At the Sign of Triumph

by David Weber

  “In fact, I’m afraid it is, Your Eminence,” the Mighty Host’s commander said now, his tone calm and his expression curiously serene for a man about to impart news of still more disaster to Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s personal representative. “I received a messenger wyvern from Earl Golden Tree this evening. At dawn tomorrow, Sairmeet will surrender to the heretics.”

  “What?!” Saintahvo jerked upright in his chair, his face twisting with rage.

  “Regrettable,” Rainbow Waters said, “but scarcely unexpected, Your Eminence.” He shook his head. “Sairmeet’s been completely isolated for almost two five-days, but Earl Golden Tree has continued to get occasional messenger wyverns out. I’ve shared his dispatches with you and Archbishop Militant Gustyv, and it’s been evident for some time that unless we reopened the high road, Sairmeet’s loss was inevitable. According to the Earl’s final dispatch, he has less than forty rounds of ammunition per rifle and enough food to feed his men for less than a five-day. The heretics haven’t even assaulted his position in over six days. They’re simply dropping shell after shell upon it and killing somewhere between three and six hundred of his men every day without ever exposing their own infantry to his fire.” The earl shrugged. “Under those circumstances, a surrender which might save the lives of his remaining men is the only logical recourse.”

  “Logical?! What does logic have to do with a war for the entire world’s soul?” Saintahvo demanded. “This Jihad isn’t about logic, My Lord! It’s about defeating Shan-wei and her minions and saving the soul of every loyal child of Mother Church, living or yet unborn. Beside that, what does simple life or death matter?!”

  “With all due respect, Your Eminence, I think that might be just a little difficult to explain to the sons and daughters of the men in Sairmeet. I don’t question the importance of protecting Mother Church and defending God’s will even at the cost of our own lives. But it would seem to me that when dying for God can accomplish nothing except to die for God, one might be excused for not wishing to create any more orphans and widows than one must.”

  Saintahvo flushed puce at the Harchongian’s cool, unruffled tone, but the earl seemed not to notice.

  “Were it possible to relieve and resupply Earl Golden Tree,” he continued, “then it would, indeed, be his duty to continue to hold his position until our columns reached him. Unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen.”

  “And why not?” Saintahvo demanded. “Why haven’t you relieved him?”

  “Because to this point, the Mighty Host has suffered in excess of thirty-two thousand casualties attempting to do just that, Your Eminence.” Rainbow Waters leaned back in his chair. “That means our losses in the effort to relieve him now exceed the total strength still under his command by fifty percent. The math is irrefutable. I cannot afford to continue losing men at that rate attempting to reinforce failure. And even if it made some sort of military sense to continue the attempt—which, I repeat, it does not—it would no longer be possible.”

  “Why not?” Saintahvo snarled.

  “Because the Army of Tarikah took Gleesyn this afternoon,” Rainbow Waters said flatly. “They are now across the Ferey at Gleesyn and at two points south of Gleesyn in at least brigade strength, covered by their heavy angle-guns from the eastern bank of the river. The bridges at Gleesyn were demolished before the position was overrun, but heretic engineers have already thrown at least—at least, Your Eminence—five pontoon bridges across the stream. I feel confident there are additional bridges we haven’t seen yet. If they do not exist now, they will by morning.”

  Silence gripped the office for several seconds, enhanced somehow by the distant, vicious mutter of the Charisian artillery.

  “I estimate the heretics have suffered something in excess of eighty thousand casualties, Your Eminence,” the earl resumed quietly. “But the Mighty Host has suffered in excess of four hundred thousand, which doesn’t count the casualties your own Army of the Center has suffered, nor the casualties Earl Silken Hills and the Southern Host have taken now that Symkyn and High Mount have broken through at Reklair and Tallas. When all are combined, the total is probably very close to twice that number.

  “Our men—and your men—have fought with the utmost courage and tenacity, and I assure you that the heretics’ casualties have been far heavier than any they’ve suffered in any of their campaigns since Bishop Militant Bahrnabai was stopped in the Sylmahn Gap. Indeed, I believe they may be heavier than all the casualties they’ve suffered in all of their campaigns since then. That’s certainly true for the Charisians, at any rate. And our forces are still intact, still a viable fighting force, despite the heretics’ advantages in artillery and mobility—even despite their balloons. But the loss ratio is tilting more and more sharply in their favor, not ours, and our lines are strained to the breaking point, as what just happened at Gleesyn demonstrates. And, perhaps even more to the point, they’re driving spearheads past our lines. They’re about to turn this from a battle of fortified positions into a war of maneuver, of movement, where their mobility and their balloons will be even more decisive than they’ve been to this point.”

  “So what do you propose to do?” Saintahvo grated.

  “There’s only one thing I can do, Your Eminence.” Rainbow Waters met the archbishop inquisitor’s furious gaze levelly. “If I don’t order the immediate retreat of every man north of Gleesyn, the heretics will drive northwest, cut them off, and do to them exactly what they’ve just done to Sairmeet. But once I evacuate that end of the Ferey River Line, there are no other suitable defensive positions short of Mhartynsberg. Indeed, given the heretic force at Four Point’s threat to the Holy Langhorne at Transyl, it may prove necessary to withdraw all the way to that city. At the very least, I believe it would be necessary to dispatch Archbishop Militant Gustyv and his entire remaining force to hold that position.”

  “That’s over seven hundred miles from here!” Saintahvo blurted. “And if you retreat past Mhartynsberg, you surrender the entire Barony of Charlz and Sardahn to heretics and demon-worshipers!”

  “And if I do not retreat, Your Eminence, then my army—and yours—will be destroyed. At which point there will be no organized force to defend anyone else against heretics and demon-worshipers.”

  “And have you discussed this with Bishop Merkyl?” Saintahvo demanded.

  “I have. And it’s only fair to admit that he felt much as you appear to feel, initially at least. In the end, however, I believe he recognized the unfortunate but inescapable logic of my analysis.”

  “And why isn’t he here to tell me that himself?”

  “The gout which has plagued him for so long has become much worse, Your Eminence. I believe his natural … unhappiness with recent events has aggravated the condition. At any rate, he is currently with the healers, although I believe he’ll be available to confer with you by tomorrow or the next day.”

  “Tomorrow or the next day?” Saintahvo repeated in an ugly tone. “Well, My Lord, whatever Bishop Merkyl may feel or not feel—assuming his medical condition hasn’t … compromised his state of mind—I categorically reject your ‘logic’! We’re God’s warriors. We owe him our lives—and our deaths, if it comes to that—and He expects us to fight on in His cause, trusting that in the day of battle, He will be our fortress and our refuge. You will not retreat, My Lord!”

  “Your Eminence, I might point out that for all your high ecclesiastic rank, you aren’t my intendant; Bishop Merkyl is. As such, I question whether or not you have the authority to countermand my intentions if he approves them.”

  “Whatever you may think about my authority, My Lord, I disagree.” Saintahvo quivered visibly with the force of his rage. “And while I might officially be ‘only’ Archbishop Militant Gustyv’s intendant, I’m also the Grand Inquisitor’s personal representative. Are you prepared to tell him I lack the ‘authority’ to countermand your cowardly intention to run away from the enemies of God?”

  His tone was scathing, his eye
s contemptuous, but the earl only shrugged.

  “I anticipated that you might … disagree with my analysis, Your Eminence,” he said in that same calm, almost conversational tone, “so I took the precaution of informing Vicar Allayn of my intentions.”

  “You did?” Saintahvo asked in a rather different tone, obviously taken aback by Rainbow Waters reasonable sounding response.

  “I did, indeed,” Rainbow Waters replied. “And I received his reply by semaphore shortly before sunset. Somewhat to my surprise, there was a second response, addressed to Archbishop Militant Gustyv in the Captain General’s personal cipher. Vicar Allayn was sufficiently alarmed by the … sweeping nature of my intentions that he wished to make his own and his colleagues’ view of them as clear as possible to the Archbishop Militant.”

  He extracted a single sheet of paper from a folder on his desk and handed it to Walkyr. The archbishop militant didn’t seem especially eager to take it, but he did. Then he unfolded it and read it slowly. His face was expressionless as he reached the bottom, then reread it carefully and even more slowly. He looked up and folded the message very neatly and precisely. Saintahvo held out an imperious hand for it, but Walkyr seemed not to notice as he gazed across the desk at Rainbow Waters, who looked back at him with one raised eyebrow.

  “May I ask if you find yourself in concurrence with the Captain General’s instructions, Your Eminence?”

  “Yes,” Walkyr replied. There was something odd about his voice, a combination of trepidation and something else, something almost like … relief. “Yes, I do, My Lord.”

  “Very good,” the earl said. Saintahvo looked back and forth between them, hand still extended for Vicar Allayn’s message, and Rainbow Waters picked up the small handbell on the corner of his desk and rang it once.

  The sweet, musical sound seemed utterly incongruous against the backdrop of heretic artillery, but it was surprisingly clear and sharp. It hung on the ear for a moment, then the office door opened and Baron Wind Song reentered, accompanied by a half-squad of infantry in the uniform of the Emperor’s Spears, the Harchongese military police.

  “Yes, My Lord?” the baron inquired, and the earl waved a graceful hand at Saintahvo.

  “Arrest him,” he said.

  .VIII.

  The Temple,

  City of Zion,

  The Temple Lands.

  “Yes, Your Eminence?” the under-priest said, entering Wyllym Rayno’s office in response to the archbishop’s signal.

  “Have we heard anything from Father Allayn this morning?”

  “Why, no, Your Eminence.” The under-priest shook his head. “Were you expecting a report or a message from him?”

  “I was expecting to see him here in my office twenty minutes ago.” Rayno looked less than amused. The archbishop had always started his days early; given the current situation, he’d taken to beginning them well before dawn, and all of his senior subordinates had learned to do the same. “Send someone to find out what’s delayed him. And why he didn’t tell me he was going to be delayed!”

  “At once, Your Eminence.”

  The under-priest bowed and disappeared, and Rayno climbed out of his chair and stomped his way to his corner office’s window. Unlike the space made available to vicars, his office boasted none of the mystically changing scenes of woodland, forest, or mountain. He did have an excellent view across the Plaza of Martyrs to the harbor, however, and he stood with his hands clasped behind him, glowering at the scenery.

  Allayn Wynchystair had better have a damned good reason for his tardiness—and an even better one for his failure to warn Rayno he’d be late! More than enough was going wrong without one of his most senior deputies suddenly deciding he had better things to do than bring him up-to-date on the Fist of Kau-Yung’s latest atrocities.

  The archbishop growled a curse.

  The scene before him looked perfectly ordinary. A huge, blazing arm of the sun had only just heaved itself above the eastern horizon, white wave crests chased themselves across Lake Pei, and the bright banners of Mother Church snapped gaily on the sharp breeze whipping in from the lake. Sails moved across the lake, the first few pedestrians of morning moved along the streets, and all of it was reassuringly normal, even tranquil.

  And it was all a lie.

  He sighed, his expression far more anxious than he’d allowed the under-priest to see, as he faced the truth.

  Zion was a powder keg, and for the first time in his career, he couldn’t predict what was about to happen in its streets. The panic he couldn’t see from his window hung over the city of God like a foul miasma. Like a pestilence. The news from the front lines was devastating, and despite Rayno’s opposition, Zhaspahr Clyntahn had decreed that the Inquisition would suppress word of Earl Golden Tree’s surrender, just as it had attempted to suppress news of Bishop Militant Lainyl’s. And, just as it had failed in Lainyl Brygham’s case, it had failed in Golden Tree’s. Those accursed broadsheets—those impossible, demonic broadsheets—had shouted the news from every wall, every doorway. And whatever Clyntahn might tell himself, whatever he might insist upon in his increasingly savage—and rambling—conferences, the people of Zion believed those broadsheets more than they believed Mother Church herself.

  Of course they did, and with good reason. That was why Rayno had argued in favor of telling the truth from the outset. Censor news if they must, but tell the truth in the official news they did release, lest the people reading those broadsheets decide it was God’s enemies who told the truth and His champions who lied. The Inquisition had never had to worry about that before those broadsheets, though, and Clyntahn seemed unable to admit that the techniques which had always worked before would work no longer.

  Then there was the upsurge in the “Fist of God’s” attacks on senior clergy, especially among the episcopate. That was bad enough, but over the last five-day, eighteen regular agents inquisitor had been ambushed as they went about their duties. Seventeen of them were dead, the eighteenth was in a coma, and no one—not one single soul—had seen a Shan-wei-damned thing. No one. When the Inquisition couldn’t turn up a single witness to the brutal slaying of one of its own—when everyone insisted they didn’t have a clue what had happened—they were entering uncharted seas. Nothing like that had ever happened before. And the one thing he was certain of was that those murders hadn’t been committed by the Fist of God. The attacks had been too … sloppy. Too impassioned. They were the handiwork of outrage, not of a calculated strategy. Besides, the Fist of God had always disdained casual attacks on randomly chosen street agents inquisitor. No. Those attacks were the work of ordinary Zionites, the result of the rage boiling just beneath that tranquil surface outside his window.

  It doesn’t mean the city’s entire population’s caught up in it, Wyllym, he told himself. How many people does it take to kill eighteen men, especially when they’re caught alone or with only a single companion to help them? It could be no more than a handful of malcontents! So Zhaspahr’s right. The attacks don’t prove the … disaffection is general.

  No, it didn’t conclusively prove anything of the sort. But Wyllym Rayno had been an agent inquisitor—and a prosecutor inquisitor—in his day. He couldn’t have begun to count the number of cases he’d made on far flimsier evidence than the seventeen bodies in the Inquisition’s morgue.

  And now Wynchystair couldn’t even be bothered to keep his appointment! Well, he was going to get an earful when he did arrive, and—

  “Excuse me, Your Eminence.”

  Rayno turned from the window. The under-priest was back, and his face was pale, his expression visibly shaken.

  “What?” the archbishop demanded, fighting a sudden sinking sensation.

  “Father Allayn—” The under-priest swallowed. “Father Allayn is dead, Your Eminence. He and Father Zhaksyn, Father Paiair, and Father Kwynlyn … they’re all dead.”

  “All of them?!” Rayno stared at the aide.

  “All of them,” the under-priest co
nfirmed. “I just heard from Father Allayn’s secretary. He says … he says Father Allayn had summoned the others to an early meeting—over breakfast, I think—to hear their reports before his meeting with you. Someone threw a hand-bomb through the breakfast parlor window.”

  “Schueler,” Rayno whispered. He stared at the under-priest for several seconds, then shook himself. “Tell Bishop Markys I want to see him immediately!” he snapped.

  * * *

  “That doesn’t sound good,” Father Elaiys Makrakton observed, his expression uneasy. The under-priest glanced at his assistant, Brother Riely Stahrns, then looked at the Temple Guard sergeant in command of the squad assigned to support them.

  “Don’t ask me, Father,” the sergeant said edgily, head cocked as he listened to the shouts coming around the corner ahead of them.

  “Well, I guess there’s only one way to find out,” Makrakton said, his tone considerably heartier than he actually felt.

  “If you say so, Father.”

  The sergeant sounded as doubtful as Makrakton truly felt, but he jerked his head at his men.

  “You heard the Father. Look sharp!”

  Heads nodded, and Makrakton tried to pretend he hadn’t noticed the bayonets being fixed on the Guardsmen’s rifles. Then he drew a deep breath and nodded to Stahrns.

  The daily briefing had all sounded so … routine this morning. It wasn’t a duty anyone wanted, of course, but someone had to go tear down the blasphemous broadsheets that went up every night, and today it was their turn. Makrakton had done his share of avoiding it any way he could. There was something about just touching the things, about coming into contact with something so obviously unclean. And even if they were torn down, they only reappeared the next morning. Never in exactly the same place, but there were parts of town—stretches like Zheppsyn Avenue—where they always appeared. They might be on a different building—on St. Nysbet’s today and on the Zheppsyn Avenue Library tomorrow—but they were always here. Anyone willing to believe their lies, could always find a fresh load of them on Zheppsyn.