Stuck In Magic

by Christopher Nuttall

  “We’ll continue the march shortly,” I said. Warlord Aldred was based at Kuat, a castle that was supposed to be impregnable. If the reports were even halfway accurate, and hadn’t grown in the telling too much, I could see why the locals would see it that way. “Have there been any major issues?”

  “Not matter,” Horst said. “There were a handful of men who ate unripe fruit and got sick; a couple more who harassed the locals and got forced to run the gauntlet, but nothing else worth mentioning.”

  I had to smile. Horst wouldn’t have said anything, back when we’d been guardsmen, if his peers had stolen from the shops and stalls. It had been one of the perks of the job. I made a mental note to keep an eye on the situation, just in case he slipped back into old habits. Horst was no fool – and he was being paid very well to uphold the new standards – but he might start to slip.

  It wasn’t easy to get rid of bad habits, not when they’d been allowed to fester for years. I’d known a man who kept swearing mighty oaths to give up the booze, but rarely managed to keep himself from drinking longer than a week or so.

  The thought nagged at me as I toured the lines, spoke briefly to a handful of men I remembered – Napoleon would have been proud of me – and inspected the guns. The army looked more like a mob than anything organised, although it was largely an illusion. Their uniforms were dirty, their faces unshaved … I wasn’t too concerned. A unit could be good or it could look good, but rarely both.

  I’d sooner the former than the latter. My men would stand, unbeaten and unbowed, when a fancy unit would break and run. I glanced at a handful of flasks, gave their wearers a sharp look that told them to be careful, then turned away. As long as drinking didn’t get out of hand, I’d turn a blind eye.

  And if it did, the drinker and whoever had supplied the drink would wish they’d never been born.

  It was growing darker when the messenger found me. “Sir, you’re wanted in the command tent!”

  “I’m coming,” I said. Command conferences had been a great deal less acrimonious since Harbin had fallen. “I’ll be there in a moment.”

  A large horse, wearing the most elaborate caparison I’d seen since we’d marched out of the city, stood outside the tent. I frowned as I studied the heraldry.

  I was no expect – the local aristocrats had a dizzying series of sigils and coats of arms – but the presence of drawn swords was clear proof the messenger represented a warlord. Warlord Aldred? I couldn’t imagine any of the others sending a message to the army, not when they’d find it easier to send the messenger directly to the city itself. If, of course, they knew what was happening. It was unlikely they realised how far and how fast we’d advanced, although it was impossible to be sure. They could be using chat parchments too.

  I pushed the flap aside and stepped into the tent. Rupert sat in his chair, facing a young man – he was barely entering his teens – wearing a fancy outfit that had clearly been designed for a much older man. The unkind part of my mind whispered he looked like a purple and gold grape, before hinting the young man had been sent because his master feared he’d be executed the moment he rode into the camp. It was hard to believe the messenger was someone important. He wasn’t even old enough to shave!

  Which might be meaningless here, I thought. He speaks with his master’s voice.

  The messenger’s eyes flickered over me, then turned back to Rupert. “My Lord?”

  Rupert kept his voice mild. “You have a message?”

  “Yes, My Lord.” The messenger sounded as if his voice hadn’t broken yet. “My master wishes to inform you that His Majesty has commanded a formal truce, between the forces of Damansara and himself, and that his daughter has been dispatched to meditate a permanent treaty of peace. He proposes that your forces hold your positions until a settlement has been agreed.”

  I snorted. “Oh. He does, does he?”

  The messenger looked, just for a second, as if I’d committed some hideously indecent act in public. “Yes, My Lord.” He addressed his words to Rupert, not to me. “His Majesty commands it and we must obey.”

  He held out a scroll. Rupert took it, then nodded. “The guard will escort you to somewhere you can wait,” he said, as he unfurled the scroll. It was written in Old Script, not a single English letter to be seen. “You’ll have our answer shortly.”

  I waited until the messenger had left, then frowned. “What does the letter say?”

  “The same thing, except more floridly,” Rupert said. “King Jacob of Johor has declared a formal truce, ordering both sides to hold their positions and wait for his daughter to arrive so she can handle the negotiations. And it would be treasonous for us to refuse.”

  “Shit.” I forced myself to think. “Do we know the letter really came from the king?”

  “It has the royal seal.” Rupert held it up for me to see. “The magic woven into the seal makes it impossible to duplicate, let alone forge.”

  I wasn’t so sure, but there was no time to worry about it now. I’d wondered what the warlord would do, now we were deep within his lands. It shouldn’t have surprised me that he’d gone running to the king. Bullies always ran, if you hit them hard enough. I had to admit it was a neat solution. Twist the king’s arm to force him to order us to stop, then draw out the negotiations long enough to rebuild his army or simply cut our supply lines and starve us out. It would work too. The lands we held couldn’t feed the army, not for very long. We might lose the war without fighting another shot.

  “They sent the message directly to you, not to Damansara,” I said. I was fairly sure that was true. If the city had gotten the message, they’d have relayed it to Fallon or one of her peers. “That’s … interesting.”

  Rupert studied the scroll. “They’ll have sent a copy to the city,” he said.

  “It’ll just take longer for their messenger to reach the walls.”

  I nodded, slowly. Messengers were meant to be inviolate, but – right now – no one was doing more than making a pretence of following the rules. I could see a messenger, galloping down the road, being waylaid and killed by a gang of runaway serfs, or perhaps even one of my patrols if they mistook the messenger for a spy. And yet … my thoughts churned. The warlord was clearly trying to buy time. It couldn’t be allowed.

  “We have to press on,” I said. “There’s no choice.”

  Rupert gaped at me. “Defy a direct order from the king?”

  I snorted. “And how much power does the king actually have?”

  He said nothing. I didn’t blame him. It was never easy to admit the emperor had no clothes, even when it was blindingly obvious. The king didn’t have the power to compel his nobles to do a damn thing, not when they didn’t want to do it. As long as the warlords remained united in their quest to keep the monarchy weak, that was never going to change. Damansara couldn’t rely on the king to do anything to help them, not when the warlords had the king under control. If we stayed where we were, or retreated back to safer territory, we were effectively conceding defeat.

  “This is just a ruse to buy time,” I explained. “He’ll force us to expend our food, then retreat in a hurry or start taking food from the locals. Either way, he wins.”

  Rupert met my eyes. “And when the city fathers order me to bend the knee to the king?”

  I grinned. “The message can’t reach the city for at least another two days, right? They’ll need that long just to get the message, longer still to decide if they want to accept the king’s orders. We can use that time to press the offensive ourselves. We’ll arrive at his door before he has a chance to do anything, even if he realises we’re coming. And then we’ll crush his castle and win the war in one fell swoop.”

  My smile widened. “And we can even send back a message offering to discuss terms,” I added. “It’ll keep him from realising we’re on the move …”

  Rupert shook his head. “We can’t afford to break the laws of war too openly.”

  I sighed, inwardly. I understood
the importance of keeping the laws of war. At the same time, I also understood the importance of making sure everyone else kept the laws too. I had no qualms about misleading someone who’d tried to mislead us …

  “Then tell him you’ll consult with your superiors,” I said. “They’re not expecting you to make policy for the entire city, are they?”

  “You are.” Rupert smiled, but there was no humour in it. “If this goes wrong

  …”

  “Victory has a thousand fathers,” I told him. I understood his reluctance.

  Rupert and his family had a great deal to lose if everything came crashing down.

  And yet … there was no middle ground, no space between victory or death. The warlords knew, now, how dangerous the cities could become. They’d be quick to garrison the others if they had a chance. “Defeat … you can blame everything on me, if you like.”

  “Believe me, I will.” Rupert shook his head. “And they won’t accept it for a second.”

  He stood. “I’ll tell the messenger that we’ll discuss the terms, then send a messenger of our own back when we’re done,” he said. “And … if you’re right, we’ll be on top of him before it’s too late.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. If we lost, we’d be declared rogue. “We’ll begin the march at dawn.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I didn’t sleep much that night.

  It was hard not to think, as darkness enveloped the camp, that Rupert and I were crossing the Rubicon. We weren’t precisely disobeying orders – it wasn’t as if the city fathers had ordered us to remain where we were, at least until the princess arrived – but I had a feeling they’d take a dim view of us carrying the offensive all the way to Kuat. They had to know the king was effectively powerless, that he’d been forced to issue orders for us to hold in place and wait, yet if they wanted to take a swing at our necks we’d given them all the excuse they could possibly want. I’d told Rupert to blame everything on me, if things went wrong, but the blunt truth was that there’d be more than enough blame to go around. I might have to flee the army when – if – the shit hit the fan.

  I tossed and turned a lot, even though the bedding was surprisingly comfortable compared to some of the places I’d served as a younger man. Doubts assailed my mind. The army was tough, and we were steadily gathering more and more experience, but if we lost the coming battle it would be the end. I knew there were more recruits being trained, including a number of former serfs who wanted to fight for their freedom, yet … losing the army would be bad even if it wasn’t a total disaster. We’d been committed the moment we’d given the warlord a bloody nose. We had to teach him, and his peers, that they could no longer push us around with ease. There would be no peace until they got the message. They had to feel their defeat. They had to know, deep inside, that they’d been smashed flat. If we’d hammered that lesson into Germany in 1918, we might not have gone to war with Germany again in 1941.

  Dawn broke, like a thunderclap. I staggered to my feet, splashed water on my face – it was strange to realise a basin of water was pretty much the height of luxury – and gathered myself before stepping outside. Rupert didn’t look as if he’d slept any better, I noted; I envied the soldiers who were looking disgustingly, and disturbingly, cheerful as they readied themselves for the march. They knew where they were going, I was sure. There wasn’t a single one amongst them who didn’t want to kick the warlord where it hurt. And yet … the lack of grumbling was almost unnatural. It worried me.

  Fallon greeted me as I sent out scouts, her hair hidden behind a scarf. I had no idea who she thought she was fooling. She looked as if she’d dressed as a man without being quite sure how to do it. I guessed she was experimenting a little, now she was well away from her parents. Magical families were apparently more permissive than mundanes, from what I’d been told, but there were limits. I wasn’t remotely surprised.

  “There’s been no message from the city, save for a routine update,” Fallon told me. I’d asked her to keep whatever she heard to herself, at least until Rupert and I got the news first. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”

  I nodded. I’d seriously considered leaving Fallon and her peers behind. Barrow wouldn’t be particularly well defended, once the army marched out, but their magic would keep them safe … or so they’d assured me. It was tempting to deliberately march out of communications range, giving us a degree of plausible deniability if the city ordered us to halt the offensive and hold in place. But it wouldn’t fool anyone. The city fathers had objected to us taking young magicians in the first place. They’d certainly wonder why we’d changed our tune on short notice.

  “You’ll be riding behind me, again,” I said. I pretended not to see her grimace. It would be an uncomfortable ride, even with an experienced rider holding the reins. “I’ll need you to stay in touch with the rear area.”

  Fallon nodded, curtly, as we joined Rupert in the officers mess. The food was very basic – Harbin had bitched up a storm, as if he’d expected us to provide him with roast venison or something else equally rare and expensive – and I didn’t feel like eating, but I forced myself to stuff food down my throat until I was full. Fallon and Rupert were more reluctant to eat, despite my prodding.

  They were going to regret it later, even if they were going to be carrying rations in their pouches. God alone knew when we’d have time to sit down and eat properly again.

  Rupert met my eyes. “Are you sure this is going to work?”

  “Yes,” I said, pretending a confidence I didn’t feel. The warlord’s castle was heavily defended. Under normal conditions, the defenders would have most of the advantages too. They could just batten down the hatches and wait for besiegers to give up and go away. “We can and we will take down the entire castle.”

  I grinned at them, then led the way back outside. The scouts were already reporting back, bringing word of an open road between Barrow and Kuat. I nodded, pretending relief even though I’d hoped we’d encounter the warlord’s army in the field. It would have given us an excellent chance to crush the bastard, without ever having to tackle his walls. I’d read the reports from earlier wars, reports that had made it brutally clear why no winner had ever emerged. The castles were just too strong to take quickly, forcing the attacker to lay siege to them or bleed his army white trying to take them by force. Some castles had never been taken at all. Kuat was one of them.

  The army started to march forward in ragged order, soldiers singing cheerfully as they advanced to the front. I was torn between amusement and horror as I helped Fallon onto the horse, then scrambled up in front of her. Some of the songs would have shocked the moral guardians back home … I rolled my eyes as the horse started to canter forward. There was nothing to be gained by objecting, not now. It would undermine my authority. Besides, too many of the singers might be dead in a day or two.

  I smiled as a handful of horse-drawn cannons rolled down the road, their crews riding carts loaded with gunpowder and shot. Others were pulled by volunteers, serfs who’d been liberated and then recruited to serve as porters. I wasn’t too keen on hiring anyone as human pack mules, but I didn’t really have a choice.

  We were running short of horses and oxen. Besides, it would let us slip more money into the local economy and let them think they were contributing to their own liberation. I’d known people who’d resented being liberated almost as much as they resented the people they’d been liberated from.

  We’re going to have to teach them to think of themselves as individuals, I thought, as the army picked up speed. And to stop thinking of society as a divinely ordered hierarchy.

  The thought festered at the back of my mind as we kept moving, passing through towns and villages that had either been abandoned or liberated by rebellious serfs. I saw hundreds of signs of places that had been hastily abandoned, refugees fleeing into the undergrowth as they saw us coming. I didn’t blame them for trying to hide. They had no reason to believe we were friendly, even if my
agents had managed to get this far north. Hell, they might not even know who we were. It was unlikely their masters had been honest about their defeats.

  Fallon pressed against me as we marched through a shattered village. “How can people live like this?”

  I shrugged. “They don’t have a choice,” I told her. The village was practically drowning in mud and shit. I hoped the villagers had made it out before their village had been raided by a passing army. “Their masters don’t let them keep anything for themselves, so they do as little as possible.”

  And dream of the day they’ll be free, my thoughts added silently, as we marched past a burnt-out manor. A pair of bodies hung from trees, twisting unpleasantly in the wind. They’ll have a lot of grudges to repay, now the day of liberation has finally come.

  We reached a handful of abandoned fields, made camp for the night and continued

  the march the following day. Fallon reported no messages from the city, something that bothered me. I’d considered trying to waylay the messenger, but there’d been no way to do it – as far as I could tell – without making it obvious. Still … I shook my head. There was no hard data, nothing I could use to make my estimates anything better than guesswork. We’d just have to keep going until we reached our target, then began the attack. I just hoped we’d get there in time.

  The warlord made no attempt to do more than slow us down, even as we began the final march to his castle. I hoped that was a good sign, although I wasn’t sure. A smart commander would have had scouts along all the roads, perhaps even spying on our camp from a safe distance. My cavalry had done what they could to keep prying eyes away, but I doubted they’d succeeded completely. Besides, we’d been marching north for two days, disturbing everything in our path. They had to know we were coming.

  “It’s impressive,” Fallon breathed, as the castle came into view. “Is it bigger than Whitehall?”

  I shrugged and turned my attention to studying the defences as the army started to spread out and lay siege to the giant castle. It was huge – the stories hadn’t exaggerated as much as I’d thought – a cluster of stone buildings surrounded by a colossal wall that seemed to merge into the buildings from place to place. The town outside was smaller than I’d expected, placed neatly within the shadow of the castle. A handful of people were fleeing as the army spread out further – I sent orders to have them interrogated, to see what was actually happening before they were sent on their way. It was clear how the warlord had dominated the surrounding countryside for so long. As long as he could fall back on an impregnable castle, his control couldn’t be challenged.