Later that night Edwin was standing by the riverbank, watching the growing blaze along with a few dozen other night owls. It hadn’t yet reached the river, but the sky over the forest was lit a flaming orange. Since a few minutes ago, a flickering glimmer could be seen between the distant trees. It would be here soon, and they could only hope that the inferno wouldn’t jump the Aste. It shouldn’t, as the river was roughly a hundred meters wide, but it wasn’t impossible depending on the wind.
“Can’t sleep?” Bordan asked, stepping up beside Edwin.
“Just wanted to have a look before I head in,” Edwin answered. “You guys done with the debriefing?”
“Yeah, finally,” Bordan said with a sigh. “Everyone made it back in one piece, even though they gave Meller’s force a hard time. They were the ones holding back the rearguard, so they had the farthest to go.”
“Right,” Edwin said, remembering the initial briefing. “So, what’s going to happen next?”
Bordan gestured to the orange glow in the distance. “Nothing for now, not with this blocking our path. We needed a break anyway, we’ve been going pretty hard ever since we left the fort. A banner of scouts is shadowing the enemy, but they won’t be able to relay back information until the fire’s burnt itself out.”
“What do you think they’ll do?”
“Difficult to tell. Mostly depends on how much damage we did. We know that we seriously shortened the duration they can operate here without resupplying, but whether that’s down to a week or three is impossible to tell. They should be doing one of four things. If we hit them harder than we thought, they might be heading back to Artelby to resupply, but again, that’s unlikely. On the other hand, if their supply situation is much better than we think, they might decide to head northwest and cross the Aste there, to avoid this bridge entirely. The most likely scenarios are that they either wait out the fire to attack again or try to conquer Giant’s Head while we can’t threaten their rear.”
“And what are we going to do? Keep holding here?”
“We’ll probably go after them,” Bordan answered, absent-mindedly rubbing his knuckles. “With the forest gone we’ll lose most of our concealment, so another ambush like today isn’t really in the cards. They won’t fall for the same trick twice anyway, and it’s time to finally go on the offensive. We haven’t talked about concrete plans though, we’ll do that tomorrow. It’ll be interesting, we’ll have to come up with completely new ideas for attacking as well.”
“Speaking of,” Edwin said, turning his head to look at his friend. “I still don’t understand why you were the only one who realized that the old tactics weren’t working. It was pretty obvious, wasn’t it?”
Bordan gave him a curious look, then laughed. “I guess it might have been to an outsider. You have to understand: We’ve fought this way for a hundred years. Our doctrine has been perfected again and again, but the last time it changed in any relevant manner was before I was born. The General and the battalion commanders have been in the army for decades. They were taught to fight this way, have fought this way themselves, and in some cases have taught others to fight this way. What I proposed was… Imagine if I walked into the guild hall and suggested we start fighting direwolves while walking on our hands, with our weapons strapped to our feet.”
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Edwin raised an eyebrow, and Bordan chuckled. “Okay, maybe not quite, but almost. Light infantry doesn’t win battles. It never has, and until a few weeks ago I would’ve told you ‘it never will’ – and I’m a light infantryman by trade. I don’t think I would’ve realized that we needed to change myself if I hadn’t had to completely rethink the way I fight twice – first when I became an adventurer, then when I had to come up with a training regimen for our battalion.”
“Huh,” Edwin said, scratching his chin. “Biases are powerful things I guess.”
“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” Bordan quoted with a smile. “Except you can, it’s just hard and a lot of work.”
“You have some canine attributes, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call you a dog…” Edwin said, ducking just in time to lessen the impact of the slap that nodded his head forward.
“Speaking of dogs,” Bordan continued unfazed, “while we were out on our ambush, a messenger arrived from Archibald’s Overlook. The Marradi there have finally started using magic in their siege. 1st division’s mages were expecting it, so the damage is contained for now, but it’s really heating up over there. With the added pressure from the fireballs and the siege weapons the Marradi are building, they’ll be able to break through eventually.”
“We can send them the blueprint for our interceptor ritual,” Edwin suggested. “They should be easily capable of reproducing it, and if they stick one on their walls every few hundred meters, that should solve the fireball problem.”
“Gregory said the same thing, the mages are already on it. Still, there’s no way they’ll hold forever now that magic is in the mix. We were expecting the fireballs, but what are they going to come up with next? This can’t be everything, right?”
Edwin sighed. “Not by a long shot. Remember the way Salissa fights: The real threat of magic is its versatility. We can only hope that there’s nothing too nasty in the Codex. As far as I know, all the really horrible stuff was destroyed without a trace.”
“I hesitate to ask…” Bordan said slowly.
“Flesh-eating plagues, invisible clouds that made you lose your mind and attack anyone around you, or turned all life they touched into withered husks, abominations of flesh and bones several meters tall… you know, those kinds of things.”
“Gods damn you, Edwin, I didn’t actually ask,” Bordan groaned. “Are you sure we won’t have to face those things?”
Edwin cocked his head, tapping his chin. “Theoretically, any of them could be discovered now that the shackles are off. Research into most of them is forbidden, even in wartime, but… Have you noticed that our mages aren’t accompanied by inquisitors? They should be – just because it’s war doesn’t mean they can do whatever they want – but they aren’t. Something else is going on that we can’t see. Anyway, even if the Marradi started looking into those things, it would likely take them forever to get anywhere. The Tyrants who invented those horrors had dozens, sometimes hundreds of years of research under their belts. That’s why it’s important to end this quickly: Until it’s over, it will just keep getting worse.”
“You’re a real ray of sunshine you know that?” Bordan said in a sarcastic tone. “Talking to you always cheers me right up.” He sighed, looking out over the river to where the flames were finally visible through the yet-untouched trees. “Feels wrong, you know? For people to be able to do that.”
“Nobody deserves to have that much power,” Edwin agreed. “but then, when has life ever been about what people deserve?”