Accidental War Mage

At the time, the thunder seemed to simply overwhelm my ears, a continuous explosion of sound lasting for several long seconds. Later, I realized that the sound consisted of more than a hundred separate explosions happening at once, the magically-guided strike of lightning acting much the same as a phoenix stone in sparking off the powder inside of the sealed firing chambers of pistols, arquebuses, and even cannon.

Many of those guns were pointed in the general direction of the enemy, but even had they been well-aimed, it was too early to fire a volley that would shock the enemy. Worse, few of the arquebusiers had been braced to fire; at least half dropped their guns as a torrent of rain fell from the sky. Heavy droplets hissed as they hammered the flaming wreckage of a cart that had hosted a half-empty barrel of gunpowder; the fortunate news is that only one cart had gone up.

The boulder shifted beneath the white-cloaked wizard, lifting him upwards as a great fanged head tore loose from the dirt. To the left and right, two other heads curled around. It was a great serpent, as big as a poor peasant’s hut and as long as a rich man’s dacha with three heads and six pairs of legs, and it roared angrily.

Out of the forest pounded two great serpents, each bearing another cloaked rider – a second dressed in white and one dressed in gray. Thirty six massive legs pounded the earth as the serpents and their wizardly riders drew nearer. Each held what could be a copper spear but was perhaps best described as a lightning-staff by design.

“Hold!” I shouted, holding my sword horizontally above my head with one hand, and my shield with the other.

“Hold!” Ragnar echoed to my right, waving his newly-acquired hammer, which was building up a layer of ice under the rain. “Set and brace!”

“Set and brace!” I shouted over my left shoulder, belatedly remembering that was what infantrymen were supposed to do in the face of charging lancers.

Behind me, the regular arquebusiers were in chaos, some scrambling for their guns and others remembering that it was time to cast their guns aside and use their fork-rests as military forks. Those who boldly went without forks, either from laziness or confidence in their ability to aim and brace, had cause to regret their choices.

Although the serpents had caught my eye first after I re-opened them, the serpents and their riders were not the first to meet our line of steam-powered machines, steam knights, and stalwart Swedes. That particular honor belonged to the first rank of enemy warriors, who wore bearskin cloaks with naturally attached bear-head hoods. The men howled with a thirst for blood and savagery, rushing into our lines as quickly as the wind itself. (Not as quickly as the winds you sometimes find on the sea in the great storms that roll across the ocean, but near as quick as the winds in any storm I have yet been in, and I have been in many by now – though I will come to that later.)

We took their charge standing. I might have fallen over if not for the fact that when I staggered backwards, someone behind me – a mech or a steam knight, I don’t know which – shoved me forward. The tip of my sword dug into the dirt, sticking. The man who had smashed into me went down with a poleaxe in his gut, then a man wearing an exotic-looking white bearskin stepped over him and delivered a powerful blow on my upraised shield. I could see Yuri clinging to the man’s rear leg, doing his best to try to distract him.

I had my mechanical comrades chop at him at the exact same instant I yanked to free my weapon from the dirt; and with that end free, I had the leverage to pull the blade sideways and up, cutting through the man’s torso. The light went out of his eyes and he collapsed.

I raised up my weapon in triumph and let out a wordless cry. Six months ago in the safety of the barracks, I would have thought such a gesture silly and dramatic, but I had learned my lesson about the importance of morale on the battlefield. My troops would be encouraged by the sign of my victory. The curved bronze blade on the end of my weapon glinted in the light, clean and bright in spite of having been drenched in blood moments earlier.

I could feel my magic singing in my veins and then a familiar lurching sensation. Familiar, as I had felt it before; the Romanian wizard had sent me flying with an angry gesture, and this felt similar in all regards except for the direction. I kept my feet this time as I was pulled forward; casting about, I saw the white-cloaked man gesturing, his hand dragging just as I was being dragged.

I opened up my senses in full to the force dragging me, focusing on it as I was pulled up next to the wizard’s serpent. Perhaps I should say the serpent’s wizard rather than the wizard’s serpent – even today, I do not know which was the junior partner between the two of them. The serpent clumsily bit down at me once, twice, and then a third time, finally connecting with its third head, the force of the bite breaking several of the joins between armor plates.

Yuri stood beneath me, barking ferociously as the serpent flung me in the air.

In spite of the ringing in my ears, the sharp pains in my chest, an inability to inhale, and the blood in my mouth, I remembered how to tie a snare one-handed. The old lady in the woods was particular about what she thought the proper way to tie snares was. I imagine arthritis has a way of focusing the mind on efficiency of gestures.

Getting your face pounded into the ground by a fifteen foot fall also focuses your mind on the efficiency of gestures. With that motivating me, I propped myself up with my shield and twisted my right hand before pulling it inwards from the grip control, freeing it to gesture without dropping my weapon. I stared back at the cloaked man, tying an imaginary snare with my hand and throwing it outwards. Magic tingled in my fingertips as I remembered setting snares for rabbits in the summer. I pulled and he flew to me, startled.

“Two can play at that game,” I said, and swung my arm.

The blow should have taken his arm off; but the serpent interposed one of its foremost limbs, taking on the force of the blow aimed at its master or pet. (Again, I am not sure of the nature of their relationship and I apologize.) The white-cloaked man launched himself into the air, his cloak flapping in the wind as he flew away from me.

By the time I was fully upright again, I had mechs packed in behind me and serpents in front of me; between friend and foe there was no room for me to do anything but stand and fight. It was brutal and bruising for me; it was deadly for some of my comrades. Blood, coal, and gears littered the ground under my feet, proof that a house-sized serpent can tear a steam knight between two of its heads.

Trapped in the thick of things, it was hard for me to follow what was going on in the rest of the battle; and I had no chance to make anything I said heard. I struck as hard as I could at the joints of the serpents’ many limbs, braced myself and raised my shield to an angle to deflect a mighty blow and live a little longer, again and again. Black spots filled my vision as I gasped shallowly for breath. Then the serpent in front of me fell, and I could see the field of battle.

We were now in the forest rather than in cleared area; either we had driven the serpents back into the trees, or the trees had grown up around us, and I took that as a good sign. Then everything went white; and I took this as a bad sign. I called (and, more importantly, signaled) for a halt.

Then everything went white again. Where was the wizard? A third bolt struck, and I cast about, looking for the source. There – a flutter of a familiar white cloak. He was raising up his staff, and the clouds were swirling in response. At my feet, Yuri lay still, and I was filled with rage; pure, deep, and simple rage.

I opened the throttles of my mechs – the pair that were still standing, Ilya and Vitold’s old suits – and the three of us pounded together towards the man up on the hill waving his stick, lightly-armored warriors scattering before us. The terrible cawing of thousands of crows drowned out the thunder above and even the sound of the boilers of the steam knight armor suits next to me.

If a murder of aggressive crows had attacked the natives of the forest earlier, what swirled in the space between myself and the white-cloaked wizard was a massacre of black birds; numbering a flock of flocks. The beating of so many wings stilled the wind, turning it into a storm of isolated breezes wavering back and forth through the trees. The eddies within the storm told me the enemy mage was still ahead of me, keeping low to the ground as he beat a retreat; I could not have known otherwise. Even the rain struggled to reach the ground directly through the swirling birds.

Lightning cracked, splitting a path through the birds, leaving the smell of sulfur in my nose, my hairs standing on end, and my vision wavering; but we continued our charge up the hill. As we neared, the man stepped behind a tree and was gone. Myself and my mechs smashed into the tree anyway, the trunk cracking at once at the impact. I could no longer sense his presence, but raised my weapon to the sky and called out to tell him what I would do to him if he troubled me again.

When I had finished shouting myself hoarse and taken several quick shallow breaths, I looked around. Most of the enemy had fled. Most of those who had not fled had died, and of those who lived, most bore marks from the talons and beaks of the feathered foe. I saw only one who seemed to be still trying to fight, his empty bloody eyesockets explaining why he had not realized the futility of his intentions; as he waved a spear menacingly in my general direction, his head erupted in a gory spray, and the audible crack of a rifle proved to me that the cawing of the crows had settled to a normal level. I would not have been able to hear it before.

The crows were all over; but not many more than you would expect scavenging a battlefield. Had I imagined the storm of birds? Watching Katya ride up to the dead man, checking her accuracy, and then jerk fearfully back when a crow hopped over to the body, I suddenly became certain that others had also seen and heard the storm of birds. I opened my helmet, taking in scene, and waited, letting the rain rinse sweat from my face.

The first to join me on the hill was Yuri. A little unsteady on his legs and with crossed eyes, but still alive. Say what you will about Ognyan Spitignov; I will say the man knows how to breed dogs. Loyal and as tough as nails. Yuri growled grumpily at me, grumbling about how I had run ahead too quickly and that his fur had gone all pokey. I scratched him behind the ears, underneath the armor, and called him a good doggy; and he soon forgot why he was growling.

Katya was next, having steeled her nerves, riding slowly through the trees and up the hill, letting her horse pick its way around the dead bodies. She still tensed stiffly whenever a bird flew too near her; but didn’t let it show in her face. “Go let the men know you are still alive,” she suggested, waving back towards the camp. “And do commander sorts of things,” she added. “Mikolai?”

I put Yuri back down. “Yes, you’re right,” I said, and she looked relieved. “I should go be Mikolai the commanding officer. Colonel Marcus, I mean. We should be practicing with my new name.”

She frowned. “I would rather have Squad Leader Mikolai,” she said, an edge on her voice. “Or Brevet-General Mikolai.”

I plucked her off her horse into a big hug, scratched her behind her ears, and told her she was a good girl. She looked confused and unsettled. I made a mental note that humans and dogs are not quite as similar as I had thought earlier, and then kissed her thoroughly instead. She would, I informed her, have Brevet-General Mikolai in her tent that night, but for now, he needed to be Colonel Marcus.

I set her back on her horse, and we headed back towards the camp together. Either the kiss, my acceptance of her advice, or the sights of the carnage left by the battle had her smiling brightly along the way. I hoped it was the first of those things.