Railroad Rising: The Blackpowder Rebellion

by J. P. Wagner

  They continued even after dark, for even a few men working quickly could damage a rail with a little light and perhaps some magical assistance.

  “From what I’ve been told, Lord Carrtog, the general’s magicians have been working very hard on the detection of damaged rails. I gather they’ve had some success in discovering the damage, but saying how far along the line the damage has been done is apparently another matter. That means they can say that the Northies have been out doing their nasty work, but we still have to ride the whole length of the road to find out where.”

  Carrtog nodded. “Interesting. Perhaps I shall have to see how they’re approaching it. It’s an intriguing problem, or rather, an intriguing set of problems.”

  The captain glanced at him. “Interesting for you, perhaps, Lord Carrtog, but I know only the sort of magic that can help me stay alive in a fight.”

  Carrtog smiled. “For many, that’s all that’s needed. But the king thought I might do well for some extra training, so who was I to object? And I’ve already found some of it useful.”

  On they went, stopping from time to time to rest the horses but covering the ground fairly rapidly. Carrtog discussed the situation thoroughly with Captain Boroddai, though the man was very loyal to his general and avoided any topic that showed the general in a less than favorable light. Early in the morning they came into Kilgarhai, guided by magical lights, which allowed them to see the trail but did not ruin their night-vision if there should happen to be an ambush.

  As they drew up to the guard-post at the garrison barracks, Captain Boroddai said, “Well, it seems the Northies have decided to welcome you to the North by not attempting to ambush our patrol, Lord Carrtog.”

  “Do they ambush patrols all that often, then?”

  The captain grinned. “No, I will admit that they do not often ambush patrols. Just sufficiently often to keep us on our toes. Their main purpose is to sabotage the railway line, so ambushing troopers is only an occasional nuisance. Their attacks are more likely to be against the parties sent out to repair the breaks.”

  The captain rode with Yakor and Carrtog to ensure they made their way safely to their quarters. Carrtog was not certain whether it was mere politeness on the captain’s part, or whether he possibly hoped to gain some favor with his new commander. On balance, from what he knew of the captain, he thought it more likely to be politeness.

  Addy was sound asleep when he arrived, and he endeavored to undress and get into bed without waking her. Despite his care, he heard her give an incomprehensible sleepy mutter before she dropped back into sleep again.

  Later on, but still early in the morning, he was awakened by a sharp poke in the ribs. He opened his eyes to see Addy leaning over him, her small fist pulled back to poke him again, if necessary.

  “What is it, my dear?”

  “You ought to have wakened me when you came in, rather than letting me lie here worrying until morning!”

  “But you were sound asleep! How could you possibly be worrying about me?”

  She poked him again, then changed her mode of attack, tickling him in the ribs. “No excuses, you mean, nasty little lord, making me wait all night long to be sure no sneaky rebel shot you from a distance while you were on your jaunt along the railroad line to make sure it was still there.”

  He finally managed to grab hold of her wrists to protect his sensitive ribs, then he kissed her firmly. “There!” he said, “Does that not feel like I’m here, safe and sound?”

  She chuckled. “Well, perhaps so. But possibly you should try again just to be sure.”

  All in all, it took some little while before they were willing to rise and face the new day.

  #

  General Hartovan was a short, fussy man, with the beginnings of a considerable paunch. He was near bald, with a ruff of gray hair around his head, and a red face which became more red as he grew more excited. He had a tendency to finger the hilt of his sword, so no one could be certain that he was not ready, at any moment, to draw the weapon and make use of it.

  He was quite aware that he was being removed from his command for failure to carry out his duties; maintaining the railway line in order to bring up supplies for the King’s Army in the North. He was also, apparently, of the opinion that no one could do much better than he had, and some of his officers, trying to curry favor with Carrtog, had reported that the general considered him a jumped-up little nobody, riding high on the king’s favor, who was about to be handed his head by a bunch of ragged northern bush-dwellers.

  He returned Carrtog’s salute sharply and properly, and rather than make any great effort to explain the situation, merely said, “The command is yours, General Carrtog.”

  “Thank you, General Hartovan.”

  “If you will permit me, General Carrtog, I will leave on the next train.”

  “Certainly, General Hartovan.”

  The general saluted once more, turned, and strode away. Yakor muttered, just loud enough for Carrtog to hear, “It might have been nice for him to explain what sorts of efforts he made to carry out the task given him.”

  Carrtog shrugged slightly, saying, “Since I am expected to do better than he did, what does it matter?”

  Yakor smiled slightly, “There is that all right. Though it depends very much whose expectations we’re considering.”

  Carrtog nodded. “Well, I suppose the first thing I ought to do is speak to my officers, and see what they think.”

  #

  The officers were a mixed crew, some showing little enthusiasm for the task they had been set, some looking to Carrtog with curiosity, as if wondering whether he might be the man who might come up with a method to make their task a little more feasible. Captain Boroddai had taken a position in the front of the group, and it seemed he was one of the ones who hoped he would lead them to success.

  Carrtog wondered if Boroddai had spoken to any of the other captains, and if so, had he influenced them at all?

  The ones further to the rear of the group seemed to have lost hope of doing their job successfully. He wondered whether he ought to try to win them over, or just dismiss them and ask for replacements.

  Well, it was definitely time to say something to them.

  “Gentlemen, as you already know, I am General Lord Carrtog of Nandycargllwyd, and I have been sent to replace General Hartovan and to attempt to keep the rail lines open.”

  There was a little movement in the rear group of officers, and his impression was that he had said approximately what they had expected, that they were afraid that he had no new ideas in mind and thus was unlikely to do better than their previous commander.

  “I have already talked to men back in the capital, men who were sent home to recover from wounds, and discussed the situation here. Certain of the strategies and tactics have shown limited usefulness and will likely be discontinued. The patrols along the railway line, however, will continue, since they do at least have the benefit of finding places where the rebels have broken the tracks. I also have several plans in mind for attempting to spot rebel encampments, perhaps even with a view to carrying the fight to them. As you gentlemen have been here all this time, long before I arrived, I suspect some of you have notions as to methods to be tried. If so, I would be very interested to hear them. I am not promising to try all of them, but I should still wish to hear them. Has anyone anything to say immediately? If so, please stand, state your name, and give your piece.”

  The first man to stand was tall and lean, with features that showed years of facing wind and weather. “Captain Fordibrach, Lord Carrtog. Lord, we all know that the local farmers are supporting the Northies, feeding them and supplying other needs. I would suggest that we burn out every farmer who we have reason to believe is aiding the enemy.”

  There was a muttering of support from the captains to the rear.

  Carrtog thought for a mome
nt, then said, “It may indeed come to that, but I have a feeling that every farm we burn out will make us that much more disliked among the rest of the population. Besides that, we will be depending on those same farmers for our own rations; we shouldn’t be too hasty to burn them out. Also, I have a notion in mind to use those same farms to find and track the rebel bands. I hope to do it in such a manner that the rebels begin to suspect that this or that farmer, or someone in the farmstead, is betraying them to us, which will work to our benefit.”

  Captain Fordibrach frowned, then said, “Lord if you can indeed do something of that sort, I’d be willing to forgo the torches.”

  “Good. Anyone else?”

  A small man with bright red hair and a square face stood up. “Captain Kilwatin, Lord Carrtog. The local merchants have the tendency to raise their prices by about half when selling to any of the king’s men. I would like to see a heavy fine put on such merchants.”

  Murmured voices agreed with this, and even one or two spoke out loud. “Yes! Make the Northies pay!”

  “I have a notion in mind to deal with such double-pricing, but I shall keep the notion of a fine in mind in case it might be necessary.”

  Other suggestions were made, mostly suggestions of draconian punishments for such things as rude behavior toward the king’s men, and Carrtog was able to show sympathy toward the point of view without completely agreeing.

  When he finally dismissed the men, Carrtog felt almost confident of having won over a few of them. Most of the rest, he felt, would wait to see how his first ideas worked out.

  “Well,” Yakor said, “At least a few of them will wait until they hear your first notion before they decide you’re totally worthless.”

  “You think I’ve won over that many?”

  Yakor spat. “No, not really, I was just trying not to dishearten you.”

  Carrtog chuckled. “Ah, Yakor, my reliable old friend! I can always depend on your honesty. Well, there are almost certainly some who I should remove, but I think I will wait a bit and see if some of them will not save me the trouble and ask to be replaced. First of all, I shall have to come up with some sort of miraculous plan to turn the morale of my command completely around.”

  “I wish I could reassure you that it won’t really take a miracle, but I’m afraid it will require something of that sort. Do you have a ready list of available miracles?”

  “Actually, I do have the beginnings of one. Would you find Captain Fordibrach, the one who wanted to put the torch to every farmer who gave a sack of grain to the rebels, and ask him to come see me? Assure him that I merely wish to get some assistance from him in carrying out a plan of my own.”

  Yakor gave him a look. “You plan to win that one over to you in hopes that some of the others will follow him?”

  “Well, no, that had not been my main intention, just that he would likely be the man to have certain information I want. When we talk, you will see where my trail leads. And of course, you are partially right; if my plan succeeds to any degree, I might well win him over, and indeed, some of the rest.”

  “I’ll be very interested to hear this interview.”

  Chapter 19

  Captain Fordibrach, from the expression on his face, had not really believed any assurance Yakor might have given him about his position not being in danger. He looked around at Carrtog and Yakor as though expecting immediate remonstration for his previous words in the gathering.

  “Captain, I am beginning a plan for dealing with the continual aid given by the farmsteaders to the rebels. This is a plan in the making, so it may not be ready for tomorrow, or even likely the next day, but I do hope eventually to have a project to set in motion. The beginning point will be the farmsteads who are supporting the rebels. From what you suggested, I would suspect you have certain farmsteads in mind right now that you suspect. What I need is to mark them out on a map. What I hope to do is to put a magical watch on one or more of them, and if I can manage it, I would eventually hope to track the rebels to their campsites, and attack them there.”

  Captain Fordibrach’s eyes lit up. “Could you actually do that, Lord Carrtog? We had asked the general to have his magicians try to find the rebels by their own magic, but they could not seem to manage it. No one ever bothered to explain to us why.”

  “I don’t know what approaches they used, but I will ask them and see. I make no promises, but I have several different methods to approach the problem, and one of them should surely work. Now, can you show me on the map where one or two of the suspect farms are?”

  There was a map of the immediate area on the table, held down by weights at the various corners. The captain bent over the map, scanning it carefully.

  #

  Yakor was frowning. “It seems you’ve given that man reason to hope. I’m afraid, though, that if you don’t fulfill that hope, he will be seriously disappointed.”

  “I know. Now to work on these plans I said I had.”

  Yakor gave him a sharp look. “You gave him hope based on some foggy thought in the back of that mind of yours? By all the Gods, I hope you can come up with something, boy!”

  Carrtog smiled. “Easy, now, Yakor. It’s better than that. I do have some specific notions in mind. I’ll have to see just how well I can make them work. In the very last extremity, I’ll make myself a Cloak of Invisibility, and go out tracking the rebels down myself.”

  “Joke about it if you will, but in the last instance, it might be you turning over the command to someone else who is hoped to make something out of your failure.”

  “Before I do too much else, I’d best get together the magicians who served with General Hartovan and see what they have to say about tracking the rebels by magic. I’d be surprised if General Hartovan didn’t ask them, and I wonder what their answer was.”

  #

  The magicians who had served with General Hartovan were an unprepossessing lot. There were only three of them and none of them were very well-dressed. One was tall with a long white beard, wearing a long gray robe with several brass badges attached to it, stars, moon-phases, comets, and lightning bolts. It was the kind of dress that a fellow might wear to make an impression. The other two were dressed in more ordinary clothing, one of them was short and stout, the other medium height and stringy.

  “The three of you are all the magicians who served with General Hartovan?”

  The man in the robe answered. “No, Lord, there were two others, but one was killed by a rebel magician. Some sort of magical plague, but we managed to halt it before it went further. The other left with the general; apparently he felt the general’s loss reflected badly on him.”

  “I see. Before I go too much further, then, who was responsible for dealing with the plague you mentioned? I should hate to have the only one capable of that gone off with the general.”

  The man in the robe answered again. “Well, yes, he was the one who dealt with it. But he also taught the rest of us, since it was too big a risk to have only one man able to deal with an attack that had already been tried once, with some success.”

  “Some success? Were there other deaths besides the one magician?”

  The spokesman flushed. “Yes, Lord, twenty-two soldiers and one captain. The other magician, Gwirisanth, he taught us not only how to deal with that particular plague, but several others, as well as methods to discover when practically any magically-caused plague was being attempted. Every day since then, one of us has checked to see if another plague were being launched, and in fact, twice such attempts were halted without fatalities.”

  “Very well done, then. Now, one of the captains mentioned having asked the general about tracking the rebels by magic. Has anything on that line been attempted?”

  From the rapid glances between the three, Carrtog could tell that nothing had been. Without waiting for an answer, he asked, “Why not?”

  “
We were continually working at either discovering a method to counter the latest attempts to hide destruction of the railway line, or to discover when rebels were near the line. The railway line, you see, is the most important thing to be protected here.”

  “I see. Are there any other men you know of who have any magical talent, who might be willing to work for us?”

  “Few at all, if any, Lord. The people in the town, by and large, are on the side of the rebels. The people who have come up to provide services for the king’s forces are not usually the sort to wish to work too closely with the forces enforcing the king’s law, if you know what I mean.”

  “I believe I do. Well, I would appreciate it if you would take a bit of time to think of methods to track the rebels. You can come to me if you have any ideas, indeed, if you have any notions at all as to how best to carry out our task here.”

  As the three went out, Yakor said, “I hope you don’t rely too much on that lot.”

  “Actually, I’ve been thinking of other things. You recall, while we were coming down from Tenerack, among the annoying things we had to dodge were gliders. I’ve been wondering just what use we might make of them here.”

  “You know that the king is not at all in favor of gliders.”

  “Well, I’m not surprised. He did suggest that when he was able, he might have people who manned the locomotives running along the line sought out and killed. I understand he’s been making good on that threat, too. Do you think he’d actually command me to stop if he heard I was working with gliders?”

  “He might well do so.”

  “Well, then, best we don’t tell him of our plans until after they’ve proved successful. In the meantime, there’s at least one notion I’d like to work at. I’d like to set some kind of magic eye on one or several of those suspected farmsteads, and see if I can spot rebels coming and going. At the very least, we might get some sense of the direction to look for them.”