Nightlord: Shadows (96 page)

So, if I built the crystal into, say, a bed, someone could lie down, go to sleep, and have hours of frantic fighting in their dreams. Afterward, they could spend some time working on mastering what they just had downloaded through a dream, and then go back to the bed for another dose. This would let them progress at their own pace, thoroughly subsuming whatever got imprinted before having to deal with any more. And they wouldn’t have a potentially-defective personality fragment living in their heads. If it turned out to have some sort of unpleasant side effect, I could fix the main unit, rather than have to examine everybody’s brains individually.

As a refinement, if I could build, say, four beds into a single unit, lay them out like an “X” with the heads of the beds meeting in the middle, and put the crystal there… could they all share a sort of headspace encounter together and be trained together? That would divide the voltage—or the attention—of the crystal-spirit among them, and they would definitely have people to practice those lessons with.

Just call me overcautious and let it go.

Dinner was pleasant and uneventful. Loroth was there, sitting next to Thomen, and seemed perfectly at home, which I found vastly amusing for some reason. Thomen even seemed to be enjoying himself. Maybe he and Loroth were getting along better than expected.

I excused myself for sunset, and people again pretended not to notice. Decent of them.

A goblet of blood later, I found myself called away to the conference room—the one with the sand table and the magic mirrors. The apprentice wizard on duty down there got an urgent call for the King and sent a message. He got out of the chair when I entered the room.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, sitting down. It was Banler.

“Good to see you,” he said. “Shame about the circumstances.”

“Problem?”

“Could be,” he replied. “Just got word that some ships are headed your way.”

“Oh?”

“Couldn’t make out much in the moonlight. I keep a small watchpost on the south end of the Eastrange—one of the rocky islands, where the mountains vanish under the water. They reported about the ships going by, well to the south, just after sunset, headed east. Probably four ships, but my sentries tell me they couldn’t be sure. Too dark to identify any flags or banners, either.”

“Is there anywhere else they could be going?”

“If they were headed to Kamshasa, they would be much farther south. I suppose it could be a trading convoy headed for the plains to collect fifty thousand
dazhu
pelts, but I doubt it. What do you think?”

“I think you’re right,” I sighed. “Well, I’m glad to know in advance. Thank you. I appreciate this.”

“Seemed the neighborly thing to do,” he said, chuckling.

“Have you told Mochara?”

“Yep, first thing. Thought I’d mention it to the King, too, once they were warned.”

“And I appreciate it. We’ll make sure everything is ready to welcome them.”

“I better warn you about something else, then,” he said.

“What?” I asked.

“Diplomats left here this morning, headed for Mochara. Wexbry, Philemon, and me, as before, but there’s also some perfumed twerp from the Brentwood, too.”

“Brentwood?” I repeated, frowning.

“Let me see… back in the day, it was where the old Duke Brenner had his seat. Still a nice place, I understand. Prince… Leomund? Leoman?” He turned aside and I heard him talking to someone out of view. “Prince Leomund,” he said, nodding. “No major ambitions, so far as I know, but he’s sending someone anyway. Probably just to look around.”

“I’ll make sure to prepare for them,” I agreed. “Did you also tell Mochara this?”

“Didn’t cross my mind, what with the ships,” he admitted.

“Fair enough. If we’re lucky, the ships will show up early tomorrow, we’ll sink them, and then the diplomats can show up in the evening.”

“You’re one hell of an optimist.”

“No, I’m just making a note of what I’d like to happen so I can see how wrong it goes.”

“Oh.” He nodded, thoughtfully. “I can see that. Let me know what happens, will you?”

“Will do.” I hung up and massaged my temples.

“Problem?” Torvil asked.

“Possibly.” I moved to the sand table and started working with it. Finding a tiny fleet in the dark without first using a locator spell would, for most people, be a problem. With my new Sand Table of Scrying ™, it was just a matter of zooming out, finding something unusual on the mostly-flat ocean, and zooming in on it.

I was really proud of the way the sand rolled like the surface of the sea. The ropes and edges of the sails were a bit fuzzy when I zoomed in, but I’m still not done with it.

I still didn’t get to look at any of their flags—the sand table doesn’t do so well with that sort of thing—but I could see five ships with guys jam-packed on the deck. From the way they were headed, it looked as though they would pass Mochara and hit a beach farther east, rather than try to deal with that seaward wall. Day after tomorrow, maybe? The day after that, at the latest.

I called Amber on the other mirror, but she wasn’t answering. Busy with preparations, probably.

“Torvil?”

“Yes, Sire?”

“What’s the usual procedure when someone tries to raid Mochara?”

“Well…” he trailed off, thinking. “Well, first, someone blows a horn when he spots them coming. After the shouting and pointing, there’s more horns, then bells. The city watch gets all their guys armed and armored. Fighting men report to the watch for instructions. Women and children usually gather in one of the stone buildings—Mother’s Temple, the granary, those places. Oh, and professional wizards report to the watch, too, so they can help.”

“How do these fights usually go?” I asked.

“If it’s a landing to try and take the seawall gate, usually we throw a lot of fire arrows at them and push ladders away from the wall, Sire. Or so I’m told; nobody’s tried that in a long time.

“If it’s an attack from overland, they have to get across the canal, and they usually do that before attacking the north wall,” he continued. “A couple of times, they’ve attacked more than one side. It’s mostly the same, though. Ladders and grapples, mostly, Sire. I hear one group did bring a sort of ram, but the wizards set it on fire.”

“Does Amber participate in this sort of thing?”

“Yes, Sire. She’s usually helping the wounded until someone inside the walls is actually killed. Then she…” he trailed off. “Well, that makes her angry, Sire. She doesn’t like it when her people are killed.”

“Ah.” I didn’t need an explanation of angry; I survived the example.

I considered the sand table and zoomed out, zoomed in, examined the shoreline. The cliffs along the shore gradually shrank as one went farther east, eventually giving way to gravelly beach. Where the cliffs turned into beach wasn’t a sharply-defined spot, but that general area was the most likely place to land.

As I looked it over, I wondered about the timing. I handed Keria an ultimatum not long ago; if ships were already loaded and headed toward Mochara again at this moment…

Who works with whom? Who is allied with her, with me, or with Byrne?

I wanted a map with political boundaries on it so I could color the various states in. This was about to get terribly political on me, and I hate that.

On the other hand, a few ships full of troops is a few ships full of troops. No matter how political my life is, if you’re trying to attack my friends, you’re an enemy. Maybe that’s simplistic of me, but I don’t really want to get too complicated.

Okay, zoom out. Take some measurements. Do the math.

If they were intending to land at the earliest practical point, they should hit the shore late tomorrow—assuming, of course, the weather didn’t change for or against them. Give them all night to get unloaded and organized. That’s two or three days of steady marching—call it three; an army does not travel fast and light. They could attack in the evening four days from now, possibly.

If they made it that far.

Over the next two days, I made sure we kept a close eye on them. I was right; they landed pretty much on schedule. They didn’t immediately set out, however. Instead, they settled in and made use of a lot of shovels and wheelbarrows. They ranged out to the rises of the rolling plains, took the tops off, and carted them back. They went up and down the gravelly beach, gathering it, even cracking chunks off the rocky, low cliffs.

Before long, they had dumped enough rock and dirt to form a narrow roadway out into the water—a sort of dock or pier. A full-sized ship could pull up to it, lower a gangway, and drop off people or cargo without rowing it ashore. Very handy.

On the shore, centered on where the road hit the shoreline, they built an earthen rampart. It was just a long pile of dirt that went around their makeshift encampment. But it was tamped down solid, pretty steep, over six feet high, and had a two or three-foot ditch outside it. Nobody would like to crawl up it while it was defended.

While these jokers were busy building their fortifications, the ships turned around and sailed back. That told me two things: they planned to bring more troops, and they didn’t anticipate being found.

Hard luck for them.

I watched the ships sail back; they docked in a coastal city called Formia and loaded up more troops. They were mostly mercenaries—several different groups, to judge by their banners—with two large rams.

The wheels on those things were inspired. Someone knew that rolling covered rams anywhere without a road was going to be a problem, so each wheel was actually two widely-separated spoked wheels with boards connecting them, making them, essentially, hollow and wide—rather like barrels. Medieval off-road tires!

I checked on the forward base with more regular scrying spells. While I couldn’t put a sensor anywhere inside the defenses, I could look over the defenses from outside. The banners told me these guys were regular troops from Formia, Maran, and Tolcaren. Sensible, I supposed. Mercenaries would want too much money to go somewhere and be abandoned, so send the regular troops to establish a foothold, then send the mercenaries as reinforcements.

My estimate put a thousand boots on the shore. Every round trip could land another thousand.

It’s amazing what you can learn when you just take the time to look. And, of course, have a spy satellite to help you target your more precise observations.

The King’s Council met in the conference room. We turned the mirrors off and I used the sand table as a visual aid.

“After a lot of observation,” I began, “we’ve got this.” I brought up the earthworks and encampment. “This has over a thousand men and their fighting gear. Tort tells me that, according to their banners, they’re from Formia, Maran, and Tolcaren. Mercenary reinforcements should land there in another day, maybe two.”

Kelvin stroked his chin, holding his new, black helmet under one arm. Everyone else frowned.

“We can’t get there in two days,” Kammen said. “Sire.”

“I can.”

Nobody said anything to that.

“Well?” I asked. “Comments?”

“Sire,” Kelvin said, “that’s a thousand men right there. They are sure to have at least one wizard among them, probably half a dozen. No one is stupid enough to try a raid on Mochara without wizards. They might even have hired a magician.”

“Maybe,” I agreed, “but I doubt it. T’yl?”

“Unless he’s a fanatical moron,” T’yl said, “no magician is going to go on a venture this stupid. Abandoned in grassmen territory? No, thank you. Although it is possible,” he added, “that a magician might be scheduled to arrive later, by some other means. If so, he’ll definitely have a plan for a rapid departure when things go wrong. But he won’t arrive until the area is secure. I guarantee it.”

“Sounds reasonable,” I agreed. “My thoughts on this are to let them land their reinforcements. Once they have everybody landed, I’ll destroy their ships, possibly burn them, definitely sink them. That will destroy their morale. I might even destroy their rams, depending on what I think I can get away with. Then we can wait for them to decide what to do—try to sneak by, march boldly past, or attack. At which point, we destroy them. What do you think?”

There was a long pause while people thought it over. Kammen spoke up again.

“So, you’re gonna let us fight?”

“If it comes to that, yes. We’ll negotiate, if we can.”

“You’re not gonna eat ’em all?”

“No.”

“Just sink their ships so they can’t get away?” he pressed.

“Sire,” Seldar said, softly.

“Sire,” Kammen echoed, dutifully.

“That’s right,” I agreed.

“I’m for it,” Kammen said.

“
I’m
not!” Thomen said, surprising me. “The King is too important. What happens if they kill you? Where will we be?”

Tort put her hand on his shoulder, gently.

“He is the King,” she said. “He will do what he feels is best. He will do nothing that is not worth such a risk,” she finished, looking me in the eye. It was a cross between a command and an entreaty.

Thomen subsided; more, I think, from Tort’s gentle touch than her words.

“I don’t like it, Sire,” Kelvin added. “He’s right in that we can’t risk you. You don’t even have a proper heir.”

“Amber.”

Kelvin looked as though he had just bitten into something nasty, but he didn’t disagree.

“As you say, Your Majesty.”

“You only call me that when you’re mad at me,” I noted. “What’s wrong with Amber?”

“Sire, then. Sire, she… has… her religious viewpoint is…” he trailed off, not certain how to say it.

“I think you underestimate her,” I said, hoping I was right. “But I suppose I don’t have to do this personally. Who do we have that can do it? By that, I mean get there in two days, can’t be drowned, and is physically powerful enough to drive a big spike into an oak beam at a single blow while underwater?”

There was another one of those thoughtful silences. Torvil raised a hand and I nodded at him.

“Do I get a hammer, Sire?”

“How well are you going to swing a hammer underwater?”

“Ah. Hmm.”

“Ah, indeed. Anyone else?”

There wasn’t.

“All right, then. If this goes as I plan, or anywhere reasonably close, I’m going to want a sizable body of men headed that direction. Send for the canal boats; we’re going to get all the knights down to Mochara, saddle up there, and head east.”

“We are?” Kelvin asked, eyebrows rising.

“Well, you are. Depending on how they react, we may have our first real battle. I hope not, but you never know for sure.”

I spent the rest of this afternoon in the workroom, carefully crafting some hefty spells into a bunch of giant nails—things about the size of railroad spikes. And, like railroad spikes, I set shifts of guys—masons, carpenters, and smiths, mainly; the knights were busy—to work beating on them with hammers. I spent a few minutes beating on them, myself, just to be helpful.

Shortly after sunset, I collected my hammered arrowheads and headed off to Mochara. There were a couple of fatalities and one voluntary discorporation to handle; I swept up the ghosts almost in passing, then gently escorted the elderly fellow on a personal visit to the Grey Lady.

That duty done, I headed over to Flim’s house. He finished his experiments in springy metal. A well-paid Wethel had taken the metal strips and fastened them together with both ingenuity and skill. It was four layers of metal joined together like some sort of Chinese puzzle. The layers could slide a little bit against each other when the whole thing bent. It was quite impressive.

I spent some time with the metal, then, magically checking it for flaws or defects. I didn’t find much to fix, truth be told. I did cheat by magically strengthening the steel cable Kavel made me, though, before I strung it.

My test arrow didn’t exactly disintegrate when I loosed it, but it did suffer a bit as the cable tried to move forward faster than the wooden shaft could take. The rear of the arrow splintered quite a lot. Important detail, that. Still, it launched, and the arrowhead exploded on impact. I don’t know if it was on par with a grenade, but it was certainly something nobody wanted going off nearby.

I built an absorptive spell, much like a spring, into a normal arrow. That would absorb some of the energy of the launch, then feed it into the arrow after it left the string. Knowing it had a long way to go, I set it so it would evenly feed the extra push into the arrow over about twenty seconds. That would vastly increase the range, as well as preserve the arrow’s physical integrity.

Then we were off to Vathula.

While I could, if I chose, turn Vathula and everyone in it into component particles, that would have serious drawbacks and unpleasant repercussions. Firebrand might not mind the heat and radiation, but the concussion could be another story. Digging its twisted, shattered remains out of the molten, irradiated bedrock was not a satisfactory result. Bob, also, would definitely not survive; I might not like him, but I feel I owe him better than that. And, of course, someone was bound to notice the mushroom cloud. That could be a whole other pot of haddock when people found out I could do that. It would polarize everyone who found out; you can’t afford to be neutral when there’s someone who can make your city vanish without warning. Or just blackmail you with your whole city as a hostage.

It might be the short road to reuniting Rethven, maybe even forging a new Empire. Sadly, I don’t want to rule everybody; ruling is boring. I prefer to let other people run the place while I invent and re-invent stuff. That’s much more fun.

Still, just one little nuke? No, nuking the place wasn’t worth it. Tempting, yes, but not worth it.

Instead, I had a quiver of arrows and a bow that could get them where I wanted them.

Bronze and I parked on the trail, just in sight of the gate. It was guarded, but not heavily so. They were at a routine level of vigilance.

I dismounted, strung the bow again, selected an arrow. I drew it back to my ear, gave it some elevation, and let fly.

I’m an indifferent archer. My form is pretty good, but I’m just not cut out to be a bowman. Hitting the broadside of a barn is easy enough; hitting the barn door isn’t a challenge, either. Hitting the barn at two miles away? That’s a little bit beyond my skill. The double doors that form Vathula’s eastern gate are about twenty feet high and a trifle wider, forming a big, square-ish target. I’m not sure I could hit that with an artillery piece, much less with an arrow.

On the other hand, I cheat. If I wrap a tendril around the arrow and just let it unwind behind the thing, I can tweak its flight path, either for guidance or to help it make the full distance. I had plenty of time to do so; two miles is a lot of hang time.

It went
thunk!
into the wood of the gate, high and on the left. I selected another arrow and repeated the process. And again, and again. I peppered the door with all twelve of them. By this point, the guards had several lanterns lit and were generally on alert. There were no alarms, as such, but that’s not terribly surprising. An invading force with rams and siege engines is one thing; some jerk using your massive door for archery practice is just a nuisance.

That suited me just fine. What good is a warning shot if no one sees or hears it?

I jerked the lanyard, so to speak, and broke the spells containing all that hammering.

The gate exploded. The arrowheads, buried in the door, turned loose thousands of hammerblows at once. Wood went everywhere in splinters and flaming shards. Small cracks even appeared in the wall. Dust swirled down the pass. The blast wrecked the portcullis just beyond, bending it badly and springing it from its groove. It swung drunkenly for a moment, still held up on one side, then crashed down in the gateway to rock slowly back and forth.

I put my stuff away and mounted up. I cupped my hands to shout, added a bit of directional amplification, and informed anyone who cared to listen that I wanted my sword back, or I would start to get irritated.

Warning shot: delivered. Which only left me the question of what I would do for an encore.

I went back to Karvalen to carve some spells.