Stealing Sorcery

by Andrew Rowe

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  The paladin paused, glancing at the Sae’kes, and then looked up to meet Taelien’s gaze for just a moment before turning away. “Right. So, this first test will be a simulation. You will be taking on the role of a paladin serving as an advisor to an influential military leader during a major battle. For the sake of this scenario, assume that you are a newly assigned paladin lieutenant, and that no higher ranking paladins were available to provide support. For the sake of convenience’s sake, you may use your real name. Every person you encounter will be playing a simulated role.

  “If you encounter anyone you recognize, treat them as a stranger, and in accordance to their simulated role. For example, if you recognize an actual paladin officer playing the role of a servant, ignore his or her actual rank for the purposes of the scenario. Instead, act upon the information that you can glean from the setting of the scenario itself.”

  Taelien nodded. During his training under the Thornguard, he had participated in other types of simulations. While he had never taken on the role of a military advisor, he had observed similar tests and studied several texts on historical battles. He wasn’t precisely relieved by the scenario, but it certainly could have been far worse.

  “The scenario you will be participating in is a high stakes battle, and it will require careful judgment on your part. Are you prepared?”

  “May I ask you questions about the scenario in advance, sir?”

  The paladin shook his head. “It will be your responsibility to ascertain the details of the situation when you arrive. You may safely assume that the military leaders have requested an advisor from the Paladins of Laos, and that you are the advisor that was sent. Your orders are to provide any and all assistance you can to the military leaders.”

  “Understood, sir. In that case, I am ready.”

  “Very well. Remember, once you step inside that room, treat everything in the simulation as if it is your new reality.”

  Lieutenant Trace opened the door to the room. “You may step inside and begin the test.”

  ***

  Upon entering the room, Taelien’s path was immediately barred by a pair of oddly dressed soldiers. As they maneuvered their halberds to block his path, Taelien scanned their white and red uniforms for anything he could recognize.

  An antiquated style, and I don’t recognize most of the symbology. I think that pin might be an older version of Koranir’s shield, but I’m not sure.

  He took a stance of attention, raising his right arm to his chest in a paladin salute.

  “Paladin Lieutenant Salaris, reporting as requested,” he droned, examining the situation beyond the two soldiers as he spoke.

  The room was at least thirty feet across, and toward the center, three uniformed officers stood around a table. Laid out across the table was a map, and atop the map were numerous different figures. About as traditional of a depiction of a war room as I’ve ever seen.

  “Come in,” said one of the men around the table, making a dismissive wave at the guards. The two soldiers retracted their polearms, giving a brief salute to the speaker before taking a restful stance.

  Taelien lowered his salute, advancing toward the table and pausing a few feet away. “Hello, I’m Paladin—”

  “Yes, yes, we heard,” said a clean-cut older man at the opposite side of the table. His uniform was the most decorated of the three people standing around it, with dozens of pins and sigils that Taelien didn’t quite recognize. Fortunately, he did recognize the four bars on the right side, signifying a specific military ranking – a lieutenant general. This man was, presumably, the army’s leader.

  It took Taelien a moment of paralyzing shock to recover from the realization that the man standing in front of him was Herod, the retired paladin who had been observing his training. He looks…impressive like this. The uniform fits him far better than civilian garb ever did.

  “There’s no need to be rude, Ravellan. We did send for an advisor,” spoke the lone female officer at the table, an older woman with bright white hair. She wore a pair of short swords on each of her hips, a choice that Taelien approved of. If he hadn’t spent most of his career training with the Sae’kes, he might have preferred a similar style.

  “You sent for the advisor.” Ravellan sighed. “But he’s here, so I suppose we should let the boy tell us how we’re waging war all wrong.” The lieutenant general waved at the map. “Please, enlighten us, servant of the gods.”

  Taelien glanced over the table, noting soldiers in several different colors on the map. There were several types of pieces representing soldiers, and fortunately Taelien had seen similar ones used in other war games in the past. He quickly recognized spearman, swordsman, archer, catapult, and commander pieces. There were, however, three types of pieces he did not recognize.

  There was a city near the center, and black markers for soldiers all throughout. Outside the walls, there were a larger number of white pieces and red pieces. Some of the red pieces were interspersed among the white ones, others were separated into smaller units.

  The black pieces inside the walls of the city were almost exclusively archers and catapults. The majority of the city did not have any pieces within – which implied that the black force’s swordsmen, spearmen, and other pieces were most likely still within the walls and that they did not have enough information on their locations and numbers.

  This in turn meant that the white and red forces were most likely his forces – and the ones attacking the city. The white and red uniforms matched that hypothesis nicely.

  That’s…not good at all. Being the attacker in a scenario with an unknown number of enemy forces inside a city is a terrible situation.

  Glancing at the white and red pieces, Taelien estimated at least one hundred of them. The archers on the inside were far fewer, at least – only about twenty pieces. Each side had four visible catapults. He assumed each piece represented either ten or a hundred troops, but he wasn’t sure of which, and it clearly would make a significant difference.

  “I’m afraid my briefing on the situation was...well, brief, if you’ll excuse the pun.” Taelien chuckled, but no one else laughed. “Can you clarify for me how many troops each of these represents?” He pointed at one of the red spearmen.

  “One hundred of our best,” the third officer said. “The Ember Legion has never been defeated in battle.”

  Ember Legion…I’ve heard that name before.

  “We’re being quite rude to the poor boy.” The female officer extended a hand toward Taelien. Realizing that they appeared to be simulating some sort of older siege, Taelien took her hand and shook it, rather than clasping her wrist in a modern fashion. She smiled. “Lieutenant, I’m Colonel Morningway. This is Colonel Laurent,” she said, releasing Taelien’s hand to point to the last officer who had spoken, “And our leader, Lieutenant General Ravellan.”

  “A pleasure to meet all of you.” Taelien exchanged handshakes with the other two men. “You’ll have to forgive my questions. I would prefer to have as much context as possible before offering any advice.”

  “Of course,” Laurent replied. Ravellan simply sighed again.

  So, one hundred troops per piece. That means we have roughly ten thousand troops total. I’m sure the commander pieces don’t represent one hundred commanders, but even accounting for that, we have a lot of troops. We clearly appear to outnumber the enemy, but even just their archers represent about a fifth of our numbers. That’s four times our number of archers – implying that if the ratio is maintained, they have four times our number of troops. Fortunately, they probably don’t have quite that same ratio – as defenders, they probably gave bows to as many people as possible, possibly depriving them of other forces. Hard to know for certain.

  Just having walls gives the defenders a tremendous advantage.

  Taelien quickly scanned across the map, noting two water sources flowing into the city walls. Controlling those points would be important �
�� water was not only necessary for the people inside to survive, it was also a potential method for infiltration or for the enemy to send troops out, depending on who controlled it.

  “I fear I don’t recognize all these types of pieces. I see spears, swords, bows, catapults, and commanding officers, which I’m familiar with. I’m not certain what this one,” he pointed at a piece, “or these two types of pieces represent.”

  “Those,” Laurent pointed to a unit of unique red pieces, “Are my pride and joy.”

  “Sorcerers,” Morningway clarified.

  Laurent scoffed. “The Cinders are no mere ‘sorcerers’. Once you see what they can do…”

  ‘Cinders’ appears to be a division name within this Ember Legion. I know I’ve heard those names. He scratched at his chin. Weren’t those the war sorcerers who died during the siege of – oh.

  Am I fighting the final battle against the Xixian Empire?

  The fall of Xixis was legendary, but details were scarce. The capital city of the Esharen had withstood numerous assaults throughout the millennia of its existence, with most invading armies unceremoniously crushed. While Xixis did eventually fall, the circumstances behind the final battle were known to few – mostly because so few survived it.

  Something so terrible had happened there that Xixis was no longer even drawn on maps. Some claimed that Vyrek Sul, the final emperor, had cast a ritual that had immolated the entire city and burned most of the invading army alive. Others spoke of a plague that spread through the survivors, claiming their lives before they could return home in victory. Still others claimed that the desperate Xixian sorcerers had discovered a way to force the dead to stand and fight again, controlling both former friends and foes like deadly puppets, forcing friends to cut their former comrades apart to keep them from rising again.

  This could be one interpretation of how the battle may have been waged, Taelien realized. There are books detailing how many troops were sent to the battle, and analysis of the claims of the survivors. I even read a few of them back when I was in my early days of training. A shame that was so long ago – those details might have been useful.

  “The Cinders have a reputation that precedes them, Colonel Morningway. I’m certain they will be instrumental in our success,” Taelien offered respectfully. It was not a mere platitude – he suspected that the sorcerers would be necessary to offer any form of fighting chance against the capitol city of Xixis.

  Laurent grinned in reply. “Glad someone around here takes my men seriously.”

  “What of these other figures?” Taelien pointed at the other two types he had failed to identify.

  “These first ones are infiltrators. I’m not surprised a paladin wouldn’t be familiar with them.” Ravellan folded his arms.

  A light jab, but one intended to make it clear he doesn’t have much respect for my organization. I’m probably not supposed to stand for the paladins being insulted, I suppose. Either that or I’m supposed to grin and bear it, since he outranks me and I want to influence him. Not sure on which. “On the contrary, General. We make judicious use of scouts and infiltrators. We simply do not give them different pieces on our war maps, because our enemies tend to use them, too.”

  Herod flushed, gritting his teeth. “Of course.”

  That might have been a poor move, but it felt great. “And the final pieces?”

  “Anything not covered by the other categories.” Morningway pointed at one of the white pieces close to the back of the army. “These ones here represent medics, for example. Others represent messengers, squires, and other miscellaneous support troops.”

  Taelien nodded. That takes about eight hundred ‘troops’ out of my calculations, since these would not be direct combatants. “Excellent, thank you for the clarifications. I assume the grid squares on the map represent one kilometer?”

  “Yes.” Morningway picked up an archer piece that was near the front lines. “Meaning our forward troops are currently outside of the range of their archers and just approaching the range of their siege.”

  “And I assume they are aware of us already?” Taelien folded his arms, squinting at the organization of the troops. He already saw elements he wanted to reorganize – spearmen that needed to be moved in front of swords, archers that were uselessly out of range, and sorcerers with no protection – but he suspected those issues were less important than the basics of the first engagement.

  “Yes, we sent a messenger ahead with our demands days ago. He never returned, of course. We’ve spent the intervening time taking positions and evaluating their movements. We currently plan to engage at nightfall.” Morningway walked over to a stack of soldiers that were off the board. “These additional troops represent reinforcements we are expecting from Valeria. They should arrive within a few days. We were expecting them by now, but we no longer feel we can wait. Even a few more days could cost the prince his life.”

  Prince? What’s this now? I probably should already know this, and I’ve already been asking a lot of questions. Maybe I should try to figure this out on my own.

  “I would advise against attacking at nightfall,” Taelien offered.

  “Oh? And why is that?” Ravellan leaned across the table, looking unamused. Taelien felt his lip twitch when the larger man knocked over a soldier piece with his movement.

  Herod sure does a good job of pretending to be an asshole. I hope he wasn’t actually like this when he was a paladin officer.

  “Infiltration at night might offer some slim benefits, but the Esharen have better night vision than we do. Their archers will be better shots at night.”

  The old general rolled his eyes. “Of course they will. We’re not idiots, boy. We’re going to open up with sorcerers and burn their siege. Once we do that, we can start pounding their walls from a distance without opposition.”

  Taelien scratched at his chin. Not a bad idea, actually, at least on the surface. Am I supposed to find flaws in that plan?

  “We’d be playing our best hand early,” Taelien hazarded. “It’s a sound plan, but we’d have to be prepared for the consequences. Any Esharen that are directly exposed to the bombardment will adapt to it. At this distance, our sorcerers won’t have any degree of precision – they might destroy the siege engines, but the enemy troops will barely be touched. And if the Esharen withdraw after absorbing sorcerous energy from the attacks –”

  “They’ll be immune to it next time.” Laurent tapped his fingers on the table. “That’s only true if our sorcerers use the same dominion each time, however.”

  “How versatile are these ‘Cinders’? I recall hearing they’re primarily trained in Valerian War Sorcery, utilizing the dominion of flame across broad areas.” He couldn’t keep himself from smirking a little. If they were going to be testing him on history, he’d have to drop as many little facts like that as possible.

  “Actually, no.”

  Taelien frowned.

  “You’re not entirely wrong – they do focus on broad-area bombardment, using the Valerian school. The name ‘Cinders’ doesn’t come from using the Dominion of Flame, contrary to popular belief. It’s just derived from the name Ember Legion. We have a broad variety of different types of sorcery at our disposal. Stone sorcery is actually the most common, followed by lightning.”

  Huh. “The versatility of your sorcerers does them credit, Colonel.”

  Taelien pondered that for a moment. “Do we know anything about the enemy sorcerers? Bringing our own sorcerers into engagement range might be dangerous if we don’t know how many sorcerers they have, or how powerful they are.”

  Laurent gave a helpless shrug. “Our best men have been trying to break through the divination shield around the city since we arrived, but we’ve had no success.”

  “What about mundane scouts?” Taelien pointed at a lake that fed water into the city. “Could we send some of our infiltrators up one of the waterways to gather some intelligence?”

  “It’s a city, not a single fortress,�
� Ravellan noted, reaching a hand up to straighten his hair. “They could have sorcerers dispersed throughout the entire area. We can’t know for certain until we attack, and our sorcerers have the longest range, so they offer the lowest risk.”

  Excellent points. Maybe they’re supposed to be right about this part of the strategy, and the key is that I’m supposed to know when not to argue?

  He argued anyway.

  “What about sending in some infiltrators during daylight, while we still have some time, with the intent of capturing an enemy officer? Or even just a single enemy sorcerer? Either could potentially provide us with useful information.”

  The three officers glanced at each other, but Ravellan shook his head.

  “I don’t like the odds of a group of our scouts being able to get in there and out before nightfall. And infiltration during daylight hours wouldn’t be easy.”

  Taelien turned to Laurent. “Do you have any Sight Sorcerers, by any chance?”

  Laurent nodded. “Of course. We have the largest collection of sorcerers here on the continent. What did you have in mind?”

  “Even in daylight, a small team accompanied by a sight sorcerer could most likely get inside the city. Do we know where any key points in the city are located? Their central government building, perhaps, or their military headquarters?”

  The officers shook their heads. “No, the city has been significantly renovated since the last time we attacked. We don’t even know where they’re keeping the prince…”

  There’s that mention of the prince again. I’m clearly supposed to know who that is, but why? Maybe I’m being too stubborn about asking.

  “What can you tell me about the prince’s situation?” He was purposefully vague, since he didn’t want to openly display his complete ignorance.

  “Prince Adellan is the foundation of our alliance. If he dies, everything we’ve worked for could fall apart,” Morningway offered. “His capture was a tremendous blow to morale, but it also served to unite us like never before. Velthryn’s forces, Belyr’s Ember Legion, and even Valeria working together – it’s unprecedented. But his death could splinter this frail alliance before it firmly takes root.”