Kingmaker (16 page)

"This one has some cannons. That'll help.” Mark yanked the axe out of the bowsprit, glanced at it, then threw it down on the ground. “You okay?"

Ellie shook her head. She didn't feel pain, but she didn't have the energy to move.

"She's covered with blood. Our princess needs a nursemaid is what it is.” The helmsman from the fishing boat clambered onto the beached merchantman and lifted Ellie like she was a cargo he intended to carry home.

"I can walk."

"Not until we see whether that blood is your own or belongs to someone else,” Mark told her.

"Probably theirs,” she murmured. “Your musket volley caught them by surprise."

"We'll see."

She drifted into unconsciousness wondering if maybe she'd been wrong. Because she certainly couldn't get her body to move.

Sergius assembled another war council two days after the fire-raft raid.

The army had unloaded enough food to feed itself for a week or ten days, enough muskets to equip about half of the pikemen, and two swivel cannon.

There had been more supplies on the ships but Sullivan had loaded his remaining ships with cannon and soldiers. Anchoring outside of musket range, they'd bombarded the beached and defenseless ships until they left nothing but kindling and trash.

Eight sizable cannon, dozens of barrels of gunpowder, and who knew how many days worth of food had been lost in the muck before they could be unloaded.

Sergius had a couple of the sergeants pour wine and Ellie picked up on the somber expressions around the makeshift table.

"The situation is still grim.” Sergius didn't waste any time bringing the meeting to order. He took a sip of his wine and then set the heavy mug on the table. “Baronet Arnold, tell the captains and sergeants what your scouts have found."

Arnold stood. He still wore a heavy blanket and his nose hadn't stopped running since he'd washed up on the mud-spit, but he hadn't stopped going, either.

"The princess correctly anticipated the traitor-Duke of Sullivan's plans. My knights report that he has a large army approaching from the south. Mage Lawgrave has used his magic to ascertain their numbers."

Lawgrave didn't stand but he nodded. “That is essentially correct. They may be fifty miles to the south. Although their mages are providing heavy cover, I was able to get an approximate count. They have at least five thousand infantry, maybe more. I detected twenty light cannon, and maybe seven hundred horsemen. I couldn't tell if they were knights or light."

Sergius nodded. Ellie could tell he was trying to be kingly but it was hard. Sullivan had twice as many men as he in Dinan and three times as many a few days march south. Which meant that Sergius's army and his hopes for a future were about to be extinguished like a candle flame caught between two very large hands. “The situation appears desperate but we have been in desperate circumstances before and have found a way to prevail. I am open to suggestions."

Sergius had been using the royal ‘
we
’ less frequently lately and Ellie hoped that was a good sign. If it were, it would be about the only one.

"If we could capture the city, we'd be able to use its walls to protect ourselves from the field army,” Arnold pointed out. “Light cannon would take a while to breach the city walls. And supply would favor us rather than Sullivan."

"If capturing the city were within our power, we would definitely do so,” Sergius said. “But none of us has yet detected a way to overcome strong defenses and an army that outnumbers us better than two to one. Unless you have a new plan, Baronet?"

Arnold glared around table and, when no inspiration hit him, collapsed into his chair. “There must be a way."

"Can we return to Moray?” the King asked. “We've had two victories and captured enough loot to pay the soldiers. We could recoup and recruit additional forces."

Dafed shook his head. “The forest where we were ambushed is filled with Sullivan's bandits again. They'd cut trees across the road, ambush us, and pin us down for long enough to allow his main army to destroy us."

Sergius nodded, then looked around at the sergeants and captains. “It sounds like we must fight. If we move from here, the city's garrison would be able to assemble and come after us. If we stay here, we'll be in a defensible position and the garrison won't be able to fully deploy without coming in range of our muskets. It seems to me that we have no choice but to stay here and make our stand. Perhaps we should spend the days before my uncle's army arrives making our peace with God."

Ellie had no problem with anyone making peace with God and she knew Sergius was right about what would happen if they marched away from Dinan, but waiting for another army to arrive invited certain defeat. Giving all the initiative to their enemy went against everything her father had taught her about the way of the warrior. “That can't be right,” she said.

Sergius shrugged. “We've been lucky so far. Our knights and dragoons defeated a larger number of soldiers in the woods. Our brilliant raftsmen defeated the Rissel fleet. Perhaps we'll be lucky again and defeat Sullivan's army when it arrives."

He didn't convince anyone. If they waited for Sullivan to arrive, it would take a Biblical-scale miracle to save the army and Sergius's kingdom.

"I have a plan,” Mark said.

Before his success with the bayonets, Ellie didn't think anyone would have listened to Mark. Now, though, they fell silent.

"I'm reminded a little of General Lee's Chancellorsville campaign,” Mark went on. “Lee divided his army in the face of superior numbers and defeated his enemy in detail by moving quickly and taking advantage of the lines of interior movement."

"Is interior movement a strange kind of magic?” Lawgrave demanded.

Ellie had to admit that it sounded a little disgusting.

Mark laughed. “Not that kind of movement. In military terms, interior movement refers to the ability to shift force concentrations between divided enemy units."

"As the King has pointed out, if we move away from the city, their garrison will march out and destroy us from behind,” Dafed said. “It doesn't sound to me like we have any movement capability at all."

"We are constrained, but Lee was constrained as well. He left a small detachment of his soldiers to guard his defensive position and marched his army to destroy the main enemy attack.

"But if we leave enough men to defend the camp,” Dafed said, “we won't have enough to attack the enemy. The garrison already outnumbers us. If we remove many, they'll overrun us. Besides, how could we attack an army of thousands?"

"So we need to convince them that they don't have the strength,” Mark said.

"I suspect it's easier to make yourself believe a lie than to make the enemy believe it,” Lawgrave argued. “They know we only have two thousand men. They'll see or scry how many men we send away. My magic might mislead them a bit but not enough to create the ten thousand men we need to defeat Sullivan."

"We need to make them doubt the wisdom of their eyes and the senses of their mages,” Mark argued. “Here's how Lee did it.” He told them the epic tale of Chancellorsville and Lee's great victory.

"This Lee,” Sergius mused. “His forces prevailed and he became King?"

"Not exactly.” Mark looked uncomfortable. “He ended up getting beat. But he won that battle. In the world Ellie and I came from, people still study his tactics."

"I would have felt better if he had become King,” Sergius said. “Still, let's hear how you would use these Lee tricks in our own desperate hour."

Mark outlined his plan and Ellie couldn't help admitting it was clever. But was it too clever? And would it matter? No matter how well Sergius's army marched and how completely it fooled its enemy, the fact remained that either the garrison or Sullivan's field army, alone, had more than enough men to completely destroy everything that Sergius could bring to the battle.

Arnold, of course, took objection with the dishonorable nature of fooling the enemy, but his complaints were growing increasingly perfunctory. Arnold might want to be honorable but even he didn't want to be dead.

It was late afternoon by the time Sergius committed to the plan and allowed Mark to lay out the order of battle. Then the army packed.

The sun was near the horizon when they marched out. They left behind only a thin screen of pikemen and a couple of dozen musketeers to defend their camp and most of their supplies.

The two hundred men they left might be able to hold their camp against an aggressive troop of Girl Scouts, but they wouldn't have a chance in the world against a well-armed garrison of several-thousand professional soldiers.

From the curses they called out to the departing troops, they knew they were the sacrifices and didn't like it.

Dinan buzzed into activity before Sergius's army had even cleared the camp. Mark's plan depended, though, on saner heads prevailing—that Sullivan's wouldn't allow the garrison force to sally until the next morning. Surely they'd want Sergius's army to be well away, unable to turn around and reinforce the small guard. And night attacks too often backfire. Mark's plan depended on Sullivan doing the logical thing.

The army wasn't happy. They were leaving a good chunk of the supplies they'd captured, marching to meet a group that outnumbered them by three to one, and leaving an enemy behind them that could chow down on the few men they left and come after them almost without slowing down.

Still, the sergeants were at their loudest and most forceful and they managed to get a bit of cheering from soldiers threatened with dismemberment if they didn't shake a leg and look happy.

The army marched on for about two hours after sunset, and then most of them turned around and marched back.

They got some more heartfelt cheers from the turn. Their plan was pretty obvious to the soldiers. Sullivan's garrison would march out expecting to find only the remnants of the army and would, instead, hit the entire force. With luck, they'd be surprised. With luck and a few miracles, they might be defeated. After all, surprise or not, they still outnumbered Sergius's troops by more than two to one.

The sergeants made sure the cheers died quickly and then enforced silence. About twenty of the soldiers who couldn't take a warning and shut up were clouted on the head and left behind.

Ellie wasn't as happy about the situation as most of the soldiers. Robert E. Lee notwithstanding, Mark's plan essentially invited their enemy to attack. It might be the only way they could survive but that didn't make it any less dangerous.

A few minutes after the army's about-face, Lawgrave nodded to her. They were out of sight of Sullivan's watching eyes, but his mage's scrying could reach much further. The plan would fail if the mages guessed what they'd done.

She dismounted her horse, tied it to the wagon that Lawgrave traveled in, and then clambered in with him. He'd set a couple of boards in front of him and already had his stones arranged and in play but there was room for hers as well.

She shook the stones from her mother's velvet bag while Lawgrave set a roughly drawn map in front of her.

"Set the first marker here.” Lawgrave pointed to a spot on the map.

Ellie nodded, established her wards and focus, and then slowly inched the bit of military fabric onto the spot Lawgrave indicated. The wool scrap smoldered, then turned to ashes.

Despite the chill of the night, she was sweating by the time she'd placed the first token. Lawgrave had first taught her illusion that afternoon and she wasn't very good at it. But Lawgrave was busy creating an entire bubble of protection over a pretend army. It was her job to make it look like just a bit of leakage was taking place—that the occasional soldier had strayed from the cloaked column and allowed the Dinan mages to pick him up. Ellie's tokens were bits of fabric, buttons, or broken equipment that had picked up some essence of a particular soldier through contagion. Each had been broken in half. Arnold's knights rode ahead, dropping their half the token near the road toward Sullivan's field army. Ellie's magic imbued the token with the appearance of the person. Contagion, again, passed that appearance to the second half the token wherever Arnold and his gang left them. Similarity brought the map and the actual territory into confluence. It was clever use of magical logic, but it was exhausting.

"Now here."

She recast the wards, the focus, and slowly eased another scrap of fabric into place. With a great deal of luck, a mage in Dinan would see what they wanted him to see—a warded soldier continuing the march they'd started that afternoon.

Arnold had been brought up with the certainty that heavy cavalry was the soul of the battle. He'd protested against being sent away from Mark's trap. But when Sergius had finally agreed to the plan, Arnold insisted on doing everything he could to make the feint convincing. So he and the rest of the knights, once more stripped of their armor and heavy weapons, had continued down the road, magically representing their entire army as they strewed bits of fabric, buttons, and other military paraphernalia along the road.

Ellie lost count of the number of tokens she placed. Each one required a full layout of a pattern, full concentration, and an exhausting snapping of the final object onto the map.

"Time to camp,” Lawgrave grunted. His voice was a bare croak. Ellie didn't think it was just the pale light cast by the stars that did it. He really had turned a shade of gray.

"Right.” She had prepared for this but wondered if she still had the strength. Dozens of bits of tent canvas would represent the mythical camp where their mythical army rested. Charcoal stood for the fires. More fabric and buttons stood for the camping soldiers and their sentries.

Every muscle in Ellie's body protested as she leaned into the pattern, using her entire body weight to press the last bit of canvas down.

She sagged with relief as it snapped into place, then charred and vanished. For a moment, the vision she'd created washed back on her.

It was impressive. The non-existent camp consisted of many dozens of tents. It even seemed that she could see the soldiers moving around, caring for their horses, enjoying a bite of food around the fires. The scents of fire, meat, and pine trees filled the air.