The Laws of Magic 6: Hour of Need (19 page)

The certainty that they were heading in the right direction came not from sight – although the trees became sparser and more shredded as they picked their way over ground that was broken by large holes thrown up by artillery shells – but through hearing. The sounds coming to them were faint, growing stronger and oddly punctuated, but unmistakably that of war. Aubrey’s uneasiness grew as machine guns chattered insanely for minutes at a time before falling silent. He heard shouts in Gallian and Albionish and, more chilling, Holmlandish.

The enemy was that close.

Stanley led them through a defile where a creek had once run and then motioned for them to crouch. Spread out before them was the battlefield.

The place where Gallia and Holmland had fought to a standstill in the early days of the confrontation had once been a narrow valley, a gap between ridges of the rather grandly named Grentellier Mountains that separated Divodorum from Stalsfrieden.

The Grentellier Mountains were really more a series of low hills and ridges, lines of them running roughly north-west to south-east. One main road crossed this region, somewhat to the south of where Aubrey and his friends now found themselves; it was the route between the Gallian city and the Holmland one.

The valley snaked along, widening and narrowing as it went, varying somewhere between one and two miles across. The hills on either side were studded with artillery emplacements, wherever engineers could drag them. The valley floor itself had been transformed from a narrow wooded corner of the countryside into a maze of trenches, bunkers and barbed wire.

Aubrey felt small in the face of this theatre of war, but he knew that this was but a small part of the battlelines that stretched for miles in either direction.

‘This is a crucial chokepoint,’ Stanley said. He was crouching on one knee, sweeping his binoculars across the eerie scene. ‘We must hold here. If we don’t, the Holmlanders will pour through, double back, and chew into the rear of our lines.’

Aubrey’s imagination, only too willing, provided a vision of the world looking down on this tiny patch. The attention of the powerful, the eager, the invested was, for a time, turned here.

‘What’s this place called?’ he asked.

The officer lowered his field glasses and indicated to his right. A hundred yards away, a mound of rubble stood near the remains of a pond. ‘We call it Fremont, after that farmhouse over there.’

‘That’s not a farmhouse,’ George said. ‘That’s a ruin.’

Stanley shrugged. ‘It was a farmhouse. Fremont was the name of the family who lived there, apparently.’

‘Family?’ Aubrey asked. ‘Where are they now?’

Stanley had the good grace to look guilty. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know. Safe in Divodorum, I hope.’

Aubrey wondered if, one day, the Battle of Fremont would rate a paragraph in a history book, or if it would be a chapter of its own.

Sophie tapped Aubrey on the shoulder and pointed. ‘Look.’

Against the setting sun, it was hard to make out but the tiny spot resolved itself gradually. ‘An ornithopter.’

‘Holmlander,’ Stanley said after using his field glasses. ‘I thought we’d shot down most of their observers.’

The ornithopter was travelling toward them. Caroline shaded her eyes. ‘He’s having trouble controlling the side slipping in the wind.’

Aubrey took Caroline’s word for it. ‘Do we have any aircraft in the area, sir?’

‘Not many,’ Stanley said. ‘The last I heard was that we were anticipating a squadron or two.’ He made a sour face. ‘“Expect them at any time” was the official phrasing.’

The ornithopter was flying very high. Aubrey assumed that it was the better to observe the entire battlefront. The guns of the Albionites and the Gallians were silent for the moment. Such a tiny target was impossible, they all seemed to agree, not worth wasting ammunition.

It was a sensible, rational military decision, but an optimistic rifleman obviously had other ideas: a shot rang out.

Immediately, the ornithopter lurched sideways, as if skidding on the surface of a frozen pond. Then it dropped, spewing a trail of smoke and flame.

‘Remarkable,’ Stanley breathed.

‘He’s doomed,’ Caroline said. ‘His tail control is gone. Fuel tank too. He might be able to glide it in, if he’s very, very good.’

Good, or determined, that’s just what the pilot was attempting. Aubrey found himself twitching and wincing with every jerky movement of the aircraft. The wings beat frantically as the pilot tried to kill his airspeed while retaining some control. The propensity of the machine to plummet like a stone while he was attempting this was a significant handicap, but he wasn’t giving up.

Aubrey realised he didn’t care if the pilot was Holmlandish, Gallian or from another planet entirely. Silently, he cheered him on. His hands curled into fists as the ornithopter stuttered and attempted to roll, which would be certain death for the operator – as opposed to the most probable death that awaited if he could glide the machine into a landing.

‘You can do it,’ George muttered and Aubrey knew he wasn’t alone. He glanced at all of his friends and saw they were united in urging the pilot to success. Even the infantrymen of Stanley’s squad were watching intently, clearly hoping the pilot would succeed.

The ornithopter twisted, then tilted to one side. Suddenly, in his attempt to right the craft, the pilot sent it hurtling across the lines.

It was heading straight toward them.

Aubrey couldn’t help it. Even though he was crouching, he ducked as it flashed overhead at tree-top level, a black shadow against the sky. Caroline cried out and the machine, larger than life, stalled and slipped sideways before the nose lifted a little. It was no good. The ornithopter laboured and banked slowly in the direction of Divodorum, then it clipped the tallest trees skirting the road. The sound of the impact could be heard even at this distance.

Smoke rose from the site of the crash and Aubrey sank until he was sitting, aghast at what he had just seen, on the hard dirt.

Aubrey’s father rarely spoke about his war experiences, but since, at the time, his deeds had been highlighted in the popular press, they had gained a currency that meant Aubrey had read about them from an early age. ‘Adventures’ was how they were inevitably described. Daring raids, perilous escapes, heart-stopping rescues, the stories of Darius Fitzwilliam’s exploits had added to the reputation of the young man who was already a public figure before he went to war. Of course, the stories were later immensely helpful in garnering public support for his political career.

Even as a lad, Aubrey was aware enough to understand that the stories he read were coloured, so to speak. He knew his father, and Sir Darius would have laughed at some of the platitudes the man in the books regularly bandied about. Aubrey trusted the accounts of his father’s service friends more. People like George’s father, who was with Sir Darius when his military service was at its most dangerous. George’s father was also reticent to discuss war stories, but the few fragments he let slip told of a man he would follow anywhere – brave and steadfast. He also hinted at the horrors of war and of those who didn’t come back.

Aubrey glanced again in the direction of the ornithopter crash, then looked toward the barbed wire and smoke of the front. This was war: a vast machine that chewed up people.

T
HE WEEKS SINCE THE
H
OLMLAND ADVANCE HAD BEEN
halted had been well spent, Aubrey decided as they moved through the trenches. He knew that foot soldiers had been notorious scroungers ever since they’d discovered that waiting for the gates of Troy to open meant that they had a long camping holiday ahead of them. Those who were dug in at Fremont were no exception. In military parlance, they had entrenched themselves well, shoring up the sides of the diggings with rocks, timber and – if Aubrey was any judge – the remains of any shot-down ornithopters. Neatly fashioned walkways had been laid across marshy ground that would be a nightmare in rainy weather.

Dugouts had been scooped into the side of trenches at intervals; wary-eyed infantrymen watched as the squad passed with their magic neutralisers. In the manner of soldiers everywhere, the infantrymen were mostly sleeping or eating, making the most of a lull in the artillery barrage. Some were in disarray, missing parts of their uniforms, but Colonel Stanley had developed the selective blindness of the good officer and ignored such paltry matters. Aubrey noticed, however, that no matter how ragged the uniform, no soldier was without his soup-plate helmet. Aubrey touched his beret, which he was sure now looked more like a dust-ridden tea cosy, and felt vulnerable.

Lanterns appeared at intervals as the sun continued to set and the homely smells of cooking wafted through the trenches. For a time, these smells overcame the unfortunate stench of too many men living in such confined circumstances, circumstances that included a lack of running water and, in particular, sewerage. Aubrey was sure the commanders were following the manual in hygiene procedures, but he held his breath as he hurried past the most noisome pits.

When they reached the front line of trenches, Colonel Stanley consulted area commanders, explaining his job and asking for assistance in positioning the magic neutralisers. One by one they were erected and dug into the walls of trenches, to make them as stable as possible while keeping them out of the way of the troops who would be hurrying along the narrowness of the trenches. Stanley consulted Aubrey on every deployment, and fretted over the coverage that they were hoping to achieve. The range of effect of each neutraliser was meant to overlap – but that was the desired outcome and was based on laboratory trials. On the ground, things had a way of working out differently. From the schematics, Aubrey saw how the range of effect was designed to be linear, to keep the actual trench area safe. The intention was for the effect to extend twenty yards or so front and back, projecting out into no-man’s-land, while reaching further to either side along the length of the trenches.

This, of course, was based on straight lines. With the best intention in the world, the trenches were not straight. They curved pragmatically, following contours, dodging around large boulders, winding their way across the battered landscape. The result of their deploying the neutralisers was inevitably going to be less than the optimum designed by the masterminds back at Darnleigh House.

But distinctly better than nothing
, Aubrey thought, wiping grime from his face as they settled the last magic neutraliser into place in a position on the north-west extremity of the Allied position, about two miles from where they first reached the trenches. Colonel Stanley gestured at the sandbagged dugout that was nearby, where lantern light pushed away the night. ‘Major Davidson is waiting for us with some supper.’

George tamped down some loose earth with his foot. ‘Excellent. After you, Sophie.’

Aubrey hesitated and glanced at the sentry who was standing on a firing step and using field glasses to peer across to the Holmland lines. ‘I’ll be there in a moment.’

Caroline gave him a curious look, but she said nothing as she filed past with the others. Aubrey tapped the sentry on the leg, only to have him jerk and try to whirl around while grappling for the rifle that was standing by his side. Only Aubrey’s steadying prevented him from falling off the firing step. ‘May I take a look?’ he asked.

The sentry was a narrow-faced fellow with a beaky nose, somewhere in his early twenties, with narrow shoulders and skinny frame. The helmet on his head made him look like a table lamp. When he gave Aubrey the field glasses, his hands shook. ‘They’re all yours, sir.’ He swallowed and took off his helmet. ‘You’ll need this.’

The sentry ducked as Aubrey mounted the firing step, but Aubrey hardly noticed. He was too busy taking in the scene.

Glimmers came from the hills some miles behind the lines, where troops must be encamped with their cooking fires and lanterns, but closer at hand tiny splinters of light escaped from where the Holmland trenches lay. It was hard to judge, but Aubrey guessed they were roughly two hundred yards away across broken ground. A volley of shots sounded to his right and Aubrey instinctively flinched, crouching low, even though he couldn’t tell if the rounds came from this side or that. No-man’s-land was a place of shadows that collected in gullies or shell holes and were strained by barbed wire.

A flare went up, bathing the warscape in bright, pitiless light, banishing the shadows, making the ruined land suddenly sharp and hard-edged. A half-hearted stone’s throw away from where Aubrey stood was a battered wooden frame with blades hammered in at angles, the ghastly medieval siege defence made modern. It was only one of countless hazards Aubrey could see, obstacles to breaching what looked like a sea of barbed wire.

On the other side of the wooden frame, draped over a ragged shell hole, was a body. Mercifully, it had slid halfway into the crater. Aubrey wondered if the soldier had thought he was safe, for a tiny moment, safe at the bottom of a hole made by a massive explosion, or whether he’d been shot earlier and had crawled, scrabbling at the hard earth, searching for a place of refuge before expiring.

Aubrey couldn’t make out the uniform. It could have been Albionite, Gallian or Holmlander, or one of the colonials, nationality coming to nothing in the end.

The flare spluttered in its arc, winked, then disappeared after having done its job of providing a few seconds of light, enough for an observer to sketch details for tomorrow’s troop movements. Aubrey stood silently in the dark for a moment, knowing that he’d been granted a glimpse into the dark heart of war.

A soft voice interrupted his thoughts. ‘You see anyone?’

It took Aubrey a moment to realise that it was the sentry who was talking. The man was sitting on the firing step at Aubrey’s feet, smoking and staring at the opposite wall of the trench.

‘I’m sorry?’ Aubrey asked.

‘You see anyone out there?’ The sentry added as an afterthought: ‘Sir?’

‘Not at the moment.’

‘Ah. You’re lucky, then. I always see ’em, flitting about out there.’ A short, dry laugh. ‘Imagination. Puts the wind up, though.’

‘I’m sure it would.’ Aubrey wasn’t about to criticise anyone for that, now he’d gazed over the nightmare landscape.

‘Sometimes they’re real, though. Holmlanders sussing us out, looking for the best ways across. Raiding teams.’

‘Raiders?’

‘They send ’em over, every now and then. When they think we’re not looking. Nasty work, if they get into our trenches.’ Another dry laugh. ‘Can’t complain, not really. We do the same when we can.’

‘You’ve been across there?’

‘Twice. Both times I never thought I’d make it over there. Then I thought I’d never make it back. Three times? No thanks.’

‘What’s it like out there?’

Silence. Aubrey wondered if he’d offended the man, and then he thought the sentry must have nodded off. When he finally spoke, Aubrey started. ‘It smells,’ the sentry said. ‘Something horrible.’

Aubrey handed back the helmet and the field glasses.

Supper was brutally sparse: bread and cheese, followed by bread and jam, served with tin mugs of tea. The dugout was well floored with boards that looked as if they had come from a farm building. Aubrey noted how Colonel Stanley and Major Davidson both ate exactly what the small squad of infantrymen outside the dugout ate. The lantern light was low, the conversation muted.

Major Davidson had been at the front for weeks and it showed. His uniform and his moustache were trim and neat, but every movement, every gesture was jittery. His eyes kept straying to the field telephone sitting on an empty ammunition box by his side, and to the entrance of the dugout with its screen made from jute bags. He was a man waiting for something, Aubrey realised. It was going to be dreadful, whatever it was: the call to advance, news of a Holmland breakthrough – the exact nature was uncertain. Uncertainty bred imagining, imagining bred fear, and fear bred more fear. As Commanding Officer, Davidson couldn’t show his feelings, and this only made it worse.

The bread was stale and the cheese past its best but it was an awkward meal. Stanley tried to be positive, but Major Davidson had developed an armour plating against cheerfulness. He was polite, but restrained, as if any show of emotion could open the floodgates – and who would know what would pour out then?

He farewelled them, giving thanks for the extra protection of the magic neutralisers before vanishing back into the dugout, and to another sleepless night, if Aubrey was any judge.

Stanley took a deep breath, and then coughed to cover the fact that this was a bad idea. ‘He’s not unusual,’ he said as he led them back toward the rear. ‘All of the commanders are showing signs like that.’

‘And the troops?’ Sophie asked. ‘What about them?’

Aubrey had seen Sophie and George talking to the infantrymen in spare moments, asking for their impressions, their stories. Their honest approaches had been rewarded, again and again, with even the most taciturn soldier offering a thought or two.

‘They’re finding it hard as well,’ Stanley admitted. ‘They hate the inaction, but they fear the prospect of action. It’s an awful situation to be in.’

Another flare cast its light across the top of the trench. Dull hammering not far away made the ground shake and Aubrey raised an eyebrow. ‘Tunnelling?’

‘It could be,’ Stanley said. ‘It could be more trenching or shelling in the distance.’

Aubrey scratched his chin and he noticed that Caroline was also studying the ground in the light cast by Stanley’s lantern.

Before anyone could react, it was George who tried to settle the matter. He used a pair of stakes that had been hammered in at chest height to lever himself up the side of the trench. He peeked over the edge and then dropped, shouting, ‘Cavalry!’

Stanley goggled at George as Sophie helped him to his feet. ‘Are you mad? Cavalry at night?’

Aubrey knew better than to doubt George. ‘Use your whistle, Stanley, quickly.’

Stanley hesitated and that was enough for Caroline. She produced her pistol, pointed it at the sky and loosed three quick rounds.

Major Davidson bolted out of the dugout, his eyes bulging, brandishing his sidearm. ‘What’s going on here?’

‘You’re being attacked,’ Aubrey said as calmly as he could. ‘Rouse your men.’

‘Attacked? How? What?’ He spied the lone sentry. ‘What’s going on out there?’

‘Horses, sir,’ the sentry snapped. ‘Lots of horses.’

Davidson swore and bounded up onto the firing step, pushing the sentry aside. He swore again. ‘Get me a flare gun, damn you!’

The sentry darted into the dugout and staggered back with the bulky shape of a flare gun in his hand. With a show of initiative, he didn’t wait to give it to Major Davidson. Instead, he fired it.

Aubrey leaped onto the firing step just as the flare bloomed overhead. The ghastly white light revealed that they were under an unlikely attack. Scores of horsemen were charging toward them across the war-torn landscape. Stunned, Aubrey took in the improbable sight of a massed cavalry charge, their brass-spangled, white-belted navy jackets, their plumed shakos, their raised sabres. They flowed across no-man’s-land, weaving between obstacles without missing a step, holding the line as they leaped magnificently over the barbed wire as if it were hedgerows. A bugler was giving wind, urging his comrades forward.

Davidson blew his whistle, nearly deafening Aubrey, then he started shouting. Stanley assisted, running along the trench and rousing sleeping men, kicking their rifles at them.

Caroline leaped up onto the firing step. She took one look and then began reloading her pistol.

‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Aubrey said. ‘In this day and age? Here? A cavalry charge?’

George helped Sophie onto the step next to Aubrey, then joined her. ‘Plenty of cavalry regiments around, old man. Probably some old general convinced someone that it was a good idea.’

A wicked chatter came from their left and the cheers went up from the Albionite infantrymen. Volleys of rifle fire sounded one after the other as the officers bullied the men into ranks.

‘Against machine guns? Who’d ever think a cavalry charge against machine guns would be a good idea?’

Sophie tugged on his sleeve. She was wearing a helmet. It didn’t fit and made her look even more petite than she was. ‘Aubrey, it’s not real. It’s an illusion.’

Aubrey gaped. ‘Everything? The horses? The noise?’

The cry went up to fix bayonets.

‘It is very good magic. Many spells together.’

The charge was only fifty yards away, a line of warrior-laden horseflesh that was unfazed by any obstacle in its path.

Cries of horror went up from the Albionites as the charge came nearer and nearer. A grenade, hastily flung, exploded but didn’t make a dent in the wall of galloping death. Aubrey could see the eyes of the horses, the whites large and panicked.

His pistol was in his hand. He didn’t remember unholstering it. ‘Illusion?’ he said to Sophie.

‘Yes.’

He glared as the charge came to within forty yards – more panic from the Albionites – then thirty. The rifle fire was growing ragged, the Albionite ranks losing formation despite the oaths from the officers – then, when the horses reached the twenty-yard line, rising over the last of the barbed wire, they simply melted away like smoke on the wind.