“Sir, you called for me?” Azrael was slightly out of breath from running to the Commander’s quarters.
“Yes, captain. I did. Lord Balenor will be here shortly to brief us, but he requested you on my recommendation.” Mahar stood from behind his desk and stuck his head out the door. “Lieutenant, fetch coffee, and bring me the maps of Darl-knade through to Bonegate.” The young Shadrim nodded and took off, Mahar’s orange-yellow eyes following him out. When the door closed behind the junior officer, he turned back to Azrael.
“Your men are doing well. Taking out the mage battery that way was quite brilliant, and I am very appreciative.” He was walking over to the sand-table as he said this. “How did you think of it?”
“It seemed logical, sir. The ground was soft from all the rains these last few weeks, and the Arkhosians mages are primarily lightning specialists. Hardly the kind to have the ability to affect earth, and their placement in that defilade was simply fortuitous. Very well-defended from attack, but a rockslide?” Azrael smiled, his arm still in a sling from a fall he’d taken while running down the hillside he’d collapsed onto an entire mage company. “They overlooked the other uses of the terrain, and having Magradoth with us gave us his elementals – it’s astonishing to me to see how one fair-sized earth elemental can rewrite the landscape.”
“Indeed…ah, I hear him now.” Mahar looked over to the door. Footsteps outside presaged Balenor’s arrival.
“Good morning, gentlemen.”
Both Shadrim bowed, “My Lord,” both intoned automatically. “Coffee is on the way, sir.”
“Good. What do you know about why I am here?” He pulled up a chair by the sand table.
“Only that it has something to do with the lands of the Darl-knade, sir.”
“I see. All right. The Cairn Jale has been tasked to destroy the Arkhosian forces between the city of Voerian Baro and the Bonegate. I have been given the honor of accomplishing this. Mahar, I assume you have maps on the way?” He took up the rake of the sand table and began to clear the surface.
“Yes sir.” Mahar drew out three separate rods from the table’s attached stand. Offering one to Balenor and one to Azrael, he took a place to Balenor’s right hand.
“Good.” Balenor began to draw unit positions and designator glyphs on the sand. “My understanding is that the Arkhosian’s Gold Battalion is somewhere in the hills of Voerian Baro, about here…” he drew in a large infantry glyph. “…and that Gold has two hundred drake-mounted cavalry reinforcing them. That will mean the bulk of the Arkhosian force of Gold, and given those numbers, I think they’ve gutted their own Silver battalion to reinforce it.”
Mahar looked visibly shaken at the thought of the cavalry. “My lord, we don’t have anything that can stand up to that kind of cavalry in those numbers. Fifty, even a hundred, we could stand fast, but two hundred will break the best of my men.”
Balenor looked over to him. “Yes, I know. That’s why we’re going to soften them up a bit first. Which brings me to you, Captain.”
“My lord?” Azrael looked up from the sand to the devil’s eyes. As he did, a gentle knock at the door pulled Mahar away. He pointed the lieutenant to place the coffee on the central table and took the maps from him.
“Your success three days ago, how did you do it?” Balenor held the point of the sand-rod against Azrael’s arm.
“Terrain, my lord. The enemy had emplaced its magicians in a protected defilade, and had overlooked a cliff above them. Using an earth elemental conjured by one of my team, the cliff was loosened and dropped upon the dug-in position. The remainder of us charged the survivors and polished them off.”
“Exactly. I need you to use that sort of resourcefulness again. Here we have two hundred airborne cavalry. They are moving up along this route from deep within Arkhosian territory, where Silver was assembling their forces. How do we defeat this force?”
Azrael looked at the maps spread out before him, contemplating. “We can’t stop them in the air. If we had intelligence on where they were camping overnight, we might set up some form of ambush at an anticipated site, but even then we’d be dealing with two hundred angry drakes.” Balenor and Mahar were both observing.
Mahar spoke up, “Perhaps if we set on them with small mage units, summoning air elementals, we could…”
Balenor shook his head. “No, too vulnerable, too hard to control. They definitely have the speed, but if they were caught, they’d be dead in moments. In addition, the elementals would likely be beaten down unless we could field a large number of them. We’d probably need at least twenty to put any significant hurt on the riders.”
Azrael looked up from the maps. “Food.”
Balenor’s eyes formed the question.
“Yes, food, that’s our key. We don’t have to fight them at all. Drakes aren’t dragons, they need to eat quite often. A drake squadron would be a problem if we were invading Arkhosia, because they’d have herds raised specifically to feed them.” He pointed along the route they were expected to take.
“This is operating well outside of their home territory – our own forces would be extended to reach this border zone, but this is not farm territory. There are a few places, here – and here…” he used small ceramic markers on the map “…where there will be some farmland, probably with cattle, and these three townships along the way will have pigs.”
“The Arkhosians will likely encourage the drakes to feed on the people of the townships. So if we evacuate them into the woodlands nearby, only the pigs remain. They can also be driven out…but they’ll be more effective if we poison them.”
“That’s a lot of poison, but also a good idea. What were you considering?” Mahar nodded.
“If we slather a base of lard with Oengarrdt sap across the backs of the livestock, that should give us enough on an adult pig to kill or seriously sicken a drake. The lard we can pick up in the townships, the sap we can take with us from here and also pick up extra on-site. Sick or dead, neither will fly and both will be easy pickings for a fast-strike unit – such as the one I’ll be leading to bring the poison to the townships.”
Mahar and Balenor exchanged glances. The fiend stood up straight. “When do you leave?”
“I’ll need twelve men, at least three herbalists, and supplies. I’ll need the magicians to establish me a port circle to this location, here…” he pinned a spot on the map “…and we can cover the rest of the distance on foot between the other two towns or on mounts, if we can locate them there. I can have them ready by tomorrow night, sir.” Azrael straightened up.
Balenor looked back at the map. “All right, that’s a good primary. What’s your backup plan?”
“Gold, sir.”
“Gold?”
“I’m guessing fifteen, perhaps twenty thousand Turathian menals should do it. Preferably in very fine gems, perhaps a bit of metal sculptural artwork.” Azrael looked thoughtful. “It might end up costing a bit more, but that price can be paid afterwards. I’d like a budget on this, sir, if it becomes necessary.”
“Exactly what do you plan to do with this money, captain?” Balenor looked a little taken aback at the thought of that much money.
“I think I have an idea, sir” Mahar spoke up. Azrael smiled when he saw Mahar’s rod drift across the map to the mountains near Bonegate. “This is Stormhowl Peak, isn’t it, Az?”
“Yes, sir, and yes, that’s my plan.”
Balenor looked between them. “All right, for once you have the advantage on me. Will you please explain?”
“Sir, Stormhowl Peak is the home of Vargan Lightweaver, a great blue dragon. I would intend that if my poisoning of the drakes does not succeed, or does not succeed sufficiently, I will bargain with the beast and offer to augment its hoard in exchange for destroying a portion or all of the drakes.”
If Balenor had had eyebrows, he would have raised them – his eyes visibly widened at the mention of the dragon. “Now that would certainly be irony on a grand scale. Also, being a blue, he’s perfectly capable of holding a stand-off fight with the entire batch of drakes, and simply electrocuting them one at a time without ever entering their range. Captain, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were bucking for a promotion.”
“Only if it pleases you to award me one, my lord.” Azrael smiled out of one side of his mouth.
“Pull this off, and reduce those drakes by half before they reach my forces, and it’ll be yours.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll do my best.”
“I’m sure you will. Get it done, captain. Commander, make the funds available to him.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Balenor strode from the room.
“Good thinking, Az. Do you speak draconic?”
“No, but I’ll make sure at least two of my team do.”
Mahar chuckled. “I’m really intrigued at this – I almost hope your primary fails and you have to engage with Vargan. That’d be quite the tale to go into the history books.”
Azrael smiled. “It certainly would. But I rather like the idea of a trail of sickened and dead drakes to chase down into the nothingness of death one at a time. The morale effect would be so much better if we did them in piecemeal like that.
“Good point. Okay, you’d better get a move on if you’re to leave tomorrow. I’ll talk to the mages and get you a transport circle built up. Once you have your team picked, report back to me here.”
“Yes, sir!” Azrel saluted and left.
Mahar stared at the table for a long time, enjoying the coffee as it slowly cooled. Shaking his head, he eventually walked out into the sunlight.
