couple hundred goblins feel really bad about themselves was unlikely to help -- not only was I unfamiliar with what passes for goblin psychology, save that it is similar to human psychology in a lot of ways, but meloncholia was not going to be sufficient cause for them to cease their attack and withdraw. Profound sadness, likewise, might have slowed them down, but it wouldn’t inspire the kind of effect I needed. Nor fear -- anyone who has faced the Dead God can’t be goaded by mere fear anymore.
I had considered something less-direct. I’m fairly good at sex magic, for instance, and it wouldn’t have been hard to cast something very distracting. After all, people do all sorts of strange things for sex, and I was pretty certain that held true for goblins, too.
But in the end I decided against it, for two reasons. First, while sex is a powerful way to impel action, it is actually a pretty poor way to compel action. Sex isn’t a drive, like thirst. You can survive without sex -- believe it or not -- almost indefinitely without practical ill-effect. Sure, you’re cranky -- but you’re not generally ready to kill anyone over it.
And secondly, the thought of two-hundred lust-crazed goblins and a couple of randy trolls wandering through the woods, looking for love, was enough to make my sphincter crinkle.
But even if sex isn’t compelling, there are other emotions that are. Real biological drives that can be acted upon, when you know how to do it. Consider the tales of sailors lost at sea, or nomads in the desert, who go mad with thirst and commit horrors on their fellows for the promise of a swallow of water.
Or, conversely, consider the horrific power that hunger has over you when you’re starving.
That was my plan: use one of of the goblins’ own tricks against them. I’d have my apprentices help me construct a glyph designed to work its way deep into the goblins’ subconscious and trigger their most basic drive. I would make them hungry, and force the issue so powerfully that no matter how much they ate, they would only hunger more.
That’s why the destruction of their supplies was so important -- and I was gratified to see a flash and an eruption when I was about halfway back to our line. The Tree Folk didn’t bother to tell me, but from the groans I heard over the roar the new plume of smoke over the trees was what was left of the goblins’ field kitchen. A minor inconvenience, a fortune of war, the sort of bad luck that can happen in the middle of any kind of battle or siege to either side.
But once I got my spellwork set up, they would be missing that pile of victuals more than they suspected. And after the horrors of the Wilderlands, I didn’t mind tormenting them. I felt so inspired that I had most of the working laid out in my head by the time I made it back to our new position.
I came upon them while I was still being stealthy. For a lark I by-passed Tyndal’s wards when I came across them. Not that they were poorly done, but I didn’t want to alarm the boys unnecessarily.
“...I’m just saying that as much as I like Alya, my Master might regret not setting his sights higher,” my senior apprentice was saying far too loudly for comfort. “He’s a nobleman, now, and should have a proper noblewoman as wife.”
“His title is transferable to his wife and heirs,” Rondal dismissed. “She becomes a noblewoman the moment she’s wed -- and all her children, too.”
“He means that your master should consider marrying a rich widow woman instead of a poor cow herd,” one of the Galstadi militiamen quietly called. “Lady Burchesine of Handour is recently widowed -- she’s got three fiefs now, and no man to run them for her.”
“She’s got a belly enough for three fiefs to feed,” another one called. “Almost! Gor, why would you saddle noble Sir Minalan with a sour old cow like that?”
“Why saddle any cow, when cheese is a penny a wheel?” asked one of the younger mercenaries, more of Tyndal’s mind on marriage than Redshaft’s.
“Lady Pentandra contends that Master Minalan could find a bride amongst the highest nobility in the land, if he has a mind,” boasted Tyndal. So that’s where this talk was coming from . . .
“Lady Pentandra wants Master Minalan for herself,” replied another young Nirodi archer who seemed to know more about the matter than I.. “We al
l saw how closely they stayed--”
“That was magic, you morons,” dismissed Rondal. “You have to work closely together to do good spellwork, and Master Minalan managed some of the greatest since the Magocracy. If I--”
“You are all as loud as temple schoolgirls,” sighed Rogo Redshaft, lighting his pipe. “And gossiping about your master’s bed is never a good thing, regardless the trade. Wouldn’t you agree, Sir Minalan?” he asked. It seemed like a good time to make an appearance, so I dropped my stealthy spells to a gasp from the non-magi . . . and Rogo.
“Quite right, Redshaft. And I’ll have you all know that Lady Pentandra has no designs on me, that I’ve no interest in a fat widow no matter how rich, and I fully intend to wed my child’s mother at the first possible opportunity -- with no regrets. Now, if we’re done discussing my personal life, we have a plan to enact.”
‘What did you find, my Lord?” asked Rogo, rising to his feet.
“We need to rescue some of our Tree Folk allies who are holed-up at the center of that hordelette. There are three shamans and at least two trolls and two hundred goblins,” I said, as the Nirodi groaned and the militia paled. “The good news is, I have a plan. But the only way we’re going to do that is if everyone does exactly what they’re supposed to do...
My two boys knew their jobs, once I went over the spellcraft and the timing -- telepathy was great for dealing with that sort of thing, I realized. No phony bird-calls or other affectations to arouse suspicion, and no garbled messages. That didn’t mean that they wouldn’t screw it up, but it reduced how many ways they could screw it up.
The militia and the mercenaries were eager for action after I told them what I wanted to try -- my plan sounded a lot better (or at least more survivable) than attacking the goblins head-on. Rogo would be leading their part in the plan, and I couldn’t ask for a better unit-commander.
The only thing I was really worried about going in was how to protect our three River Folk companions. I did my best to explain what I wanted from them, and the implicit danger in the ruse, and I think I made myself understood. Unfortunately, I’d been at war for so long that I kept putting things in military terms -- withdraw, attack, infiltrate, ambuscade, that sort of thing, and the poor idiots had no idea what I was saying.
They knew our tongue well enough, but it was rare that ‘ambuscade’ comes up in conversation with a River Folk. I finally had to fall back on a common tongue: food metaphors.
“. . . and then we’ll attack them in both flanks at once,” I said, patiently, as I drew the plan out in the dirt in front of them. “You’ll circle back . . . here . . . and do it again.”
“Why you don’t just mash them all?” asked Tod, the tallest one. He looked confused. “You big men, Lord. Big men. Put them in a pot like potatoes, and mash them!” He slapped his fist into his palm with undisguised glee. “Swords slice them up like rabbits!”
“There aren’t enough swords,” I pointed out. “We are too few to . . . mash them. Or slice them. Tod,” I said, grasping for inspiration, “when you put on a pot to boil and it’s too full, what do you do?”
He considered the matter carefully. “Drink it?”
“Yes. We’re going to . . . empty their pot a little at a time. You’re going to be like a kid in the kitchen, running in and grabbing a carrot. When they see you, you run back here, and they’ll follow you, a few at a time. We can take them that way, at least for a while.”
It finally dawned on him. “Like peeling an onion!”
“Yes,” I nodded. “We’re going to peel their onion until there’s nothing left.”
And that’s basically what happened.
* * *
Tyndal, Rondal and I snuck around the perimeters of the siege until we formed a triangle, just out of sight. Then we dug in and began sprinkling a glyphs I’d shown them along the area where the goblins and trolls were skulking.
Why glyphs, instead of something more comprehensive and sophisticated? Any hedgemage can cast a simple glyph. Glyphs are great for triggering or suggesting something to someone, on a personal level. Usually if you wanted to affect a lot of people of once you’d use a far grander spell, something a lot classier and more sophisticated. Glyphs have a very small area of effect -- you usually have to walk right through them.
But big, grandiose spells would have gotten us caught before we were done. There was plenty of magic flying around, between the gurvani priests and the Tree Folk exiles, but there is also a distinct style to both of those systems, and Imperial-style magic smells completely different than either. One big spell, and the gurvani would have know they were under attack. That messes up the whole surprise of the thing.
Glyphs, however, dissipate once they’re triggered (unless they’re made not to) and leave behind only the faintest of signatures. A gurvani shaman would have to be looking for one to even find it. So casting a half-dozen glyphs to hang around in the air and wait for an unsuspecting gurvani to wander by was a much safer and efficacious way to go . . . in theory.
I took up my own position, behind an outcropping of boulders, and threw my fair share. And it didn’t take long for a patrol of gurvani to happen by and walk through them . . . and keep on walking.
The effect of the glyph was subtle, at first. The first patrol of three stumbled through the first glyphs in my area within moments, stomping through the brush and into my sorcerous web without realizing it. They didn’t really begin to feel the effects for another fifteen minutes. As soon as they passed I stepped out and threw another half-dozen of the spells in the pathway and returned to my hiding spot. This time it was a group of six, and one was larger than the others by eight inches. He was the only one who seemed to realize that something had happened, although he didn’t know what. He led his troops on, a curious expression on his face. Then I popped out and did it all over again.
Fifteen minutes later the gurvani besieging the tree started getting hungry. Really hungry.
You’ve been hungry -- everyone gets hungry. But unless you’ve been through a famine or shipwrecked or in a prolonged siege or otherwise deprived of food for more than a few days, it’s difficult to appreciate just what a powerful force hunger can be in your life, when it gets bad enough. The glyph I had designed on-the-fly was a classy piece of thaumaturgy. It targeted that part of the psychology of the victim that compelled desperation. It made them feel, suddenly, as if they hadn’t eaten in weeks, and that nothing else mattered. Hunger changes you, at that level. It makes you willing to reject authority and spit in the face of the gods, if there isn’t a muffin in it for you.
No one wants to admit that. But if people weren’t driven crazy by hunger, they wouldn’t resort to cannibalism in extremes. And they do. The glyph was the reverse of one I’d used in Farise and Boval to assuage hunger -- put a soldier or a conscripted peasant on short rations, as often happens, and it’s easy to let hunger distract them from their work. The original rune just eased the focus on the emotion. You were still plenty hungry, you just didn’t mind so much.
With the reverse of the glyph, the hunger was intensified, not dulled. You just couldn’t stop thinking about it. Hunger is one of those run-away emotions that compounds interest like a goldsmith: the longer you hunger, the worse it becomes. Past a certain point, you abandon reason and social custom and become no more than an animal intent on survival, willing to do just about anything to abate that feeling. Since gurvani social customs are weaker than most human ones, I was hoping that would be enough for them to eschew discipline . . . once they were properly enticed.
That’s where the River Folk came in. Those three bumpkins wandered, wide-eyed and innocent, just outside of the besieging ring of goblins. Then they just waited, in plain sight, and tried to act tasty. While gurvani have very strong prohibitions against cannibalism, River Folk weren’t gurvani. Neither were humans. We were, therefore, just a bunch of lunch that hadn’t been eaten yet, to the spell-fogged minds of the goblins. At least, that was the plan.
/> I stealthily worked my way back to the designated point just in time to see the first lure into our trap. The three River Folk were walking along and -- Ishi help me -- whistling, like they were going to a party. They approached the gurvani pickets (three goblins holding spears and looking bored) and halted, apparently stunned by their sheer ferocity. They made quite a show of it, too, and I didn’t doubt they could all have been proper mummers if they had a mind.
The gurvani, for their part, were intrigued. I could see a few lick their lips as they went to investigate the River Folk, and they were sniffing the air like bloodhounds. Clearly a band who had stumbled into our glyphs. They were already starving. I could see them give each other anxious glances as they went down the rise toward the three River Folk -- who took off running and squealing in the other direction.
Victory Soup : A Spellmonger Story (The Spellmonger Series) Page 4