Spear of Destiny James Baldwin (free romance novels .TXT) 📖

drawing. He paused and asked the Ranger a quick question. The man nodded, and he continued. “Five sites, all wasted from Ashur’s march toward Karhad. The corpses fallen in the final battles against the Demon are still there. But those Stardrinker devices were gone.”

Suri sucked in a startled breath. “He took the bloody Ix’tamo.”

Ix’tamo, commonly called Stardrinkers, were resource pylons that extracted mana from land and condensed it into a form suitable for casting magic—and in doing so, they destroyed the terrain in a five-thousand-foot radius, leaving a characteristic starburst of dead, frozen wasteland. The Demon had deployed over a hundred of the things in his conquest of Myszno, using them to animate his army of undead.

“Rin? Could Zoltan have repurposed the Ix’tamo for something?” I turned to look at her sharply.

“Uhhh... yeah. All sorts of things,” she said. “Ix’tamo can siphon mana off any kind of terrain. They can store it for a while, too.”

“Can they sap the mana out of airship engines?” Suri asked.

That raised hackles around the room. Vilmos huffed. Taethawn growled.

“Assuming they knew what they were doing with them? Mayybee? “Rin winced at her own lack of certainty. “They’d need a Master Artificer or three to repurpose them without, umm, setting off a sizable explosion with a lot of Stranging. If they found some way to use them to target airships, the ships would have to be within range of the device. Umm... to be honest... I think it’s more likely that he’d use them to strip away an airship’s shields so he could strike them with artillery. Or... he’d use them to attack Karalti. Anyone with access to C-grade lore on dragons knows their blood is mostly made of mana.”

“What is the effective range of these devices?” Kitti asked, her clear, childish voice ringing through the room.

“A spined sphere about five thousand feet in radius, my lady,” Rin replied.

Kitti bit her lip, her brow furrowing. “The Dragon Towers—the towers that protect our city from the air—are further apart than that. But if these Ix’tamo were placed inside, they would affect any airship flying close by.”

“Yes,” Captain Vilmos’ eyes narrowed. “The cannons of the Hussar-class destroyers have an effective range of 3280 yards, but to be practical, they must be fired within 1750 yards, which is roughly 5000 feet. Closer is better, of course, because of the effects of wind.”

One of the other Yanik scouts spoke up, and Istvan turned to listen. Everyone fell silent while he took in the information. The Dragoons had flown the Rangers in, but it was the Yanik—with their supernaturally keen eyes—who had done most of the actual spotting.

“The walls of Solonovka are defended by the force garrisoned within the city,” Istvan translated, marking the places where the Ranger pointed. “The scouts reached a consensus that there are about two thousand head stationed in Solonovka. They vary between veteran deserters, who have the King’s steel, and poorly armed bandits, militia, and other flotsam. The majority of the professional soldiers were seen near those air-defense towers and the castle itself.”

“Shit,” Suri said. “So they’re cutting off a land advance, and there’s a chance they’re using the Ix’tamo for some kind of anti-air defense strategy. Zoltan is smarter than he has any right to be.”

Rin picked at her lip, scowling. “I mean… we can in theory just fly over them and stay out of their range. Hussar-class and Bathory-class can both fly at seventeen thousand feet with a full load. The altitude gets higher as you go south, but we could still clear the canyon by thousands of feet with any Vlachian warship. But… uhh… I guess we can’t hit them from that height.”

“What about taking the airships to the western border?” Captain Vilmos used a ruler to tap the lowlands of Bas. “Vyeshniki could be used as a staging ground. The Freehold is surely grateful for the relief we recently gave them.”

“No good.” Taethawn pinned his ears and lashed his tail. “Not for humansss, at least. The snows were coming in hard when we withdrew and returned to the capitol. Two thirds of my forces are exhausted after our adventure to Vyeshniki, mostly from the weather.”

“He’s right. We weren’t able to scout that way due to blizzards and storms,” Corporal Bognar added. “ The weather is still clear in Solonovka, but it’ll be snowed under in a matter of weeks. We saw Zoltan’s troops moving large numbers of common folk under guard from the city in wagons, heading north and east. Preparations to bring in the harvest, I think.”

“Fuck,” I said. “You were right, Vilmos. He’s going to gather the food and use it to dig in for a long siege.”

Vilmos rumbled in his chest. “Yes. And unless we waste a lot of lives trying to cross that bridge, or find some other way to get an army over that canyon without getting shot down, he’ll wait us out until spring. Every day that passes, he is more likely to find a way to kidnap Lady Hussar.”

I stared at the map, thinking. “Hang on. I’m getting an idea.”

The others looked to me, and waited.

“Taethawn,” I said, after the pieces had come together. “Remember how I told you I want to modernize Vlachia’s military?”

Taethawn gave Wing Commander Vasoly—the Royal agent—a nervous glance. “Yessss?”

“Part of that is implementing modern strategies, when they’re warranted.” I frowned at the smaller map of Hussar Manor that Kitti had drawn for us. Like Kalla Sahasi, the castle only had one road and a single gatehouse, complete with machicolations, murderholes, and other fun late-Medieval period defenses. Beyond the gatehouse was a short funnel which looked perfect for mowing down anyone who broke through the front. It opened up into the rectangular Lower Ward, which was ringed by the utilities of the castle: the stables, kennels, guard tower, garrison barracks, chapel and granaries. According to