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| ===Chapter 12 - The Storm Front===
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| "You can't cast? At all?" Kaede remarked in astonishment. The spoonful of soup she raised before her mouth lay forgotten as she stared at the balding forty-some-year-old intelligence officer sitting across the table.
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| "Believe me I've tried; even pretended I could, back in my younger days," Lieutenant-Colonel Hans-Canaris Oster chuckled at himself. "But no, not even a spark. Just made me look silly."
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| "I did tell you that the Lieutenant-Colonel was a commoner, not a yeoman," Pascal commented before taking another mouthful of his own dinner. He then nudged her over telepathy: ''and you are being rude.''
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| "Sorry..." Kaede broke off her stare and looked back down. "I don't mean to be..."
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| "That's quite alright," Hans grinned back with a natural smile that easily foretold of his future life as a jolly old grandpa. "I've met plenty of other commoners who were surprised. It's certainly very unusual for an officer without any magical ability to advance beyond Captain."
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| "You must have worked ''really'' hard to get there," Kaede looked back up in admiration.
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| "I won't deny that I've always been envious of the yeomen though," he admitted. "Commanding officers from platoon to battalion level are all expected to fight alongside frontline troops and ward them with defensive spells. I can't cast any of them, so I've had to climb the ladder without a single command experience, which is not easy, believe me!"
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| Kaede nodded back firmly after swallowing another mouthful. Career building in the military expected a range of experiences in different roles, with tactical leadership in combat situations being the most important. To rise through the ranks without ever being a frontline commander was like... trying to run a marathon in crutches.
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| "It also doesn't help that I can only stay in the military for fifty years at most, while the mages have well over a century before they reach retirement age," Hans added, with a gradual sigh that exposed the lingering bitterness underneath his begrudging acceptance. "Still, complaining about it isn't going to change my birth. So I got over what I don't have and focused on what I do."
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| "Then you've got to be one of Weichsel's best analysts if you rose this high on staff experience alone," Kaede thought aloud, to which the Lieutenant-Colonel simply shrugged.
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| Pascal slowly shook his head as he continued to casually stir his soup.
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| "Every time we get an important report he deduces more possibilities than the rest of us staff combined..."
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| The young Major then looked back up and firmly met his senior eye-to-eye, as though issuing a challenge:
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| "--Nevertheless, Sir, I would be just as good had I two decades of experience, or even just one."
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| "As an analyst? You'll need more than just a few years," Hans smirked back as he tilted his head and propped it with his left arm, his own bowl already miraculously emptied. "Remember, my biggest lacking also gives me an advantage of sorts: unlike you, I don't have to spend thousands of hours learning to cast spells and maintaining that expertise."
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| "And that's a lot of time you can focus on studying Weichsel's enemies," Kaede realized, prompting a happy, almost-smug nod from Lieutenant-Colonel Oster.
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| ''What's that line again?'' She tried to remember. ''Know your enemy and know yourself, and you shall not fear a hundred battles...''
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| "For an analyst, it's important to keep up to date with news from around the world, and not just the big headlines either," Hans explained. "It often helps to understand people, especially leaders, from their more... everyday dealings; much better hints towards their preferences and ideology than just their spotlight image. However, scouring through that much news also takes a lot of time."
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| ''In other words, he's been info-stalking everyone that's important and building profiles on them for years...''
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| "So do you know what makes Pascal tick then?" Kaede joked with a beaming smile.
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| "Talk to me afterwards," Hans whispered back openly with a wink.
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| "Sir I must admit: conspiring against me with my familiar is not a good way of acquiring my support," Pascal grinned a little himself. "Though I am surprised that you did not request a vice brigadier position for this campaign. Brigade command hardly cares about one's ability to cast spells."
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| "This campaign will make or break the General's candidacy for Marshal," Hans replied, finally lifting his head off his propped hand and sitting back upright. "I owe General von Manteuffel everything I am today. I'm not about to abandon him in his hour of need."
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| Kaede found herself a bit astonished. It was hard to imagine the stone-faced General being a gracious superior. But then, he must have some virtues to gain the staunch loyalty of his subordinates -- enough to make Pascal worried about his growing influence within the army.
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| "And of course, if he manages that, you would have a good chance of achieving generalship yourself," Pascal noted warmly.
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| The flattery was most unusual for Pascal. The Lieutenant-Colonel noticed it immediately as a shade of caution crept back into his brown eyes.
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| "I doubt I'm ready for that even if the Holy Father finds me worthy," he replied modestly. Then, with a shrug: "I'm not anywhere near as capable as Hermann von Mittermeyer; and I certainly lack the connections."
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| The name was legendary enough for Kaede to recognize it immediately. Hermann Mittermeyer began his career as a mere stable boy to the young Ferdinand I von Drachenlanzen, the founding King of Weichsel. After saving the King's life in an ambush, he became one of Ferdinand's aides, where his tactical insight would propel him through the ranks to eventually become a general -- the only commoner to do so in Hyperion history.
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| His legacy would also cement the nation's meritocratic military traditions. Furthermore, he established a precedence for being the first non-yeoman commoner to be given a hereditary rank of nobility, though only after he married a noblewoman to ensure that his descendants had magical affinity.
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| "How much does it help to be able to specialize solely on one discipline?" Kaede asked.
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| The aphorism 'jack of all trades, master of none' could easily describe most Weichsel officers. Their training standards split a person's limited time, energy, and focus between learning martial arts, spellcraft, leadership, tactics, and more -- many of which were simply unnecessary in a position of high-level command. But the conundrum was that without experience as a spellsword who led from the front, those who focused the most on generalship skills also found it the hardest to actually ''become'' a general.
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| It was one of the greatest downsides to pre-firearm militaries. Guns were easy to learn and use; swords and bows took years to master.
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| "You already know what it takes to train in the martial arts, especially with multiple types of weapons," Pascal began. "Learning how to cast spells is even more repetitive."
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| Placing his spoon back down, Pascal extended his right arm over the table, fingers extended in a casting gesture.
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| "Remember what I told you about refinement and spellcrafting?"
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| "Yeah," Kaede nodded, recognizing this as another one of Pascal's tests. "Mana is the free spiritual power adrift in our surroundings, produced and scattered by all living beings. Mages can absorb this mana through magically conductive nerves, then transmit it to the soul to be refined into ether. Ether is malleable spiritual power, which serves as the fuel for spellcrafting. The caster must then use their nerve system as conduits to form an internalized spell array by channeling ether through it. Complex or long-range spells also prefer the use of a casting focus to condense the magical output before releasing it into the air."
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| "Correct," Pascal acknowledged before continuing on to explain. "Trying to control the flow of ether through the nerve system is no simple affair. Human biology simply was not designed for such finesse. The only way to manage is to purposefully send the ether to different parts of the body, often many locations at once. This flow must also be kept firmly controlled, since overloading the nerves will burn them and lead to temporary paralysis. The nerves tingle as the ether courses through them, which gives the caster some sense of timing. This is important as more complicated spell arrays will often require ether to be rerouted to different paths halfway..."
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| ''Of course, this all means that mages could feel and somehow direct the flow of ether within their bodies...''
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| "--Doing any of this requires great concentration and internal focus, which is hardly possible in tense situations like combat," Pascal went on. "Spells must be mastered to cast them swiftly and with relatively little effort. Such mastery can only be accomplished through repetition. It takes hundred, thousands of times -- hours and days spent doing little else other than casting the same spell over and over -- for the process to be familiarized enough so that creating its array becomes embedded in muscle memory."
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| Kaede nodded back. The concept was similar to how some people typed complex alphanumeric passwords on a keyboard so often their fingers intuitively remember which keys to press, even after they had forgotten how to spell out the password on paper.
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| "Reminds me of how, back as a kid, I thought magic erupted from just shouting some mystical words while making dramatic gestures," Lieutenant-Colonel Oster chuckled to himself. "Which is just silly, when anyone actually sits down to think about it."
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| "The Ancient Draconic spellwords we use exist solely as mnemonics to help expedite the learning and memorization process," Pascal clarified. "Furthermore, mastered spell words must be cast periodically and often in order to retain that familiarity."
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| "...And then these spellwords are used together, drawing arrays one after another to form more complex spell effects that fit the needs of the situation, right?" Kaede asked.
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| "Precisely," said Pascal as his raised hand went back down to his spoon. "The Dawn Imperium first invented the concept of Adaptive Spell Construction, which gave them an absolute advantage in magical superiority for about a century before the rest of the world followed suit. The concept is that most spellwords are 'effect words' that creates a single supernatural effect. Multiple effects can be grouped together, in order of chronology and priority, for a single spell. 'Form words' like ''Field'' or ''Sanctum'' define the structure of that effect -- could be a ray, beam, wall, area ward, emanating field, and so on. Meanwhile 'meta words' like ''Catalyst'' and ''Phalanx'' are used to modify the behavior of the spellcasting or spell effects."
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| "And with that, even an average spellcaster who has mastered two dozen or so spellwords have thousands of permutations to choose from in how they use them," the Lieutenant-Colonel finished.
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| "Then what about spells they haven't mastered?"
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| Pascal's left hand then reached into an extradimensional pocket and pulled out a thick book in response to Kaede's question.
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| "We can still cast them, assuming the process is not too difficult for the caster's level of expertise. It just takes a lot more effort, time, and concentration."
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| Taking the offered book and flipping to a random page, Kaede came across a human physical diagram. Within the figure were color-coded arrow lines, drawn to trace the flow of ether when constructing the spell array. A paragraph-long description of the effect preceded it, while complicated written instructions followed the diagram.
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| "Witness - Tier 2 Intermediate Divination spell," Kaede read to herself. ''Turns an object or non-magical creature into a scrying sensor, allowing the caster to hear and see through the entity. Clarity may vary depending on the entity's own sensory, if any...''
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| "Spellcasting is divided into six tiers and six disciplines," commented Pascal. "The tiers are just a rough guideline of the spellword's difficulty. The disciplines -- sometimes called 'schools' -- are: alchemy and enchantment, which manipulates either physical entities or mental states; conjuration and evocation, which creates physical or magical phenomenons; plus divination and illusion, which discerns or hides information about reality."
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| "So you can see, just learning to cast spells is like a profession on its own, let alone all the other skills a yeoman or noble cadet needs," said Hans. Although his eyes were no longer on Kaede or Pascal, but directed across the room where a tense, almost-distraught signal lieutenant was reporting in to General von Manteuffel.
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| Pascal had noticed the same occurrence before he reached over to take back his spellbook.
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| "Kaede go to the HQ and fetch me the maps and reports that are on my table there," Pascal requested. "Make it quick."
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| Ignoring all Western dining etiquette, Kaede took her bowl with both hands and drank what remained of her soup in large gulps before standing up.
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| ''Back to work then.''
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| She completely missed the glare Pascal sent her as she turned towards the door with bulging cheeks.
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| ...
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| It wasn't until after Kaede left when the Lieutenant-Colonel leaned in to comment with an amused whisper:
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| "Think her presence at the meeting might help your ideas?"
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| "Maybe. Maybe not," Pascal quietly replied. "But I have certainly learned not to underestimate her knowledge. It might be premature, but simply the experience of following tactical discussions would do her good."
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| He then turned back around to face his astonished senior with a slight grin:
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| "Father once taught me that nurturing talent is just as important to leadership as using it."
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| <nowiki>----- * * * -----</nowiki>
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| "<u>Where are these maps you spoke of?</u>" Kaede asked as she glanced at the two signal officers in the room before looking back to the mostly empty writing desk. There were a stack of reports in the corner, pinned under a metal clip attached to the desk itself, but none of them had even a hand-scribbled map.
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| "<u>Just pretend you are busy retrieving something for me until I get there.</u>"
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| "<u>Huh? why did you send me here if you're going to... oh...</u>"
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| It took Kaede a moment to catch up. Her hands soon began to shift through the stack of paper and parchment, as though looking for something.
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| Since she was neither a company commander nor HQ staff, Pascal lacked an excuse to bring Kaede to any tactical meeting. However, if she was already present when the meeting began, then General von Manteuffel could hardly ask her to leave without sounding as though the familiar, and her master by extension, was untrustworthy. That would have been extremely rude in terms of noble propriety.
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| It took only a minute before the cabin door slammed open. Kaede hastily pulled a few sheets out of the stack as an incensed General von Manteuffel strode into the room.
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| "What was Colonel Raginis thinking!?" his deep growl resounded in the room like rumbling thunderclouds. "His orders were to report and impede any landing operation, not decisively engage the entire Skagen main force with just a single company!"
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| "That's not exactly fair, Sir," Lieutenant-Colonel Oster followed the General in, alongside with Colonel Dietrich von Falkenrath of the ''Phantom Gale''.
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| The fifty-nine-year-old dhampir was one of von Manteuffel's most able and loyal protégés. At over one-eighty-six (6'1"), Dietrich von Falkenrath stood lean and tall, with sepia brown hair, deep emerald-green eyes under sharply turned eyebrows, and a trimmed walrus mustache that would have been fashionable in early 20th century Europe. His expressions were almost always neutral, but unlike his mentor there was a constant, brooding intensity within his gaze.
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| Meanwhile, the intelligence officer was now holding the sheet of parchment -- a full transcript of the ''Farspeak'' message received by the signal officer earlier.
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| "Based on the full report, Colonel Raginis attacked the invasion fleet vanguard, hoping to light enough ships on fire to spread confusion and disrupt their landing," Hans began to explain as his eyes scanned through the report with remarkable speed. "However the low cloud cover and mist -- the very same that hid his own approach -- also concealed the enemy's air forces until it was too late to avoid engagement. Over a hundred drake-riders had dived into his formation just as he climbed out of an attack run, resulting in a chaotic melee with his ''North Wind'' Phantoms..."
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| Lieutenant-Colonel Oster then looked back up as his fingers tapped the parchment:
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| "Skagen's volcanic drakes can outfight several of our Phantoms in any close encounter, especially once their attack penetrated our formation and disrupted our superior organization. The report also states, and I quote 'we attempted repeatedly to break off, but regardless of which direction we turned, the strong gale always blew against us while lifting the wings of our foes'... between that, the advancing blizzard covering their fleet, and this unusual cold front that just came down from the North Sea -- it can't be all a coincidence Sir."
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| Just as the General's cold blue eyes sent Kaede a 'what-are-you-doing-here' glare, Pascal strode in after Colonel von Bittenfeld. Kaede immediately rushed up and handed him the parchment she carried, before retreating to a nearby wall to remain seen but not heard.
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| "I take back what I said then," breathed General von Manteuffel as he looked back to his senior analyst. "You think it's him?"
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| "It doesn't have all of his signature, Sir, but I am fairly... 80% certain that this is the work of Admiral Winter and his Frontier Fleet -- the very same who destroyed the Caliphate's entire New World Expedition thirty years ago."
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| "Over a hundred drakes..." Colonel von Falkenrath pondered aloud. "That's at least two, more likely three air groups."
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| "Four, if I had my guess," Hans replied. "That's how many fully-matured skywhales the Skagen forces have, based on the ''Black Eagles''' intel. I for one will bet on Admiral Winter using all of them as drake-carriers."
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| Kaede remembered drakes as one of the more fascinating creatures from her reading. They were miniature dragons -- "miniature" as in elephant-sized, instead of beings so massive they could use sport stadiums as landing pads and wrestle science-fiction starships. As a species, the drakes were entirely ''created'' by the dragonlords during the Dragon-Demon War to serve as grunt "infantry". This made the drakes' mere existence a testament to the godly powers wielded by the dragons of Hyperion's past.
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| When the dragonlords departed from Hyperion, they left most of the drakes behind. Lacking intelligence and without purpose, many drake clans died out. But some -- mostly those tamed by humans -- remained, and the volcanic drakes from Skagen's Svalbard isles were by far one of the most dangerous breeds.
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| "He's also the leading proponent of what they call the 'Massive Strike' doctrine, using concentrated aerial superiority to deliver overwhelming base strikes before his foes are even ready to engage him in decisive battle," the Lieutenant-Colonel added.
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| "I thought you said that this Admiral Winter also believes in making peace with Weichsel, since warring us is a waste of time and resources?" Colonel von Falkenrath asked as the General looked over the large, three-dimensional illusory map projection table in the center of the room.
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| "He does, but he's only one of many Jarls in Skagen," Hans replied. "In fact, I'd say this makes him even more dangerous. He will likely seek a decisive and crushing victory against us in order to secure a peace in Skagen's favor. That way, he'll be able to go back and focus on his own interests on the other continent, undisturbed by Hyperion politics."
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| ''Great, so we're facing magical Yamamoto,'' Kaede thought.
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| The intelligence chief's analysis reminded her of the Japanese World War II Admiral. Isoroku Yamamoto also advocated naval aviation and was unflinchingly opposed to a war with the Allies. Yet, after he was politically overruled, he planned and lead the devastating Attack on Pearl Harbor in the misguided hope of a swift victory against the United States.
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| ...Except Weichsel didn't have the nigh-infinite resources of the US. Nor could Isoroku Yamamoto call down a Kamikaze -- the ''Divine Wind'' that seemed to always blow in Skagen's favor.
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| "So..." Colonel von Falkenrath thought aloud, "since he landed near the border to Weichsel, his target would be..."
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| "Nordkreuz," the General finished for him with a single word enveloped in deathly cold.
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| Pascal nodded in agreement:
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| "He is cutting our way back to Weichsel and going straight for our home base -- the center from which we launch our invasions from."
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| "It's worse than that," Hans followed up, his voice growing more grim by the second. "Nordkreuz is one of the most powerful ley-line junctions in Northern Hyperion, and Admiral Winter is a geomancer in addition to being a stormcaller. If an archmage of his caliber gains control of the junction and taps its magical power, he'll be able to craft a weather effect of... who knows how large? The man once devastated an entire ''armada'' by raining strong water and royal water down on them. There is no reason he can't do the same against an army or even the entire Landgraviate."
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| Kaede couldn't remember the chemistry terms, but strong water and royal water -- 'Aqua Fortis' and 'Aqua Regis' -- were two of the most corrosive acids known to medieval alchemists. The latter was known for its ability to dissolve even noble metals like gold and platinum, which were highly resistant towards corrosion.
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| "The ''North Wind'' survivors estimated the Skagen army to number around twenty thousand," Colonel von Bittenfeld impatiently declared. "The King has nearly fifty thousand in Nordkreuz by now. Even with five thousand Housecarls and two thousands of those Västergötland adventurer scum, they could hardly expect to take a heavily fortified city when outnumbered ''that'' badly."
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| "Assuming he does not just burn Nordkreuz to the ground from the air. After all, he hardly needs the city itself."
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| Pascal squeezed his fist as he leaned over the projection table. He then turned to meet the General's stony gaze:
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| "We have to intercept him before then, Sir. The three echelons in Skagen consists of nearly the entirety of Weichsel's cavalry, including all of our remaining air units now that the ''North Wind'' is virtually destroyed."
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| ''We've been caught overextended and out of position,'' Kaede thought as she surveyed the room. Many of the Captains were obviously worried. Some expressions even revealed creeping traces of fear...
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| Yet the General himself was still as composed as any rock -- an unfeeling boulder that merely scoffed at the storm's attempt to dislodge him:
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| "This ''admiral'' is paying us quite the tribute, coming halfway across the world with his four skywhales to go after the centerpiece of the north..."
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| ''Seriously?'' a sudden thought popped into Kaede's mind. ''No... it definitely matches. In fact, this is way to similar...''
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| General von Manteuffel then looked towards his signal officers:
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| "Message the other echelons. Order both to head south and regroup with us near the town of... Suokamo," he points out on the projection map. "They are to make haste but avoid engagements until they meet up with us."
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| "Yes Sir!"
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| Without waiting for their acknowledgment, the General had already turned his gaze to sweep the rest of the room.
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| "All of you, assemble your men. Tonight we ride south, and we will not stop until we are ready to have whalemeat for dinner."
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| "Yes Sir!" returned an assembly of salutes and clicking boots.
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| Meanwhile, a puzzled Pascal queried Kaede over telepathy:
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| "<u>What is so nostalgic about this?</u>"
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| "<u>Eh... It just reminds me of something from my world,</u>" she replied. "<u>The Skagen force fits the attackers quite well, but the defenders won that fight...</u>"
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| Just as the first captain reached the cabin door, it pushed open to allow a striding princess through. Sylviane still wore steel plates over her cerulean battledress, with spaulders and breastplate covered by patches of melting snow. Her cheeks were also bright red and pink, which alongside her slightly labored breathing revealed that she had just rushed back -- possibly from a scouting mission.
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| "Your Highness," the General turned about with a bare nod for courtesy. "The Skagen main force has landed. We are packing camp and riding south. I'll explain along the way, but we haven't a minute to lose."
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| "<u>So are you going to tell me?</u>" Pascal asked again, dragging Kaede's attention back to their conversation.
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| "<u>Right. Well, keep in mind we don't have anything crazy like skywhales in my world, so this is a good old fashioned wet navy battle. It took place at an island called ''Midway''...</u>"
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| <nowiki>----- * * * -----</nowiki>
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