Chapter 5

Everybody showed up at the firing range at dawn and the delightful breakfast was enjoyed by all. In face, some of the young wizards acted as if this was the first decent meal they had eaten in ages.

After breakfast, Sam assembled the firebrands and explained his idea for the walking wall of fire. After some questioning, he established that every one of the firebrands could maintain a 30-yard strip of fire indefinitely. He split them into two groups and had them establish two fire lines, then slowly bring them together to mesh into one line. After a little practice, they could maintain and move a pair of fire lines about 500 yards long.

Now for the illusionists. Sam explained that, this time, he wanted to alternate 30 yards of real fire with 30 yards of fire illusion. He picked 5 firebrands and 5 illusionists for his first experiment. He lined them up, alternating a firebrand and and illusionist, until he had 10 wizards standing side by side. Sam ordered 30 yards of fire struck with 30 yards separating each fire. Once he had that, he ordered an illusion of fire connecting each pair of fires, plus an illusion on the end. This took a few minutes to get coordinated, but he eventually had his continuous line of apparent fire 300 yards long. It was a little confusing, trying to coordinate everything, so Sam had each firebrand hold up his right hand so that he could tell which was which. Sam then added wizards to the line until he had his new kind of fire line 500 yards long. He had them practice moving this fire line back and forth until they were reasonably well coordinated.

Sam asked the princess to supervise the practice of this line while he duplicated the setup for a second line. This line had the wizards in the reverse order of the first line. Sam hoped that these two lines sweeping toward each other would confuse those trapped between them and they wouldn't know which was real fire and which was illusion. This way, Sam could get maximum mileage out of his manpower. He left this line to practice under Teekay.

He organized two more similar lines to practice under Agar and TP2 while he discussed tactics with General Zaxos. The few extra wizards of each type were tacked on to the ends of the lines so that they could get some practice and be used as substitutes as necessary.

During lunch, Sam asked Agar if he could provide a flying carpet type of conveyance for the fire wall teams so that they could be moved around the battlefield as necessary. Agar was sure that he could do it and promised to have them available after lunch.

Agar came up with four conjurations, one for each line. The flier could hold a line of 30 active wizards, plus 2 spares and a driver. These were awkward looking devices, but plenty agile enough to maneuver anywhere they would be needed. When the design was finalized, the flier carried 32 wizards and a regular soldier as a driver. Sam was impressed with Agar's work and told him so. General Zaxos arranged for the drivers, and the afternoon was spent in training. They also looked for bugs that needed to be ironed out.

Sam was concerned that the new weapons they were concocting were going to be susceptible to magical attack by the wizards on the other side. He asked Agar if there was something he could do to set up some sort of barrier to magical attack to protect their men and weapons, but still fight through the barrier from their side.

Agar looked stunned at this request. "I never thought of that! That's going to be a hard nut to crack, but I'll start work on it immediately. I don't know what I can come up with, but I'll see what I can do."

"GENERAL MORTRIN, COME TO THE THRONE ROOM, IMMEDIATELY!" The command rang out through the Emperor's palace into every room, cubbyhole, nook, and cranny.

"Yes, Dread Lord. I'm on my way."

"Come, come, General Mortrin. I'm growing impatient. How long before we attack Alieria?"

"We will have all of the troops massed for the attack in three days, Dread Lord. The 40,000 demons are no problem, but the 8,000 humans take some time to get into place and organized."

"Why don't you crucify a few of the humans as an example? Won't that make the rest more compliant?"

"That's not the problem, Dread Lord. Humans have to be fed and clothed as long as we need them. Also, they have to walk to battle. We have no way to spell them there."

"Why do we need the humans? Won't the demons be adequate? After all, we vastly outnumber the humans in Alieria."

"Dread Lord, you said you wanted to enslave the humans in Alieria. It takes judgment to conquer a people without killing them all. The demons would be fine if you just wanted the humans dead, but they don't have the judgment to know when to stop fighting and accept the surrender of their enemy. The humans do; therefore, we will need the humans to make the final assault on the city's walls. Have you changed your mind, Master?"

"No, no. Stick to your original plan. You know me, I have an impatient streak! You are doing a good job, General Mortrin. Keep it up. You are dismissed for now."

"Yes, Dread Lord. Thank you, Master."

Agar walked in on Olena and Sam at supper. He said, "Sam, I have news for you on the magic shield situation. I have not been able to make a fool-proof shield against attack, but I do have something that works most of the time. I hope that is adequate, because it is the best that I can do in the short time we have. I did add an invisibility component to the shield, so that the people behind the shield cannot be seen by anyone on the other side. I think that will help, some."

"Thank you, Agar. It sounds good enough to me. It's really more than I expected in two days. Unfortunately, it still leaves our artillery vulnerable once the enemy has pinpointed their location. Could you conjure up enough fliers so that we could mount the onagers and trebuchets on mobile platforms? That way, they could do what my people call 'shoot and scoot'?"

"Yes, I can do that. All of the spells are self-sustaining, so that they will last indefinitely without my supervision. Let's meet with Herc tomorrow to work how just how big a platform should be."

Sam and Agar were in the midst of talking about the best way to deploy the artillery when one of the TP scouts showed up. He was breathless with excitement. "Sirs, the enemy is at hand. We had to run for our lives as they came charging over the border from Umphar. There are both humans and demons in their army. I don't know how many of each, but there must be thousands."

Sam said, "Thank you. Please go to the CP. We'll be there in a few minutes. Agar, please call in the rest of the scouts. Have them report to the CP. General, let's go. We can plan our next move from there."

Sam and the others ran to the flier and they left for the palace to pick up the princess and Lady Anne. They reached the CP just after the last of the TPs arrived. Sam said, "Ladies and gentlemen, if you would, please gather around the map table. We'll plan how to deploy our scouts for the next phase of the defense."

Herc said, "It looks to me like the enemy will be here sometime tomorrow afternoon. We need to know several things: how many troops they have, how they are divided into demons and humans, and how they are armed. We also need to know how many wizards they have with them.

"Wizard Sam, with your permission?... Thank you. You scouts are going to be very important over the next few hours. We need for you to look closely at the enemy and gather as many details about them as you can. Its important that you not be seen, so don't take any chances. The more we know about them, the better, but they can't find out that we are spying on them. Leave immediately, and return here as soon as they make camp. Dismissed!"

TP2 asked, "What about TP1 and me, shouldn't we go scouting, too?"

Sam said, "No, I need you here to carry messages. You'll have plenty to do before the war is over.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I have a question of policy for you. Lady Anne, I would appreciate any comments you might have. I wonder if there is any reason why we shouldn't attack the invaders tonight, when they aren't expecting it. It seems to me that we should hit them as far away from the city as we can. May I have your comments?"