Free Web NovelChapter 421: Chapter 418: Securing the Caster Prisoner
Casters were dangerous, and that danger often came from the unknown. You could never be sure what unexpected Magic they might pull out.
So Richard’s first thought was to subdue the infiltrator and get them away from the ammunition depot. At the same time, Lieutenant Colonel Hench burst out from under a felt tarp, swinging his rifle butt at the back of the intruder’s head.
WHAM! Hench’s target vanished into thin air. The rifle butt connected squarely with Richard, and the two men crashed into each other.
"Are you alright?"
"My Spirit Armor blocked it... Now get off me!" The lingering trace of Magic from the escape cast a hazy glow, creating an awkward atmosphere between Richard and Hench as they were forced into an embrace. Richard shoved Hench away and frantically searched for the vanished intruder.
In the split second before the lieutenant colonel struck, the Moonstone Powder in Juer’s hand activated. A soft radiance spread from his clenched fist throughout his body before quickly dissipating. The whole process took but an instant. Richard had made a mistake. He should have tried to break the Apprentice’s concentration by twisting the wrist he held, using pain to interrupt the Casting.
*Pant... Pant...* Juer was still in the ammunition depot. The drain from the Soaring ability, combined with the sluggishness from being hit by the Frozen Ray, intensified the chill seeping into his body. ’A bowl of steaming beef broth sounds amazing right now,’ the Apprentice thought.
But this was no restaurant. There was only the smell of damp mold, rusting metal, and the indescribable scent of gunpowder. ’Oh, right,’ he remembered, ’and two enemies!’ One was definitely a Mage. ’If the other one is too...’ Juer felt a surge of despair.
Soaring, much like the formal Magic, Mist Step, could only teleport the Caster a short distance to a location within their line of sight. To compensate for this limited range, the Mist Step spell left behind a cloud of smoke to obscure the enemy’s vision. Soaring, however, only left behind the faint "Moonlight" from its Casting Materials.
Thankfully, his two enemies didn’t seem to have good coordination. Their collision had given Juer a chance to hide.
He couldn’t find the specific crate of gunpowder at the moment, but Juer had no time to worry about that. He pulled a matchbox from his pocket, grabbed a whole handful of matches, and struck them all at once.
Once they caught, he tossed them in every direction, trying to spread the flames and draw his enemies’ attention. He figured a fire in an ammunition depot would be more than enough to distract them. The Apprentice’s real target, however, was still the gunpowder barrel he had spotted earlier. He once again tried to gather a flame and shoot it out to ignite the barrel.
If he succeeded, not only would the enemy’s ammunition depot detonate, but with any luck, he could take at least one Caster with him.
At this thought, Juer’s breathing grew heavy. The flame in his hand flared up, illuminating his excited face, even though he knew he would die in the explosion if he succeeded.
THWACK. This time, Richard’s hand-chop landed squarely on the back of the Apprentice’s neck. The pressure on his carotid artery caused a momentary loss of blood to the brain, and Juer passed out.
"They’re not windproof matches. Throwing them like that won’t light a thing." Richard, now with a Caster for a captive, picked up one of the scattered matches. The Apprentice had thrown them so quickly that most had extinguished upon landing. The infiltration had been dealt with, a close call but no real harm done.
"Clever idea, but useless." Hench was starting to feel that the legendary Valois Mages weren’t as battle-hardened as the stories claimed. He checked the area, and after confirming there were no stray embers, he turned his attention back to the infiltrator.
The Caster’s face was exceptionally young. As Hench hauled him up, Richard couldn’t help but ask, "What’s the procedure for prisoners of war?"
Hench recalled the policy. "Regular soldiers are disarmed and detained. Generals and Casters get special treatment..."
Captives with Casting Ability had to be handled with extreme caution. So far, neither side had dared to take the simple route of "disposing" of enemy Mages. They were held in solitary confinement and required "special care" to ensure they lost their Casting Ability.
As a Mage himself, and as Juer’s "Captor," Richard escorted the prisoner and witnessed firsthand how the Empire dealt with them.
First, all the captive’s personal belongings were confiscated, and he was thrown into a small, isolated tent. An army doctor entered, carrying a Potion case in one hand and a basin in the other. Seeing Juer was still unconscious, he forcibly woke him with a splash of water, then roughly forced an emetic down his throat.
After the Apprentice had vomited up the entire contents of his stomach, he was force-fed a potent liquor infused with belladonna. Juer’s resistance was futile. After he drank it, his pupils began to dilate, and all strength left his body. He was tied to a plank bed. As the alcohol and poison took hold, his face flushed red and his fingers began to tremble uncontrollably.
The army doctor put away the belladonna-laced liquor and fed the barely conscious, twitching Apprentice a small bowl of thin wheat gruel.
"Don’t you throw that up. It’s the only meal you’ll get today." The army doctor was an old man with a kindly face, but the bulging veins on his arms as he’d forced the liquor down were rather terrifying.
After finishing with the Caster, the doctor turned solicitously to Richard and Hench. "Were either of you officers injured?"
"No, he’s just an inexperienced kid."
Richard was more curious about the belladonna liquor. The army doctor explained, "All Mages we receive are processed this way. A moderate level of poisoning keeps them docile and unable to enter a Casting state."
"The dosage is higher for the first three days. As long as we control their food rations, we can reduce the amount of belladonna liquor later." A single bowl of thin gruel was just enough to keep a person alive. After a few days of this regimen, they wouldn’t have the strength to speak, let alone cast Magic. Furthermore, the belladonna toxins would damage their neurotransmitters, ensuring the captive lost their Casting Ability.
The army doctor seemed nostalgic. "This procedure was actually developed by the Special Defense Agency. No idea why, but the agency was suddenly disbanded right before the war..."
Richard knew a bit about the situation. "Not disbanded," he revealed, "It was merged into..."
Suddenly, the main camp erupted in noise. Another large wave of wounded was being brought to the medical area. The army doctor muttered something and walked away. Hench looked at the scene outside the tent. "Is the battle over?"
...
「The rain stopped and the clouds parted, letting the spring sun shine down into the trenches.」
The combatants on both sides, who had been fighting in the mud, could now see each other’s faces clearly. They heard a drumbeat from the Valois side. The rhythm was no longer rousing; it was the heavy, somber signal to retreat.
The National Guard soldiers’ steps through the muddy water began to slow, then they started to fall back. The soldiers who had fought so hard to reach the second and third trench lines desperately wanted to push forward—otherwise, wouldn’t their comrades’ sacrifices have been for nothing? But the drums told them that if they advanced, no reinforcements would follow. The pain racking their bodies also reminded them they had reached their limit.
Retreating, regrouping. The National Guard infantry had advanced as skirmishers, but during the retreat, they fell back into formation as per their training manuals, maintaining a threatening posture.
The gray-and-blue-uniformed soldiers of the Empire Army didn’t dare to relax just yet. They cautiously kept their distance from the Valois people, slowly retaking the breached first line of defense as they watched the enemy withdraw.
The gunfire on the battlefield had long since grown sparse. Valois had only been able to equip each of its soldiers with thirty rounds, and while the Empire Army was slightly better supplied, they too had nearly exhausted their ammunition over several hours of fighting.
One soldier reloaded, snapped his rifle up, and took aim. He finally pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. Lowering his weapon, he saw only the exhausted and resentful eyes of his enemy.
The battle was over.
