Chapter 147. Fission Mailed!

...Fucking formalities. I know it is pointless, Mazepa knows it is pointless and fucking Basarab knows it is pointless, yet somehow there is an expectation that a messenger would be sent to Stefan to discuss the terms first. Because apparently if I attack him without talking terms first, I will be somehow honorless. Neverfuckingmind him being the aggressor who already invaded the lands of my official allies.

"Pan Mazepa, I will NOT send anyone, nor agree to YOU sending anyone simply out of consideration that Stefan is foolhardy enough to execute the messenger." - I ram my argument - "I refuse to sacrifice someone for the sake of giving honors to honorless cur. Stefan will be given a warning by magical means, I will be rude to him and he will make the expected moronic decision to attack. That is all there is to it."

"Pani Gillespie, please be reasonable. There are rules and pageantry to the art of war." - he retorts - "I understand that maiden's heart will never accept a man facing death for the sake of honor, yet this is something we must do if we are to expect any kind of honor to be returned. Do you want to see him burn the villages and kill the women and children on the way back?"

I inhale. Exhale. "Why in the name of all that is sane do you think he will be returning in any condition to brutalize anyone?" - I demand with exasperation - "We are luring him into the trap. I fully expect to kill the majority of his army, and I will NOT permit him to regroup after he is beaten. Any time more than three of his men meet, they will be shot at from the air until all of them are back on the other side of Niester. Understand me right, hetman. This is not some kind of honorable duel or altercation between equals. This is me exterminating pests. The fact that I even bother giving him a warning is entirely out of respect to YOU."

"Pani, you will do your thing and leave, and I am the one who will have to deal with the consequences." - he objects.

RRRRRrr!

"Pan Mazepa, I give you my word that I will not leave until I erase the dynasties of Tepes and Basarab out of existence." - I growl at him - "Consider this an official notification of blood feud. THEY OFFEND ME SIMPLY BY EXISTING AND I WILL NOT TOLERATE IT ANY LONGER. AM I UNDERSTOOD!?"

...Yeah, he gets it, I guess. He's better.

"...Gods above, what did they even do?" - he yelps, covering from my... audial cues of heightened aggression.

"They exist!" - I insist - "What other reason do you need?"

Then I calm a little bit and realize that perhaps this is not the kind of impression I want to give to the hetman in charge of the lands where some of my in-laws dwell.

"I have SEEN what Vlad and Stefan are up to, what will happen if they are allowed to exist unchecked. Stefan is simply a bloodthirsty moron, but Vlad? Within the year, he will be known as 'The Impaler', and the more people he kills this way, the easier it becomes for him to 'justify' impaling MORE. By the time he is destroyed by the combined might of Kraut and Champagne, there will be literal fields of bloody stakes in his wake." - I explain strenuously - "It does not even matter how courteous or discourteous you are - your behavior is not even relevant to how many people he kills like this. Many of them Krainians who just happened to be there when he decided he needed to see more suffering."

"...Beg your pardon?" - he offers cautiously.

"If you act defiantly, he impales your people to make you obey. If you submit and cooperate, he impales your people because they object to giving up their personal belongings to his men. If you submit and make everyone submit, he still impales your people simply for the crime of not having enough to loot." - I explain - "He comes here already intending to commit atrocities, what you do just changes what kind of excuse he has for doing it."

___

While Mazepa is a reasonable man, I have to admit that it was notably frustrating to negotiate with him. Why? Well, because the things I do are very much UNreasonable to the contemporary mind. Taras is a bit more open-minded, but he had plenty of talks with Roxolane to lean on over the autumn. And Roxolane was not particularly shy about describing my exploits in lurid detail.

In the end, I don't think I managed to persuade him entirely... but he definitely understands that "this stubborn noble will do things her way" and his further actions seem to be all about mitigating the expected fallout from my "foolhardiness". Which is why he agrees with my suggestion to let the cossacks with actual experience to remain near their horses to be the mobile force instead of manning the fortifications I threw down. That task is to fall to non-combatants in his imagination, I believe, but... I guess this is one of those situations where I just have to do show instead of telling for him to grasp it.

And there he comes. And there goes the jaw. Jaws.

"Hail!" - the entirety of me shouts. I would have used more, ah... native military terms, but I have a distinct feeling that what I remember of USSR military conduct will be even more alien to the people of Kraina. As it is, there are four hundred and eighty instances of me neatly lined up. Four platoons of one hundred twenty "people". Each platoon having ten machinegun squads consisting of three each, gunner, loader and spotter. Technically, I could have made do with two people per squad, but I've decided to go with Maxims for the reasons of nonhistoric authenticity, and those are kinda bulky with all the spare ammo belts. Out of the rest, there are five mortar teams consisting of four people and the rest sixty are plain old riflewomen. Armed with SVT-40 copies because there's only so much authenticity I'm willing to endure personally. Mortar is even more modern. Both due to the fact that infantry mortars evolved in the direction of lightness and because I don't want to roll the dice trying to fire the early examples of mortars.

...Aaand I see some of the people outright fainting at that display. Huh. Well, nothing for it, let's press on with the impression. "Please return to your homes unless you are with the mounted forces. I will hold the line." - I tell them in a perfectly matched chorus. More people faint. Mazepa is thankfully not among them, but the way he is gaping and boggling, he might need a cup of water and some eyedrops soon. Admittedly, his reaction is among the least befuddled ones. One of his bodyguards rubs his eyes, boggles, rubs his eyes again, boggles harder and repeats. Three cycles so far.

The instance of me designated to be the "commander" and consequently the one to liaise with Mazepa, strolls up from the side. "The struggles you envisioned are not going to be quite that hard, I surmise." - I suggest to him - "Between the barbed wire and the trenches, I'd say Stefan's forces are not going to have a happy time here. But, and this is kinda important, I need him to commit to an attack before he realizes how badly screwed he is. If he balks at the last moment, we're going to be dealing with raiders doing what they do best while the rest of Stefan's troops do the organized retreat back to Niester. Manageable, but... meh. I'd rather lure him in, provoke him to put all of his forces into it to punish my hubris, as he would perceive it... And let him kill most of his forces outright on my fortifications."

"...Lady Gillespie, what are you wearing?" - is his entirely nonsequitur response. I glance at myself. It's a winter overcoat, an officer model, plus a classic ushanka. Why is he so surprised... Oh. Wait. This is still the time of kaftans and zipuns. Huh... Oh. Ooh, huh. I just realized that all the people who showed up, even the guys who would ride as the mobile force, are all dressed in their personal clothes. Whereas the army of me is all uniform. Heh. Adds to the effect.

"Aaaa-bout face! To positions! March!" - I can't resist. The verbal commands are entirely superfluous, as well as saluting to myself. Yet this all looks impressive and martial and ok, well, I'm no stranger to bouts of chuunibuyo myself at times.

"Feeling more confident, pan Mazepa?" - I ask casually - "Stick with my plan and Stefan will NEVER threaten your people again. His family, his power, his threat, all will be dust and ashes in the wind."

___

"He sure is taking his time." - I grouse to Taras. For reasons that are many, he had been directed to be my liaison, while Mazepa is overseeing the mounted force. It makes sense, Mazepa definitely has more appropriate social standing to command the assembling Krainians. But I thought he would make Bogdan the liaison. Then again, given how busy Bogdan is right now, I guess Mazepa needed him there more. After all, most of the villages that could report here on time fall under Bogdan's oversight as khorunjy. Taras as the sotnik and most closely familiar with me does make sense as my liaison. I asked him, and apparently Basil is taking his place as the commander of the people from the village while he is on detached duty with me.

The plus of the situation is that after Mazepa recovered a little from the surprise, he agreed with my suggestions without any further argument. Then again, my suggestion was that he has his people on horses to strike the back of Stefan's forces while he is bogged with me up front. That lines up with their usual mode of warfare pretty well. As a light cavalry, cossacks are a force not to be trifled with.

I am watching from the air, of course, and Stefan is taking his time to advance. Why? He has cavalry and can easily detach them to do a quick raid and disrupt things. Instead, he is taking his time and letting us build defenses. Something he IS aware of, because his scouts already were close enough to see my trenches and go back and report. I avoided dropping the barbed wire until the last minute, so all they can report is earthworks, but even that should be a sufficient impetus for Stefan to send cavalry ahead to at least try to disrupt my fortification efforts, if not outright slaughter my laborers (which I don't have, but Stefan has no clue about this).

I want to assume he is just being cocksure little shit, but that's how you end up losing while having every conceivable advantage. Why wait until the defenses are complete? Given the contemporary possibilities, what he is expecting is militia with hunting bows, maybe a smattering of crossbows plus a mounted force of light cavalry mostly armed with sabres and short lances. It is a common tactic to let the opponent get stuck on the defenses and then flank them with horsemen. In these conditions, wrecking my defenses would be the logical move. Unless he has some kind of ace in the sleeve. But what kind of ace would work better with defenses in place?... Hrm.

I take a closer look at his caravan. Ooh, that's a LOT of flowers you are toting. So... magic? Hm. I can't see anyone obviously mage-for-life looking... So probably not the "I have an uber-powerful mage sidekick" situation. Having his people cast lots of little spells? If he did train them to some basic coven competency, then they could probably just bury the militia in the earthworks. Gonna get pretty close to it. But that... Oh. His cavalry is veering off. Huh. So the plan is to have his cavalry block ours, steamroll the militia and then what... Break the cavalry between the hammer of his cavalry and anvil of pikemen where their own reserves should be? Without a way to communicate and via using magic to quickly negate the militia fortifications, he could indeed get away with using his pikemen as the flanking force. Curious.

In response, I move the airship to maintain overwatch over the cavalry's likely paths. And pre-conjure some... surprises. One amusing thing - I can get away with bombs that would conjure their payload in flight. So for the weight of, I dunno, a ton of furnish, I can drop about ten tons of incendiary explosives. Shouldn't be TOO problematic during winter. And it's not forests I'm dumping it on... Wait. Wait a moment. I'm a doofus. The reason I picked this place is because this meadow is the only viable road that avoids the swampy near-river and does not lead into the dense forest. So his cavalry is heading for the forest. Which they won't be able to traverse. So what the fuck?...

I'm missing something here, I think. Why send cavalry to a place where they'd be... Uh. What if the point is to tie us up with the mages and pikemen, while his cavalry runs down whatever we can muster and then raids our back? Because the way the landscape breaks up, the cavalry would STILL run into my barricades, even if they sidetrack. It's either that, trailing by the edge of the forest, or going into the forest itself. Pikemen going into forest I could maybe understand. Still not ideal, but sometimes needs must. But horsemen? They'd have to dismount or at the very least break ranks and move at a trot.

I jot down the current lay of forces on the map and nudge Taras. "What do you think? Why Stefan is moving cavalry over here?" - I ask.

He shrugs - "My take on it is that he wants us to see both cavalry and pikemen and just give up. Failing that, he should be expecting to have an easy win against a force composed much like his one but a quarter of his. Which would be the most we could muster in two days' notice. You scouting him ahead like this and figuring out where he is going made all the difference. Before, we would be stuck second-guessing where he might be showing up and unable to muster more than three villages together lest he just comes up somewhere else and burns the unprotected homes."

"Why wait until my earthworks are ready? His scouts surely saw the trench is there, why would he not rush his cavalry to disrupt our forting up?" - I ask.

"Because there is no way to extend the fortifications as far as you did, nor man them properly with what we should be having in his consideration?" - he replies - "They saw the first trench you put there, one that is near the river. Which makes a sort of sense, there is the best road for the horsemen to take. He must be assuming that trench is to force him off the most advantageous road because covering it up sufficiently to make his people come over would take enough time for us to rush them from the side. No one would expect the line to extend to the forest, nor it being manned... uh... womanned, I guess, that densely. Certainly not by five hundred witches."

"Still, why wait?" - I insist.

"So we would be tired after the construction?" - he shrugs - "From what I know of Stefan, his attack would be in the evening. Right now, he is camping within an hour's walk, his people are getting extra rest while we are supposedly exhausting ourselves digging. The assumption would be that the fight is tomorrow morning, which is why he would rush us about an hour before sunset. At least that's what he did the last time he came over."

"Hrm. So if I send a golem into his camp to insult him right now?" - I suggest.

"Then he would make an attack immediately, most likely." - Taras replies - "Even if we fight him off now, he will make his best effort to kill the mage capable of golems in the scrum."

"Alrighty then." - I agree - "Let's do this thing. Get your tablet out, I'm going to do a group call with you and my girls and Mazepa and whoever hetman wants to include, so we can see the first hand golem negotiation."

___

Since Taras appears to be right and cavalry was NOT sent off to do a flanking... It's stupid, really. As it turns out, Stefan sent his cavalry out to let the horses graze. WTF.

So, anyway, I'm ready to do some hot-drop diplomacy... On second thought, I'd better not. I was all set to do a meteorite-style entrance in his camp, but a golem that can survive being shot into a place like this might spook him too hard. So instead I inflate a couple of my instances and shape them like horses, then construct a trio of golems on top of myselves. One bearing my looks, the other two looking generically cossack. Obvious bodyguards. And like this, I trot up to Stefan's camp. Where I am greeted at the pike point. Getting mighty tired of it. Thankfully, the people involved also alert Stefan, so he comes out pretty quickly. Not until we are completely surrounded by pikemen, of course. I make the golem facsimile of me jump off the horse and stroll up to face Stefan. The "bodyguards" move up to me, consequently leaving "the horses" to be "surreptitiously" cut off from us by the pikemen line. Stefan is not on the horse himself, which means that even on foot I have a significant height advantage. Is fine, I'm really looking down on him, so...

"Greetings. You are, I presume, Stefan Basarab of the Basarab princedom." - I greet him in Albish because I'm a haughty Champagne noble and of bloody course I expect everyone I meet to know Albish - "I am Alyssa Gillespie, the firstborn of duke Gillespie of Champagne kingdom. You appear to be coming with an army towards my interests. I would know your intentions here."

There is a moment of confusion. Two moments of confusion... Aaah, there we go. Stefan's albish is kinda... sucky.

"Greet is to you, the lady." - he proffers stumblingly - "What interest is this here you?"

I gesture behind me expansively - "Those fine people in Kraina are breeding some good horses for me. I believe a port here in the river mouth would give them a leg up and me a good easy route to import stout horses into southern Champagne. You are not here to disrupt me, now are you?"

There are some whispers in the language I tentatively peg as close to Romanian with some Bulgarian thrown in for good measure. Finally, Stefan ventures with some sort of reply.

"You aid this Kraina?" - he demands - "I Stefan Basarab declare this land be my land! You buy horse from me tomorrow!"

I sigh. Chuckle. "You sure about this?" - I reply - "You are absolutely certain this is what you want to do?"

"I certain!" - he replies eagerly - "Basarab strong country, we win here."

I sigh. "Stefan, one last chance." - I suggest, noting how he did immediately grow more serious in spite of his less-then-stellar grasp of Albish - "One. Last. Chance. You pick up your little band right now, roll your tents up and march right back behind the Niester. You do this and I will pretend you didn't show up here. You do anything else and I END YOU. You and your house and your army and your country. Capice?"

"Prinde-o!" - he shouts - "...You lady far from Champagne. You no understand. You understand later. Your father pay ransom."

"Welp, you chose your fate." - I shrug and send a mental command to golems. "Bodyguards" race in opposite directions, running into the advancing pikemen and exploding. The golems are thin ceramic shells filled with pressurized phosphine. Yep, it's totally warcrimes o'clock here. Toxic, gaseous and spontaneously combustible in the air. I give Stefan a moment to realize what just happened, then clear my throat - "I'm also a golem, by the way. Run, little boy. I'll give you three seconds. Beeeep. Beeep. (I`m a sheep.) I said beeeeep, beep... BOOOM!"

The way Stefan backpedals frantically, falls over at me saying BOOM and then disappears under the pile of his bodyguards just as my decoy goes off... hilarious. In the chaos of sudden gas attack plus arson, no one pays attention to horsey me's, so we just sort of... trot back casually.

Fission mailed!