Extermination (Daniel Black Book 3) (37 page)

I sighed. “We’ve beaten them off for now, but they could attack again as early as this afternoon. The Conclave is setting up a forbiddance to keep them out while the garrison pulls itself together, but as usual I’m the one who has to save the day. I’m going to have to call a staff meeting to plan our next move.”

She gave me a worried frown. “Can it wait until this afternoon? Everyone is exhausted. You could at least catch a nap.”

It was a tempting prospect, but my plate was just too full.

“I can give everyone else a chance to catch a little sleep,” I decided. “I’m going to have to just work through the day, and use my magic to tough it out. Let’s schedule the meeting for lunch, and… actually, why am I telling you this? You don’t have to manage this stuff anymore. Do you know where Pelagia is?”

“She’s set up an office down on the third floor, near the reception area. I’ll have one of the maids show you where it is after you eat. Now have a seat, and let me make you something.”

“Alright.”

Having a magical gourmet chef waiting to feed me at every opportunity was never going to get old. I sat and watched her work, deftly assembling ingredients into a perfect omelet. That wasn’t even a local dish. Every now and then she’d ask me a few questions about food from my homeland, and in the last few days she’d started unveiling her attempts to replicate what I’d described. More often than not her efforts were either spot on, or different in a way that actually made them better than what I was used to.

She set her latest masterpiece in front of me, and waited eagerly. I took up my silverware, and sampled it. Perfect, of course. Light, fluffy egg, with cheese, bacon and hints of spices I couldn’t identify.

“Perfect,” I announced. “I don’t know how you do it, sweetie.”

She beamed at me. “I just want you to have something to look forward to when you come home from fighting to protect us, Daniel. You’re my hero, and I’m going to show you a lot more appreciation from now on.”

“Careful, there. If you keep that up my ego’s going to swell until it won’t fit in the door.”

“Good.” She leaned across the counter to kiss my cheek.

After that she went back to work. It took me a few minutes to realize that she was making individual breakfasts for the rest of the coven, each of them a special work of art carefully crafted for its recipient’s tastes. At the same time she was preparing several larger batches of food, some of it for Elin’s patients and the rest for Sefwin’s secret service agents. Some of that was in a rather Asian-looking style that I gathered was dark elf cooking.

“You’re going to spoil them,” I commented when I figured that out.

Avilla set down a plate of sausage and hotcakes in front of me, and I realized I was still hungry.

“Maybe I want to spoil them,” she replied. “You’ve chosen them to be our last line of defense against danger, right? I think it’s wise to make sure my guardians are as strong as I can make them. Besides, this is the kind of work I love.”

A pair of servants worked with her in the kitchen, hovering at her back like nurses assisting a surgeon. Smiling maids came and went, carrying off trays loaded with food and returning with empty dishes they handed off to another pair who were working as dishwashers. The whole operation was as organized as any commercial kitchen, which had to be more of Avilla’s magic at work.

Cerise and Tina emerged from the bath, looking relaxed and happy for once. They hadn’t bothered to put on more than light house robes, and the way they kept hugging and gazing into each other’s eyes warmed my heart.

A few minutes later Elin stumbled in, to my surprise.

“Avilla, why do I have such a sudden craving for breakfast?” She asked.

“Because you’ll work yourself to death if no one looks after you,” Avilla replied serenely. “Go wash up, dear. You’ve just enough time before your food is ready.”

Elin threw her hands up. “You’re impossible, you know that? What if I’d had an urgent patient?”

“Then you’d still be downstairs treating him, wouldn’t you? It’s only a reminder, not a compulsion. Are you really upset that I don’t want you starving yourself by accident?”

Elin flushed. “Um, well, I suppose not.”

Tina hopped up from the table, and kissed Elin on the cheek. “We love you, silly. Stop fussing and let Avilla take care of you. It’s what she does.”

“Oh, very well.”

She tried to act put upon, but she was back from the bath in two minutes flat. Considering her love of long baths she must have really been hungry. Then Avilla set a plate full of fancy-looking pastries in front of her, and her eyes lit up.

“For me?” She squeaked.

“For you,” Avilla confirmed. “I know we didn’t get off to the best start, dear, but I am trying.”

Elin stared hungrily at the sugary treats. “I know. I… thank you, Avilla. This is marvelous. How did you know I have a sweet tooth?”

She took a tentative bite. Her eyes drifted closed, her back arched, and a little moan of appreciation escaped her lips.

Avilla paused for a moment to watch, with an indulgent smile on her lips. “You like the chocolate?”

“Itsh sho good!” Elin groaned, her mouth full of sugary goodness. She swallowed, and squirmed in her seat.

I could help but smile. It wasn’t often that I got to see all of my girls in one place, smiling and relaxed and happy with each other. I’d never realized how much it was affecting the rest of us to have Avilla so stressed out all the time. Was she going to engineer scenes like this on a regular basis now?

My gaze fell to Tina’s baby bump, growing more obvious by the day now. Having a reborn goddess as a daughter was an intimidating prospect. But still, a daughter.

A family.

I had a lot to protect in this world. Somehow, I had to keep them safe. I’d tried to do that with conventional measures. Strong walls, heavily armed soldiers, the mortars. I’d hoped that would be enough.

Now the enemy was using earthquakes against us. Well, fine. If they wanted to escalate, I’d just have to return the favor. I’d get as crazy as I had to, to keep my girls safe.

I spent the rest of the morning working out a new fuse enchantment for the mortars. Making shells actually detonate when they hit the wards over an andregi encampment was a deceptively tricky problem, just because of the velocities involved. Even the simplest of spells take a few milliseconds to activate, and those shells were probably pushing a thousand meters per second when they came down. So I couldn’t literally set the shell off when it struck a ward, because the thing would move several more meters in the time it took for the fuse to activate.

Instead, I had to make the shell radiate a detection spell that would pick up the obstacle in its path a good distance away. Testing that little enchantment took quite a bit of equipment, and I had to warn everyone to stay out of my test chamber while I was firing experimental rounds at a target. Good thing my shield was strong enough to deflect the inevitable shrapnel.

Then, of course, I had to try out my designs against different types of wards. If I made the detector too specific the andregi would be able to fool it just by layering the spells that made up their ward in a different order, or slapping a little illusion magic on the outside. I was still running trials when it came time for the meeting I’d called.

It wasn’t a full staff meeting, since a lot of my people wouldn’t be much help with the special project I had in mind. Just Demetrios, Pelagia, Tavrin, Elin and Cerise.

“So what are we planning here?” Cerise asked curiously after we’d all taken our seats.

“I don’t know yet,” I replied. “I’ve asked you all here because we’re facing a tough problem that doesn’t have an obvious solution. Demetrios, am I right in thinking that at this rate Kozalin is going to be more or less wiped out over the next few weeks?”

“Wait, what? What do you mean? We kicked their asses last night,” Cerise protested.

“No, he’s right,” Demetrios said, his face grim. “I was just going over our latest reports with Captain Rain. The garrison is down to about twelve thousand men who are fit enough to fight, and another thousand or so casualties who might recover enough to contribute in the next two weeks. With the damage to the city walls that’s not enough to reliably throw back another assault like the ones they’ve been using, and the Red Conclave can’t cover for the lack of troops for very long.”

“The amulets Daniel sold them aren’t enough?” Cerise asked. But then she stopped, and sighed. “No, of course not. They need fancy group rituals to set up the big spells, and it takes a lot of work to redesign those. Maybe they can recharge one in a week instead of a couple of months, but that’s not good enough.”

“Exactly. No one seems to know how many civilians died, but between the earthquake and the fighting I’m guessing somewhere in the vicinity of thirty thousand. So it was a grievous blow to the city, and one that they can now repeat at will.”

Tavrin leaned forward. “The Red Conclave has summoned several earth elementals to assist with building barricades, and strengthening towers that are in danger of collapsing. But they don’t seem to have any earth mages who can rebuild the city wall quickly. I estimate the Wizard’s Quarter will have an intact wall again in a week, but extending repairs to the rest of the city would require at least another month.”

This was apparently news to Pelagia, who was looking worried now. “How long do we have?”

“If we do nothing? Ten days. Maybe two weeks if we’re lucky,” Demetrios replied. “The andregi lost most of their force in the attack, but they’re receiving additional reinforcements to make up for it. They can continue launching assaults every day or two, and whatever measures the Red Conclave has ready will be exhausted quickly. I expect Brand will have a trick or two up his sleeve as well, but one more expensive battle will break the garrison. Then the enemy will capture the Trade District, and they’ll be able to approach the walls of the other districts under cover. After that most of the city will fall quickly, leaving only Brokefang Keep and the Iron Citadel to hold out.”

“If they take the city, can they take the island?” Elin asked quietly.

“Possibly,” he replied. “This island is the strongest fortification I’ve ever seen, and the killing power of the weapons Daniel has made is immense. But we have barely four hundred combatants to defend the walls, and the enemy has a great variety of magic to call on. It would be a long siege, but I think simple attrition might doom us in the end.”

“We can have more men by then,” Pelagia observed. “I’ve already had some luck with hiring in mercenaries and survivors of broken units from the city, and the infirmary is another recruiting opportunity. In a week we’ll have the farms fully staffed, and I can add two or three hundred more fighting men to our ranks. Plus as many women and children as we care to take in, of course.”

I decided that was a good point to break in, before things got too negative.

“Good. I’m glad to hear you’re making progress on our staffing problem, Pelagia. But what I really want is a way to keep things from getting to that point.

“The first step of that is the new mortar rounds I’m working on. The day after tomorrow we’re going to obliterate those enemy camps with a bombardment their wards won’t stop. That will force them to back off a few miles, which will make it a lot more complicated for them to launch attacks on the city. I figure that will buy us a week or two to come up with a permanent solution.”

“What do you mean, a permanent solution?” Cerise asked. “Are you going to make bigger guns or something?”

“That wouldn’t be enough,” Demetrios pointed out. “It might work for protecting the island, but not the city. There’s too much ground to cover, and the garrison is already too weak.”

“I know,” I said. “What we need is some way to cut the problem off at its source. Destroy the gate they’re using to get here, or take out the suspended animation complex their reinforcements are coming from, or cause them some kind of problem that forces them to pull their army away from here. Some kind of game changer.”

Everyone looked a little dubious at that. Then Cerise suddenly grinned.

“Typical Daniel. Okay, I’ll go first. How big can you make that lava conjuring spell? Maybe we could take the
Intrepid
out over the cave these guys are marching out of, and drop a bomb that floods it with lava?”

“If I make the explosion too big it’ll destroy the bomb. I guess I could make something that conjures a low-pressure stream of lava, and hovers above the pool so it doesn’t melt itself. Anyone know how deep those caves are?”

“The gate will be hundreds of feet down,” Elin said. “Also, shutting it down is a temporary solution. Locations with a strong earth resonance are commonplace, so Gaea would simply open another gate elsewhere. If we repeat the stratagem she’s likely to become personally annoyed with us, and take direct measures to stop us.”

Cerise shrugged. “She’s already trying to kill us. What else is she going to do?”

Pelagia coughed. “Ah, Cerise, I don’t believe we’re prepared to deal with a Great Beast. I’m told that many of them are following her advice on where to find prey, at least for now.”

“Clever sabotage might be a wiser strategy,” Tavrin agreed. “My people can reach Skogheim, and pass as traveling merchants from another clan. Unfortunately Gaea would likely sense any artifact powerful enough to destroy the Halls of Slumber, but perhaps there’s something else we could accomplish?”