Nicholas and Charlotte were called to General Arnold's office for deployment. General John Thomas had arrived in Montreal and they would be traveling with him to Quebec. Before Thomas arrived Arnold explained that all reinforcements were being inoculated before heading to Quebec to prevent the further spread of Smallpox. Fisher received the treatment without issue but Rose put up a fight long enough for Thomas to arrive. Thomas exploded at Arnold for administering inoculations those headed north with him. Before he was a general John Thomas had been a doctor and he ardently disagreed with inoculation on the grounds that it only created a chance of infection for those who were at no risk.
Thomas chastised Arnold for sending infected men to the front lines and threatened to dismiss Fisher from his army. Arnold apologized and insisted that Fisher and Rose both go with him to Quebec stating that, Franklin personally vouched for their expertise in magic saying specifically, that of the three magicians, Fisher and Rose were the two to keep close by.
After several long days spent traveling up the St. Lawrence, which was still partially frozen, they arrived outside of Quebec. Fisher and Rose could do little to ease their passage, thick ice floes choked the river. Winter held an icy grip on Canada that year and refused to release its hold even for the magicians. All of Fisher and Rose's efforts where in vain and it only exhausted Fisher as the trip dragged on. On the last day of the journey Fisher began to exhibit symptoms of the pox and Thomas warned him to rest and lie low.
Upon arrival Thomas found himself in charge of 1,300 men, of which only 700 men are fit to fight, the rest were sick unto death with pox. To make matters worse the camp had only a few days rations left and only enough gunpowder for each man to fire two volleys. In addition to his woes, Thomas had roughly 600 men with expired short-term enlistments who were still hanging around the camp. The expired enlistees refused to fight or be productive and were further bringing down the morale of the army. Even though the short-term enlistees were released from duty they were stuck in camp due to the same winter conditions that prevented Thomas from making a speedy journey north. There was nowhere for them to go but to walk several hundred miles home on an empty stomach with no winter clothes through the biting cold, so instead they stayed.
Thomas' first assessment of the siege was that his men didn't need a general, they needed a doctor. Thomas quickly began to understand that he was not sent to Quebec to salvage a victory but to manage an evacuation. All reports indicated that the British had converted one of their ships into an ice breaker and were making good progress towards Quebec. The reinforcements were expected to land in a day or so, and once they did, the siege would be over.
The British ships coming up the river were loaded with 13,000 fresh troops from Europe. Of the 13,000 men on board 8,700 were British regulars the other 4,300 were German mercenaries referred to as Hessians. Hessians were known throughout the world as the elite troops in all of Europe. The news that the men in the siege camp would be outnumber 2 to 1 by Hessians alone was enough to destroy any hope of winning a battle once the reinforcements arrived.
Thomas began to organize a retreat but he needed several days to accomplish the task given all the supplies and sick who needed to be moved. Thomas released the magicians to do what they could to help the army, with a warning to Fisher that he should rest and try to stay healthy due to his sickness.
Fisher and Rose found Crowe to be just as discouraged as Thomas with the situation in camp when they caught up with in his tent. For weeks Crowe had been sitting idle trying to stay healthy as the army wasted away. As much as Fisher wanted to help he was too sick to manage any travel or physical exertion. Not wanting to sit with Fisher, Rose suggested that Crowe take her out to see how close the British were to reaching Quebec. With any luck, Rose hoped that they could do something about impeding their progress. Crowe reluctantly agreed and the two set out together.
Crowe left thinking that one glimpse of the British ships
and the 13,000 men aboard would be sufficient to squash Rose's enthusiasm and put an end to her foolishness. Instead the
pair would return with Rose triumphant, and Crowe signing her praises,
recounting stories of how she single-handedly foiled the enemy and turned back a British flagship.
They arrived at an overlook within range to see three large ships flying the Union Jack down river through Crowe's spyglass. The lead ship had iron plating strapped to its stern and was smashing its way through the lose ice, clearing a path for the ships behind it. At that point Crowe figured his point was proven and insisted that they return. Rose refused him and they fought. At one point in their argument Crowe blew up at Charlotte. When he did he inadvertently channeled his anger into Rose. Feeling the rush of magic, Rose turned Crowe's frustration with her against himself. Charlotte yelled right back at him and literally bowled him with a magically charged shout.
Charlotte had found a new source of magic. She took control of the situation and pressed Crowe into her service from that point on. There was power in Crowe's frustration and Charlotte wanted more of that power. On Charlotte's orders they stealthily approached the ice breaker ship. At one hundred yards they stopped and ducked behind some low vegetation. The ships name, HMS Surprise, was clearly legible on the bow of the ship. With Crowe's spyglass they could see the faces of the men on board.
Crowe immediately took notice of the German mercenaries on board. He explained to Charlotte that they were called Hessians, savage warriors and the most disciplined soldiers in all of Europe. Crowe was equally terrified and disgusted by the Germans, King George had hired mercenaries to fight and kill his own subject.
Rose wasn't impressed. She took the spyglass and spotted the captain of the ship. He was a tall angry looking man and he was shouting at the top of lungs at his men to hasten their progress. All of the sudden Charlotte had an idea. She pulled out all of her trinkets laid them out on her lap. Next she told Crowe to watch the captain. Crowe didn't know where she was going with all her antics but he was terrified of being spotted and angry beyond measure with Rose for her bullheaded behavior.
Rose knew Crowe was reaching his breaking point. She also knew that so long as he remained frustrated with her he would continue to funnel anger into her and allow her to work some bit of magic. Between Crowe's anger and her magiced trinkets Charlotte was able to create a cocktail of magics, using everything she has in one shot, and hurled it at the Surprise. To the both of their astonishment it worked and a shard of ice shattered a part of the ships iron plating, impaling the ship and stalling the ship.
The captain went into a rage. Crowe still fuming and not knowing what Charlotte was doing funneled his anger, as well as the anger of the entire crew, into Charlotte. With that power Charlotte was able to hold the ship pinned on the ice long enough to allow ice and water to flow into the hull. The damage to the ship was bad enough that the captain ordered his men to dislodge the ship and turn back for repairs.
Charlotte's success was so great that even Crowe, despite Charlotte's pride in her self, couldn't stay angry with her. The two slipped off unnoticed and returned to camp with their glorious tale of victory.
In Crowe and Rose's absence, Fisher whipped up a flurry of activity centering around his tent. Messengers came and went, and even General Thomas was summoned to his council. The truth of the matter was that Nicholas was ill, and getting worse, but for all appearances he was conducting some grand scheme. The ruse worked and the soldiers around camp soon became interested in what the magician was planning.
Thomas stayed with Fisher for many long hours, feeding the soldier's speculation of some master plan being hatched, while in fact Thomas was actually giving aid and watching over Fisher as he slept. The camp that Crowe and Rose returned to was not the camp they had left. Instead of the usual quiet and lethargy that had been so commonplace for months there was talk of action. Their story of turning back the British reinforcements only heightened everyone's expectation of a battle in which the Continentals would assuredly be the victors given their new-found secret weapon, the magicians.
The buzz around camp that the magicians had created would ultimately being their undoing. The British, despite the Surprise's setback, were able to reach Quebec the next day due to a warming of the weather. Guy Carlton wasted no time in assembling his relieved and restless men and took to the field with 1,000 men, consisting of Canadian loyalist militia and British regulars, to drive the Continentals away from city and end the siege. Instead of retreating, as was the plan Thomas originally had in mind, his men clamored for a fight. Thomas couldn't deprive his men a chance to fight, it was after all what they had come there to do.
The Continentals fielded less than 250 men and only one cannon, for which nobody had much of any experience firing. Carlton outnumbered and out gunned the Continentals with 6 gleaming brass cannon. Carlton brought his men to bear, in orderly rows 6 men deep, on the Thomas and his small inexperienced army. The Continentals were no match. After one cannonade and a single musket volley, both of which were more show that anything, Carlton had the Continentals in a broken retreat dropping muskets, satchels of food, and powder horns all over the battlefield as they fled.
To make matters worse, the over confidence of the Continentals had caused the women and the sick of the camp to linger to watch the battle expecting a victory. They should have been packing and retreating with the extra time that the soldiers were buying them, instead they were swept up in the panic of the army's retreat causing them to leave everything behind in their escape. All in all the Continentals left behind most of their sick, nearly all of their food, 15 cannon, several barrels of powder, the majority of their boats, and pieces of important military correspondence, which the Britsh would later use to exploit their weaknesses.
As for Fisher, he chose to fight in the battle against Thomas's better judgement. Charlotte wisely stayed out of the battle, but found herself in harms way nonetheless after the camp was overrun by Carleton's men. Fisher managed to help Thomas keep their men in formation, even against staggering odds. In the end, the men broke and ran. In the scramble Fisher was trampled and was almost killed due to his weakened state, but Thomas plucked the magician off the battlefield from his mount and rode him to safety with the rest of the fleeing men and camp followers.
The Siege of Quebec was over, but the retreat from Canada had just begun.