Kingmaker

by Rob Preece

  To Ellie, the whole setup was suspicious. Sullivan had more soldiers inside the walls than Sergius had outside. He had to have some reason for failing to meet us in the field. Ellie suspected she'd discover that reason soon enough.

  After their victory in the forest, the blacksmiths had redoubled their efforts in creating bayonets. Several wagons full of new bayonets, along with the repaired cannon, were on their way. But, while they could equip their musketeers, they didn't have enough muskets to equip all of their soldiers, didn't have enough money to pay them much longer.

  While Mark and Dafed worked on the camp, Ellie and Lawgrave used their magic to find the few survivors of Sullivan's massacre and sent scouts out to rescue them.

  The scouts also scoured what food they could find from the ruined farmhouses and barns. It helped but not much. Even if they found the money to pay the soldiers, they'd all starve to death soon.

  She was dog-tired by sunset and collapsed on top of her sleeping bag.

  About two minutes later, Sergius stomped into Ellie's tent, threw his helmet against the canvas wall, and dumped himself into one of the camp chairs their carpenters had been throwing together. “We're sunk."

  She nodded. They'd won the only battle they'd fought but that didn't matter. Hannibal had won almost all of his battles and still managed to lose the war. Now, Sullivan had Sergius where he wanted him.

  Apparently Sergius had been expecting a more positive reaction from her. “There've got to be people loyal to the rightful King inside of Dinan,” he said. “Maybe we could get word to them. Have them rise and open the gates."

  It was a tempting thought. Ellie suspected it was a pure fantasy. Given the way the Kings and nobility treated the people, why should anyone care who was King?

  "Nobody is going to rise when we're clearly outnumbered,” she said. “And even if they did, getting your supporters slaughtered by the local garrison wouldn't help us."

  "If we don't do something in the next three days, our food will run out,” Sergius said.

  Ellie knew that logistics are key to military success but she'd never thought she'd end up in the military and hadn't paid much attention to details like how many pounds of food a three thousand-man army goes through. She'd trained as a martial artist, not an army clerk. She had hoped that the huge stocks of food they'd discovered in the fake bandit camp would be enough to last them for a while. Apparently that ‘while’ was almost over.

  "Three days isn't very long."

  "Remember, you promised me a victory.” Sergius wasn't whining. Not quite. But he was close. And all Ellie could think to do was whine back. That wouldn't help.

  "I'll get together with the sergeants and Lawgrave and see what we can come up with. Maybe we could do something with magic."

  * * * *

  "They have at least twenty mages,” Lawgrave reported. “I'm already exhausted from defending the camp against their constant attacks. If we tried to use magic against them, we'd just wear ourselves out faster."

  The day after her discussion with Sergius, Ellie, Mark, Lawgrave, and several of the other sergeants and captains had climbed a small hill about a mile from the city walls and were looking down on the city and their own camp.

  "Their cannon range ours,” Dafed added. “If we bring it close enough to hammer a hole in the walls, they'll destroy it."

  "I'm not looking for reasons why we can't succeed,” Ellie reminded them. “I'm looking for something we can do. According to Sergius, we've only got three days until the army goes hungry. I think all of you know what will happen then."

  They nodded grimly. Desertion hadn't been a problem since Sergius had joined them and they'd actually been doing something other than constant drill. But it would quickly become one once the soldiers found neither pay nor food forthcoming and the prospects for loot were minuscule.

  "Perhaps we can make a demonstration against their walls, then retreat in apparent disorder,” Arnold suggested. “If they sally, we could counterattack and perhaps capture their walls."

  There were way too many ‘perhaps’ in Arnold's scheme, but Ellie still gave Arnold an approving nod. A few days ago, he would have called that kind of plan dishonorable. Now he was the one coming up with it.

  She didn't think a faked attack would work—Sullivan hadn't shown any interest in sallying and they would lose too many soldiers even in a demonstration against the city walls but it was the first plan anyone had advanced that even made sense.

  "The question is, why hasn't he sallied already?” Mark observed. “He's got us outnumbered. He can't know we're running out of food—we've kept that from anyone but a few captains. So, what is he waiting for?"

  "In his father's wars against the Rissel, the Duke of Sullivan was judged a competent commander,” Lawgrave said. “Not brilliant like Sergius's father, but competent. He liked to have overwhelming force and he always tried to destroy his enemy completely. He's got overwhelming force here. He's got us outnumbered two to one in infantry, five to one in knights, and ten to one in mages."

  That was the piece of information Ellie had been missing. “But if he sallied, we could fade into the hills and wage a guerilla war against him. He couldn't count on destroying us. What he's doing is using Dinan to hold us while he brings up a field army behind us."

  "But what does he need more men for if he's already got us outnumbered?” one of the sergeants demanded.

  "Because he wants to capture the King,” Ellie said. “If he just defeated us, Sergius would simply retreat to Moray, back to the bishop's waiting arms. Then the bishop would have us, or maybe by then Sullivan's brother would have captured Moray and Harrison would have us. Either way, it's not much of a victory for Sullivan. But if Sullivan captures Sergius, he would be in control. He could make himself sole regent."

  "Maybe.” Mark was watching another Rissel ship arrive in Dinan but his thoughts were clearly on their plan. “But what difference does it make? If he doesn't act fast, we won't last long enough for his second army to arrive."

  "Okay, we need two things. Supplies and money to feed the soldiers, and a way to keep Sullivan's field army from linking with Dinan. Who's got a suggestion?"

  Mark gestured at the Rissel ship. “Don't you just bet that ship is filled with corn—and gold? One of those ships and we could feed the army for weeks. And pay them, too"

  It was a chicken and egg problem. If they could storm Dinan they'd be able to capture the ships and feed their army. But they needed the food and money in those ships to have a chance at capturing Dinan.

  She opened her mouth to explain that to him, but Dafed beat her to the punch. “We could try fireboats."

  Arnold started to say something about how that was dishonorable, then caught himself. “Fireboats could work. Those merchant ships would cut their anchor cables and try to run. If we set the cannon downwind, we could try to dismast them before they could set sail. With the prevailing wind, they'd blow there.” He pointed to the spit of land outside the city walls.

  "We can't put the cannon there,” Dafed said. “Ellie and I already discussed this."

  "Let's not give up on this thought,” Ellie said. “Maybe we could use magic to create a storm. We wouldn't need the cannon then."

  Lawgrave coughed. “Think about what you're saying, Ellie. Do you have any idea how much energy is contained in even a mild summer breeze? All the mages in Lubica couldn't create a storm, even if they would work together."

  "Without a storm and without cannon, they'd just sail away from our fireships,” Arnold concluded. “Another idea that won't work."

  Nobody else had any brilliant suggestions and the meeting broke up. Lawgrave went back to his pentangles, defending the army against constant mage attacks. Mark and Dafed went to drill the troops in musket tactics and the other sergeants and captains saw to their own troops’ needs.

  Arnold leaned against a tree and examined the Dinan harbor. Four ships were tied up at a low pier but another half dozen were anchored in the
bay, protected by the city's cannon and waiting for an empty spot at the docks to unload.

  "Capturing some of those ships would be a blow against Sullivan and the Rissel as well as a help to us,” he said. He looked thoughtful, and he looked like he wasn't used to thinking so much and wasn't sure he was comfortable with the whole thinking thing.

  "Yeah.” She was used to thinking of Arnold as pure testosterone and muscle but she didn't want to discourage his thought process. Even if this particular thought process wouldn't lead them anywhere.

  "I wouldn't think merchant ships like that would be too heavily manned. Maybe we could send in swimmers and—"

  "Have you touched the water, Arnold? It's cold. A swimmer wouldn't last five minutes in that water."

  He pounded a fist into the ground. “If it's right, there's got to be some way."

  He was wrong, of course. There were plenty of things that Ellie had desperately wanted but could never achieve. There didn't have to be a way, but there could be a way. And maybe if they put together the ideas, they could have something.

  "Come with me, Arnold. Let's see what we can find by way of building materials."

  * * * *

  Two days later, the army was down to a sort of flour soup supplemented by an occasional fish.

  But they had their fireboats. Sort of. They'd taken the pikemen and turned them into carpenters building a small fleet of rafts.

  The rafts would sail like turkeys, fall apart from a near miss, and serve as deathtraps to whoever crewed them. But they'd burn. And most of them would stay together long enough to float the two miles from the abandoned fishery outside Dinan to the Dinan harbor.

  "I'll take the tiller on the lead ship,” Arnold announced. “I had a little skiff when I was a boy. I used to sail in the lake near my father's keep."

  A couple of dozen of the soldiers had similar experience—crewing on fishing boats, working river ferries, even working on a merchant ship. None of them were professional sailors, but no professional sailor would dare sail one of those deathtraps.

  They needed ninety men for the thirty fire rafts. Another four sailors commanded the single fishing ship they'd scavenged from the burned ruins of the village. Their job was to pick up any of the raftsmen after they abandoned their rafts.

  They were risking a significant fraction of the army and Ellie wasn't sure that any of them would make it back. But the entire army would evaporate if they didn't try.

  The moon, a tad larger and oranger than her own Earth's moon, was only a crescent. Enough to be a danger but not enough to provide light for navigation. But they couldn't wait for moonset. The wind was right now. As the last rays of twilight vanished from the sky, the makeshift fleet set off.

  "Shouldn't we go too?” Ellie was in the fishing boat. She didn't know anything about sailing and they hadn't let her crew any of the fire rafts but the fishing boat had enough space for her to set out her stones. Without the cannons or storms, she was going to rely on magic to make sure the fleeing merchant ships didn't all escape.

  "We'll let them get out a bit, first,” the pikeman who'd once been a fisherman and was now acting as skipper in their makeshift flagship told her. They'll be slower than us.

  Half an hour later, a lantern blinked to their south.

  She started to say something but the sailors were already moving, pushing off from the makeshift pier they'd built to construct the rafts and repair the fishing boat.

  Their sails, ragtag bits of canvas salvaged from army tents, flapped a couple of times with a noise that sounded as loud to her as cannon fire.

  "Sheet the blasted things in,” the helmsman growled.

  The metallic chink of lines being pulled through blocks told her that the temporary sailors were already acting.

  She peered at the still distant city wondering if they'd heard anything.

  "Won't take us long. This may not be the fastest boat on the water but it's a lot faster than those rafts,” the helmsman whispered.

  Ellie nodded. “Are you going to have to tack?"

  He laughed. “We had to tack, those rafts would never make it. Their pathetic little keels won't give them squat as far as sailing against the wind."

  "Right, then.” She unfolded a square of silk, then placed the warding and focus stones.

  A second lantern flared, blue glass giving it a different look than the red flame of the first.

  The helmsman muttered something that sounded vaguely like trigonometry to Ellie. That hadn't been her favorite subject in high school. It had all seemed so useless. Right now, she wished she'd paid more attention.

  The lanterns were supposed to be exactly one hundred yards apart. She should be able to use that and the angle between them to calculate their distance from the Dinan harbor. But she couldn't.

  "Should see the rafts soon,” the helmsman told her. His voice was pitched so low she could barely make out the words.

  "There."

  A raft flared into flame. They'd piled the rafts with dry timber, then soaked the wood in olive oil. Flames quickly engulfed the raft. In their light, they could see the merchant ship that was its target.

  "Guess Baronet Arnold knew what he was doing after all,” one of the crewmen murmured. “Going to smack right into that ship. Who would have thought a nob could do something worthwhile?"

  A shout from the merchant ship was followed, only seconds later, by a cannon shot.

  "Warning shot, most likely,” the helmsman said. His voice was normal now. Nobody was going to hear him over the increasing noise from the awakened merchant ships. “They probably kept one loaded just in case."

  Flames crept up the ship Arnold's raft had hit, spreading quickly over the merchant ship's tar-impregnated timbers.

  "Idiots didn't even try to get away.” The helmsman spat over the side of their boat. “It'll sink right there. Worthless to us."

  They sailed closer to the burning ship hoping to pick up Arnold and his crew but Ellie didn't have time to watch.

  A second fire raft burst into flames—and missed the ship it had targeted. Its crew bailed a minute later, unable to stand the flames that engulfed their raft.

  As if that had been the signal, the remainder of the rafts all lit.

  Under different circumstances, it would have been a beautiful sight.

  The burning rafts cast a red glow that made Dinan's low sea-walls gleam like a rosy sunrise. Cannon fire from those city walls sparkled with orange flame.

  "Idiots will hit their own ships, most likely. Least we can hope,” the helmsman growled.

  Ellie didn't think so. She could sense the magical force behind those shots. Sullivan's mages didn't use magic for propulsion, of course. That would have taken too much energy. Gunpowder drove the heavy iron shot, but Dinan's mages nudged each ball's direction. They couldn't do much. The force of the cannon shot was powerful. But continued magical impulse could vector a shot by a degree or two. Enough to transform a near-miss into a direct hit. Enough to ensure that they didn't accidentally fire on their own ships.

  In quick succession, three of the fire rafts disintegrated.

  "Can't you do nothing, Princess? Those are our men getting killed out there."

  The terrible thing was, she could do something. Just as Dinan's mages could add a vector to the cannonballs, so could she. But she didn't have enough magic to do all she needed to do.

  Still, the temptation to do something was almost overwhelming. Especially a few seconds later when a cannon shot smashed another raft. They were close enough to this one to see huge wooden splinters explode from the deck of the makeshift raft—and turn the three-man crew into so much hamburger.

  Another of their rafts finally homed in on one of the merchant ships and the fire again began to spread.

  This time, though, the merchants were ready. They'd already slipped their anchor and crewmen were running on deck, hauling on lines, raising sails.

  "Sail toward that one,” she ordered.

  "We've got
men to pick up."

  She knew she could be condemning brave raftsmen to death, but if she dithered, all of their sacrifices would be wasted. “Come back for them later."

  "It'll be too late, later, princess. We've got to—"

  "Follow orders and trust the plan."

  They grumbled but they obeyed. Ellie told herself she hadn't heard a despairing shout as their bow swung around in the water.

  The merchant sailors were fighting the flames but hadn't managed to put them out yet. They didn't have any attention to spare for the small fishing boat that kept what they probably thought was a safe distance.

  Ellie waited until the ship had hoisted several sails, then placed the last of her dimensional stones. For source and destination artifacts, she had selected a sharp blade and a bit of rope.

  She felt the magical resistance as she shoved the objects into place.

  The backwash hit her like a fist, but not before she saw the merchant ship lurch. Two of the stays that held the mainmast upright twanged.

  Without the heavy cable stays, the mast had only its own weight and bracings to support it. The tons of force generated by the wind in the sails were too much.

  Ellie pulled herself up from the deck where the magical backwash had sent her just in time to see the merchant ship's mainmast lurch, then fall.

  From what Arnold had told her about ships, the loss of a single mast in the large three-masted merchant ship shouldn't be fatal. The sailors could get steerageway using only the sails hanging from the foremast and aftermast. But could they do so with the mass of sail, rigging, and splintered mainmast on their deck—and with the fire still spreading?

  For a moment it looked as if they could. But then a flicker of flame touched one of the sails that was still drawing.

  It took only seconds for that sail to vanish in a sheet of flame.

  The fire spread through the rigging, sparks jumping like grasshoppers from line to line, sail to sail. While Ellie watched in silent horror, fire transformed the ship from a graceful sailing vessel to a floating hulk—driven by the mild wind directly toward the spit of land where half of Sergius's army was waiting.