“Our scouts are back,” I said, already moving toward the Great Hall. “Sorry, Suri, but this takes precedence over training. We need to get Rin, Kitti, Istvan, Commander Taethawn, Captain Vilmos, and Wing Commander Vasoly in the Dining Room for the briefing.”
“Yeah! You heard him!” Karalti perked up. “I have to go! This is important!”
“Not you.” I stuck my tongue out at her. “You and Vash can keep going.”
Karalti gritted her teeth. “I INSIST.”
“You heard the man, my lady. Your training takes precedence over your attendance at a briefing, as it does for me. We are Baru first and foremost.” He patted Karalti on the arm—the weighted one—and she groaned.
[Karalti has gained +1 Will!]
“Urrgh, FINE.” She snorted furiously, straining against the weight. “I’ll show you!”
“Good! Show me, don’t tell me.” Vash nodded.
The six scouts slowed to a limping jog as they closed in on us. One of the quazi riders bent down, puffing from exertion.
“My lord. My lady. Corporal Bognar, reporting from Bas.” The woman in the lead saluted smartly, despite her visible exhaustion. “We have news of Solonovka and the movements of Bas’s militia.”
“Great. Head to the dining room and take a seat. You’ll have a fifteen minute break before everyone arrives.” I opened up the KMS and sent a dispatch to Istvan. “Get some food and water into you. We’ll meet you there to receive the report.”
“Yes, my lord.” All six of them drew their heels together and saluted, then moved off toward the Great Hall.
Suri sighed, and looked down at Kitti. “You ready?”
“Yes. Can they come?” Kitti replied, nodding toward the pair of men who trailed her everywhere, Letho and Gruna. They were both big, hulking brutes, with the shaven heads, mustaches, and forelocks of Vlachian warriors. I was pretty sure they were twins. Letho was surlier and Gruna liked to wear red, but they were almost identical otherwise.
“Sure.” Suri gave her a nod. “C’mon, Hector. Let’s go. Good luck, Karalti. Looks like you’ll need it.”
“Thanks a lot,” she grumbled. But as we left her with Vash, I felt her satisfaction at a job well done. She was ranting to blow off steam. Underneath it was passion for the craft she was learning, and a strengthening core of self-discipline.
I shook my head to myself as Suri and I followed the exhausted scouts at a quick walk.
“Something eating you?” Suri asked.
“Nah.” I jammed my hands into my pockets as I caught up to her. “Still thinking about what happened with Ororgael. It’s got me wondering.”
“About?”
“About what he and my brother knew about Archemi that Jacob doesn’t.”
Chapter 20
A quarter of an hour later, me, Suri, Kitti, Rin and the commanders of my army gathered around the dining table offside the Great Hall, listening as the scouts delivered their report.
“The biggest problem is this road,” Corporal Bognar said, pinning a thumbtack to the map in front of her: a canyon that formed the official border between Racsa and Bas. “Gallo has taken Peacemaker’s Bridge, the only direct land route between Karhad and Solonovka. He has not attempted to cross. Instead, he repaired the damage done to it during the Demon War, building fortifications here and here.”
She drew red circles on two small rises that flanked the bridge on the Bas side.
“We also noted entrenched positions in four locations along the river. They have staffed these positions with concealed siege or artillery equipment, partially masked from aerial surveillance.” She marked the narrower sections of the canyon. “Our assessment is that they have thoroughly prepared this area and know it well. Gallo’s forces deploy patrols and spotters along the ridgeline. They have checkpoints at other crossings, here and here. It was just as well we made the survey at night.”
“Repairing the bridge is an odd strategy,” Taethawn remarked, stroking his claws through the fur of his chin. “One would think he would destroy it, the better to head ussss off.”
“I would bet my firstborn that bridge is rigged to explode if we try to cross it.” Wing Commander Vasoly sealed his lips into a flat, disapproving line. Like all the quazi-riding Ravensblood Dragoons, he was small and wiry, barely taller than Rin in his high-topped cavalry boots.
“I can’t believe that, Commander. Those entrenchments and patrols point to him wanting to hold the bridge against a land invasion. The fact he hasn’t blown it already means he’s getting something out of leaving it intact.” Suri, standing beside me with her arms folded over her chest, shook her head. “Could be that he’s still receiving supplies from smugglers via the Trade Road. Could be that he’s sending units into Karhad.”
“But he has to know we have more engineers than he has spotters, right?” Rin asked. “Can’t we snipe them off the canyon and just build our own way over?”
“Yes, but that would take longer than we have to stop him before the harvest,” Captain Vilmos said. The big Warden was on my other side, twisting the tip of his mustache as he frowned down at the maps. “He may be counting on us wasting time at the bridge while he masses forces close to the city. Runners will send word back that we have arrived, and he will have ample time to prepare. Even if we send an air force in, he’ll have half a day to implement whatever traps he has laid for us.”
“I think all of you have good points,” I said. “There’s no reason you can’t all be correct. Yes, the bridge is probably rigged to blow if he thinks he’s going to lose it. He could either do it while the army’s on it, and cost us a lot of lives, or blow it after we’re in Bas and make leaving difficult. We could find ways over, with effort, but the strategy Captain Vilmos just suggested is probably right on the money. But until Zoltan sees a need to trigger his plan, he’s probably using Peacemaker’s Bridge to run supplies.”
“He must be probing into Racsa,” Istvan said. “We know he wants Lady Hussar. I’m honestly surprised we haven’t caught anyone at the castle yet.”
“We might have. Have we?” Kitti’s eyes flicked nervously to her bodyguards. Gruna grunted in the negative. Letho shook his head.
“Well... you do have some ten thousand cat-men yowling outside your doors,” Captain Vilmos said, glancing at the Meewfolk. “No offence, Commander Taethawn.”
“None taken, ape-man.” The Meewfolk flashed him a stiff, toothy grin.
Corporal Bognar glanced between the two officers. “Anyway, to continue. We passed over the bridge and flew to Solonovka to assess the city’s defenses. On the way, we scoped out some unusual landmarks. Ardeshir?”
One of the Yanik men lifted his head. He nodded, turned to Istvan, and rattled off details in his native tongue. Istvan listened, grunting now and then. When Ardeshir finished, he gave a brief nod, and began to mark out locations between the bridge and Solonovka.
“Ardeshir says that the land between here and Solonovka shows characteristic signs of the Demon’s foul magics.” Istvan pointed to one of the stars he was drawing. He paused and asked the Ranger a quick question. The man nodded, and he continued. “Five sites, all wasted from Ashur’s march toward Karhad. The corpses fallen in the final battles against the Demon are still there. But those Stardrinker devices were gone.”
Suri sucked in a startled breath. “He took the bloody Ix’tamo.”
Ix’tamo, commonly called Stardrinkers, were resource pylons that extracted mana from land and condensed it into a form suitable for casting magic—and in doing so, they destroyed the terrain in a five-thousand-foot radius, leaving a characteristic starburst of dead, frozen wasteland. The Demon had deployed over a hundred of the things in his conquest of Myszno, using them to animate his army of undead.
“Rin? Could Zoltan have repurposed the Ix’tamo for something?” I turned to look at her sharply.
“Uhhh... yeah. All sorts of things,” she said. “Ix’tamo can siphon mana off any kind of terrain. They can store it for a while, too
.”
“Can they sap the mana out of airship engines?” Suri asked.
That raised hackles around the room. Vilmos huffed. Taethawn growled.
“Assuming they knew what they were doing with them? Mayybee? “Rin winced at her own lack of certainty. “They’d need a Master Artificer or three to repurpose them without, umm, setting off a sizable explosion with a lot of Stranging. If they found some way to use them to target airships, the ships would have to be within range of the device. Umm... to be honest... I think it’s more likely that he’d use them to strip away an airship’s shields so he could strike them with artillery. Or... he’d use them to attack Karalti. Anyone with access to C-grade lore on dragons knows their blood is mostly made of mana.”
“What is the effective range of these devices?” Kitti asked, her clear, childish voice ringing through the room.
“A spined sphere about five thousand feet in radius, my lady,” Rin replied.
Kitti bit her lip, her brow furrowing. “The Dragon Towers—the towers that protect our city from the air—are further apart than that. But if these Ix’tamo were placed inside, they would affect any airship flying close by.”
“Yes,” Captain Vilmos’ eyes narrowed. “The cannons of the Hussar-class destroyers have an effective range of 3280 yards, but to be practical, they must be fired within 1750 yards, which is roughly 5000 feet. Closer is better, of course, because of the effects of wind.”
One of the other Yanik scouts spoke up, and Istvan turned to listen. Everyone fell silent while he took in the information. The Dragoons had flown the Rangers in, but it was the Yanik—with their supernaturally keen eyes—who had done most of the actual spotting.
“The walls of Solonovka are defended by the force garrisoned within the city,” Istvan translated, marking the places where the Ranger pointed. “The scouts reached a consensus that there are about two thousand head stationed in Solonovka. They vary between veteran deserters, who have the King’s steel, and poorly armed bandits, militia, and other flotsam. The majority of the professional soldiers were seen near those air-defense towers and the castle itself.”
“Shit,” Suri said. “So they’re cutting off a land advance, and there’s a chance they’re using the Ix’tamo for some kind of anti-air defense strategy. Zoltan is smarter than he has any right to be.”
Rin picked at her lip, scowling. “I mean… we can in theory just fly over them and stay out of their range. Hussar-class and Bathory-class can both fly at seventeen thousand feet with a full load. The altitude gets higher as you go south, but we could still clear the canyon by thousands of feet with any Vlachian warship. But… uhh… I guess we can’t hit them from that height.”
“What about taking the airships to the western border?” Captain Vilmos used a ruler to tap the lowlands of Bas. “Vyeshniki could be used as a staging ground. The Freehold is surely grateful for the relief we recently gave them.”
“No good.” Taethawn pinned his ears and lashed his tail. “Not for humansss, at least. The snows were coming in hard when we withdrew and returned to the capitol. Two thirds of my forces are exhausted after our adventure to Vyeshniki, mostly from the weather.”
“He’s right. We weren’t able to scout that way due to blizzards and storms,” Corporal Bognar added. “ The weather is still clear in Solonovka, but it’ll be snowed under in a matter of weeks. We saw Zoltan’s troops moving large numbers of common folk under guard from the city in wagons, heading north and east. Preparations to bring in the harvest, I think.”
“Fuck,” I said. “You were right, Vilmos. He’s going to gather the food and use it to dig in for a long siege.”
Vilmos rumbled in his chest. “Yes. And unless we waste a lot of lives trying to cross that bridge, or find some other way to get an army over that canyon without getting shot down, he’ll wait us out until spring. Every day that passes, he is more likely to find a way to kidnap Lady Hussar.”
I stared at the map, thinking. “Hang on. I’m getting an idea.”
The others looked to me, and waited.
“Taethawn,” I said, after the pieces had come together. “Remember how I told you I want to modernize Vlachia’s military?”
Taethawn gave Wing Commander Vasoly—the Royal agent—a nervous glance. “Yessss?”
“Part of that is implementing modern strategies, when they’re warranted.” I frowned at the smaller map of Hussar Manor that Kitti had drawn for us. Like Kalla Sahasi, the castle only had one road and a single gatehouse, complete with machicolations, murderholes, and other fun late-Medieval period defenses. Beyond the gatehouse was a short funnel which looked perfect for mowing down anyone who broke through the front. It opened up into the rectangular Lower Ward, which was ringed by the utilities of the castle: the stables, kennels, guard tower, garrison barracks, chapel and granaries. According to Kitti, this courtyard was used as a tiltyard to host jousting matches in the summer. Tens of thousands of people went to watch the knights every year. That meant it was at least a hundred meters long and seventy meters wide: about as large as a modern soccer field.
Above the Lower Ward was the gated Upper Ward. There were three buildings up there: The Great Hall, the Donjon—which still served as the actual ‘dungeon’ in this instance—and the Inner Keep, which was where the Lord and their family lived. Two staircases led from the Lower Ward to the Upper Ward. Small guard stations were built over the lower entries to those stairwells, meaning the residences of the lord and his family could be closed off from the lower yard. There was a small skydock in the upper ward, where Lord Hussar had moored his personal yacht. That ship was now almost certainly Zoltan’s.
“So here’s where we’re going wrong,” I said. “We’ve been thinking about this as if it was a medieval warfare problem. March an army into Bas, set up for a siege, wait him out over winter, etc. It seems impossible, because it is. But if we think of this as an anti-terrorist operation, it gets a lot easier. We don’t need to send an army. We send an extraction force.”
Commanders Vasoly and Taethawn looked at each other, then Vilmos, then me.
“How do you propose we do that?” Vasoly asked.
“Paratroopers,” I said. “We send a crack team of paratroopers in—no more than twenty-five—directly into the Lower Ward at night. They take out the guards and foul up any anti-aircraft weaponry. Then we float our frigates right over those upper and lower courtyards and fast-rope five hundred soldiers straight into the castle.”
I looked up to see a wall of blank, confused expressions.
“What are paratroopers?” Istvan asked.
“You know... paratroopers,” I repeated, a little more slowly. “We fly the airships close to their maximum ceiling and a platoon of commandos jumps off the deck and parachutes down to the landing zone. Then you cut the chutes and kick a whole lot of ass.”
“Jump... off... the deck?” Wing Commander Vasoly was looking at me like I’d lost my marbles. “Your Grace, with all due respect...”
I leaned forward on the table, glaring at him and the other officers in disbelief. “Are you telling me the Vlachia, the most technologically advanced human civilization on Archemi, does not have parachutes?”
There was an awkward pause. Kitti cleared her throat.
“No, your Grace.” Captain Vilmos rubbed the back of his neck. “Are these, uh, parachutes some Artifact from your homeland?”
“They’re not artifacts. They’re kind of like balloons made of cloth,” Suri said. “You strap ‘em to your back and float down. No magic required.”
The men shook their heads, except for Taethawn. He broke into peals of hissing laughter.
“Your Grace, when I was but a kitten I did many stupid things, as children of all species do,” he said. “One time, I took my father’s best feathered cloak, climbed to the top of his wagon, held the corners of it and jumped off in the hopes that I could sail gracefully through the skies like a piece of dandelion fluff. The twisted toe on my right foot assuresss you I di
d not achieve my dream.”
I turned to Rin. “Rin? Are parachutes not possible in Archemi?”
“There’s no reason they shouldn’t be?” Rin shook her head, as bewildered as I was. “Though now you mention it... I’ve never seen parachutes or even air balloons in Vlachia. Which is weird, because we get tons of silk here from Jeun.”
“So these, uh, ‘paratroopers’...” Wing Commander Vasoly scratched the stubble on his jaw. “How high must they be when they… depart the aircraft?”
“Anywhere between seven thousand and sixteen thousand feet for a job like this,” I said. “Higher is safer.”
Istvan paled. “You want soldiers to jump sixteen thousand feet? To the ground?”
I gave him the hairy eyeball. “Look, I know it sounds crazy, but paratroopers are a normal part of warfare where I’m from. I fought in a war in my previous life before I came to Archemi. We jumped out of planes all the time.”
Taethawn regarded me suspiciously. “‘Previous’ life implies that your life ended, somehow. Could it have been because His Grace plummeted to his death?”
I held up my hands. “Okay. The concept of paratroopers is somehow getting lost in translation. I literally have no idea how to explain this to you. Rin? Can you explain it better?”
“Me? Maybe?” Rin squeezed past me to stand at the table. “So, umm...”
The four military officers stared at her expectantly.
“Parachutes are devices that slow the descent of an object—like, a person—by creating drag, kind of like a wind turbine does.” she stammered, twisting her hands behind her back. “They’re normally made of silk or some other light material. They’re folded a special way and stored in a backpack, and you pull them out with a cord after you jump. They poof out over your head and you fall slowly enough to make a safe, and usually precise, landing.”
“There was a mad inventor in Taltos who tried to make one of those,” Commander Vasoly said sourly. “He jumped off the Market District clocktower with some sailcloth. The City Guard had to scrape his splattered carcass off the street.”
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