“And, ah, we’re all probably going to see it again in about half an hour.”
ENCLOSURE: Invoice for sundry items lost or disposed of in Elaran service, 13th instant, Mithune, 1186. Submitted to Quartermaster-Captain Guthrun on behalf of the Honorable Company of Red Hats, countersigned Captain-Paramount Millowend, Sorceress. 28th instant, Mithune, 1186
ITEM VALUATION:
Bracelet, thaumaturgical…1150 Gil. 13 p.
Function (confidential)
Spyflask, thaumaturgical…100 Gil. 5 p.
Function (reconnaissance)
Total Petition…1250 Gil. 18 p.
Please remit as per terms of contract.
WATCHDOG— Actually, I picked up your spyflask when you rather thoughtlessly dropped it that afternoon. I did mean to return it to you eventually. These minor trivialities of camp life do elude me sometimes. I hadn’t realized that the company received a hundred gildmarks as a replacement fee. Do you want me to keep the flask, or shall I write myself up a chit for the hundred gildmarks? I am content with either. —R
13th Mithune, 1186
Somewhere near Lake Corlan, North Elara
BUT THEY DIDN’T come. Not then.
Afternoon wound down into evening. Presumably, the Iron Ring thought it too late in the day to commence a general action, and with all of their sorcerous impediments supposedly ground into the mud, one could hardly blame them for a lack of urgency. The war machine stood guard before Montveil’s Wall, and behind it came the creak and groan of artillery teams, the shouts of orders, and the tramp of boots as line regiments moved into their billets for the night. The light of a thousand fires rose from the captured Elaran fieldworks and joined in an ominous glow, giving the overcast the colors of a banked furnace.
In the Elaran camp, we brooded and argued. The council ran long, in quite inverse proportion to the tempers of those involved.
“It’s not that we can’t dig,” General Alune was saying, her patience shaved down to a perceptibly thin patina on her manner. “For the tenth time, it’s the fact that the bloody machine moves! We can work like mad all night, sink a shaft just about the right size to make a grave for the damn thing, and in the morning it might spot the danger and take five steps to either side. So much for our trap.”
“Have you ever seen a pitfall for a dangerous animal?” said Tariel, mangling protocol by speaking up. “It’s customary to cover the entrance with a light screen of camouflage—”
“Yes, yes, I’m well aware,” snapped General Alune. “But once again, that machine is the master of the field and may go where it pleases, attacking from any angle. We have no practical means of forcing it into a trap, even a hidden one.”
“Has the thing truly no weak point, no joint in its armor, no vent or portal on which we can concentrate fire? Or sorcery?” said Vorstal, stroking the beard that hung from his craggy chin like sable-streaked snow. “What about the mechanisms that propel it?”
“I assure you I had the closest look possible,” said Millowend. “It was the only useful thing I managed to do during our last engagement. The device has no real machinery, no engine, no pulleys or pistons. It’s driven by brute sorcery. A wizard in a harness, mimicking the movements they desire the machine to make, a puppeteer driving a vast puppet. You might call it an effigy engine. It’s exhausting work, and I’m sure they have to swap wizards frequently. However, while harnessed, the driver is still inside the armored shell, still protected by the arts of their fellows. It’s as easy to destroy the machine outright as it is to reach them.”
“How many great guns have we managed to recover since yesterday’s debacle?” said General Vorstal.
“Four,” said General Alune. “Four functional six-pounders, crewed by a few survivors, the mildly injured, and a lot of fresh volunteers.”
“That’s nothing to hang our hopes on,” sighed Vorstal, “a fifth of what wasn’t even adequate before!”
“We could try smoke,” said Rumstandel. While listening to the council of war he’d added flourishes to his beard, tiny gray clouds and twirling water-spouts, plus lithe long-necked sea serpents. Life had become very hard for the little ships of the Rumstandel Delta. “Or anything to render the hull uninhabitable. Flaming caustics, bottled vitriol, sulfurous miasma, air spirits of reeking decay—”
“The Iron Ring sorcerers could nullify any of those before they caused harm,” I said. “You and I certainly could.”
Rumstandel shrugged theatrically. Miniature lightning crackled just below his chin.
“Then it must be withdrawal,” said Vorstal, bitterly but decisively. “If we face that thing again, with the rest of the Iron Ring force at its heels, this army will be destroyed. I have to preserve it. Trade territory for time. I want one hundred volunteers to demonstrate at Montveil’s Wall while we start pulling the rest out quietly.” He looked around, meeting the eyes of all his staff in turn. “Officers will surrender their horses to hospital wagon duty, myself included.”
“With respect, sir,” said General Alune, “you know how many Iron Ring sympathizers… that is, when word of all this reaches parliament they’ll have you dismissed. And they’ll be laying white flags at the feet of that damned machine before we can even get the army reformed, let alone reinforced.”
“Certainly I’ll be recalled,” said Vorstal. “Probably arrested, too. I’ll be counting on you to keep our forces intact and use whatever time I can buy you to think of something I couldn’t. You always were the cleverer one, Luthienne.”
“The Iron Ring won’t want easy accommodations,” said Millowend, and I was surprised to notice her using a very subtle spell of persuasion. Her voice rang a little more clearly to the far corners of the command pavilion, her shadow seemed longer and darker, her eyes more alight with compelling fire. “You’ve bled them and stymied them for months. You’ve defied all their plans. Now their demands will be merciless and unconditional. If this army falls back, they will put your people in chains and feed Elara to the fires of their war-furnaces, until you’re nothing but ashes on the trail to their next conquest! Now, if that war machine were destroyed, could you think to meet the rest of the Iron Ring army with the force you still possess?”
“If it were destroyed?” shouted General Vorstal. “IF! If my cock had scales and another ninety feet it’d be a dragon! IF! Millowend, I’m sorry, you and your company have done us extraordinary service, but I have no more time for interruptions. I’ll see to it that your contract is fully paid off and you’re given letters of safe passage, for what they’re worth.”
“I have a fresh notion,” said my mother. “One that will give us a long and sleepless night, if it’s practicable at all, and the thing I need to hear, right now, is whether or not you can meet the Iron Ring army if that machine is subtracted from the ledger.”
“Not with any certainty,” said Vorstal, slowly. “But we still have our second line of works, and it’s the chance I’d take over any other, if only it were as you say.”
“For this we’ll need your engineers,” said Millowend. “Your blacksmiths, your carpenters, and work squads of anyone who can hold a shovel or an axe. And we’ll need those volunteers for Montveil’s Wall to screen us, with their lives if need be.”
“What do you have in mind?” said General Alune.
“A trap, as you said, is wasted unless we can guarantee that the Iron Ring machine moves into it.” Millowend mimicked the lurching steps of the machine with her fingers. “Well, what could we possibly set before it that would absolutely guarantee movement in our desired direction? What challenge could we mount on the field that would compel them to advance their machine and engage us as directly as possible?”