2.35.1-Cat

So what did I have, that made the Fifteenth different? Juniper was the first thing to come to mind, but the Hellhound wasn’t something I could improve on. The toolbox magician, I’d heard Nauk call her once after a few drinks, and the label was accurate enough it had stuck in my mind. My legate was a fixed point, if anything. What she was could not be improve save in the unlikely event she gained a Name, so the most I could do about this was to give her more tools. Legionaries were one thing, but I needed specialists. Robber was one, because he was as much a vicious little goblin raider as he was a sapper. It might be time to take him out of Hune’s kabili and give him an independent command to mould in his image. Pickler had already shown she could handle the traps, artillery and infrastructure aspects of the Fifteenth in her station as Senior Sapper, there was no need for her to have additional help in the matter.

Saboteurs and raiders, using the same tactics William had proved could turn a city on itself in Summerholm. I’d even found them their first target already.

Wasn’t enough. What had I learned, from Three Hills and Marchford? What had been my best assets? The first time we’d fought the Silver Spears, the tipping point had been the goblinfire traps. My sappers were already all they could be, although my first order when I next sat with Juniper would be allowing Pickler free reign in building all the siege engines she wanted. Marchford had been won as much by magic as by steel, though. Three Hills too, now that I thought of it: it was Masego’s spell that had ignited the trap. Legion doctrine was to use many mages to concentrate firepower, but Legion doctrine did not take into consideration the fact that I had a mage of Apprentice’s calibre on my side. His ritual had turned a certain defeat into a battle where the Fifteenth had a fighting chance, fundamentally modifying the lay of the land. He’d needed several lines of mages to manage that, though. So I make their assignment a permanent one.

Black hadn’t been wrong, when he’d decided how to use his mages. He’d seen that the Praesi gave birth to more mages than any other Calernian polity and turned all those untrained youths into another tool for his generals, folding goblin blood mages and the rare orc casters into those ranks to bolster the firepower. By designing a doctrine that wasn’t centred around exceptional mages like Warlock he’d created an institution that would survive the death of individuals like that and remain a contributing factor on the battlefield. But to achieve this, he’d sacrificed the ability to use mass rituals that had made Praesi armies monstrously dangerous in the past. There was no need for me to follow his lead in the matter, not when I had Masego on my side. Heiress seemed to be fond of using magic to solve her problems, but I had a Named whose entire business was sorcery: she would not be able to match me in this, if I prepared correctly.

Even putting the matter of my rival aside, magic was still more of a trump card than I’d ever expected. That trick Masego had pulled with the hearths might have failed to kill the demon, but aimed at an enemy army it would kill hundreds and break morale. The rebel armies I was going to face didn’t have a caster that was a match for Apprentice, didn’t even use mages the way the Legions did.

- Book 2, Chapter 35: Spur