“No,” I said. “I was just trying to remember the last time a scion of an ancient clan surrendered before battle, abandoning his army. And you know what, Lord Ugo? I can’t recall any at all. What made you think I’d want to be the first?”

  “We showed you generosity, and you—”

  “Silence, Nondo!” Ugo snapped, then turning to me again.

  “My apologies, Lord Gedar, if my offer came across as disrespectful. But it was worth trying. Capturing the last of the Crow sounds far better than killing him.”

  “And my apologies to you, Lord Ugo. Unfortunately, I cannot offer you such noble captivity conditions in return. And I certainly cannot extend that offer to your army. I’ve got nothing to feed them, which is a bit of a problem. I do hope your supply wagons have enough rations to help us solve that problem.”

  “With all due respect, Lord Gedar,” Ugo said with a grin, “you have quite a sense of humor. It’s a shame you’re so… uncompromising. I suppose we’ll meet again on the battlefield. Though from the looks of it, the battle won’t be very long.”

  “You’re right about that,” I said, turning my horse. “You’ll be surprised how short it will be.”

  Chapter 7

  Dust

  The southerners weren’t in any kind of rush. They took their time forming ranks without a hint of caution. Indeed, why would they worry? I had no doubt their spies had already done a headcount back in the capital and figured out who could fight and who couldn’t. They had no reason to expect an ambush or a sudden barrage of deadly projectiles from anywhere. The area where their vanguard was forming up was well out of range of our one and only catapult. I was sure they knew all there was to know about that lone machine of ours.

  The enemy’s recon birds had been circling above us since dawn, not letting us out of sight for a moment. We hadn’t even bothered releasing ours today because the southerners fielded some vicious hawks that would easily tear apart anything we could send up. They did know to spare their own spy birds though.

  Our troops weren’t blind. They understood the situation. And yet, surprisingly, even the hastily assembled Ballonean units were holding formation. Wearily watching the enemy’s advance, they still showed no signs of breaking yet. I knew that calm could turn into chaos at any second, but even then our raw recruits were already showing more resolve than anyone could expect of them.

  The valley’s flat floor made it difficult to gauge the depth of the advancing formation, but I knew it stretched much further back than ours. Ditto for troop quality. Their light cavalry was already getting antsy at the flanks, not even trying to hide it. Some riders were making their way up the slopes, following some goat trails I could not see. Engineers seemed to be working hard to reinforce or widen those. The enemy was busily sealing off all escape routes, getting ready to chase down anyone who tried to flee. They were preparing for victory right in front of us, without bothering to hide it. They were absolutely sure of themselves.

  Oddly enough, T’Khat commanders positioned their heavy cavalry behind the infantry, which, at first glance, made little sense. The heavily armored mounted troops were designed for smashing through enemy lines at the opening stages of the battle—so long as they faced no heavy infantry. We definitely had none of that. Ours was a makeshift army at best, and the southerners knew it. So why were they holding their heavy riders back?

  The only reason I could think of was that they didn’t plan on engaging us in any kind of a fair melee. They wanted to minimize their losses. Their heavy infantry would approach behind a wall of shields, covering mages and archers. Those would strike from a hundred paces, hidden behind the armored troops, with no fear of retaliation. The weaker among the Balloneans would run immediately. The “stronger” ones wouldn’t last long. I couldn’t even be sure the Corps units wouldn’t break, but even if they held, they'd be trampled upon quickly enough. And once that happened, the enemy lines would part, and the heavy cavalry would roll through the wreckage, mopping up what was left.

  It was a simple plan, and it was fairly obvious. The enemy’s command wasn’t even trying to hide it. With the kind of overwhelming superiority they had, they didn’t need to.

  “Hey! You there! Right Hand! Take this collar off of me already!”

  The voice, nasal and familiar, came from behind the catapult. Qash’Shak Bhayil had left his pet, Slimewad Crapster, chained to the back of the machine, apparently reasoning that the little thief would be safest near me. And if the catapult got destroyed, the wretch would burn with it and thus require no further handling. In fact, Qash’Shak would probably welcome such an eventuality. If the machine proved capable of inflicting any serious damage on them, the victors would unleash their fury on it for sure and thus solve his pet-keeping problem.

  “Come on! Take it off!” Crapster whined. “I wanna fight for you! Like, to the death, you know. Glory to the Right Hand!”

  “I’ll manage without you, thanks” I said. “And I don’t have the key anyway.”

  “Oh, come on, Right Hand! Are you telling me you can’t deal with this lousy lock without a key? Look, I’ll help. Pinky promise! All right, just gimme a thin nail or a pin and look away for a moment. Who’s gonna know?”

  “Take it up with Qash’Shak.”

  “Oh come on. It’s bad luck to leave someone stranded. And you need all the good luck you can get today!”

  “It ain’t over until it’s over,” I muttered, rising slightly in the stirrups.

  The southerners were finally on the move. Their infantry began marching to a steady, thunderous beat of war drums. From the rear, trails of smoke curled upward—rockets being launched into the air. Down south, rockets weren’t just for fireworks, they were used by the military, too. No, no one in Rock had yet figured out how to weaponize them properly, but they were often used for signaling. Such simple projectiles emitted ample exhaust as they rose, and their “tails” of different colors were hard to miss, especially in the dark.

  Up north, we weren’t really much into fireworks, and for a good reason. Personally, I had little interest in rockets as such but always wondered about the fuel and color filler they used. Back in the Pentagon, I even experimented with different chemicals, trying to create different smoke hues, but those had never amounted to anything. Only a few southern nations from among Rava’s enemies in the region made such compounds successfully, mostly through the efforts of special alchemist guilds. And those knew how to keep their secrets. However, smugglers did bring some of their products into Ballonea where the locals would traditionally pay a small fortune to be able to enjoy their fireworks during various celebrations.

  “What are they doing?” puzzled Paxus asked. “Is it a holiday today or something?”

  Scown Drell followed the rockets with his grim eyes for a few moments before speaking up.

  “They’re probably just signaling their cavalry that’s already on our flanks. Telling them to get ready to chase down anyone lucky enough to survive the mages’ attack.”

  Paxus, like everyone else, knew how deeply in the soup we were and hardly needed another reminder.

  “‘Lucky enough to survive’?” he muttered. “Great ORDER, have mercy on us…”

  “I feel for you, brother,” Dors said with mock sympathy. “There’s nothing worse than dying a virgin.”

  “Shove your head up Chaos’ ass,” Paxus snarled back.

  “Maybe now would be a good time for you two to finally stop bickering and start acting like proper fingers of the Emperor’s Right Hand,” I said, knowing full well it was hopeless. “That goes double for you, Dors. Sometimes you are worse than a spoiled child. You are incorrigible. I now deeply regret having agreed to your family’s request.”

  “It’s a shame we have no time left,” Scown Drell sighed, throwing a rather unwholesome glance at Paxus. “Had you mentioned this little predicament of yours sooner, young lord, I might have been able to help. It would’ve been no trouble at all.”

  “Screw you all! And may you be screwed by Chaos too for good measure!” Paxus was almost screaming now.

  He yanked his sword free and spurred his horse, directing it to the left, toward the flank where Arsai’s riders were stationed. Which, knowing Arsai, was very likely going to be the most exciting part of the battlefield.

  “Well, our left flank will be rock solid now,” Dors grinned. “I guess we can stop worrying about it now.”

  “You disappoint me, Dors,” I shook my head. “Even with my oct under you, you can’t exercise due decorum. Lucky for us both, I only let you ride it temporarily.”

  The brute frowned and veered off to the left as well.

  “Hey!” I called after him. “Remember that your first priority is to protect Ears and Mouth.”

  “I remember… Lord Right Hand. I am sorry for being such a jerk.”

  Dors? Apologizing? That sounded like a bad joke. I wasn’t buying it for a moment.

  In the meantime, the enemy’s infantry had finally come within range of our catapult. Watching them getting ever closer, our master artilleryman couldn’t hold it back anymore.

  “Lord Gedar, we can start lobbing twenty-pounders. Shall I order the men to load?”

  “Not yet.”

  The man fell silent, his facial expression turning into a giant question mark. He had no idea why we were not shooting yet. But I didn’t feel like explaining. One question would lead to another, and then another, and then everyone would have their doubts. And get confused. People often asked questions they had no business asking or knowing answers to. Even well-educated nobility would find it difficult to wrap their heads around what I had in mind. Regular soldiers would have no clue whatsoever. Me, I knew what I was doing because I had done it before. I knew what was going to happen. For the time being, no one else needed to.

  Another wave of rockets soared into the sky, and the cadence of enemy drums changed its pitch. The infantry on the flanks halted immediately while the center kept pushing forward. The formation stretched out, reshaping itself into a blunt-tipped wedge. Admiral Yassen, who’d been hanging near me all morning in his role as nominal supreme commander, spent most of that time doing a passable impersonation of a centuries-old taxidermied eagle. Now, suddenly alert, he blinked and muttered,

  “They’ve placed their mages in the center.”

  Well, yes, even a blind man could now tell that much.

  The troops in the center were clearly the best of the enemy’s best—tall, clad in polished armor, sporting crested helmets and vibrantly colored shields with fancy heraldry. Not a single one of them missed a step. They were proud poster boys for T’Khat’s victorious military and a perfect wall to shield the mages behind. The combat sorcerers must have known they were perfectly safe. For them, it was going to be a walk in the park.

  One of our foot soldiers, his nerves clearly shot, turned out to have a freakishly well-developed throwing skill. Before anyone could stop him, he launched a javelin from a distance most archers would hesitate to shoot from. It is hard to miss when you’re aiming at a wall of human bodies, and he didn’t. The southerners had gotten too comfortable, assuming they were still out of range. They carried their shields to the side instead of at the ready, and one of them paid for it. The heavy spear struck him in the sternum. The sharp steel point punched through the breastplate, and the man went down without a peep. His comrades quickly dragged him to the back and out of sight.

  “First blood,” Yassen muttered approvingly. “And it’s not ours. It’s a good omen. A promising sign.”

  I marveled at that. For once, the old bird was actually making sense. Was he finally waking up?

  Kimi, in contrast, was quiet—quieter than I’d ever seen her. Finally, she rode up to me and whispered,

  “Ged… they won’t be able to catch up with our octs. You could still leave.”

  Naturally, she was the one to get the third premium beast, along with Dors and myself. It was the least I could do.

  “Didn’t I tell you what’s going to happen next?” I looked up at her.

  “Oh, I know, but… I suddenly have all these doubts about your plan. There’s just too many of them. They’re… Ged, I’m not scared, but I’ve never seen anything of the kind. Not a battle like this. Look at them! You couldn’t count them all in a day.”

  “Have no fear, girl,” I told her. “It’s actually good that there are so many of them. Good for us. Very bad for them. Don’t you ever doubt me.”

  I wish I could honestly say at that point that I believed in the plan as much as I pretended to. I started having my own doubts the night before, and they were growing quickly. But the die was already cast.

  The valley I thought was ideal for my purposes turned out to be far too wide. That alone was bad news. Add to that the crisp, disciplined look of the enemy’s troops, and the situation suddenly looked even worse. If the surviving attackers didn’t break and flee immediately after the initial shock, we’d end up in a giant brawl—and that was not part of the plan. The whole idea was for our army to stand there for show, just long enough for me to deploy the victory weapon, and then chase after the fleeing enemy to loot their supply train.

  Chaos take me! Even if everything worked out perfectly, I might still find myself with a real battle on my hands. With a bruised and battered enemy that was still ten times stronger than my own pitiful band of stragglers. But we could not turn back now. We were committed. The only thing I could do was stand there until the right moment came and look confident. I had to keep my private doubts to myself and act as if everything was under control. I was the commanding general. This was my first time leading a large force in battle, and it was going to make me or break me. And I knew I was not breaking, even if it cost me my life. If I did live, it would be the first serious step on the long road to restoring the honor and glory of House Crow. I didn’t have the luxury of screwing this up.

  Suddenly, sharp, unfamiliar sounds rose from the enemy ranks. Dark shapes streaked overhead. Our soldiers instinctively raised their shields, but it was no good. One projectile hit our line. Then another. Then a third. Right in front of me, the line broke momentarily—just long enough for me to see a body collapse. What was left of the poor sod’s head was barely a splotch of red. Elsewhere, screams rang out—raw, panicked, full of pain.

  “They’re using ballistae,” Yassen growled. “Firing lead shot. Bastards.”

  Luckily for us, the enemy didn’t bring any heavy engines. T’Khat’s vanguard seemed to be in a hurry, so they traveled light. But even if they had catapults like ours, what would change? They came well-prepared either way.

  “Lord Gedar, we’re now in range to hit their center with fifty-pounders,” the master artilleryman said. “Their mages might start casting before they even get within two-hundred-pounder range.”

  “How long does it take you to load the scatter pattern?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  “You wouldn’t count to thirty,” he answered. “The mechanism’s primed. We just need to drop the scatter cradle into the spoon. You already ordered the balls packed into their sockets, so everything’s ready. But we’ve got to fire at or close to the two-hundred-pounder mark. That’s coming up fast.”

  “Give me a moment,” I said, dismounting.

  The “cradle,” in engineering slang in effect, was a large round block of wood riddled with holes, each of them holding a stone about the size of a bowling ball. At launch, they’d fly together for a few moments, then separate from the block and arc towards their targets, spreading across a roughly elliptical blast area. At the moment, the cradle was ready to go, nine balls nestled inside of it, their smooth round domes peeking out. They just needed a final touch before loading.

  The Dream Visitor was right: rune functionality in this world was absurdly limited, especially if one only had a few of the ancient building blocks to operate with. But I could still pull off a few small tricks. I had tested the one I was about to try back during one of my last Labyrinth runs. I had no catapult at the time, but the machine is just a delivery method that has nothing to do with the payload itself. From a waxed cloth pouch, I took out the first “modifier,” if you wanted to call it that. The lump of dull, gluey gray resin did not stick to wax—hence the need for the waxed pouch—but it adhered to the stone surface just fine. All I had to do was press it tight. There! I could now do the next one.

  The artillerymen silently watched me do the first three before letting his curiosity get the better of him.

  “Lord Right Hand, what is this stuff? Some kind of alchemy?”

  “No, it’s even better. Much better.”

  The final ball was now done, but I still wasn’t finished. It was time for the most important step. The resin itself was just that, fresh pine resin, but inside, each lump had a thin gold plate etched with runes. And one other thing.

  At the moment, I could only put together the simplest of rune constructs, and even then only partially. The ones that lasted the longest—almost a full minute—were of the least use. They were only good for very simple effects. But most things of higher complexity were still way out of my reach.

  The main construct on each plate was the same: a basic trigger chain with Stability of 23 seconds. I had tested and retested this for hundreds of times. I knew I was getting those twenty-three seconds, guaranteed.

  Attached to the first construct were three auxiliary ones: Anchor to Stone, Maximum Power for Life, and Destruction. They didn’t have any delay of their own and triggered instantly after Stability ran out. They would then execute their respective commands and disappear. But up until the trigger time expired, they would hold their potency just fine. That had also been tested already. The only piece I was not so sure about was Maximum Power for Life. I knew it wouldn’t activate prematurely but I had no proof yet of what it actually did. Including it in the mix couldn’t possibly hurt, so that was what I did since I had the rune in my inventory. Now seemed like as good a time as any to run a real-life test.

 

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