Commander Chandyr knew his destiny was upon him. It was inextricably linked with the fate of the college and city of Xetesk but he preferred to consider just himself and his men. Facing the responsibility for the futures of so many mainly innocent people was more than he wanted to cope with right now.
The Xeteskian force were making steady progress through the mage lands, taking the quickest route to Julatsa. They would skirt Triverne Lake, leaving the sacred lands unsullied, taking nothing, not even water. He had time to see the irony of that. Despite all the horror that had been visited on Balaia by the colleges, that was still seen as a step too far.
Riding sedately in the middle of his tightly organised twenty-wide column of men, he considered his current tactical challenges. For a student of the military, which he considered himself to be, they were very interesting. As he always did, he tried to put himself in the mind of General Darrick. Or was it ex-General Darrick? Idiots, the Lysternans. Only the pretentiously pious would seek to destroy their greatest asset because of a moral misdemeanour. Had they engaged him rather than trying to kill him, Chandyr suspected the war would have followed a very different path. More pressure on the walls of Xetesk, no panic in the face of the dimensional spell’s power. Still, it was no concern of his.
At his disposal, Chandyr had approximately thirteen hundred men, a hundred of whom were horsemen, the rest divided into six equal companies under field captaincy. Most of his men were relatively rested, having been cycled carefully at the fronts. Some were raw but all had undergone at least basic training. He had seventy mages, most with little battle exposure beyond the recent siege, and experience only of basic offensive and defensive castings. And all of them were young, graduates of the last five years. This worried him. Linked shields, cooperative offence and long-distance Communion could be beyond them.
More pleasing was the well-organised supply train. Food would be basic, and they were expected to forage and hunt to supplement themselves, but they would not starve. They had blacksmiths, stable masters, field medics and a talented quartermaster to run their camps. Chandyr was not expecting a long battle but they were well served should it prove to be so.
In front of him was a fragmented, but in places very dangerous, guerrilla force. He had already decided not to attempt to slow up the elves. His testing of the forward scouts had cost him too much and setting a large enough force in front of that enemy wasn’t feasible in the time available. They were over two hours ahead of him and moving fast, still catchable by horse but his cavalry were by no means numerous enough to risk. He would take them on in Julatsa instead. In the meantime, his assassins and familiar-backed strike groups were tasked to kill identified leaders, The Raven if they could, and to steal back the elven texts if they got very lucky.
Elsewhere, his scout mages were slowly building him a map of the enemy close to him. Fragmented groups of Lysternan and Dordovan soldiers were scattered over a wide area. Many small groups of soldiers, often injured and clearly without direction, were heading back towards their home cities. These he would ignore.
Others, those with mages in their midst, were clearly receiving orders and either heading directly north in front of Chandyr or moving to intercept other groups and swell their numbers. These he wanted to keep fragmented, his outriders attempting to harry them, mage defenders attacking them and the threat of assassins exhausting them through the coming night. He fully intended to stop them, his scouts telling him of any meaningful moves being made. With the enemy already sapped in energy and morale, he didn’t expect anything.
Not even from the two groups of horsemen who were his greatest concern. One, the remnants of Blackthorne’s men and including the Baron himself, was making a nuisance of itself connecting the split enemy forces. The other, Izack’s excellent cavalry, perhaps seventy or eighty, had broken off its initial attack but was patrolling the space ahead of Chandyr, denying his ground scouts and outriders the freedom they needed.
He was sure that Izack wouldn’t attack him head-on and neither would Blackthorne or the elves. But he was equally sure that Izack would be able to slow his movements by judicious charge and withdrawal. His mages were experienced rider-casters and would be able to protect themselves against spell and familiar attack.
And everything Chandyr had learned of the elven warriors through his long days of observation on the city walls told him that these were natural-born hunters and frighteningly skilled with bow, sword and those deadly curved throwing blades. More, they were equally at home fighting night or day and he couldn’t believe they wouldn’t try to disrupt the Xeteskian march.
Interesting. He could send his cavalry out to tackle Izack but he wasn’t convinced they would prevail despite their superior numbers. Izack was a star pupil of Darrick’s. And succeed or fail, having no horse guard left his own flanks exposed for a greater or lesser time to attack from elves.
He could push on, marching into the night and resting only sporadically but his men would tire and they had a fight ahead of them, whatever his strike groups’ successes against the disparate pockets of resistance. And moving at night, without the capacity for a fixed perimeter guard and internal fire ring, the elves would rip them to pieces at will.
Chandyr could detach more of his core fighting force to sweep north and push back Izack but again, the Lysternan commander was too clever to be sucked into a combat that would leave him open to attack from horse, mage or familiar.
What would Darrick do? Actually, it was obvious. He was doing most of it already and that pleased him. He would keep harrying the enemies he found, keep them and their comrades on their toes, with their nerves jangling and their bellies empty for want of the hunt. He could destroy much of what was left because he had them running scared. He would let the elves go. He couldn’t stop them getting to Julatsa ahead of him and they were better off the field in any case.
But the critical thing Chandyr considered was this. He knew a good deal about what he chased but nothing about what lay in Julatsa. They had mages, they had soldiers, they had militia. Not many, he knew that, but some nonetheless. It was not going to be an easy fight and he would need every man and mage at his disposal to quell the populace and reach the college with enough strength to tear it down.
Yet even as he nodded to himself and let the finer points of his march strategy coalesce, Chandyr was sure he had missed something. Left out a factor that might turn the tide against him. It nagged at him but he couldn’t pin it down. Was it as simple as he thought? Darrick had always lectured that the straightforward tactic should always be the first considered because it was less likely to fail in the face of the enemy.
And he’d picked the straightforward, hadn’t he?
He remembered something else that the general had said to him personally after a lecture at Triverne Lake a few years back. It made him laugh suddenly and heads turned towards him. He waved that he was fine and the heads turned away.
What history has told us, Darrick had said that time, is that battle theory is best left on the table in the castle, three hundred miles from the fight. Because what you need most is a nose for that thing you forgot. And when you smell it, you’d better pray to the Gods you can communicate it before whatever it is comes at you from downwind and slits your throat.
Chandyr sniffed the air. Dusk was coming and it was going to rain again.
And now Pheone had lost contact with her deputation to the elven lines outside Xetesk. Just at the time she had thought them on the verge of being saved and feeling joy despite her grief and another mana-flow failure. The elves had recovered what they wanted from Xetesk and were preparing to come north.
Everything had finally seemed to be coming together. She had been giving the good news to every mage in the college when another Communion had come through. She had recognised the signature and accepted it immediately. In less than two hours, the whole situation had changed. Xetesk was coming, the elves were running ahead of them, the allied defence was smashed and no one knew who would get to Julatsa first.