Parno's Gambit: The Black Sheep of Soulan: Book 3

by N. C. Reed

  “Very well,” Davies nodded. “Thank you, Mister Parsons. You and your men should stand down and get some rest, but please make sure my aide knows where we can find you. I may have need of your services again.”

  “Aye, sir,” the man nodded and walked tiredly away.

  “Henry,” Davies smiled, extending a hand. “It's good to see you.”

  “Bryce,” Herrick nodded. “My boys are strung out for miles behind us but barring a problem should all be in here by day after tomorrow at the latest. Maybe even by tomorrow night, weather permitting.”

  “That is good news,” Davies exhaled. “I'm sure you saw what's left of 2nd Corps on your way in,” he added.

  “Is that who it was?” Herrick was stunned. “I. . .I thought they were just. . . .”

  “Militia, maybe?” Davies raised an eye brow. “Shirkers even?”

  “Not shirkers, no,” Herrick shook his head. “Knew you wouldn't go in for that. They just looked. . .rough.”

  “They've borne the brunt of the assault since the war began,” Davies said quietly, refusing to allow his men to be denigrated even by another Corps commander. “They have sustained losses on average approaching fifty percent or greater. After our last engagement, Marshall McLeod ordered them pulled from the line for refit. Now that you've arrived, I'm half expecting him to order them back to Nasil or even to Shelby while they incorporate replacements and repair and refit.”

  “Why Shelby?” Herrick looked surprised.

  “As a back stop to Raines if needed,” Davies replied, turning back to his map.

  “What about this last engagement?” Herrick asked, turning his own eyes to the map table. “Last I'd heard was about a cavalry raid.”

  “Imperial troops attacked out position in strength three weeks ago,” Davies informed him. “Came at us with all hands and the cooks. We managed to turn them back, but. . .it hurt.” He handed a single sheet of parchment to Herrick who looked at it for a moment then whistled softly.

  “Looks like you hurt them, too,” he noted, returning the report.

  “We did, but we can't stand those kinds of losses. They may can,” Davies looked grim. “Marshal McLeod thought we had gained an advantage, perhaps even a decisive one, but. . .the man who just left here leads the Marshal's personal scout unit and they returned not long ago from a trek behind the Imperial lines. They've spotted at least three new Imperial divisions with numbers estimated at a minimum of thirty thousand strong heading this way. Their arrival will negate every advantage we thought we had gained. Or would have gained with your arrival and the arrival of 5th Corps.”

  “Now wait a minute,” Herrick looked taken aback. “Between Freeman and I, we can muster probably. . .well, even allowing for the units we were ordered to detach we should at least be able to bring another sixty thousand regulars plus the militia units we still have!”

  “And we're already facing over one hundred thousand Imperial troops, not including this new army that's on it's way down the valley,” Davies nodded. “Even with both your Corps here, we would have been hard pressed to launch the Marshal's planned offensive. Now. . .” Davies trailed off with a shrug.

  “Offensive?” Herrick looked even more surprised. “I assumed he wanted us to take over the defense so your troops could rest.”

  “Hardly,” Davies snorted. “Marshal McLeod intended to launch an attack as soon as both you and Freeman were up and rested. Now, I don't know how this will affect his plans,” he waved at the new notations being made on the map. “I think the news of their scouts worries me more than anything other than not knowing if they're going to change Generals.”

  “Why?” Herrick asked.

  “Why the scouts bother me, or the changing of command?” Davies looked at him, then proceeded to answer both.

  “The efficiency of their scouts leads me toward suspecting that these new divisions may be more experienced or at least better trained than what we're currently facing. As for Generals, well, we've bloodied this one twice now, assuming that their Emperor didn't kill whoever was in command of the first defeat. We're beginning to get a glimmer of how this commander thinks, at least somewhat. If they change, then their attacks may change. Funny, isn't it? What should be a weakness for them turns out to actually work to their advantage at least a little.”

  “Except that it drives them to make stupid decisions because they only get the once chance to succeed,” Herrick nodded.

  “True,” Davies allowed. “At any rate, I will issue orders for Graham to shift to the right starting day after tomorrow at noon,” he got down to business. “That will allow your men to start moving into line on the left without risking our anchor along the river. Your men will end up with a bit over half the line probably.”

  “All right,” Herrick nodded. “I'd hoped for a day of rest for them, but after seeing 2nd Corps, my men can rest once they're in place. They haven't had to face any action and there's nothing hard about a long march that a day's inactivity won't cure, assuming the enemy allows it.”

  “Assuming,” Davies nodded grimly. “Let us hope they do.”

  ~*~

  Lieutenant General Gerald Wilson surveyed the reports from his various commanders with about half his mind. The other half was kept open for a member of the Imperial Secret Police, a shadowy if well known organization that the Emperor used to execute his will among the elite of the Empire.

  Since his second defeat at the hands of the Soulan army opposing him, Wilson had been expecting to see one of those assassins enter his office to eliminate him. He wondered if his family had already been killed. He had no way to know other than send someone to check, and that would let whoever was watching his family know that Wilson was thinking about it, which meant that he had done something worrisome that the Emperor would need to know, which would lead to a member of the Secret Imperial Police visiting him here in his headquarters, which made him wonder if his family had already…

  Wilson shook his head, hoping to clear that rambling thought that cycled through his head about every two minutes. It was a constant wheel, circular thinking that presumed something would happen because something else had happened when he didn't know if the first something had even happened yet because he was. . . .

  He stood abruptly, realizing that he was doing it again.

  “This is ridiculous,” he told himself finally. “I'm the commander of this army until I'm not. So long as I am, then I have work to do.” He grabbed his sword belt and swung it around his narrow hips, calling for his aide and orderly as he went. Both were waiting just outside the door.

  “Sir?”

  “Get my horse and my escort,” he ordered his aide.

  “Yes sir,” the young Captain nodded eagerly. “Right away!”

  Snorting at the younger man's exuberance, Wilson continued outside, looking at the organized chaos around him. It had been three weeks since the heinous losses of the battle that he himself had instigated and had intended to be the final push to destroy the Soulan army he faced. An army that was proving to be far more resilient than he would have believed before meeting them in battle.

  At the height of the battle, with the enemy in sight and after taking so many casualties to their demonic weapons that had tore gaping holes in his lines and taken scores of men at a time, a simple mistake by two idiot buglers had led to a mass retreat of his army. On the cusp of what might have been a great if costly victory, he had lost completely as his men had returned to their line of departure.

  He shook his head once more as he thought back to that day and that most stupid of incidents. He still found it hard to believe, but there it was. It had happened and there was nothing to do about it but continue from here.

  His men had refit as best they could after the battle, but in some cases, whole regiments had all but disappeared from the battlefield in the face of the destruction the southerners had laid down before his men. Strange objects that burst like ripe melons, spewing fire and destruction with them in every
direction. Men ceasing the exist in the face of those bursts and gaps many yards wide torn into an otherwise disciplined and well dressed line. It had to be witchcraft. That was the word floating through the army, in some cases spread by the very officers that commanded it.

  “Witchcraft,” Wilson snorted, shaking his head yet again. His education in military arts had included history. Carefully guarded history of how things had been before The Burning. The Great Dying. The Plague.

  Whatever name you gave it, it amounted to the same thing; the weapons his army was facing weren't from the future, they were from the past. The only wizardry at work here was science. Weapons such as this had existed in the Time Before as it was called, and Soulan had somehow resurrected them for their use in this war. Doing so gave them a tactical edge in the fighting that Wilson had no answer for save for heavy losses in the face of those weapons in a wild charge that he had to hope broke the Soulanie lines and allowed his men to overrun the weapons spewing that death and destruction into his troops.

  Only just when that seemed to have succeeded, a stupid mistake had ruined the entire thing. Now an army that had once feared nothing other than their commander was literally shaking in their camps at the thought of facing those hellish weapons ever again.

  Perfect.

  Reinforcements arriving from home had been intended to strengthen his flank as he began to turn his army, cross the river and head for Nasil, the southern capitol. Now, their number wouldn't even make good his losses from the last two battles. They would help, but it wouldn't return his army to full strength. And he dared not ask for more men. Even if by some miracle the Emperor hadn't decided to kill Wilson and his entire family, asking for more than what the Emperor gave him would indicate that Wilson lacked faith in the Emperor, and that was a one way ticket to being beheaded.

  No, he had to make do with what he had, which meant he had to fix the problems that his army was facing. Starting with their fear of the southern army and their 'witchcraft'.

  As his horse arrived, led by the commander of his escort, Wilson began to formulate a plan to accomplish that, and get his stalled offense back on the move.

  Before he lost his head.

  ~*~

  Sherron McLeod looked at her surroundings, disdain written clearly on her face. Callens looked at her face and wondered, not for the first time, how he had ever thought that face was beautiful.

  True, the Princess was beautiful in a physical sense, but inside she was rotten to the core. Too late he had realized that she was nothing but a hollow shell of the woman he'd once taken her for. A woman that he had hitched his wagon to good and proper, along with that of his men. Even if they managed to convince the authorities that they had no knowledge of their commander's treason, none of them would be allowed to remain in the army save as fodder for northern pikes. None would be trusted ever again.

  I am a fool, he thought darkly even as his 'Princess' turned her scornful gaze upon him.

  “This is the best you can do?” she demanded. “This. . .this farmhouse?”

  “It is the nearest structure for many miles, milady,” Callens told her for the second time. “You expressed a desire to be off off the road as soon as possible and inside. As such, yes. This is the best we can do.”

  “Ridiculous,” Sherron huffed, looking away. “To think that I have to pass the night in this squalor.”

  It was the same every night. Each and every night there was something the matter. No accommodations were satisfactory to her, no speed sufficient (it was either too slow or too fast, one or the other), and no amount of placating her worked. Every night for three weeks it was the same.

  Callens now knew why Sherron McLeod had been referred to as the Royal Bitch.

  “I suppose it will have to do, then,” Sherron told him flatly, as if conferring a boon upon a lesser mortal. “Have my things brought inside at once!” she ordered.

  “As you wish,” Callens fought off a sigh and nodded to his aide. With a nod of his own in reply the aide stepped away to secure the Princess' luggage, another sore spot for the beleaguered Colonel. Having left the palace with nothing but the clothing on her back, Sherron had insisted that stops be made to ensure she was properly provisioned for the trip south. More than once he had been reduced to taking by force the things she had desired, knowing all the time that doing so was leaving a trail anyone could follow straight to them.

  And still he obeyed her because the only way out of the mess he had placed himself and his men into was through it. With her.

  Once we get Prince Therron it will be different, he promised himself as he stepped outside the farmhouse. The family that made their home here were now sequestered in their own barn, essentially made prisoners. Something no other member of this Dynasty had ever done in all of their storied history.

  All I have to do is get her to the Key Horn, he told himself firmly. Once there, Prince Therron will take her in hand, and I can put all this behind me.

  He almost made himself believe it.

  ~*~

  “Buford!”

  Beaumont pretended not to hear his friend and second, Horace Whipple.

  “Dammit, Buford we have to stop!” Whipple's voice urged. “We're losing men and horses left and right!”

  “We have to be close,” Beaumont shook his head stubbornly.

  “Buford, they had a week's start on us. One day of rest isn't going to keep us from catching them. And we know exactly where they're going. We don't have to trail them, just keep them bottled up when they get there!”

  “Every day we don't manage to stop them, more people die at their hand,” Beaumont replied.

  “I know,” Whipple nodded grimly. “But we won't stop them by killing our own men and horses! We've been in the saddle for five days with little more than a nap, and we'd ridden hard for three days when we arrived in Nasil. We'd been off the line less than five days when the Prince summoned us. We have got to let our men rest and our horses catch their breath or we 'll be walking!”

  For a moment, Whipple thought Beaumont would continue on regardless, but finally, reluctance showing in every move he made, Beaumont began to slow, reining in his charger and holding up his hand to signal a slow march.

  “Very well,” he sighed as he patted his horse's flank, soothing the tired animal. “We 'll make camp now, rest one day, then start again. Agreed?”

  “A full day?” Whipple stressed. “We rest tomorrow and start at sunup the day after?”

  “Very well,” Beaumont said again, nodding absently. “One day.”

  Whipple turned and began issuing orders to the men behind, runners who moved ahead to seek suitable areas for encampments and aides who hurried to spread the word through the command. That done, Whipple turned his attention back to his friend and commander.

  The two of them had only recently led a highly successful raid behind enemy lines, returning just days before the Prince had summoned them to Nasil and ordered them to pursue and destroy Callens' regiment, returning the Royal Twins to Nasil for trial if possible and killing them if not. Beaumont seemed more driven than usual and it was wearing on Whipple more than he wanted to allow it to show. The man he had come to know was generally more professional than this.

  “Buford, are you going to be like this the whole time?” he asked carefully.

  “Like what?” Beaumont looked at him, puzzlement on his features.

  “You're driving the men into the ground for one thing, and killing horses doing it,” Whipple replied. “You don't speak unless you've no choice, you ignore your officers when they approach you, you aren't aware of your surroundings, the list could go on.”

  “I'm aware of my surroundings!” Beaumont scoffed.

  “What was the last town we passed through?” Whipple asked him calmly.

  “. . . .”

  “That's what I thought,” Whipple nodded, a look of satisfaction passing across his face. “Buford, we can't keep this up. I want the bastards as much as you do, but w
e can't destroy our unit getting them. Once this is done, we have to return to the Prince still able to fight. We can't win this one battle at the expense of the war.”

  Beaumont had slowed his horse to a walk now, his face pensive as he considered Whipple's words.

  “You're right or course,” he agreed finally. “I just. . .I can't imagine what Callens was thinking,” he said suddenly.

  “From what I hear, he wasn't thinking,” Whipple shrugged. “Not with his head, anyway.”

  “What do you mean?” Beaumont asked.

  “The Princess beguiled him,” Whipple shrugged again. “She's a looker, if you've never seen her,” he added. “Met her at a ball once,” he explained. “Cold hearted wench if ever I met one, and that's no lie nor exaggeration. Word has it that Callens fancies her, and she's prone to using that to encourage him, if you know what I mean.”

  “Are you serious?” Beaumont looked shocked. “He killed the King and nearly the Crown Prince for a woman?”

  “Well, to be fair he didn't actually do any of that,” Whipple reminded his friend. “Her Wenchship did that all on her own. Her own hand took the King's life and nearly that of Prince Memmnon. For my money,” he lowered his voice a bit, “Callens was as shocked as anyone else in the kingdom when she killed the her father. But having helped her that far, he's committed now. He's no choice but to continue.”

  “You think so?” Beaumont asked. “I admit I'd prefer to think that than think the son of the man who trained me had turned traitor. His father has to be rolling in his grave,” the cavalry man shook his head.

  “His father?” Whipple frowned. “You knew his father?”

  “I did,” Beaumont nodded firmly. “Was my first regimental commander when I made officer. He was doing a stint in the Militia as part of a training regimen. His tutoring enabled me to rise to company command and later to Second officer. He was promoted to Brigadier after that and moved to staff. I left soon afterward myself and went to teach horsemanship at Donson.”