Disclaimer:
I don't own it. I make no profit off of it. I mean to offend no one's sensibilities. Please God don't sue.
Thank You: MOM: I love you
Tony-o: for courage & the right things to do
Miss Sharp: you put up with me for no reason I know
Stelmarta: more than words can say!
Rebecca
Becca and her partner in crime Gwendolyn were two of the trainees who'd been hurriedly appointed to be makeshift Heralds. They were both quality Fetchers, able to get things from furlongs away, more if they could get a 'ride' off of one of the Farseers. The past week had been spent fetching to the point of exhaustion. Hoshi had ordered a list of things to take and they were given free rein to snatch whatever else they could manage. Rings, necklaces, insignia, barrel corks, small pictures, icons, tent pegs, or anything they could manage. They'd actually made a sort of game out of the thefts.
The army was getting closer and closer. She and Gwen were now working directly with Hoshi to try and steal battle plans, pilfer command whistles, start up the priestly firekits, and send in flaming homemade grenades. It was horribly painful work. They were working themselves into terminal reaction-headaches all the time. The other Heralds, if not on border watch, were trying their hands on sabotage as well. Hedrick was top quality with animal mindspeech and he was spooking horses and scaring away game left and right. Kieran had a terminal green thumb, he was encouraging weeds and plants to come up and choke the wagons or the tents. Meredith was using her ability to manipulate fluids to sour wine, make fresh water go stale, and make good beer go bitter.
It was a kind of ingenious plan to demoralize the army. None of them knew if it was working, but it seemed like a good idea. The army of Karse was stopping, or slowing down at least. They were gathering the forces they'd spread out over the sector to apparently take the fort with all they had. It made their lives much easier. A moving target was a lot more difficult to hit.
The only sticking point in the whole 'master plan' was that the Valdemaran army was still two days away and Hoshi projected an attack at dawn tomorrow. They had the civilians in the fort dressed out in army uniforms, it did make it seem as though there were more people, especially the army officers, at Fort Drell, but who in their right mind would believe that the army of Valdemar was here? Sure there were tents and people, but if push came to shove the civilians at Fort Drell were already the sick and lame and old and too young to fight. Hoshi was now masterminding a plan to stuff old uniforms with straw and dirt and gravel to place on the front lines as well as the real soldiers. No one in their right mind would believe they were a real army, not a thousand actual soldiers, twice that again civilians, and the same number of stuffed dummies on wheels. Hoshi also had plowed over the area around the fort, sowing the ground with the combustible mixture that she was now famous for inventing. If they walked close enough to the fort the Karsites were in for one hell of a surprise. There was more of the stuff sitting in cauldrons; the mixture kept frozen over in the winter nights. Hoshi had them pound that into crystallized dust and placed into leaky grain sacks that spread the cocktail like snow over the firing trajectory. Black snow. Snow that would ignite with one hit of a flaming arrow and burn everything it touched to the ground.
Sub-commander Mesick
Mesick was the commanding officer of the scouts and spies that Karse brought with them to keep tabs on the army of Valdemar. To his nearest projection the Valdemaran army was at least two days away at maximum speed. An attack at dawn would then, as projected, utterly destroy any resistance within the next day to two days march. At least that was the plan. He'd been getting strange reports that the amount of soldiers at Fort Drell was rapidly swelling. There seemed now to be an inexhaustible supply of soldiers available to the demon riders. This was, as projected, completely impossible. He needed to re-check his calculations.
"Mesick!"
"Sir, yes sir!" He snapped to attention. Not this, anything but Lord Albright. The man was possessed. He was brilliant, but no one in Karse up to and including the Son of the Sun himself, wanted to cross this General. People who defied him had nasty ways of 'disappearing' and ' re-emerging' in small pieces.
"What is this I hear about a seemingly magical appearance of soldiers at Fort Drell. Have the demon riders been increasing the ranks?"
"Well, sir, it's very hard to say. There does seem to be a slight discrepancy in the…"
"DAMN YOU MESICK GIVE ME AN ANSWER!"
"Yes!" he squeaked, " I don't know what's happening. All of a sudden they just appeared. Please don't kill me!"
"Kill you? Why should I kill you Sub-Commander? Have you only reported that which the demon riders have done?"
" Yes"
"Or is it that you have concealed this from your Lord Captain Commander since the beginning? TRAITOR!"
"No! No, sir please, there has been no indication that the army was any closer than two days away for weeks! I made no error in calculation. See, look!"
"Damn, bloody, flaming bastard whiteshirts! They knew. Somehow they knew. This is the army of Valdemar. Make no mistake about that. I suggest, Mesick, that you start looking on the inside, rather than the outside, for an explication. "
"Sir?"
"You heard me. We attack at dawn. Make your last requests, Mesick, I want answers before then"
" Yes Sir!" The Lord Captain Commander left, trailing attaché's left and right. Mesick sank to his knees and prayed with all his might to Vikandis Sunlord that he could find something to pacify his commander before dawn. Or he was dead meat.
Dawn
The army marched at dawn. They went inescapably forward. The men had been hours away from deserting from fear and superstition. The Valdemarans had inexplicably multiplied overnight. Soldiers were goaded into action only through a combination of duty and threat. They'd left several mutinous soldiers hanging from tree limbs to 'encourage' the rest to follow orders. They reached the plain of Fort Drell and halted.
A messenger was sent to the Valdemarans to tell them to surrender or die. It was a shaky proposition at best and he was chased back with arrows at his heels.
" The soldiers will advance!!"
A great cry went up among the Karsites. The officers goaded, whipped, and slashed until their men feared their own commanders more than the demon riders ahead. In the cold winter dawn, the recently plowed plain glittered in the morning sunlight. It was surprisingly damp, muddy in the cold with a combination of flammable cocktail and melting frost.
The fort was eerily quiet. No arrow, crossbolt, spear or stone flew at the advancing army. It was spooky. The first ranks advanced, until an entire company was on the plowed mud, knocking at the door of the fort.
Within the fort Hoshi did no more than nod. With her direction dozens, if not hundreds of leaky grain sacks, full of crushed, frozen flame flew over the heads of the enemy, sprinkling them with deadly black snow.
A line of archers dipped their arrows into the liquid cocktail; they were lit, pulled back, and released.
The very ground broke out in flame.
Flame, the symbol of Vickandis Sunlord, was used in Karse to represent the will of the God. With the sudden, flaming, fireball the entire army of Karse turned tail and ran. That was the final omen. There would be no war this season.
The fireball died out almost as quickly as it lit. Methane, ethanol, and alcohol, although flammable, were quickly spent. The damage, however, had been done.
The army of Valdamar only a bare thousand trained soldiers and Heralds chased in close pursuit. There was no fight. The Karsites they managed to reach were more than willing to fall face first and surrender. They were chased to the ground.
They ran to the old border, hoping to find solace with the Holderkin. They were not welcomed. Harried by pitchfork, scythe, shovel and plow blade the Karsites, caught between deranged farmers and angry soldiers, were crushed. Albright Sol Arum, Lord Captain Commander of the Army of the Son of the Sun, was captured two days into the retreat.