by David Drake
“So it looks like we meet them at…” Von Hoff turned to one of his cartographers. “What’s that place’s name, lieutenant?”
The man gazed down at his scroll. “It’s called Fish Pens, sir. No idea why.”
“An ugly name for an ugly place, no doubt.”
Abel cleared his throat. “If I may, General…”
“What is it, Dashian?”
“That village at the base of the mountain, sir.”
“Yes, the possible haven of reinforcements?”
“Exactly, sir. There may be a large force encamped there. If we could neutralize that possibility, you can cut off and kill the main army.”
Von Hoff sighed loudly, but he was also smiling. “Dashian, are you about to ask me to split my army again?”
“Yes, sir. Send me up that eastern valley.”
Von Hoff put a hand to his forehead, rubbed it.
“All right,” he muttered. Then stronger: “All right. Take the Third, Colonel Dashian, and good luck.”
2
Three Sisters Valley
Abel had been confident von Hoff would let him have his way, and had already ordered his wagons and animals taken over the saddle to the northern side of Tamarak Peak. After that, it was just a matter of the troops breaking down their camp in the crags and making their way down by squad and company to assemble at the confluence of two rivers. The other river was the Fork, the only true secondary river Abel had ever seen. This was the place where the Fork poured itself into the River. The Fork was the only major tributary the River had for all the hundreds of leagues of the Land. The River only divided again when it reached the Delta country before it ran into the Braun Sea.
There had been a ferry here, but von Hoff’s engineers had been busy during the pause. Daring carnadons, of which there were a few even this far north, they had built a wooden bridge across the Fork. It was only a wagon’s width wide, but it would serve to bring the Third across without getting the men’s feet wet.
Abel’s men crossed it at a slow march. Abel wanted no one hurrying up and tottering over the edge and into the water. Carnadons had already gathered under the structure, hoping for a quick meal.
When the brigade was on the other side, instead of going straight along the Road, they turned onto another byway that ran alongside the Fork. Now Abel quick-timed the march. There would be moaning and groaning, and there would certainly be stragglers falling out, but he had a long way to go and very little time if he was to be a help to von Hoff. Comfort would not be a part of this campaign.
The Three Sisters Valley closed in on either side of them, and the Fork poured down it at an amazing speed. The Fork Road turned uphill, and they marched league after league at a steady upward grind. He gave the troops five minutes rest each halfwatch, and they were not to sit down.
Late in the day, he had captains reporting to him that their troops were exhausted, stumbling on their feet. They’d left a trail of stragglers behind as well. Some begged for a halt.
Abel shrugged with apparent indifference. “We’ll stop when we get there,” Abel told each of them. He felt each weary step of his men, but the need to push on was urgent.
“Where is there, sir?” they asked. But on this, Abel remained silent. For the moment, he would keep his plans to himself. It was better that way. He didn’t want to scare them.
They met their first resistance at the headwaters of the Fork at the confluence of two small streams. There was a covered bridge spanning it in a narrow spot, and on the northern side of the river stood the village of Siegan. A garrison of about forty Progar men was stationed there. When those troops realized that they were facing not just a patrol, but an entire brigade, those that remained alive turned and ran up the valley as fast as their legs would carry them. But they could not run faster than a dont. Abel sent a detail of his few mounted troops after them, and they came back with two of the men tied across the backs of their donts like hunting prizes.
“Rest of them scattered up into the hills and got away, sir,” the lieutenant in charge of the squad reported. “They’ll take news of us marching up the Manahatet north for sure, sir.”
“You let me worry about that, lieutenant,” Abel replied. He turned to Timon. “Major Athanaskew, bring me the new captain of interrogation,” he said, “but I want you in on it, too.”
Timon would be sure to drain these prisoners of what information they had. Every bit might matter.
Most of the men expected to bed down for the night at Siegan—some had already dumped their packs—and were astonished when Abel kept them marching. As they passed through Siegan, the villagers came out to gawk. The road and a small tributary of the Fork River wended northeast. The tributary was no longer the Fork, but was called Manahatet Creek on the maps. It was a fast flowing, powerful stream—but a stream they could wade at waist height with safety lines. They were now in Manahatet Valley.
Darkness fell. The march went on. It was past midnight when the light of Churchill finally broke over the steep walls of Manahatet Valley. They marched on.
Finally, just before dawn Abel called a one-watch rest. Most of the men collapsed in their tracks, some not even bothering to take off their packs. He hobbled his dont—he still rode Nettle, the female he’d picked out of the train in Ingres—and sat with his back against a rock.
He dozed. He knew he daydreamed, because when dawn lightened the sky, he started to awareness with an image of Mahaut dissolving in his mind’s eye. For a moment, he thought she was there, physically present, smiling down at him as he slept. Then he shook himself awake, and she was three hundred leagues away once more.
He turned to Timon, who was splayed on the ground as if he’d been staked out by Blaskoye raiders. “Get them up, Timon,” he said. He had to say it three more times and add a soft kick before he aroused his friend.
Once he was awake, Timon jumped to his feet as if prodded by a firecoal stick. Abel had to smile at the irony. In the past, it was usually Timon who had done the prodding.
“What’d you get from the prisoners?”
“They say this valley is stoppered at the top like a bottle. There are fortifications designed for enfilading fire. It sounds nasty, sir.”
“Yes,” Abel mused. “Let’s avoid those.”
“But how? There is no way but up the Manahatet.”
Abel nodded. “So it would seem.”
Abel allowed a few moments for the troops to shove a mouthful or two of rations down their throats, then got them on the march again. He heard cursing up and down the ranks, mostly in the same breath as his name.
They moved at a quick trot northward. The columns grew ragged, but they hung together, and the men kept on. When he judged they were about halfway up the Manahatet Valley, he slowed the march to a shuffle and sent the mounted troops up the valley ahead of them. He put out a skirmish line trailing behind them. It didn’t take long for the skirmishers to come thundering back. The crackle of rifle fire picked up ahead.
“I think we’ve found a force of them,” Abel said to no one in particular. He turned to Timon. “Major Athanaskew, halt the division. Send three companies forward, but hold the rest back. I want to give them a bloody nose they’ll remember.”
“Very good, sir.”
“The orders are to engage the enemy. Use both sides of the creek for lines of movement.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And tell the captains to be prepared to withdraw at a moment’s notice. You have that, Major?”
“Withdraw at a moment’s notice, yes, sir.” Timon straightened. “Request permission to lead the charge, sir.”
Abel considered. He could ill-afford to lose Timon. On the other hand, he knew the kind of fire that burned within Timon. He was going to find a way to thrust himself into the fight one way or another.
“All right, do it, Timon.”
It wasn’t long before three companies chosen came running forward. Give it to Timon and Sergeant Groelsh: they knew how to move
men. Abel stood by the side of the road as his soldiers charged by.
Ahead the musketry crackle became a roar. He pressed forward to catch a glimpse of the battle, but realized it was useless. The valley was too narrow, and he’d packed it full of men.
Show me, Abel thought.
Calculation complete. Observe:
The lines had formed quickly, and the men had spread into the shape of “The Man Who Welcomes with Open Arms,” as they called it at the Academy—basically an outward-facing arch. The two flanks were slightly forward so that if the enemy was foolish enough to charge the center, the flanks could lay down fire from either side. Good.
The vegetation had grown thicker in the valley. Scrub trees and grass had given way to forest. Yet the trees were still sparse enough to permit tolerable line-of-sight for most of the troops in the formation.
The enemy, as he had been at the fighting in the marsh, was a mass with very little organization. What cohesion there was seemed to be in groups of different sizes.
Clans, said Raj. They’ll fight as a family, and they’ll die that way, too.
Still, there were a lot of them. They were massed back up the Manahatet Valley as if waiting in line for the morning’s bread at a bakery.
You have pulled them from their position at Isham, said Center.
So you probably know what I’m going to do next.
Lead them down the valley as far as you can, then disappear. It was not a question from Center. Center seldom asked questions.
Yes.
Suddenly, a large group of Progar musket men worked up their courage and leapt into a head-on charge. They couldn’t head down the center of the valley, but took to the meadow that lined the creek.
The Guardian rifles were merciless. It was as if the charging men were engulfed in a Redlands sandstorm.
The charge broke. The Progarmen turned and fled from the fury, and when the smoke cleared there were at least one hundred men lying dead or wounded.
They ran right into it. More murder.
No scruples. This is war, not a game. They would gladly kill you from any position, if they could.
“You’ve got that faraway look in your eyes again.” Abel blinked, turned to his right to find Flandry sitting on his dont next to him. “It’s a bit alarming to me, because whenever you do that, it seems like you’re about to give me a task that can’t possibly be accomplished and expect me to have it done yesterday.”
“Captain Hoster, all I want from you today is another one of your fine smoke bombs. Do you think you can cook one up for me?”
Landry smiled broadly. “That I did have done yesterday. Got a wagon primed and ready, sir.”
“Go alert your team. When I give the word, fire it up.”
“Yes, sir,” Landry said. He beat his chest in salute, then turned his dont and galloped away.
Abel turned to Captain Caleb Bunch, another of his staff officers, and another Cascadian by birth. Bunch had several times proved himself a good runner, getting through when it seemed impossible. “All right, Captain, it’s time to call Major Athanaskew and the men back.”
“Sir? Retreat, sir?”
“I want those companies to give me a fighting withdrawal back down the valley,” he said. “Tell them to move slowly back, but when they see the smoke, it’s time to turn and run.”
“Yes, sir,” Bunch said uncertainly.
“Do you understand the orders, Captain? Major Athanaskew would.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then carry them out.”
“Very good, sir.”
* * *
He stood by the smoking wagon waiting till he heard the sound of the front lines drawing close. He watched as soldiers emerged from the haze in front of him like ghosts, charged past, and disappeared into the brown nothingness to his rear. Finally, it was time to go.
“Come on, Landry, let’s get out of here,” he said. “I’m afraid you’re going to lose this wagon.”
“All for a good cause,” Landry replied. “One hopes.”
“We’ll see. Now let’s move.”
They mounted up and plunged into the mist, with Abel’s staff and the rearguard not far behind them.
Abel soon caught up with the main body of his troops. He ordered them into a trot, as close to a run as possible. The men were exhausted.
He pushed them harder.
Speed was essential. He had to lure the enemy as far south as possible, drawing them away from von Hoff with every step. Then the Third must disappear from enemy sight.
Moving downhill, they withdrew over the ground they had covered in half the time it had taken to gain it. Evening fell. They kept up the trot.
It was only when he saw the faint lights of oil lamps at Siegan that he called a halt. There was a wide alluvial flat near the city, more gravel than sand, but smooth enough.
“We’ll bivouac here,” Abel said to Timon. “They shouldn’t catch us in the night, but set up pickets and send out a mounted screen. Find the men who seem at least awake, set them to it. Rotate them all every halfwatch. But get the first watch fed first. Then everyone else. No fires. Hard tack only. We leave at dawn.”
“Yes, sir!” answered Timon. He was a hard man, but Abel saw relief in his eyes. “And if the colonel doesn’t mind my asking…where are we leaving for at dawn?”
Abel shook his head, and smiled a tired smile. He did not answer. This was mostly because he was afraid telling the truth would worry Timon so much he might not be able to sleep.
The Rim could do that to those who had never left the Valley.
After a moment, Abel dismounted, gave his mount over to one of Groelsh’s command staff wranglers, and went to find a place to collapse.
3
Abel woke in the chill of dawn. He stumbled around until he found the command provisions, then dug out a jug of water from the wagon bed. He drained it, barely stopping to breathe.
Better.
He took a look around. He had been certain the Progar militia would lag in pursuit, but all the same he was relieved to find that they weren’t camped across the field from the Third, massing for a dawn attack. He had slipped away and drawn the enemy far down the valley.
There had to have been a couple of thousand pursuers, Abel thought.
Three thousand one hundred.
That’s three thousand men who won’t be reinforcing the militia at Fish Pens today, Raj said. You did the job, man.
He couldn’t remember the last time Raj had given him direct praise. He felt as if he’d won the Harvest Fair grand prize.
But it wasn’t over yet. There was today to get through, for instance.
Abel went to stand over the form of Groelsh, who was sleeping like a baby. He hated to do it, but—
“All right, Staff Master Sergeant, up with you. Get up and let’s get them rousted. But do it quietly. No horns.”
Abel observed the sky as the troops began to awaken. The day was dry, as any other day in the Land would be. But the sky was beginning to become obscured as clouds drifted over. These weren’t the clouds that Abel was used to, either. They hung low in layers, and soon they covered the whole sky. Ominous.
Stratus, said Center. Common at this latitude and near the mountains. There is far more moisture in the air here than there is in Treville, or Lindron.
The men rose to the gray day. Abel permitted cook fires to be made and a breakfast of gruel to be cooked up. It was not long after sunrise when they finally set out. Instead of marching back to the west to rejoin von Hoff, as many expected them to do, Abel headed the troops down the Manahatet to Siegan and the confluence of streams that began the Fork. Then they followed the smaller of these. Men looked about quizzically. Where the cold hell was the colonel taking them? They came to where the spring flowed from the side of the Escarpment and still they kept walking. The ground grew steep. The trail narrowed and switched back repeatedly. They were climbing the Escarpment.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say we
were going up to the Rim,” said Timon. “Are we going up to the Rim, Colonel?” Abel looked over his shoulder at him and smiled.
The maps had the road, now become a trail, climbing up the whole height of the Escarpment. Looking up, anyone could see that this was not possible. Here Abel felt his first doubt. The cliff was too steep and sheer to permit even switchback. Nevertheless, he continued forward. Progar traded with the Redlanders. The Blaskoye raided the Valley. There had to be ways up and down, and this track they followed was very well worn. If the map was wrong, he’d find another way.
Finally, after a series of endless switchbacks, they saw not far ahead the bottom of a high cliff. About three fieldmarches above that was the Rim. The trail went no farther. The cliff was bare.
Except…upon drawing closer, there was something here. Something manmade.
Something that looked as nishterlaub as anything Abel had ever seen.
It was a wooden and metal contraption, very large, with a mechanism that led all the way up the side of the cliff. There were four ropes holding platforms spaced about twenty elbs apart. The platforms were the size of wagons, maybe a little bit bigger. There was something about the construction that said “machine.” And not a simple machine. Abel stared at it as they drew nearer, trying to figure out what it did.
It looks like an oblong water wheel.
Center was quiet.
Finally, Abel sighed and gave in. Okay, what is it?
It is an elevator, said Center. It seems to be designed to carry wagons or wagon-sized loads up the side of this cliff to the Rim. Red staining indicates ferrous material. Iron ore.
But it’s not moving. How does it work?
It is similar in construction to a chain drive.
A what?
Platforms on a rotating, elliptical structure.
Rotating? It’s not moving.
No. But it appears to be in good working order.
“Nishterlaub,” whispered Bunch, sitting on his puffing dont to Abel’s left. Timon, on Abel’s right, said nothing, but his scowl told all.
