Chapter 33

If the enemy was daunted by the sudden appearance of a pond where the road to the city had been, they weren’t showing it. Boxed in by the still dangerous minefield (even as I watched, one of the sappers tried to sneak off to be a hero, only to get snatched up by his collar and thrown back into line), they had to cross the hundred and fifty meter wide crater pond before they could menace the gate.

Either someone planned for that, or they believed in packing more bridging material than any army could ever reasonably hope to use.

I chose to believe the latter. No one expects the level of chaos a trained ignimancer can bring to a fight. I refuse to think otherwise.

The mortars were sighted in for about five hundred meters out beyond the gate. The lip of the crater was, as the crow flew, about four hundred meters. That gave the engineers some breathing room, those that weathered the storm to arrive unharmed. There were more of them than I would have expected, until I remembered this was Kaze’s army. She believed in being flexible enough to handle whatever the situation threw at her. That meant her force was heavier on engineers than was average.

They were certainly earning their keep now. Even as I watched, the first spans were floated out onto the water, pontoons lashed underneath them to keep them on the surface.

That was unfortunate. They could make short work of the gap at that rate.

After taking up a prone position, using one of the merlons as partial cover, I scanned the crowd with my spyglass, somehow miraculously unhurt by the fall, looking for someone shouting orders.

There.

Short lass, thick glasses, clipboard in hand. Where she pointed, people went. When she shouted, they saluted. I loaded a standard shot, took aim, and loosed a bullet.

The crack of the gunshot was muffled by the explosions from the mortars. There was no smoke to give away my position. The officer clutched at her chest and fell, with no warning at all.

My heart sank a little. I don’t like killing. I really don’t like killing with my musket. I prefer mercy whenever possible. That wasn’t a luxury afforded to us today. I didn’t have a hero, however big a shitheel he might’ve been, keeping the enemy occupied for me. I couldn’t count on a reluctant foe who hadn’t yet realized why she didn’t want to fight. I had to play for keeps.

The engineers scattered away from their fallen officer until another shouted at them to get back to work. So, I shot him, too. And when another stepped up, I shot him. And the next. And the next.

There was no stopping the rout now. The sappers were brave and hardy folk, ready to run headlong into minefields if they had to. They weren’t anyone’s idea of cowards. They were simply faced with an opponent they couldn’t see, one who killed them before they could even react. If there was a god up high smiting them down one by one, it wouldn’t have been any more demoralizing. For all they knew, that’s exactly what was happening.

The commander of that section of the battlefield didn’t try to stop them. He simply ordered his men at arms to pick up the bridge spans and haul them out onto the crater pond, trusting their armor to protect them.

I shot him through the slit in his visor with an explosive round.

Explosives, fluid dynamics, and enclosed spaces have some weird interactions. The force of his head exploding was enough to blast his helm into a near perfect sphere, blood leaking from every hole and seam. Incredibly, he didn’t fall immediately. His headless body started running towards the lake, thrashing and churning the water when it fell in.

I’ve seen that before. Some experienced warriors have the lessons learned in the battlefield so deeply ingrained into their nerves, their bodies carry on for a few moments after their deaths. It’s like a chicken with its head cut off running around the barnyard until the last of the life leaves its veins, only far scarier. That’ll make a brave man piss his pants and run like hell.

Or at least, that’s the usual reaction. His men seemed to take his headless charge into the water as a sign that they shouldn’t let death get in the way of the mission.

“Oh, come on.”

I dropped an officer. I dropped another officer. And another. And another. By the fifth one, I was starting to get annoyed. Killing officers was having no effect on their morale, it just made them eager to get to me.

“This is bullshit,” I muttered.

Was there anyone else I could shoot?

The mortars had started to peter off by that point, their stores of ammunition exhausted. The enemy was starting to brave the crater-pocked landscape again. So, I turned my attention up the hill, looking for anyone else sufficiently important to be worthy of a bullet.

Beyond the men at arms were regular infantry, only lightly armed and armored. I picked off a few of their officers. No effect at all. I doubt they even noticed. Though, to be fair, the average infantryman only hates the enemy marginally more than his officers. At least the enemy would give them a sporting chance.

Was there no one else? The stones underneath me were starting to get warm again. I was running out of viable targets, and my ammunition stores weren’t infinite. Kaze had another three hundred rounds for me in my pack, but that was down behind the wall.

I gave the ridge one last scan with my spyglass. Surely there had to be someone.

I caught a glimpse of sunlight glinting off armor. I hadn’t seen that all morning. Kaze’s men did their best to hide the shine on theirs. Surely that was worth shooting at.

Taking a quick measure of the distance, I adjusted my sights and lined up on the glint. The armor piercing round left the muzzle of my firelock with a shrill screech as it cut through the air.

I lifted the spyglass again to observe the impact.

My target wore the armor of a knight, but not just any knight. It was a mastercraft, the sort of armor that kings spent fortunes commissioning in their honor. To the best of my knowledge, there was only one person in Lady Flir’s host who had armor like that.

The bullet struck, and the helmet was ripped from Plajin’s head. He was, apparently, unharmed. Unharmed, and smirking.

There’s no point in shooting at a hero from range. So long as they haven’t pissed the gods off enough to get their blessing revoked, every roll of the dice is tilted in their favor. My shot was perfect. It should have killed him. But because enough blessed good luck got in the way, it just knocked his helm off and made him look like a badass to the soldiers around him.

“Bugger this for a game of soldiers,” I grumbled. “It’s Kaze’s turn.”