Forged in Fire (Destiny's Crucible Book 4)

by Olan Thorensen

  “You’re right,” said Yozef. “I just can’t help but worry, not knowing what’s happening. Where’s Stent? Where are the Hanslow Narthani? Will the Narthani send their army out of Preddi City, despite my prediction they wouldn’t? Will my agreeing to change the operational plan so radically cause too much confusion?”

  “Maybe you should also worry about it being too dark, or if it rains tomorrow, that will be your fault, too. How about the murvor that shit on Man o’ War’s ass? Shouldn’t you have foreseen that?”

  “All right, all right!” Yozef conceded. “I surrender. I’m a ‘worry-wort’ and will lie down.”

  Carnigan grunted his “there you go again” grunt. “Whatever worry-wort means, it better be ‘Yozef Kolsko is about to get some sleep before drastic action is taken.’”

  Yozef lay down where Wyfor Kales had spread a blanket. He was asleep within seconds and didn’t see Carnigan lie down next to him on one side. Wyfor and Gowlin Reese completed a triangle around Yozef. If any danger appeared, it would have to go through one of them before reaching their charge.

  Stent

  Welman Stent didn’t have to be cajoled to know he needed rest. Still, it took half an hour before he could relax enough to drift off. If he had ever had a more stressful and frustrating day, he couldn’t remember when. Despite planning, the Northern Force was two hours late launching from Moreland Province. He hadn’t concerned himself with the support units that would follow the eleven regiments forming the spearhead of their advance. However, coordination with eleven regiment commanders from eight different clans had been worse than he feared—and his fears had been impressive.

  An hour after the planned launch, one of two Moreland regiments was still breaking camp and had shown no sign of forming up. Stent hadn’t hesitated. He vociferously removed the Moreland colonel from command, had him led away to be escorted back to Moreland City in disgrace, and promoted a Moreland major who seemed to share some of Stent’s disgust. In anticipation of trouble with the Morelanders, Stent had placed their bivouac area surrounded by other units. He could hear grumbling from Morelander men about their commander being removed, but the replacing major’s quick grasp of command had settled things within minutes. Still, this action, among others, made them two hours late in launching.

  Heaped onto the frustration of a late start, the Northern Force had taken longer than planned to bypass Hanslow and Morthmin. The only bright spot was that once the force was underway, its movement was faster than he’d expected. Yet thoughts about coordinating the regiments’ action, should they encounter a large-enough Narthani force to be dangerous, kept his stomach churning all day.

  An hour before sunset, forward scouts had reported back, having made visual contact with what they believed were the retreating Hanslow Narthani’s rear units pushing along wagons. Stent had kept his men moving for an hour after total darkness, before they stopped for fear of running into the Narthani and chaos reigning.

  Stent wouldn’t find out until morning light that the Narthani had left the Hanslow/Preddi road within minutes of Jurna finding out Stent’s scouts had come on their rear. Jurna turned due west, and his men were now encamped six miles west of Stent, instead of south. The Northern Force would move south the next morning for an hour before scouts and the lack of fresh horse droppings proved that they didn’t know where Jurna was.

  Jurna

  “I want us moving by first light tomorrow morning,” Jurna told his senior officers. “I’m hoping we gained some time on the damned clansmen chasing us. If we move early enough, it may take them time to realize we changed direction, and we can turn south again by mid-morning. We’ll send riders to Preddi City to let General Akuyun know our intent. I don’t know if he’ll send anything to meet us, but he might do something to keep the clans’ attention until we get to Preddi City.”

  Akuyun, Preddi City

  It was midnight when General Okan Akuyun reached his villa. His wife, Rabia, lay awake, waiting for him. Although she hadn’t heard any specific news from her husband, vibrations of events elsewhere had traveled among the families of high military and civilian officers and officials. She needed only one look at her husband to imagine how tense his day had been.

  “I didn’t know if you’d eaten, so I laid out food on the table as soon as I heard the horses. Come sit, eat, and have a glass of wine.”

  Okan followed his wife into the dining area and sat at a table set with cold meats and bread. She poured wine into his glass, then her own.

  “How bad is it, Okan?”

  He didn’t answer until he wolfed down a mouthful of food, followed by a long drink of the deep red wine. “I don’t actually know the details. All that’s known is that the clans have moved in force into Eywell from two points. One near Hanslow and a second along the coast from Keelan. The same two routes they used on the previous raids. Jurna ordered the Morthmin garrison to retreat to Preddi. They arrived with no problems, but Jurna’s men from Hanslow have been chased all day. Fortunately, Jurna got them going before my order came. He sent updates on his progress as he destroyed the semaphore stations behind him. The last report was that he thought the clans were five or six miles behind him.”

  Rabia’s left hand flew to her throat at the news of the clans’ attacks. “Will they make it back here? Then what? Do you think the clans intend to attack Preddi City?”

  “I hope Jurna gets to safety, though there are too many unknowns to be sure. I’ve ordered two more battalions to Ponth at first light tomorrow. With the battalion already there, they will wait for Jurna and support him if necessary, as long as it doesn’t result in their being cut off from Preddi City. Then, when Jurna arrives, they’re all to withdraw back here.

  “That’s not all the bad news. I also ordered Metan to pull his men into the Sellmor fortifications to await news of exactly what are the clans’ intentions. I had figured there was no need to abandon Selfcell—not yet, anyway. Then news came that the Selfcellese had revolted and blocked Metan from entering the main defensive positions. Something of a fight ensued, and Metan decided the losses and time to retake the city, along with unknowns of what this major clan move meant, made it best to also withdraw. We didn’t have ships stationed at Sellmor, so Metan sent his plan via both semaphore and riders. He moved down the coast toward Swythton. We got several messages he flashed to a sloop. They should be in Swythton by now.

  “Metan also said he’d ordered the Wynmor garrison to head for the coast and dig in, waiting for ships to embark them. So it looks like most of our people in Selfcell got out, except for those killed in the Sellmor fighting, but there’s no ignoring that Selfcell is lost to us—at least, for the time being.”

  “What about here in Preddi?” asked Rabia.

  “I still doubt the clans will attack us directly. I worry more about major raids once we’ve pulled into defenses everywhere in the province. Even if they do, I think we can hold out until Marshal Gullar arrives. When he does, it will be a very different situation from the one I assume he expects.”

  CHAPTER 28: CHASE

  Balwis

  “Major Kellerwin,” said Colonel Sixwith, “I want you to take your battalion and picket out to the west, in case the Narthani try to slip around us. Report back if you make contact, but don’t fight them until the rest of us get to you. Don’t get your farthest men more than ten miles west.”

  “Captain Preddi,” said Major Kellerwin, a Gwillamese officer in the mixed-clan regiment, “we’re moving west a few miles to keep the Narthani from getting around the regiment unnoticed. Your company will lead. When I stop, you continue west another two miles as our left flank position. We’re not to engage the Narthani until the rest of the regiment gets to us. Any questions?”

  Balwis shrugged and went back to his men. He hadn’t yet taken to using the formal rankings and saw no reason to waste words of acknowledgment until he had actual questions or objections. His mood hadn’t improved from the previous day, when he learned he might not se
t foot in his home province. Yozef and then Denes had made it clear they didn’t want a company composed largely of Preddi who had fled the Narthani destruction of their clan to lose discipline. They were to avoid being in a vanguard into Preddi territory, if possible.

  Jurna

  Jomzik Jurna’s senses tried to reach out, as if the effort would magically let him see through hills, forests, and miles to locate the clans’ forces. He had pushed his men westward for an hour that morning, then turned south toward Preddi. Still no contact with any islanders. The road they first used was the main route from Preddi City to Sellmor. Then they turned south onto a less-well-maintained track, and the wagons were slowed by more ruts. Already that morning, one wagon had broken an axle, and a second wagon was lost when it slid down an embankment after straying too close to the edge. The passengers of both, some of them injured, were transferred to other wagons already overloaded. Jurna considered whether he should abandon the slower wagons and have the passengers ride double with his cavalry when a commotion got his attention. Several riders galloped parallel to the column and toward his group. They reined in when they reached him.

  “Colonel Jurna,” said a young officer whose name Jurna couldn’t remember, “we’ve found signs a large force has crossed our line of march. They’re heading due west toward Selfcell. From the freshness of horse droppings, we think no more than an hour ago.”

  “Heading east, you say?”

  “Yes, Colonel, and lots of them, if the amount of droppings is any indication. Mainly horses and moving in three columns, one on the road and two alongside a few hundred yards away.”

  “Narth grant us wisdom!” Jurna exclaimed. “It can’t be the clansmen who’ve been chasing us. There’s no way they could have gotten farther on the road last night and then crossed in front of us this morning. This must be a second clan force. If they’ve already passed, we may have had Narth’s good fortune.” Jurna turned to a cluster of couriers and picked out four of them to get word to his main subordinates. “We’ll pick up the pace and not rest for the next hour. With more fortune, we’ll be beyond their reach and into safer territory.”

  Balwis

  Balwis had ordered a halt when he estimated his company was a little more than two miles from the rest of the battalion. He surveyed the terrain and decided the rolling hills didn’t give enough line of sight to make holding the company in one position practical—they couldn’t see more than a quarter mile in any direction.

  “Let’s do this,” he told his platoon leaders. “From here, we’ll put a platoon on the reverse side of consecutive hills going west. That will let us cover another mile and a half and still let the platoons be in visual contact with one another. Each platoon will send a picket forward north to the next hill. I’ll stay here with the company headquarters platoon. If you spot any Narthani, send word back here if it’s only a few of them, but get all your asses back here if you see large numbers of them.”

  Thirty minutes later, Balwis had just estimated that the last platoon to the west was in position when Synton Ethlore rode his lathered horse to within ten feet of where Balwis sat on a tree stump. Ethlore had been with Balwis on the Erdelin strike and had taken Balwis’s place as a Kolsko bodyguard. When he learned of the campaign to cut out the two clans allied with the Narthani, he had asked for temporary relief from guard duty. “Ser Kolsko, you don’t need me when you’re surrounded by thousands of armed clansmen. I’ll ask you to let me join Balwis’s men as a scout. I’ll be more valuable there than standing around.”

  Yozef had agreed, and Ethlore was part of the platoon assigned to the west-most position in their screen.

  “Balwis!” Ethlore cried, in his excitement forgetting rank and protocol. “We didn’t even get off our horses when we spotted a fuckin’ long column of Narthani cavalry, followed by wagons carrying infantry. The rest of the platoon is behind me, in addition to the other platoons. There’re all moving back to join up here, like you told them to.”

  “Were they coming or going, Synton?” blurted Balwis.

  “The lead elements were still a quarter mile off, but by now they’re passing where we were to watch and are continuing toward Preddi. They were moving out smartly.”

  Balwis erupted in a thirty-second stream of curses before slapping himself on the chest to focus. “Well, isn’t this a fine piece of shit? We’re only supposed to spot them approaching, not watching their asses disappear into the distance. The idea was to have time to get more men to block them. That’s not going to happen now. By the time Sixwith can get here with the rest of the regiment, they might be too far away to catch. What a pisser. They must have also crossed Vegga’s path. Yozef talks about the ‘fog of war,’ but this is more like fog in a goddamned swamp.”

  Balwis stomped back and forth for a minute. “All right. Get all the platoon leaders here yesterday.” He turned to the headquarters platoon officer. “Get the men up and ready to move.”

  Fifteen minutes later, he addressed the four platoon leaders. “Sixwith sent us out here expecting to be in position before the Narthani arrive. Obviously, that plan is for shit. I only see two options. Either we kiss off stopping these Narthani, or we try to get ahead of them and slow them down until more of our people show up. I’ve sent riders east to Sixwith and west to Vegga to let them know we’ll be doing the second option.”

  “Synton,” Balwis called out to Ethlore, who stood behind the platoon leaders, “did they have flanking or forward screens?”

  “Not to the side where we were, nor forward, as far as I could see. The terrain is such that flankers couldn’t move as fast as the main column, so I suspect they’re trying to move as fast as the wagons allow.”

  “Okay, here’s what we’ll do. We’ll ride south parallel to the road they’re on and try to get a couple of miles ahead of them. We’ll push about ten miles and then turn west to find the road and a place to dig in. We don’t know if they have scouts out, so it’s best to be as quiet as possible. This means no goddamn talking or yelling.”

  Vegga

  Denes Vegga stared at Eflyn Langor and tried to digest what he’d just been told. He glanced aside to see Yozef smiling. “What’s so amusing?” snarled Denes. “Ten minutes ago, I had a clear idea what we’re doing, but now I don’t know what the hell’s happening.”

  Hetman Langor’s younger brother and two hundred armed men were waiting on the opposite bank of a stream when the forward scouts of the Southern Force searched for the easiest crossing. Under a truce flag, Eflyn Langor claimed Selfcell had revolted against the Narthani, and the Narthani Sellmor garrison had withdrawn south along the coast. If the Selfcell envoy was telling the truth, the Southern Force’s mission was moot; Selfcell was no longer a Narthani ally, and the objective would change based on how to deal with the new situation. The second consequence would be that the Narthani’s Sellmor garrison would no longer be a potential target. They were almost certainly at the Preddi town of Swythton, behind defenses and in position for naval help. Both of those circumstances depended on whether they believed the Selfcell hetman’s brother.

  Denes pulled Yozef, Mulron, and Lordum Hewell aside. “What do you think? Is he telling the truth?”

  “I met Eflyn at a conclave eight years ago,” said Lordum. “We shared an evening in an Orosz City pub. Although I got bleary after a few ales, my memory of him is that I liked him, and he seemed honest. We shared opinions about other clans and leaders, and he even laughed at his brother, whom he thought was too serious. I had the same opinion of my father, but that was before I became hetman and found out what being hetman meant.”

  “I’m inclined to believe him,” said Yozef, “though there’s no way to be certain without going to Sellmor. Normally, I’d advise changing direction from reaching the sea south of Sellmor to going directly to the city. Of course, that was before the rider from Balwis.”

  The force’s leaders had been discussing how to respond to the news that what they assumed to be the men from the Narthan
i’s Hanslow garrison had crossed south between the Southern Force’s three regiments aimed at Sellmor and the fourth regiment blocking the Hanslow/Preddi road.

  “We have to decide,” said Mulron. “Both going forward and stopping to deal with the Hanslow Narthani are time critical. The Selfcellese could be bluffing to stop or slow us while they bring more people into Sellmor and keep improving their defenses. If it’s the Narthani Balwis reports, every minute they’re getting farther away.”

  Denes grimaced, then slapped a thigh with his gloves. “We’ll keep to the original objective. As appealing as it is to kill Narthani, we’re here to separate the Selfcellese and Eywellese from the Narthani. Sixwith and Balwis will have to handle the Hanslow Narthani, if at all. We’ll send riders back to Sixwith to follow Balwis and then join Stent when the Northern Force arrives. If it turns out Eflyn Langor tells the truth, I’m sure Yozef needs to talk with their hetman about what comes next.”

  Jurna

  “How did they get in front of us, Colonel?” asked a harried captain.

  “How in Narth’s name do I know?” Jurna snarled. “Maybe they spontaneously jumped out of the ground. What’s important is that our route south is blocked, and we don’t know what might be coming up behind us.” He raised his telescope and again surveyed the logs and the low dirt berm across the road four hundred yards ahead. “Looks like horse artillery on the east side of the road. Men are still working to dig them in, so the damned clansmen haven’t been here long. We can’t be sure, but I’d estimate a company of them.”

  “No easy way around them?” Jurna asked the commander of the lead company.

  “Not that my scouts have seen,” the captain replied. “They’re still looking, but do we have time to wait?”