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

by N. C. Reed

  The three men facing him lost some of their belligerence at that, but looked no less hostile toward him personally.

  “Remain here and see to your wounded,” he ordered. “Stay out of bow range and under cover as much as possible. I'm going to report to General Stone. If he wants this position taken we'll need more than just our division it looks like.”

  All three nodded and walked away without bothering to salute or render any manners whatsoever. Normally quick to take offense to any oversight such as that, Weir decided to ignore this one. He told himself it was because he deserved it.

  Not because the look given him by the three men was in any way unnerving. Not at all because of that.

  ~*~

  “You're telling me your entire division couldn't sweep aside one measly group of farmers and lumberjacks? That's what you're telling me. Right?” Stone's voice had a biting quality that set Weir on edge. He had calmed down considerably on the twenty-minute ride to Stone's field headquarters and had managed to present his report calmly and concisely, only to have Stone talking down to him, refusing to accept that he had been wrong. Again.

  “With respect, sir,” Weir shot back, “you weren't there or you'd know it's not just a bunch of farmers and lumberjacks! There were thousands of bows behind that tree line and on that hill, sir. Clouds of arrows hitting my men and felling them like leaves, sir. And no, my entire division can not carry that position without support. We have no artillery and damn few archers of our own as you may recall, sir. I'm sure you can find a way around that, but I, sir, cannot. And my men are the ones suffering because of it.”

  Now it was Stone who bit his tongue to keep from responding to Weir's acidic tone of voice and edge of insolence. He had no desire to find himself facing Weir with a sword in his hand, which he would have to do if challenged because if he pulled rank to get out of it, he would lose what respect he had left among his men.

  “How many men do you estimate they have, then?” he asked. “And what were your losses?”

  “My losses were still being tabulated when I left,” Weir replied. “As to how many, I can't but tell you it has to better than two thousand and that's conservative. They fired a mass of arrows packed so tightly there's no real way to estimate it. We could be facing an entire division for all I know, and them with every advantage.”

  Once again, the lack of mounted archers, or even cross training for his men in archery, was coming back to haunt Stone. His men had been intended to be an answer to southern cavalry. As such it had been determined that they wouldn't need archery skills, able to depend on archers among the infantry instead. A fine idea indeed. Except for forgetting that the infantry would by and large not be near by during an protracted cavalry battle since such a battle would of necessity be fought on open ground with room for thousands of horses to maneuver freely.

  The decisions made for his men were made by men who would never face the southern army in battle themselves. Stone was sure that from one thousand miles away that it looked perfectly fine to depend on infantry archers to support horse soldiers. From up close and personal that wasn't working worth a damn. And now Wilson had sent him and his men into yet another nest of wasps without proper support, resulting in too many of his men being killed for absolutely no gain. You could bet that Wilson wouldn't be accepting any of the blame for this if his men failed here, either.

  “Suggestions?” he asked Weir and his other two division commanders who had rode over after seeing Weir return.

  “Go home?” one of them suggested, only half joking.

  “We're supposed to be trying to pull troops from the west,” the other shrugged. “Looks like we've accomplished that.”

  “No,” Stone shook his head, ignoring the joke. “No, I can't believe for a moment that this bunch came from the group opposing Wilson. They were already here, which means that someone over there,” he waved a hand to the southwest, “anticipated this very move and placed troops here to stop it. Damn that Wilson, I told him he was setting us up to fail!” he said before he thought. His men looked at him but said nothing. It wasn't like they could have refused after all.

  “We either try and carry one of these positions so we can break through or we double back, head further east and try to find a way through there,” Weir sighed, his anger finally bleeding away somewhat.

  “Or we can stay here and demonstrate like we're looking for a way through,” Terry Blake, commander of 1st Division, offered. “Like I said, we're supposed to be a threat so we act like a threat. Our orders don't actually say we have to reach their capitol after all. Just to threaten if we got that far unopposed. Which, we didn't.”

  “Unless we actually make some progress, we won't be pulling any troops from the west,” Stone shook his head slowly. “We have to become a threat or we're not fulfilling our mission. That means we have to break through this mess somewhere and get in behind them. If we can get them on open ground then we might be able to take them. Even eliminate them. That would force their army to further divide itself in order to send someone to oppose us here. That weakens them in the west and makes Wilson's job easier.”

  “Because he's made it so easy on us,” Weir snorted. Stone didn't snap at him, mostly because it was true.

  “All right,” Stone mused. “We'll take all three divisions and attack, but…”

  Stone spent ten minutes outlining his on-the-fly plan. By the time he was finished his commanders were all nodding their agreement. Maybe the Soulanies weren't the only ones who could use slight of hand.

  ~*~

  “I think they're leaving.”

  The men hidden in the scout lookout were careful to stay hidden, lest they be caught, but even from their obscured spot on the wooded hilltop overlooking the temporary Imperial command post it looked as if the Nor were doing just that; leaving.

  “Something's up,” the young major shook his head. “This isn't. . .why come all this way to make one aborted attack and then run?”

  “Maybe they didn't expect to find anyone here,” the even younger lieutenant shrugged. “On the face, it would make sense that all of us was over yonder,” he pointed west, “with the army. Right?”

  “They would have to know we wouldn't leave the door to the capitol open,” the major shook his head again, not realizing that the former Marshal had actually done just that. “This is something else.”

  The division that had been cut up by the 31st Mounted Infantry moved past the other two Imperial cavalry divisions on its way north. As it went by, the others fell into trail. By all appearances, the Nor were headed back the way they had come.

  “Unless they're going to try and find a way around us, the only reason to head back that way is if-damn it!” he broke off as the Imperial horsemen suddenly wheeled right in the road and took off at a gallop.

  “Hurry and get this to the Brigadier,” the major ordered. “Tell him the enemy is headed down the Sadler road at a full gallop! Hurry!” he urged again. “The entire command, tell him! All of them straight down the Sadler road!”

  The young lieutenant leaped onto his waiting horse and set the spurs to him, slapping reins around him to urge the big charger on. The major looked at his sergeant.

  “Ride to Colonel Whit's position and tell him that the entire Imperial Cavalry Corps is on its way down the Sadler road,” he ordered. “At a full gallop. If he doesn't move and move now, they may be in a position to cut him off. Go!” The sergeant snapped a salute and aimed his horse west, tearing away from the outpost as if scalded. The major looked back at the departing enemy and shook his head ruefully. The enemy general had put one over on him. Acting as he were withdrawing until all of his units were on the road, then wheeling in place with his line of march already set, to take off at a gallop toward his actual target.

  The Sadler road position had been visited by ax wielding cavalrymen today as well, but had seen no other action thus far, so they had not been reinforced. Right now, all that manned that rugged fortification and
the cut it commanded was a company of mounted infantry. Less than two hundred men against at least twenty-thousand and almost certainly many more. The major had never gotten a good count from so far away and with so much action among the enemy.

  Pierce had to either get his command gathered and fall back, or rush everything down the Sadler road and hope that he was both in time, and that everything would be enough to hold.

  The major was pretty sure that both were forlorn hopes.

  ~*~

  “All of them?” Pierce asked the gasping lieutenant who had just blurted his message out to him.

  “Yes sir!” the young officer nodded. “They acted like they was leaving until they was formed up and then came about right in the road and headed straight down Sadler, sir!”

  Looking at the map before him, Pierce traced the Sadler road. It didn't lead to the capitol straight on but it would lead the enemy much deeper into their territory. That much closer to their objective.

  “I had hoped we could hold longer,” he sighed. His position had just become untenable.

  “Runners to all commands, reform at the first alternate position,” he informed his aide, who nodded and began issuing orders. “And I need a courier.”

  ~*~

  “Well, that didn't last too long,” Jared Whit sighed as he mounted his horse. “I rather hoped we could hold out here for a while longer.”

  “Here we likely could have,” Hernandez shrugged beside him. “They're hitting somewhere else though, and we can't be everywhere at once.”

  “Straight to the rally point gents,” Whit told his scouts. “Spare the horses though,” he warned. “We may need them before the sun sets.”

  The 31st Mounted Infantry rode away from a naturally strong defensive position that had just been made unusable by virtue of being flanked. Pierce didn't have sufficient troops to hold this entire line so they had to withdraw.

  Privately Whit wondered if they would be able to halt the Imperial drive short of the river opposite the capitol of Soulan. They didn't really have terrain on their side except in a few places. Once the Nor found a way through them, as they had here, then the territory would open up slightly. Not much, but enough for a large group of horsemen to take advantage of their mobility and greater numbers.

  They were going to need help to hold on, but Whit had no idea where that help would come from.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  -

  General Jackson Andrews reread the message from Wilson as he waited for his division commanders to report to his tent. Unlike Wilson's command, the western army wasn't formed into 'corps', having all division commanders answering directly to Andrews instead. Eliminating one level of command had streamlined Andrews control of his forces and the command structure of his army. The fact that his army was only about half the size of Wilson's helped make this possible, as did the quality of Andrews' troops. Mostly from the mid-western reaches of the Empire, the men here were a bit more hardy and accustomed to hardship than their eastern counterparts.

  His mission here had always been one of feint and distraction, keeping the Soulanie 3rd Corps in place here along the river so that they could not spare any of their strength to help oppose the invading army in the plains. His orders did allow for him to force a crossing if he was able to do so without severely damaging his army, but so far he hadn't seen a way to do that. He had suffered moderate casualties every few days with half-hearted attempts to cross the bridge, such attempts always being repulsed by the enemy somewhat easily. He could only get a certain number of men on the bridge before adding more simply made it an abattoir. And that number was never enough to seriously contest for the bridge and force a crossing.

  Now, however, Wilson was asking Andrews to try and force such a crossing anyway in hopes that doing so would pull troops from his front and weaken the forces opposing his drive into the heart of Soulan. His drive was stalled and nothing he had tried had worked so far.

  Andrews looked up as his commanders filed into the large command tent, each followed by his second and an aide.

  “You wanted to see us sir?” the senior man asked.

  “I did,” Andrews nodded. “General Wilson has sent me a request. He asks that we make a determined attempt to carry the bridge in order to put pressure on the Royals and hopefully force them to reduce the troops facing him in favor of reinforcing Shelby.” He got the looks of shock and sound of silence he had expected and nodded.

  “Comments?” he asked finally.

  “Sir,” Charley Riordan, commander of the 11th Imperial Infantry and Andrews' senior division commander, was the first to speak. “Sir, we've made several feints at that bridge and the enemy fire we've received in reply was highly effective. While it chafes to admit, sir, I don't think we can take that bridge without incurring substantial casualties. And by substantial I mean ruinous.” The other division heads murmured their agreement with nodding heads. Andrews looked thoughtful.

  “Any of you have suggestions on how we can increase the pressure against the Soulanies without ruining our army to do it?” he asked finally.

  “We need a distraction, sir,” Rolf Skagaran, commanding officer of the 32nd Infantry offered when no one else spoke.

  “We're supposed to be the distraction, Rolf,” Andrews replied with a half grin. “But I know what you mean,” he continued after everyone had a good chuckle. “How can we do that?”

  “We need to get some men across the river somewhere else,” one of the cavalry commanders, General Caster Urich, spoke for the first time. “A raiding party in strength to pull forces away from the bridge.”

  “I don't see how we can do that Cass,” Andrews was shaking his head before Urich finished speaking. “That river is too fast, too wide and too deep to swim, even if that would work, and we don't have any boats that can make it across with one horse let alone more than that. And for a raiding party to have any chance at survival it would have to come from you and Atwell,” he nodded to Atwell Haskins who led his other cavalry division. “No way infantry makes it more than a couple days.”

  “True,” Urich nodded. “All I can think of is we have to move back north, cross there, and then come down the river on a deep raid, or at least reconnaissance in force. Force them to pull troops off the line to chase us down. Ultimately we can join up with Wilson to refit, or make our way back north if the attack here fails.”

  “That might work, but there's no guarantee that the troops they send after you come from there,” Riordan was shaking his head. “If they cut loose cavalry from their main army to chase you down, then we've. . .well, technically that would accomplish our mission,” he broke off thoughtfully. “Our goal is to pull troops away from Wilson's opposition. If this was successful then either way it works. Either it weakens them here so we can get across the river or else it weakens them in front of Wilson, which is our objective anyway. This might be the best option,” he told Andrews.

  “ It's also the most long ended,” Andrews was dubious. “And takes far longer as well. You're talking about riding almost a thousand miles before you get into territory that we don't already control access to and when you get there you will be completely on your own,” he told Urich. “All you will have in the way of supplies is what you can carry, and wagons are out in this kind of work. You won't have an adequate resupply point for two hundred miles at the least depending on where you are from Wilson's army. Every other depot will be behind him somewhere and even further away.”

  “That's another thing,” Andrews' remaining cavalry commander, Nathaniel Haskins, spoke up just then. “Where the hell is Stone? Why isn't he able to get this done for Wilson sir? He has nearly twice our strength taken all together. His three divisions have over thirty-five thousand troopers. Cass and I together don't muster much more than half that. He got the larger draw because of his position as 1st Army cavalry commander, but we have to create a diversion for them?”

  “Had over thirty-five thousand troops,” Andrews said softly. �
�Stone had that many troops before he was soundly beaten by Soulanie cavalry in a major cavalry engagement within sight of friendly lines. He lost over ten thousand men killed and wounded in one engagement. An engagement where he was numerically superior, was supported by infantry on one flank and Tribal warriors on the other, and where his enemy was already tired from having stomped three infantry divisions flat that morning.”

  “What?” Urich was stunned. “How in the Emperor's name-”

  “Apparently he was over confident, but southern archery played a part as well,” Andrews shrugged.

  “We tried to get training for horse mounted archers but were denied,” Haskins sighed. “Southerners have used bows from horseback for generations. It's part of their standard training regimen. We were told we didn't need it since we'd have infantry support and could 'depend' on their archers. No offense,” he glanced at the infantry officers in the meeting.

  “None taken,” Riordan spoke for them all. No infantry man wanted to be facing cavalry, especially Soulanie cavalry, out in the open on foot.

  “Anyway,” Andrews got the discussion back on point, “Wilson has sent Stone into the middle portions of Tennessee and Kentucky,” he used the Ancient names for the two provinces. “His mission will be to work down along the highlands on an extended raid in an attempt to pull troops from in front of Wilson in that direction.”

  “That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard,” Urich said flatly. “That country is a horrible place for horse warfare, sir! Those hills with narrow passes and rock ledges? Asking for horses to lose their footing and likely take their riders with them. Not to mention that almost every pass they come to will be ideal for an ambush.”

  “I didn't say it was a smart plan, Cass,” Andrews refrained from either correcting his subordinate or agreeing with him. “I said it was the plan he had. And it's why Stone and his men aren't available.” Haskins and Urich both shook their heads in dismay at what they were told.