XIX

It had taken three days for the rain to fully slacken. The gods had seen fit to allow the Helheim men three days to recover from the last skirmish, though that meant that the Kurtz soldiers were also three days rested. Add to that the numerical advantage they had and the current behavior they were displaying was odd, to say the least.

“I don't understand,” Emilia hissed out a breath, holding the spyglass up to her eye before handing it over to Adrian who took it without comment and held it up to his own eye staring at the enemy encampment. As he looked he had to admit that he to was confused by the nature of the enemy’s positioning.

“If I had to guess at what they were doing I would say they are digging in for a long defensive,” he said, and lowered the spyglass, telescoping it back in before he started to hand it over to Emilia, but a sigh caused him to look over at Isi. She had one hand on her hip, which was cocked to the side and an annoyed expression on her face. Her other hand was extended and she narrowed her eyes as he looked at the open palm before realizing she also wanted to look through the spyglass. With a shrug, he handed it over to her and she started scanning the enemy camp.

“Which makes no sense, why come here if they are simply going to hold the swamps? There are no resources, are they going to push forward later once they receive reinforcements?” she asked, not taking her eyes off of the rather large enemy camp. The thing was spread out across the river with a sea of white tents, the bottoms of which were splattered with mud and grime, forever dying the white canvas black and brown at its hem. Men scurried to a fro accomplishing the tasks given to them as more men dug in the wet earth and piled walls of mud and wooden spikes high around three sides of the camp, ensuring that the only way to enter the camp was from the now well-defended rear.

“No doubt, though they will not be able to bring any cannon across that quagmire, I doubt they could even get wagons pulled by teamsters across,” he said also surveying the new earthenworks, their construction was actually quite good, the embankment on the outside was steep, and the inside protected the defenders quite well, a man could shot over and then crouch behind it to reload with ease, and it was shallow enough on the defender’s side that should a mass charge be required one could get over quite easily and quickly. From here it even looked like they were cutting reliefs into them to allow the men to climb up easier. “It is to bad we don't have any twenty pounder cannons, we could blow a hole in that entire line, and they would have no way of patching it up quickly.” he glanced over at Emilia who was currently biting her lip and surveying the battlefield, running through her calculations. For her, this was more than just a pitched battle, this as her future. Women being allowed to command a force was rare, even if that woman was a mage, the popular belief of most of the people in command was that women lacked the character and other required attributes needed to lead men in a major encounter. If she failed to make a good impression that she would practically be shooting herself in the foot when it came to her carrier. This one failed encounter would be used against her for the rest of her life in the military, there would be no escaping it, and the reasoning placed behind the loss would not be because the enemy had superior forces, no such things were trivial when it came to cases like this, no the reason would be because she was a woman and therefore incapable of leading men.

Adrian felt for her, but at the same time he hoped she had a clear enough head to know when to pull out when to cut her losses, and he had some doubts that she would recognize that moment when it appeared.

“We have reinforcements coming up from the rear, Lieutenant General Folcus is on his way with 2,000 men and thirty artillery, we simply need to hold the line for another week,” she said, holding out her hand for the spyglass, Isi complied and handed it back to her before looking at the sky, watching the thick and rather ominous looking clouds drift past, as she did so his eyes flickered down to the scar and he felt a pang of worry in his heart.

“Another week,” Adrian snorted if the battles went as they had last time then there would be no one left to battle on the Helheim side. The white coats would win by sheer numbers alone, and if they had reinforcements coming then they would surely push when they got here. He opened his mouth to say as much when a messenger ran up with a frantic look in his eyes.

“Luetenit! Urgent news from the scouts!” he rode his horse up and dismounted as still trotting horse and pulled a missive out of the waterproof leather messenger bag he wore slung across his shoulders. He handed the paper over and stood there attempting to catch his breath. Adrian sidled up behind her and read the missive over her shoulder.

“Three massive objects of unknown make and origin flying in over the Kurtz border?” he read out loud, feeling rather confused. “Flying in?” he read the short report over again just to make sure he hadn't misread anything.

“Is there any further information?” she asked looking at the scout, but the man just shook his head. “Then you are dismissed, report to your captain for further instructions.” as the man walked away she pulled a rather grim looking expression.

“What, obviously I am not getting something and from the look on your face it would seem as though it is something I should be rather worried about,” Adrian said.

“Last year the kingdom of Swadia was absorbed into the Kurtz empire, after only a few months of war,” she looked back over the expanse of the enemy camp. “We had been intending to send troops to aid in the defense but before we could manage the logistics the kingdom had already fallen, all in a matter of five months.” Adrian was not liking the sound of that. “We had scattered reports from refugees and a few noblemen seeking asylum, fanciful tails of flying barges, each the size of a small keep, each with the ability to carry two to three thousand men that came and landed men anywhere and everywhere.” she looked at Adrian. “With the number of troops, Kurtz has along with the speed and maneuverability these air sips provided them they were able to force the Swadian kingdom to fall in short order.”

“The round platforms-” Adrian breathed out, “they are landing pads for the Airships,” he came to the realizations. “You knew about this and didn't tell me?” he demanded, “They could land these things anywhere and just drop off troops?” he demanded.

“Our spies tell us the airships can only make short hops due to the weight of the men, but yes they can cover near a hundred miles in a day and field their troops before needing to return and refuel.” she was looking haggard now, it was settling in, if that was the case and three of these things were on the way then around six thousand fresh enemy soldiers would be on Helheim’s doorsteps in a matter of hours. And with numbers like that, there was no way she could ever hold the line, not against forces that could effectively skip over any and every defense she could put up, and that was not even taking into account the men they could field.

“We have no defense?” he asked his heart beating, the ability to land troops anywhere was massive, it allowed maneuverability that no army to date could match, hell if this was true then Kurtz could effectively siege a location without ever having to fight past the defensive line.

“Apparently our engineers tell high command that the only way that many men could be lifted into the air would be with a gas known as hydrogen, it is explosive, has a relatively low burning threshold, and is extremely difficult and costly to make” she looked off to the horizon where three small black dots could now be seen. “We are working on rotary guns, mounted twelve shot guns holding sections that can be rotated to line up with the barrel, each one holding a musketball with phosphorus in it, the shot fires it and ignites the phosphorus inside, causing a trail of fire, though the effective range is somewhat lower than what high command wants.”

“And do we have any of these rotary guns with us?” he asked, watching as the dots got bigger at a rather alarming rate, something about the way she had said the previous statement had him worried.

“No,” she said confirming his fear, her face grim and her eyes hard. “They apparently are still in the testing phase of construction.” he could practically see the gears turning in her head as she sought some way to salvage this situation. Either she could quit the field, effectively handing over a location to the Kurtz empire and providing them with what had to be a perfect staging area or she could push, but if she was going to do that then it needed to happen now, and there was little chance of that even succeeding as it was. Adrian looked at her and back toward the ever nearing airships, a crazy idea popped into his head and he pulled out the tin of reagents he kept in his pocket. He flipped the tin’s lid open and looked a the powders and vials of liquids that were compartmentalized within, a plan quickly forming in his head.

“Flammable did you say?” he asked, digging out a small amount of Nitre and Sulfer, igniting the powder between his fingers with a thought. Both Isi and Emilia looked at the small flame hovering between his fingers. “Explosive?” a wicked smile curving its way across his face.