Accidental War Mage

The enemy musketeers fired again, almost synchronized, the deep crack of their heavy arquebuses mixed with the staccato pinging of the bullets ricocheting off my armor.

“Charge!” I shouted the order aloud for Vitold’s benefit. I didn’t need to verbalize to get our trio of mechanical comrades to rush forward, straight after the enemy soldiers; contrary to my training, it seemed that mechs could understand unspoken orders as readily as spoken ones. At least, the ones I had built with Wallachian parts could; perhaps the imperial manuals were correct and our technology was simply not as advanced.

Steam hissed sharply over the rumbling sound of the boilers as the enemy soldiers broke into a retreat, scattering as they made their way up and over a long low hill. They were still holding their guns, though, making it an orderly retreat rather than a rout. As we crested the hill, we saw the bulk of the enemy force lying in wait. Somewhere behind us, our own army was lurching into action

The musketeers who had baited us were already stopped, catching their breath and working on reloading behind a line of pikemen. To one side of the formation, technicians were stoking the furnaces of a pair of mechs, the boilers having been on a low standby to avoid tell-tale columns of smoke. To my right, towards the head of the column, I could see more formations of enemy soldiers.

If I hadn’t known there were more enemies on the blind side of the hill, I would have hesitated as they came into view, and we would have been in trouble. Charging straight in, we had momentum and speed on our side. My mechanical comrades charged with me, aiming straight for the enemy mechs. The first enemy mech had barely finished standing when my jury-rigged mechs smashed into it, bowling it over before it reached full steam and pounding it mercilessly.

The second enemy mech waded into the fray with a murderous hiss of steam. One mighty blow put the pick end of its warhammer in the back of one of my mechs, a blow that would have been instantly lethal to a human steam knight. Vitold and I closed shields together with our mechs, ringing the surviving enemy mech in a semicircle. It would not be able to survive long under the concentrated attentions of our own picks.

Through the thunder of the enemy musket fire, I heard a loud cracking sound behind us, the distinctive report of Katya’s heavy rifle. Moments later, I was smashing my pick through the second enemy mech’s boiler, the specialized armor-piercing weapon cracking it open with a blast of pressurized steam and water. As it fell, crows swirled around us hungrily, as if the mechanical device’s watery lifeblood were actual blood.

When Katya’s rifle cracked again, an officer’s hat lifted off his head, and the enemy broke in a full rout, abandoning their weapons and in many cases holding cloaks over their heads to shield them from vicious birds that seemed to have decided they didn’t want to wait until afterwards to scavenge the battlefield. I took quick stock of the situation. I’d need to quickly patch the hole in the back of my damaged mech if I wanted to keep up the fiction that there was a human inside there, and one of the other steam suits was down on the ground. To either side of us, the battle raged.

On some level, I felt certain that two of my mechs were still standing, able and ready to respond to orders; by process of elimination, that meant that Vitold, wearing the suit that had formerly belonged to Misha, was in the downed suit. Concerned, I rushed to his prone form, batting away the crows that were already starting to investigate the possible food source.

“Go away,” I told the crows, and they did, mostly, except for a few who landed nearby to peck at the dead bodies of those who had been my enemies. Vitold’s suit had been pierced in the thinner rear armor. Blood dripped out of the hole. By the sound of his cursing, I could tell he was still alive, but in serious pain. Ordinarily, Vitold could blaspheme pretty creatively, but he was mostly just repeating himself.

I surveyed the scene. There was an enemy officer lying there with a hole in his forehead and a matching hole in his fancy hat, lying ten feet away down from where he had crested the hill. That must have been Katya’s doing; several other unfortunates had been shot in the back by their own comrades in the confusion, understandable given the volume of fire they’d directed towards us, but he’d been shot from the front, and I thought I recalled seeing the hat take to the air before the enemy broke into panic.

The main enemy force scattered into the woods piecemeal as the general and his mechs broke into their lines. Vitold survived to see medical treatment, and we pieced together what had happened: Katya had accidentally shot him in the backside with her powerful rifle. She said she had been aiming for an enemy and slipped. Fortunately, Vitold had only suffered a flesh wound, and not even that bad of one after the bullet had been slowed down by the armor.

Vitold seemed very put out that his armor couldn’t stop a bullet. He said he’d improved it specially, but when I pressed for details he gave a quick distrustful look at Katya and clammed up. We would have to talk about it later when Katya wasn’t around. It had been a rough several weeks marching around occupied Wallachia with General Ognyan Spitignov, and this battle had been particularly hard. Our enemies had been ready for us, prepared at what they felt was the best site to turn and fight; with a good several hours’ rest behind them; while we had caught up with them near the end of a long day of forced marching.

The next night, Katya was off on patrol and Vitold was well enough to show me what he’d done to his armor. There had been several crates of high-grade parts intended for use in wizard armor stored piecemeal in crates in the rebels’ workshop among the valuable supplies Vitold and I had made a point of looting. Vitold had replaced the steam boiler with an arcane engine so he could be sure he wouldn’t die in a burst of steam. Then he’d installed plates with arcane designs inlaid in orichalcum to try to make his steam suit protect him as well as wizard armor.

After all, wizard armor was specially designed to funnel magic to protect the wearer, right? And he’d even switched out the steam boiler for an arcane engine, lightning-fused actuators replacing the steam pistons. But look what it got him! That rifle bullet should have been no match for steam suit armor reinforced with protective magic; war mages like Ognyan were practically bulletproof, at least as far as small arms were concerned, and steam knights nearly were. Maybe he hadn’t installed it correctly?

I sighed. Poor Vitold, putting his faith in the goods we’d looted from the rebels and a crude education on the facts of military hardware. We’d had a cursory lesson or two on how to service wizard suits, in case we were ever in a position to assist one of the empire’s most prized human assets, but mechanic training hadn’t exactly emphasized the theory behind their operation. I started the arcane engine up with the suit’s access plate open, testing the connections.

“Let me show you, Vitold, you weren’t doing anything wrong. You’ve done a lovely job, but see here? These inlays? They’re not active,” I said. “If they were, they’d be glowing. You have to get a wizard to activate them. You don’t have any special gifts, do you?”

Vitold informed me he was heir to many special gifts, like nimble fingers and a knack for manipulating small mechanisms, such as locks.

“Um. I meant a sort of magical gift.” I gave Vitold a measured look. Was he hiding the potential to be a wizard? Stranger things had happened, though Vitold looked uncomfortable with the idea he might be gifted with arcane powers. He was curious enough to ask how such things were done, though, and I tried my best to oblige.

“To invoke the enchantment, you would touch the runes, like this, and concentrate. Maybe recite some sort of mumbo-jumbo that they teach you in wizard school, I don’t know,” I said.

I then demonstrated by mumbling the first arcane-sounding thing that came to my mind as I stared down at the runes, which was really just reading them aloud. They had names, the old lady had taught me how to read these sorts of runes during my evenings at her little hut. It was really just another alphabet, just an old one that didn’t get used much.

The runes flared to life, glowing with a distinctive turquoise color. It was fully functional, and I had just activated it.

“Well,” I told Vitold, “maybe I was wrong about needing a special talent. Maybe you just have to read the runes aloud. Here, you give it a try. Vitold?” I stood up and looked around, not seeing Vitold for a moment; then I looked down.

Vitold looked back up at me, explaining his situation through gritted teeth with a serious attempt at dignity. Startled by the sudden flare of arcane light, he’d jumped back quite suddenly. Between the vodka he’d imbibed to dull the pain and his upper leg muscles not quite working, this had resulted in him suddenly sitting down, which was not exactly the most comfortable position for a man with an extra hole in his backside. Would I mind helping him up?

After I’d gotten him upright again, he made a quick sign against evil and told me he didn’t really think he wanted to get back inside that particular suit, or even get particularly near it. I helped him towards the sawbones’ tent, where he pulled out his coin purse and proceeded to start negotiating with one of the surgeons for an informal increase in his vodka ration.

I left him to it (no need to be seen to be idling) and went for a brisk walk around the campsite. Walk briskly and purposefully, and people will tend to assume you’re on some kind of errand and not bother you, and I needed some time to think without being bothered.

Katya. Katya already was keeping secrets for Vitold and me. I would see if Katya, too, could get the runes to glow. I popped by the command tent, not to visit Colonel Romanov or to bother Ognyan, but because I expected to find the duty officer in charge of the watch posted there. A simple polite request and I learned that Katya was assigned a sentry post until close to midnight.

I kept myself busy until midnight working on the suit. If Vitold would no longer wear it out of superstitious fear, I would have to wear it myself. Given Vitold’s compact frame and my height, that necessitated significant adjustments. After I had finished adjusting the suit, I could start it up with the access panel open, and see for myself the glimmer of protective magic coating the outer surface of the armor.

When Katya came back into camp with her watch partner, she was surprised to see me waiting for her; she stopped in her tracks when she recognized me by the dim light of the stars. I smiled brightly at her and asked if she would mind checking over my gun back at my squad’s tent. The other sniper gave me a funny look, but headed off into the night as Katya blinked, visibly processing the unexpected request.

I whispered in her ear, soft enough that I felt sure I wouldn’t be overheard by others. “Actually, it’s something about Vitold’s armor – or rather, Gregor’s old armor, which was his and is going to be mine now – that I really want to show you. But I don’t want anyone else to know.”

She had a look on her face warring between disappointment and relief, which was soon replaced by guilt. “Is Vitold alright?” she asked.

“The last I saw, he seemed pretty fine. No infection, and he’s already up and limping around,” I said. Once we were inside the tent, I led her towards the suit and started up the arcane turbine. It was dark, but easy enough to locate the orichalcum inlays. I took Katya’s hand.

“I’m going to tell you some words to say,” I told her, and after I was sure she had gotten them right, guided her hand to the plate.

“Concentrate hard and say those words again,” I said.

She looked afraid. I patted her hand reassuringly.

“It won’t hurt,” I said.

She spoke the names softly in the darkness, and nothing happened. I checked to make sure, and yes, she was touching the plate.

“Curious. Take your hand away from the plate,” I said. I touched the plate, intoned the names of its runes, and watched them flare to life again. There was still another test to make.

“Katya? Climb inside the armor. I want to make sure of something,” I said.

She bit her lip, then obeyed, climbing into the armor. I helped her with the unfamiliar task. Underneath her outerwear, she felt smaller and softer than I had expected. Her fierce expression, substantial boots, and bulky coat had made her look much larger.

“Close your eyes. Imagine yourself being wrapped in a warm blanket of protective light.” Nothing happened, aside from her squinting tightly.

“Touch the plate again and say the words again,” I told her. It was a little more awkward with her now inside the suit, but with a little guidance, she reached the plate, mouthing through the words.

“Now imagine yourself surrounded by a field of power. Push the energy outward.” Still, nothing happened.

“Interesting. Let’s get you back out of this. Let me show you something.” I disentangled her from the armor (she needed the help) and I climbed in, muttering the incantation under my breath.

“Do you see that?” I asked her.

She nodded wordlessly, eyes wide, face illuminated by the glow.

“Ah. Interesting.” I climbed out of the armor. “Get back in and try again one more time. Imagine that light wrapping around you, now that you know what it looks like.”

She had a slightly easier time getting in this time. She screwed up her face again, but nothing happened.

“Interesting,” I said. That seemed to be the word for tonight, interesting. My six older brothers had all been tested by visiting imperial wizards; I had not. Tonight, I had tried to prove that someone else could do what I had done with the wizard armor; I had failed.

I helped her back out of the armor, shut down the arcane engine, and told her very quietly that I needed her to keep all of this a secret. I pointed at her pendant, the amethyst crystal clearly visible to me in the dim starlight that filtered through the tent walls, and told her that the rebels would very much like to know about what Vitold and I had done with the loot from their workshop. She looked past me in the tent, her eyes not quite focused on me.

“I won’t tell anyone,” she said to the air next to me. “Is there anything else?”

“Don’t trust Romanov,” a male voice said.

The voice was familiar, and as before, sounded much like my father. I couldn’t see anyone else in the tent, though I looked around. Was I hearing voices in my head? Was I going crazy? But Katya had responded to the voice before, and she was nodding crisply right now, a soldier acknowledging an order. A little thrill ran through my chest, and I wasn’t quite sure why.

I set aside the mystery of the disembodied voice, as I was tired and had too many mysteries to ponder already, and bid her good night. I watched as she groped around for the tent flap, seeming not quite sure where it was. This looked a little funny since it was right in front of her, but I didn’t laugh, just looked on sympathetically. She must be tired indeed to have trouble recognizing it. I thought to myself that she must be running on nothing but fumes and patriotism.

In retrospect, I suppose we were all running on nothing but fumes and patriotism, and I hadn’t had much of the latter to begin with.