Extermination (Daniel Black Book 3)

by E. William Brown

  “Our retainers are a treasure the clan has worked for several centuries to perfect, lord wizard. To attempt to steal them so blatantly is a bit insulting.”

  Oh, boy.

  Fortunately, Irithil and I didn’t meet every day. He had to send messages home periodically to get instructions from his mysterious clan head, which gave me time to save who weren’t a complete pain in the ass.

  My staff was apparently getting used to my penchant for magical invention, because they hardly batted an eye when I announced my plan to start airlifting in refugees. Cerise had even had the forethought to have Captain Rain’s men start assembling a list of potential targets. Coming up with eight men to crew the airship took some doing, as overstretched as we already were. But we had a slow trickle of recruits coming in from Kozalin now, thanks to Cerise’s nascent spy network. There were a few people in the city who had both useful skills and a willingness to risk working for a ‘dark wizard’, and thanks to her efforts we were starting to find some of them.

  I was caught a little off guard when Oskar asked me what the new airship was named.

  Cerise snickered at my expression. “You didn’t even think of that, did you? Do people not name things where you’re from?”

  “He still hasn’t named the island, or the fortress,” Elin observed.

  Cerise waved her off. “Obviously it’s the Black Citadel, on Black Island. So, the Black Ship? Or maybe you’ll name it after your favorite girl?”

  Avilla frowned at her. “Be nice, kitten. You might not feel jealousy, but the rest of us could get hurt feelings over that.”

  I cleared my throat. “The airship’s name is Intrepid. Now if we could get back to organizing this little trip?”

  We lifted bright and early the next day. It was only the second time I’d taken the Intrepid up, and in any normal situation we would have spent at least a week on training flights before attempting a real mission. But there wasn’t time to do things normally. Besides, I didn’t actually know enough about running an airship to teach classes on it. So instead we were all going to have to learn on the job.

  I had Cerise on the controls so I could supervise, and I let her practice maneuvering the airship for a couple of hours as we sailed around near Kozalin. A pair of Griffon Knights made a detour to check us out at one point, but they veered off once they spotted the insignia on the side of the ship. I guess that was one good thing about having a personal coat of arms.

  It was about the only thing that went smoothly.

  I’d tried to solve the problem with keeping a steady altitude by building a crude altimeter, really just a mercury barometer, and tying it to an enchantment that would automatically adjust the airship’s lift. But it didn’t work quite right, and I spent half the time we were in the air trying to puzzle out what was wrong with it.

  That was the most complex problem, but hardly the only one. The boarding ramp proved a little too short, and getting it extended when the ship was floating six feet off the ground was a tricky exercise that took three men. Closing the rear doors was also a problem, since they opened out instead of in. There were serious ergonomic issues with some of the gunnery positions, and the guy Cerise was trying to explain the pilot’s controls to clearly had no idea what she was talking about. If the Intrepid had been a conventional dirigible the whole trip would have been a disaster.

  But I was able to fix the mechanical problems one by one, and of course the enchantments that moved the ship weren’t dependent on the crew. Eventually we started to get our act together, and I made the call to go ahead and set course for Varo.

  According to our information Varo was a small coastal settlement forty miles north of Kozalin, basically a fishing village with a keep and a stone wall. The Griffon Knights reported that they’d fought off several assaults by bands of goblins, but suffered heavy casualties in the process. At this point their position was getting rather precarious, but evacuating them by conventional means wasn’t feasible. Between the weather and the monsters trying to march a group of refugees to safety overland would just get them all killed, and the settlement’s little harbor was too exposed to monster attacks for any merchant vessel to risk a visit.

  If I were the prince I’d have commandeered a squadron of ships to sail around evacuating places like that, but he had other priorities.

  The trip took barely an hour, but as I’d half expected we arrived to find the place under siege again. I had Cerise make a slow circuit of the area while I peered out the windows, studying the situation.

  Half the village had been burned at some point, and the gates had been smashed and then replaced with an improvised barricade. The wall around the village wasn’t much to look at, maybe twelve or fifteen feet tall and only a few feet thick. The keep was a modest four-story affair, maybe twenty feet square. Defensible, but not big enough to house a lot of people for any length of time.

  There were a few dozen men on the walls, armed with a motley assortment of bows, spears and farming implements. Facing them were half a dozen trolls and about a hundred goblins, who were peppering the defenders with arrows and thrown boulders from behind portable sections of wooden wall. Interesting. I hadn’t realized goblins were sophisticated enough to come up with something like that.

  The village was so choked with snow that the inhabitants had been forced to shovel out trenches in it to get around, but at least that meant there was little chance of the goblins getting another fire started. Still, they had more than enough force to wipe out the defenders if they managed to get inside. Good thing we’d arrived when we did.

  “Bring us down to about two hundred feet, and make a low pass over the goblin lines,” I told Cerise.

  “Sure thing, boss. I can’t wait to see how the grenades work.”

  I smiled at her enthusiasm, and bent over the chin gunner’s position. “We’re getting ready to make a pass over the goblins,” I called down. “You can open fire as soon as you have a good angle, but be careful that your shots don’t go off in the direction of the village. I don’t want us accidentally shooting the people we’re trying to rescue.”

  “Aye aye, milord,” the gunner called back cheerfully.

  I ducked back into the main compartment and repeated the instructions, including the emphasis on not shooting towards the village. By the time I was done with that we were swooping down towards the enemy lines.

  I pulled the lever that activated the grenade factories, and immediately found myself lamenting the Intrepid’s lack of a bombardier position. There were no windows in the airship’s belly, so I couldn’t tell what effect we were having. A few faint sounds rose up from somewhere below, but I couldn’t tell if they were screams or war cries.

  Cerise circled around for another pass, and I saw a wide furrow of churned snow crossing the enemy position. It looked like most of the grenades had missed, but here and there I saw mangled wood and red stains on the snow.

  “Damn, I think the wind was blowing the grenades off course. Can you bring us by again, only a little upwind of them this time?”

  “Sure,” Cerise said confidently. “Only, you sure you don’t want to just hop out and take care of them ourselves? I don’t see anything down there that could stop us.”

  “No. One of us would have to stay here to fly the ship, and something could always go wrong. There’s no need to take any chances. We’re going to practice the American way of war here, and just bomb the fuck out of them until they give up.”

  Our accuracy gradually improved as we got the hang of it, and more and more splashes of red dotted the snow. After three more passes the goblins broke, and tried to flee back to their camp. We followed, making a couple more bombing runs and then slowing to drop a denser shower of grenades onto their encampment. Finally they gave up, and scattered in all directions. We never came within reach of their shaman’s spells, let alone the little bows the goblins relied on.

  Once the field was clear of living enemies I had Cerise land us well away from the villag
e, and then retract the lift cells and drive up to within shouting distance of the wall. I’d added a hatch in the side of the bridge earlier, so I was able to climb out and hail the defenders without messing with the rear doors.

  “That were a mighty fine sight, milord,” one of the men on the wall called as I exited the airship. “Who do we have to thank, for running off them mangy goat fuckers?”

  “I’m Adept Daniel Black, a foreign wizard working with the Red Conclave. Any of you boys want a ride back to Kozalin? I’m here to evacuate the town, if you’re ready to pull out.”

  “Thank the gods,” he replied. “We thought we wuz goners, lord wizard.”

  Another man appeared at the wall. This one wore a battered-looking suit of plate mail, with a ripped surcoat bearing the same arms as the pennant fluttering from the keep’s flagpole.

  “Your Diligence? I’m Sir Kai Ottosen, the fief holder here. Has Prince Caspar finally arranged our rescue, then?”

  “No, the prince is busy fighting these ape men that are rampaging across the kingdom. I’m here on my own. I figured as long as I’ve got this fancy flying ship I may as well put it to good use. But I’m sure the prince would be happy to have more loyal vassals at his side.”

  “What about my people?” He asked with a frown. Well, points to him, then.

  “Kozalin is already overrun with refugees,” I admitted. “But I just put up another shelter, so there’s space for them. I can lift out some supplies as well as your people, so they won’t be starting over from nothing. Or they can come work for me. I’ve got a brand new fortress right next to Kozalin that needs a garrison, craftsmen, servants and even farmers.”

  “Farmers? In this weather?”

  I smiled. “Magic, obviously.”

  He considered that for a long moment, before finally nodded.

  “Very well, Your Diligence. Can you bring that thing a little closer to the gate? This is going to take some doing.”

  His prediction proved accurate. I helped his men take the barricade apart, and with some careful maneuvering we were able to back the Intrepid up to the opening and lower the ramp to the snow right outside the settlement. But it was still a good walk from their granary to my airship’s cargo hold, and there was too much snow in the streets to get a cart through.

  Sir Ottosen cautiously trooped up the ramp as a work party arrived with the first few sacks of grain, and looked around.

  “How much weight can your vessel fly with, Your Diligence?” He asked.

  “You can pretty much cram the hold full,” I told him. “She’ll lift a good thirty tons with no problem, and we’re not going to fit anywhere near that much in here with people taking up most of the space. It’s early enough in the day that we can make more than one trip if we need to, unless we end up spending hours on the loading.”

  “I see. Yes, I’ve heard that the Griffon Knights can fly thirty miles in an hour, and Kozalin isn’t much further than that. Perhaps you could take the ill and infirm first, along with the livestock? By the time you return we’ll have had a chance to shift most of our supplies nearer the gate, where we can load them quickly.”

  Livestock? I hadn’t even thought about that, but it made sense. Horses were probably the most valuable asset these people had, and the rest of their animals were easily portable food.

  It ended up taking three trips. The first load was a few cows, lots of chickens and pigs, several horses, a swarm of children and a few older women sent along to keep them under control. They were variously elated and terrified by the flight, leaning towards the latter whenever the animals moved around enough to make the airship list noticeably. I ended up spending half the trip in the cargo area, directing the men who were supposed to be gunners in their efforts to keep the weight evenly distributed. I was definitely going to need to find a loadmaster for these trips.

  We made good time back to the island, and I had Cerise land inside the walls so we could unload our passengers directly into the ground floor of the arcology block. I figured the large, empty spaces along the road would make decent holding pens for the animals, and keep the refugees out of the weather until they were all assembled.

  By the time we returned the locals had a couple of cartloads worth of grain ready to load, packed into everything from burlap sacks to dozens of giant baskets. There were a lot of bundles of household goods, too. Piles of vegetables wrapped in blankets, bundles of clothes, stacks of farming implements and other hand tools. A hundred or so women piled into the cargo compartment along with the goods, many of them with small children in tow. The hull creaked a bit as we loaded them in, and I noticed a slight strain on the Intrepid’s structural reinforcement spell when we lifted off. Not enough to be dangerous over such a short trip, but apparently I needed to strengthen the frame a little if we were going to carry loads this heavy.

  The villagers all stared around in amazement as they disembarked, and I heard more than a few murmured discussions about the merits of living in such a place. This time Avilla was on hand with a work party to help unload the cargo, and she started working the crowd before we were half done.

  “No, there aren’t any blood sacrifices here. Our wizard raised the island with earth magic.”

  “I’m one of his mistresses, silly, and the other three are just as pretty. He doesn’t need to diddle the serving girls.”

  “Yes, it’s always this warm inside. We have running water and indoor privies as well, so you hardly even need to go out in the cold.”

  “We need more seamstresses to make uniforms for the soldiers, and cooks and assistants for the kitchens. Maids, too, but I’m very picky about who I accept for those positions.”

  “Yes, the wizard makes marvelous magic weapons for his soldiers. He has a professional captain training up a new company right now, and they have room for another twenty men or so.”

  “The farms? Yes, they need men, but if you have a husband you’ll want him to join the garrison or work in the armory instead. If he goes to work the farms he’ll be happy enough, but you’ll hardly ever see him.”

  I smiled. It sounded like that part of the plan was going well enough. Although I found myself a little unhappy at hearing Avilla describe herself as my mistress. She meant more to me than that.

  Avilla worked herself out of the crowd to visit me on the bridge as we prepared to depart again.

  “This is taking more work than I expected,” she noted. “What do you think of the villagers?”

  “They’re good people,” I told her. “I counted maybe forty men left in the village, and well over a hundred women. It’s pretty obvious how that happened.”

  She shook her head. “Is it like that everywhere? At this rate we’ll have to make the men marry two or three girls each, because there just aren’t enough to go around.”

  “It’s a problem,” I agreed. “But better that than the reverse. If I ever find a settlement where the men outnumber the women I’ll know they’re not worth saving.”

  She smiled, and kissed my cheek. “You’re a good man, Daniel. Hurry back to us, now. It’s getting late, and you said it isn’t safe to fly after dark.”

  It was a close thing. I’d hoped to make it a fast trip, but Sir Ottosen had a lot more cargo to load. Sacks and baskets and all sorts of improvised containers full of grain. His household goods, and those of his retainers. More bundles of vegetables wrapped in blankets and cloaks. Spare weapons, and big bundles of arrows tied together with twine.

  “We can’t afford to waste anything,” he said when I commented on the arrangements. “Even so, we’ve barely managed to salvage half the contents of the granary. But the carts are useless, and there’s nothing else to put it in.”

  “Oh. Well, I think I can help you with that.”

  It was simple enough to throw together a big basket of force floating on a skimmer field, and then Ottosen’s men just shoveled the rest of the grain into it. Once I got it back to the airship I spent a few minutes stabilizing the spell enough to last
through the flight, and the men all trooped on board. I noticed that there were a few women among them, obviously sticking close to their men, and a couple of badly wounded men were carried aboard on stretchers.

  “Is that everyone?” I asked Ottosen, eying the sun. “It’s going to be dark soon, so this is the last trip.”

  He took a head count, swore, and stormed off to look for a missing man. That took a good ten minutes, during which a couple of teenage boys dragged a reluctant pig up the ramp and an old woman arrived being led by a young girl. This was not giving me a good feeling.

  “Cerise? Would you mind making a quick circuit of the village? The way people keep straggling in has me worried we’re going to leave someone behind.”

  “Sure thing, Daniel. What if someone doesn’t want to come?”

  I sighed. “They’ll die if they stay, but I suppose that’s their choice. Just make sure they know this is their last chance to get onboard.”

  Sure enough, Cerise turned up a couple more peasants who’d been hiding in their homes for some stupid reason or other. Then Ottosen returned with a chastened-looking man-at-arms in tow, and a rather pretty young girl trailing along behind them. Ottosen spun to growl at her when they reached the ramp.

  “Off with you, you damned witch!” He shouted. “Your little stunt nearly cost me one of my men. You can stay and greet the goblins for all I care.”

  She paled, and stumbled back.

  “That isn’t your call, Sir Ottosen,” I said firmly. “This is my ship, and I’m not leaving anyone behind.”

  His hand went to his sword. “No man of mine would be fool enough to risk being left to the goblins just for a chance to dip his wick, Your Diligence. She was bewitching him.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “So your theory is she wanted to get herself stranded? That doesn’t sound very plausible. Come here girl, I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. What’s your name?”

  The peasant girl hesitantly crept up the ramp. “Mari, milord. I meant no harm, really I didn’t. I only wanted him to take me with him. I… I like Jacob, milord. He’d make a good husband.”