When I was satisfied that she understood things, I escorted her to the dining chamber and had Ruderal fetch us both a late breakfast. We enjoyed a pleasant morning just eating, smoking, chatting and greeting a few friends and retainers as they came through. People stared, a bit, and our discussion earned a few frowns from some of the veterans we encountered. Traditionally, women are discouraged to be involved in military matters, save as cooks and camp followers. But no one was bold enough to say so in my presence.
But we were left alone, and I found myself enjoying the moment. I detailed Ruderal to escort her back to Spellgarden, afterwards, giving her a deep embrace and a glorious kiss before she departed.
“That was well done,” Sandoval said, as I waved at her sleigh from the battlement overlooking the stable, on the plateau side of Spellgate. He was waiting for me, a sheaf of parchment in hand, no doubt reports I needed to be aware of.
“What?” I asked, confused. “I just had breakfast with my wife.”
“The count was seen dining in a jovial fashion with his beloved countess,” Sandy corrected.
“So?” I asked, self-consciously, as I followed him back inside.
“You were seen by dozens of people,” he explained. “By noon every man in the trenches will hear how you are confident enough in our victory that you invited Countess Alya to Spellgate for breakfast.”
“I didn’t invite her, she just showed up,” I pointed out.
“It doesn’t matter,” Sandy said, shaking his head. “To the men in the trenches and freezing their arses off on the battlements, it’s a far more hopeful sign than hearing that you are anxious and concerned. It’s good for morale,” he insisted.
“Well, if things get too bad, I can always have lunch with her on the balcony in full view of the battlements.”
“I’m hoping the situation doesn’t become that dire. Casualty reports,” he said, waving the parchment. “Good news, they’re still light. But we lost four men on guard duty who froze to death. And we’re getting some frostbite cases. Otherwise, spirits are high, and the men are not yet discouraged and disgusted with the battle. Apparently, the Spellmonger is a liberal tipper,” he added, with a grin.
“Oh, I spread around a little silver, is all,” I demurred. “Bribing them seems like the best way to express my gratitude, at the moment. They’ve really done spectacularly, largely due to your diligence and training.”
“They’re Wilderfolk, mostly,” Sandy dismissed. “They’re already pretty tough. I just taught them how to march.”
The command chamber was once again busy, as each station was reporting in about their status. A stream of messengers appeared, were allowed access to the man by his squire – I had decided he was more squire than apprentice – and Terleman barely listened to them as he continuous read dispatches and issued orders to the field, mind-to-mind.
“What’s the news?” I asked, between reports.
“Not much has changed. I’m waiting to hear from Mavone, who’s speaking with the scouts at the front and getting their reports of the enemy camp. I’m considering another sortie, now that it’s not snowing. Much will depend upon what Gaja Katar decides to do.”
“I don’t see him slinking away,” Sandy predicted. “Not his style at all.”
“If he keeps losing troops like this, he’ll be forced to. Or we’ll slaughter his army,” I pointed out.
“If we’re going to attack, I’ll need to get my lads ready,” Sandy warned. “The more notice we have, the better. I’ve got half of them prepared, anyway,” he bragged.
Sandy and I kept debating the point while Terl continued hearing reports . . . including a lengthy mind-to-mind conversation that settled the matter.
“Mavone reports from the enemy camp,” Terleman began. “Gaja Katar holds a council of his officers to dictate his plans. He’s meeting much resistance. The loss of the artillery and the devastation of the infantry was telling. Supplies are being rationed and – his words – ‘not enough humans were killed and recovered to make up the lack.’ They’re discussing trying to butcher one of the slain siege beasts, but it’s an unpopular solution. Apparently, they taste awful. Several unit commanders are recommending withdrawal, at the insistence of their troops.”
“Has he beheaded anyone yet?” Sandy asked, curious.
“Actually, just two captains who displeased him,” Terleman smiled. “It’s been a very conciliatory meeting. But Mavone tells me that Gaja Katar has indicated that the army will remain in the field and send out raiding parties for forage. He’s still being arrogant and demanding, despite his worsening situation. He blames his subordinates for their inability to destroy a few puny humani.”
“Which means . . .?” Sandoval asked, expectantly.
“Which means I think we’ll let them suffer a while, before we strike,” Terleman decided. “They can play with the constructs, for now. Tell your men to stand down and eat heartily, for their foes have empty bellies,” he ordered Sandy.
“Why not just attack them now and get it over with?” Sandy asked, confused.
“Because a day or two will see them increasingly weakened,” Terleman explained. “That means more desertions, more dying and petty squabbling, and a decrease in their morale. If things get bad enough, we might even get a mutiny out of it. Those factors suggest far fewer casualties for us if we wait a few days to attack them. There is no telling how many of them will slip away, especially once we start raiding their foraging parties.”
“They’re going to have a hard enough time,” Sandy agreed. “We stripped anything of value from the entire vale, before they arrived. And everything else is covered under a foot of snow.”
“They’ll be easy pickings for Sire Tyndal,” agreed Terl. “He’s going to lead the cavalry force to raid the raiders.”
“Only Azar is better suited,” Sandy conceded. “I have to give your apprentice credit: he is proving to be an excellent captain of horse.”
“He didn’t learn that from me,” I promised. “But I originally found Tyndal in a stable. He’s always liked horses. And hitting things. When those things are goblins, it gives him especial enthusiasm.”
“Being back in his home country has given him some solace, now that Rondal is occupied with Duke Anguin’s court . . . and soon a bride,” Sandoval observed. “Tyndal rides to protect the Wilderlands. And his men love him. He’ll ensure those foraging parties don’t bring so much as a bean back to Gaja Katar.”
Terleman actually waited two days before taking any further action. For our men, that meant two days standing around in the cold, huddling around fires or heatstones, drinking their rations of ale and spirits between meals, and grumbling about their cold feet.
For the gurvani, it meant an increasingly dire encampment where even foraging for firewood in the nearby wood was a chance to be slain, as Mavone’s rangers had littered the forests along the route with perfectly non-magical, incredibly lethal traps and some of the best concealed snipers in the world. For the shoeless goblins, their cold feet yielded quickly to frostbite, hypothermia, and other miseries.
But nothing was worse than the hunger, we knew.
As Lilastien had lectured us, gurvani bodies did not store fat the same way humani did. Nor were their stomachs as large as ours. Humans can go up to three weeks without food without starving to death. Gurvani can only go a week, perhaps ten days. And they react poorly to hunger – a vulnerability I’d exploited in the past. If they go more than a few days without food – high protein food – then they start to get desperate. And violent.
Gaja Katar had foolishly attempted to wage war in the winter, without proper stores or depots, and had then ranged far beyond his supply lines. Worse, he had left enemies intact behind him, and we had made foraging all but impossible. Mavone reported that he had no more than a day’s rations left in his camp. With the cold persisting, and occasional showers adding to the thick coating already covering Vanador, conditions would quickly become dire. Terleman aimed to exploit that.
> For once, time was with us, not against us. The longer we waited the bastards out, the worse off they’d be.
Compounding their cold and hunger, Nattia’s birds raided the encampment every couple of hours from dawn to dusk, when the gurvani tried to sleep. Mother Lightning continued hurling missiles at them, too. Though they had camped outside of its established range, Carmella continued to fiddle with the enchantments and managed to increase it enough to do some damage. And Mavone’s Ravens conducted raids all over their perimeter, leaving sentries and entire patrols dead in the snow.
“It almost feels cruel, to treat them so,” Landrik sighed, as we watched from afar with magesight. Terleman had invited me to dine with his senior commanders and select warmagi in Spellgate’s dining chamber, that evening, ostensibly to discuss strategy. As our strategy was to just wait, the council turned into an excuse to drink and talk shop.
“They are goblins, you know,” I pointed out.
“They’re still living creatures,” Landrik frowned. “I can hate them and still be sympathetic to their suffering. One of the contradictions of war, I suppose. I’ve been talking to the Cornivil hermits about such things, recently—”
“The nature-loving mendicants?” I asked, surprised. “That seems an odd sect for you to patronize,” I added, cautiously. I’ve always tried to use discretion, when it comes to discussing religion with friends. For a variety of reasons.
Landrik chuckled. “Oh, they’re not all that bad, when you get to know them. I can’t fault them for their devotion to their spirituality. After their conclave or whatever it was that you imposed on them this summer, they’ve reformed a bit. Most of the truly unreasonable ones were ‘returned to hermitage,’ as they say. Those who remain are contemplating establishing a legitimate order.”
“You don’t say?” I asked, even more surprised.
“Yes, they’ve hired your lawbrother, Brother Bryte, to write up a charter for your approval. But their preaching on the sanctity of life and the unfortunate necessity of suffering have been . . . thought-provoking.”
“An odd line of pursuit, for a former Censor,” I observed, guardedly.
“I was far more interested in good regulation than I was being a sadistic fanatic,” he reminded me. “Indeed, my spiritual inquiry is largely a response to my time as a Censor. But I dislike suffering, even when it is necessary. Those scrugs might be my enemy, but that doesn’t mean I want them to endure unremitting pain and discomfort. Does that make me a bad warmage?” he asked, suddenly.
“You’re asking me?” I snorted. “I think you are asking the wrong question, as well as the wrong wizard. No, I don’t think your compassion makes you less effective at warmagic. Nor do I think that being a warmage is a violation of the life force, or Nature, or whatever the Cornivil monks call it. But, then, war itself is a bit of a violation of the natural world, according to most sects.
“What I can tell you is that your compassion and empathy ultimately make you a better magelord,” I continued, as we watched the glow of the few pitiful fires the goblins had managed to start in the distance. “If you are that concerned over the suffering of your foe, then you will be far more concerned over the suffering of your own folk.”
“No man in my lands goes hungry,” he assured. “Nor do they lack for fuel or good work.”
“If you are attentive to the suffering within your own domain, then I would say you have fulfilled your spiritual responsibilities in that regard. Sympathy for the suffering gurvani is noble, I suppose, in the abstract. Yet you slew them eagerly enough yesterday.”
“Yet that was a quick and honorable death on the battlefield,” he said, as Terleman joined us. “Not a slow death of starvation and cold.”
“It won’t be that slow,” Terleman said, confidently. “Mavone is on his way up. He has news from the front that might give us some insight. But I don’t anticipate this dragging on much longer. If you desire to end their suffering, my friend, the easiest way to do that is to end this war.”
“You overheard us?” I asked.
“I saw the look on Landrik’s face and figured he was discussing philosophy and religion again. It is among his favorite topics, of late. I don’t fault him for it,” he quickly assured me, glancing at Landrik. “I like my officers to pursue intellectual endeavors outside of war or magic. It gives them depth,” he declared, preparing his pipe. It was an impressive creation of the Malkas Alon, a burl of walnut carved in the shape of mountain lion that lit itself at his command.
“It makes them better magelords, too, as I was just telling Landrik,” I agreed. “I desire the lords of the Magelaw to be as much scholars as warriors. A healthy interest in religion is one way of doing that.”
We continued to discuss religion and philosophy for a while until Mavone joined us. I discovered Landrik had a deep and insightful mind for such things, despite his size and strength. Terleman acknowledged the importance of religion in abstract, but had no real allegiance to any temple or order, deity or cult. Even my acquaintance with a few of the gods was not persuasive to his temperament. He was not against religion, but found no fulfillment there.
Mavone’s arrival caused us to stir ourselves from our increasingly philosophical discussion and go back inside to hear his report, after we’d pressed mulled wine on him against the cold. Landrik gathered the command staff at Terleman’s urging.
“The news is good,” he announced, once we all sat to hear him. Mavone looked exhausted – he had toiled longer and harder than perhaps any of us, save Carmella. But there was an excitement in his eyes that was unmistakable. “Gaja Katar is planning an attack.”
“That’s good news?” asked one of the captains, surprised.
“In this case, yes,” Mavone agreed. “Although their target will not be the gate, alas – they are wary of the Millstone. They plan on going back and conquering Traveler’s Tower, and wintering there, and then take us when the roads clear and Gaja Katar can get his supplies restored.”
“Doesn’t he realize that the roads won’t clear until spring? There’s a foot of snow on the ground and more on the way!” Landrik snorted.
“Those were precisely the arguments his officer corps made. He considered them a sign of insubordination, and took two heads for their temerity. The rest complied under protest. They break camp even now and intend to depart by dusk.”
That made everyone cheer. Gaja Katar’s withdrawal would be seen as a victory, to the defenders of Spellgate. Making their way back to Traveler’s Tower would take days, in the snow. And once they got there, they would face all the original obstacles and defenses they contended with the first time. In the snow.
But Terleman wasn’t satisfied with that.
“If they withdraw now,” he said, pursing his lips thoughtfully as he stared at the map, “how many days until they reach the fords over the Wildwater, beyond Asgot?”
“At least two days,” Mavone supplied. “They can travel lighter, now that they aren’t dragging all of those siege engines around. Conversely, there’s still the snow to contend with,” he offered.
“What if they encountered resistance at the ford?” Terleman asked, suddenly.
“What resistance?” I inquired. “You wish Tyndal to lead a sortie against them? Cavalry won’t be able to hold that ford against that many infantry.”
“I had something more robust in mind, actually,” Terleman murmured, a certain look in his eye.
I’d come to know that look. It was the expression he wore when the part of his mind that considered strategies was active. It was a bit like watching a fox contemplate how he would invade a henhouse.
“Your thoughts?” I prompted.
“Gaja Katar just marched through that village not a week ago and saw little resistance. Thus, he expects no resistance when he returns through the passage, on his way toward our Towers. What if he was mistaken?”
“You propose to defend the town? We’re on the wrong side of his army for that,” Sandy pointed out.
/>
“Not the town, the ford,” Terleman suggested. “There is only one stretch along the Wildwater that allows easy passage across the river. We chose not to defend it robustly, before. We can defend it now and discomfit our foe greatly,” he proposed. “Perhaps defeat him outright, if fortune favors us.”
I shrugged. “Why try to annoy him, if he’s marching away from our lands?”
“He’s marching through our lands,” Terleman corrected. “I recommend that we hold the ford against him and pressure Gaja Katar in a hostile field. Not with mere cavalry,” he added.
“Again, our army is on the wrong side of his army for that,” Sandy reminded, with growing impatience.
“Not all of it,” Terleman countered. “Consider that we can transport a small number of warmagi through the Ways to the spot.”
“A few dozen at most,” Mavone observed.
“True,” Terleman agreed, “but if they are behind stout walls, they can present quite the obstacle.”
“There is no citadel yet in that town,” I sighed.
“We have the Sudden Fortress,” Terleman reminded me. “We can deploy it right at the ford and prohibit their unrestricted passage. They will have to undertake a full-scale assault to overcome it,” he proposed, boldly.
“That doesn’t sound particularly hopeful, for the magi in the fortress,” Mavone pointed out. “Diminished as he is, Gaja Katar still has thousands. Against dozens.”
“We can add strength from the Towers,” Terleman reasoned. “In addition to the cavalry Sire Tyndal leads, there are some ambitious infantry who have followed him into the field. And a significant number of Ravens and Vanador Rangers,” he said, looking at Mavone. “We can put a few hundred in the fortress, and have Tyndal and his horsemen patrol the other side, in case we fail.”
“Again, not a hopeful outlook,” Mavone frowned.
“I disagree,” Terleman said, firmly. “If the right combination of pressures are placed on Gaja Katar, I can foresee his complete defeat,” he predicted.
I considered the situation, the numbers, and the forces involved. I did not see a likely victory, despite his confidence. The idea of a few hundred magi and warriors holding out against the entire army of Gaja Katar was just not likely. My men were good – none better – but I was seeing more of a valiant, bloody sacrifice ahead, not a decisive victory.
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