Thaumaturge

by Terry Mancour

  “I’m not saying it’s impossible,” Sandoval grumbled darkly. “I’m just saying it’s going to be bloody hard. And we still might lose.”

  “We won’t lose,” Terleman said, quietly. “I won’t allow it.”

  “He’s just grumbling,” I said, after Sandy stomped off to speak to one of Mavone’s Ravens about the battle.

  “I know,” Mavone agreed. “But he’s not wrong. This is going to be like preparing to get punched solidly in the face three times in a row. A lot of the men he’s just recruited and trained are going to die.”

  “We all might die,” I agreed. “But dwelling on that is not going to help. Sandy used to be so carefree . . .”

  “He’s as jaded as the rest of us. He wasn’t at Boval Castle,” Mavone reminded me. “Olum Seheri got to him, too. And he does have a woman, now. They just built a house together. She wants to get married.”

  “And I’ve got kids I’d rather not see killed. And a half-mad wife of my own. But he’ll come through,” I said, hopefully.

  “He’d better,” Terleman agreed. “We’d all better come through. Or none of us will.”

  ***

  The goblin civil war, as helpful as it was, was unlikely to affect the forces arrayed against us . . . but that didn’t mean that it couldn’t be useful in its own right.

  The Goblin King had been instituted as a secular government to counter the power of the urgulnosti – the Black Skull priests of Sheruel who were generally pretty lousy at governance. Now that government was squatting in exile amongst thousands of traditional, tribally-based gurvani. The great cause which had elevated him to his rank was forestalled. His undead god was now an ornament, and his people virtual slave soldiers to Korbal’s ambitions.

  The King of the Goblins was allegedly a direct descendent of Sheruel, as well as a victorious general. More importantly, gossip ran that he was genuinely interested in the institutions and culture of the people he’d helped conquer. He’d led the faction of gurvani who were in favor of adopting the superior technology and organization of the humani to rule and fight the humani. Alas, he was now living among traditionalists who saw such adaptations as a betrayal of the gurvani culture.

  The Goblin King’s fortunes had looked bright, just a few years ago. But then Korbal arose from the grave, befriended and then betrayed Sheruel, and took power in the Umbra and beyond. Nuances about humanity were lost on the Necromancer; the humani were not for emulation, they were tools to be used and discarded, nothing more. The entire question of the gurvani adopting human ways was moot under the boot of Korbal and his Enshadowed.

  The betrayal of Sheruel had been a watershed. After that, the Goblin King rebelled and then retreated with his loyalists to the refuge of his ideological opponents, the traditional tribes who’d retaken their ancient homelands in the northwest. He’d been joined by the most fanatical of the urgulnosti, those who refused to see any god but Sheruel rule them. He led several thousand goblins who were unwilling to follow Korbal’s dictates blindly. He’d also been accompanied by a court full of human renegades and turncoats who were equally at odds with the Necromancer and the rest of humanity whom they’d betrayed.

  The uneasy alliance kept a force too strong and too remote for Korbal’s vassals to root out and defeat . . . but not nearly strong enough to challenge Korbal’s rule. The battlefield we trod was the most ambitious attack they’d conducted to date, to our knowledge, and while the battle was a sign of the Goblin King’s strength, his troops had attacked one legion, not an entire defended stronghold.

  It wasn’t enough to convince me that Korbal had a serious problem laying in wait to his rear. But it might be enough to convince the Alka Alon that a threat was imminent, and perhaps convince them to send troops or other assistance. Alka Alon archers had already proven decisive in some of our battles, and those had been mere volunteers. If the Council could be persuaded to send an organized force, it might be crucial.

  But they wouldn’t, I knew, until they were convinced that they were in danger and there wasn’t any choice. The Alka Alon were still reeling from the unexpected loss of Anthatiel and the unexpected return of one of their history’s greatest villains. As allies went, they were potent, but unreliable.

  The Kasari would help; they were both potent and reliable . . . but they were not warriors. They would scout and spy for us, and their rangers would be invaluable, but they were not an army. Certainly not the army I needed.

  I could try to hire mercenaries, I reasoned. I had a fortune to spend, enough to hire every mercenary in the kingdom. But practically speaking it was unlikely for Tavard to allow any force in my employ to cross his frontier from Castal, and I doubted even gold could tempt a company worthy of the coin to challenge the future king of the realm. I was already hiring every sword I could from Vorone, and enticing as many adventurous souls from Enultramar as possible with the allure of danger and reward. But there were limits on how many could be persuaded to come north to face brutal battle. Not when there was still great need for troops in the restless south.

  One bright spot in my gloomy world was the Iron Band. Since the Four Counts rebellion was ended, the corps had hundreds of new recruits and hundreds more on the way. The forts that held the Penumbra at bay were continuing to grow stronger.

  Would they be strong enough to hold back three armies? I knew better.

  The Wilderlands is far too vast to allow a handful of castles to impede another invasion, if it was determined. The Iron Band had almost five thousand men at arms, now, but they were spread out over seven fortresses and dozens of depots and outposts. Some of the Bandsmen were canny warriors. Most were poorly trained and fighting a kind of war they were unprepared for. They were about as good as a decent mercenary company, no better.

  I could try to stir up the human tribes against the gurvani, but we’d been trying that for years, now. Only the Pearwoods clans had the numbers to be impactful, and they were comfortably distant from the Penumbra.

  I had to find an army. Somewhere. And fast.

  The question gnawed at me for days. I explored every idea I could think of, and solicited others from Sandy, Terleman, Pentandra, Gareth, even Thinradel. A wizard never knows where inspiration or instruction will arise.

  Thankfully, in my case I rarely have to wait long.

  After a week of obsession and insomnia, I was finally struck with an idea worth pursuing. And once I committed to it, I found I relaxed tremendously. As much as I brag about how I improvise, I realized that in order to conjure an army I would have to plan, plot, and scheme with extreme care.

  In the meantime, I encouraged Mavone to fully investigate our foes. His Ravens – a dedicated mix of Kasari, former 3rd Commandos, and generally observant bastards – fanned out across the Penumbra that summer and did their best to infiltrate the fortresses of the three Nemovorti. Nattia was ordered to conduct overflights of the enemy strongholds with her Sky Riders. And I put even more pressure on Sandoval to build up the Vanador Guard, while encouraging my vassals with incentives to drill their own troops. When the battle began, every man who could draw a bow or wield an axe would be needed.

  I’d had to fight to defend Sevendor, I reasoned. I could do the same for Vanador. It was just on a larger scale.

  But I wasn’t facing the Warbird, now. I was facing three vicious undead dark lords hundreds of miles from the benefits real civilization. I was making up the difference by magic and industry – I hoped – but the magnitude of the foe and their dedication to the task of my destruction made my campaign against the Warbird look relatively simple.

  I took what solace I could, and tried to be optimistic. We were making progress. Weapons were being forged. Men were being trained. Fortifications were being built. The crops were growing like never before. I had all the necessary fundamentals to build a credible army to defend the land, but I was missing the one vital element that would see that happen: time.

  I quietly brooded about our situation while trying to maintain
a cheerful face in Vanador. The last thing I needed was for someone important to lose confidence because I was grumpy about how slowly things were coming together.

  It had been different in Sevendor, I reasoned, late one night. Sevendor had been surrounded by well-trained, well-armed forces. It was sustained by an established commercial system. It was supported by a network of clergy. All the things a man needed to make war in a civilized manner.

  I was correct about Sandy, though, and that brought me some hope. Once we returned from the battlefield, he rededicated himself to raising troops and ensuring their supply and arms. Like a man obsessed he spent the summer riding from one settlement to the next to check on the progress of their training.

  Were they spending enough time practicing archery at the butts? Did every man have an axe or sword or at least a spear? The Vanador Guard began to grow and take shape under his care, but Sandy was rarely satisfied. All summer long, he led them in exercises designed to improve their fighting ability. Complex maneuvers, an intensive training regimen, and an emphasis on fundamentals were the sermons Sandoval preached.

  “Ishi’s tits, we’re doomed,” he said, good-naturedly, upon returning from one such extended mission. He stopped by Spellmonger’s Hall for a personal report and a glass or two of decent wine, instead of using mind-to-mind communication. “I just got back from Anstryg. It’s a weak spot,” he complained. “After watching the villagers drill, I wanted to start drinking like my father does to forget my mother.”

  I was taken aback. “Oh – I didn’t know your mother had died.”

  “She hasn’t. That’s why dad drinks. But if those sods are what we have to put up against legions of hobs, we’re doomed.”

  “They’ll look better once they have real armor and real arms,” I soothed.

  “Gods, I hope so,” Sandoval said, exhausted. “Korwyn is worse, if you can believe it. I spent two days watching the militia there, and compared to them the Anstrygi are old campaigners.”

  “Surely it can’t be that bad,” I soothed. It didn’t take.

  “They can’t even march in a straight line, Min. They’re as aggressive as kittens. Only the freedmen are willing to actually fight, I think. There were a dozen or so from the Hundreds we sent down there, but the rest of them are bloody useless. No leadership,” he complained. “No fighting spirit. The ones who performed the best were the ones who treated it as a joke. Most of them were too timid to bark. We’ve got to get some steel in their spines, Min,” he warned.

  He wasn’t wrong.

  Korwyn and Anstryg were the domains that eventually became the breadbasket of Vanador, but at the time they were merely the most-intact parts of my realm that had survived beyond Vorone. The invasion had largely passed them by, with armies moving to the north and east of them, but ignoring the sparsely-populated, moderately fertile vales of the southern plateau. Once the Wilderlords had all gone off to get killed, the common folk kept doing what they’d always done. They just did it more cautiously.

  While the manors around the townlands were productive enough, particularly with magic’s aid, Korwyn and Anstryg had grown with the influx of refugees from more easterly settlements during the war. Neither domain boasted a town of more than a thousand, before the war, and though they grew larger in numbers, by the time of the Restoration they had filled with desperate men and women seeking some semblance of order.

  Now they were my problem.

  Sandoval was correct on another matter: the only real answer was to inject fresh blood and new iron into the region. We made a special point after that discussion to divert the newest, best-equipped settlers to the domains to the south of Vanador.

  As the resettlement program brought even more new folk to the region, the original inhabitants of Korwyn and Anstryg were surprised by the newcomers. They expected yet more penniless mouths to feed. But every Hundred who emerged from the new capital was well-equipped, armed, and usually decently led. Those who settled in Korwyn or Anstryg seemed particularly proud.

  The Korwyni and Anstrygi natives soon welcomed the sight of the Hundreds marching toward yet another abandoned manor or freehold. Soon the newcomers were forced to clear previously wooded acreage to build their manors. Every new manor improved commerce in the area, though the strangeness of accent and custom of some of the former Gilmoran slaves made the natives automatically suspicious. But coin and busy markets kept everyone calm.

  The demand for everything from beds to wagon wheels kept every artisan in the land occupied, and the flow of wagons headed to Vanador’s market was tangible proof of prosperity. That summer the reclaimed fields of both domains boomed, and many of the newly-cleared lands were productive. Grain and produce flowered like never before. Even with magical help there was plenty of work for all . . . and now plenty of coin to pay for it.

  Indeed, there was so much demand for labor for agriculture and crafts that few wanted to devote valuable time to marching in a heavy helmet under the hot summer sun, or practicing endlessly at archery when gardens needed weeding. Response to his early efforts in the region was tepid, at best. There were no domain lords, and few manor lords to enforce martial discipline, and so it went unenforced.

  As dismal as Sandy’s inspection had been, that kind of prosperity soon spread to other areas of life. New temples and shrines were planned for both domains as more clergy were recruited from the south. Markets in the towns grew in size every week as the newcomers sought to stock their farms and shops, and the natives profited from supplying them. By summer’s end regular merchant caravans were running through both domains on their way to and from Vanador every day, not just on market days.

  Even the militia got better, once they got proper spears and learned how to shoot in volleys. But not much.

  At the time I was considering building a secondary fortress in the region to offer more protection, because Carmella just didn’t have enough to do. But building a castle without having a man to keep it was foolhardy.

  Most of the Wilderlords who’d ruled here were long dead. The commoners had been managing their own affairs, such as they could, in the absence of greater authority. , depending on custom and improvisation for their common affairs. That was the problem. Without real leaders above the manorial level, no one wanted to have responsibility for anything. That lead to further complications a few weeks later as Sandoval returned to assessed their improvements and their capabilities. Then he tried to negotiate with them.

  “It’s a hell of a lot easier to deal with an executive authority, rather than a committee,” he grumbled one night, while reporting to me of his most recent trip to the domains. “The councils are representative of every major settlement in the area, but it’s all informal and customary. None of them are empowered to take action without going back and putting the matter to a vote. And then tallying the number of villages that agree. Some of these villages only have fifty people in them, all related to each other. That means family arguments become political arguments, and corruption is rampant. Others were just cobbled together and can’t agree that the sky is blue. Can’t you just appoint new lords to those domains?” he suggested, with a hint of a whine in his voice. “That would simplify things tremendously.”

  “I could recommend someone for Anguin to appoint, and he’d do it,” I conceded. “That’s how I got Tyndal appointed to Callierd this spring. Why, do want the job?”

  “Me?” Sandy asked, his eyes wide. “I’d like a comfy little manor, someday, not an entire domain. Too damn much work! Especially on top of being your marshal. No, this wasn’t a proposal for higher office, because it would actually be a lower office. I’m just telling you it would make getting an army together much easier if we had people who knew how to lead one in charge.”

  “Then who? I don’t want any of my senior officers distracted, and we need men there who can organize and defend without screwing it all up.”

  “That excludes a great deal of people,” Sandy conceded. “But it suggests a few others. L
et me ask around, and see if I can’t find someone who is both worthy and interested in the job.”

  It only took a week for Sandy to get back to me with a number of good candidates. We settled on two who I agreed to pass along to Anguin for consideration: Magelord Emeran and Wilderlord Barthalon, late of the Alshari Third Commando.

  There were good reasons behind both appointments, both occupational and political. Emeran wasn’t a warmage, officially, but he’d been a valuable support wizard in both the Olum Seheri campaign and the Great Emancipation. He’d worked tirelessly at Timberwatch, earning the respect and admiration of Tyndal and Rondal, and with their recommendation he’d been granted a witchstone last year.

  Originally from the lake region of the Wilderlands, he’d apprenticed in Gilmora, married a Gilmoran witch, and understood Gilmorans and Wilderfolk alike. He was a likable fellow, and known to be seeking a position worthy of his new status. Lord of Korwyn would suffice.

  Sir Barthalon was a different matter. A fast friend of the new Lord Steward of Vorone from their days in the Third Commando, the Wilderlord had been one of the key personalities in keeping the abandoned regiment together during those long, purposeless months outside of Nion. He was also among the loudest voices in favor of them accepting Anguin’s generous offer.

  A veteran of Farise, Barthalon had been one of the unit’s “ambassadors” to the local people in Nion; the one the Third Commando sent after the nice one. He had distinguished himself repeatedly at the Poros and after, and was accounted in high esteem among the Wilderfolk who were personally familiar with him.

  More importantly, much to everyone’s astonishment, Sir Barthalon was concealing a secret all the time he was pursuing a career at arms: he was magically Talented, like Sire Cei. Barthalon was a magical sport.

  He had kept the secret to himself since childhood, fully aware of the social and legal implications of revealing it. Only when he began to serve at Poros in the 3rd Commando did Barthalon at last feel secure enough to tell his closest mates.