The First Spark

by T J Trapp

  They went to meet the Gott General late in the afternoon.

  “General, I am Erin, Princess of Theland, and this is my Consort, Alec. I have also with me Ferd, the Queen’s lead rider.”

  “General Mawn,” the older man said, glaring from under bushy eyebrows. He looked at Erin, then at Alec, then back at Erin. Finally he extended his hand, palm forward, in greeting, but did not reach for Erin’s hand. Or Alec’s. “I have not previously beheld a woman in command of a fighting force,” he said brusquely, “Princess though you may be.“

  “Then let this time be your first, General Mawn,” Erin said evenly, head held high.

  The General cleared his throat.

  After a hesitation, he spoke again. “There will be a status review in the morning. First thing. If you can rouse yourself from the comforts of your bed.”

  “I will be there,” said Erin.

  “I understand that a lot of your riders are women,” he said gruffly. “I do not like women in my camp and do not want women riders here.”

  “My women riders are as good as my men,” said Erin.

  “That is not the point,” the General said. “We know of the fame of your riders, and if your women are even half as good as your men, they would still be better riders than most others among our allies. But, women are weak-willed and scatterbrained, given to lustful emotions, and a distraction! Women destroy discipline among fighting men! The only women I want in camp are ones that are willing to sleep with my men.” Erin looked slightly horrified. “And I can see from your reaction that yours aren’t.”

  “Prostitutes,” said Alec, helpfully. Erin hissed at him under her breath.

  “No, no,” said General Mawn. “Working women. I prefer cooks and seamstresses, and even armorers, if they are willing to be available at night. The prostitutes have too much spare time during the day and tend to make trouble. The women who work don’t have idle time.” He looked at Erin and pointed in the direction of her camp. “Your troops are posted out of the way, so keep your women riders out there. I don’t mind your women fighting and dying for our cause, but I don’t want them destroying my men’s discipline!”

  Erin and Alec were walking back to their encampment, Erin mumbling under her breath about the Gott General, when they crossed paths with another set of allied soldiers, from Lashon. The leader of the Lashon forces had arrived three days ago. Ferd whispered to Alec that the Lashon leader had lodged complaints about their camp location, his status in the allied army, quality of food, as well as many other items; the rumor was that the Lashon man was going to bring his complaints directly to General Mawn.

  The Lashon lord marched down the center of the path, an entourage of highly-costumed men surrounding him. Their path blocked that of Erin, Alec, and Ferd. As they approached, a walker in front of the Lashon leader waved his hands to shoo the other people out of the way.

  “Make way, make way,” the walker said in a shrill voice. “The Grand Lord Leader of Lashon is coming through. Make way!”

  Erin’s group politely moved out of the way, but Erin could not help laughing at the spectacle. One of the Lashon lord’s men turned and peered at Erin from under the floppy brim of his large hat.

  “You laugh,” he said to Erin with a haughty tone.

  “I meant no harm,” said Erin.

  “We do not suffer any disrespect,” the man said. “You do not laugh at His Lordship!” He casually pulled his ornate sword and swung it towards Erin. Erin’s sword was out like lightning and caught the approaching sword. She twisted, and the man’s sword came loose from his bejeweled hand. Erin caught the sword on her sword, spun it, and propelled it across the path into the brush on the other side.

  Two other Lashon men pulled their swords.

  “Women shouldn’t play with swords,” one man said, “or they might get hurt!”

  “Send her with us for the night, and we will show her what to play with,” another man in the Lord's group cat-called.

  Alec wasn’t particularly happy with this turn of events. He wanted to end it, convincingly. Now. He felt for dark energy. He held his staff aloft and lit it with a glow so bright that it was blinding to anyone who looked at it. Then he lit Erin’s sword equally brightly. He heated the sneering attendant’s sword until it glowed red. The man quickly dropped it, shaking his burning hand; some of the ornate scrolls splintered from its hilt as it hit the ground.

  Alec took one step forward and waved his glowing staff.

  “Make way,” he said, imitating the Lashon man’s shrill tone. “Make way for Her Royal Highness, Princess Erin of Theland! She is coming through! Make way!”

  Erin also held her gleaming sword out in front of her, like a torch. The Lashon men couldn’t look at Alec’s brilliantly glowing staff or her sword; covering their eyes, they decided it would be best to grab their lord and step off the path to get out of Erin’s way. However, one of the last men in the group decided it would be cute to harass a princess and started to slap Erin’s rear as she passed. Alec had been expecting something like that. Before Erin could react, the cad’s clothes erupted in flame. He fell on the ground and started rolling to put the fire out. Alec didn’t even look at him – he continued to direct the people on the path to make way for the princess.

  “Make way, make way for the Princess,” Alec continued to say, well past the Lashon group. Then both he and Erin burst out in laughter.

  “If we weren’t in a war, this would be funny,” said Erin.

  ✽✽✽

  The next morning, Erin, Alec, and Ferd were at the General’s briefing early. The leaders of other contingents came into the room, milling about. The Lashon group was last to arrive. They stayed as far from Erin as they could.

  General Mawn started his briefing with an update on the situation.

  “The Alder have assembled a significant number of soldiers on the Grasslands with the clear intent of moving through our Raner Pass this season. The Alder have the terrible death rods that can kill anything within sight and have established death rod posts around their camps to prevent attacks. Right now, we have a slight numerical advantage, but even that may go away if the Alder continue to receive reinforcements at the same rate they have been.

  “The Alder use a simple strategy to advance. First, they establish and defend a death rod post. Then, they attack our positions within the range of their death rods. We cannot send reinforcements to stop their attack because of the death rods – the teeth of the death rods kill our men before they can reach our defensive positions. So far, over the past several weeks the Alder have made a slow but steady advance, and we have not been able to stop them.

  “The Alder strategy works well on the plains and the edge of the mountains, but I believe that the rocky terrain in the pass will limit their use of death rods and provide some defendable points. Our observers tell us that the Alder do not seem to be able to use their death rods unless they have a clear view; they do not seem to be able to throw the teeth of their death rods over rocks as we do with our spears.”

  After taking a few questions from senior officers, General Mawn started giving out battle assignments. After ignoring her throughout his briefing, and after conferring duty stations and tactical advice on all the other leaders, he finally came to Erin and frowned. He clearly did not want this woman commander in his camp.

  “All know how fierce the riders of Theland are,” he said grudgingly. “I want you to take your riders onto the Grasslands and attack the Alder’s supply caravans. If you can disrupt enough supply caravans, you may slow their ability to feed and supply their troops. Also, you can serve as bait, and force them to divert soldiers to hunt you down. That should give us more time to prepare for the assault here.

  “Your riders will have no trouble entering Alder territory, but you will not be able to take any of your wagons with you. The Alder have not devoted the troops to seal off the pass on their side. A trogus force can still get onto the Grasslands, especially at night, but not with a s
upply train.” He looked at Erin to see if she understood the assignment.

  “By the way, most of the Alder supply caravans carry death rods with them.”

  He’s setting us up, thought Alec.

  Erin could tell what Alec was thinking but readily agreed to the assignment. She was much happier with an active role than hanging around a camp with a hostile General to provide a static defense of a piece of Raner Pass. She and Alec turned to leave the briefing tent.

  “Hmmph. Serves that ‘Princess’ right to be sent on a suicide mission,” Alec overheard one of the Lashon men say. His companion laughed in agreement.

  ✽✽✽

  Erin and Ferd decided to send half of the riders onto the Grasslands for their first attempt at disrupting the caravans, with Erin and Alec leading them. Thom would accompany them, and Ferd would stay with the other riders in the Gott base camp; Erin would send for them when they had worked out the most effective strategies for overcoming the Aldermen.

  “We might as well leave now,” Erin said. “We have no reason to wait around here cooling our heels for another day.”

  By dusk, the Theland riders were mounted and ready with all the supplies they could carry, and a train of spare trogus for replacement mounts. In the dwindling light, they carefully made their way through Raner Pass. Every el, Erin would stop and sense in front of them. They moved over the top of the pass easily and towards the Grasslands.

  “Something isn’t right,” Erin said to Alec just before they reached the Grasslands on the far side of the pass. “I sense a group of people only a half-an-el ahead.”

  “We should probably leave the others and scout,” Alec replied.

  The two of them left their mounts and slipped forward. At night it was easy for Alec to obscure them. They slunk across the open meadow that was the transition between the pass and the beginning of the Grasslands. Halfway through the meadow, they could see that General Mawn had not known the true situation. An Alder guard post was positioned in the meadow to prevent entrance to the Grasslands. Alec could feel the presence of gunpowder in the Alder post.

  They have death rods, he thought to Erin. I’ll wait here, and you go back for the riders. When you get close, I’ll make some mischief.

  Erin turned and vanished into the night. Alec found a convenient tree to climb; this gave him a good vantage point to view the Alder fortification. He waited impatiently for Erin’s return. Once an Alder patrol walked right under him, oblivious to his shrouded position in the tree. He thought about attacking the patrol but decided that any noise might alert the guard post. Finally, he decided enough time had passed, and he felt for the dark energy. The crack of exploding shells echoed through the fortification and flashes of light scratched the night sky. As soon as the reverberations died down, Alec heard trogus paws beating on the ground behind him. The element of surprise should give Erin the upper hand now.

  Even in the dark, Alec could see Aldermen scrambling around their fortification, trying to figure out what had just happened. Then he noticed a couple of Alder running out of the base to a smaller bunker. He could sense that they had retrieved a second death rod. Alec focused dark energy, and the bullets exploded in loud flashes. The man holding the death rod dropped, wounded by stray bullets and flying shrapnel, and screamed and thrashed. Then he was still. The death rod lay in pieces underneath him.

  By now the Aldermen at the guard post were rushing to defend themselves from the approaching trogus force. The trogus topped the wall of the fortification, their riders expertly leaning into their leaps, and landed in the middle of the Alder defenders. Erin wanted no survivors, to provide a warning to other Alder enclaves, so the fight was brief but bloody. Alec carefully climbed down from his observation tree after confirming that no one had escaped and reclaimed his trogus.

  After the Alder guard post, they encountered no further obstacles before they reached the Grasslands. They moved several els onto the plain until Erin was comfortable that they would not be observed and then established a camp for the night.

  The next day, luck was with them. They were still less than twenty els from the pass, and on one of the likely caravan paths. Erin had sent out scouts an el apart across the plains. One of the scouts returned within the hour with a sighting of a caravan. Erin assembled her riders. The traditional tactic that most raiders used to destroy caravans was to attack from the side. They would try something different. They brought their force across the line of travel. The caravan, seeing a large hostile force, stopped and formed up in a defensive circle. Alec could feel two wagons with death rods, one on each side. The caravan also had some armed guards protected by the wagon ring – the armed guards alone would not be a formidable defense without the other lethal weapons.

  The more Alec used dark energy, the easier it seemed to become. He could sense the high-explosive material and focused dark energy. Two satisfying explosions resulted. Then Alec focused on one of the center wagons. A blaze started, and people within the caravan left their defensive positions to rush to extinguish it. Next, Alec focused on another wagon and a second blaze started. The two fires were more than the wagon crew could handle – the fires rapidly began to spread to other wagons. A few of the wagons and some mounted men left the caravan to escape the fires and confusion. Erin sent out her riders in small teams to intercept and destroy them. For two hours the caravan was ablaze. Those who had tried to stay were consumed in the central inferno, and those who left were intercepted and destroyed by Erin’s troops. A huge column of smoke rose steadily into the upper air, easily seen by the soldiers at the pass.

  Erin assembled her riders after the destruction of the caravan. Their losses had been light considering that they had destroyed a large caravan. Erin led them away from the burning caravan, and soon they stopped for the night.

  Erin and Alec evolved several strategies for destroying the Alder caravans. Erin spaced her scouts to sweep across the plains until they found a caravan, usually by spotting the billows of dust that the animals and wagons produced. Over time, Alec had improved his ability to create a dark lens to blur large areas – their preferred strategy was to blur all of Erin’s riders and position them along the track of an approaching caravan. When the caravan was alongside the riders, Alec would release the dark lens, surprise the caravan leaders, destroy any death rod wagons, and set fire to the front and back wagons. In the resulting confusion, Erin and her riders could mop up the disorganized caravan with ease.

  After three weeks on the plains, Erin decided it was time to head back to their base camp near the Gott Ramen Pass Fort, collect the remainder of her riders and supplies, and leave the wounded to be treated. However, when they were less than a day from the pass, they could see large columns of smoke and hear the occasional snap of the death rods.

  “It seems that the enemy has engaged the Gott allies and is starting the attack earlier than expected,” Erin mused. “I wonder if us cutting off their supply line forced their hand.”

  “Maybe this is a chance to do a little more damage,” suggested Alec. “If we could get in close, and unnoticed, we could eliminate many more of their supplies.”

  With a bold plan in mind, Erin and her riders approached the back of the enemy camp, which was located in the Grasslands before the pass. The supply wagons were parked at the rear of the camp in what the Alder thought was a safe location. Alec blurred Erin’s riders as they proceeded toward the camp. He had found that the easiest places to obscure were open areas with lots of nondescript field and sky for a background, and the open meadows before the pass were ideal.

  They proceeded towards the Alder camp along a wide path about a hundred paces across. The path had been stomped clean by the passage of many trogus, drungs, and foot soldiers. A few Alder soldiers were along the edges of the path where patches of low brush could hide an intruder, but no Aldermen were wasting their time guarding the middle of the path. The noise made by Erin’s mounts was obscured by the general battle noises from the fight in the p
ass. Erin kept the pace slow so that their dust mixed with the slight breeze and could only be distinguished by someone keenly peering in their direction. However, most eyes were on the battle ahead of them – not on the path in their midst.

  When they were almost on top of the first Alder wagon, Erin gave the signal. Her riders moved in three waves: the first wave was to eliminate any armed opposition before it could become organized, the second wave was to set on fire as many wagons as possible, and the third wave was to protect Alec while he destroyed as much of the ammunition as he could find.

  Erin led the first wave and was among the Alder wagons before any alarm was raised. By the time the second wave had started setting fires, Alec was already destroying ammunition wagons. In only a few minutes Alec had destroyed all the ammunition he could locate. The resulting explosions had wreaked havoc. Most of the wagons and their contents were on fire, and most of the animals had escaped the corrals and were running loose in a panic, trying to escape the fires and explosions.

  Erin could see a contingent of Alderman soldiers were forming up to defend the supply camp. It was time to retreat. With a shrill whistle, Erin sounded the call to end the engagement. With practiced skill, her riders broke away and started towards the rendezvous point.

  A group of mounted Alder riders had returned from the main battle and were bearing down on them as they reassembled. “A large mounted force is assembling to engage us,” Thom announced breathlessly. “They have about twice as many trogus as us. Should we retreat into the Grasslands?” He looked over his shoulder at the advancing animals. “It will be close, but we might be able to outrun them.”

  “No, I think it is time to stand our ground and fight,” Erin answered.

  The opposing force came towards them at full gallop with every intention of overrunning them. Erin positioned her riders in battle formation, ready for the fight. The Alder trogus were not in a tight fighting formation, but the sheer number of them would make for a bloody fight. The stomping beasts came closer and closer. The trogus were close enough that Alec could sense the sweat boiling off the animals and hear their labored breathing.