Like a Mighty Army

by David Weber

  Maigwair inhaled sharply. The Treasury’s workings had become far less arcane for him as he was forced to deal with the costs of the Jihad, which meant he had some inkling of the long-term future costs to the mainland economies. And he also suspected that even in the teeth of Clyntahn’s agents inquisitor, there were going to be people desperate enough to try to evade their unsought financial obligations. For that matter, the combination of the special tithe and the forced loans was going to destroy some of the smaller bankers and manufactory owners outright. He didn’t know if the sale of Church properties in the apostate Out Islands would find any takers, even at such attractive prices, but it might. Of course, the suggestion that the Church was simply writing off its holdings there might also strike directly at the Faithful’s resolve, since she wouldn’t be doing that if she truly expected to put down the heresy at its heart. There were entirely too many double-edged swords in the world already for his taste, and he wasn’t at all sure he favored loosing yet another of them. At the same time, the combination of Duchair’s onetime measures—and, Chihiro, but he hoped they’d prove onetime!—would provide a massive infusion of cash the Church needed desperately.

  And when we win, Mother Church will surely redeem her notes at full value, he told himself, resolutely avoiding words like “if” and worries about whether or not Mother Church would be able to redeem them at face value, however badly she might want to. Or not want to, for that matter.

  “I don’t have your command of the details,” he said after a moment, “but I understand enough to realize how little you could’ve wanted to do any of those things.”

  “You’re right; I didn’t want to do them. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much choice. This should at least give us a powerful running start on duplicating the heretics’ newest weapons for you. And on funding the supplies you need … assuming we can get them to the front where you need them, of course.”

  “I’ve been thinking the same sorts of things, I promise you,” Maigwair said feelingly. “And, speaking of that, where are we on the canal repairs?”

  “I still have only the preliminary reports, but I’m sending teams of engineers forward to survey the damage, and I hope they’re going to tell me at least some of it’s repairable. Unfortunately, it sounds like what we’re really talking about here is complete replacement of the wrecked locks, and the pumping stations are probably total losses. In fact, I think the damage to the pumps is even worse than we initially thought it was.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of.” Maigwair’s expression was grim. “And that doesn’t even consider the effect weather’s going to have! Will we even be able to pour concrete over the winter?”

  “Not north of the Hildermoss Mountains. Not after the winter freeze sets in, anyway. And that’s where all the damage is, of course. I had enough engineering supplies deployed forward for us to begin work immediately on the locks between East Wing Lake and the Hildermoss, and the reports I’ve gotten so far suggest we should be able to get those in before first snowfall. They won’t be as good as they were before the heretics destroyed them, but they’ll be adequate to our needs. And once we’re able to get barges as far forward as the Hildermoss again, we can get as far upriver as Ayaltyn.”

  “Ayaltyn?” Maigwair shook his head. “Never heard of it.”

  “That’s because it’s nothing much more than a shallow spot in the river about forty miles past Cat Lizard Lake.” Duchairn leaned over the map on the table between them and tapped the approximate location. “It’s a tiny village—or used to be, anyway. According to my reports, there were never more than a couple of hundred people in Ayaltyn even before the Sword of Schueler. By the time the heretics came through, the only people in the vicinity where the ten-man garrison Wyrshym had left to keep an eye on the locks. That’s going to get us just under two hundred miles south of East Wing Lake, but it’s still over seven hundred and fifty miles as the wyvern flies from Guarnak.”

  “We should at least be able to move supplies by sled once the canals do freeze over,” Maigwair said hopefully, but Duchairn shook his head again.

  “That’s going to be true to some extent, Allayn, but we’ve got too many stretches of canal bed—and over seventy miles of aqueduct—which’re basically dry now. I’m not sure there’s going to be enough standing water in them to provide the kind of ice we usually see in the winter, and without the locks and the pumps, we can’t get the water into them, either. And even if there is, we’re a lot shorter of snow lizards than we are of dragons. Worse, a lot of the dragons we do have are southern hill dragons. We’ll have to pull them out of everywhere north of Hildermoss and Westmarch—or, even worse, slaughter them in place for food—by mid-November at the latest. They just don’t have the coats to survive a northern winter; we’d lose two-thirds of them before spring. We’ll do what we can, but I can’t tell you to go ahead and count on sled transport at this point.”

  The Treasurer paused, thinking about his next words very carefully. Then he cleared his throat.

  “One thing we might consider are ways to reduce how many mouths we have to feed,” he said, watching Maigwair’s expression cautiously. The Captain General’s face tightened, but he only nodded, and Duchairn went on with a bit more confidence.

  “Half of the Army of the Sylmahn’s original infantry were pikemen,” he pointed out, “and everything we’ve seen suggests that pikes are all but useless against the heretics. Perhaps it might not be a bad idea to pull all of them back from the front, into the Border States or even the Temple Lands, where we can feed them without imposing so much strain on the canals. I wouldn’t suggest pulling back any of our strength under normal circumstances, you understand.” Certainly not anywhere Clyntahn might hear of it, at any rate! “Under these circumstances, and given the relative ineffectiveness of their weapons, though, it seems to me it would only be sensible to consider it.”

  Maigwair’s eyes had gone opaque. He sat for several seconds, then shrugged.

  “I see the argument,” he agreed. “It might be a bit difficult to do anything of the sort without undermining the Army’s morale, of course. And as Zhaspahr’s pointed out”—those opaque eyes met Duchairn’s across the table unblinkingly—“we need to make every effort to get better weapons into their hands. If we get rifles forward to them, they’d be far more effective.”

  “That’s true.” Duchairn nodded. “Unfortunately, the transport problems mean we have a huge logistical logjam well behind the front. I’ve got somewhere around thirty thousand rifles stuck short of the Tanshar border at the moment. It’s going to be very hard to break them free, with all the emphasis on getting materials to repair the canals forward, and I’m afraid additional new production weapons may be stuck even farther up the line than that.”

  And I can keep them jammed where they are for at least another month before I run out of logical excuses for Zhaspahr, Allayn. He didn’t actually say the words, but he thought them loudly, indeed, and Maigwair’s eyes flickered.

  “The best you can do is the best you can do,” he said after a moment. “And you’re right; if we can’t get rifles into their hands, pikemen are simply going to be useless mouths at the front. Come to that, they’re not trained as riflemen in the first place. Might make a lot of sense to pull them back to where we can mate them up with the rifles, ease the strain on your quartermasters, and let us form them into new, properly trained rifle-armed regiments. Then we could move them back to the front for our spring offensive as much more effective units.”

  “I know the idea has to disappoint you,” Duchairn said apologetically. “Looking at all the options and pressures, though, I really do think we may have to bite the bullet and do it.”

  “As you say,” Maigwair agreed with a heavy sigh.

  They looked at one another, expressions suitably grave. Then Duchairn shifted in his chair.

  “I do have some good news,” he said. Maigwair cocked his head, and the Treasurer smiled crookedly. “It’s not something
I’d propose under normal conditions, given The Book of Langhorne strictures on the canals, but we’re in the middle of a jihad. I expect the Archangels are probably prepared to grant us a few dispensations, under the circumstances.”

  “What sort of ‘dispensations’?”

  “Well, it helps that we have the plans for every canal on file right here in Zion. Since we have the information, I’ve got crews of carpenters building temporary wooden locks. They’d never stand up to decades of heavy use the way locks are supposed to, but they ought to be serviceable enough to get the canals back on stream at least temporarily. We’re also doing a comprehensive analysis of the pumping stations that were destroyed, and I’m having complete duplicate pumps made for each of them. We can barge them forward as far as the canals and the rivers will take us, and we’re designing them in components small enough for draft dragons to haul on flatbed wagons from there, so we should be moving the canalhead steadily forward as soon as things begin to thaw next spring. I’ve put Father Tailahr in charge of it.”

  “Father Tailahr?” Maigwair repeated.

  “Father Tailahr Synzhyn. He’s a Hastingite they attached to my staff when we took over the canals to manage your logistics.” Duchairn looked up from the map to meet Maigwair’s eyes levelly. “He’s a Chisholmian.”

  The Captain General stiffened. The Order of Hastings provided Safehold’s geographers and astronomers. It also provided almost half of Mother Church’s engineers, with special emphasis on transportation. But however great Synzhyn’s expertise.…

  “Is Zhaspahr aware of that?” Maigwair asked carefully after a moment.

  “As a matter of fact, he is.” Duchairn’s tone was cool. “There are quite a few faithful Chisholmians, you know. There are even some still living in Chisholm, far less people like Father Tailahr who can never go home until we win the Jihad. He’s working harder than any other three priests on my staff, as if he feels he has to somehow atone for Sharleyan’s sins, and I’ve personally vouched for him.”

  Maigwair nodded slowly, obviously hoping Duchairn was right about Synzhyn’s reliability. If he wasn’t, and if he’d vouched for the man to Clyntahn’s face, the consequences for the Treasurer would be severe.

  “So what exactly is Father Tailahr doing for you?”

  “He’s the one who came up with the idea for the wooden locks in the first place. What we’re going to do is excavate enough of each destroyed lock to clear the canal bed. Then we’ll install one of the prefabricated locks built especially to fit the one we’re replacing. The new lock will be somewhat narrower than the old one, and we’ll probably lose more water because the wooden panels are going to leak and we’ll be filling in between them and the canal wall with earth and gravel ballast, not concrete. They won’t last as long, either—we’re not sure they’ll last through even one normal Siddarmarkian winter—but we’ll be able to replace them fairly rapidly if they go down again. And I’ll be stockpiling additional timbers and planking as far forward as I can. Father Tailahr and I estimate that if we’re able to position them properly and hold reserve work crews in readiness, we ought to be able to replace any three destroyed locks in sequence in no more than three to four five-days. Of course,” the Treasurer smiled sourly, “that’s assuming the Army can keep the heretics from burning our stockpiles.”

  “How long to replace the locks we’ve already lost, at least between here and Guarnak, using this new technique of yours?” Maigwair asked intently.

  “That depends on whether or not we’ll be able to work through the winter months,” Duchairn said frankly. “If we are, and assuming I manage to get the necessary supplies moved forward, we should have the entire canal between East Wing Lake and Guarnak up and running again by the end of March. The problem is that I doubt we will be able to work through the coldest months, and Father Tailahr says it’s less likely prefabricated locks are going to be as effective in the rivers. Assuming we essentially have to shut down between early November and the end of February, it’s going to be mid-April, at least, before we can have all of the canal system you need open again. Once we start getting into warmer weather, we’ll be able to work faster; otherwise, I’d be estimating early May.”

  “March would be wonderful,” Maigwair said softly, looking back down at the map and tracing the blue line from East Wing Lake to Guarnak.

  “We’ll do the best we can, Allayn,” Duchairn promised. “No matter what we do, though, keeping Wyrshym supplied through the winter’s going to be … problematical, even pulling back the pikemen. And that, unfortunately, brings us to the question of Harchong.”

  Maigwair’s face tensed once more, and Duchairn shrugged.

  “We certainly aren’t going to be able to feed Wyrshym’s troops and the loyal population in Hildermoss, New Northland, Northland, and Midhold and move the Harchongians to the front, Allayn. I’m sorry, but it simply can’t be done without the canals. I’m working on evacuating as many civilians as possible, finding places in the Temple Lands and southern Harchong where we can house and feed them, but there’s no way in God’s world we can send the better part of a million and a half men forward to the end of a supply line that fragile.”

  “Zhaspahr’s not going to be happy to hear that,” Maigwair pointed out.

  “Zhaspahr’s going to have to deal with quite a few things he won’t be happy to hear,” Duchairn replied tartly. Maigwair blinked, but Duchairn only shrugged. He was on much surer ground where the Imperial Harchongese Army was concerned, and he’d warned Clyntahn about it from the beginning. “I expect him to pitch another tantrum, but if he insists on sending them forward after I’ve shown him the figures on the number of troops we can feed, that Harchongese loyalty he counts on so heavily is likely to start getting a little threadbare.”

  This time Maigwair actually winced, but Duchairn only chuckled.

  “Believe me, Allayn, I’m no more eager to trigger one of Zhaspahr’s tirades than anyone else, but I’ve had a fair amount of practice by now. Hopefully I’ll be able to divert him by pointing out that I expect to have the canals back up sooner than originally projected if he’ll only refrain from forcing every load of construction materials to compete with food for starving troops. But whether that works or not, he simply can’t have it both ways. If we start work now, we can throw up barracks for the Harchongians along the Holy Langhorne Canal. They can provide the construction crews themselves, and in most cases, they’ll even be able to cut the necessary lumber, too. Langhorne knows Harchongese serfs have enough experience building cabins fit to stand the winter! That’ll let us deploy them as far forward as possible while keeping them supplied over the winter, so we should be able to move them up quickly come spring.”

  “That might work,” Maigwair said hopefully. “And—”

  He stopped, and Duchairn smiled at him again. This time it was an oddly sympathetic expression.

  “And, you were about to say, there’s something to be said for taking advantage of the winter to give them better training and weapons,” he said.

  “Well … yes,” Maigwair acknowledged. “It’s not that I doubt their loyalty or their determination, but.…”

  Duchairn nodded slowly, wondering how stern a test he dared to give the growing sense of rapport between him and Maigwair.

  “Allayn, you and I both know the Harchongians are nowhere near the level of training you’ve managed for the Army of God,” he said after a long, tense moment. “I wonder if you know how bad the weapons picture really is, though?”

  He cocked an eyebrow at the other vicar, and Maigwair sighed.

  “I know it’s bad. Very bad. But it can’t be as bad as Grand Duke Omar’s correspondence is suggesting.” Rhobair only looked at him, and his mouth tightened. “Or can it?” he asked.

  “Actually, it’s worse,” Rhobair said flatly, and Maigwair actually paled. “Until the … unfortunate timing of the Faithful’s spontaneous uprising in Siddarmark took us all by surprise, their manufactories were busy overstat
ing their rifle production in order to justify Church subsidies for rifles—even foundries—that didn’t exist. Worse, they hadn’t even begun building up the new regiments; they were too busy pocketing the funds that were supposed to be spent on that minor detail. After all, there was plenty of time and they could always follow their usual process and send out press gangs to conscript every serf and peasant in sight when they were actually summoned to the Jihad. So they did.”

  Maigwair swallowed, and despite his sympathy, Rhobair felt a stab of irritation. The other man was Mother Church’s Captain General! Surely he should have been better informed on the state of the Harchongese Army than her Treasurer was!