Stuck In Magic

by Christopher Nuttall

  The wind shifted, blowing a sandy scent towards me. My private spies had reported that the first bodies of enemy troops had already reached Furness, suggesting that the city’s official intelligence agents were – at best – wildly behind the times. It was a common problem in my experience – spooks liked to pretend they knew more than they did, often at the expense of the troops – made worse by the information blackout. The warlord had made it clear that anyone who entered his territory would be searched and harassed, if not told to take their unwelcome presence somewhere else. The fog of war had truly descended across the land. It was hard to be sure what might be waiting for us, on the far side of the horizon.

  I did my best to look confident as I rode past the cannoneers, even though I feared the worst. The cannons were new technology, as far as the locals were concerned, and they hadn’t worked all the bugs out yet. A handful had exploded during trials, injuring or killing their crews; others hadn’t been cleaned properly by the cannoneers during test shots and wound up rendering themselves useless. I’d shown the new recruits precisely what happened to careless gunners

  – I’d made them look at the injured men – but I was all too aware the poor bastards could do everything right and still wind up badly injured or dead. The musketmen had an easier time of it. I’d drilled the first musketmen in cleaning their weapons and now it was rare to see a dirty weapon. Anyone who slacked would be put straight by their comrades a long time before the sergeant laid eyes on the dirty gun. I was confident …

  … and yet, I was all too aware of my weaknesses. Harbin had done a good job in raising more cavalry – I silently commended him for something, even though he’d been a colossal pain in the ass while we’d been drawing up the battle plans –

  but we didn’t have anything like enough horsemen covering our flanks. We’d practiced drawing up in battle formation, if the enemy cavalry located us and decided to charge, yet I had few illusions about what would happen if we were challenged in the field. The army had expanded too rapidly for my peace of mind. I’d scattered my experienced men amongst the great mass of raw recruits, giving them additional rank and pay to encourage them to set a good example and stiffen their nerve when they came face to face with the elephant, but I was uneasily aware I just didn’t have enough of them. Morale was a slippery thing and there was no way, with the resources I had on hand, that I could really show them what they’d be facing. If panic took root in the ranks, the entire army would waver. It might even break.

  I pushed the thought out of my head as the army marched onwards. It was crude and rough and short of almost everything it needed, but I knew we’d done a good job. I certainly had more faith in Rupert, and Harbin, than I’d ever had in the local troops and militias we’d raised and backed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.

  They had always been unwilling to commit themselves – they’d feared, not unreasonably, that one day we’d simply abandon them to their fate – while the cityfolk knew they’d be for the high jump if they lost the war. It helped, I supposed, that I couldn’t run too. It would mean abandoning everything I’d done and starting afresh somewhere else, if it was even possible. I’d learnt a great deal more about how the world worked, by talking to magicians as well as merchants, but I was still very aware of my own ignorance. The stories from the west, where I guessed my predecessor had arrived, were so wild it was hard to take them seriously. I simply didn’t know what was really happening beyond the kingdom’s borders.

  And the more songs I introduce, the greater the chance I’ll draw attention, I thought. The tunes I’d taught the bards were catchy – and, to a cross-dimensional traveller, they’d be familiar. There was no United States in this world. What were the odds of someone writing their own version of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, with nearly every word precisely the same? If my counterpart hears the song, they’ll know what I really am.

  The thought mocked me as I rode beside the army. There was no guarantee the other cross-dimensional traveller was from my world. The world around me was living proof there were other worlds, other timelines. The other traveller could have come from a world where Hitler won the Second World War, or the South won its independence during the War Between the States, or the American Revolution was squashed by Britain, or … if the timelines had diverged even further back, perhaps when the Spanish had tried to invade Britain or Julius Caesar had led his troops on Rome or Alexander the Great had invaded Persia, it was hard to believe we’d have anything in common. My counterpart might think the songs I’d plagiarised, with only minimal edits, were all mine. We might not even speak the same language.

  Rupert looked tired as he brought his horse alongside mine. “What happens if they bypass us and attack the city?”

  I shrugged, wondering who’d put that thought into his head. Harbin? It struck me as unlikely, but … if Rupert had a military advisor, why not Harbin? He could easily have hired a mercenary to give him advice, with strict orders to keep his head down and claim absolutely no credit for himself. Harbin had insisted on bringing several cartloads of supplies and a number of servants with him, I recalled with a scowl. I’d thought he was being silly – the supply carts would have to be abandoned in a hurry if things went badly wrong – but there might have been a deeper purpose to his demands. Or perhaps I was just giving him too much credit.

  “The walls are heavily defended and the gatehouses are secure,” I reminded him.

  I’d made sure of it, once we had enough muskets and cannon to outfit the army.

  “If he chooses to hurl his army against the stone walls, they’ll be chewed to ribbons. It’ll shorten the war in our favour.”

  I allowed myself a cold smile. The warlords might not have realised it, not yet, but their castles weren’t the priority target, not any longer. It was their armies that were going to be targeted. If the asshole wanted to bleed his troops white by hurling them against the walls, giving my army a free hand to tear though his lands, liberate his serfs and destroy his power base once and for all, it was fine by me. Napoleon once said, never interrupt your enemy while he is making a mistake. It was advice I intended to take.

  The marchers kept inching forward. It was hard not to feel as though we were dawdling, even though I knew there was no point in trying to run. The men were carrying heavy packs, as well as their muskets, powder horns and ammunition.

  There was nothing to be gained from forcing them to move faster and a great deal

  to lose. And yet, I was sure the warlord already knew we were coming. Carver and his peers had taught me a great deal about what magic could do. A lone magician in the warlord’s service could spy on us from a distance and there was nothing we could do about it. The magicians had suggested using magic to block their vision, but a blank spot would be just as revealing – I figured – as an army advancing straight towards Furness.

  But we don’t want the warlord to get cold feet and sue for peace, I reminded myself. Not immediately, at least.

  I sighed, inwardly. The warlords rested their power on military skill and brute force. It would be hard for them to make any concessions, not least because it would weaken their position beyond repair. And yet, what if they did? There were plenty of old ladies of both genders, back in the city, who’d sooner make peace with the warlord rather than risk fighting it out to the finish. I didn’t want to give them the chance. The warlord would say whatever he had to say to buy time, while gathering the forces and supplies he needed to crush us when the next war began. There was no point in trying to appease someone who could never be appeased. They just saw it as a sign of weakness and demanded more. We should have learnt that lesson with Adolf Hitler.

  A horse galloped up beside me, the rider looking oddly uncomfortable. “Sir, the chatterers are requesting your presence.”

  “Good,” I said. I’d termed the magicians accompanying the army the chatterers, if only to confuse any spies in the ranks. And, perhaps, to keep the troops from wondering why the magicians didn’t win the c
oming battle with a wave of their hands. “I’m on my way.”

  I winced, inwardly, as I spurred my horse towards the carriage. There hadn’t been that many magicians who’d been willing and able to accompany the army.

  Carver hadn’t lied, I’d discovered, when he’d told me most of the promising magicians had been scooped up by the distant magic schools or taken as apprentice magical craftsmen. The remainder had been willing to help, in exchange for extremely high pay and a certain degree of independence. I hoped that wasn’t going to cause problems, but I feared it might. And that was only the start of it.

  The magician pushed a head – her head – out of the carriage. I’d been reluctant to recruit women in any role, certainly on the front lines, and I would have avoided it altogether if there’d been enough male magicians willing and able to serve. There would be trouble, when the troops realised there were women amongst them. I’d done my best to encourage the girls to dress as men, insisting it was part of their uniform, but I doubted they’d fool anyone willing to look past surface appearances. It was just a matter of time until something went really wrong.

  “I got a reply from Fallon,” Kyra said. She’d been destined for magic school, from what Carver had told me, before her parents had put their foot down and told her they couldn’t afford it. She was clever, I’d been told, but it was useless without proper education and there was no way she was going to get it.

  Her parents had also vetoed her applying for a scholarship or simply promising future services to someone wealthy enough to put her through school. “She says the army has already arrived in Furness.”

  I nodded, curtly. I’d be surprised if it really was the army. The locals knew how to count, naturally, but anything above two figures was often simply rendered as lots. It was incredibly frustrating. Fallon was as smart as a whip

  – apparently, she’d been a child when her parents had fled the serf plantation –

  yet there were limits. She had to stay out of sight, pretending to be a serf woman rather than a city girl or a magician. I doubted she and her comrades had seen more than a small fraction of the enemy force.

  “I expected as much,” I said. I’d done my best to calculate how much time we

  had, before the warlord mustered his forces and launched the offensive, but there were no truly reliable answers. My most optimistic calculations suggested that he’d already mustered several hundred soldiers and marched them to Furness, not enough to lay siege to Damansara but enough to cause real trouble if he used them aggressively. “Tell her to try and get an accurate count if possible.”

  Kyra smiled, then winked. I sighed inwardly. Kyra seemed determined to regard the march, and the war, as nothing more than an adventure holiday, rather than something that could end with her dead – or worse. She really needed more seasoning and we didn’t have time for that either. I put the thought aside, telling myself she’d learn soon enough as she scribbled words on a chat parchment. It was strange, watching the ink fade right in front of my eyes.

  Even now, months after seeing my first spell, it still felt eerie.

  I heard galloping and glanced back, just in time to see Harbin heading towards me. I pasted a calm expression on my face as he leered at Kyra, who giggled and blushed, then looked back at me. I’d suggested he stay with the rest of his men, sweeping the lands in front of us in search of possible threats. It let him feel useful and kept him out of my hair and, besides, there was a possibility the warlord had started to set up an ambush. I’d hoped to keep our destination a secret, to the point I’d promised dire retribution to anyone who so much as breathed a hint of it to anyone, but word had spread through the city anyway. Not that it mattered, I supposed. The warlord would have to be stupid not to guess at our first target. Furness sat on a crossroads, strategically important even if it wasn’t being used as a military base. Once he got over his shock at being attacked, he’d work out what we were doing and react.

  “I just heard from the scouts,” Harbin said, as Kyra pulled her head back into the carriage and closed the curtain. “There are hundreds of troops in Furness.”

  “We have thousands of troops,” I reminded him. “What are the enemy troops actually doing?”

  “Digging ditches and preparing tents, if the reports are accurate,” Harbin said.

  I was surprised he hadn’t taken the reports at face value. “The archers drove my men off before they could get a good look.”

  “Digging ditches or trenches?” I doubted he could answer. To a layman, a ditch and a trench would look almost alike. “Did they spot any sign of cannons or muskets?”

  Harbin shook his head. “No,” he said, with a sneer. “There were no modern weapons.”

  I kept my thoughts to myself. Archers weren’t quite as effective as modern snipers, but they were pretty damn good. I’d seen a trained archer hit a target that would have daunted William Tell. If the archer had wanted to hit the horseman, there was a very good chance he’d succeeded. But then, we’d killed a number of trained archers during the last engagement. It was possible the replacement simply weren’t up to the task.

  “Then we continue as planned,” I said. “We have to take the town as soon as possible.”

  Harbin shot me a sharp look, full of displeasure. Rupert and Lord Winter had given me tactical command, overriding Harbin’s objections, but I had no doubt he’d cause trouble if I gave him a chance. My fingers itched. I was seriously tempted to just draw my pistol and shoot him. It would be disastrous and yet …

  Harbin was an attempted rapist, a prideful ass and all-around danger to the war effort. The sooner he was gone, the better.

  “Of course, Your Majesty,” he said. His voice dripped honey and acid.

  “Whatever you say, Your Majesty.”

  I swallowed a number of extremely sarcastic responses that came to mind. Harbin glanced at the carriage, his eyes speculative. I gritted my teeth, hoping he was doing it to annoy me rather than seriously thinking I’d brought the young women – girls, really – along as something other than communications officers.

  Kyra and her peers had magic, I reminded myself. They could take care of themselves, if they didn’t care for his advances. Even Harbin had enough sense to leave them alone … right?

  His family can’t complain if he gets himself turned into a frog, I told myself.

  And it would solve an awful lot of our problems if he did.

  I inched the horse forward, mentally recalling the maps I’d studied over the last few days. Furness wasn’t heavily defended, somewhat to my surprise, but the citadel would have been a major headache to any conventional attacker. To us … it was just a target. I silently drew up my plans, considering them as best as I could. I’d have to take a closer look at the defences, when we reached the town, but …

  If he’s only sent an advance force to the town, we can take it and prepare the town to stand off the main force, I told myself. I had no doubt we could take the town. The defenders simply hadn’t had the time or the resources – or the will – to make it impregnable. And if he’s sent his full army already, we can win the war in a single day.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Unfortunately for us, if not for him, Harbin didn’t get himself turned into something small and slimy – which would have been a little redundant – by the time Furness hove into view. My advance scouts had already cantered around the town, making sure there wasn’t a relief force within marching range, but I took the time to stop and survey the defences for myself before committing my troops to the attack. Furness was, according to the maps, a teardrop-shaped town, with a small castle – a citadel – resting at the pointy end. The ever-growing shantytown surrounding the walls – too low to make an effective defence, even if the hovels and shacks weren’t pressing against the stone – made it look more of a smudge. I shuddered in disgust as the wind shifted, blowing the stench of piss and shit and I didn’t want to think what else towards me. The town was asking for a disease outbreak, if one
wasn’t already raging within the walls. I was surprised the townspeople hadn’t demanded their overlord remove the refugees from their lands.

  He probably doesn’t give a damn what they have to say, I mused. He has the entire town in a stranglehold.

  My eyes lingered on the citadel for a long cold moment. It was small, certainly when compared to the mansions of Damansara or military bases back home, but I had to admit it was effective. The walls were invulnerable, if one didn’t have magic or gunpowder. The warlord’s troops could simply retreat behind their defences, if there was a serf revolt, and let the rebels batter their heads against the walls until relief troops arrived or they simply gave up in despair.

  My spies had told me there was a small middle-class community within the town, big fish in a small pond, who would happily support a revolt if there was a real chance of actual success. Right now, their chances of victory were pretty damned low. They simply couldn’t get rid of the citadel.

  I smiled, coldly, as I shifted my gaze to the rest of the defences. The town hadn’t been designed for defence, not when their overlord knew the townspeople would turn against him if they thought they could actually win. His troops were frantically digging trenches in front of the walls, pushing refugees into the town or forcing them to flee into the barren countryside. I guessed they’d been too afraid to try to make their way to town. The warlord’s heralds had been telling everyone that the cityfolk were going to kill, rape and burn their way through the countryside. I was fairly sure the vast majority didn’t believe the lies, but … I shrugged. Right now, it didn’t matter.