Victor

  Nothing important happened on our way there, though I did spot some sort of flying monster cruising overhead; it didn't pay us any heed. The first thing we needed to do upon arrival was to force our enemies to give battle where we wanted them to. With even a novice earth mage, we could move a great deal of dirt around. I had some thoughts about how to use this to our advantage and made it a point to ask the princess.

  So, what did we know about our enemies? They were planning to frame the kingdom of Anaura by pretending to be a punitive force coming after the queen of Cara, so we were likely looking at a believably large amount of horsemen. Val had informed me that the standard unit of highborn elf heavy cav was 30-60 on swift horses, armed with full plate mithril armor. However, since mithril is a material closely guarded by elves and dwarves, theirs was likely to be an imitation and most likely they'd be wearing mail hauberks painted to look like mithril. That of course meant that my guns could make short work of them; that said though, we couldn't depend on my firearms alone.

  "With just one gunner," I said, "trying to take out that many guys would be disastrous. I also don't reckon I've got the time to really teach you to shoot yet."

  "I can loose an arrow fairly far myself," said the princess, "but I lack the skill of someone like my cousin Firian, or even Big Brother - despite favoring swords he's actually a spectacular archer. Simply put, it is a matter of upper body strength; my saber relies on swift precision strokes rather than brute force, but archers need strong arms to achieve legendary skill and all I have are my innate elvish advantages."

  "It's good to have a backup in case you run out of magic to cast, though, even at range. Hell, even in modern warfare we have our equivalents. Instead of mana, we have ammo. Er well I guess bows have ammo too, don't they."

  "The metaphor is clear enough, Sir Victor. Right. So, you spoke of controlling the battlefield?"

  "Yes. I would like to employ the element of surprise - to that end, I'd like you to do your best impression of a dwarf."

  The princess shrugged, hunched her shoulders, and said with a lowered pitch, "me dwarf me diggy hole and never bathe. Me think mead be weak drink made for babies."

  I couldn't help but laugh, "funny, but actually, the diggy hole part is what I meant. I need you to dig me a garage."

  "A what?"

  "You'll see. Once we've scouted out the right spot I'll show you where to cast Dig. For now, you're pretty much full right?"

  "Completely, a good night's sleep restores all my magical energy. Someone as powerful as my mother might require a lot more rest when drained, but with my present reserves a good six hours is all I need."

  "Good. So why is it that you can cast utility spells at will? Tactically speaking this may be important."

  The princess did the Ema thing again, "ah how to explain…it isn't that the mana cost is zero, it's the fact that the amount of magical energy required to use a utility spell is so low that by the time I'm finished casting my body's natural replenishment will have already outpaced the energy expended."

  I crossed my arms, "huh, so like eating celery in reverse. It takes less time to get back what you spent than it does to actually use it."

  "Aye, I don't understand your analogy but you seem to have the right of it."

  "That being the case," I closed my eyes, fingers folded, I touched my lips with the middle knuckle of my index finger, thoughtfully, "so Raise Pillar has a higher cost, so much that it fails to qualify as utility. You mentioned being only, novice, I believe, at the earth discipline," the princess nodded, "and, am I right that the stone stays, physically, as long as it isn't destroyed by other means," she nodded again, leaning in and focusing on my words with anticipation, "in that case, I'll ask you to use that spell in the areas I specify. We're going to create difficult terrain for horses."

  The princess beamed, "oh! And then they won't be able to charge!"

  I shook my head, "we're going to leave one area unaffected, and force them to give battle where we choose. In other words, they're not going to pick where to ambush the retinue: we are."

  "Wait, we want them to charge?"

  "Yes. For reasons that shall become clear soon enough," I stared at the moons for a moment; Azune, as I learned the blue one was called, was waning slowly and was what I'd call gibbous, while Topazune, the reddish one, was already halfway consumed, gosh they were pretty. Already I found the sight of them soothing, grounding, even more than old Luna back in my former world did.

  "How much of your mana can you afford to expend and still have a couple of big heals?"

  "Big? Oh you mean burst zone healing. As I am right now, I'd need roughly 5% to heal a group of gravely wounded people, I think, 'tis merely an estimate."

  I nodded, pacing thoughtfully, "in that case, let's raise some pillars until you are down to, say, 20%, just in case we are waylaid in the night."

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The princess agreed to that, and so we set about controlling our surroundings. Being a novice-grade spell, the amount of magical energy required for casting Raise Pillar was relatively low, especially with all of the extant earthiness in the area. The order of difficulty went nothing, soil, stone - so creating a stone pillar on a grassy knoll only required moderate effort; it turned out that learning pattern magic could also aid with the casting and improve efficiency by transmuting the dirt into stone, but once again, the princess had yet to study pattern magic. Damn that discipline was really begging to be explored. Even after scouting all day and through part of the night, our enemy didn't show itself just yet. Well the queen was still a ways out after all.

  That night, I made us a special dinner. I'd been hankerin' for some good Texas grilling for a good long while. Heck, even back in my old world I'd been a lazy bum and relied on a certain "dubba you" burger chain and convenience store food because of my workload lately. Hey, being a part time bartender and part time auto mechanic full time is good honest work. Damn property tax was killin' me though.

  Anyway, first I took out that dry rub I'd prepared and rubbed it into the steaks until the meat was encrusted; I took care to let them sit out a little bit, to make the center less cold. Meanwhile, I had also allowed the charcoal to start burning - oh yes they were getting nice and hot. The princess was watching me with genuine interest; I guessed that most people used charcoal for heating homes rather than what I was about to do. Ahh yes, there came a satisfying sizzle as the meat struck the hot iron, sounded like freedom. Since it was evidently her first time eating Texas style dry rub, I decided to cook our steaks the same way - rare. That light gray exterior with the criss-crossed brown streaks coursing over it and speckled with various herbs and spices got my mouth watering.

  Once I got the sense that our food was cooked to perfection, I served them up; I used the pan portion of my mess kit, she had the plate plus the utensils. What did I use as a utensil? My bowie knife of course. Yep, took that combat knife and just sliced into that juicy hunk of seasoned meat; yeah that was the perfect firebrick red color, and the dry rub crust added a perfect contrast of flavor with the unseasoned interior. The steam rising from the steak carried with it the blend of pepper, garlic, brown sugar, and the smoky notes imparted by the charcoal. With every bite the spices made a sensuous slurry of flavor that excited my tastebuds whenever I gnashed my teeth. Then there was that finish, that sweet finish, that final rush of flavor as I pushed the meat down and sighed - the flavor still lingering in my breath. The princess was over the moon; if her reaction to eating meat got any more extreme I would have to request a helping of "what she's having."

  But hey, as a grilla, nothing gives me a thrilla like a satisfied…gorilla? Sorry, the metaphor got away from me.

  The next day, I had the princess conceal the Cadillac inside of a hole large enough to drive through, which we then covered up with the gilly cloth. After which we created such trenches as we could and placed a few strategic holes. We repeated this process for three days straight, moving earth around until there was one precise location good for a cavalry charge, yes, positioned perfectly. If we were lucky, they'd attack right there, at the mouth of that narrow.

  No, luck has nothing to do with it - if these guys had any brains as cavalrymen, they would do it. Either abandon the plan and the queen escapes, or commence the attack and fall into the trap I had in mind. Nah this wasn't a brilliant plan, it was basic stuff - even I wasn't sure if it was going to work. Since we were also dealing with fanatics, I didn't think they had enough tactical acumen to expect a trap; Hanzo had told me that the man we captured was arrogant, he believed the plan had no flaws - yeah the sneaky old guy had even saw fit to remind me in his papers.

  "Be aware that these men are not in their right minds - nothing that you or I say can dissuade them."

  Hanzo…why do you have to be so damn cool?

  Well guess what? Since our battlefield control efforts were just about done, I'd decided that tonight was a good night for a treat: S'mores! I still had a fair amount of marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers. We had a good time that evening, laughing and talking of old friends. You see, one of my best friends from the army happened to be named "Graham" and we used to call him "Graham Cracker". Out of all the guys, he was the only one who remained in the army; he even joined some elite unit or other. Well we were damn proud of him.

  I also went over the history of the graham cracker and its creator's um, interesting theories - sorry to break it to you Mr. Graham, but your crackers don't prevent the thing you think they do. Averting my eyes when the princess asked what I meant by that part I switched to the tale of how chocolate came to be inexpensive in my world, which fascinated her - so I kept going and talked about dark chocolate, chocolate cakes, chocolate muffins, Chocolate Rain, a certain book about a chocolate factory, hot friggin cocoa, the works. Marshmallows I knew a little less about, just that they used to be made of marshmallow root, so we didn't linger on those. Anyhow, yeah, we talked a great deal, basking in the fire light; I could not help but notice the strange games of light the flames played with her eyes.

  Ahh, that hit the spot. "I reckon I'm going to hit the sack," I said.

  "An idiom," she smiled sleepily, "you know fully well my goddess' gift doesn't help me with those, Sir Victor"

  "Give me a break," I laughed, "judging by your reaction, you figured its meaning out for yourself."

  "Guilty as charged," she said, imitating my thumb gesture, and one of my catchphrases. Oh she thinks she's so cute. I mean she's right, but.

  "All right, well once you're ready to sleep please make sure to put the fire out."

  She yawned, "I'm ready right now," she immediately cast "create water" and drowned the flames. Then she began to stagger after me slowly, she'd been quite drained before. I instinctively rushed to her aid and allowed her to lean on me a little, she thanked me as she borrowed my strength for support. At that point I realized just how knackered she must have been; okay, princess, I'll tuck you in, it's the least I can do for working you so hard today. However, just as we were within a foot or so from the flap of the tent, her elf-ears twitched, and she immediately looked up, turned her head, and pointed into the darkness.

  "There!", she cried.

  "Huh?"

  "I hear several hoof falls, that way, and I can see riders, vaguely."

  "Oh shit," I ran over to grab my binoculars and rejoined the princess.

  Sure enough, there were riders all right. Elves really did have great senses, because even with binoculars these guys only looked like shadows in the moonlight; and soon enough I could hear them too. They weren't headed towards us per se. It was then that I got the idea of passing the binoculars to the princess; sure enough, she made better use of them than I did and was able to see that these were men wearing vaguely silver-colored armor.

  "I think they're making camp," she said.

  "All right. Well then. Once they're done, I'll creep forward and assess their numbers."

  "Then what?"

  "We take our position, and wait."

  The princess nodded, resolvedly, with a furrowed brow; as I had seen her do a few times already.

  Showtime.