Chapter 58: Volume 2 Chapter 18 – Baptism of Fire (Part 1/4)

"<PASCAL!>"

The frantic shout resounded within the confines of Pascal's empty mind. He didn't recognize it, but he felt the desperation from someone he instinctively knew and held dear.

Pascal stirred with a splitting headache and a steady ringing in his ears. His eyes opened to the blurry sight of a mostly-collapsed room, and he tried to wipe away the tears still clouding his vision...

"Gahhh!"

Hot pain shot across his shoulders when his left arm attempted to move. His breath quickened to a labored pant as his right hand reflexively reached up towards the injury. It came across a thick, wooden shaft. A javelin had apparently pierced through his left shoulder and impaled him into the ground.

Perhaps even worse, Pascal couldn't hear his own pained cry. Apart from the ringing in his ears, everything else in the world was a deathly silence.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, he reached his fingers around the pole before muttering "Disintegrate". The javelin handle instantly vanished into specks of dust, leaving only a bleeding hole the width of two fingers.

His arm moved this time, painfully. It jerked upwards briefly before flopping back down, neither of which were intended.

That was bad news, really bad. The hit must have shattered his left shoulder joint. He would need a real healer to fix that, which meant no curative spells until then.

"Blood Stasis."

Suspending the blood flow to his left arm wasn't much better, but it bought him at least some time. Healing magic could always restore dying cells deprived of oxygen, as long as he didn't bleed out first.

A quick check proved that his ears were indeed bleeding, probably ruptured from a sonic blast. After rummaging through an extra-dimensional belt pouch, Pascal pulled out two of his best healing runes and glued them to his ears with a sticking spell.

He then pushed himself back to sitting upright. His working hand rubbed to clear his eyes for a situational assessment of the disaster:

The command center was an expanded cabin with a wooden exterior, a hardened steel frame, and interior welded-steel armor. Yet now an entire facing of the ceiling and walls -- what remained of them anyway -- had buckled inwards. The room's furniture, including the enchanted map table, had shattered into pieces. Many of which were still burning, alongside several bodies and pools of rimefire on the ground.

The runes dropped by the air attack had destroyed wards and armor alike with a combination of Dispel, Disintegrate, and Sonic spells. They severed support beams and left gaping holes in the command center's armor, which cleared the way for follow-up spells and breath weapon attacks.

Over a dozen bodies lay mangled or burning on the floor. They were the remains of what had once been the brigade's command staff. Even more corpses could be seen outside amidst blast craters as the HQ's guard unit had been caught in the attack.

Pascal could only identify Brigadier-General Bernard by the single golden stripe on his helmet. Half of the man's face was missing, a gruesome sight that left Pascal at odds on what had hit him. The deputy commander, a quiet colonel by the name of Emil, also lay dead among the bodies.

The only reason Pascal survived was because he had activated all of his defensive wards after hearing the sentry's warning cry. His prepared runes allowed him to do this within seconds, a blessing not afforded to the other officers.

Nevertheless, as Pascal looked up through the gap in the ceiling, he could see several drakes of different colors loitering in the area.

A black-red volcanic drake flew by, strafing troops unseen with its fiery breath weapon. Its attack was mitigated by a spray of conjured water, likely from an officer who then cried for a return volley of arbalest bolts. However this made them a target for a deep-green forest drake that followed behind, which spat out balls of acid towards the platoons organized for anti-air defense.

I need to get out before they see me. Pascal thought. This room is a death trap!

He quickly cast Camouflage upon himself, a visual illusion spell that blended him into the surroundings. He then stood up to a half-crouch and began making his way through the rubble and wreckage.

As he turned a corner he found himself face-to-face with a medic, a commoner girl who had braved the danger to wrap blood-stopping bandages around the leg stump of a signal officer.

Her lips parted to say something. However he heard only silence.

"We need to get him out of here!" Pascal spoke back. His ears still unable to confirm his own words.

The medic nodded, and each of them took an arm of the half-conscious, clearly-sedated lieutenant.

They pushed aside fallen beams as they made their way out through the back of the command center and into the nearest communication trench. This left at least a wall between them and the fighting on the other side. Pascal added to their cover by pulling out a Mirage rune which covered their position with the illusion of a snow pile.

The young lord then tapped his sensory link to Kaede for an update with his own eyes.

He faintly remembered her reporting something just before he was knocked out. The connection opened in the middle of a rune-bolt barrage, with blasted snow and expanding fireballs everywhere in sight. Beyond that were the repeater crossbowmen that initiated any huskarl attack, although a sparse line of siphoneers soon overtook them.

Oddly enough, while Pascal couldn't hear a thing himself, he registered every thunder and explosion that Kaede heard.

Situation critical. Right flank under massive assault, he concluded.

The presence of elite siphoneers always raised a warning flag. Those flamethrower troops with their deadly weapons could afford to attack in a dispersed formation, which made them far harder to hit. The defenders had no choice but to stop the deadly siphons. Yet in doing so, they lost their best chance to deliver volleys against the massed charge that followed behind.

The only blessing was that the Northmen's coordination was slightly off. In their feverish haste to engage, the siphoneers' charge had opened a gap between them and the main force. It would take no more than twenty, thirty seconds at most, for the huskarls behind them to catch up. But for the defenders, every extra second they had to repel the vanguard before the tidal wave struck was a godsend.

Pascal shrunk the vision to lay over his own peripheral sight. Another signal officer sat further down the trench, miraculously uninjured except for a dozen bleeding scratches. Two medics soon rushed past that man, one carrying a small lemur on his shoulders.

"Where's your healer?" Pascal barked as he helped lay down the crippled officer. Then, raising his hand to tap the glowing rock stuck to his ear: "Get me your healer now! I have a battle to coordinate!"

The majority of medical squad personnel were only medics -- commoners trained to treat injuries but couldn't actually cast spells.

To Pascal's surprise, it was the lemur who responded. The furry little primate who wore a Samaran-blood pendant leaped onto his right shoulder and pulled the rocks off with magical ease. Then, after loosely wrapping its legs around his neck, it inserted one tiny finger into each ear canal.

A healer's familiar...

Wherever its master was, he or she was clearly using the familiar as a proxy to channel spells. The carefully-controlled, focused Restoration spell proved exponentially more effective than his own. Within moments, Pascal was beginning to hear for himself again. The voices were still muffled and fuzzy, but it was enough for him to communicate properly.

The ground shook as a drake landed no more than thirty paces to his east. The beast was half again the size of most volcanic drakes and had a body covered by pitch-black scales. Rather than a single head, this drake featured three separate ones, all of which turned in the direction of an incoming cavalry company. Two of the heads spewed out cones of noxious gas before the third breathed fire to set it alight.

The gaseous cloud exploded as the air turned into a misty conflagration.

A Zmey, Pascal thought with widened eyes.

He had heard about the fearsome drake breed that originated from deep within the Grand Republic of Samara. However he had never seen one until today.

Yet, as the Zmey paid no attention to him or the medics that cowered in the trench, it became clear that the drake and its rider had been fooled by his Mirage illusion.

Taking stock of his priorities, Pascal took a quick glance through Kaede's vision first. The oncoming charge was rapidly approaching their right wing defense line.

Pascal shut his eyes. He hated himself for what he was about to do. It was a dangerous gamble, yet he couldn't see any other choice. This entire defensive line could buckle if that flanking attack wasn't stopped. This included not only an entire army, but the fate of the whole city of Nordkreuz!

Sure they had a fallback position being built at the city's ruined walls. However with the two armies already engaged, even a successful retreat during the day would cost thousands of lives. As the Landgrave of Nordkreuz, not to mention the officer who put forward this strategy, he had no right not to risk everything he had for the success of this battle.

Everything, including his own life and that of his familiar -- Kaede herself.

It was his obligation as an officer, as a lord of Weichsel.

Pascal gritted his teeth and sent what he knew was an unreasonable order:

"<Order Major Karen to hold at all costs! Do you hear me, Kaede? Fight to the last! If the flank crumbles this entire army could be rolled up and destroyed!>"

He could feel his familiar struggling with her own fears he uttered those callous words.

Pascal had faith in Kaede's resourcefulness and insight. But it was clear to him that the girl was still too green. She was weighed down by anxiety and dread. And in a critical juncture like this, such decision paralysis would only decrease her chances of survival.

"Mental Clarity Surge!"

Mana coursed into his left palm before he shut it with a squeeze, sending the magic through the familiar link and to Kaede. Mental Clarity was a spell designed to focus the mind. However as a Surge spell which maximized strength at the cost of duration, it effectively became an emotional whiteout, pushing away Kaede's fears and leaving only her rationality behind.

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Pascal had now given her all the tools he could. Now he had to make sure that reinforcements would get to Kaede before her position was overrun. But for that he needed to regain control of the situation where he stood.

I need to deal with this quickly! He thought as he stared up at the monstrous drake, which had just finished its breath attack and was taking a moment to recuperate.

But how?

For all of his proud magical talents, Pascal's sorcery focused on adaptability, not power. He hasn't learned any spells capable of taking down such a powerful monster. And he had only one chance, as the vector of his attack would immediately draw the drake's attention to his presence, not to mention the tendency for illusions to collapse due to light or mana distortions caused by offensive spellcasting.

Battle tactics were all about using circumstantial advantages to create force multipliers, which a shrewd tactician exploited for morale shocks to inflict paralysis and terror.

This should be no different, the young lord concluded as he stared at the mighty beast.

"Aura Burst," Pascal began by switching his aura magic stance for fasting spell channeling. "Sunward Screen," he then muttered to add a ward over the group, followed by summoning his runes to replenish his personal defenses.

With a deep breath to ready himself, Pascal pointed his casting ring towards the drake's three heads and cried: "Solar Sonic Burst!"

A blinding, red-orange light erupted in the drake's faces alongside a high-frequency sound discharge. The combination would not only blind and deafen the drake and its rider. The sensory overload it created would also leave them temporarily stunned.

Furthermore, the burst of light acted as a flare to catch the attention of all Weichsel troops in the near vicinity -- a signal for them to 'shoot here'.

"Scourge Fragmentation Catalyst Dispel!" He focused on the armored rider next, collapsing the target's wards with cascading failure.

The pain from the backlash of mana burn would keep the enemy mage from responding effectively even as his senses returned. A second, simpler Catalyst Dispel went out to tear apart the drake's wards as well.

Pascal's right arm grew numb under the burden of rapid spellcasting. His fingers shook as he struggled to reach into his extra-dimensional storage pocket for a handful of small gems. He could barely clench his hand as he threw them with a spell, which guided the gems into a ritual circle around the drake's feet.

Then, channeling as much magic as he could into his casting ring, he pointed at the Zmey and cried:

"Force Boost Prison!"

Per its name, Force spells created an immaterial, directional force, while Boost drastically raised the mana cost to augment the effect's strength. The Prison spellword then redirect this inward from all directions, creating a crushing effect which would pin the drake in place. This had the added bonus of accelerating any inbound projectiles, increasing the damage dealt by the arbalest volleys that would soon come.

And surely enough, Pascal heard a cry from further south as more reinforcements from the reserve 5th infantry brigade arrived.

"BY RANKS, VOLLEY!"

Several hundred steel bolts flew into the zmey and its rider. The giant beast was tough but even it couldn't simply shrug off the massive, spell-amplified volley.

Pascal didn't even bother to look at the drake as he heard its death throes. He grabbed one of the medics who was still huddled against the wall of the shallow trench.

"Run over to the commander of those reinforcements and tell them that our right flank is under heavy assault! Ask them to relay orders from General Bernard -- all brigades on the eastern third of the line are to send reinforcements to the right flank!"

Pascal never even hesitated to lie about whom the orders came from. If news went out that brigadier-general Bernard had been killed, leadership of this army would pass to the seniormost of the remaining commanders, which would be Brigadier Bergfalk. The yeoman general was competent enough, but he was also stationed near the far left of the defensive line, with some of the least idea on what was happening on the far right.

"Sir I'm just a medic..."

"You see anyone better around!? Now off to it or we will all be a head shorter by nightfall!"

The tall and lanky medic's eyes grew wide as saucers when he finally realized the severity of the situation. He then spun around and dashed off without another word.

"Lieutenant!" Pascal rushed over to the barely-injured one, although the young man's emerald eyes were still shaking -- a clear sign of lingering shock from the attack that had nearly taken their lives.

"Lieutenant, do you hear me!? Is your Farspeak link with General Kasimir's 2nd cavalry still active!?"

The blond young man nodded back slowly, still half-dazed.

Pascal slapped the lieutenant with his right palm, straight across the cheek. Even Kaede, a complete civilian by all measures, had joined the front lines to repel a siphoneer charge. There was no excuse for such disgrace from an officer of Weichsel.

"PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER, Lieutenant!" he shouted in the signal officer's face. "I need an order passed to Kasimir and I needed it done two minutes ago!"

It took another moment before the blond lieutenant finally began to snap out of it.

"Ye-y-yes Sir?"

"Tell General Kasimir that our extreme right is under heavy assault and they need relief ASAP!" Pascal demanded with a stern gaze while his working hand firmly grasped the junior officer's shoulder. "2nd cavalry should still have two battalions positioned behind the right wing. Tell Kasimir to authorize the closer battalion commander to form a new battlegroup -- gather any spare infantry they can collect along the way and reinforce our right anchor!"

The signal officer concentrated to pass the message. Then:

"G-General Kasimir acknowledges. He requests the status of HQ command."

"Tell him those are General Bernard's orders! And have him shift his brigade back towards the east. That kraken on our left anchor is clearly a distraction. The main enemy attack is falling upon our right wing!"

The Lieutenant then glanced towards the destroyed command center. He clearly doubted that Pascal's words were orders from the General.

"Listen. We cannot afford for the situation to devolve any further Lieutenant," Pascal declared with every bit of severity he could muster. "I have the best grasp of the overall battle, so if you want to stay alive until nightfall, you will do as I say! I swear to the Holy Father that I will take full responsibility!"

The reply came back in the form of a slow, hesitant nod, but a nod nonetheless. The Lieutenant soon crossed his eyes again in concentration.

"Cold Steel!" Pascal heard a muffled cry from the other side of the ruined command center.

It was the Weichsel call for all arbalesters to draw melee weapons. Some of them would stream back through gaps amidst the swordstaff infantry, who now advanced with a wall of bladed polearms. Meanwhile others remained on the front lines as they drew pavise shields and short swords from their backs.

All this meant that a determined Skagen assault had reached the parapet of the main line.

Pascal checked on Kaede's senses just long enough to verify that his stand fast order was being executed by Major Karen. As he brought his attention back, he heard the muffled cry of someone closer crying out his rank:

"Captain!"

He hardly even noticed when the lemur leaped off his back. His ears weren't back to full capacity yet, but they would suffice for now. The healer -- who was still not here in person -- clearly decided the other lieutenant's severed leg was more important.

"Corporal." The young lord turned to face his visitor.

"I'm sent by Major Caroline of the 5th infantry brigade, 8th battalion, to check on headquarters, Sir!"

"Command is intact, but we have lost most of our communications," Pascal replied solemnly, not even considering it a lie anymore. "Tell Major Caroline to send us any signal officers she can spare, and pass word to brigade command that the enemy is seeking to break our right wing. 5th infantry is to commit all battalions held in reserve behind the center and right wing. Is that clear?"

"Yes Sir!" The runner saluted before taking off.

If the Northmen thinks destroying my HQ is going to ruin our response to their flank attack, then they are in for a painful lesson, Pascal thought.

The frontal clash will be a meat grinder but Weichsel would ultimately triumph. Pascal was certain of this. However the battle itself would be decided where Kaede stood. This meant everything depended on whether Major Karen could hold long enough for reinforcements to arrive. Then after that, whether their combined strength could fight off the Northmen assault until their main cavalry force under General Dietfried reached the battlefield.

Leaning heavily against the packed-snow trench wall, Pascal considered what else he could still do to sway the odds in Weichsel's favor. His arms were still numb from the rapid succession of spells he channeled against that drake. But he nevertheless focused to begin casting anew.

"Farspeak, initiate. To: Sylviane Etiennette de Gaetane."

It would take at least a minute to open a stable communication link. He knew that Sylviane must be tired if not exhausted after the air battle. His concern for her wouldn't allow this under any other circumstance. However he was in desperate need for his gallant princess to come help his first command.

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