Heirs of Empire fe-3

by David Weber

  “Yes?” he said in his most conversational tone.

  “My Lord,” Stomald met his eyes squarely, “I love Lady Harry with all my heart. I don’t pretend to be her equal, or worthy of her,” Harriet made a sound of disagreement, but he ignored her to hold Tamman’s eyes, “yet I love her anyway, and she loves me. I … do not wish for you to think either of us has betrayed you or attempted to deceive you.”

  Tamman gazed back for several seconds while he wrestled with his own emotions. Damn it, he had seen this coming, and Harry had been his friend long before she’d become his lover! They’d both known the forced intimacy of their battleship-lifeboat was what had made them lovers, and he’d known it was going to end someday, yet for just an instant he felt a terrible, burning envy of Sean and Sandy.

  But then he shook himself and drew a deep breath.

  “I see,” he said again, holding out his hand, and Stomald took it with only the briefest hesitation. “I won’t pretend it does great things for my self-image, Stomald, but Harry’s always been her own person. And, much as it might pain me to admit it, you’re a pretty decent fellow yourself.” The priest smiled hesitantly, and Tamman chuckled. “It’s not as if I haven’t seen it coming, either,” he said more cheerfully. “Of course, she couldn’t tell you what she felt, but the way she’s talked about you to the rest of us—!”

  “Tamman!” Harriet protested with a gurgle of laughter, and Stomald turned bright red for just an instant before he laughed.

  “She’s been watching you like a kinokha stalking a shemaq for weeks,” Tamman said wickedly, and watched both of them blush, amazed that he could feel such genuinely unbitter pleasure in teasing Harriet.

  “You’re riding for a fall, Tamman!” she warned, shaking a fist at him, and he laughed. Then she lowered her fist and stepped closer. She put her arms around him and hugged him tightly. “But you’re a pretty decent fellow yourself,” she whispered in his ear.

  “Of course I am,” he agreed, and put his own arm around her, then looked back at Stomald. “You don’t need them, but you have my blessings, Stomald. And if you need a groomsman—?”

  “I—” Stomald began, then stopped, blushed even brighter, and looked at Harriet appealingly.

  “I think you’re getting a bit ahead of yourself,” she told Tamman, “but assuming we all get out of this in one piece and I get him home to Mom and Dad, we might just take you up on that.”

  * * *

  “Shit!”

  No one understood the English expletive, but Sean’s officers understood the tone. All of them were splashed from head to toe in mud, and Sean stood in cold, thigh-deep water that rose nearly to the Pardalians’ waists. The rain had stopped, but the air was almost unbearably humid, and swarms of what passed for gnats whined about their ears. The column stretched out behind them, for Sean was leading the way now, since his implant sensors made it far easier for him to pick a route through the swamp—or would have if there’d been a way through it, he thought savagely.

  He inhaled and made himself calm down before he opened his mouth again, then turned to his staff.

  “We’ll have to backtrack,” he said grimly. “The bottom drops off ahead, and there’s some kind of quicksand to the right. We’ll have to cut further north.”

  Tibold said nothing, but his mouth tightened, and Sean understood. Their original plans had called for passing the column’s head through the swamp in ten or twelve hours, and so far they’d been slogging around in it for over twenty. What had seemed a relatively simple, if unpleasant, task on the map had become something very different, and it was all his own fault. He had the best reconnaissance capabilities on the planet, and he should have scouted their route better than this. If he had, he would have known the foot of the valley’s northern wall was lined with underground springs. The narrowest part of the swamp was also one of the least passable, and his stupid oversight had mired his entire corps down in it.

  “All right,” he said finally, sighing. “We won’t get anywhere standing here looking at the mud.” He thought for a few moments, calling up the map he’d stored in his implant computers on the way through, then nodded sharply. “Remember where we stopped for lunch?” he asked Tibold.

  “Yes, My Lord.”

  “All right. There was a spit of solider ground running northeast from there. If there’s a way through this glop at all, we’ll have to go that way. Turn the column around and stop its head there. While you’re doing that, I’ll see if Lady Sandy can pick a better path than I can.”

  “At once, My Lord,” Tibold agreed, and turned to slosh back along the halted column while Sean activated his com.

  “Sandy?” he subvocalized.

  “Yes, Sean?” She was trying to hide her own anxiety, he thought, and made his own tone lighter.

  “We’re gonna have to backtrack, kid.”

  “I know. I had a remote tuned in.”

  “In that case, you know where we’re headed, and I’m one dumb asshole not to have had you checking route for us already.” He sighed. “Tune up your sensors and see if you can map us a way through this slop.”

  “I’m already working on it,” she said, “but, Sean, I don’t see a fast way through it.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “From what I can see, it’s going to take at least another full day and a half,” she said in a small, most un-Sandy-like voice.

  “Great. Just fucking great!” Sean felt her flinch and shook his head quickly, knowing she was watching him through her remotes. “Sorry,” he said penitently. “I’m not pissed at you; I’m pissed at me. There’s no excuse for this kind of screwup.”

  “No one else thought of it, either, Sean,” she pointed out in his defense, and he snorted.

  “Doesn’t make me feel any better,” he growled, then sighed. “Well, I guess standing around pissing and moaning won’t make it any better, either. Let’s get this show back on the road—such as it is!”

  He turned to slog off in Tibold’s wake, and the swarming clouds of gnats whined about his ears.

  * * *

  Even Sandy’s estimate turned out to have been overly optimistic. What Sean and Tibold had envisioned as a twelve-hour maneuver consumed over three of Pardal’s twenty-nine-hour days, and it was an exhausted, sodden, mud-spattered column of infantry that finally crawled out of the swamp proper into the merely “soft” ground south of it. Thank God Tibold had warned him against even trying to bring artillery through that muck, Sean thought wearily. Their five hundred dragoons had lost a quarter of their branahlks, and Lord only knew what would have happened to nioharqs. Given his druthers, he decided, he’d take Hannibal’s elephants and the Alps over a Pardalian swamp and anything.

  Under the circumstances, he’d eased the “no miracles” rule, and Sandy and Harry had been busy using cutters to bring in fresh food. The cargo remotes had stacked it neatly to await his column’s arrival, and the troops gave a weary cheer as they saw it. There was even a little wood for fires, and the company cooks quickly got down to business.

  “Sean?”

  He turned and flashed a mud-spattered smile as Sandy walked out of the gathering evening. His officers and men saw her as well, and she waved to them as a soft, wordless murmur of thanks rose from them. She made a shooing gesture at the waiting rations, and the troops grinned and returned to their tasks as she crossed to Sean. Unlike her towering lover, she was spotless. Not even her boots were muddy, and he shook his head.

  “ ’Ow can you tell she’s an angel?” he murmured. ” ’Cause she’s not covered wi’ shit loike the rest of us!” he answered himself.

  “Very funny.” She smiled dutifully, but her eyes were worried, and he raised an eyebrow.

  “The reinforcing column got on the road a day sooner than Ortak expected,” she said softly in English, “and it’s moving faster than we expected. They’ll reach Malz within four or five days.”

  “Wi—?” Sean stared at her, then clamped his teeth hard. “And just w
hy,” he asked after a moment, “is this the first I’m hearing of this?”

  “It wouldn’t have done a bit of good to worry you with it while you were mucking around in the swamp,” she replied more tartly. “You were already going as fast as you could. All you could have done was fret.”

  “But—” He started to speak sharply, then made himself stop. She was right, but she was also wrong, and he controlled his tone very carefully when he went on. “Sandy, don’t ever hold things back on me again, please? There may not have been anything I could have done, but as long as I’m in command, I need all the information we’ve got, as soon as we get it. Is that understood?”

  He held her eyes sternly, and her nostrils flared with answering anger. But then she bit her lower lip and nodded.

  “Understood,” she said in a low voice. “I just—” She looked down at her hands and sighed. “I just didn’t want you to worry, Sean.”

  “I know.” He reached out to capture one of her hands and squeezed it tightly until she looked up. “I know,” he said more softly. “It’s just that this isn’t the time for it, okay?”

  “Okay,” she agreed, and then her brown eyes suddenly gleamed. “But if you really want to know everything, then I suppose I should tell you what Harry’s been up to, too.”

  “What Harry’s been up to?” Sean looked speculatively down at her, then raised his head as Tibold called his name. The ex-Guardsman pointed to the meal preparations, and Sean waved for the others to go ahead without him and returned his attention to Sandy. “And just what,” he asked in a deliberately ominous voice, “has my horrid twin done now?”

  “Well, it turned out fine, but she decided to tell Stomald the truth.”

  “My God! I turn my back for an instant, and all of you run amok!”

  “Oh, no! Not us—you’re the one who’s been running around in the muck!” Sandy gurgled with laughter as he winced, then sobered—a little. “Besides, Harry had an excuse. She’s in love.”

  “Think I hadn’t figured that out weeks ago? How’d Tamman take it?”

  “Quite well, actually,” Sandy said wickedly. “I wouldn’t say he’s completely over it, but I did overhear a couple of the Malagoran girls sighing over how handsome ‘Lord Tamman’ is.”

  “Handsome? Tam?” Sean cocked his head, then chuckled. “Well, compared to me, I guess he is. You mean he’s, um, encouraging their interest?”

  “Let’s just say he isn’t discouraging it.” Sandy grinned.

  “Well, in that case, I suppose you’d better catch me up on all the gossip before I join the others for supper.”

  “Why? I could brief you while you eat, Sean. None of them understand English.”

  “I know that,” Sean said. He picked out a relatively dry spot, spread his Malagoran-style poncho over it, and waved her to a seat upon it. “The problem, dear, is that I can’t eat very well while I’m laughing. Now give.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “All right, then. Everybody clear on his orders?”

  Sean looked around the circle of faces in the late afternoon light. He and Tibold had spent weeks convincing their officers to ask questions whenever there was anything they didn’t understand, but, one by one, each captain nodded soberly.

  “Good!” He folded the map with deliberate briskness, then turned and gazed northeast to the screen of dragoons deployed across his line of advance. Beyond them, he could just see a village that was supposed to have been totally evacuated … and hadn’t been.

  Sandy’s warning that there were still people about had come in time—he hoped. He’d sent flanking columns of dragoons forward, then had them curl back in from the east, and they seemed to have caught all the villagers before anyone got away to Malz.

  It was the ninth day since he’d set out for Erastor. By his original estimate, he should already have been in striking distance of Ortak’s rear; as it was, he was still south of the Mortan, the weather was going bad on him again, and the head of the Guard relief column should reach the Malz turn-off within four days. His time margin had become knife-thin, and if any of those peasants had fled with word of his presence, he was in a world of trouble.

  Well, Sandy’s stealthed spies would warn him if the bad guys did figure out he was coming. Which, unfortunately, wasn’t going to help him a lot if they figured it out after he’d crossed the river and trapped himself between Ortak and High-Captain Terrahk’s relief force.

  He shook off his worry and nodded to his officers.

  “Let’s get this show on the road, then,” he said, and they slapped their breastplates in salute and dashed off.

  Considering the unexpected rigors of the swamp crossing, the men were in excellent shape, Sean thought. Tired, but far from exhausted, and their morale was better than he would have dared hope. They’d hated the swamps, but despite the delays, their confidence was unshaken. Which was good, because they had another ten kilometers to cover this day, and Malz was tied into the semaphore chain which connected Erastor to points east. Each semaphore station was a looming, gantry-like structure which let its crew see for kilometers in every direction and turned it into a watch tower. That meant the chain had to be cut in darkness, before any warning could be sent in either direction, and defined not only when Sean had to reach and secure Malz, but when he had to get his troops across the river to the Baricon-Erastor high road, as well.

  He called for his own branahlk and trotted back towards his infantry. Part of him longed to go with the dragoons in person, but Sandy’s stealthed cutter hovered above them. She’d tell him if anything went wrong, and he needed to be with his main body, ready to respond to any warning she might send.

  He turned in the saddle to watch Captain Juahl lead the dragoons east. Juahl was a good man, he told himself, and he understood the plan. That was just going to have to be enough.

  * * *

  It was almost midnight, local time, when Sean’s lead rifle regiments reached Malz. Bonfires encircled the town, and parties of dragoons picketed its unprepossessing walls. It wasn’t a large town—no more than eight thousand even in normal times, and its population had declined drastically when the Holy Host came through en route to Yortown—but enough people remained inside those walls to stand off dragoons. Worse, there were plenty of potential messengers to warn Ortak what was happening, which was the reason for those pickets and bonfires.

  A mounted messenger trotted up to him and saluted.

  “Captain Juahl sent me to report, Lord Sean,” the exhausted young officer said. “We haven’t secured the Malz tower yet—they got the town gates shut and we didn’t have the strength to force them—but Captain Juahl and Under-Captain Hahna secured the fords and both towers between here and the crossroads. Hahna’s company is posted just east of the crossroads, and we got both towers intact. Captain Juahl said to tell you our men are ready to pass messages both ways, My Lord.”

  “Good!” Sean slapped the messenger’s shoulder, and the young man grinned at him. “Are you up to riding back to Captain Juahl?”

  “Yes, My Lord!”

  “In that case go tell him I’m delighted with his news. Ask him to thank all of his officers and men for me, as well, and tell him I’ll get infantry support up as fast as I can.”

  “Yes, My Lord!” The messenger saluted again and vanished into the darkness, and Sean turned to Tibold.

  “Thank God for that!” he said softly, and the ex-Guardsman nodded. Most of the men who’d managed the Temple’s semaphore chain across Malagor had fled the heresy, but enough had joined it to give Sean the personnel to man the towers he’d hoped to capture. Now he controlled High-Captain Ortak’s mail … and the information flowing east to the oncoming relief column, as well.

  “I want you to help handle the negotiations here,” he went on after a moment, waving at the closed gates. “We haven’t had any massacres yet, and I’d sooner not start now because someone makes a mistake.” He tugged on his nose. “Let’s send Folmak’s brigade up to Juahl. He’
s level-headed enough to handle anything that comes at him unexpectedly. Make sure he’s got a copy of our message notes, and tell him I’ll join him in person as soon as possible.”

  “At once, Lord Sean.” Tibold turned his branahlk and trotted off with a briskness Sean knew he didn’t feel. Today’s long march had been worse even than the swamp, and Tibold had spent part of it marching with each regiment. He insisted it was good for morale, and Sean believed him. It also meant “Lord Sean” had to stump along with the troops, too, but he was thirty-five years younger than Tibold and enhanced, to boot. He was undoubtedly the freshest man in the entire column, and all he wanted to do was sleep for a week.

  Well, if Tibold could manage to look sharp and fresh, then so could Sean, and he’d damned well better do just that!

  He grinned and dismounted, tossed his reins to one of his aides, and felt a spasm of pity for the townsfolk of Malz as he walked towards their closed gates. They had to know he could burn their town around their ears, and given the Inner Circle’s propaganda, they probably expected him to do just that so their children would be nicely browned when he sat down to eat them! Convincing the poor bastards to open up was going to be a pain, but he needed to get it done before somebody did something stupid. Between them, Stomald and “the angels”—with a little help from the bloodthirsty field regulations of a certain Captain-General Lord Sean—had created a remarkably well-behaved army. The fact that it regarded itself as an elite force and confidently expected to kick the butt of a much larger army in a few days also helped by giving it a certain image to live up to, but Sean knew most of its restraint stemmed from the Holy Host’s failure to reach Malagor. The Malagoran Temple Guard had done its share of village-burning on its abortive march to Cragsend, but half the men who’d done that were now members in good standing of the Angels’ Army, and they’d done their very best to make amends. Yortown and the seizure of the Thirgan Gap had precluded the other atrocities religious wars routinely spawned, and the men felt little need for vengeance. Sean intended to keep it that way, but a handful of panicky townsmen who took it into their heads to “resist heresy” or simply thought they were defending their families could easily provoke a fire fight that might well expand into a full-blown massacre.