Marching to war with a column of civilians—no experienced officers among them—made for a chaotic and unpleasant voyage. Prospero did what he could to ensure that the contingent kept moving with decent speed, but he sensed a tension among the ‘volunteers’.

These men and women were here because they had to be. Now, on a dusty road, miles from home or from any civilization, each of them would be contending with an internal voice in their head. Did they care enough about their liege lord to go to war? Or should they murder the two men shepherding them toward their potential deaths and return home as rebels? They wouldn’t need to reach a unanimous agreement; it wouldn’t take many of them to overwhelm and slay Izra and Prospero.

Still, the people were very grateful to Prospero. His inventions and leadership had created a timely surplus of food that could be easily stored through winter. A great many considered him the lifeline by which their family would survive this year. As he stooped down to cast his mending magics on a broken cart wheel, turning his back to the conscripts and sticking his neck out, he imagined them cutting his head off. He wasn’t sure he could blame them if they did choose to do such a thing, he just hoped they had the foresight not to.

“Report!” one of the forward scouts shouted, as he scurried up to Prospero.

The spell took time to cast, and this cart would go nowhere if its wheel was not fixed. Prospero did not look up or stop focusing. He only divided his attention. “Go ahead, please.”

“Yes sir! Our destination, Southaster, lies just beyond this hill. But the city is under siege! A small army waits before its gates.”

This distracted Prospero enough to have his spell fail. The seam in the broken wheel which had been steadily knitting its splintered halves back together cracked back open and fell to the ground. Prospero stood and looked at the scout.

“Any banners?”

“Yes sir. A black eagle on a yellow field.”

“Mm, that’s the usurper alright. He must have sent small forces to interdict the coalition members before they could muster their full strength and join together in one place. Not a bad plan for them. How far are we from the enemy forces?”

“Sir, the forest breaks a thousand paces from this place. From there, it is another five thousand paces across open ground to where the enemy is encamped. When we leave the forest, they will be able to see us.”

“Right. Please fetch Izra for me.”

“Yes sir!”

“Everyone,” Prospero said, raising his voice. “The enemy lies before us, besieging our destination. We must stop here. Take positions just off the road in the trees while we explore our options.”

Wary murmurs and panicked exclamations rose up from the hundred conscripts. Moments like this made Prospero pine for those days of playing the game this world was based on, where soldiers were easy to recruit and easier to control. Now he had to concern himself with the morale and desires and opinions of every single individual one of them, and he had no officers to help him with that.

Certainly not Izra. The indolent scholar-turned-captain waddled up the line to where Prospero was. Izra wore a look of fear and panic on his face plain as day. He was not an inspiring leader.

“Master Eurytus, I will speak plainly. The situation before us is perilous. If we retreat we are abandoning your liege lord and becoming rebels. If we advance the fight that lay before us will be incredibly dangerous. Our conscripts are barely trained, barely armed, and most have no armor to speak of.”

Izra sighed with exasperation. He lowered his head, covered his face with his hands, and lamented. “To think we would face such a dire situation so soon. We aren’t prepared! I dare not lead our people into slaughter.”

“Certainly not. But civilians are not powerless. Never forget that. Soldiers like to think that they are of a different breed, but the truth is that any human pushed to great lengths will do what they must to survive. If we are able to outsmart the enemy, we can provide tangible, actionable assistance to our allies trapped inside the city. If we can break this siege, it will be your second act of merit before you have even presented yourself to Count Gaynes. No doubt it will impact the rank and role you receive, and the supplies and training our troops are afforded.”

Izra scratched at his neck, where days of stubble had grown. “I see. So you say we must still think ahead to the circumstances our people will face in the long term, even as we decide how to triumph in the short term.”

“Exactly so. Fortune is on our side, though. Tonight is a new moon, and so darkness will be absolute. We should pull our column back a few thousand paces, so that the light and smoke of our campfires will not be seen by the enemy. We need to cut enough trees to build a small fortification. Tonight, I will take twenty of our most able troops to infiltrate the encircling camp.”

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Izra, too frightened to push back on any proposal, nodded hastily. “Good, Prospero, good. You see to it. I grant you leave to do whatever you think must be done. I will oversee the building of a camp.”

That night, Prospero and two dozen of the younger conscripts crept out of the camp and back onto the road. Each carried a bundle of kindling on their backs, laced with charcoal from campfires. They practiced moving silently, each batting at the other with sticks if they could hear the other moving. In short order they learned to be undetectable.

They emerged from the forest. What little light there was to be seen came from watch fires around the besieging camp, and torches posted along the city’s wall. The besieging force was far too small to effectively ring an entire walled city.

One of the youngest conscripts, a teenage boy named Marlon, crept up beside Prospero and looked out over the siege camp. “What do you make of it, Master Mage?”

Prospero pointed to a gap between the watch fires. “There, a corridor of darkness. That is to be our roadway. Do you think that will get you close enough to the wall to fire your arrow into the city?”

“Yes sir,” the boy said diligently.

Prospero huffed a laugh, impressed by Marlon. The boy was fearless. More than that, he was excited. Maybe some people are built to thrive in these sorts of professions, but there could be no knowing for certain how anyone would behave until they were plunged headfirst into the bloodbath of actual combat. Hopefully, they wouldn’t need to cross that threshold tonight.

“Alright, well let’s hurry up and get this done.”

The two shuffled forward into the darkness, The dark corridor through the siege camp was probably an oversight, an innocently missed detail of the officers coordinating the camp’s construction. Sentries bearing torches passed, but it was easy for the small guerrilla force to duck behind the supplies that had been left. The enemy was not expecting any attack from outside the walls. They were far too complacent and overconfident.

As the team moved, they dropped off bundles of kindling next to large stores of supplies. They repeated the process, moving slowly and carefully, until they made it to the inner edge of the ring-shaped camp. Prospero tamped a small-scrolled up message into its compartment on the side of a large arrow and handed it to Marlon, who nocked it in his bow. Then he took a running start toward the wall to get to his desired range, and shot the arrow at one of the towers on the wall.

The team heard it strike home into the wooden wall of the watch tower with a dull thud. Prospero had to quickly hush the team to keep them from celebrating too loudly. Now, they needed to wait.

With no moon, and nothing as convenient as a digital wristwatch, there was no way to tell how much time had passed. To Prospero, it felt like hours. Finally, they heard horns blaring from inside the city. A great many lights appeared by Southaster’s western gate. As a consequence, the camp suddenly woke up around them, as sleeping soldiers raced to don their armor and make ready for a fight in front of the western gate.

The team hid in the shadows as the camp emptied around them. “Torches,” Prospero whispered.

Each of his troops came over to where he was hidden, and Prospero pulled out his spellbook. He traced the arcane geometry on one of its pages, causing it to glow a fiery red color. Then he held his hand over the gathered torches, and gently blew on the back of his hand. Sparks flew down from his palm, and each of the torches instantly ignited.

“Okay, we’re ready. Light the bundles first, then get as much of the camp as you can. If you hear a loud noise, or if you’re spotted by the enemy, drop your torch and flee toward the forest. Understood?”

“Yes sir!”

“Go!”

As the team raced back down the dark patch of camp, they lit the bundles. First the kindling erupted into flames, then it spread to the boxes of grain, arrows, and other flammable goods. The wind did the rest of the work for them.

As sentries became aware of the inferno, Prospero’s team retreated. Rather than follow them, Prospero took it upon himself to ensure that their promise to their allies was kept. He did not flee, even as sentries approached him, spears at the ready.

“Stop right there, you rebel dog! Surrender, and face justice at the hands of the Prime Minister!” barked one of the sentries.

Prospero clicked his tongue and shook his head. A ball of fire appeared in one hand, as his book glowed fiery hot in the other. The sentries’ stout courage turned brittle before him, as they all began to back away.

“Sergeant, he’s a mage!” one of them cried.

One of them cast down their spear and bolted. “I won’t die here!” she declared.

“Mercy to the unarmed,” Prospero called. His book glowed again, purple now, and his voice was amplified by magic. It boomed like thunder, resounding clearly for hundreds of feet. “You face the mage-hero Prospero, and his phantom army! Your camp shall burn to cinders, but if you drop your weapons, I will permit you to return home in peace!”

“Run!” the sergeant said, dropping his spear. The men each tossed their weapons aside and bolted, fleeing from the demonic silhouette of the mage standing before a wall of fire.

By now, Prospero thought, if Count Gaynes trusted the message we sent him, he should be leading his attack on the camp through the Eastern gate. I shall burn my way toward him and join him in combat.

As he rushed through the camp, the inferno behind him built and spread more and more quickly. He cast bolt after bolt of fire at tents and carts and crates and barrels, turning the whole of the siege camp into a singular bonfire.

He leveraged the fearsome reputation of more powerful mages to great effect. The entire skeleton crew that had been left to guard the camp while the others went to the Western Gate fled at the sight of him, even though he wore no armor, bore no weapons, and was only using the very weakest types of magics to wreak his chaos. Fear more than logic was at play here, but the danger of fire and an unknown number of enemies in the dark was real enough for anyone to understand.

Finally, Prospero found men dressed in the blue livery of Count Gaynes’ retinue. “Coalition troops! I am the mage Prospero! Where is Count Gaynes?”

“He is watching from the tower above the gate!” someone reported.

Prospero turned and looked up. There, lit by the warm light of two torches on either side of the gate tower, stood a number of lordly looking men, whose silvery armor reflected glints of firelight. These must be the officers who had been trapped inside the city. One of them would be Count Gaynes.

“Thank you!” Prospero called back, and he turned to rush toward the city wall.