Then I saw a flash like a streak of fireworks, and tongues of flame licked at the grass near the front line of grenadiers. My eyes widened—someone had fumbled a grenade and it had set an accidental fire. I held my casting steady, but my breath hitched. This was beyond my control, beyond anyone’s control now.
The dead, dry grass caught quickly, consumed by rapidly spreading flame as the grenadiers fell back from the fire, abandoning the redoubt. The Royalist regulars fell back, as well, their retreat cut off. But there was no escape route—their path away from the fire led them back to the remaining force of the Reformist army still on the field. They began to exchange volleys with the Reformists, but even my untrained eye could tell that they were caught in a pincer and surrender was imminent. Even so, I spun a cloud of luck and suspended it over the infantry.
I exhaled in relief, but then red caught my eye from near the edge of the flames. The dragoons, a good portion of the detachment, was caught in a pocket and hemmed in by fire. The horses shied and pulled in fear; even the steady hands of the trained horsemen fought to keep them under control. Not only could they not aid our infantry in finishing the battle, but they were trapped, threatened on all sides by fire.
Though I was sure the infantry officers saw the dragoons’ distress, there was nothing they could do to aid them. They ordered the infantry to fix bayonets, and began a rapid charge. The opposing sides grew too close and too tangled for me to try to charm or curse any side without plastering the other, as well.
I turned my focus to the dragoons, redoubling the strength of charm magic, pressing it as hard as I could on the hapless men and horses. I peered through the shroud of smoke; was Sianh among the trapped horsemen? I couldn’t tell. I pressed more luck toward them, but my efforts were returned not by diminished flames or a means of escape, but by the unearthly, gut-twisting screams of the horses.
My charm faltered, and not, I realized, from broken focus. I shook, my energy spent. I could do nothing to help our trapped horsemen, nothing.
I sank to the ground, forcing my breaths steady and deep. Drums echoed across the field. Advancing Reformist soldiers halted, the sun glinting off hundreds of pointed bayonets as I squinted to make out their progress.
The Royalist troops held their muskets clubbed, and their ensigns inverted their colors. They were surrendering. I gripped the dry grass around me, sure I might tumble off the hill if I let go.
We had won the field.
36
WITH THE SURRENDER OF THE MAIN CONTINGENT OF THE ROYALIST forces at Rock’s Ford, Theodor quickly turned his attention toward effecting a full surrender of the remaining troops fortified at Westland Hall. An ancient fortification still stood on the perimeter of his family’s lands, overlooking the river, and he anticipated correctly, according to scouts’ reports, that the Royalists would make their stand there. More, though we couldn’t be sure, it was possible that Pommerly, Merhaven, or even the king himself might be at Westland Hall.
The full strength of our army was convened against Westland Hall, and its heir would lead the charge. “I wish Sianh were here,” he said, mouth set in a grim line. “I know to array what artillery we can against the fortifications, and to attempt an incursion from the flank—but which flank?”
“Is Sianh—do we know…?” I tried not to think of the fire, of the screams and the smell of burnt grass and flesh mingling on the wind.
“I don’t know. We’ve moved quickly, but if he’s with the dragoons, he ought to be able to ride—I don’t know,” he cut himself off.
I knew Theodor didn’t only want Sianh’s military advice; he didn’t want to be the sole supervisor of the siege on his family home. There was something too final, too bitter about directing troops to fire on the rolling meadows he had roamed as a child, collecting, I was sure, specimens of flowers and grasses. I didn’t say anything. He wouldn’t want to be reminded, to vocalize what he had to do.
“I’ll come. At the rear,” I reassured him. I kept my plans silent—he didn’t need to hear how his betrothed planned to use her magical gifts for the siege of his home.
“I think—I can’t promise, but I think—we will manage without help,” he cautioned me. “If you’re overtaxed, or if it’s not secure.”
I shook my head. “I’m coming. We have the opportunity for a decisive victory. We’d be fools not to leverage what we have.”
Theodor inhaled slowly and gave me a brisk nod. “I have to go. Stay back and stay safe.”
He mounted his horse and rode ahead, and I slipped back, far back, watching the movement of the artillery rolling on creaking carriages and the infantry in ordered lines.
Hooves pounded to a halt behind me. “Sianh!” I called. “You’re all right.”
“Better than can be said for many.” He rode a different horse than he had set out with that morning, and his face and uniform were marred with soot. “I lost my mount,” he added, and I knew he didn’t mean the horse had run off—the flames had taken the loyal bay.
“Theodor moved ahead already.”
“Very well. I will join him. But, Sophie—” He looked over my head, toward the stone fortification at the edge of Westland Hall’s lands. “Be wary. There may be Serafans in the stronghold. And by now, it is possible that the Royalists have discerned your presence.”
“I understand. Now hurry!” I said with a forced smile. “Best of luck!”
“We never wish luck on the field in Serafe,” he returned with a cockeyed smile. “We wish fortitude and a quick engagement.”
“Then fortitude follow you,” I said. He didn’t see me cast a thin veil of strength and endurance over him, shrouding his gray-and-red uniform with a fresh haze of gold.
The artillery was set to fire on the old cairns and a stout wall of stone that ran overlooking a shallow outcropping over the river. Wagons of shot and powder waited at a fair distance behind the guns themselves, and I found a spot near a pair of baleful oxen, out of the way yet with a clear view of the targets. One ox watched me warily, already annoyed and fretful at the scent of smoke and the deafening reports of the guns. I made sure I was out of range of his hooves and hard head even as the officers calculated the ranges of the artillery pieces.
I had never wanted to curse artillery pieces, or even the shot itself. Cannons could—as I had seen while on the Fenian ship—explode. A curse didn’t care who it affected; it clung to the object or hovered in the ether and affected everyone near it. Cursed shot might have been more deadly to the enemy, or it might have injured our own men.
But once it left the barrel of the gun, its only effects would be on its target. I wasn’t sure if I could cast rapidly enough to coat a moving ball in a curse, but I could accompany the shots downrange with a complement of curse magic.
First, I drew gold light from the ether and draped it around the artillery. Emplaced nearly in the open, with little cover, I knew that they were prime targets. I couldn’t build them fortifications, but I could give them some silent protection. Then I turned my attention to the Royalist position.
Built of fieldstone, the cairns and the wall were a relic of a bygone era, one when the lords of Galitha presided over castles built for military purposes instead of manor houses, when they fought one another more frequently than foreign enemies. It wasn’t an impenetrable fortress, not like the Stone Castle in Galitha City, but it was a strong defensible position. Persistent artillery fire might weaken the mortar and shatter the stones, but that gambit depended on the artillery, working under fire, sustaining an unremitting barrage. And if their cover disappeared, the Royalist forces inside would be susceptible to our musket fire, or a bayonet charge.