39. Artillery Bombardment

Artillery Bombardment

Heavily guarded artillery positions had been established twenty-five kilometers from the city.

Previous encounters with enemy ground forces, along with intelligence on their patrol patterns, indicated that their infantry could maintain speeds above thirty kilometers per hour for long periods and sprint up to forty kilometers per hour for short bursts. It was therefore necessary to guard against possible attacks by enemy strike teams or airborne units.

The standard doctrine for operating self-propelled artillery in pairs in the field required readiness to stop firing or begin moving within thirty seconds, but that would not be enough in the event of sudden close-range assault.

At the same time, each of the ten artillery positions was placed five kilometers from the others, in the hope that unless the enemy split its forces, it would be impossible to launch a large-scale attack on all positions at once. If the enemy did divide its strength, it could be defeated piece by piece by more mobile, faster vehicles and armed helicopters.

Finally, each artillery position was designed with rapid evacuation in mind. In an emergency or under the threat of overwhelming ground attack, troops and vehicles could be on the road within sixty seconds.

Within those artillery positions were ninety-two self-propelled guns transported from the Northern Theater Command, some by airlift, others driven in over the past week.

These 155-millimeter self-propelled howitzers represented a large share of the nation’s total medium-range artillery capability, and nearly everything that could be mobilized in a relatively short period of time.

Recent modernization allowed them to fire six rounds per minute at targets up to forty kilometers away, delivering a forty-five-pound warhead within twelve meters of designated coordinates.

Reconnaissance drones over the area transmitted real-time targeting data, which computers and technicians at the fire direction center adjusted before sending firing solutions.

The ninety-two guns opened fire almost simultaneously. Every ten seconds, they fired a number of shells equal to five percent of the unit’s total historical expenditure.

The shells traveled at more than twice the speed of sound. By the time the first shell struck its target, more than five hundred others were already in the air.

As with all army-level magical warfare, Mavis doctrine was built around thematic divination magic.

Most thematic magic could generate information within its own domain without needing to actually gather it through divination or perception spells.

Fire mages understood and could predict every form of heat and flame. Weather mages could sense disturbances in the air, even a single sound or breath, or the obstruction an invisible opponent caused in the flow of air. Light mages could view present and future situations from different perspectives.

Founded on violence and raw force, Mavis divination magic was, in war, both simpler and more subtle.

With the anti-divination measures failing, Legion Commander Mott stood deep within his unfinished fortress, discarded his senses of the mundane world, and took in the reality of war.

He no longer needed to contact his troops individually, or even in groups.

As tools of violence and power forged under his authority, they were merely extensions of himself.

He did not need to scout the enemy, because the enemy was simply another source of violence directed against him, and therefore another path through which his awareness could expand.

He could even see individual actions related to threat and violence. The greater the potential threat, the earlier he learned its source and received warning.

In a sense, this was a vastly improved version of the simple danger-sensing magic he had cast as a novice one hundred and thirty years ago.

So when the enemy’s hostile intent crystallized into orders for a specific application of violence, he foresaw the artillery attack.

A centurion with only ten years of experience and no enhanced capacity to process information might have been overwhelmed by the scale of this battle, but Mott had stood on far grander battlefields many times.

The meaning of each unit’s movement was like a single letter on a page. That was why earning the rank of tribune required the ability to read a page in an instant, then transform that ability through training into battlefield command.

Mott had become a tribune sixty years earlier.

The enemy’s actions were as clear to him as a post-battle report.

Of course, an inexperienced commander might fail to trust such a report, or fail to understand it.

Mavis battle magic gave its users a godlike awareness of the battlefield and direct control over summoned creatures. Among many users, it often bred superiority, or the delusion of divinity.

Those people tended to die young, intoxicated by power and by a false belief in their own invincibility—especially when invading other realms, where radically different magical or technological paradigms might resist their aggression.

That was precisely why Mott had spent so much time questioning locals about the capabilities of their army, and it was also the second reason he had delayed major confrontation after meeting the requirements for establishing supernatural influence and gathering resources.

Many locals answered his questions eagerly, hoping for a chance to learn magic, or for immortality for themselves and their families. Those trivial requests Mott had gladly and honestly granted.

He was by no means an expert on the enemy, but he had a rough understanding of what they could do.

The moment the artillery—what a vulgar name—opened fire, he had some idea of what was coming.

So he waited.

Given the speed of the shells, the first wave would arrive within sixty heartbeats.

Thirty heartbeats before impact, he ordered his troops to disperse.

This was not like issuing commands under anti-divination measures. It was more like taking a step.

Just as each of the six hundred and sixty-six muscles in his body could move differently under a casual thought while still forming one perfectly coordinated whole, hundreds of infantry battle lines spread out according to his will.

The troops moved with the smooth, tireless precision only undead could possess. During that span, some units moved as much as six hundred paces.

Strangely, newly fired shells adjusted course midway through flight.

Perhaps they were still far from true guided shells, but they were not entirely inaccurate stones hurled by primitives either.

The legion commander could read the intent behind those adjustments. They were an attempt to track his troops’ movements. That was exactly why he had ordered dispersal in the first place.

When the rain of steel fell, no unit stood within twenty paces of another.

According to his sources, ammunition was a serious problem for his enemies.

Their range might vastly exceed his ability to retaliate, but what did that matter if, each day, they could only hit a few thousand of the more than one hundred thousand targets he could field?

A moment later, the steel walls of the fortress shook. A deafening, continuous roar of explosions transmitted through the walls, loud enough to shatter glass and rupture mortal eardrums.

Of the first five hundred shells, more than one hundred had been aimed at fixed fortifications, which was only natural.

The enemy was not stupid.

They simply did not know what they faced, exactly as the legion commander had planned.

Mott had discarded mortality long ago. The steel fortress summoned by magic under his command was far stronger than the fragile brick-and-stone buildings the locals used. To cause it serious damage would require far more than a few small explosions.