Accidental War Mage

Once the auxiliary coal burner was turned off and we left the plume of black smoke behind, the sun set and the stars came out. It was the night of the new moon. From my vantage point, perched on top of my steam suit, which was strapped on top of the self-propelled charcoal kiln, which was in turn strapped on top of a flatcar, I could see the starlit terrain all around us. Once bright Venus dipped below the horizon, it was a nearly shadowless night, the only real shadows those cast by the lights men brought with them.

The lantern light dimly peering out of the shutters of the windows of the caboose in front of me lasted only two hours past sunset. With the crew in the car in front of me sound asleep, I might have relaxed and slept as well; but we were gaining a little elevation and I found the view of the starlit lands beautiful. They were so lush and green in the gleaming diffuse light of the stars … it looked like a painting by a talented but lazy artist, who had decided to leave off painting in shadows. To the left, I could see what I could only assume were the westernmost reaches of the great Sarmatian range.

That is not to say it was silent. The still starlit lands around us were contrasted with the raucous noise of railroad travel. On the car behind me, the steam knights sang for a little while, their voices contending with the noise of the train. The wind rushing by felt as fast as a galloping horse, a dull but inconstant roaring that tore snatches of music away here and there. Villages dotted the land, and larger towns hugged the railway.

Those towns flickered to half-wakefulness as we came through, the noise of the train significant enough to draw attention. We stopped in three of them, the train off-loading passengers and cargo as I watched anxiously, but the crew in the caboose in front of my flatcar stayed asleep, their lanterns dim. To them, the stops were routine, not worth waking for. Each departure was signaled with a new plume of coal-black smoke rising into the sky. Then the tension in my gut eased as the tension rose on the linkage between my car and the next, the locomotive pulling us once again into motion.

I was thoroughly tired by the time the gray pre-dawn light started to wash the stars from the sky and the rosy light of dawn began to peek over the distant Sarmatians to the east, but still, I did not sleep. The shadows of the mountains crept up the foothills as we moved south, and when the blue ribbon of the Istros came into view it was lit by bright morning light. With that came my first view of Vindobona, nestled beneath the foothills of the Alps.

It made Dab look like a backwater village. The only comparison I had was Khoryvsk, but while Khoryvsk spans the Slatuvich, growing from settlements perched on both banks, Vindobona began life as a Roman fortress with the Istros guarding its northern frontier. The city’s ancient stone walls, while not in any way short, barely concealed most of the buildings within, a profuse crowding of tall buildings. One particularly tall cathedral spire stood out near the center.

Surrounding the old walls of the city was a desolated jagged span of new fortifications under construction, barren earth and jumbled stone surrounded by open firing lines. A canal pulled water from the Istros into a defensive moat. I took the moat and the bastions under construction as firm evidence that Emperor Sigismund II placed little trust in the security of the old fortifications. (Later, I learned that decision had been the responsibility of the local margrave, even though the imperial capital was not so far away.)

About a dozen bastions were in various stages of construction at points between the old wall and the new moat, each one a pointed protrusion jutting out from the city. At one, men and mechs were digging out a foundation; at another, a trio of thaumaturges were going through the laborious process of laying enchantments in silver wire stretched across level stones. One bastion looked finished, with no workers rushing to it; a priest and his attendants were walking away from it in the wake of a crowd of well-dressed cityfolk while a handful of men in armor stood on top of the bastion wall near the point, engaged in conversation.

The rail line ended short of the river, the rail yard surrounded by a cluster of wooden buildings. We had arrived, and nowhere along the way had we been attacked or betrayed. Had my vigilance been necessary? I didn’t know. What I did know was that I needed sleep; once I was confident my officers had matters in hand in organizing the unloading, I wrapped myself in a blanket and climbed into a wagon to take a nap.

As sleep took me, so did dreams. First, I dreamed of home, of blue skies over golden fields. Then there was a dog, cheerfully bounding along. Not Yuri; not one of the dogs that had watched me sadly as I’d left the family farm for the last time; it was a long-legged hunting hound with sharp green eyes. The dog saw me and began to run at me, barking with excitement – yet didn’t come closer. Instead, the dog receded into the distance, shrinking to an elongated rust-colored spot.

I looked down. My shoes were made of iron, and the ground was zooming behind them smoothly. A trio of small orange birds with long sparkling tails were tugging me along by the hem of my tunic, which was embroidered with tiny runes. The runes were gripping the birds, I realized, reading them and trying to commit them to memory. I reached into my pocket, pulling out a golden ducat.

“Where are you going?” asked a woman in heavily-accented Magyar. Her face was covered with a mask that looked like a doll’s carved face, with perfect pink dots on her cheeks. Her dress was made of silver coins, stitched to each other with strings through holes punched in their center. Each coin had her face, except the face was gone.

“I’m just trying to get paid,” I said. “I have a letter of credit that can’t be called in this year.”

She laughed, braying like a donkey. A delicate golden circlet fell from her head, chiming as it hit the ground. “You’re funny,” she said in a Dalmatian dialect, her accent betraying that this was not her native language either.

I looked down to see where the circlet had come to rest and saw that the ground was gone. A river swirled beneath my feet, and I was swept under. Through the distorted surface of the water, I saw the dog leaping over the river, rust-red fur shading to a brighter orange on her belly. Down I went, and then up along the smooth pebbled bottom of the river as it flowed upwards to the top of a snow-capped mountain. I washed out of the river at its source, a hot spring on the top of the mountain.

I slowly stood to my feet, hot water dripping into the snow and melting it around me. Beneath was emerald green grass, ripe for pasturing. I stared, fascinated. Then an old lady clucked her tongue at me.

“Kolya, I need you to chop wood,” she said. “You’re late. And where are the eggs?”

“I have a rock,” I said, pulling a rough hunk of quartz from my pocket. It dropped into the river. “Oops.”

“Clever boy,” she said. “But I don’t need a special egg. I’m just making breakfast. Go to the chicken coop.”

I groaned, picking up a wood-splitting axe and starting the long walk downhill towards a miniature wooden barn. The barn slowly skittered away from me on hundreds of tiny legs, its faded pink pearwood boards creaking nervously as it accelerated.

“Oh, come on,” I said in an exasperated tone. I broke into a jog, then a run. The miniature barn jumped off a cliff, and I followed, leaping with my axe held high. I landed on its roof, which lifted itself by one end, opening under my feet. I balanced cautiously on the lip. Inside, there were seven pregnant women.

The distant voice of the old woman echoed in my ears. “Eggs!” That was right. I was supposed to chop wood for her and bring her eggs. But I had to chop firewood.

“Excuse me,” I asked. “Are you firewood?”

The women shook their heads mutely.

“You must be eggs, then,” I said, and then in the distance saw the dog, its rust-colored fur distinct in the difference as it swam up the river. “Well, I guess if I’m in a hurry, I could chop some pearwood,” I said, looking at the walls of the miniature barn.

The lid wobbled, and I lost my balance, pitching forward into the women. I landed on them with a cacophony of squeaks. Then the lid closed on me, and everything went black.

I sat up with a start. The sun was low on the horizon, hanging over the high mountains of the west. The Istros gleamed with reflected sunlight.

“Sir?” There was a soldier standing nearby. He shifted uneasily, wanting to tell me what to do without sounding like he was giving me an order. “Sir, Captain Rimehammer arranged a house for the officers tonight. If you’ll … I mean … I could show you the way, sir. If you would like.”

“That will be fine,” I said, stretching and covering a yawn. Perhaps I should have stayed awake to help arrange matters. Had the local authorities refused to let an unfamiliar band of heavily armed mercenaries inside the city walls? Perhaps. Perhaps it was just cheaper here, in the little unwalled village perched up the hill on the other side of the river.

We passed several larger houses before reaching the officers’ house, built on the side of the hill. The owner, a thin man with a long nose and a very flat hat, came out to greet me, ushering me in with polite deference. Stairs led down from the door, and past the tall entry hall, I could see a balcony lined with half a dozen doors. It was a surprisingly compact inn, and with the way it was built into the hill, it was probably easy to keep warm in the winter.

I was in time for dinner, or perhaps our host took my arrival as his cue to bring out food. Each of my officers wanted to talk to me about one or another decision they’d made in the absence of any instructions. The artillery lieutenant had led the inventory of our supplies, making sure that nothing had fallen off the train along the way. The infantry captain got the new recruits out of the way for basic close-quarters training. One cavalry officer had headed to the city docks to find a boatman willing to take mail downriver; the other rode through the city to ‘gather intelligence,’ a process that apparently involved visiting coffeehouses and bars and having a good time.

The older Rimehammer cousin wanted to talk to me about our itinerary. He wanted to spend a day or two trying to convert some of the baron’s goods into cash before heading upriver. He’d gotten some offers in the little town that clustered around the end of the rail line, but he wanted to see if he could get a better price in Vindobona proper on the inside of the wall.

For my part, I wanted a chance to see the city, so I agreed without a second thought.