CHAPTER 125: TRENCH LINES

Every night, the Marquis Burton returned to the safe rooms with his family, so Princess Alexis and Dominic took over his suite on the top floor of the keep, where they would be close to the reports, and in a position to see most of the city.

It wasn’t the greatest accommodation, but with a bit of alteration, the room now contained two beds, and the guards were staying right across the hall when they were not on duty.

It might have been considered unconventional, but Alexis had deemed it inefficient to have them going up and down five flights of stairs every day, when their job here was to protect someone who didn’t leave the tower.

Over the course of the next week, the airships reported three more mechanized convoys coming for Burton, none of which ever made it to them.

With their vehicles crippled, they would have to move on foot if they weren’t going to retreat, and that would take weeks. Long enough that even the airships would have to return to restock on fuel and food before the majority of the enemy troops arrived.

On the seventh day, the Dagos force began to work on new trench lines, moving them a hundred metres closer to the city.

That still wouldn’t be close enough that they could launch an effective artillery bombardment of the city, as they were downhill. But every time that they moved forward gave them a little better position.

All around the city, the cannons fired periodically at the workers, but at the extended range, there wasn’t much they could do to the soldiers hiding below ground level.

However, Dominic wasn’t idle as they waited.

He had spent most of the first day making ammunition for the few riflemen that the city guard held.

Then the second day, he had spent casting mana pistols using [Clay to Steel], as the city of Burton was nearly depleted of iron and steel stores.

For some reason, the forges in town hadn’t been resupplied in weeks before the invasion.

The new pistols weren’t great quality, as his spell book hadn’t significantly improved. But they were good enough to be functional in an emergency, and they were much more practical for the Royal Guard when fighting inside the Keep.

With a pistol in each hand, they could do much more damage to any force that breached the Keep, but even with his casting moulds, Dominic could only make so many of the weapons in a day.

And only a limited number of people within the city were competent with them.

"Your Highness, we have a report. Infantry on foot is close to reaching the trench lines. We estimate that they will be arriving within the next twenty-four hours. What are your orders?" The runner for the Natural Sons asked on the morning of the eighth day of the siege.

"Cycle the airships to the ground. Get them resupplied and refuelled. I want them ready when the infantry arrives, as they will surely send more paratroopers to support them when they charge the city." Princess Alexis ordered.

The runner headed out, and Dominic listened as the coded message was sent to cycle the ships down for supplies.

They would go up with the same crew again, but that wasn’t likely to be an issue. The hammocks on the airships were comfortable enough, and in this situation, it was the safest posting that they could ask for.

There had been no losses among the Cygnia Airships at Burton yet, and they were getting better by the day. That was far better than could be said for the city guard, despite the infrequent attacks sent to test their readiness.

Charges from the trenches by a few dozen men at a time weren’t a major threat, but a few unwary soldiers had been taken out by the autoloading crossbows of the Dagos infantry.

The first airship was down an hour later, and a messenger came up to make his report.

"Royal Sorcerer, they are requesting you at the docks. They have produced something while they were aloft, and they wish for you to distribute it." The soldier reported.

Princess Alexis waved for Dominic to go, and he jogged down the stairs to the cargo loading area.

The docks contained plenty of supplies for the crews, but Dominic noticed one thing was missing. Something to boost the crews’ morale.

Their efforts were the hope of everyone on the ground, and it would never do for them to get demotivated and start slacking.

"Bring up meals from the kitchen. I think that they will appreciate something that didn’t come from dry goods in the tiny galley of the airship. Pastries, sweets, you know what to bring." Dominic instructed.

"Yes, Sir."

The soldier ran off as Dominic went to meet with the Techno Wizards from the first airship.

"Ah, Sorcerer. Good work getting the wall cannons supplied. We made an upgraded version of the munitions cores. If you hold it this way, it makes a whole barrel of black powder. If you hold it this side up, it will make a hundred solid steel cannonballs. Not pig iron, refined steel.

Needless to say, that was not easy to accomplish with an unbonded magitech orb.

It’s brutally mana intensive, but I’m sure that you can make good use of it. Perhaps some of the mages in the city as well.

I’ve got two of them for you, and the others will have one or two each as they land. We’ve kept two for each ship, one for us, and one for the mage. That way, we can keep a small stock of munitions ready, in case one or both of us are injured." He explained.

"So, you can let them load conventionally, if the mages are out of commission or only one remains and he is asleep? Good thinking. I just didn’t think that it was possible."

The Techno Wizard laughed. "It’s the same rubies, but cut and polished specifically. Here, I made you a copy of the plan, but remember Royal Regulations, that must never be seen by anyone else, so burn it once you have memorized it."

Dominic nodded. He hadn’t read any such regulation, but he hadn’t actually read any of the parts of the textbook that covered the creation and security of Magitech Device plans. That was much later in his tutoring lesson plans.

After the supposedly important things, like how to address Nobles, how to dress, and table manners.

A fat lot of good that had done him. He didn’t actually care how anyone was supposed to be addressed, and his table manners were fine before the lessons started. They should have started with military etiquette.

Dominic moved the orbs into the storage device on his toe, and shook the Techno Wizard’s hand.

"Don’t leave just yet, I’ve got the runner bringing you baked goods from the kitchen." Dominic instructed.

The older man laughed. "And who is supposed to poison test them for us? That’s why we bring only security tested shelf stable goods."

Dominic pointed at himself. "I will purify them with a spell, then taste test them for poison, so your crew can have a little treat. Taste testing a dozen rounds of pastries is a hardship, but I will do my best to endure."

Behind him, Dominic heard the loading crew chuckle.

"If you run out of stamina, we will volunteer to taste the baking of his Lordship’s kitchens in your place." One of the dockworkers offered.

"See? No shortage of poison testers."