10 Seresstine, afternoon

We’ve been fighting for seven hours now and we’re all exhausted. The battle mages were, as I predicted, prepared for our assault. They have defensive kathanas now, shimmering pale shields that protect them from missiles, and while they can’t defend against fire, they can dismiss it before it does too much damage. The shields don’t hold up against really big missiles thrown really fast, but there are fewer of us who can do that. The only good thing about them is they make it easy for us to see our targets through the nightmare furor that is the battlefield—people milling around, clustering so we can’t even tell our men from theirs.

Everyone is trying to come up with alternative forms of attack, even the pacifists, though their plans are more for how to sneak in and disable the remaining war wagons. I’m just grateful for the following things:

1. The Castavirans don’t have Cederic’s shield. We’d have no chance against it.
2. The melee fighting hasn’t reached us yet, not anywhere close.
3. The war wagons have stopped firing now that they’ll pulverize their own people as well as ours if they do.
4. The battle mages still have no idea who or where we are.

Number 4 can’t last long. I’ve had our people move occasionally and spread out into little groups so we’re not obvious, and of course I’ve forced them to abandon Norsselen’s gesturing, but at some point someone’s going to use logic, and then we’ll be in trouble.

I’m going to nap, and maybe this will all look better later.