Mindbender (17 page)

The infantry poured over the berm wall and methodically killed all of the wounded Lancers who had survived the initial attack. General Talia would have preferred to take prisoners but Lord Alexander had been very clear: Kill them to a man. General Talia was a man who followed his orders.

By evening, the enemy bodies had been stripped of weapons and armor and piled into a giant funeral pyre. A few dozen of the giant rhone steeds had survived unscathed. They were taken and incorporated into the heavy cavalry commanded by General Fabian.

The force lances wouldn’t work for General Talia’s men. Wizard Rand surmised that they were tied to the oath given to the Andalian King and suggested that all of the force lances still intact should be shipped to Blackstone Keep for careful analysis by Mage Gamaliel.

The next morning they started their march toward Kai’Gorn. Talia sent a small contingent of soldiers north with the force lances and a message of his victory as the rest of his forces moved south.

Five days later his army of nearly five legions was arrayed around Kai’Gorn. The Rangers had tracked down and killed every last Lancer before returning to the main force. The immediate threat posed by Andalia was eliminated.

All that remained was to prevent them from using Kai’Gorn to land more of their fearsome cavalry. Talia was acutely aware that his victory over the Lancers would be difficult to replicate.

He waited with Wizard Rand and a squad of Rangers for the envoy from Kai’Gorn to approach. The three men carried the banner of the city and a flag of truce; they carried no weapons and didn’t look like soldiers. Talia hoped they would surrender peacefully and allow him to take command of the city without bloodshed—but he doubted it.

They stopped a dozen paces away. The man in the center wore the emblem of Andalia on his tunic.

“I speak for the King of Andalia. He has claimed Kai’Gorn as a protectorate city. Your aggression here will not be tolerated. Further, Andalia serves the rightful Sovereign of the Seven Isles, Phane Reishi. Under his authority, I command you to withdraw your forces from the territory of Kai’Gorn.”

General Talia regarded the man for a moment. He wondered if he might be a wizard but decided he was probably a noble who had been promised this city if he could hold it.

“I am General Talia and I speak for the King of Ruatha. He has commanded the immediate surrender of Kai’Gorn to his rule. You will open your gates and lay down your weapons. If you comply, you and your people will be treated according to the Old Law. If you resist, I will conquer your city by force.”

“The people of Kai’Gorn do not wish to be governed by Ruatha and least of all by soldiers from Southport and Highlands Reach. You are not welcome here. Therefore, under the Old Law, you must leave.”

General Talia smiled at his temerity. “You have brought forces hostile to the people of Ruatha to our shores and waged war against our rightful King. As such, you forfeit your right to life, liberty, or property. Surrender now and all will be forgiven.”

“Your offer is rejected! If you attack our walls, you will pay a heavy price for your crime.” With that, the three men turned and galloped off toward the city. Talia considered killing them on the spot but decided against it. He may need to speak to another envoy in the days to come and they would be very reluctant if he killed this one.

***

Kai’Gorn was well defended. Their walls were high and stout. Talia sent his soldiers in to probe their defenses and ascertain the range of their weapons. The city had heavy ballistae that were deadly out to a thousand feet and catapults that could hurl large stones or clay firepots almost two thousand feet past the walls.

Talia gathered the reports about the enemy brought to him from his army. He was a man who appreciated information and wanted as much detail as possible before he took action. He also understood the importance of a swift victory. The longer he waited to attack, the more likely it was that additional Lancers would arrive from Andalia.

After a day of surrounding the enemy, just out of range of their weapons, Talia decided he had enough information to formulate a plan. He’d lost a few men during the probing attacks and knew from the reports of those engagements that the soldiers within Kai’Gorn were well trained and dangerous.

He weighed the options and decided that half measures were not acceptable. His primary mission was to protect Ruatha from the Andalians. The port at Kai’Gorn had to be taken, and the sooner the better. Talia thought back to the instructions Alexander had given him. He decided to make an effort to take the city without fire even though he wasn’t confident of his chances.

He ordered his soldiers to construct a battering ram. The next day, under cover of a magical fog conjured by Wizard Rand, a hundred soldiers approached the gate and made an attempt to break the giant reinforced doors. They defended against the arrows cast down from above with shields but then a hail of clay pots filled with oil rained down on them. Moments later they were peppered from above with flaming arrows. Those few soldiers that survived, retreated, leaving the battering ram ablaze behind them.

General Talia again considered his options and carefully weighed each. He decided that he didn’t have the necessary heavy weaponry to breach the walls, nor did he have the magic necessary to gain access to the city. He didn’t believe his men could scale the walls without massive losses. His probes had revealed a few passages that looked like they used to lead under the walls, but they had all been collapsed. Reluctantly, General Talia decided on fire.

Wizard Rand conjured his magical fog again and surrounded the entire city with the thick mist. Two thousand archers, each armed with a dozen flame arrows, approached to within a hundred feet of the walls.

When his men were in place, General Talia ordered the signal arrow.

Moments later, thousands of streaks of fire rose up out of the low fog, arced over the wall, and rained down into the city. Another volley followed another until the archers had loosed all of their flaming arrows, then they retreated back through the fog under a counterattack from the city walls.

Kai’Gorn opened up with their archers, ballistae, and catapults, sending a hail of deadly rain down on the retreating archers. The fog could shroud their location but offered no protection against a barrage of missiles. Unable to get out of range quickly enough, almost three hundred of Talia’s men died, but the damage of the attack could be seen in the orange glow of flames that licked the sky over the walls of the city.

General Talia hadn’t wanted to do it this way but he knew the longer he waited, the more dangerous the enemy would become. As the magical fog dissipated, he sat on his horse and watched the city of Kai’Gorn burn. Smoke billowed into the sky as the flames reached higher.

It wasn’t long before the gates opened and a stream of people fled to escape the smoke and fire. General Talia ordered them disarmed and imprisoned in a camp not far from the city. He kept them under guard but treated their wounds and provided them with food and water. His soldiers were respectful but firm. They didn’t treat anyone with cruelty, which seemed to come as a surprise to the refugees caught between Talia’s advancing army and the tyranny of Kai’Gorn.

With the gates open, Kai’Gorn was vulnerable. Talia’s forces stormed through and systematically worked to take the walls and fortifications surrounding the city without venturing into the city itself. They took and held the perimeter wall and maintained a cordon around the city to prevent any enemy soldiers from escaping. For three days the city burned and the people fled.

Small bands of soldiers tried to organize resistance against General Talia’s forces. They were dispatched quickly and without difficulty. There was little organization left within the burning city and a great deal of panic. Once the fires died and the population had mostly fled the destruction, Talia’s forces began moving into the city itself. They worked methodically to search out any enemy still present and any survivors who hadn’t had the good sense to flee.

The place was in ruins. Over half of the wood buildings had burned to the ground and those that remained were scorched. General Talia walked through his conquest with a mixture of sadness and resolve. He understood war and knew the consequences as well as anyone, but he still had a heavy heart for the destruction he’d wrought. Most of the people living here were victims, first of Magistrate Cain’s tyranny and then of the forces from Andalia. He knew that rule under Alexander would yield a much better life for those who survived but that didn’t help the dead.

General Talia did his best to avoid harming the civilians but was ruthless with any soldier who didn’t lay down arms and surrender. Some of the enemy went into hiding and tried to mount an insurgency but their numbers were few, and with the majority of the population contained in the massive refugee camp outside the city walls, the enemy soldiers were easy to find. By week’s end, the city was secure and the docks and keep were under General Talia’s control. Kai’Gorn had sustained heavy damage. The stone structures still stood and the docks had survived the fires, but nearly a third of the wooden buildings were lost and almost everything else was damaged to one degree or another.

Talia set about the work of rebuilding and invited the people to return to the homes that still stood. For those who were without shelter, he opened the barracks of the Kai’Gorn military while his troops camped outside the walls. After some semblance of order was reestablished, he started assembling crews for the ships still in the harbor. Many of the sailors were happy to have the opportunity to work, even if it meant crewing on warships.

Talia sent the half legion of Rangers north to Southport with word of his victory and of its cost. He requested that Kevin send lumber, nails, paint, and food south for the people of Kai’Gorn. He knew that the best way to create loyalty was to help these people rebuild their lives.

Once he knew how many of Kai’Gorn’s population had survived, and once he had thoroughly scouted the surrounding area for any other threats, he sent two legions north under the command of General Fabian to report to Regent Alaric and seek further orders from General Valentine. Two legions would be more than enough men to hold Kai’Gorn and man the warships. Besides, every extra mouth to feed was an additional burden on the severely damaged economy of the local area.

General Talia stood on the battlements of the keep and looked south toward Andalia. He started making plans for moving his forces across the channel to the enemy lands in the distance. He didn’t know if he would be called on to make such a voyage, but he was a general officer—he made plans for any possible course of action that might be required of him.

Chapter 12

Kevin stood on the battlements of Southport Keep, looking down on the docks below. The shipwright guild had just declared a strike. It had been two weeks since Alexander and Isabel had sailed away, and Kevin found himself preoccupied with his little sister. He knew Alexander would do everything in his power to protect her, but he was still worried about her.

The nightmare of trying to govern a city-state that didn’t want to be governed was starting to take its toll on him. He idly wondered how things were going for Erik and Duane. He suspected Erik was dealing with some of the same problems he was facing in Southport. But Duane was in the field commanding a legion in pursuit of Elred Rake in the north; at least he had people who would actually follow his orders.

“We could hang a few of them,” Lieutenant LaChance said. He was a big man, easily six and a half feet tall and weighing over two hundred and fifty pounds. His jaw was square, his shoulders were broad, and his ordinary brown hair was unruly and slightly longer than it should have been. Kevin’s Second, Lieutenant Tanner was leading half of his legion in the south of Ruatha, fighting Kai’Gorn under the command of General Talia. LaChance was serving as his Second for the time being.

“The thought crossed my mind,” Kevin said.

He’d spent the past two weeks skirmishing with the petty nobles about all manner of things. It seemed that every day they had some new complaint or dispute that required his urgent and immediate attention. Most of the issues they brought forward seemed like simple matters that could easily be resolved with a little compromise and common sense, but the petty nobles seemed to lack the ability for either.

Kevin was tired and frustrated. For the first week he had let the situation rule him. He tried to address every demand made by a city administrator or petty noble with fairness and justice, but he quickly realized they were playing a game with him and he didn’t know the rules. His solution was to change the rules, a solution that proved most unpopular among those at court. Southport was a thoroughly corrupt place where the previous Regent had played one faction against another with favors and privileges in exchange for support and loyalty.

It was a place where merit and genuine value was scorned in favor of wealth granted by the Regent. At first it was totally perplexing to Kevin. He had spent his life in a place where things were most often exactly as they appeared, where a person’s word was worthy of trust and where you could count on others to do the right thing given the chance.