The King began to formulate a final plan with his closest advisors, while the others waited.
It was a strange feeling, being in the room while the King discussed sending troops to battle, and the likely loss of thousands of soldiers in the upcoming weeks. But that went both ways.
The Dagos Army was going to lose just as many soldiers, and possibly far more, as they would have to besiege fortified villages and compounds to take over regions.
If they didn’t, then they would be exposing their backs to the soldiers stationed there, and subjecting themselves to ambush.
The final decisions were made, and then the advisors were instructed to meet at the formal dining hall in fifteen minutes, after meeting with their sponsor.
Princess Alexis took Dominic and her retinue aside to a sitting room and flopped on a divan in a most unladylike manner.
"Well, that was as dull as ever. But they actually listened to something that I said for once, which is an improvement. After dinner, we will meet here again, and I will send out a formal update to the order.
Be prepared to be called upon again in the morning, with an update on how today’s new tactics worked.
Dominic, start formulating plans for what to do if the gliders are ineffective."
Dominic nodded in understanding, and began scrambling to come up with a plan for if his idea failed. He hadn’t been thinking that far before, but it was beginning to seem whole ’Advisor’ job was going to be a full-time endeavour.
Once he was finished with the meetings, Dominic went back to the training suite to work on assembling his usual ten rifles a night. It was a routine now, and gave him time to clear his mind.
What would he do if the gliders didn’t work? The idea would be linked to him, so he would have to come up with a replacement idea, or he would embarrass the Princess.
She was obviously speaking up on his behalf, and bringing him to higher levels within the Palace hierarchy.
The problem was, that was his best idea. If the gliders didn’t work, he really didn’t have much clue what would work better. Long-distance rifles with flaming enchantments? No, the new style balloons were made of fire-resistant material, unlike the old hydrogen airships.
Nobody would make that mistake again.
Mechanical horses could run as fast as airships flew. You could chase them until they began to unload their passengers, then shoot them on the way down. But that was probably already being done, and tracking an airship on a rainy night was a laughably low chance.
The next obvious choice was a shorter notice response.
As he worked to finish the rifles, Dominic came up with a simple improvement. A phosphorous tipped rocket with a parachute. If you detected, or suspected that you detected airships near you, you could fire it into the sky and illuminate the paratroopers.
Once you had spotted them, mages could target them easily enough, as well as riflemen.
But Pops might have a better countermeasure.
Once the work was finished, Dominic returned to the room and found Pops reading a blueprint on the worktable in the main room.
"Hey old man, I’ve got a question." Dominic began.
Pop gestured that he was listening, so he continued. "Rifles at long distance aren’t all that accurate, and the plan needs to hit flying targets. Is there a way to make ammunition that explodes in a designated range?"
Pops shrugged. "Sure. Just use artillery. Artillery shells have an adjustable timer. You can have them airburst."
And that was why Pops was the master.
"Thanks. They’re going to ask me about it in the morning, and I didn’t have a good answer for them."
The Dwarf chuckled and looked up from his work. "And how did you plan to find them so you could shoot at them?"
"A guy with binoculars and a phosphorous flare with a parachute?"
Pops nodded in satisfaction. "Easy. The units already have them, they’re emergency flares. Sending them a batch that burned brighter would be no trouble at all, or they could aim by red light.
But tell them to put a man on the night watch with enhanced hearing as well. It’s easier to hear an airship at night than to see it."
In the morning, the maids warned Dominic to wear his military formal wear and wait for the escort by the Royal Guard to the meeting. According to the gossip they had heard, there had been messengers arriving all morning, along with the magical messages that arrived directly at the Palace, so something big had to have happened last night.
The Princess met them on the way there, still appearing half asleep, and others were similarly bedraggled looking as they approached the meeting room at first light.
"Tell me you have something if that didn’t work." Princess Alexis whispered.
"Light up the sky with an emergency flare and use short timer artillery shells as airburst explosions to take out the paratroopers. Use someone with enhanced hearing to find the airships." Dominic whispered.
She nodded and silently repeated the message to herself as the entered.
Dominic moved to his spot at the side with the other advisors as the others came in.
The Crown Prince had one arm in a sling, and a large bandage on the side of his face. He should have been in the Palace, and Dominic got a sinking feeling that this meeting was about to go downhill fast.
"Good to see you all are on time. Lock the doors, this doesn’t leave these doors. Last night, three of our border Barons turned on the Crown Prince at a strategy meeting. They have defected to Dagos, and their families will be declared traitors at noon today during their executions.
However, we have more important news from the front lines. The gliders took down eight airships from three different locations. However, four more villages were raided by airship drops last night.
We do not have the resources to deploy enough mages to cover the whole border. Strategies, now." The King began.
Princess Alexis cleared her throat and relayed Dominic’s idea, then a plan to have the Paladin Orders send infiltrators to the peerages nearest the battles, disguised as servants. Servants had no power, so people spoke more freely around them, and it should help out the traitors before another incident could occur.
The King turned to the Crown Prince. "Any ideas after your ill-fated meeting? Do they simply think that we’ve lost, or is there some lingering animosity causing them to turn traitor?"
Crown Prince Claudius shook his head. "They were paid off well in advance. They have been working as spies for years, according to my interrogator. I believe that if we look, we will find other estates have taken suspiciously little damage when they fell to the enemy."