Chapter 59: Strategy Vs. Tactics

Calvin reincorporated behind the wall, the terrible cold returning along with his body as he fell to his knees, shivering.

Damn, this could have been over already if I’d gotten rid of their commander.

No time for getting his body temperature back. He needed get up and get moving.

Hope I don’t lose Grant. A little. Losing the old soldier stung more in the sense that it was a loss of a capable teacher rather than any emotional attachment. The man’s attitude certainly didn’t win him any friends, but the way he poked at Calvin’s weaknesses as a leader was helpful, if annoying.

Calvinian Summoning.

8/15 Bent Remaining.

A ten-foot tall Knick-knack appeared beside Calvin and picked him up like a doll before heading for the wall.

The palisade creaked as the knick-knack climbed the stairs carrying Calvin.

Up on the wall, defenders were stretched out, further a body length away from each other, gritting their teeth in fear and anger as they thrusted makeshift spears down at the attackers.

Carl, the footsoldier who couldn’t take care of his gear properly seemed to have found his purpose in life, waving the Gadveran flag with a manic look on his face. The whites around his eyes showed all the way around as he swung the pole madly back and forth, keeping the rallying flag snapping with a professional crack, even as arrows whizzed down around him.

Calvin’s chair carried him up onto the wall, and he winced.

The view from on top of the wall was even worse than he’d thought. it was one thing to casually assess the amount of time the wall had before it was destroyed, and another to live it.

One of Calvin’s men glanced back when he heard the squeaking of the wall, and flinched before tapping the shoulder of the man next to him.

One by one, they stopped what they were doing, and Calvin felt the full force of their expectations fall on his shoulders. He could feel a sliver of hope in their gazes, and he knew it was his duty to make it a reality.

“Let me buy you some more time,” Calvin shuddered the words out. He maneuvered the knick-knack close to the wall and concentrated on his Fireball component.

Shaping.

6/15 Bent remaining

Calvin spent two Bent to draw a thin line of God’s Fire across the entirety of the Ilethan line, immolating the first two rows of the unfortunate soldiers in a devastating wave of brilliant fire. Calvin watched as it carved a path of white-hot energy through the dense crowd.

What happens to me when someone else drops an undefendable attack on me? If anything, recent events informed Calvin that he needed to work on his defense.

Calvin could feel the Warp against his skin as it rose out of the charred corpses like invisible steam.

Some of my guys are going to Break from this…most of them, in fact.

Calvin cast a glance over the hundred and eighty remaining soldiers, who were tucked behind the palisade, catching their breath as the pressure was temporarily lifted. If they all had the Break at once, they would be in serious trouble.

Should I have the Veterans pull us back to the next wall? Calvin thought, eyeing the wall on the other side of the camp. It was about half as strong as the one facing the Ilethans, and pointed the wrong direction.

As it turned out, though, Calvin didn’t need to plan for the Breaks,

The battlefield was complete chaos, Some of the Ilethans were still charging forward, others falling back from the horrifying deaths they’d seen in front of them. The ones in the back were terrified that the wasps might return, looking every direction for stingers that might drop them like so many other swollen corpses, while men retreating from the front tripped over them, adding to the confusion.

One more should do it.

Mass shaping.

4/15 Bent remaining.

Calvin spent another two Bent in an attempt to sow the battlefield with dozens of minor explosions, but he felt his Bent being pushed up, scattering the spell harmlessly up into the air. In the distance, he could make out the woman in white robes pointing at him.

Guess she’s back in the fight.

“You’re back!” Lieutenant Vukya said, running up to Calvin.

“I am. Thanks for holding things together. What do you think the – one second – “

Calvin felt an arrow whizzing toward his face, and he put the Knick-knack’s steel fist between himself and the missile.

The Bent-charged arrow bored halfway through the creature’s hand before it stopped in front of Calvin’s face.

No quip?

Elliot was being strangely quiet.

“What do you think the chances are of the Ilethans retreating?” Calvin asked, finishing his question once the giant Knick-Knack had moved him out of the sight of archers.

“Normally, I would say good, People tend to retreat when a significant number of them are killed, but with Ilethans…” The straight-laced lieutenant frowned.

“Instructor Grolsh taught me that either Ilethan morale breaks far earlier than others, or it doesn’t break at all until you take out the Sorcerer keeping them going, or aforementioned sorcerer decides to pull back.”

“That’s tricky,” Calvin said between shivered, before hoisting himself up to take a quick look at the battlefield.

He spotted Charlotte standing beside a line of perhaps a hundred Gadverans, facing their direction. The distant sorceress pointed a finger, and Calvin’s skin prickled as he felt Bent move, even from this distance.

I wonder how much Bent she used just now, and how much she has left?

Calvin himself didn’t have much to spare anymore.

The line of Gadveran prisoners burst into flames that towered above them, looking like a hundred candlewicks at this distance.

What in the Abyss!? Calvin’s gut sank as the front line of charred corpses jerked awake, leaping to their feet and roaring like animals as the burnt flesh flaked away. The thousand men leapt forward, scrabbling to climb the wall and grabbing at the defender’s spear, reinvigorated to a level that Calvin didn’t think was possible.

“This could be a problem,” Calvin said, his knick-knack setting him down against palisade.

“What should we do?” Vukya asked, looking at him expectantly.

What should we do against weird resurrecting troops who seem to be berserk? Nothing is ever easy.

“They’re not thinking clearly,” Calvin said, pointing at the seemingly rabid men, speaking with more confidence than he felt. “Put them down like animals, and I’ll see to stopping their friends from carving a path for them.”

“Sir.”

Calvin had basically just told him to keep doing what he was doing, but Vukya seemed to get something out of it that Calvin didn’t quite understand, turning around and bellowing orders to that effect.

The wasps hadn’t had quite as long to recuperate as Calvin wanted, only totaling around a hundred and eighty thousand, but for the purpose of slowing down the enemy, it was perfect.

The palisades exploded with buzzing as the wasps crawled out of every crevice and took flight, spreading over the battlefield evenly, one wasp every few feet. It wasn’t enough to kill, but to the men who’d seen their friends die, it was enough to cause a panicked meltdown.

As he’d expected, the enthusiastic former corpses ignored the wasps entirely, but their more rational friends behind him slowed down, pushed back by the wave of summons regenerated by the Bad Penny Ability.

The only rule he gave the wasps was to stay away from Charlotte. The Voodoo skill seemed like she could use it to spread damage out to his entire swarm, spending only a single Bent to counter his spell and put them on the back foot.

Calvin preferred to have the advantage in a Bent trade, since he was still relatively poor in Stability.

Calvin looked behind himself. He couldn’t cast spells into the Ilethan lines without Charlotte interfering, but he could cast spells where she couldn’t see.

He glanced at the foundations they’d just finished excavating.

The Ilethans couldn’t hold this place… not if Calvin took down the fortifications. If Calvin left right now, they would be sitting on a barren road with their thumbs up their asses, with nothing to show for it.

A seed of an idea began to form, and it was cemented when he saw the temporary wall begin to buckle under the pressure of the Ilethan host, leaning precariously, the soldiers atop it heedless in their frenzy of stabbing.

That wall wasn’t going to last.

Charlotte and her nephew were leading from the back, and Calvin was about to show them why that was a bad idea.

“Vukya, grab Carl there,” Calvin pointed at the man wildly swinging his flag, “And pull people behind the second wall. Make sure it’s as calm as you can make it.”

Vukya nodded, and seized the Flag-Man by the shoulder, interrupting his furious swinging.

“Second wall!” he shouted, steering Carl through the foundation pits of Calvin’s wall, toward the south-facing barricade.

Calvin took a deep breath and hoisted himself down off the massive Knick-Knack, his legs wobbling under him for a moment.

“Second Wall!” Calvin shouted, grabbing a young man by the shoulder and pointing at the flag. He was in some kind of battle-induced fugue state, stabbing down into the writhing mass of Ilethans with a blood-flecked scowl.

The soldier seemed to be gone for a second before he blinked, nodded, and simply jumped off the back of the wall and ran to catch up.

A few people followed him, but many were too entrenched in what they were doing to pay any attention to their surroundings.

Getting their attention was Calvin’s responsibility.

“Second Wall!” Calvin said shaking another man out of his stupor, then another and another.

The trickle of men jumping off the wall turned into a flood as more and more of them realized they were leaving through the confusing din of combat.

Ilethans were starting to replace Gadverans atop the wall, shouting victoriously.

Make a hole, Calvin thought as he jumped off the wall, joining the stream of Gadverans running for their lives.

The massive Knick-knack walked up to the wall and spread it open, like a man opening the curtains in the morning, the ten foot wall crumpled aside in front of the overwhelming power of the creature, creating a massive, ten foot breach in the wall.

The Ilethans were more than happy to flood through.

***Brendan***

Brendan scowled as he watched the salvaged veterans claw their way up the wall, replacing the Gadverans, who beat a hasty retreat.

I paid too much for this. Far too much, but if I can just hold these walls until the reinforcements arrive, I’ll go down in history as the man who made taking Mujenan possible.

Well, maybe not possible, but certainly easier.

Once they’d taken the camp, they’d fix and improve the defenses. Four thousand men defending this place would make it impossible for the Gadveran army to take it back. Not with their limited remaining troops reserved to fend off the Ilethan Navy.

We’re going to win this, Brendan thought as he kicked his guar into action, moving down the field toward the wall, still several hundred yards distant.

Then something happened that Brendan wasn’t expecting.

The massive steel creature he’d seen carrying that damned wizard peeled the wall open before sprinting away, repeating the process at every major knot of soldiers pushing forward.

Suddenly Brendan’s men were flooding through the wall.

It was an obvious trap, but armies had momentum, and it wasn’t possible to stop them on a deshka.

“No, NO!” Brendan shouted, drawing his horn and sounding a retreat. He didn’t have time to trust a messenger to relay his words. As he watched, hundreds of his men were spilling through, filling the space between the two walls.

“What is it, sweety?” he heard Charlotte call from behind him as he desperately blew his horn, commanding them to stop.

He was too late.

A tremendous flash of light along with a concussive blast of sound washed over him.

The walls burst into flame, as well as every soldier who’d mindlessly jumped at the opportunity to breach the wall.

The remaining men recoiled from the burning wall, screaming as the heat blistered their skin.

“oooh, that’s what.” Charlotte said.

“Why didn’t you stop him?” He demanded, looking back at his aunt.

“Couldn’t see it,” she said with a shrug. “I’ve got limits, believe it or not.”

“Damn!”

When the fire cleared, there was only a tangled, useless mess left where the wall had been, but that was the least of the damage. Wagons of mortar and stone had been hastily tipped over the cliff and spilled into the ocean below, while an enormous stockpile of wood was still burning furiously.

The second wall had been destroyed as well, affording them no protection from Gadvera.

Aside from the foundations that had been dug, they had paid over a thousand lives to conquer nothing but a patch of burned earth.

War is a grim business. If I gave up just because things looked hard, I would be the greatest fool. All I have to do is hold on until reinforcements arrive.

“Set the men to restoring the palisades, dig earthworks facing Mujenan.”

He glanced at the bound and gagged former General, deprived of all his swords. The big man glared at him furiously.

“Send that back to Surrak, along with a request for supplies and civilian engineers,” Brendan said, surveying the carefully manicured grass. There was an abundance of labor to be had in the conquered city.

“We’ve got work to do.”

***Grant***

Grant was leaning against the wall of the wagon, peering out to see the road disappearing under the wheels, pondering his situation.

A fate worse than death awaited him at the end of his journey, when the Elphias, the Crown, would tear his mind out of his body and bind it to The Throne for all time.

Like hell I’m going to spend eternity getting sat on by assholes, Grant thought to himself, as he tested his chains again. He was practically mummified beneath the sheer quantity of chain.

The biggest problem is how to off myself before I get there. It has to be in Surrak at the latest, or else they’ll just assign a Sin-Eater to me when I arrive, and bye-bye suicide attempt.

Grant cocked his head. I hear in an eastern country they used to bite their own tongues off and bleed to death that way…That doesn’t sound particularly effective. The tongue heals faster than any other part of the body. Maybe they have a problem with infection.

Grant honestly didn’t think he could bleed out through something as small as his tongue, but who knew he’d seen people’s hands cut off, and that was something else.

We’ll call biting off my own tongue plan B. With any luck I’ll be able to nick some silverware, jam it into my eye.

Grant was drawn away from his musing by raised voices and the honks of startled Guar.

He raised his eyes and saw several logs laid out in front of the road in extremely rough, four foot walls, just high enough to make it a hindrance to attackers. Behind the wall were dozens of stone-faced young men with bows seemingly scavenged from Ilethan archers.

“Welcome to Captain Gadsint’s secondary fort.” A familiar voice called from the wall, where the teen stood with his foot up on the wall in an arrogant posture.

A moment later, there was a creak of falling timber as two trees fell behind the wagons full of prisoners and wounded men.

Grant chuckled through the gag, slowly giving way to a full-throated laugh.

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