ArmyoftheFantastic

THE LONGER HE stared at the battlefield map floating just above the massive wooden table in front of him, the tighter grew the knot that had formed in General Jaquard’s stomach. He was not distracted from his study by the distant baying of stabled wyverns, the howling of massed gryphons, and the familiar, reassuring crackle of evening cooking and cleaning spells. Wholly absorbed in the most recently revised field map, he desperately looked for surcease where there was none. Lying snug on his head and low on his brow, the golden wreath of rank glowed an unsettling red, reflecting his apprehension.

There was no denying the reality. The entire city was encircled and cut off. Desperate attempts by the defenders to break through the Misarian lines had been repeatedly rebuffed by the besiegers. A relief column sent in haste from the capital had failed to break through. Propelled by anxiety and desperation, it had been ambushed by the enemy’s fast wendigo cavalry and cut to pieces by lightning and wind. Though Tesselar was the harbor through which the majority of the kingdom’s goods passed, the disaster at Modrun Pass would force the government to think twice before attempting to relieve its garrison a second time. This had profound implications.

Foremost of which was the inescapable realization that the defenders of Tesselar were, essentially, now on their own. The responsibility for saving the city and, therefore, possibly the entire kingdom from the invading Misarians now fell on his shoulders. These were broad, strong, but—at the moment—tired.

What could he do? Each day, the incantations that protected the citadel’s walls weakened beneath the assault of relentless hexes cast forth by the attackers. Yesterday the South Gate had nearly splintered under a surprise late-night assault by a force of Misarian woodwraiths. Only the alertness of a certain Major Bolcapp in rushing up a squad of engineer forest sprites to rebond the wood fibers had prevented a potential disaster. For his speed and skill in responding to the unexpected attack, Bolcapp had been promoted to light colonel. Posthumously, unfortunately. While directing the defense and repair of the gate, he had taken a choke curse above his protective body charm and had suffocated.

With the South Gate reinforced, the city remained safe. The surprise attack was but one more indication of the skill and stealthiness of the Misarian invaders. There was no telling what cunning enchantment they might invoke next, what unimaginable force their general sorceral staff might pull from the depths of military conjuration. Despite this, Jaquard did not feel overwhelmed. He was as adept at strategy as any senior officer the kingdom’s College of Martial Magic had ever graduated, and individually skilled as well. But he felt very alone.

Gryphons. If only he had more gryphons. More than ever, they were Tesselar’s lifeline to the outside. Supply ships could not get through because of the Misarians’ effective sea serpent and water sprite blockade of the harbor. Somehow, the city had to be relieved. Somehow, the siege had to be broken. It was clear now that after Modrun the government would be wholly occupied with marshaling its forces for the expected defense of the capital. He and his garrison were on their own.

It was at that moment that the bellspell attached to the door that led to his rooms appeared. It jangled apologetically next to his ear. Brushing it away, he turned irritably toward the entry. It was after hours. Conscious of their commander’s troubled state of mind, advisers and junior officers would know that at this time he would either be deep in thought or asleep and not to be disturbed. He muttered under his breath. An interruption this late likely meant another serious loss somewhere along the city wall. Waving a hand in the direction of the fireplace, he murmured an indifferent numinous word. The subdued flames within immediately responded, adding their additional light to the illumination from the drifting glowbulbs.

He recognized the captain. Petrone, his name was. Jaquard prided himself on knowing the names of every one of his junior as well as the senior officers. Petrone was a third-degree adept. To be promoted to a senior level, you had to be at least a seventh-degree. The man was old for a captain. That might reflect on his ambition as much as on any ostensible lack of skill.

While Petrone was old for a captain, the officer who accompanied him looked young even for a junior lieutenant. Jaquard sighed internally. Were the kingdom’s forces spread so thin that the College had been reduced to sending out ungraduated adepts? This—this boy ought to be at home with his parents, helping out with chores or reading books. Not preparing to sacrifice himself on the altar of national defense. He looked hardly old enough to know how to cast a warming spell to heat his rations.

Automatically, the young officer glanced down in the direction of his empty holster. He swallowed hard. “I—I must have left it in my room, sir. I thought that since Captain Petrone and I were coming here, I didn’t . . .”

“Didn’t need your wand?” Jaquard slapped his own holster. The heavy, powerful rod nestled snugly within responded by emitting an iris-shrinking blast of vertical light. “You’re defending a city under siege, whose attackers are inordinately clever and forever plotting. A soldier fighting under such circumstances should never be without his wand. Especially,” he added sternly, “an officer.”

Petrone stepped forward. Memories of supper and remnants of gravy flecked his beard, but Jaquard said nothing. In difficult circumstances, certain aspects of professional comportment had to be overlooked. Defending a city from looting and rapine allowed for different rules than when one was on parade.

“It’s my fault, General. And I’m the one who insisted on coming here at this awkward hour.” The old officer lowered his head slightly. “I thought it of vital importance that you see what this youngster has developed.”

“Developed?” Jaquard was twice surprised. First, at hearing that the late-night interruption was on behalf not of the captain but of his protégé, and, second, that such a callow-faced lieutenant might have something to contribute beyond stammer and shyness.

Petrone looked up at his commanding officer. Years seemed to drop away from him. “A matter of defense, sir. I was greatly skeptical when I first heard about it from other junior officers who had been witness to the progress. I was skeptical when I queried this young soldier about it.” There was a flash in his eyes of something Jaquard had not seen in his troops for many days now. Hope. “I was skeptical, General, until I saw it for myself.”

“Go ahead,” Jaquard told him irritably. “Do whatever it is you have come to do.” Turning his head, he glared meaningfully at Petrone. “This had better not be a waste of my time. I’d say that it took you a considerable number of years to make captain. I wouldn’t want for you to have to start over again.” He shifted his penetrating gaze to the nervous but busy lieutenant. “Either of you.” Petrone offered a wan but slightly defiant nod in return.

In the light from the huge stone fireplace and the hovering glowbulbs, the young officer dumped a singular object out on the table. At first Jaquard thought, quite naturally, that it was some kind of modified wand. It had the right general shape. But it was unusually large, nearly half his height, and festooned with additions he did not recognize. Though milled from honest wormwood, the handgrip, for example, bulged alarmingly at one end. Other odd protrusions were as unrecognizable as their purpose. Most of the wand, interestingly, appeared to consist of an iron tube.

“A two-handed wand,” he commented as the lieutenant carefully laid other items out on the table. Perhaps he had been too hasty in reprimanding the younger officer. “Powerful I would assume, though not suited for close-quarter work.”

“I hope not that, General.” The lieutenant picked it up. It did indeed require two hands to support. “It represents an interest of mine that has afflicted me since I was very young, but I’ve only just managed to make one work properly. It represents . . .”

What was all this nonsense? Philosophy? The Kingdom’s Council was beridden with philosophers—none of whom could cast a fighting spell worth a lick. He said as much, utilizing language that would have seen him swiftly excused from court.

Forgetting for a moment who he was talking to, the lieutenant looked exasperated. “No, sir, it’s not a wand of any kind. It’s something else. It’s . . .” He paused, finished rather lamely, “. . . a ‘stun.’ ”

Nodding, Lieutenant Kemal set to work. First he dumped a small amount of a powder Jaquard did not recognize into a tiny pan positioned near the rear of the metal tube. The powder neither flashed nor smelled of even the simplest charm. From a small cloth bag, the lieutenant removed a thumb-sized ball of metal. That, at least, was immediately familiar to the general, whose sense of arcane smell was well trained and highly sensitive. The ball was made of lead. He was not impressed. When it came to utilization for military incantations, lead was a notoriously ineffectual metal.

Tilting back the metal-and-wood contraption, the lieutenant proceeded to drop the lead ball into the metal tube. He followed it with a packet of ordinary, unenchanted cloth, ramming both deep into the tube with a long, thin piece of metal. This concluded, he stood cradling the tube in both arms, an air of readiness surrounding him. To the perceptive Jaquard, this glowed a very faint blue.

“A target?” Jaquard’s doubt was plain to see. “For that thing?” When neither junior officer responded, he shrugged and turned, gesturing absently at a sturdy wooden chair resting near the far wall. He was running out of patience for what increasingly appeared to be an elaborate farce. If it was not more, not a good deal more, the ranks of the defenders of Tesselar would be reduced by two officers.

This really had gone far enough, Jaquard felt. But having already sat through the first two acts of the play, he decided he might as well stay for the conclusion. Drawing the potent service wand from his own holster, he aimed it at the inoffensive chair. The wand was gilded and embedded with filigreed electrum, a gift from an admiring council upon his last promotion. For all its embellishment, in the hands of a twelfth-degree adept like himself, it was frighteningly powerful.

A thin shaft of purple light lanced from the tip of the wand to strike the chair, which was immediately enveloped in a globe of amethyst radiance. The glowing sphere was bright and perfect and impenetrable. It would take an equal force, focused hard and exclusively, to so much as dimple it. The Horfon was the strongest singular defensive spell Jaquard knew. On the city wall, it had once saved him from an enemy slashing a corkscrew summons that had felled half a dozen brave but lesser soldiers around him and left a foot-deep hole in the stone surface itself.

Holding it in both hands, the lieutenant raised the tube and pointed the narrow end at the distant chair. Jaquard waited for the murmur of an incantation. It did not come. Instead, the young man pulled back on a small piece of metal that protruded from the underside of the tube. Another piece of metal on the top flicked downward, very fast. Powder ignited. Ignited, a stunned Jaquard observed, without so much as a whisper from either junior officer. There was a brief, bright flash of light and smoke. It was followed by a tremendous bang that echoed off the stone walls of the chamber. This despite the lieutenant not having voiced so much as a hint of a thunder spell.

It all happened so fast. The light and the smoke were followed by the lieutenant taking a forced step to the rear as the end of the tube kicked up and backward. That was the sum of it. As theater, it was certainly impressive. But as a device, beyond its ability to startle it appeared to have no practical use. Recovering his poise, Jaquard said as much.

Dubiously, Jaquard followed the captain across the room. The purple sphere of the Horfon still surrounded it, refulgent and intense as ever. It took the general a moment before the impossibility of what he was seeing registered fully on his brain.

In the back of the heavy wooden chair was a hole big enough to push a finger through. Leaning close, he saw that the edges of the hole were ragged and torn as if by a powerful piercing curse. Beyond, the stone wall was scored where the metal ball had struck it after passing completely through the chair. The Horfon continued to hover in place, apparently intact. It had been penetrated as if it consisted of nothing but air and words.

The lieutenant proceeded to explain. “The powder is a special mixture of my own devising. Its components are quite commonly found in the ground and require little in the way of preparation. Nothing like a hammerspell or levitation necromancing.” Leaning forward, he pointed. “When this small held stone and this piece of metal come together, the powder is ignited and . . .”

“Just a minute.” Jaquard looked up. “Let me make sure I am understanding this. The powder is ignited by bringing together a rock and a piece of metal? No incantation of any kind is involved? Not even the most basic fire spell?”

A disbelieving Jaquard turned to Petrone. “The fire spell was perhaps the first basic incantation discovered by our primitive ancestors. Yet the device creates fire by bringing together pieces of wholly inert rock and metal? How can this be?”

Letting the general continue to hold the stun, the lieutenant proceeded to explain. “The entire force of the sudden fire is trapped within the tube. This force drives the ball forward and with great velocity out the only opening. In the absence of a directional spell, the length and straightness of the tube alone decide its course.”

The lieutenant glanced at the captain, who smiled back. “I don’t see why not, sir,” the younger man declared. “With the help of skilled hands, the process of manufacture should be greatly accelerated.”

“That’s the interesting thing, sir. Ample supplies of most ingredients are present within the grounds of the city itself. The only other critical component is readily available on at least two of the islands in the inner harbor.” He hesitated, then added, “It is the residue of the seabirds that nest there.”

“It’s not magic, sir,” Petrone corrected him tactfully. “It’s something else. We don’t have a name for it yet.” He looked at his protégé and smiled. “That is, Lieutenant Kemal does not have a name for it yet.”

All trace of Jaquard’s lethargy had vanished. He was once more a determined, fervent soldier of the kingdom, eager to do battle. And what a battle it was going to be, he mused, envisioning the effect on the confident Misarians when ball after ball of despised and debased, ordinary, unenchanted lead smashed through their strongest incantations to deal death and injury. They would not understand what was happening to them. Not understanding, they would panic, turn, and flee, to be driven from the kingdom’s shores forever.

Handing the unnatural weapon back to its maker, he reached down to the table to pick up one of the metal balls that had spilled from the cloth bag. Holding it up to a glowbulb, which drifted closer at his beckoning, he rolled the metal sphere back and forth between powerful thumb and weathered forefinger.

“Well,” Lieutenant Kemal murmured, “when I first got everything to work, the force of its strike reminded me of a charging bull. So I thought to call it a bull. But it’s so much smaller than a bull I felt it necessary to add a diminutive. I call it a bullette.

“ ‘Bullette.’ And not a spell to be sensed anywhere about it. The Misarian misanthropes won’t know what hit them. Their sorceral strategists will strive to em-place thaumaturgic defenses only to find themselves devastated by ordinary lead. Ordinary lead and,” he added with an unmistakable hint of glee, “bird shit!” Putting down the innocent-seeming sphere, he turned back to the two waiting officers.

“Whatever you need, requisition it from stores and supplies. I’ll sign the necessary orders. Work as fast as you can.” He looked sharply at the lieutenant. “How quickly can you produce these stuns and bullettes?”

“I know, sir. The enemy must be kept at bay while we make a start with the necessary manufacture. Realizing this, I set my mind to devise possible means by which we may delay and even drive them, at least temporarily, away.”

The lieutenant took the instant promotion in stride. “I’ll need,” he told his expectant commanding officer evenly, “a gryphon. And some men to help me collect more ingredients. A lot more ingredients. And several metal cylinders of the kind that are commonly used to store fresh milk.”

Several days later Jaquard and his senior staff were watching from the highest tower of the city walls as the lieutenant and his double escort sped toward the blockading Misarian fleet. Major Petrone was present as well. The appearance of a squadron of gryphons heading toward them would have sparked an immediate response from the enemy, in force. A triplet of gryphons, without any escorting pixies or other aerial manifestations, was presumed to consist of scouts who would stay high and not attempt to cast any spells. Any surprise incantations launched from altitude would, in any case, easily be countered by the fleet’s alert defenses. Save for conjuring a few flaming salamanders in their general direction, the trio was ignored. In any event, the sortie from the city soared too high for the keening, combusting salamanders to reach. Failing to hit any targets, they fell backward to land in the sea. There they promptly flamed out, hissing softly.

A personal magnifying spell hovering in front of him, General Jaquard watched as the three gryphons tilted their wings and banked sharply to the right. Riding wand on the middle gryphon, behind its pilot, Captain Kemal could be seen to lean out of his harness and drop something. It was a fairly large object and shaped like a teardrop. Observing this, Colonel Aspareal theorized aloud that it might be a crying spell designed to put out of action the sailors on one of the blockading ships, though what such a temporarily incapacitating incantation could hope to accomplish in the long run the good colonel could not imagine.

The gryphons banked sharply away. The teardrop shape struck not a ship but the resting, finned serpent to which it was harnessed. There was a tremendous explosion. Jaquard found the startled cries of his experienced senior staff most gratifying, though he was hard-pressed, even though he had some idea of what was coming, to hold back his own astonishment.

When the smoke cleared, both ship and serpent were as before—except that the serpent was now missing its great, fanged, seaweed-fringed head. As the massive serpentine, decapitated body sank beneath the waves, there was panic among the sailors on the ship. Deprived of its motive force, the vessel found itself suddenly at the mercy of the currents that ran outside the entrance to the harbor. It promptly slammed into the blockading vessel next to it before those aboard could rouse their own harnessed serpent to pull it out of the way.

A second teardrop fell from the middle gryphon. This time its target was one of the largest ships in the blockading fleet. To their credit, the vessel’s defenders were ready. A golden cloud appeared above the ship, passionate and beautiful. No gryphon, no dragon, no fire-spell could penetrate it. Beneath, the defenders threw up a curtain of dismay designed to shunt any incoming enchantment harmlessly off to one side.

The heavy teardrop shape went right through the center of the golden cloud as if it was no more than a cloud, ignored the curtain of dismay as though it represented nothing more than the distraught thoughts of the officers who had sent it forth, and struck the ship. A second explosion ripped through the air. By now it seemed as if half the besieged population of Tesselar had gathered atop the harbor walls. Some of them were jumping up and down and thrusting hands and fists in the air. A hole well and truly spelled (no, not spelled, Jaquard had to remind himself) in its hull, the Misarian ship began to sink rapidly. Distraught sailors could be seen leaping off its deck and sides. Desperate officers tried to repair the hole with several patching spells. But because the perforation had not been caused by a spell, their efforts proved futile.

A sea-based squadron of gryphons was already launching from the Misarian flagship, but by now Captain Kemal and his triumphant escort were winging back to the city. Soon they would be safely within its outer defensive spells. Observing their approach, Jaquard realized that not only was it going to be possible to defend Tesselar, today represented a significant shift in the balance of power. The kingdom would be saved. The equation had been changed. Thanks to the discoveries of a persistent, different-thinking junior lieutenant, warfare would never be the same again. Nothing would ever be the same again. If the powers-that-be so desired it, the Kingdom of Brevantis would become a force the likes of which the world had never seen. Or would at least until other lands and kingdoms independently made the same discoveries as the resourceful Captain Kemal. A way of doing things that was other-than-magic had been revealed. Undoubtedly, it would be exploited in ways a simple career soldier like himself could not foresee.