Road Closed

Two days later, the Temporary Expeditionary Auxiliary Regiment was out in the rain again. At this point Brochwel wondered if they would get to the point where they had destroyed the road too much and would make the empire abandon it ... eventually, but definitely not yet. Apart from the Tragaron-Kirrglos leg, long stretches remained intact. But he felt that familiar unease, a tightening around the pit of his stomach, like he hadn't realized precisely what was amiss. He called a halt inside the road to examine the survey map.

Duhaan got the brazier lit in the cupola while Izabel unfolded the map. The storm had been left as a big blank with a little drawing of a crumbled stone structure at the center for the probable location of Aperystl. They had roughly sketched the legs of the road that they knew about, with little strike marks cutting through it everywhere they had sabotaged.

"I would say it's going rather well." Izabel traced a finger along the arc of the road from near Kirrglos to Maurcoret. "We've hit all along here plenty. Time to reach further and follow the curve?"

Brochwel tapped a finger against his chin. "Which spots have we seen them repair or try to repair?"

This took a bit of deliberation for everyone to remember which break was which. One of the troop summoned a swift fish to check some of the wreckage to the north-west they hadn't been back to recently. One mark at a time, they noted whether the empire was trying to fix the damage. The pattern was stark.

"They're not mending anything west of the Merdrillio junction," Tecca said. "But that means the rest of the empire can't use the storm-road to get to the front."

Brochwel asked the question he had dreaded asking: "How many does Olivia ... General Callaway have at her command?"

"A little over two thousand. Why?" By the darkening of Izabel's expression, she understood why a moment after she asked.

"The empire is prioritizing repair only where General Haute needs it short-term. We need to ride to Merdrillio and find out if the imperial army is still there."

---

Thirty nine horses galloped through the rain, taking the straightest possible line back toward the bluff from which they had observed the enemy encampment just a couple of days before. So far Brochwel had kept his unit away from fair fights, striking from the cover of terrible weather on small groups of soldiers or against infrastructure that couldn't fight back. Not very grand, the Flaxen Order would've never considered such behavior, but they weren't around to pass judgement.

Brochwel's embedded chert pointed them through the storm. A glimmer ahead gave the answer before they reached their destination. The covered way from Merdrillio stood ahead, the light of hundreds of torches screamed out of the few windows and the gaps between the floorboards.

"We're too late," Duhaan said.

"Not yet. We're equipped for the weather and they're not. We have to beat them to the junction with the main road. Come on!"

They raced away alongside the road, eventually passing the first torches, to a junction still in ruin. Most of the wreckage still tangled where they had left it.

"Not much time. Summoners, fall back storm-ward of the road and extend the destruction. Casters and archers ... we need to find a sweet-spot where we can bombard anyone trying to cross without taking much in return."

The summons got to work in the torrential downpour, but Brochwel found that the ranged fighters had to be almost on top of the wreckage to see it.

"We'll be found immediately by their summons or blind attacks at this range. Tecca, any chance of making them visible from further away?"

"Erm ... maybe. Here, shelter my notes from the rain."

"Sure let me just get ..." Tarquin handed him a large umbrella made of pale wood and waxed rice paper. "Thanks. You brought one of these in your saddlebag?"

"Rains here."

Brochwel and Tarquin stood around Tecca, shielding her delicate notes from the wind and rain (and in Tarquin's case, providing a little light between the lightning flashes). As she flicked through chaotic diagrams with symbols squished to illegibility, Brochwel and Tarqin shared a glance and shrugged. They shooed the occasional curious member of the regiment.

"Alright, I'll try something. Tarquin, hold this page open where I can see it. Not a word of this to nobody."

Fishing in a satchel under her poncho, Tecca withdrew a bobbin of tawny thread. She wrapped a loop around the sundered roof's ridge beam. Then she brought the left thread behind and around the right. Against all Brochwel's previous experience with sewing, the thread stayed crossed without a knot, right where Tecca had passed them. Moving the bobbin and the tail around and through, Tecca formed a lattice that stood there, obediently waiting. With a final pass of the bobbin through the center, the wreckage lit up, sending a bright green light that forced Brochwel to reel back, blinking.

"You got my notes wet."

"Sorry! It's so bright." As he staggered, he saw there seemed to be no light, except Tarquin and Tecca were illuminated by it. Only the raindrops falling directly over the wreckage glimmered, and then for just the last six feet of their descent. He dipped the umbrella back into position, back over the wreckage, its outline flared.

Tecca rubbed her chin. "Green probably isn't the right color, let me just ..."

"It's good enough." Brochwel gently closed her notebook and watched as the thread lattice wrapped itself around the ridge beam, then faded into the wood a moment after Tecca cut it free from the bobbin.

"What was that?!" Izabel shouted as the three walked away from the wreckage.

"Don't worry about it. Just back up and prepare to fight. Summoners, excellent work widening that gap. Join us over here. Duhaan, I want a big creature blocking the other opening."

They didn't have to wait long. Brochwel slotted his first javelin into the cupped end of his atlatl while the torchlight grew, a hazy yellow light brightening as it approached in the rain. The torches paused for only a moment before they turned and began walking east, seemingly unimpeded by the wreckage. The soldiers silhouetted in bright light by Tecca's enchantment.

"What are they walking on?"

"From experience and the outline, seems some big summon. Ancient giant millipede, probably." Brochwel raised his hand and brought it sharply down. "Attack!"

Shards of ice and streaks of lightning sailed through the rain, followed by a continuous pelt of arrows. An assortment of summons rushed from both sides, the imperials sending mostly piranhas to find Brochwel's regiment, who fished them out with herons, otters, and a river shark.

Some of the soldiers crossing formed a shield wall while others brought their spears and gouts of fire against the truly giant armadillo that Duhaan had curled in the other opening, thwarting their way.

"Come on," Brochwel whispered under his breath as he hurled a spear into a massive summoned amphibian with jaws the size of his breastplate. "We're out here. Come and play."

The Rhosarian soldiers instead hunkered behind their shields and blasted the armadillo with every element known to casting. Arrows and a few fireballs sailed over the Temporary Expeditionary Auxiliary Regiment's heads, but the real threat was the summons. General Haute had far more mages at his command, and the sheer weight of carnivorous fish was too much.

"Fall back," Brochwel called. "Fighting withdrawal."

Spurring their horses, they retreated a ways into the rain, still hurling what they could at the glow made barely visible by the downpour. The biting fish pushed them back once further, and after a while just stopped coming.

"Did we win?" Izabel said glancing around for another target. "That didn't feel like we won."

"Sorry guys." Duhaan scratched the back of his neck. "My armadillo didn't hold out that long."

"It's alright. Is everyone accounted for?"

They were, but a few people had been bitten or scathed by fireballs, and one had an arrow in the skin of his shoulder.

"Injuries mild. Can't treat here. Road."

"Alright, Tarquin. They've probably moved on by now."

They returned to find the imperial army had rushed through the gap and not looked back. Two dozen or so soldiers lay dead or wounded on wreckage, still surrounded by the strange glow. If his regiment had killed more, it would be hard to count: anyone who fell off the downstream side of the wreckage would be floating away. Most of the regiment hopped up into the intact roadway to get out of the rain while Brochwel picked over the ruins.

Tecca moved beside him and spoke evenly, "Were we too late?"

"Don't say that yet. Beginnings of a crazy idea." Then to the wounded soldier below him, Brochwel said, "Easy. I'm going to get you out of the rain."

The soldier took one look at Brochwel's face and asked, "Why?"

"I need a moment to think, and I can ponder and carry at the same time. Hey, Duhaan! Get the fire started!"

While Tarquin treated all the wounded, Brochwel delivered him a few more survivors, then paced. When the doctor's bag snapped shut, Brochwel almost leapt onto his horse. They left the wounded imperial soldiers patched up and warming up by the fire.

They left the road, riding along the outside. It was a marching column, after all, and the Tea Regiment were on horseback. They caught up as the army paused at another ruined intersection. Brochwel pulled his troop further into the rain, in case summons patrolled the water.

They waited, passing their nervous energy to the horses, who stamped and snorted. The imperial army could either go east, straight on toward Kirrglos along a road that Brochwel and company had turned into a miles-long mangle of splintered wood under freezing rain, or south on the mostly intact path to Gorges de Beaulancre.

The torches began to move. South.

Brochwel released a breath he didn't know he had been holding. A quiet celebration started, slaps on the back, that sort of thing. Noises the rain kept to itself.

"Alright people." Brochwel came around to face his troops, and looked on a set of determined glances. "We've avoided the worst outcome where they march out of the storm mostly dry and unopposed. But General Haute is likely still taking his troops to Kirrglos, just the long way around. Now we've got a decision to make.

"First, we run can home and join General Callaway, in which case we will barely nudge the scale on an outnumbered 2-to-1 situation. Or we do the other thing, which ... uh ... give me a moment."

After a moment organizing his thoughts, he continued, "It's just my luck: we're up against an enemy who realized that I'm playing a long-game strategy. Well if he doesn't want to give me time, then I won't give him any either."

Tarquin looked around and summed up the group's understanding: "What mean?"

"I tried to give General Haute an infinite front to cover. He declined my offer. But suppose we make the duration of the battle infinite, or as close to as we reasonably can. If we hit and harass his force constantly, and push grass fires at them whenever they try to make camp—"

Duhaan chimed in, "They'll arrive exhausted while Olivia's troops are fresh?"

"Precisely. Or he might give up and pull his army back to rest and regroup, which gives more time for divisions from the further reaches of Kirrglos to arrive and swell General Callaway's command, balancing out the numbers. If Haute presses on, we might manage to fragment his formation, but we'll need rough terrain helping us for that. This will have us operating in enemy territory, where we'll be heavily outnumbered. The column we're harassing is almost all infantry, so we can dictate range. But we'll be at high risk from aerial attack, and to exhaust an army we'll have to fight to our own exhaustion."

Here he paused and waited for an objection. Wait, he was the commander now wasn't he? He could just give the order ... no, better this way. It wouldn't be a committee decision, but letting them know what they were in for and hearing objections might be a good change from the blind rush into everything the Flaxen Order had made of every operation.

Duhaan answered, "We signed up to protect our families, our homes, to—"

"See blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth!" Izabel finished with a manic grin.

Not everyone was as enthusiastic as her. Most wore stern, determined looks. If there was more they could do, they wanted to try.

Brochwel nodded. "So long as you're away from civilians, unfair tricks are authorized and encouraged. Get creative. Anything that lets you strike or impede the imperial army without them hitting you back. Now, pull out that survey map. We need to set some rendezvous points ..."