Wedding Hells (Schooled in Magic Book 8) (28 page)

“Lady Emily,” General Pollack said. “It is a pleasure to see you again.”

“Thank you,” Emily said. She couldn’t help wondering what he
really
thought. His son was a child of two worlds, not one. Was he pleased that a king had singled him out or offended that the normal rules of courtship had fallen by the wayside? “I trust that all is well in Beneficence?”

“As well as can be expected,” General Pollack said. If he was displeased, she saw no sign of it. “My eldest has returned to his master; my youngest is preparing for school.”

“We are here to discuss a weightier matter,” King Randor said, before Emily could formulate a response. “Please, be seated.”

Emily nodded, taking one of the chairs at the table. Alassa sat at one end; Paren, Imaiqah’s father, sat beside her, with Jade and Hawker next to
him
. Emily’s eyes went wide as she realized that Paren had brought a musket into the room; she wondered, absently, if the guards had recognized it as a weapon or assumed it was something harmless. Without the gunpowder, of course, it
was
harmless...unless someone wanted to use it as a club. She’d mentioned bayonets to the older man, but the musket in front of him had none.

King Randor walked to the head of the table as Caleb sat next to Emily. “This discussion is to be completely informal,” he said, sitting down. “The issue is too important for an argument over social precedence.”

Says the king
, Emily thought, sardonically. The one person who could dismiss the idea of formality was the unquestioned master of the castle. But then, he was with his daughter, his future son-in-law and
his
father, a Knight of the Allied Lands and Emily herself. Paren was the only person who fitted into the local power structure and
he
was too dependent on the king to pose a creditable threat.
But at least we can talk freely
.

Randor smiled, rather coldly. “There have been a great many changes over the past four years,” he continued, in tones that suggested he was making a speech. “None, however, have proved as interesting as the development of
gunpowder
” - he pronounced the word as if it were something unfamiliar - “and
guns
. The device you see on the table is one of them.”

General Pollack looked doubtful. “
That
thing?”

“Yes,” Randor said, flatly. “It promises to revolutionize the world.”

Caleb elbowed Emily. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Emily muttered back.

Randor nodded. “Paren?”

“Your Majesty,” Paren said. He tapped the weapon in front of him. “The musket fires a lead ball towards its target with stunning force. What it hits, it harms or kills. Short of immediate medical attention, the target may well bleed to death.”

General Pollack frowned. “Battlefield magic?”

“No,” Paren said. “Science. And chemistry.”

Randor looked at Emily. “Perhaps
you
would care to explain?”

Emily hesitated. Randor hadn’t
told
her that he intended to showcase the weapons; hell, she hadn’t had a moment to prepare an explanation. She was surprised that Paren had even consented to bring one to the castle, although Randor probably hadn’t given him a choice...

“The bullet - the lead ball - is propelled forward by a small gunpowder explosion,” she said, shortly. It had been hard enough explaining the concept of cartridges to Paren and his skilled craftsmen in the first place. Gunpowder might be beyond the general’s immediate comprehension. “There is no magic in the formula at all, allowing anyone to carry a musket and fire it at will. Once fired, the ball blasts forward until it hits something, or it runs out of energy and falls to the ground.”

“There are wards against moving objects,” General Pollack said, stiffly.

“Not everyone can use them,” Jade pointed out. He was eying the musket as a man might eye a poisonous snake. “And most propulsion spells can be easily dispelled by a trained magician. This” - he frowned down at the musket - “would require a stronger kind of ward.”

General Pollack looked at Emily. “This...
this...
is one of your innovations?”

“Yes,” Emily said. “It is.”

“I see,” he said. “And what good
is
it?”

Emily took a moment to gather her thoughts. “Right now, training footsoldiers is a time-consuming business,” she said. “It takes years for men to become truly practiced with sword, spear and arrow. However, the muskets cut the training time down sharply. You would be able to deploy a regiment of musketeers far quicker than you could deploy a regiment of swordsmen.”

“It fires tiny balls,” General Pollack said. “What
good
is it?”

“It fires a ball, as you put it, at tremendous speed,” Emily said. “The impact will be much harder than being struck by a rock. Hit a man in the head, and that man will be dead. You could also hit a man at a distance, once the technology gets a little further along; you’d have no problems striking a magician before he realized he was under attack.”

She paused. “Imagine yourself facing a charging line of orcs,” she said. General Pollack
had
faced such a charge. “You line up your musketeers in three rows and prepare for the onslaught. The first row fires, then kneels down to reload while the second row fires; the third row fires while the second row reloads, then the first row fires for the second time while the third row reloads. Your bullets slam into the charge and tear it apart. The orcs will be falling over themselves by the time they reach you, if they ever do.”

“Orcs are tough,” General Pollack pointed out.

“Are they tough enough to stand up to wave after wave of bullets?” Emily asked. “They’d be breaking apart in shock after their first row goes down.”

General Pollack frowned. “And these weapons can be used by anyone?”

“Yes,” Emily said.

“Accuracy is a joke,” Paren commented. “A skilled archer would be a better shot.”

“Ha,” General Pollack said.

“
However
, there would be a colossal weight of fire in the air,” Paren added. “It wouldn’t matter which Orc was the precise target, as long as you hit
something
.”

“It would be like the Battle of Bladed Hill,” Caleb said. “Only far - far - worse for the losers.”

General Pollack gave him a sharp look. “Why?”

“The archers in the battle were the cream of the crop,” Caleb said. “It took
years
for the winners to train them. Now--” he glanced at the musket “--any fool can learn how to shoot.”

Emily nodded. Sergeant Miles had made his class go over the battle reports in detail, forcing them to consider the advantages and disadvantages of both sides. Emily had been unable to avoid comparing the battle to Agincourt, when the French knights had charged against the English and been impaled on a swarm of English arrows. Adding guns to the mix would only make the slaughter worse, but the English wouldn’t have needed to lavish so much care and attention on their archers.

“Training for war is not an easy task,” General Pollack said. “I would venture that it will not be as easy as you suggest.”

He fixed Emily with a gimlet stare. “And I have had too much experience of people telling me, without any experience at all, that
this
idea is the concept that will change warfare completely.”

Emily felt her cheeks heat. Everything she knew came from Earth, where guns
had
changed the face of war. But she couldn’t tell him that, not when it would upset too many other applecarts. And, without that piece of knowledge, General Pollack was quite right to be sceptical of her suggestions. She
knew
that guns would revolutionize warfare, but she had no way to prove it.

Yet
, she thought.

“It is my intention to put together a regiment of musketeers,” King Randor said, calmly. “I will learn, rapidly, if the concept is
truly
workable.”

“By your own admission, accuracy is terrible,” General Pollack said, addressing Paren. “Is that likely to improve?”

“Yes,” Paren said. “We have been working with guns and gunpowder for three years, General. The first guns were more dangerous to us than the enemy. Now, we can be reasonably sure the gun will fire in the correct direction when we pull the trigger.”

“Reasonably sure,” General Pollock repeated.

Emily leaned forward. “What good is a newborn baby?”

General Pollock scowled. “What?”

“A newborn baby is nothing more than a screaming mass of flesh that needs to be fed constantly,” Emily said. “Seven or so months after birth, it is already crawling; eighteen months after birth, it is walking around on tiny feet. It will learn to say its first words, then read and write; sixteen years after birth, it will be a strong adult ready to go to work.”

She pointed at the musket. “
This
is a newborn baby. It isn’t that effective now, General, but give it several years and it will change everything.”

King Randor nodded in agreement. “The necromancers can throw vast numbers of orcs at us,” he said. “They breed faster than humans, they’re stronger than humans and the necromancers don’t give a damn about how many die to achieve their aims. The necromancers can just keep piling dead bodies up in front of a wall until their comrades scramble over the bodies and into the city. These weapons may make the difference between survival and our slow defeat.”

And that is the perfect argument to appeal to him
, Emily thought.
Did you - or Paren - choose it deliberately?

She frowned, inwardly. The muskets and cannons would make a difference in the endless war, but King Randor might intend to turn them on rebellious noblemen. Holding a castle against cannons, to say nothing of explosive shells, would be damned near impossible; indeed, the development of guns in the Middle Ages had eventually allowed kings and emperors to bring over-mighty subjects to heel. If Randor decided to turn against his aristocrats, the ones who would resist any change, he’d be in a good place to win a civil war outright.

But it also puts a great deal of power into the hands of commoners
, Emily added, in the privacy of her own head. The aristocracy simply had more time to practice with weapons than commoners, as well as raise, train and supply sword-armed soldiers.
What happens when everyone has access to firearms
?

“I will be very interested to see how they develop,” General Pollack said. “I would, however, be reluctant to gamble everything on them.”

“There
are
reports of trouble on the borders,” Jade offered. “The necromancers may be plotting something.”

Emily shivered as a nasty thought struck her. Someone with magic - powerful magic - was helping the rebels. A necromancer? They’d undermined hostile governments before, yet...Shadye had been too crazy to come up with such a plan and stick to it long enough for it to work. His planning had always been a mixture of improvisation and a desperate certainty that whatever had happened had been
exactly
what he wanted to happen, to the point of believing that a defeat had been part of his plan all along. A necromancer could be meddling in Zangaria...

But Shadye didn’t have the finesse to cast those wards
, she told herself, firmly.
He’d need someone else, someone sane, to help him. But anyone sane enough to cast the wards would understand the dangers of working with a necromancer.

She looked up at the map, thoughtfully. The Blighted Lands were a long way away, with a number of other kingdoms between them and Zangaria. It seemed unlikely the necromancers could reach so far into the Allied Lands without being noticed.
She
certainly hadn’t seen any of them teleport or even use portals. It was far more likely that the backers were working for one of the neighboring kingdoms. A long period of social unrest in Zangaria would put the brakes on any expansionist policy Randor might have been contemplating.

Or someone in Beneficence could be behind it
, she added.
A strong king in Zangaria is a threat to their independence
...

“It would do me great honor if you would assist,” Randor said, drawing her attention back to the table. “And your son has already been invited to take part in the wedding ceremony.”

General Pollack looked irked, just for a second. “I will be honored to observe, but my oath to the Allied Lands takes precedence,” he warned. Emily realized she’d missed some of the conversation. “If these weapons can be used against the necromancers, it is my duty to ensure that the rest of the world is aware of the possibilities.”

“That is understood,” Randor said.

Emily wished - savagely - that Lady Barb had been invited too.
She
could have picked apart just what was happening; Randor seemed to have given away a priceless advantage, something he wouldn’t have done unless he expected something of equal or greater value in return. A defense against the necromancers...or what? Somehow, Emily doubted that the prospect of her marrying Caleb was worth such a sacrifice.

Randor is playing games
, she told herself.
And you have to work out just what he’s doing and why
.

“Alassa, why don’t you take Emily back to the dance hall?” Randor asked. “Her young man will meet her later.”

Emily exchanged glances with Caleb - meeting
Void
hadn’t been
this
awkward - and slowly rose to her feet. Alassa’s face was carefully blank, just blank enough to let Emily know that she was puzzled herself and trying desperately not to show it. She followed her friend out a door, through a pair of complex wards that deflected attention away from the entrance and into a smaller room. It was completely deserted.

“Father is playing games,” Alassa said, once she’d cast a privacy ward of her own. “And I don’t understand
why
.”

Emily frowned. “What does he want with Caleb?”