Wizard's Blood [Part Two] (59 page)

“
So Shyar may have learned something? We were just interpreting it wrong.”

Nodding to himself as he continued to look at the map, Wylan said, “It makes good sense. This might be something they have had in the planning stages for some time, or it might be something that just occurred to them. If it’s the former, they might be far more ready than we expect or may be able to fully react to. Suppose we hadn’t been able to stop their gliders and they were still advancing. A move like this would have caught us completely unprepared. Even if we managed to eventually push them out, the damage would have already been done.”

“
You mean the tunnel?” Asari asked.

“
That and more. They might have succeeded in surprising our defending forces charged with guarding the way in from Trailways. Had they managed that, it would have been possible to bring a major force into Seret. Capturing the Seret side of the tunnel would have been one of their goals. Just imagine a couple of their wizards turned loose with the intent to destroy it. It’s hard to imagine how long before we’d be able to transport anything through it again, even if we were able to push them out.”

“
You think they might be coming then?” Jolan asked.

“
Probably sooner than we can bring enough men for a proper defense, at least unless we use one of the portals. I was hoping we wouldn’t start to make a habit of that.”

“
Can you narrow the routes they are likely to take?”

“
There are only two choices, and one of them would be so difficult it isn’t really likely. I’d never attempt to move more than a handful of men that way.”

“
Perhaps an advance group to try and take out anyone watching.”

“
Maybe. It would be easy enough to have those present watching. Being warned would probably eliminate much of the danger to them. The main force would almost certainly come through the Cairen Meadows.”

“
Why so?”

“
It’s still a bit rugged, but the last open area near the meadows is a large area where a force could be gathered in relative secrecy. It’s still a couple of miles through the forest to the flatlands, so the invaders would be well hidden unless someone was actually watching for them.”

“
Seems like a place you’d be watching,” Jolan said.

“
It is, but they could slip a few people in to deal with our watchers. Even if they missed some, if they moved quick enough, they would be right behind those reporting to the main force, and could still have the advantage of a surprise attack.”

“
Can you show me on a map?”

Wylan shuffled through a series of maps, and finally laid one out that showed more detail of the area they had been discussing. “See, here’s the meadow. They could come through here, or maybe here on the backside, and then be out onto the plain in short order.”

Wylan grinned. “One good thing about this location,” he said. “We have a portal less than a half mile away.”

“
You personally know the area?”

“
Spent a lot of time there as a boy. There’s a really nice lake and one of the portals sitting off to one side. We could use it to bring in the troops if we elect to go that way.”

Jolan had been looking at the maps. “You could move reinforcements from Ekine and Jidan. That would beef up the forces around Honlt, and knowing what was coming they wouldn’t be surprised.”

“
True, but how is that an advantage over the ambush potential of having troops in place when they arrive?”

“
A battle like that is gong to be costly for both sides. I have a couple of ideas that might work out well here.”

Jolan explained how Gene had been telling him about the local version of a Claymore that he’d developed. They had hundreds of them waiting for deployment. If a portal was that close, they could ship them through in quantity and have the men already nearby put them in place. It’d take a bit of training to make sure they knew what they were doing, but the device was really very simple, and deadly. He’d have to arrange a demonstration later in the day so Wylan would know exactly what he was talking about.

“
The enemy would come into the meadows from the back side. We could place the Claymores around the edges of the meadows for the forward half, perhaps two-thirds, of the perimeter. Once they triggered the first couple, there would be general panic, but everywhere they ran they’d encounter more of them”

“
What’s to stop them simply running back the way they came in?”

“
Me,” Jolan said very serious. What he was planning wouldn’t sit well with some. It would be a direct use of the power against common soldiers, but in his mind the time for being civilized was past. Men were going to die and, if given the choice, Jolan wanted to ensure they wouldn’t be those from Seret or Angon.

“
You once wanted the bomb I used in the park as a weapon. We tried it along the river. Here’s a chance to position some of the oil, probably near the back side of the meadow. Luzoke and I could create the bomb and trigger it when the force panics and tries to flee. I doubt there’d be many survivors.”

“
Maybe a few wizards,” Wylan said. “I like the idea. Can we get more specific so we know if this has a chance of actually working?”

“
Let’s also look at the Trailways route,” Jolan said. “I think lining that with Claymores would be a good idea as well.”

* * * *

Three days later the forest around Cairen Meadows was a very dangerous place. Wylan had been completely impressed by the Claymores, only commenting about the mindset of the person back on Earth who had come up with such a device. He’d had more people available than Jolan had suspected, so they’d made excellent time getting the area laced with the deadly devices. He’d been sure that someone was going to trigger one accidentally, but that hadn’t happened.

Jolan and Luzoke had found the ideal places for their placement. The area around the meadow was mostly granite and there were a couple of flats on opposite sides of the meadows where they could set up. The increased elevation allowed them to select a spot for the oil supply that they could see easily, but which was virtually invisible at the lower level of the meadow itself. The rock structure also offered an excellent place to slip behind and anchor shields before setting the whole mess off. Getting the oil in place wasn’t that difficult because magic allowed them to move heavy inanimate loads, and it had only taken a half dozen trips.

While Jolan and Wylan’s troops had been preparing the ambush, several scouts had been sent into the hills to watch for signs of the force Shyar had indicated would be coming. Jolan was starting to wonder if all this was for naught, when they returned indicating a force of twelve to fifteen thousand men was headed their way. One of the scouts had gotten close enough to overhear some conversations, and learned that the group had been sitting idle waiting for the order to proceed. The group that was coming from Trailways had some unexpected difficulty, but the scout hadn’t been able to determine exactly what had happened. Apparently, several of Ale’ald’s key people running the small town had been killed in the past week.

They were good, you had to give them credit. If Jolan hadn’t known they were coming, he might have missed the first of the men to suddenly appear at the edge of the clearing and slip into the open. They were all on foot, each carrying a substantial pack in addition to a rifle. He noticed two men without rifles and wondered if they might be wizards. So many of those with magical abilities thumbed their noses at other weapons. Jolan thought they were being stupid. Sometimes the more mundane weapon made the difference. In addition to his staff and the two rings, Jolan carried the small pistol in a side holster. It wouldn’t have much range, even though he was now far more accomplished with a handgun than he’d been in the past, but it carried copper jacketed bullets that might come in handy along the way.

The Ale’ald soldiers that made their way out into the open expanse of the meadow were obviously well trained. He could see how the men subconsciously formed up into groups rather than straggle across the ground after what had to have been a very long and tiring trek. He continued to watch, knowing Luzoke was doing the same a quarter of a mile farther up the meadow. They would wait until the first line of men approached the other end before starting to create the fuel-air mixture. Then it would be ready when they panicked. The four snipers were back in the rocks, down out of harm’s way for the moment and protected by the shields of one of their team mages. They wouldn’t come out until after the blast. Anyone that survived was most likely a wizard, and they’d take down however many they could find. This was meant to be a black day for Ale’ald.

The men kept coming for a long time. Realizing what he had planned for these men made Jolan feel odd. If there were another option, he might have considered it, but he’d already gone over this with Wylan, who agreed entirely.

“
It might be the fight that breaks their back,” Wylan had said the other day just before Jolan headed off to begin preparations. “They are already having trouble in the midlands, and this might be all it takes to make them back off.”

Jolan wasn’t as sure, but he knew he couldn’t allow these men to get through where they could attack the defending forces. They would find a surprise if they did. The defenders were ready in the event this ambush didn’t go as expected. The Ale’ald troops were operating on the assumption the scouts they’d seen ride off at their approach would be hurrying word back to those same defenders. They were also assuming that they’d be so close behind the scouts that the army wouldn’t have time to prepare for a battle on two fronts. They couldn’t know that the battle plan had already been written for just such an eventuality, with the forces significantly enhanced by men from nearby locations.

While Jolan was musing, the men coming out of the woods started to thin. The last group was leading horses heavily laden with supplies. There would be no wagons. It would have been impossible to get them through the rough terrain these men had crossed in the last week. It was a minor miracle they’d managed to get horses through some of the spots.

Jolan slowly raised the binoculars. The front of the long band of soldiers was approaching the far end of the meadow. It wouldn’t be much longer before someone would trip the first of the Claymores. Grimly, he started creating the violent mixture that would result in the fuel-air bomb.

* * * *

Elar was a wizard of the sixth order, and was in charge of this group of elite fighting men. He and four other wizards traveled with the twelve thousand soldiers, and would hopefully be able to destroy much of the force that had blocked Ale’ald’s entrance into Seret from the mountains.

He didn’t like the spot he now found himself. While the large meadow was a pleasant relief from the constant climbing and the ankle turning rocks and roots they had all had to dodge as they made their way over the mountains, it was too large. It was far too open for him, especially after the past week sheltered by the forest trees. He knew they had been spotted, and the hurried flight of the scouts confirmed their arrival had been a surprise, so there was little to fear. But this place was wrong somehow. He wasn’t dressed as a wizard, since those men with the incredible rifles would target him specifically. Neither, however, did he have his shield. One of the Angon mages would be capable of detecting the shield and pointing him out to the sniper. The concept of the shield had almost become a joke of late. Using one was more likely to be a target indicator. Even so, he was ready to raise his shield in an instant should something unexpected happen. There were far too many other weapons that could be dangerous to an unshielded man.

He turned and looked back at the long line of men behind him. He could see the last were coming into the clearing even now, just as the first of his forces approached the trees that would take them out into the open plains where they could turn northwest toward the battle that waited. A couple of days were all that remained. He was proud of these men. They were the finest Ale’ald had to offer, and had trained carefully for this mission.

“
What?” he uttered at the sharp crack echoing from the front of the line. Moments later a second explosion, and men screaming. An ambush, he thought, but thus far he could see no signs of smoke from rifles. Is this some new magical spell that has been unleashed? He could see that dozens of men were on the ground, and the front line was trying to run back or off to the side to get away from the swath of death. All the explosions seemed to be coming from the vicinity of his forward guard.

* * * *

Jolan couldn’t see what happened when the first of the Claymore mines was triggered by an unsuspecting soldier, but he knew what it must look like from up close. The two hundred steel balls, embedded in the TNT explosive that had been cast into the back of the device, had been propelled at near rifle velocities. Like an immense shotgun, but firing balls that were almost a quarter of an inch in diameter, the cloud of flying steel ripped through anything in its path.

Many men were killed outright, while others were gravely wounded. The man that had triggered the explosion by stepping on the trigger cord had been virtually ripped to shreds by the flying balls.

The Ale’ald soldiers had never encountered anything like this, and not seeing their enemy assumed naturally some magic was being used against them, despite assurances by their leadership that Angon mages seldom used the power directly against commoners. Many of the front line soldiers tried to get out of the line of fire and attempted to find security in the trees off to the sides. Their flight tripped additional mines that had been placed along the perimeter of the meadow making it clear that there was no safe spot at hand.