Warrior (The Key to Magic) (14 page)

"How long till all of these are in place?"  Mar asked when Berhl had finished.

"At a guess, with the skyships and the pilots that we have available, at least a fortnight and maybe as much as two."

"I doubt that the Brotherhood will wait that long."

"If they do not," Mhiskva said blandly, "then we will of course have to improvise."

FIFTEEN

17th Year of the Phaelle’n Ascension, 327th Day of Glorious Work

Year One of the New Age of Magic

(Fourthday, Waxing, 3rd Springmoon, 1645 After the Founding of the Empire)

White
Gravel River Valley

Yhmghaegnor sat at the bottom end of a valley nearly a league wide that was shaped like a fat wine bottle, with a narrow outlet for the White Gravel River through the constricting hills at the south end and the escarpment of a highland plateau at the north.   An aerie of white marble arcades, delicate towers, and ancient palaces, the city perched just down slope from the stair-step falls that the river made when it went over the side of the plateau.

In the first century AFE, Legionnaires of the Glorious Empire had cut down all the forests in the valley.   The wheat fields and cattle pastures that had replaced the trees had made the nearly flat floor of the dale into perfect terrain for the charge of heavy cavalry and the Yhmghaegnor Horse Guards had trampled many a would-be conqueror beneath their hooves in the turbulent decades after the collapse of imperial rule.  It had been a century since the much storied and prodigiously armored Horse Guards had sent its archers and lancers against an enemy this near the city, but today the approach of Whorlyr's battalion had brought them spilling in some hurry from out the gates to form a line a thousand horsemen wide across a freshly plowed field directly in the Algaraemyr platform column's path.

The Brotherhood of Phaelle had sent no ultimatum to Yhmghaegnor.  Such a warning would have negated the element of surprise that the speed of the Algaraemyr platforms provided.

Whorlyr, standing up through the observation hatch, called down to the drover, "Encourager N'loe, come to a halt!"

 The platform, designated Battalion One, slowed and eased to a stop at the border of a hayfield.  The forty platforms of the battalion, following in a column of twos on the snaking dirt road, stopped smoothly as well.  Nothing intervened in the nine hundred paces that stretched between Battalion One and the Horse Guards save for two low stone fences along which no saplings had been allowed to sprout, one ramshackle hay barn on the far right, and a shallow, easily fordable stream.  A curve of the White Gravel River anchored the right flank of the Horse Guards but their left hung free.

Whorlyr knew what their tactic would be.  As they had trained to do, the lancers, holding their well-dressed line, would canter forward and slowly build speed into a charge.  Depending upon the shock of the mass of their galloping warhorses to halt his advance, they would curve their flanks inward to wrap around and encircle his much smaller force, and then have the following echelons of mounted archers fire decimating volley after decimating volley into the trap.  That simple method had won their ancestors uncounted victories and preserved Yhmghaegnor, a gleaming city of Imperial architecture, from sack and ruin for three hundred and sixty-three years.

Of course, they had never seen anything like the Algaraemyr platforms and had no conception of the disaster that awaited them.

"Brother Zsii, signal to all droves.  When we move forward once more, shift from column to wedge." 

The archivist cupped his far talking disk and repeated Whorlyr's orders.

The Archdeacon had granted the exclusive use of a matched set of five of the Holy Relics for this operation and the lead vehicles and first subordinate vehicles of each drove had an attached operator.  Thus far, the superior coordination had made the battalion perform with the agility of a dancer.

"Encourager N'loe, when the enemy commences their charge, move toward them at maximum speed."

"As you will it, my chieftain."  N'loe, a small but deceptively strong man, was a K'hilbaeii recently recruited personally by Whorlyr. 

"Fire teams, stand ready.  Check weapons.  Shoot only when you have a clear shot."

As did all the Algaraemyr platforms of the battalion, Battalion One carried eight other Salients, all steady veterans, who waited, seated but alert, on their benches.  Each team of four would fire their enervated bolt throwers out the side loops and in the wedge formation, the adjacent platforms would be close enough to be struck.

Whorlyr took a moment to grip the handle of his own bolt thrower in its leather sheath -- an innovation of his own design that he had brought first to the Archdeacon's attention to insure that he received proper credit -- strapped to his right hip.  The Holy Relic copy had a weak, just detectable warmth at a spot where his two fore fingers lay on the stock, meaning that it was in functioning order.

Because of an unexpected and as yet unexplained high frequency of failure of the copies, it had been necessary to postpone the launch of Whorlyr's sortie north from Mhevyr for two days until a sufficient number of working bolt throwers could be produced.  He had considered starting the expedition without full equipment, but had decided against it because he saw this test of the Algaraemyr platforms as critical to confirming the flexibility of his own command abilities to the Archdeacon and wanted every advantage that magic could provide.

"Message from Battalion Two," Archivist Zsii announced.  "Senior Assault Brother Bh'sh indicates that platform forty has abruptly lost levitation and grounded."

Thus far, the failure rate for platforms operated longer than twelve hours was in the neighborhood of ten percent.  The column had left Mhevyr and traveled sixty-leagues without a vehicle mishap, so this breakdown was not unexpected.

"Send to Battalion Two that the stranded teams should retrieve the defective Algaraemyr Device, abandon the platform and set fire to it.  Platform thirty-nine will fall back to recover them."

"As you say, brother," Zsii acknowledged.

The Horse Guards began to move and Battalion One surged forward off the road, flattening the grass and gradually building up speed.  At the first of the fences, Whorlyr braced himself on the handholds.   Preceptor Szint'sl had included additional bracing at the forward end to allow the platforms to withstand minor collisions and its armor gave it significant mass.  A platform could not smash through a solid fortress wall, but insubstantial objects such as the fences should not impede its advance.  He did, however, expect a shock.

The platform jarred hard and lost speed as it knocked a hole in the fence, a great racket echoing through the interior, but kept its course and accelerated very quickly.  It took the next fence the same and crossed the stream with nary a bobble.  To either side, the other platforms slid into their positions in the formation. 

Whorlyr kept watch as the distance between his battalion and the Horse Guards narrowed, first to three hundred paces, then to two, and finally to a hundred.  At fifty, the lances came down and the stamp of the thousands of hooves on the tilled soil was like thunder.  Finally, he ducked back into the platform, pulling the hatch closed behind him.

When the first horse caromed off the rounded and sloped front end, he yelled, "Open fire!"

In the few seconds it took the Salients to move to their loops, the sounds of the crash of the lancers into the wedge of the platforms was nearly deafening and the tip of at least one lance pierced an unoccupied loop before being snapped into splinters.  The platform began to bounce and shake from the impacts and from riding overtop fallen foes.

Taking careful aim, the Salients began to discharge their bolt throwers.

Whorlyr stuck up one hand to steady himself against a wooden ribs as he walked forward to join Encourager N'loe.  When the shaking settled out, he bent to look through the drover's port and saw that the way was now clear.  The Algaraemyr platforms had punched straight through the enemy line and were now deep behind it.

"Brother Zsii, tell Battalion Two to roll right and enfilade.  Brother N'loe, we will roll left."

In another half hour, the battle was done.

Calling another halt, Whorlyr climbed back up through the observation hatch to find the field covered with carnage and the Horse Guards annihilated.  None of the Yhmghaegnorii remained standing, but there appeared to be a huge number of wounded and thousands of broken and dying horses, many of whom were screaming.

"Brother Zsii, send to Mhevyr the message 'Objective Achieved' and then tell Senior Assault Brother Bh'sh to deploy teams to put down the wounded horses."

With care, the archivist removed the violet long-distance far talking disk from its reliquary, meditated a moment, then repeated the message and received an acknowledgement.  Once the precious device had been returned to its case, he transmitted Whorlyr's order to Battalion Two on the standard disk and then held it to his ear to receive the reply.

"Senior Assault Brother Bh'sh requests instructions concerning enemy wounded," Zsii told Whorlyr.

"Put them down as well.  It would not do for any of the Horse Guards to live to vex the Brotherhood at some later date."

SIXTEEN

143rd Year of the Reign of the City

Fourthday, Waxing, 3rd Springmoon, 1645 After the Founding of the Empire

Shelmton, just outside the municipal walls of Mhajhkaei

Rhavaelei held the vial up to the musty light fighting its way through the single, grime encrusted pane of the window. The fluid within was murky, tinged with a green like bread mold, and sluggish with disuse, just like this tiny alcove hidden in the bowels of the otherwise well-ordered and spotless shop.

"This will ignite his passion?" she demanded of the shop owner.

"Not just your intended's passion, but his utter devotion.  You'll n'er have t' worry about him wandering after th' other women.  He'll cleave to you like a drowning man t' a spar.  Now, mind, you'll have to have him in your bed straightaway.  The effect will fade within a day or so if you don't seal the bargain, if you know what I mean."

It had taken Rhavaelei's agents a good month to find a verifiable witch.  There were hundreds of mountebanks and charlatans in the city, both male and female, who sold useless charms and filters, claimed to be able to ward the evil eye, or produced vague visions of futures, but only Mistress D'lupchois,
Scholar and Purveyor of Natural Medicines,
could be proven through personal testimony to be a true worker of magic.

Somewhat to Rhavaelei's surprise, she had not found Mistress D'lupchois to be stooped, aged, or disfigured, but rather a somewhat tall, not quite plump, and cheerily jovial woman who openly sold products that ranged from draughts to combat loose stools to creams to cure toothache to drops to soothe colicky babies. 

Mistress D'lupchois, whose eyes had revealed to Rhavaelei a significant intellect,  had immediately taken in the expensive gown hidden beneath Rhavaelei's plain greatcloak, obviously determined that her new customer had not come for the sanctioned products displayed on her shelves, and cut right to the point.

"Is it a son or a daughter that you want?"

According to the reports, Mistress D'lupchois' clandestine trade in magical potions, technically still illegal and subject to public revulsion due to their lingering association with dread sorcery, dealt with providing a son where there had only been daughters or vice versa.  But it was one of her other apparently equally potent medicines that Rhavaelei had need of.

"I am not yet married.  I require something that will make a man want me in a way that he cannot resist."

Mistress D'lupchois had tilted her head and stared at Rhavaelei with an amused expression.  "Seems like to me, my lady, that you'd already know how t' do that."

"This man cannot be swayed by a strategic sigh, a glimpse of hidden lace, or a coquettish glance." 

At least not from me,
Rhavaelei had amended to herself.

Mistress D'lupchois had shrugged.  "I let people make their own decisions.  Come with me t' th' back."

Without haggling, Rhavaelei paid the woman's price -- twenty silver, a paltry price to pay for a royal prize -- and strode quickly from the shop, the vial clenched in her white gloved fist.

SEVENTEEN

When the more than half-full Father Moon was fully risen, Mar set aside his book and turned off the lamp to let his eyes adjust to the moonlight coming through the open shutters of the balcony.  It was close to midnight and with the exception of the guards outside in the corridor and those on duty elsewhere, most everyone in the Palace, according to his ethereal sense, was already asleep.

The one exception to this was Mhiskva, easily identified by the particularly aggressive tenor of his Blood Oath link.  As usual, the marine captain was prowling through the labyrinth of the palace, no doubt bearing his great axe and keeping his eye out for Phaelle'n mischief.  The Gaaelfharenii very seldom slept.

While Mar waited for the shadowy room to become more distinct, he massaged the tender ends of his stumps.  They had taken to throbbing continually with occasional enflamed twinges.  His ethereal skill and the rate of regrowth had begun to improve dramatically, but he had not yet discovered a way to mute the associated pain.

He floated up from his chair and out into the open air of the balcony.  Only a few paces across, the balcony was three storeys up and only a dozen armlengths back from the south wall of the palace.  He had chosen the room for the excellent view of the rooftops of the Citadel and would sometimes think of roaming across them while the city slumbered, though he never had.  After another moment, he rose into the night.  Having no desire to sleep, he did not go west toward the moored Number One but rather swept north to swoop high above the central dome.