by David Weber
“Risky, if you’ll permit me to say so, Your Majesty,” Clareyk observed.
“Agreed. But if you can pull it off, the return could be decisive.”
“I can see that. At the same time, Your Majesty, I trust you’ll forgive me for saying that if I’m about to try something risky, I’d really prefer for you to be somewhere else while I do it.”
“Everyone seems to keep saying that to me,” Cayleb replied with a tight grin. “And, usually, I can talk myself into going along with them. But this time, I think not, Brigadier. I’m asking you and your men to run a greater risk than we’d discussed earlier. I’m not going to do that while I sit somewhere in the rear.”
“Your Majesty, my entire brigade is worth far less to Charis than you are,” Clareyk said bluntly. “With all due respect, I must respectfully decline to unnecessarily endanger your person in a situation like the one we’re discussing.”
“Brigadier—” Cayleb began sharply, then made himself bite off his sentence. His jaw clamped for a moment, and then he inhaled sharply.
“You really intend to be stubborn about this, don’t you?”
“Your Majesty, I’m sorry, but I do.” Clareyk faced his monarch squarely. “It’s your prerogative to relieve me of my command, if you so choose. But the Empire literally cannot spare you at this time. You know that as well as I do. If you want me to bait a trap for Earl Windshare, I’ll do that. But I won’t risk your life on the possibility that Windshare might get lucky.”
Cayleb half-glared at Clareyk, but the brigadier didn’t flinch. Then his eyes flickered sideways to Merlin for a third time.
“Very well, Brigadier,” the emperor said after a long, simmering moment. “You win. And you’re wrong about my prerogative to relieve you.” He showed his teeth. “I’d get away with it about as long as it took for the Empress to find out what you’d done to piss me off.”
“I’ll admit that that thought did occur to me, Your Majesty.”
“I’m sure it did. However, if I allow you to chase me back to the rear, I’d at least like to leave . . . call it a personal representative behind. Someone who can report to me in person as soon as whatever happens happens.”
“May I assume you have someone in mind for that duty, Your Majesty?”
“I thought I’d leave Captain Athrawes.” Cayleb held Clareyk’s eyes levelly with his own. “I’ve always found Merlin’s reports extremely accurate, and I trust his judgment.”
“As do I, Your Majesty.” Clareyk smiled ever so slightly. “If you feel you can spare the seijin’s services, I’d be honored to have him remain with the Brigade.”
Sir Alyk Ahrthyr stood slapping his riding gloves impatiently against his thigh as the courier galloped up to him. He was out of direct contact with the semaphore masts Gahrvai had ordered constructed all across his rear areas. He could communicate only by old-fashioned dispatch riders, and that left him feeling even more edgy and irritated than he’d been when he received Gahrvai’s original, stunning message. Not that he needed much in the way of additional irritation.
“Well?” he growled as the courier drew up beside him.
“I’m sorry, My Lord,” the dust-covered young lieutenant replied. “The Baron hasn’t marched yet.”
“Then what in the name of Shan-wei is the idiot waiting for?!” Windshare snarled. Diplomacy had never been his strong suit, and unlike Gahrvai, he saw no reason to waste what little diplomacy he had on someone like Barcor.
I may not be the smartest man in the world, he thought savagely, but there’s at least one who’s a lot stupider than I am, by God!
“My Lord, I—” the courier began, but Windshare waved him into silence.
“Of course you don’t have an answer, Lieutenant. That was what General Gahrvai would have called a ‘rhetorical question.’ ” The cavalry commander surprised himself with a sharp bark of laughter. “Not exactly what people expect out of me, I admit.”
The lieutenant, rather wisely, simply nodded this time. Still, it was amazing how much better the exchange made Windshare feel . . . for the moment, at least.
He turned and stumped back over to the hilltop nearoak under whose broad-branched shade he had established his temporary command post. Dry seed cones crunched under his boots, and he found himself wishing the crunching sounds could have been coming from Baron Barcor. His staff looked up at him, and he grimaced disgustedly.
“The fat-arsed idiot hasn’t even started marching yet,” he growled. Very few of his staff saw any more reason than he did to conceal their opinions of Barcor, and one or two of them actually spat on the ground.
“My Lord, if he doesn’t start moving soon, then this army is well and truly fucked,” Sir Naithyn Galvahn said harshly.
Major Galvahn was Windshare’s senior aide, effectively his chief of staff, although the Corisandian Army didn’t use that particular term. Like virtually all of Windshare’s other officers, Galvahn was exceedingly wellborn. That was inevitable, given the fact that the cavalry tended to attract the nobly born like a particularly powerful lodestone. There was nothing wrong with Galvahn’s brain, however, and Windshare knew he tended to lean on the major.
“I know, Naithyn. I know,” he said, and looked out from the small hill, glaring at the dust clouds rising above the local turnpike which connected with the royal highway less than three miles from where he stood at this very moment.
Galvahn was right about what was going to happen if the Charisians managed to seal the western end of Talbor Pass while Gahrvai’s army was still trapped inside. Unfortunately, everyone seemed to understand that except the one man responsible for getting the army’s rear guard the hell out into the open to prevent it from happening!
Windshare didn’t want to admit just how desperate he was beginning to feel. Cayleb’s move to flank Talbor by landing a force west of it had scarcely been unexpected, but his ability to somehow eliminate the observation posts specifically placed to detect any such landing definitely was. He’d used the advantage of surprise he’d gained ruthlessly, and at this point, Windshare hadn’t even been able to form a clear, hard notion of how many men were ashore. It wasn’t for lack of trying, but against an army whose every soldier was equipped with a rifle, his cavalry patrols hadn’t been able to get as close to the Charisian columns as he would have liked.
It wasn’t his troopers’ fault. His men had no shortage of courage or horsemanship, but the ability of cavalry armed with lances, sabers, and horse bows or arbalests to stand up to massed rifle fire was . . . limited, at best. The only real advantages the horsemen retained were mobility and speed, and neither of those was great enough to offset their newfound disadvantages. The worst of it was that cavalry required open terrain if it was going to operate efficiently, but open terrain only allowed riflemen to begin killing them sooner, at longer ranges. And most of the terrain between Cayleb’s landing point and Green Valley consisted of rolling, open grasslands, rising steadily towards the east as they merged with the Dark Hills’ western foothills.
In light of his scouts’ inability to maintain close contact with the enemy, his notion of the Charisians’ strength was problematical, at best. The most anyone could say on the basis of the reports he’d received so far was that Cayleb had landed somewhere between ten thousand and eighteen thousand men. Windshare personally inclined towards the lower figure, but he was frustratingly aware that he had nothing concrete upon which to base his feeling. And even if Cayleb had “only” ten thousand men with him, Windshare had less than four thousand of his cavalry actually present. Another eight thousand of them were scattered along the line of the Dark Hills, watching the passes farther north from Talbor, but there was no way to recall any of those detachments in time to do any good. So here he sat, with not quite four thousand men and orders to harass a numerically superior force equipped with much longer-ranged weapons in order to delay its advance until Baron Barcor got his thumb out of his arse.
Which, at this rate, isn’t going to happen be
fore Langhorne returns to gather up the world, he thought disgustedly.
“All right, Naithyn,” he said finally, turning back from the oncoming dust clouds. “We’re going to have to do something, and you’re right, we’re going to have to do it quickly. I want everyone we’ve got moved to those cotton silk plantations west of Green Valley. Their columns are going to have to tighten up where the highway passes through that belt of woodland. I know it’s not very deep, but it should at least cramp them, and the ground on this side of the woods is the best place we’re going to find for cavalry.”
“Sir, those woods aren’t that thick or overgrown. Certainly not anything like the approaches to Haryl’s Crossing. Loose-order infantry can probably get through them without a lot of difficulty, and if they send riflemen forward into the trees, they’ll be able to use them for cover and—”
“Don’t worry, I’m not planning on deploying a nice juicy target for them inside rifle range. I’m not going to object if they do waste time sending their marksmen into those woods, mind you. What I’m thinking, though, is that there’s that nice rising slope this side of the woods. If we take position just over its crest and they know we’re there, they won’t be able to shoot at us, but they’ll have to respect the possibility of a charge. If nothing else, it should encourage them to halt in place until they can bring up additional infantry. And given the fact that they don’t seem to have any cavalry of their own on this side of the mountains, they may not realize we’re there in strength at all. If they advance up that slope, away from the protection of the woods, and get close enough to us . . .”
He let his voice trail off, and Galvahn started nodding. Slowly, at first, and then with increasing enthusiasm. Much as the major respected Windshare as a fighter, he wouldn’t have trusted the earl as a strategist. He was the ideal regimental or divisional commander, in many ways, but he probably would have been a disaster as an army commander. One of his virtues, however, was an excellent eye for terrain, and he was right. The plantations’ fields, covered in roughly knee-high cotton silk plants, offered a stretch of fairly level ground almost four miles wide. It was a fan-shaped stretch, widest at its western end and narrowing as it climbed towards the east. And, as Windshare had just pointed out, the land along its eastern edge broke down into a shallow trough before it started climbing again. The resultant depression was big enough—probably—to allow Windshare to conceal the bulk of his cavalry from the approaching Charisians until they were right on top of him. Nothing could magically erase the advantage the Charisians’ rifles bestowed upon them, but Windshare’s chosen spot was the closest thing to ideal ground they were likely to find.
Aside, of course, from the fact that it was barely a mile and a half west of Green Valley. If they couldn’t convince the Charisians to halt there, it was virtually certain Cayleb’s Marines would take Green Valley without a fight. And if they held Green Valley, the chances of any infantry force breaking out of Talbor Pass would be slim.
“Yes, My Lord,” he said now. “I’ll see to it at once.”
“Excuse me, Brigadier.”
Brigadier Kynt Clareyk looked up from his conversation with Colonel Arttu Raizyngyr, the commanding officer of the 2/3rd Marines.
“Yes, Captain Athrawes?”
“I wonder if I might have a word?” Merlin asked diffidently.
Clareyk looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, then nodded.
“I need to catch up with Colonel Zhanstyn’s battalion, anyway, Seijin Merlin,” he said. “Why don’t you ride along with me?”
“Thank you, Sir,” Merlin replied, and waited until Clareyk had mounted his horse once again.
Cayleb’s surrender to Clareyk’s insistence that he had no place at the point of the spear had surprised Merlin more than a little. And, truth to tell, it had left him in two minds. On the one hand, he was delighted to get Cayleb back where he belonged. On the other hand, Cayleb’s decision to leave him behind had made him feel undeniably uneasy. The rest of Cayleb’s bodyguards, not to mention the cavalry company surrounding him, ought to be capable of dealing with anything the emperor might run into, but Merlin had already lost Cayleb’s father. Whether that had been his fault or not, he still felt bitter regret every time he thought about King Haarahld’s death, and he had no intention of feeling that way over Cayleb’s death.
Then there’s that other minor consideration, he thought dryly as Clareyk concluded his brief conversation with Raizyngyr and headed for his horse. I could wish I’d had a little more time to think about how I’d handle this situation. I’m not even sure whether all those glances in my direction meant what I thought they did or not. He snorted suddenly in amusement. Now, if I were still Nimue, I could think of another reason for him to’ve been doing that. And, truth to tell, he’s cute enough I don’t think I’d have minded it at all. . . .
He managed not to smile as he watched the brigadier swing gracefully into the saddle. Unlike too many Marine officers, Clareyk obviously felt right at home on a horse’s back as he fell easily into place beside Merlin’s mount.
And he’s got really nice buns, too, Merlin thought.
“Now, Seijin Merlin,” Clareyk said, thankfully unaware of the seijin’s appreciative thoughts, as the two of them started forward, followed at a respectful distance by Major Lahftyn and the other members of Clareyk’s command group. “I believe you had something to say to me which you’d prefer no one else heard?”
Well, that answers that question, doesn’t it, “Seijin Merlin”? Merlin thought sardonically.
“I beg your pardon, Brigadier?” he said politely aloud.
“I realize I’m not really supposed to know this, Seijin,” Clareyk said with a crooked smile, “but I didn’t spend that long working with you, the Emperor, and Baron Seamount without realizing you’re considerably more than just one of the Emperor’s bodyguards. Or even ‘just’ a seijin who happens to know all sorts of interesting things, and have even more interesting ideas. I still remember how neatly you maneuvered me into suggesting the creation of the scout-snipers, for instance. And who it was who suggested the name for them. And I suppose I should go ahead and admit I’ve heard a few whispers of rumors about ‘visions’ of yours. In fact, I’ve found myself wondering on occasion just how much of the Emperor’s uncanny ability to predict what the enemy is likely to do stems from those visions you may or may not be having.”
Merlin managed not to wince, but only because he’d already suspected at least some of what was coming. He hadn’t anticipated the full of it, however, and he found himself wondering if Clareyk was still holding back even more suspicions.
Well, you knew he was a smart man when you and Cayleb picked him to develop the new infantry tactics. It would appear he’s even sharper than you’d realized, though, and sharp blades tend to nick fingers if you handle them carelessly. So I think it’s about time you started handling this one the right way.
“Brigadier,” he said, “obviously I can’t go into all of that without the Emperor’s permission. On the other hand, there’s not much point pretending you aren’t generally correct. I do have visions, of a sort, at least. And they have been quite useful to the Emperor—and to his father—on several occasions. Which, for obvious reasons, explains why all of us have been to some pains to prevent the rumors you referred to from getting any sort of broad circulation.”
“I can see why that would be, yes,” Clareyk agreed.
“Since you’ve figured out at least some of it, I suppose I should go ahead and tell you that while I can ‘see’ many things, I can see neither the future nor the past—only the present. Obviously, even that much can sometimes provide a major advantage, but it means, for example, that I couldn’t simply buff up my crystal ball—and, no, I don’t actually use one—and tell Cayleb ahead of time what Gahrvai and Windshare would do when they found out we’d landed behind them.”
Clareyk pursed his lips thoughtfully, then nodded, and Merlin continued.
“Although I
can’t see the future, I can tell you Earl Windshare is assembling the better part of four thousand troopers about another two miles down the road from here. It’s actually quite a good position from his perspective, and I believe he’s counting on the terrain to keep you from realizing how close he is until you blunder into him.”
“Which presents a possible opportunity to carry out His Majesty’s intentions,” Clareyk said thoughtfully.
“Yes, it does. But the place he’s found gives him a much better chance of actually pressing home a charge than I think Cayleb wanted you to give him.”
“Maybe so. But if his position is that good, then if we can’t entice him into charging, we’ll be forced to stop, at least until Brigadier Haimyn can come up to support us. So it’s either find a way to convince him to fight or else let him pin us down, possibly long enough for Gahrvai to get out of the trap.”
Merlin nodded, and Clareyk frowned pensively.
“Tell me more about this terrain Windshare’s chosen, Seijin,” he said.
The Earl of Windshare frowned, listening carefully as rifle shots popped distantly on the other side of the crest line. They were coming steadily closer, and he hoped his forward pickets weren’t taking too many casualties.
Damned rifles, he thought resentfully.
He remembered his own incredulity at Haryl’s Crossing when the rifles hidden in the woods had opened up on him. At first, he’d literally been unable to believe it was happening. No one could possibly shoot that far or that rapidly—the very idea had been unthinkable!
Unfortunately, the Charisians could. Windshare couldn’t quite agree with Gahrvai’s opinion that the new rifles were going to overturn all accepted battlefield tactics, just as their galleons had already overturned all accepted naval tactics, but even he had to admit the consequences were going to be profound. He wasn’t prepared to assume they’d just made cavalry obsolete as a decisive arm, but he was honest enough to admit that at least part of that reluctance might be pure, bullheaded stubbornness on his part.
