“Red, I assume?” Hyran asked, flexing his fingers over the buttons of his Spider.
“Not just yet.” Lizanne’s gaze quickly found a squad of gunners heaving powder-bags onto the back of a wagon. “There,” she said, pointing. “Feel free to use your revolver from now on.”
Lizanne eliminated three of the gunners around the wagon by the simple expedient of freezing them in place before shooting them in the head. Hyran dealt with the remaining two in less tidy fashion, managing to hold one still long enough to shoot him in the chest but allowing sufficient time for his companion to sprint off into the darkness.
“Leave that,” Lizanne told him as he sent a flurry of shots after the fleeing gunner. She turned her attention to the wagon, using Black to lift one of the powder-bags clear. She raised it a good twenty feet into the air before injecting a small amount of Red and setting a very small fire burning on the corner of the cotton sacking. She waited for the flame to lick along the bag’s seams then gave it a precisely judged shove, sending it in a high arc towards one of the stacked barrels of powder. The bag detonated a split-second after impacting on the stack, birthing an instant fire-ball and a blast wave of sufficient force to kill any gunners in a thirty-foot radius. Flaming debris landed on the neighbouring stacks resulting in near-simultaneous explosions of equal size and ferocity. Gunners fled in panic as flames spread to the wagons and further explosions added yet more thunder to the general din.
“That will do,” Lizanne commented as the inferno spread throughout the camp. “Now for the hard part.”
? ? ?
They resumed a stealthy approach towards the rear of the Corvantine battle-line. The bulk of the Emperor’s Ravens and the Iron Watch were drawn up in three rigidly ordered lines, unwavering despite the continuing chaos at their backs which would surely have sent conscripted troops into a panicked rout. Lizanne and Hyran concealed themselves beneath a wagon and watched as sergeants and officers paced along the line of troops, calling out stern exhortations. The words “traitorous scum” seemed to be most favoured, along with promises that any captives would be available for “sport” in the aftermath of inevitable victory.
After a short interval a series of orders swept along the line followed by the sound of thousands of rifles being cocked at once. A ripple went through the formation as the first rank knelt and the second switched their rifles to port arms, indicating the first volley was imminent. Lizanne raised her gaze to the dark sky above, injecting Green to enhance her vision as she searched for the first of Tinkerer’s new toys to make an appearance.
She saw it just as the Corvantine officers called out the aim order, a rapidly growing cluster of sparks in the night sky. It rose to a height well over a hundred feet before beginning a downward plunge. Lizanne judged its trajectory would bring it to earth well to the rear of the Corvantine line. She waited until it had descended to less than fifty feet then unleashed a concentrated wave of Black. Unfortunately, the fact that she hadn’t had the opportunity to practice this manoeuvre made this first attempt a clumsy one, the force wave proving too powerful and causing the device to explode in mid air some ten feet above the point where the Ravens’ line joined that of the Iron Watch. Despite this lack of success, the effect was still impressive. Her Green-boosted eyes afforded a clear view of the rocket just before it exploded. It was far larger than the signal rockets used at sea, the case fashioned from iron tubes and packed with small metal shards around a core of black powder. Tinkerer had formulated a propellant capable of projecting such a heavy object through the air to a range of half a mile, but the means of guiding it to a target with any accuracy still apparently eluded him, hence Arberus’s decision to send her on this less-than-palatable mission.
The rocket exploded with a thunderous boom, louder than any cannon shell, sending its deadly cargo down onto the neat ranks of Corvantine soldiery below. Lizanne estimated at least a whole platoon were killed instantly, with double the number wounded. The line rippled in response to the blow, but didn’t break. Sergeants swiftly hauled the dead and maimed away and hounded the survivors into a semblance of order. The middle of the Corvantine line had thinned, but not broken.
Lizanne had more success with the second rocket, reaching out to push it with a series of gentle shoves rather than a single application of force. The results were somewhat spectacular, the rocket exploding just as the tip of the warhead made contact with the earth barely a foot in front of the centre of the Corvantine line. This time it broke, hacked in two by the blast that left a smoking red mound of sundered men in its wake. The complete destruction of almost an entire company in less than two minutes was bound to disorder even the most elite soldiers and Lizanne saw a number of Ravens turn and run. They were quickly shot down by pistol-wielding officers but it was still an encouraging sign.
She brought the next two rockets down on either side of the bloody mound, and within seconds the two regiments stood separated by a gap at least thirty feet wide. A tumult of shouts and discordant bugle cries sounded in the gloom beyond the now-wavering Corvantine line, indicating Arberus had no intention of passing up this opportunity. She could see the charging horde through the gap in the Corvantine ranks, a dense mass of people rushing from the dark, those in front firing their rifles as they ran. She recognised them as a mix of recently recruited townsfolk and ex–Scorazin inmates from the lesser gangs. Apparently Arberus didn’t want to commit his best troops to the first assault.
A volley crashed out from the Corvantine line, ragged and poorly aimed by the standards of regular infantry, but still potent enough to cut down at least a hundred attackers. Lizanne raised her gaze once more, finding three more rockets in the sky, all descending fast. She managed to bring one down close to where an Iron Watch officer was attempting to rally his unnerved company, vapourising the man and sending most of his troops to flight. The other two rockets landed beyond the line without material effect, though the proximity of their explosions proved sufficient to disorder the entire left wing of the line just before the rebel charge struck home.