Forged in Fire (Destiny's Crucible Book 4)

by Olan Thorensen

  He whirled and dashed back inside.

  “Carnigan! Back to the wall! I have to see what’s happening! The firing’s dying down.”

  The big man didn’t argue. As they raced out of the main room, Yozef gave what he intended as a reassuring look to silent, white-faced Maera.

  While directing a triage for casualties, Diera Beynom heard the cheering. Hope rose unbidden, not just because of the cheers, but also because the number of wounded had been far fewer than they had feared. No more than twenty at the station she supervised, the one nearest to the center of the Narthani attack. She didn’t factor in that a grapeshot striking a human body left few survivors.

  Anarynd kept rocking a sleeping Aeneas. Hope rose in her as well, and she became aware, for the first time, of her hand cramping from its grip on the crib.

  As smoke and flames suddenly erupted from beyond the first wall, the Narthani artillery major knew the attack had failed. Then came the unorganized scramble of men frantically struggling over the gap and racing away from the city—many without their weapons. Only minutes earlier, they had thought the price their units paid would be rewarded by a breach into the city. Now, some men tried to help the wounded, but many fleeing troops left the injured on the ground and even stepped on them in the haste to escape.

  The major ordered each battery to fire grapeshot three more times to the bastion tops and then prepare to retreat. The cannon horses remained far to the rear, being too big a target to bring this far forward. Each 12-pounder had an iron ring attached to the rear support of the carriage. Coils of rope with metal snap-hooks at one end lay behind each gun. At the third firing, each crew hooked ropes to the carriage ring, several men to a rope, and began pulling the cannon to the rear as fast as they could. It was chaotic. Some crews had lost enough members that they had a difficult time moving the weight of the carriage and the gun. In those cases, officers commandeered retreating men to help on the ropes. Carriages overturned as crews pulled too fast and didn’t keep the carriage balanced. Then the crews had to strain to get the cannon back onto its two wheels. In a few cases, but only a few, the crews panicked, couldn’t work together, and abandoned their guns. Officers took note of those crews for later punishment.

  Marshal Gullar knew the attack had failed almost the same moment as the artillery major. Watching from a thousand yards with a telescope, he saw the smoke and the retreat. He observed a full two minutes before lowering the scope.

  “That’s it, then,” he said to both himself and his staff. “The attempt failed.”

  Moving on from the disappointment, he didn’t let his thoughts linger on the failed effort.

  “Get the medical units forward to help the wounded,” he harshly told a colonel, who knew the tone was not directed at him but at the failure.

  Twenty minutes later, Gullar knelt by a stretcher carrying Susfar Tunik, initially wounded by a musket ball glancing off his rib cage. He had reached the wall gap, only to be knocked down and trampled by his own men trying to escape. Two of the men had recognized him and carried him back out of the islanders’ range. The two men made it out unscathed, but a 30-pounder canister’s ball had hit Tunik on the back of his calf at six hundred yards from the wall.

  Tunik remained conscious, though in considerable pain, and insisted on giving Gullar a verbal report of what he had seen. Later, the marshal summarized the day to his senior staff.

  All their faces appeared bleak.

  “That’s it, then,” he said once more. “We had to try, but after seeing what I did and hearing Brigadier Tunik’s report and those of other surviving infantry and artillery officers, I don’t believe we can take Orosz City—either at all or only after suffering such losses that we would be mortally in danger from the islanders’ field forces.”

  “Do we have casualty figures?” asked one veteran general.

  Gullar glanced to his second-in-command to answer.

  “Good estimates are eleven hundred dead and twenty-two hundred wounded, both infantry and artillery. Ten cannon were also lost. The artillery batteries and men are in good enough shape to still be effective, but not so with the three infantry regiments in the assault. Many of the survivors are so shaken, I would hesitate to transfer them to other units. I doubt their usefulness in future actions, and they are likely to spread too many eyewitness tales to the other troops. We will keep them together but separated from the other units as much as possible.”

  “That’s over two thousand wounded we’ll carry with us,” commented a tall, rakish officer. “From what I hear, many are so gravely wounded they need more extensive medical care as soon as possible. Is that going to influence our next move?”

  “It’s one factor,” Gullar conceded. “But only one. As always, the success of the mission is paramount, but I think we can agree that the original concept of getting the islanders to a major field battle and crushing them isn’t happening. Not here, anyway. From how they have behaved and by the surprises we found here—the concrete bastions and other fortifications, the 30-pounders, and whatever those flaming bombs were—we didn’t expect any of it. Neither can we take this city without unacceptable losses.”

  “Is this another failure in the intelligence reports we were given?” asked his second-in-command.

  Gullar wished Avan had not asked the question. “We can’t assume that yet,” he replied carefully. He wanted to investigate more before accusing Akuyun and Assessor Hizer of incompetence or worse, but his intuition tended to support that conclusion.

  “We believed the islanders would be forced to defend their territories. We have seen this pattern before in other lands, and the fact that they did come to the field at the Moreland City battle supported that assumption. Whether some new factors came into play since then, we’ll have to investigate, but our focus right now is our next course of action. We have already discussed two options should an assault on Orosz City fail, so it’s time to look hard at those options. In either case, we’ll return to the base at Preddi City and consider a more extended campaign along the coastal clans, in concert with our fleet.”

  Gullar nodded to the general who had asked about the wounded.

  “Our current decision is whether to continue on to Adris Province to meet up with the fleet or retrace our route back to Preddi City. The concern about the wounded favors the Adris option. Putting the wounded on ships will get them back to Preddi City at least a sixday faster than going overland back to Preddi City. That option also will let us destroy as much as we can as we move through the eastern part of Orosz Province and into Adris. Once we make contact with the fleet, we can consider commencing coastal operations from that point instead of from Preddi City. I’d also rather have that clan force we’ve chased in front of us instead of in our rear.”

  “I would recommend forward to Adris,” offered one general. “There’s little left to destroy back over the route we used to get here, it’s less time to reconnect with the navy, and there’s the wounded to consider.”

  Several officers made supporting comments, which meshed with Gullar’s intentions. After letting his subordinates have their input, Gullar gave the order.

  “Adris it is. Have the men be ready to move at first light tomorrow.”

  Chapter 45: On to Adris

  Orosz City

  It was nearly midnight when Yozef and Maera returned to the Kolsko house. Carnigan and Gowlin Reese followed behind. More remained to be done, but they were too physically and mentally exhausted to be useful to anyone. When they dragged themselves through the main door, Anarynd met them. She hadn’t seen either of them all that day. She had received a message before midday that the Narthani had been turned back, then no other word. The three intertwined in a hard embrace and stood that way for several minutes. Yozef and Maera hadn’t touched since leaving the house that morning.

  Now in the house—their home, at the moment—they were no longer on duty. Gwyned appeared and took Carnigan’s hand to lead him off, as did Braithe Reese her husband.r />
  Then, in tears, Anarynd asked, “If you tell me you’ve already eaten or you haven’t eaten but aren’t hungry, I won’t believe either one of you, so sit at the table.”

  Anarynd had laid out a loaf of the ubiquitous bread being baked for everyone in the city, cheeses they had brought with them from Caernford, olives Anarynd had gotten from somewhere, and a flask of wine of unidentified origin, of questionable quality, but of invaluable appreciation at that moment.

  “How is Aeneas?” asked Maera.

  “The little devil might be the only one in the city not knowing or caring what happened today.” Anarynd gave a shaky laugh. “He was happy all darn day and not a bit of a problem. He fell asleep at sundown, and I’ve been waiting for you on the balcony since then.” She unconsciously put a hand on her swollen belly.

  “Oh, Ana,” said Maera sorrowfully. “I’m sorry you were here all alone this long day.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about, you silly,” said Anarynd, patting Maera’s hand. “You both were doing what was needed to keep us all safe. And I stayed here taking care of Aeneas and the new son that’s coming.” She rubbed her stomach.

  “Still convinced it’s a boy?” teased Maera. “Yozef said he wants a girl this time.”

  “It’s a boy,” Anarynd stated as if it were a fact and not an intuition. “There’ll be time for girls later. My first one needs to be a boy to establish an heir for Moreland.”

  Yozef reached out to hold Maera’s hand and laid his other hand on the back of Anarynd’s neck.

  “What you did today was important to us all, Anarynd. I can’t speak for Maera, but today, when I thought about you, Aeneas, and the new baby, I didn’t worry because you were here. We all had our roles today.”

  Maera and Anarynd gave in to tears of relief, and Yozef felt his throat constrict and eyes burn.

  After a few more minutes, Anarynd deliberately changed the subject. “Now tell me. What happened today? I haven’t heard any details.”

  Yozef cleared his throat, then returned to eating, interspersed with giving the day’s summary. Only an outside observer would have commented on the matter-of-factness in his account and that he never referred to what could have happened.

  “The Narthani tried to breach the wall at the curve of the fortifications. We think it was a test to see if it was possible—enough men to give it a good attempt but not a complete commitment. If those attacking had managed to get inside the walls, I think the Narthani would have launched their entire force at that point. The attempt failed. They must have taken several thousand casualties and retreated. We suffered less than a hundred deaths and two hundred wounded.”

  Anarynd contemplated his last words for a moment. “Only . . . ” she said in a soft voice, “except for those and their families.”

  “Yes,” agreed Yozef sadly. “For those, it’s either literally the end of the world or their lives changed forever. But that’s the nature of war. Some die that others may live. All we can pray for is that their sacrifices are both worthwhile and appreciated by those who live.”

  “Is this war going to end?” Anarynd asked. “Will the Narthani leave now?”

  Yozef shook his head. “The end? No. But a hoped-for beginning for what will lead to the end. After today, we think they will move on, but in what direction and with what purpose? We have plans for the most likely choices they make, so tomorrow we’ll find out what comes next.”

  Move on Adris

  They had their answer when they awoke the next day. Squatting outside their building, a messenger kept watch on their balcony and the main door of the building. He had a message from Denes but had been told to wait for them to rouse before delivering it, because it wasn’t urgent.

  The message? The Narthani are moving east.

  Because of the supposed lack of urgency and since they had hardly been together the last few sixdays, Yozef insisted he and Maera spend two hours eating morning meal and feeding and playing with Aeneas. The sight of Yozef Kolsko lying on the floor while a laughing toddler climbed over him elicited different feelings from the two women. Anarynd felt warmth and affection for their family and anticipation of her own child to be. Maera matter-of-factly accepted that her husband was different. Part of her remained the hetman’s daughter, who could be staid, as decorum demanded, due to her station. The toddler pulling the hair of a leader of the islanders’ fight against the Narthani was not disconcerting but somehow out of place—in a good way.

  It was midmorning when Yozef and Maera reached the headquarters. All of the senior leaders had already arrived, including Welman Stent. He had entered the city as soon as he could bypass the Narthani army moving east. Maera wondered how long they had waited. She doubted that at least some of them would have waited long for anyone else, except her husband. Although Denes had told the messenger not to disturb them, he’d assumed they would have appeared some time ago. Yozef and Maera did not even have a few moments to greet people milling about when Hetman Orosz called for attention and asked Denes to give the latest update.

  “They were moving at first light. Now that it’s midmorning,” Denes threw an annoyed glance at Yozef, “their lead elements are about eight miles from the city and headed straight for Adris City—at least, so far. We think it’s a fair assumption that’s their target. It also probably means they’re still unaware that their navy won’t be there to meet them.”

  Stent rose. “My men have orders to withdraw as before, keeping in front of their line of march, although I doubt there’s anything we can do that would change their objective. I know we’ve been over this before many times, but allow me a little uncertainty. Are we certain there is no way for their navy to get into the Gulf of Normot?”

  “No possible way,” answered Lordum Hewell, shaking his head vigorously. “My clansmen have fished those waters for centuries, looking for other passages besides the Normot Cut, without success. Every generation resurrects the idea of making more channels, but we haven’t even been able to find a twisted route that minimizes the effort enough to attempt it. Their naval ships are stuck out at the mouth of the bay, a good fifty miles from Adris City. Only longboats, cutters, shallow draft fishing boats, and anything else that’s small can get through by a combination of rowing through the barrier and then raising a sail once within the gulf. Of course, we’re assuming the Fuomi ships and our battery barges will keep the Cut blocked.”

  “Whether the Fuomi can do what they say is beyond our control,” said Yozef. “What we can control is to prepare for when the Narthani realize they can’t connect with their navy in the gulf. We hope they’ll then turn around and head back to Preddi City by the same route they came on. And yes, we can’t rule out that they’ll try to force their way through the passes we’re blocking. We won’t know for sure until they leave Adris City. If it’s the passes, we’ll have to reinforce wherever they head, and they still might turn back this way.

  “As soon as they get another ten miles, it’ll be safe to assume they’ll continue all the way to Adris City. Then we need to start digging. Everything has been planned, but we’ll need to go over it again—both the logistics and being sure everyone knows their job, right down to boys and girls carrying water and food to workers.

  “If they turn back this way, Orosz City is where the future of Caedellium will be decided. The other redoubts are secure enough and far enough away to not need all the fighting men currently providing security. We need to send out the call for every fighter, medicant, cannon, musket, shovel, horse, and the graders at the Keelan Site to head this way immediately. We’re going to need every pair of hands, every gun, here in the next few sixdays. Also, as soon as the Narthani army is committed to Adris City, all incoming timbers, empty sandbags, mines, and cannon not already here should be put where we expect to use them and not brought into the city for storage. At the same time, the charges in place on the cliffs above the river will be set off, and we’ll see how much rock we can drop for a temporary dam.”

  �
�Are my regiments finally released for action?” asked Harmon Swavebroke. “Or do we wait for this, too, until the Narthani are committed to Adris City?”

  Yozef looked at the other four War Council members sitting on one side of the large table everyone had gathered around. “I’m inclined to let Harmon go. What do the rest of you think?”

  “No reason to delay,” said Stent. “By the time he gets to his men, they cut the Narthani line, and word gets to their army, the bastards will almost be at Adris City.”

  Yozef turned to the new Swavebroke hetman. “Okay, Harmon. Off you go. Remember, there’s still a lot of Narthani in Preddi, so don’t forget they could always send out a sizable force to try to reopen the supply line. Stay on this side of Hanslow, and keep scouts deep into Eywell. If they do try to push you aside, we’ll send word to Roblyn Langor. The Selfcellese promise to send a couple of thousand men to harass any such relief force. But we don’t want to commit them unnecessarily, because so much of the Selfcell population is in a relatively vulnerable position in a redoubt they hastily constructed in the central Selfcell mountains.”

  He turned to the entire group. “Here it is, then. Everything and every person of possible use, from everywhere on Caedellium, is to head this way immediately. As soon as the Narthani are confirmed to have committed to Adris, we’ll commence digging and building. We will construct fortifications from the city walls all the way to the river. That’s three miles, possibly a little less, if the dam backs water up onto the plain. I know it still sounds daunting, despite all our planning and calculating, but it comes to me that we will finish in time, if all the people put all their effort into it.