by David Weber
“Yes, My Lord!”
Slokym slapped his breastplate in salute and disappeared, and as Green Valley pulled out the map on which he’d been sketching out his plans, he wondered how the officers he’d just sent for were going to react to those plans.
Brigadier Zhebydyah Mylz, 2nd Brigade’s CO, was a fellow Old Charisian who—like Green Valley—had found himself an Army officer when the Marine brigades raised for the Corisande Campaign transferred en masse to the Imperial Army. He was just under forty years old, with plenty of combat experience from Corisande, and considerably more native aggressiveness than Brigadier Traigair, so the notion was likely to appeal to him … within limits, at least. Powairs, Green Valley’s chief of staff, would probably see the potential advantages even more clearly than Mylz, although he wouldn’t admit it at first. One of his jobs was to serve as Green Valley’s sounding board, forcing the baron to consider questions he might have overlooked in his enthusiasm. Mkwartyr wouldn’t care one way or the other. A hard-bitten, experienced engineer who looked down his nose at “book learning” (despite carting around a far larger library than he allowed most people to suspect), all he’d want to know was what Green Valley wanted built or blown up. Where they did the building—or the blowing up—didn’t really matter to him. Graingyr was likely to approach the idea much the way Powairs did, given that keeping them supplied would fall squarely on his shoulders.
Of course, this may come at them as less of a surprise than I’ve been fondly anticipating, he acknowledged ruefully. They’ve gotten to know me pretty damned well, and if Bryahn could figure out what I have in mind, they could’ve, too. On the other hand, Bryahn’s the one who’s in charge of my maps and dispatches, so he’s had the opportunity to see my scribblings as I worked on them, which they haven’t.
He smiled at the thought, but the truth was that he’d kept all of this very close to his vest. He trusted his senior officers, and thanks to the SNARCs, he was fairly confident of his ability to identify Temple Loyalist spies elsewhere in his command. “Fairly confident” wasn’t exactly the same thing as “absolutely positive,” however, as the fate of the Hairatha gunpowder works demonstrated. And whatever the SNARCs might be able to tell him about potential spies, none of his other officers had that advantage. The sooner they became privy to what he had in mind and began implementing the detailed planning with their subordinates, the sooner there was a risk of his intentions leaking to the enemy.
And given the boot lace on which I’m planning this entire operation, the longer we can keep that from happening, the better.
He looked down at the map, contemplating the terrain, and his smile turned cold and hard.
* * *
“So that’s what we’re going to do,” Kynt Clareyk told the officers standing around his map table the better part of an hour later. He ran his finger down the line of the Sylmahn River and then east along the Tairmana Canal to its junction with the Mountaincross River at the small city of Maiyam, then northwest to Grayback Lake. “The Seneschal’s sending us two regiments of Siddarmarkian cavalry to help out, and they should be here within the five-day. I admit I’d be happier if we had our own dragoons, but the rebel ‘cavalry’ we’re likely to run into’s no better than brigands for the most part. I’m confident our infantry columns can deal with anything we’re likely to encounter in Mountaincross. The real problem’s going to be how quickly we can cover the ground, not what we may run into covering it. Our latest intelligence reports”—which included SNARC reports he was in no position to share—“suggest Chestyrvyl and Greentown are both lightly held, and Maiyam’s ‘garrison’ is supposed to be a single understrength militia regiment. More to the point, we already hold all the locks on the Tairmana Canal between here and Maiyam, and there are no locks on the Mountaincross between there and the lake. That means we’ll have secure canal transportation all the way from here to Greentown if we can grab Maiyam before they know we’re coming.”
“And if we don’t grab Maiyam before they know we’re coming, My Lord?” Allayn Powairs asked respectfully.
“Then we’ll be using a lot of dragons, Allayn. Which I’m sure Brysyn will find for us somewhere.”
He smiled at Colonel Graingyr, and the quartermaster smiled back. It was not an entirely happy smile, but at least he didn’t seem to be panicking.
“And how do you expect Wyrshym to react, My Lord?” Brigadier Mylz asked.
“It’ll take him at least a few days to find out about it, unless they’ve managed to repair a lot more of the semaphore chain the ironclads destroyed than I think they have,” Green Valley replied confidently. “And even after he does, there won’t be much he can do about it. The Moon Thorns, the Ice Ashes, and the Kalgarans are all in his way, and the canals are useless to him after the Canal Raid. He’d have to march around the mountains and haul every pound of supplies overland. That’s over two thousand miles by road, and it’s only nine hundred sixty miles from Serabor to Greentown by water. Or, for that matter, it’s only four hundred and fifty miles from Serabor to Chestyrtyn by road. Either way, we can be there long before he is, unless you think what’s left of the rebel militia between here and Grayback Lake is going to stop us.”
Mylz snorted.
“That’s what I thought, too,” Green Valley agreed with a smile. “As a matter of fact, I’d be delighted if Wyrshym did try to stop us. I don’t see him slicing off a lot of his army and sending it out to the end of a nonexistent supply line, but it would be nice, wouldn’t it? Especially if the Lord Protector’s in a position to send us additional cavalry. Or if we can get one or two of our own mounted brigades when General Symkyn arrives with the second echelon.”
“I agree, My Lord. And I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said. But why do you want to do this now? Why not wait until General Symkyn does arrive and we can make the move in strength?”
“Two reasons, Zhebydyah. First, we can’t be certain General Symkyn’s going to get here on schedule. I think it’s likely he will, but one thing an ex-Marine should know is that no one can command wind and wave. It’s entirely possible he’ll be delayed, and even if he isn’t, we can’t reasonably expect to see him before the end of the first five-day in September. Now, I realize you and I are both effete Charisian boys, not like these winter-hardy Chisholmians, but if I recall correctly, it snows in northern Haven in the winter, doesn’t it?”
A rumble of laughter went up, and Green Valley grinned.
“I thought that was what I’d heard,” he said. Then his expression sobered. “Seriously, from the records, we can expect snow no later than early to mid-October. If Symkyn doesn’t even get here until mid-September, and it takes him six days just to get from Siddar City to Tairmana, we won’t have much autumn left. I’d rather be all the way across Mountaincross and into Midhold by the time he disembarks, and I’d really like to get close enough to threaten the Northland Gap before winter shuts the canals down. I don’t know if that’s practical, but we can push the rebel militia out of Midhold at the very least. That would free up overland communications to Rollings Province and give us the entire northern mountain wall, from the Meirstroms to the Glacierheart Gap.”
His subordinates nodded slowly, their expressions thoughtful.
“And the second reason,” he went on, “is that Wyrshym’s getting too much time to recover. He’s dug-in, he’s feeling secure—or as secure as he can—and his entire army’s probably recouping some of its lost morale. At the same time, he has to’ve heard about what Duke Eastshare did to Kaitswyrth on the Daivyn. So has the rest of his army, no matter how hard the Inquisition’s tried to downplay how bad it was. So if they find out we’ve launched a flanking move against them, they’re going to wonder if we plan on doing the same thing to them. None of them’ll admit that to anyone, but I want to put it into their brains. I want them thinking about it over the winter. And I especially want them thinking about the fact that we’re willing to take the offensive when we’re outnumbered ten to one. By
the time the spring campaign season rolls around, especially this far north, we won’t have just General Symkyn’s troops. General High Mount will be here with the rest of the Army and there’ll be enough new Siddarmarkian brigades in the field to watch our backs while we concentrate on kicking arse … or to do a little arse-kicking of their own, for that matter. I don’t think the ‘Temple Boys’ will like that one little bit, and I want to keep them worrying about it.”
He paused, letting that sink in, and smiled thinly.
“Until they ran into us here in the Gap, they were riding a wave of success all the way east. Now, between us, the Canal Raid, and the Duke, we’ve damned well taken the wind out of their sails. I want to keep it that way. I want the Army of God to be as nervous about fighting the Imperial Charisian Army as the Navy of God is about fighting the Imperial Charisian Navy, and that means ‘putting the scare’ into them and keeping it there any way we can. We kick their feet out from under them, we stomp on their throats when they go down, we take every opportunity we can find, make, or steal to rip out their hearts, and we show them—we prove to them—that their miserable arses are ours whenever we decide to put a boot in them. If we can do that, any Temple commander’s going to be half defeated before we fire the first shot at him.”
He looked around his officers’ faces and saw their agreement. There were arguments against what he was proposing, but what he’d said clearly made sense to them. It made sense to him, too, although he also knew several things he couldn’t share with them. For example, he knew General Symkyn was actually slightly ahead of schedule, and he knew the Earl of High Mount and over two hundred thousand additional Imperial Charisian Army infantry, cavalry, and artillery had cleared Port Royal that very morning, bound for Siddarmark. If they made a fast passage, they could reach the Republic in a little over two months, or by the middle of October. Of course, that was if they made a fast passage, and as he’d just pointed out to Zhebydyah Mylz, some things were more likely than others when beating to windward against autumn gales.
And then there was the third reason none of them had discussed in so many words. The Temple Loyalists in Midhold knew about the Allies’ successes in the Sylmahn Gap and the Canal Raid … and that they were now thoroughly isolated from any chance of a rapid link up with the Army of God. One might have expected that to inspire them to dial down the atrocity level, but only if one were not familiar with human nature. Instead, they’d decided to do as much additional damage “in God’s name” as they could before they were driven from the province entirely, and any semblance of restraint had vanished over the past several five-days. The calculated and coordinated campaign of terror carried out by Bishop Wylbyr Edwyrds, Zhapahr Clyntahn’s chosen Inquisitor General, was terrible enough; what the native Siddarmarkian Temple Loyalists had degenerated into since the Canal Raid was the stuff of nightmares. At best, Midhold would be decades recovering from what had already been done to it, and the carnage had spread across the border into Rollings Province, as well.
That was going to stop, Green Valley thought grimly. One way or the other, it was going to stop, and he didn’t really care how many Temple Loyalist “militia” he had to kill in the process. Not anymore.
On the other hand, unlike any of his officers, he knew exactly what was heading for Thesmar and Shiloh Province. He also knew what Eastshare intended to do about it, and he hoped like hell the duke could pull it off. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much Green Valley could do to help with that particular problem, and assuming Shiloh held, they definitely needed to be in the best position they could find to take the war to Wyrshym once again as soon as possible. The combined Desnairian-Dohlaran force swarming into the South March Lands was enormous, but it was also fundamentally less dangerous than the Army of God. And of the two armies the Temple itself had so far put into the field, Wyrshym’s was both the more dangerous and the more vulnerable, with no secure river or canal line along which it could retreat in the face of a determined attack.
The Temple still doesn’t realize how quickly we can move or how hard we can hit, he thought, gazing down at the map while Graingyr and Mkwartyr started discussing the logistics and engineering train they were going to need. If I can get close enough, then throw a corps of Charisian cavalry with Charisian artillery across his rear, it’s possible we could cut off and destroy his entire army. Even if we can’t do that, cleaning out—and hanging—the bastards burning, looting, and raping everything that’s left in Midhold will be entirely worthwhile in its own right. But most of all, I want Wyrshym right where he is at Saiknyr and Guarnak while we swing through the Northland Gap and slam the door shut behind him. He’s probably smart enough to pull back if he realizes what’s coming, but he may not be the one who gets to make the decision, and everything we’ve seen suggests that Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s as fond of “hold to the last man” orders as Adolf Hitler ever was. Who knows? We may just be able to engineer our very own Stalingrad, and that would suit me just fine.
.VII.
Siddar City, Republic of Siddarmark
“Signal from Admiral White Ford, Sir.”
Captain Halcom Bahrns tried not to scowl at the sound of Ahbukyra Matthysahn’s respectful voice. The young signalman’s shattered elbow was still encased in plaster, and the healers weren’t optimistic about how much—if any—use of it he would ever again have. Bahrns had tried to send the youngster to one of the Pasqualate hospitals ashore, or at least to one of the ICN hospital ships, but Matthysahn had proven both stubborn and remarkably adroit at avoiding anything that would remove him from HMS Delthak. A lot of Bahrns’ crew seemed to feel that way, and despite his injury Matthysahn remained one of the best signalmen in the entire Navy.
None of which made Captain Bahrns any more cheerful about receiving signals from admirals just as he finally sat down for a long overdue lunch.
“Sorry, Sir.” Matthysahn shook his head. “It’s marked Priority.”
“Better and better,” Bahrns muttered. Then he gave himself a shake. “Not your fault, Ahbukyra. And I don’t suppose I should hold it against Admiral White Ford, either. I’m sure he probably figures I finished lunch hours ago, like any sane captain would’ve.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Bahrns unfolded the message, skimmed it, and in a dazzling display of professionalism and self-control did not swear. Instead, he looked up at Trynt Sevyrs, the rather villainous-looking, much-tattooed steward’s mate who’d somehow become his personal steward, and shook his head.
“It looks delicious, Trynt, but I’ve got to go. Put a slab of meat and some cheese between a couple of pieces of bread and I’ll eat it in the boat.”
“But, Captain—”
“Not negotiable, I’m afraid.” Bahrns pushed back from the table, regarding the fried chicken, buttered potatoes, and lima beans with an expression of profound regret. “I have to get changed. So while Trynt’s doing his best to keep me from collapsing of hunger on my way to the Admiral, Ahbukyra, I need you to find Brahdlai and tell him to assemble his boat’s crew.”
“Aye, aye, Sir,” Matthysahn acknowledged, and Bahrns allowed himself one last, mournful headshake before hurrying off to his cabin to exchange his worn seagoing uniform for something more suitable for facing a flag officer.
* * *
North Bedard Bay was a vast, dark blue sheet of water over two hundred and thirty miles across. To the east, it stretched clear to the horizon like a wave-ruffled carpet. To the west, and much closer to hand, the roofs, cathedral spires, and towers of Siddar City rose beyond a broad waterfront which was busier than it had ever been before. That was saying quite a lot, given how much Charisian cargo had passed through the Republic before Zhaspahr Clyntahn had spread death and destruction across two-thirds of Siddarmark. And it was saying even more, given the feverish efforts to ship in enough food to stave off the deliberate starvation he’d inflicted upon the Republic. But that frantic labor was a thing of the past. Food was still being landed in much greater quantities than n
ormal, yet order had been reasserted. That didn’t make the docks one bit less busy, however, and the presence of over forty Imperial Charisian Navy galleons, with all their boat and ship-to-shore traffic, not to mention the convoy of military matériel which had just arrived from Old Charis, was enough to make the two-mile pull from Delthak to Admiral White Ford’s flagship interesting, to say the least.
Brahdlai Mahfyt, Bahrns’ personal coxswain, took it in stride. He made it a point to take everything in stride, actually, and Bahrns treasured the muscular petty officer’s unflappable composure even if he did secretly cherish the hope that someday that composure would crack. Secure in the knowledge that Mahfyt would somehow manage to avoid ramming—or being rammed by—another cutter, launch, whaleboat, or gig on the journey to HMS Fortune, Bahrns sat back to enjoy the cool air, brisk breeze, and billowing white cloud. As he watched, a gliding deep-mouth wyvern banked, swooped down, and then beat its wings heavily as it climbed back into the air with the pouch under its beak squirming as some small fish fought to escape. Other wyverns and gulls circled overhead, riding the wind effortlessly, and the incoming tide washed white and green against the seawall.
At times like this, when wind and salt swept over him with their cleansing touch, Halcom Bahrns could almost forget the savagery raging across Siddarmark. Not for very long, of course. The memories of what everyone was calling the “Great Canal Raid” were too fresh and too ugly for that, and he wondered if that would ever change. And yet, for all the ferocity and destruction of the raid, the bulk of the Imperial Charisian Navy found itself with no one to fight. That was … wrong. It seemed as if the Navy had been fighting for its life, and for Charis’ survival, for as long as anyone could remember, but now it was up to the Army, and Bahrns felt almost left out, as if he were somehow shirking his responsibilities by not being locked in mortal combat with the Temple Loyalists.
