Liar King (Tower of Babel Book 2)

by Adam Elliott

  "Better than I expected," Cayden said, torn between joy and annoyance. "They blunted the entire Warden vanguard, dealing a bit over two-thirds total casualties."

  Surprise showed on Silver's face as it at last poked through the tent flap. “That... is a lot better. How?”

  Cayden didn't know. And that bothered him.

  There was a random element to all combat results, Cayden had discovered. It was a swing of somewhere between 1-20%, a measure of unpredictability likely introduced to add drama, uncertainty and a bit of verisimilitude to otherwise easily calculated results. But that didn't account for what they saw here, not by a long shot.

  "Couple of theories." He replied though they were better described as guesses. "Better leadership bonus than we'd expected. Or she has access to tactics we don't. Or the militia units proved a lot more effective than we'd anticipated. Maybe a combination of all three."

  “Or she dumped some of her players into the combat.” She suggested.

  “Yeah. Or that.” He confirmed.

  They'd finally gotten around to testing that particular strategy, albeit only in theory, not in practice, during the march from Bastion to Islo. During the march, Cayden had assigned himself, Sarah and Celia to different combat units and had discovered that a player added roughly ten points of combat strength for each level they possessed.

  If Asch had embedded even half of her players into formations with her Elan soldiers, that could undoubtedly have accounted for the difference in the unit's expected power.

  If she had, it was a dangerous gamble. Cayden hadn't had a safe opportunity to test all of the effects in combat, but one of the first things he'd learned from attaching himself to a unit, was that it forced him to abide by the unit's movement restrictions. Any players that were accompanying the Elan units out in the field would be trapped in hex by the same invisible barrier as the Elan themselves, so long as they remained as part of the formation.

  “Looks like you owe her an apology.” Silver said.

  “You know, I recall you raising similar objections.”

  “With everything we knew at the time, the field battle was a bad idea.” Silver said with a roll of her eyes. “Perhaps if she'd been more open with us.”

  Cayden snorted at that. Perhaps if she'd been a unicorn as well, she might have been purer of heart and willing to accept their help. It was a useless theoretical. As it was, they'd just barely gotten the good Captain to allow them a forward observer so that they could get an idea of how the battle had progressed.

  They'd have had better luck asking if they could pull out Asch's fingernails than asking her for direct combat data.

  Silver's gaze scanned the War Frame. “Do you think she's got a shot?”

  "No," Cayden replied. "She sucker punched them hard, and we probably could have done more, but she's going to have to retreat into the city as soon as the afternoon turn starts. Once she's in there, it is only going to be a matter of time."

  “So we just pack up and go home?”

  “I don't like it either. But what choice do we have? We can't stay here once the bulk of the army arrives. Even if they don't wander right past us, they'll find us by sheer bulk number of checks.”

  In the aftermath of the disastrous meeting in the barracks, Cayden had taken his forces, as well as those of the Goons and Lords of the Edge away from Islo, squirreling them into in a wooded thicket on a hill overlooking the main river that flowed into the city. The location gave them a commanding view, but, more importantly, it gave them some measure of concealment. An enemy in the adjacent hex would spot them immediately, but for every hex beyond that, the chance was halved. Beyond five hexes, they might as well have been invisible.

  “Any luck talking to the Duke?” Silver inquired after a moment of silence.

  When diplomacy had failed, there had been some suggestions of a coup. The Duke had put her into power; he could take her out of power, couldn't he? Sadly, it was not to be. "None. The palace is still locked up tight. I had Celia do some asking around, and it looks like no one has been able to enter since the event kicked off."

  Silver sighed. “Maybe we stick around nearby and try to cover their retreat?”

  "That assumes she's going to try and retreat. Or that they'd let her if she did." Cayden played his hands over the edge of the War Frame until the city filled the view. What had once looked so welcoming to him, that first night, now filled him with a heavy sense of dread as he surveyed it.

  The problem was the lay of the land. Like most castle cities, Islo was built along the banks of a river, but unlike many others, the river added little in the way of defense to the city proper. Its course ran through the southeasternmost tip of the city, forming a fast-flowing moat that separated the Ducal Palace and other military structures from the civilian town. As a fortification, it gave an impressive bonus, but it was also, ultimately, a dead end.

  Islo had six significant gates, all of which were on the western, civilian side of the river. This meant that any attempt at a retreat from the city had to begin before a withdrawal to the final defensive line. Once the Wardens had laid siege to the Royal Quarter environs, there was no easy escape from the city. The idiots who designed it hadn't even developed some clever escape tunnel for the Duke or his family that they could utilize to guide the civilians away.

  The Developer designed it that way for a reason. Cayden reminded himself as he studied the city for the hundredth time. The stupid design of the city was part of the event, surely that meant there was some clever way to circumvent it.

  “Well maybe if w-”

  A sudden, vicious rumbling of the earth turned the rest of Silver's sentence into a shriek of alarm. Behind her, the ground tore itself asunder, a half foot wide crack running from one end of the tent, between the two of them, beneath the War Frame, and out the other side in the space of a blink. Outside the tent horses cried, men and women screamed in alarm, accompanied by the sound of collapsing foliage.

  The tremor continued for half a minute, the left side of the tent collapsing entirely before, at last, everything was still.

  "C-command: Party Chat," Cayden said, his voice unsteady, eyes wide with the same fear in Silver's. He realized abruptly that he was holding her forearm with white knuckles, and that she was clinging just as tightly to his shoulder. She blushed as their eyes met, the moment of awkwardness dispelled for both as Cayden spoke again. "Everyone okay?"

  “Yeah. Michael and I are fine.” Celia's tone was a barely above a whisper, as though she were afraid that even a fully spoken word could reignite the disaster.

  "I'm good too," Shifty replied. "You probably want to come see this ASAP though. West side of the camp."

  Something in the elder thief's voice brooked no argument. “On our way.”

  The camp was a mess as Silver and Cayden passed through it. Fallen trees had done damage to at least a dozen tents and cookfires, though injuries, thankfully, appeared to be minimal. What had been a comparatively sleepy morning, had turned into a buzz of activity, as soldiers moved this way and that, arming themselves in case of coming danger.

  “Hey, over here.” Shifty shout came twice as the party chat function of their display duplicated the already audible words.

  “What happened?” Cayden began.

  The question proved wholly unnecessary as he reached the crest of the hill.

  Miles and miles of terrain were arrayed out before them, the whole of Asch's battle line stretched across three miles of terrain just outside the westernmost gate of Islo, with a disorganized smattering of Warden forces directly opposing them. It was the exact scene he'd been surveying on the War Frame minutes before.

  Save for the slightly curved, miles long wall of jagged stone that ran directly behind the Elan forces.

  "What the hell?" Cayden asked. His eyes flicked to the corner of his display, answering at least part of his question. Just after noon, into the start of the midday turn. It must have rolled over while he'd been talking to Silv
er. Which meant this was Warden magic.

  “Did they miss?” Silver laughed as she joined them on the ridge.

  If they had been attacking the Islo forces, the magic had been a catastrophe. Even at this distance, there didn't appear to be any significant damage to the allied forces. A bit disorganized perhaps, which was to be expected considering how close they'd been to the epicenter of the quake, but the majority were already back in formation.

  Stranger still, the Wardens hadn't attacked. While his experience with them was admittedly limited, the Warden troops they had engaged thus far had always launched their attacks the moment the turn rolled over, if they were going to attack at all. It was possible that they were too damaged to attack, but even then, their movement was... unusual.

  One formation at a time the Warden troops were disengaging. Cayden watched as a unit of around eighty terra-cotta warriors turned their backs, marched for a considerable distance, then reorganized. One formation became four, the those four then turned, and marched directly back into the line from whence they'd come.

  “What are they doing?” Celia asked. Cayden started, so lost in his study of the troop movements that he hadn't heard her arrive. Or rather, hadn't realized she was still on party chat, his embarrassing search for the source of the voice in his ear drawing a titter of laughter from nearby Silver.

  "Looks like they are changing up their unit structure," Michael said, mastering the obvious. "But why?"

  “Maybe put in some blockers to try and reduce casualties before the main force gets here?” Shifty suggested. Even he didn't sound particularly convinced by his own suggestion.

  For several minutes the assembled players watched in a captive confusion as formation after formation engaged in the same bizarre behavior. It was only when some of the newly formed units began to break off, moving around the flanks of the Elan units, that it finally clicked in Cayden's mind "Oh hell."

  “What?” Silver asked.

  “The Wardens are boxing them!” Cayden shouted over his shoulder, already moving at a full run back towards the War Frame. “Command: Call Vilerat.”

  “Cayden, are you seeing this?” The voice came through as Cayden was halfway back to his tent.

  “Yeah. It is bad. I'm going to be forwarding you some orders for your Cavalry, can you t-”

  Vilerat cut him off. "I'm transferring temporary control to you. The edge troops as well." Before Cayden could question him, he added. "Your Warmaster bonus is higher, and if you're in this much of a tizzy, we're going to need it. Just give them back, okay?"

  “I'm not in a tizzy...” Cayden complained before he cut the call. “Command: Call Asch.”

  An angry buzz was his headset's reply.

  “What the... Command: Call Asch.” Again came that same irritating noise, somewhere between the Family Feud buzzer and an especially broken hand razor.

  His call wasn't being ignored, nor blocked. In either of those situations, it would have still tried to connect, even if the ringing was just for show. No, the only other times he'd heard that noise were when he'd tried to call off floor at the start of the event, and when they had been inside the Warden sub-tomb.

  It wasn't the tomb then. Maybe the Wardens themselves? No, that didn't make any more sense. They'd passed messages back and forth during the march, even when personally engaged with Warden infantry. But if not the Wardens then what? An aura projected by some of the Warden officers perhaps, like the one they'd found in the tomb?

  If that was the case, then they were in worse trouble than they thought. Asch must be on the field herself.

  “You really need to stop with this Sherlock Holmes, walk away in the middle of an epiphany without explaining yourself crap.” Silver complained as she came up fast on his heels.

  "They're trying to box them." Cayden explained again to Silver's continued bafflement as they entered the half fallen command tent. A runic word sent a wave of force rippling across the table, blowing away dust and refuse that had piled onto it as Cayden took up a space at its side. "They split up their units so that Asch chokes on them trying to escape."

  "Cayden..."

  He frowned in reply, mind whirling through a thousand thoughts at once, even as he struggled to find a way to easily explain the threat he saw. At last, he blurted, "It's like one big speed bump vs. a bunch of moguls."

  "Those little white things from Final Fantasy?"

  "What? No. Mogul, not moogle." He rolled his eyes. "It's like a speed bump, but for skiing."

  "Uh-huh." Silver replied dubiously.

  "Look." Cayden gestured to the War Frame as he spoke.

  The battlefield it showed looked almost indistinguishable from the one they had seen only minutes earlier. The allied forces still occupied a three mile line of hexes, with Dinah and her regular forces occupying the center of the battle line, with a thousand militia men to either side. Behind them, however, was that stone wall, a four-mile monstrosity that cut off any hope of direct retreat.

  Surrounding all of it were three ranks of Warden infantry.

  The rank nearest the Elan forces contained two formations, each comprised of somewhere between ten to twenty Warden soldiers; apparently his forward observer wasn't able to give him an accurate headcount. Each rank behind the first added another formation, three for the second, and four for the third. Their formation bonuses would be minute, small enough that even the militia units should be able to tear through them without significant losses.

  But that wasn't the point of them. They were speed bumps, not combat units.

  "Imagine that all of these, were combined into just enough formations to still be able and surround our allies. What happens?"

  Sarah barely had to think at all as she replied. "Asch's forces attack them directly and wipe them out in an engagement or two."

  "And now?" he asked.

  A frown took to the girl's face as she grimly inclined her head. "Now it takes a minimum of nine attacks."

  "And because they are surrounded, anyone who does attacks doesn't get to leave, because a formation has to complete its whole turn before the next one can take its turn."

  It was a clever trap, like a strong fork in a game of chess. Normally a unit could move and attack in any order it wanted to. A cavalry unit could, for example, attack an infantry unit, then move nine or ten hexes to escape from retaliation on the infantry's turn, or even move towards it, attack, and then retreat back out of range. But when a unit was surrounded, as all of the Islo forces were, they had nowhere to go. Her militia could attack the unit next to them, maybe even kill it, but then they'd be stuck inside the encirclement until the following turn, even if a later unit managed to finally breach it.

  "Nine attacks." Silver murmured quietly. "They're going to lose a third of their forces. If they are lucky."

  "I don't think they're that lucky." Cayden said tentatively, pointing again to the War Frame. "If most of these units are on the higher count, a militia unit probably won't have the power to kill them in a single combat. She'll lose all of the milita, or most of her regular forces trying to escape, because anyone still in the encirclement when the next Warden turn starts is going to get obliterated once the rest of their army catches up."

  "Can't Asch just split her formation? Bring them down closer to parity with the Wardens?" Sarah asked, scrutinizing the War Frame. "It wouldn't save everyone, but it'd lower the damage."

  "I'm not sure." Cayden admitted. "I doubt it though. The Wardens moved away before they split their units, remember? I'm guessing you can't alter formations if they are adjacent to the enemy."

  Silver tilted her head, then scowled. "Damn, you're probably right. It makes sense." She looked to him then. "Is there anything we can do to help them?"

  Cayden shrugged. "That depends. How well can you ride?"

  ***

  As it turned out, better than Cayden

  "This sucks, this sucks, this sucks!" The young man cried, one hand clutching the pommel of his saddle for dear l
ife as his steed galloped towards the Warden lines.

  "Oh come on Cayden. This was your idea." Michael's voice came through crisp and clear over Cayden's headset, one of the few things he could hear at all besides the wind whipping past his ears.

  "Aren't you from Iowa?" Celia asked slyly.

  "Yeah. The modern part."

  Silver's reply came even before Cayden could regret his choice of words. "There is such a thing?"

  "You know what-"

  "Could we focus just a little?" Shifty's voice overrode whatever poor insult Cayden had in mind, and drew all their attention back to the matter at hand.

  It had already been a hard ride, and it was about to get harder.

  The plan was a simple one. Bastion came before Islo in the turn order, and since they were outside the encirclement, Cayden's forces should be able to break the Warden trap without being subject to it. At least, that was the theory.

  In practice it would be a little more dicey. His Infantry had to move three hexes just to reach the outside of the Warden line, and another four after that to reach the nearest city gate, which meant that they'd only be able to engage the first ring of Warden troops. This meant that the Cavalry graciously entrusted to him by Vilerat was going to do the brunt of the fighting. Even accounting for the natural 25% bonus that Cavalry had on the offensive, the Blitz tactic bonus, and the fact that cavalry could attack multiple times a turn, provided they defeated a formation with each attack, it would still be a close thing.

  Which was where Cayden and his companions came in. Between the five of them alone they added over a thousand combat value to the unit. Nearly two, once the offensive bonuses were accounted for. More than enough to allow them to trample through each and every one of the five remaining units. And if they failed, there was still a second, fresh cavalry unit waiting to clean up their mess.

  There was, of course, one other problem. But that would have to wait until after.

  "Not far now." Silver said as their horses navigated the bodies of nearly a hundred slain Warden soldiers, roughly half of which were already partially or mostly ash.

  "So what do we do once we get into the hex? Just hang around with the cavalry? Or do we have to fight to provide the bonus?" Shifty asked.