14 - The Last Day of Magic

August 1776

The Americans expected an attack in the wake of Washington's rejection of the Howe's ineffectual peace offering.  However July passed without incident and as August began to come to a close the American's wondered when the British would finally spring their attack.  On the eave of their mobilization to attack New York General Howe instructed his Royal magicians to launch a preemptive strike intended to soften and demoralize the Continental Army stationed in, and around New York.

It was a quiet evening on August 22nd.  Nicholas Fisher was sitting in his room making notes in his journal when suddenly he felt a surge of magical energy spring up all around him.  It was instant and overwhelming.  He jumped from his chair and rushed out into the streets to identify the source.  He quickly determined the source to be 3 British magicians using practical magic to drum up a massive storm.  By the time Fisher explained the situation to Charlotte and General Knox the sky over the bay had already turned as black as ink and huge thunderhead clouds were reaching like greedy fingers up and over the airspace of the city.  Lighting darted across the ominous clouds and a constant deep rumbling thunder shook the ground unlike any summer storm Fisher had ever felt.

There was nothing Knox or any of the Continental soldiers could do against the wrath of the Royal magician's attack.  On the other hand, Nicholas and Charlotte could do something about the attack, even though their situation seemed dire.  So began the magician's clash that lasted the better part of 3 hours.

Nicholas immediately attempted to counter the magic of the British magicians but they were too strong and had too much energy in reserve to be stopped.  The storm was inevitable but Nicholas was determined to foil their plot somehow.  In an attempt to feel out the storm and perhaps hold it at bay Nicholas asked Charlotte to discharge some of the storms energy before it reached the city.  Charlotte discharged one large lighting bolt from the storm and directed it back to Staten Island which set ablaze some of the British powder supplies and caused a white-hot explosion visible from the Main Battery on Manhattan Island.  The Royal Magicians quickly reacted and pushed the storm out off of the bay and over the New York City.

Fisher had never faced of against three Royal magicians before.  For once he began to feel that magic could not overcome the obstacle in front of him, in terms of practical magic he was terribly outmatched in this situation.  Charlotte too struggled to do anything with the storm, the storm wanted to be destructive, and everyone on the city expected the worst.  Any effort on Charlotte's part only resulted in further damage and mayhem in the city.  The breaking point for the two Continental magicians came when Charlotte coerced Fisher to channel as much energy as he could through her.

Fisher channeled as much power as he could through Charlotte.  The power was so great that it blinded Charlotte to the reality of the situation.  One moment she thought she was building up a lighting strike to destroy the British magicians, and the next moment she realized she was unleashing the storm's fury on three officers of the Continental Army.  It all happened so quickly she couldn't stop herself. A huge blue tendril of lightning burst through a small house in the middle of Manhattan and instantly killed all three men.

Fisher had no idea that he had been an accessory to the death of three men from his own army, but he could instantly from the look on her face that the power he had fed Charlotte was too great and that something had gone terribly wrong.  Fisher abandoned his scheme of trying to fight the storm head on, instead he formed a new idea to stop the British magicians.  Fisher had no time to explain his new plan.  All fisher told Charlotte before he charged off was to hold back the storm and keep it from harming the city as best she could.

For two hours Fisher rode though the streets of New York City shouting to anyone who would listen that there was nothing to fear, Charlotte Rose, the savior of the Boston and Quebec Sieges was here to protect them.  Slowly word spread and the mood of the men in the city changed just enough to offer a hope of fighting the storm back with some positive emotional magic.  Fisher returned to Charlotte exhausted, Charlotte herself was exhausted, as were her reserves of stored magic.

Just as the storm entered its third hour Fisher and Rose made their stand.  They gave it everything they had, and it was just enough to dislodge the storm's grasp over the city.  The black clouds rolled back out over the bay and just as the storm receded back to Staten Island the British magician's stopped feeding the storm and within minutes the clouds broke up and scattered back out and over the Atlantic.  The storm was over.

Charlotte woke the following morning from a fitful evenings rest.  All night in her mind she replayed the massive lighting blast that killed the three men in the house just a few blocks away.  Seeking to shake  the endless torment from her conscience she set out early before anyone else at the Kennedy mansion was awake.  She made her way across a few short blocks and in that small space of time passed by several burned homes.  The storm the previous evening had set many a fire in the city and in the thick morning fog the smell of burnt wood hung heavy in the air.

Charlotte made her way to the small house she had seen so many times by then in her minds-eye.  The small home was ravaged, the roof blasted away and most of the single story walls were charred black from the blast.  Standing in front of the house Charlotte was forced to accept that it had been real, what she had seen, what she had done, was real.  She was afraid to enter but at the same time, the house had a certain pull on her, an emotional gravity that pulled her in. She stepped inside.

The men were strewn about the small room that had been the dining room.  Their bodies were blackened beyond recognition.  The tip of one man's sword was complexly melted off and the coins of another man were reduced to puddles of metal that had pooled into a blistered pocket of flesh on the man's thigh.  The only thing to identify any of the men was an officers insignia which Charlotte took from one of the dead men's coats.  Perhaps she could learn the man's identity from the insignia, or perhaps she would simply keep it to honor the man and to serve as a reminder of what had happened; it was too soon to know for certain.  Charlotte didn't stay long, she was quickly overwhelmed by the smell and had to remove herself from the house.

Charlotte, still reeling from the aftermath of the storm, returned to Kennedy Mansion before breakfast was set.  Neither Fisher nor Knox were aware of her morning excursion.  Charlotte did well to hide her fragile state even as they all discussed the storm over the morning meal.  Warning shots were fired from the main battery just as breakfast was cleared from the table.  Everyone got up to see what new ill fate the British had in store for them.  Across the bay the British were loading men into small landing craft.  The portents of the storm being a precursor for the invasion were true.  The British were coming to fight, and from the looks of the mounting invasion force the fight appeared as though it would be a bloody affair.

Knox and the magicians watched as the General Howe sent forth his men.  As was typical during breakfast a knock could be heard at the front door.  It was about that time of the morning that General Greene typically came to call and delivered the days report, however the man who stepped through the doors of the dining room was not General Greene, it was General John Sullivan.  Sullivan seemed surprised and somewhat sheepish to find Fisher and Rose in the company of General Knox.  The last time the three had met things had not gone so well.  Fisher and Rose had been extricated, by order of the deceased General Thomas, from Sullivan's command hours before he foolishly lead his reinforcements, and Thomas' evacuees from the Quebec siege, back into battle with Guy Carleton and John Burgoyne's superior forces just outside of Montreal.  The battle was a blood-bath, the Continentals were sent fleeing pell-mell into the surrounding swamps.  Over half the men died in battle or from smallpox after being chased for days through the swamps by the British.  The battle cost Sullivan his command and nearly his place in the Continental Army.

However, on August 23rd, in the dining room of the Kennedy Mansion, Sullivan seemed to be a changed man.  He greeted the magicians with respect and apologized from his handling of the situation in Canada.  Perhaps the defeat had brought about the change of heart, or perhaps the scolding and demotion from the Continental Congress had curbed his arrogance.  Either way, Sullivan was to lead the men on Long Island into battle, not Greene.  Sullivan explained that Greene had fallen ill and that Washington had appointed him to lead so that Greene could recover.

Knox invited Sullivan to stay and discuss the plans for the battle.  Sullivan explained that Washington was being forced to split his Army in two.  When outnumbered, as Washington was - 3 to 1, it was never advised to split your forces, but Washington felt he had to.  He believed that General Howe was landing a third of his men on Long Island as a diversion and that the real invasion of New York would happen after General Howe's brother, Admiral Howe, sailed the remaining two-thirds of the men up the Hudson River and landed on Manhattan Island.  Washington had no choice but to defend against both attacks; if either one were successful they would be cut off and they would be forced to surrender the entire army.

Sullivan told Knox that he was being given command of New York.  It would be his responsibility to stop Admiral Howe and the British fleet.  Meanwhile Sullivan would defend Long Island.  After laying the grounds for the defense of their two positions the two generals turned their attention to the magicians in the room.  Seeing as the army was being divided they suggested that the magicians be divided as well.  That way each half of the army would have a magician support.  At first Fisher and Rose were opposed to the idea, stating that they worked best together, but eventually they agreed to separate for the battle to best serve whatever the British threw at them.  The battle for New York was to be the biggest and most important battle either magician, or the Continental Army for that matter, had seen.  Yet, Nicholas and Charlotte would have to face it apart from one another.