One hundred riders from the imperial guard, twenty battle mages, and two imperial intelligence agents, all on horseback, departed from Chelán Hill under the cover of a moonless night.
This operation hinged on the Atúr cavalry, who had ridden ahead to strike at the enemy’s battle mages. Meanwhile, our contingent would depart after them, taking a large detour to slip by the enemy before conducting our raid on the cannons. In all likelihood, we’d only have a window of opportunity of tens of minutes to perform our sabotage before resistance arrived. Once it did, we would scatter and withdraw before the first light of dawn appeared in the sky.
The Count Palatine had prepared two sets of standard intelligence agent attire as I’d requested. They were dark in color from top to bottom, possessed an abnormal number of pockets, and came with a hooded black cloak, a face scarf, and shoes that muffled the sound of one’s footsteps. One look at them and anyone would be able to tell they had been designed for tradecraft.
Well, the number of intelligence agents who actually wore these clothes was rather low. After all, if you stepped out in broad daylight in them, it would be no different from screaming to the world that you were a suspicious individual.
In reality, agents dressed for the occasion. If they needed to mix in among farmers or townsfolk, they wore their attire. Likewise, they dressed as coachmen when they needed to mingle with traveling peddlers, or as wealthy merchants when they were investigating the nobility. The clothes Timona and I were wearing were meant for nighttime infiltration and espionage.
Thanks to the concealing nature of my attire—only my eyes were visible—my identity as the emperor would go undiscovered. Most intelligence agents were of short stature too. Under the mantle, at night, I doubted anyone would even realize I was a child.
Timona was similarly concealed, but often eyes alone were enough to reveal a human’s emotions. When he’d told me he had my back before we departed, I noticed a hint of a good mood in his. It seemed that the old adage that the eyes were more truthful than the mouth was true.
After what seemed like an age of riding, we located the enemy encampment where we believed the cannons to be. To avoid our horses giving us away, we alighted at a distance and approached on foot. Fortunately, there was little wind. I say fortunately because I’d heard that it could carry smell, which could have revealed us.
Midnight was long past, and all but the soldiers on watch should have been asleep. Instead, there was much commotion. Had they been informed of our approach?
As we crouched in the tree line, awaiting our opportunity, an allied battle mage shuffled over.
“Sir Balthazar,” he whispered, and I realized it was Salomon. “It appears the diversion unit had a greater effect than we anticipated. There are no Imperium men in sight, and the remaining soldiers appear uneasy, but not on alert.”
It seemed that Count Palatine Vodedt and Péter Pál were wreaking a healthy bit of havoc. I began to worry that the Atúr cavalry might have pushed too far, risking a counterattack.
“Your M—” Salomon cut himself off. “Sir Agent. We’ll be approaching as planned, with the imperial guard making the first strike. Is that acceptable?”
Good lord, man. Way to almost give the whole thing up. I placed a hand on Salomon’s back and nudged him forward. Didn’t want my voice giving me away.
Our contingent slowly and silently crept up to the enemy encampment, with me positioned somewhere relatively close to the rear. I was dripping with sweat—this was nerve-racking.
There were two scouts on watch near our location. When we’d gotten close enough to be able to barely make out their faces, a pair of icicles suddenly sprouted from their necks. Evidently, this encampment wasn’t under the protection of mana-sealing wards.
That was the signal from an allied battle mage. All at once, the imperial guard charged forward, surging into the camp. They scattered the enemy, the mages acted as support, and the destruction of the cannons began.
It was commonly held that in night ambushes, friendly fire ran rampant. Fortunately, however, there was little confusion on our side. The flames of the campfires and sparks from the wrecks of the cannons gave us just enough light to work with. Of course, our enemy was in utter shambles.
I entrusted Salomon—who at some point had come to me—to keep watch in front while I kept Timona at my back as I began invoking one of the most familiar spells in my arsenal.
“Flamma Lux. Viginti. Perdere.”
With much more care than I usually dedicated, twenty spheres of light manifested in the air, from which blazing beams of flame simultaneously erupted. In the span of five seconds, two cannons became smoking heaps of metal scrap. The small pot cannons proved to be easier to destroy than I’d expected.
✦ ✦ ✦
For some time afterward, we searched every corner of the encampment, destroying every cannon we came across. On multiple occasions, enemy soldiers broke free of the fracas and charged us, but Timona and Balthazar disposed of them handily.
Near the end, I conducted a final overhead sweep of the camp, using my Custor like a magic carpet. Once I was satisfied that we’d destroyed all the cannons, I alighted near Salomon and Balthazar.
“The area’s nearly mana-burnt,” the former reported. “Have we achieved our objective?”
I nodded wordlessly, and Balthazar retrieved a whistle, blowing into it forcefully. At once, the imperial guardsmen and battle mages throughout the camp began to withdraw.
We’d finished earlier than we’d planned for, since the enemy had received no reinforcements and had barely even been able to muster up a decent counteroffensive. The victory was so thorough that I almost felt silly for feeling so paranoid going into it.
It seemed that Balthazar had deemed it unnecessary to buy time for our retreat, because under his command, we fled back to where we’d left the horses and immediately made our escape, splitting off into small groups. The camp we’d just raided lacked the ability to pursue, but if we’d moved as a group, there was a chance we’d get caught by enemies coming from the other direction. Thus, we fled in twos and threes, just as we’d planned.