Thaumaturge

by Terry Mancour

  “They’re holding,” Sandoval reported, grimly, when I returned to the command chamber an hour later. “But it’s getting bloody, out there. Those are our most experienced veterans, in those trenches,” he reminded me. “Along with a half-dozen warmagi.”

  “Any High Magi?” I asked.

  “Rustallo, Wenek, and . . . Hafnir,” he recalled. “Maybe a few more. They’re directing the active spellwork. And piling up bodies. But this is just the vanguard, Min,” Sandy reminded us. “The main body is only a quarter-mile behind them.”

  “That means they’re in the Lightning Mother’s range,” Terleman decided, as he pushed a piece across the map. “I’ll tell Carmella,” he said, closing his eyes for a moment.

  Within seconds, a loud boom sounded across all of Spellgate as the five-story trebuchet Carmella had painstakingly built at the top of the escarpment dropped about nine tons worth of rock of its counterweight, transferring the force of its fall to the massive redwood beam that flung a mere half-ton block of iron slag with ridiculous ease. We all raced to the battlement, to watch the result.

  We didn’t even see the missile until it was on its descent, and we had to use magesight to keep track of the dark speck racing across the overcast sky. The great mass of iron waste made a beautiful arc that landed dead-center of the advancing column, about four rows back. The impact turned the resolutely marching goblins into a maelstrom of blood, limbs, viscera and hair. Nor did the missile stop its damage there: it rolled back through five rows of marching infantry . . . and then exploded.

  “I didn’t know they exploded!” Sandoval yelled, with a surprised grin on his face. “Why didn’t anyone tell me they exploded?”

  “They don’t just explode,” Terleman explained, proudly. “Carmella found a way to heat up the center of the things until they’re molten. The enchantment keeps it nice and intact . . . until the missile comes to a stop. Then it super-excites the molten core by turning a portion of the interior to ice. That causes it to explode . . . and spray everything in its path with molten slag,” he finished, with a satisfied air.

  As we watched the cart-sized chunk of slag finally roll to a stop, true to Terleman’s word, it shattered explosively into a red geyser of fire that tore an even bigger hole in the line. At least a hundred were dead or injured from the flight.

  “Let’s do more of that!” Sandy said, excitedly, as Carmella’s crew began raising the counterweight again.

  “We only have about thirty of those,” Terleman warned. “After that, we’ll have to use ordinary rocks. But I think it makes a statement about how committed we are to holding this pass.”

  Even with magic, it took at least ten minutes to reload the trebuchet between rounds. The other siege engines had shorter ranges, and had to wait for the goblin army to advance before they were comfortably in range. The big engine Carmella had dubbed the Lightning Mother, however, outshot them by another bowshot.

  They didn’t have long to wait. Carmella’s first shot spooked the living gurvani, and some attempted to bolt. The Enshadowed and the draugen were having none of it, however, and I watched one cowardly goblin lose his head for his insubordination, while his terrified mates were being prepared for a charge against the redoubts and trenches.

  Gaja Katar was relentless. His troops, however, were increasingly reluctant. Whatever deviltry Wenek was throwing against their assault parties was demoralizing. Indeed, I saw a growing pile of black, furry bodies accumulating in front of the southernly trench complex, where it nearly sparkled with arcane residue.

  The road to the causeway had purposefully been left unmanned, according to Terleman’s orders. I considered that a poor strategic move until I watched the first enterprising half-company of the goblins’ vanguard charge down the unprotected road . . . and between the two sets of trenches. Crossbows and Wilderlands bows took full advantage, and all fifty or so of the foe was slaughtered before they were a quarter of the way through that terrible gauntlet.

  “If Gaja Katar keeps sending in his troops piecemeal,” Mavone remarked, as we watched the spectacle, “he’s not going to have enough to mount a real assault on the causeway.”

  “And how is that a problem?” Sandy demanded, as a messenger handed him a fresh dispatch. “I thought that was the point?”

  “It is,” Terleman agreed. “But if Gaja Katar thinks he doesn’t have enough troops, he might relent, and not even try it. Or wait until he gets his siege equipment into place. Those would both be problematic.”

  “How far out are the siege beasts?” I asked, stroking my beard.

  “Half a mile,” Mavone reported, after consulting a scrying dish. “Another hour will see them in range.”

  “Another hour will see them in range of our other engines,” Terleman countered. “I feel confident in our ability to out-shoot them.”

  “Tell that to the men in those trenches,” Sandy shot back. “You’re shooting over their heads! Once they break through the second line of redoubts, we’ll have to withdraw,” he frowned. “At least the front trenches.”

  “And yield them to be held against us?” Mavone asked, worriedly.

  “They won’t be that easy to hold,” Sandy said, shaking his head. “We stashed about three score nasty little constructs there, as well as some truly inspired spellfields. There’s a fifty-foot stretch on the north side that will transform any goblin who crosses it into a mindless berserker. The place is riddled with pits and traps. Trust me, taking those trenches will give them no advantage.”

  All afternoon we watched the dance of armies, as Gaja Katar sent his best to assault the main redoubts, where hundreds of skilled archers were making his advance costly. The Nemovort ordered one sortie after another to attempt to scale the ragged walls and fences of the field fortifications, only to see them beaten back by the brave defenders.

  Twice they succeeded in getting more than a few soldiers inside the line . . . where they were promptly hacked to death by the flashing axes of the Vanadori militia. Gurvani, hobgoblins, maragorku, even trolls made a desperate attempt at overrunning the fortlets. The trolls had the most success, based on their size and strength. At one point, the northern redoubt entertained two of the ferocious beasts, standing back to back, swinging clubs as big as the masts of ships against our poor men.

  But Wenek had an answer for trolls – he drew a special wand, and opened hoxters that expelled a pair of cunningly-designed constructs. More pliable than most, these multi-legged creations did not try to strike the Hulka Alon warriors . . . they climbed them. Each one quickly scaled the muscular bodies of the trolls and enwrapped themselves around their heads. As the trolls struggled, the constructs constricted around the necks and faces of the beasts.

  They panicked, as most living things will when the breath of life is threatened. Bellowing to each other from behind the mage-toughened cloth, they tried to help each other remove the offensive constructs. Instead, they ended up taking wild swings with their clubs, which hurt them more than their magical attackers. Apparently, when you smack a rug-covered head with a log, it hurts the head more than the rug.

  Wenek let them flail around for a few entertaining moments while the wounded were pulled out of the way, then he and two of his apprentices drew their blades and began hacking and blasting the two trolls until they were lifeless. And then they continued with their destructive work until they were unlikely to be reanimated. When it comes to irrational violence, Wenek likes to be thorough.

  The redoubts held through the initial onslaught. They took casualties, but they gave better than they got: the fortlets were surrounded by a sea of black furry corpses when the vanguard finally withdrew a bit.

  But as far back as they got, they couldn’t escape the long arm of Carmella’s trebuchet. The artillery crews affectionately called it Mother Lightning, for its precision and destruction, and treated it like a minor goddess. It was relentless. As fast as Gaja Katar formed up his troops against the redoubts, Mother Lightning pitched one cart-sized h
unk of mass after another into their midst.

  We watched and waited while the duel between the goblin vanguard and the advanced redoubts continued, as Gaja Katar’s own artillery was dragged into position. Every minute saw more gurvani fall to Wilderlands bows and trebuchet missiles.

  Eventually, someone under the Nemovort’s command got frustrated with taking all that damage and got the bright idea to lead the siege beasts forward to intercede.

  It was a brilliant solution. The massive six-legged, horned-nosed monsters were living shield walls. Their hides were thick enough so that our three-foot arrows were mere annoyances. They weren’t happy about it, but once in place the great beasts screened the forward lines, allowing their vanguard lines some relief. They lumbered into place, led by their handlers, where goblins in the little turrets on its back to return fire from height.

  “Well, isn’t that clever?” Sandy asked, sourly, as the great worms were led into position.

  “They’re like walking redoubts,” grunted Terleman. “Those little wooden castles on their backs are filled with crossbowmen. If they drive them up the causeway, it won’t matter if we kill them. Their bodies will act as natural siege equipment. We’d better take care of this,” he warned, closing his eyes to give orders, mind-to-mind.

  Ten minutes later, Carmella proved that the siege worms weren’t particularly good at screening from artillery fire. She chose a large missile of specially-enchanted slag to hurl at the beast in the center of the line from Mother Lightning, and when it landed it was with such force that it nearly split the creature between its first and second set of legs, sending the wooden castle on its back into a thousand pieces. When the explosive enchantment activated, another few hundred gurvani were blown into the air, and fire and molten metal splattered in every direction.

  As spectacular as the strike was, it also ensured that the great corpse of the beast continued to provide cover for our attackers. In another ten minutes, the smoldering back was covered with scores of gurvani crossbowmen who still had a height advantage over our redoubts.

  “Well, that worked well,” Sandy frowned.

  “It’s dead, isn’t it?” Mavone countered. “That’s one less beast to assail the causeway.”

  “And one more permanent fixture of the battlefield,” Sandy countered. “And you know that thing is going to stink to the heavens. Crows won’t even touch them.”

  “I think they’re preparing a charge,” Terleman said, as he studied the maps on the table. “See how they’re bunching up, here and here? I think they’re going to try to make a break down the road to secure the base of the causeway,” he predicted.

  “That would be a really foolish thing for them to do,” Mavone pointed out. “That puts them taking fire from both flanks and Spellgate! The casualties would be enormous.”

  “I doubt Gaja Katar is worried about casualties,” I suggested.

  “Still, that would just be stupid,” Mavone countered.

  “That doesn’t mean he won’t do it,” Sandy said, shaking his head. “He’s got a big army. He wants to use it.”

  “Meticulous advance or an all-out assault?” Mavone considered.

  “I’d put my money on the all-out assault,” I advised. “This Nemovort’s downfall is his pride. I don’t think he really understands that he can lose this battle.”

  As it turned out, Gaja Katar’s field commanders did better than we anticipated. When the drums in the distance began the beat we’d come to associate with an aggressive advance, it wasn’t just the thousands of infantry who rushed forward, beyond the piles of dead and dying. Four of the siege worms were also goaded into the charge, with two attacking the redoubts on each side of the road.

  That helped the gurvani, at first. While the redoubts were preoccupied with ten tons of angry siege worm each, they could spare no attention to the horde of gurvani flooding down the road. The archers in the trenches did not spare them a welcome, but without the hundreds of archers in the forward redoubts, the goblins managed to cram more soldiers down that road than we’d hoped. Half a thousand charged down the roadway, shields raised, desperate to gain the causeway.

  “Now that the porridge course is over, it’s time for the cheese and fruit,” Terleman grinned, as the first of the gurvani made it to the base of the causeway alive. We watched from overhead as the most ambitious of the goblins chased the few defenders stationed there from their posts, effectively capturing the most essential part of the battlefield.

  It also put them within range of the archers on Spellgate, above. And the large body of archers in the rear trenches. Arrows and crossbow bolts flew against them like angry bees, some propelled by magic and including offensive spells. The victorious shouts of the goblins died quickly, as they realized their vulnerability. They could do little with their shields over their heads, and the undead that had accompanied them were filled with arrows.

  They didn’t all die. They were being joined by hundreds more who took advantage of the lessened fire. I heard Terleman direct the archer marshal through a Mirror to ease the rate of fire, and allow the gurvani to accumulate.

  “Aren’t they a little close?” Sandy asked, concerned. Most of the men in those trenches were Vanador Militia, his men.

  “They haven’t tried attacking the trenches or the smaller redoubts, yet,” I pointed out.

  “Terleman knows what he’s doing,” agreed Mavone.

  “Terleman is letting an awful lot of goblins set up an encampment on our front step,” Sandy frowned. “I thought the goal was to keep them at a distance, where our archery can work to its best advantage. Now we’ve got two redoubts about to fall, they’ve gained the road, and he’s letting them pile up inside the range of the trebuchet like a bunch of hungry beggars seeking alms!”

  Sandy is a great combat warmage and a good commander of men in battle, but he didn’t understand strategy and tactics as well as I did. I didn’t understand it much, admittedly, but I played enough rushes and had been responsible for enough battles to appreciate someone who really did. And Terleman understood strategy in ways I could not fathom.

  But I learned a long time ago not to wager if I played any sort of game with him.

  Mavone understood that, too. He slapped Sandy on the shoulder with his gauntlet, and directed his attention to the northern redoubt, where two siege beasts were contending for the privilege of eating our men, inside. Most were in the process of evacuating through the rear postern entrance, while their fellows attempted to cover their withdrawal.

  “Watch,” Mavone instructed.

  “Watch what?” Sandy demanded, skeptically. “Wenek getting his arse kicked by a couple of ancient horrors? Men I recruited and trained getting eaten by a worm?”

  “Just watch,” Mavone urged. “Terleman is in control.”

  We all observed the sudden fall of the front corner of the square redoubt, as the two worms pushed their way inside, chasing the defenders with the snapping jaws and using their nose horns like battering rams against the structure within. Hundreds of hobgoblins and great goblins were gleefully fighting hand-to-hand as they swarmed up the path of destruction I had to agree with Sandy, it looked like a defeat.

  Yet most of the defenders had made it away, through the trenches to the rear, where few goblins had yet tried to assault. They were regrouping in a rearward section that seemed prepared for them. While there were a lot of wounded, there were also a lot of intact soldiers catching their breath.

  “Yes, this is glorious,” Sandy said, sarcastically.

  “Do it, Wenek!” Terleman said, out loud, once he opened his eyes. He was in mind-to-mind communication with the combat mage, I gathered.

  A moment later, a spell went off at the redoubt. From the northern and southern sides of the fort, dozens of large iron-sheathed logs suddenly sprang into existence, just as the beasts lumbered inside. Like gigantic pikes, the logs sprung across the length of the redoubt impaling everything in their path. The thick hides of the beasts were no prot
ection to the sharpened mass of the trap. It was an impressive sight, but made even more grand when we realized that the logs were attached to a far more sophisticated wooden frame, below.

  As the bloody poles speared the beasts in their flanks and faces, the spell contorted, upending the attackers who were inside and crushing them against their enraged siege beasts. To compound matters, loops of chain flung over the top of the heavy, deadly cage, and fastened to the other side . . . and began to constrict the entire ugly package. The siege beasts weren’t dead, yet, but they struggled and bellowed in anger and fear, crushing the goblins around them against the cage in their fury.

  Terleman and Wenek had built a worm trap.

  “Do you feel better, now?” Mavone chided his fellow.

  “Ishi’s tits!” Sandy said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Who came up with that?”

  “Wenek did, but I did the enchantment, after the Wood Dwarves built them,” Terleman explained. “We’ve been talking about that sort of thing for a while. This seemed like a good place to try it.”

  “It worked!” I praised.

  “It could have worked better,” Terleman frowned. “I was hoping that both flanks would succumb at once, for a double surprise. Now the attackers of the southern redoubt will be warned of what will happen when they take the fort.”

  “Is that going to affect your plan?” I asked.

  “I’ll adapt,” the big warmage shrugged. “I have contingencies.”

  As Terleman predicted, the southern siege worms were more hesitant, after the northern trap was sprung. The relentless advance slowed as their handlers realized that they, too, were headed for doom. The southern redoubt, commanded by Rustallo and Taren, remained intact.

  But the road below was filling up more and more by goblins bravely marching over the backs of their dead fellows. There were perhaps two thousand of them, now, packing the elevated road from shoulder to shoulder. The rain of arrows had slowed, letting some of them lower their shields and prepare for the next stage of the assault.