The Office of Shadow (62 page)

The battle plans for this invasion had been drawn up a week earlier and
had been distributed to all of his generals, as well as to the Foreign Ministry
and the office of the secretary of states. A copy had also been sent, encrypted,
to Jem-Aleth, the Unseelie Ambassador, signed by Baron Glennet. That plan
was probably even now circulating among Mab's commanders on the opposite side of the border. At least, he hoped it was.

The plan was a fiction, of course. They would not be attacking from
Selafae. They would be going over the Border Wall. The soldiers weren't
marching; they were taking their positions. At his signal, they would turn to
the north and march directly to Elenth.

Six months ago, Mauritane and a pair of trusted battle mages had traveled to this very spot, miles from any village or city on either side of the
border, carrying a unique spellbomb. No Einswrath this; it was specifically
crafted to disrupt the bindings that kept the Border Wall impassable. It had
performed its task perfectly, flattening down the barrier of Motion, allowing
Mauritane and his mages to hop easily over the border. Two days ago, under
cover of night, Mauritane's mages had strung identical bombs along a threemile section of the wall.

Mauritane looked at the sun. It was time. He called his head support
mage, Captain Eland, to his side.

"It's time," he said.

Eland nodded and gathered up his mages. Across the border, a company
of Unseelie cavalry stood, watching but doing nothing. The Seelie men
hurled good-natured insults at them as they went, though the cavalrymen
certainly couldn't hear them from this distance. They were in for quite a surprise.

One of Eland's men raised his hand, and a flare of witchlight shot up,
flashing bright red in the sky. It made a small pop as it exploded. Across the
border, one of the Unseelie cavalry pointed to it, talking to the man next to
him.

A series of closely timed explosions ripped across the Border Wall. Even
at a hundred yards, they were loud enough to hurt Mauritane's ears.

Mauritane's troops required no other signal, but he gave one anyway.

"The Seelie Heart!" he called, his voice magically amplified.

"The Seelie Heart!" answered the voices of a thousand men. The battle
cry echoed up and down the lines.

The army turned as one and began marching north toward the curtain of
black smoke that was now rising where the Border Wall had been. About a
mile farther north, they would meet a very unprepared column of Unseelie
troops, and the battle would begin in earnest.

The Unseelie cavalry turned and fled, but they were too late. Percussives
fired from the lead battle mages blew them to bits within seconds.

Thus began the Third Unseelie War.

It took a few hours, but to their credit, the Unseelie realized quickly what
had happened and altered their own plans in response. There were a number
of small skirmishes-during which Unseelie forces, caught utterly off guard,
were slaughtered handily-but those were few.

The first battle was just south of the Unseelie village of Claret. Mab's
forces were waiting for them in the village and struck as Mauritane was
advancing up the hill toward it.

The first spells began to clash overhead as the battle mages unleashed
their opening salvos. Streamers of smoke intertwined in a riot of color, percussives and incendiaries canceling each other out in the sky. Those percussives that struck among Mauritane's troops, however, were devastating in
their capacity.

Still no Einswrath.

The cavalry and infantry met on the outskirts of the village. Bowmen
attempted to clear a path through the Unseelie line, but the force was too
large. Mounted soldiers clashed, their swords glinting in the sunlight. Men
on the ground fought with sword and pike. There were screams, shouted
orders, the thunder of hooves, the endless scrape of metal on metal. And
Mauritane was at the center of it all, urging his commanders onward, calling
out his own orders.

He, of course, could not fight. He wore a blade, the one he'd taken from
the prison at Crete Sulace, but hadn't swung it in months. Command was
fine, but watching his men advance, he dearly wished to be in the middle of
it, a cavalry officer on a clever touched mount, leading the charge.

They took Claret after two hours, but there were casualties. Scouts
reported Unseelie reinforcements approaching by the hundreds.

Mauritane's strategy depended on the taking of Elenth on the fourth day
of the campaign. If the city could be taken and supply lines fortified, they might stand a chance of repelling the direct onslaught of the main Unseelie
force, which was even now coming at a forced march from the border crossing
at Selafae, where a half-regiment of Mauritane's Fifth Battalion waited, both
as a lure and a hedge, in case Mab decided to try for Sylvan anyway.

Soon there would be Mab's battle fliers, hurling balls of flame and arrows
down from above. There would be a flag city bearing down on them, its
civilian population offloaded to other cities. The ground war was only the
beginning.

The problem with the flying cities, the reason Mab was cautious with
them, was that it was not impossible to bring them down, as Mauritane and
his friends had proven prior to the Battle of Sylvan. He'd done it by infiltrating the city and slaughtering the strange hybrid creatures that manned
the Chambers of Elements and Motion, which provided the force that kept
the cities aloft. But Mauritane had developed missiles of Elements that could
be fired at the underbellies of these cities. He knew the location of the Chambers of Elements and Motion in most of the flag cities now, thanks to Paet
and the Shadows. If a city appeared, he might be able to down it with a single
shot.

They pushed forward. They fought. Men and women fell. Too many of
them. At this rate it wasn't certain they would even reach Elenth, let alone
take it.

The second day they mostly marched, meeting only a few lost companies
of Unseelie who'd gotten separated from their battalions in the confusion.
These were taken down with relative ease, but even in these skirmishes Mauritane lost soldiers.

There was another battle at Downvalley, a day's march south of Elenth.
Again Mauritane took the day, but at a substantial cost. Reports from his
generals across the front reported similar losses.

Had he stretched his force too wide? Had he underestimated the flexibility of the Unseelie?

And there was still no word from Silverdun. According to Paet's latest
report, they'd vanished in a flash of Folding three days earlier and hadn't been
heard from since. No one wanted to say it, but it seemed certain that they
wouldn't be coming back. If Hy Pezho had new Einswrath weapons, there would be no stopping him. And nothing Mauritane was doing would matter
at all.

On the fourth day they reached Elenth, only to find it guarded by the
entire Eagle Regiment of the Unseelie Army, with five battalions. And three
battalions of Annwni.

Mauritane had only six battalions, and had already taken heavy casualties.

This was going to be difficult. This was going to be a serious battle. Time
to invoke a bit of Fae propriety.

Mauritane rode out under a flag of parley and met with the Unseelie
commanding general. They bowed deeply and made all the appropriate
noises to one another, and agreed that they would join battle at dawn. All
very civilized.

When Mauritane rode back, his troops were already setting up camp on the
southern slope of the valley. Mauritane's aide, Colonel Nyet, found him and
took him aside, scowling.

"Someone to see you," said Nyet, pointing.

Baron Glennet had arrived with a delegation from Corpus, including
Lord Everess. But Glennet was the ranking nobleman here, and it was clearly
his show. This was a time-honored ritual on the eve of a great battle; a
ranking member of the nobility could secure the right from the queen to lead
the charge. It was a pure formality, of course. Glennet would review the
troops, make a grandiose speech, and offer homilies and platitudes. The
troops would love it, and Glennet would have his ego boosted. On the
morning of the actual battle, he would graciously yield command of the army
back to Mauritane, and then go home to his cozy bed and be saluted by the
court for his bravery. In the official history, Baron Glennet would be reported
as the commander of the assault on Elenth, not Mauritane. This was nothing
new, and most commanders accepted it as a matter of course.

Mauritane greeted Glennet and Everess with full propriety. His propriety
with Glennet was exactly as sincere as it had been with the Unseelie general
minutes earlier. The difference was that Mauritane had actually respected the general. Their meeting was done in full view of Glennet's staff and Mauritane's officers. As a commoner and a military man, Mauritane was required to
take the lower bow, which probably pleased Glennet no end.

Mauritane knelt and presented Glennet with his sword. "I offer you command of my troops, and defer to Your Lordship in all things."

Glennet raised the blade high above his head and the men cheered.

Once the formal greetings were concluded, Mauritane, Everess, and
Glennet spoke privately in front of Mauritane's tent.

"I must say we were all surprised by your sudden change of stratagem,"
said Glennet.

"That was the idea," said Mauritane.

"You could have informed as what you were doing," said Everess, clearly
annoyed.

"The best way to keep a secret is not to tell anyone," said Mauritane.
"That's what my mother taught me."

"Just so, just so," said Everess. "But still."

After mess, Glennet made his inspirational speech to the troops. The
parts of it Mauritane paid attention to were genuinely stirring, and it did the
frightened troops some good. These were Seelie soldiers, brave and true, but
it had been a difficult campaign so far.

Once the speech was over, Mauritane shook Glennet's hand and thanked
him profusely and sincerely. Before he could get back to work, Lord Everess
corralled him. Everess was holding a valise.

"I've got a few things to show you, General," said Everess, patting the
valise.

"I don't need any military advice," said Mauritane.

"Oh, these aren't military documents. And I think you'll be very interested in the story that goes along with them."

Dawn came, and Mauritane was ready. He'd slept briefly during the evening, and
had been up making preparations since midnight. He'd done his best. He was
probably riding to his death this morning, but there was no turning back now. If he retreated, the Unseelie forces to the southwest would simply divert from their
present course and cut them off at the rear. They'd be caught between two massive bodies of Unseelie troops. The only way to survive was to take Elenth.

When the sun appeared over the plains to the east, Mauritane stood
mounted before his troops, with Glennet on a great white stallion on one
side, and Everess on a slightly less impressive mount on the other. Glennet
still held Mauritane's sword, ready to yield it back to him.