by David Weber
“Not an option this year, Sairahs, I’m afraid,” Bohlyr replied around his pipe, his expression grim, and Dahglys nodded.
“I can bring in some labor from the Border States,” the engineer said, “but not enough. And not quickly enough to get this done on schedule.”
He and his companions looked at one another again. None of them cared to suggest that disappointing the Grand Inquisitor would be a very bad idea.
“Is there any way you and Archbishop Arthyn can help us out, Father?” the engineer asked finally, and Pygain’s face tightened.
“I’d be surprised if Tarikah’s present population is even thirty percent of what it was last fall,” he said very carefully and precisely. “We’ve consolidated as many as possible of the surviving people into the bigger towns and villages, and we managed to get seed into the ground. We’ve been blessed by the weather this summer, and it looks as if the harvest will be good where we were able to plant, but we need the men and women in the fields to gather it. If we don’t, they’ll starve this winter the way so many did last winter.”
“I’m afraid that’s part of the problem everywhere,” Dahglys sighed. “Not to the same extent it is here, of course.” His nostrils flared as he recalled the deserted farms, the empty villages, the unplanted fields and empty pastures—too often dotted with the bleached bones of livestock—he’d passed on his journey from the Temple Lands. “Our labor needs are in competition with the mines and the manufactories arming the Army of God, and all of its happening just at the moment we’re coming up on the farmers’ busiest season. But the fact remains. Without enough manpower from somewhere, there’s no point even starting before spring. And if we can’t get it finished before the spring floods, it’ll be the end of April or even May before we get done.”
The silence turned harder and colder. Every one of them knew the Army of the Sylmahn’s very existence depended on repairing the damage. Winter would close the canals down by early November, whatever happened, and no one liked to think about the privations Bishop Militant Bahrnabai’s men would endure once the snow began to fly. At the moment, long lines of dragon-drawn wagons were managing to keep the Army of the Sylmahn supplied, but it was a near thing even in summer and early fall. When the high roads were covered in ice and snow, when the southern hill dragons had to be withdrawn to a climate they could survive, the bishop militant’s supply line would turn into a thin, badly frayed supply thread, and it was virtually inevitable that the heretics would do everything they could to make his situation still worse.
“There might be a way,” Pygain said finally.
His normally warm eyes had darkened, and his expression was grim. His companions looked at him warily, and he grimaced.
“I could speak to Father Zherohm,” he said, his tone manifestly unhappy, and Dahglys’ jaw tightened.
Father Zherohm Clymyns was a Schuelerite upper-priest attached to Bishop Wylbyr Edwyrds’ staff, and Edwyrds was the Inquisitor General for Icewind, New Northland, Mountaincross, Hildermoss, and Westmarch. That made him the man charged with sifting those accused of heresy and apostasy … and sending them to the Punishment of Schueler if they were adjudged guilty.
And so far, very, very few of them had been adjudged anything else.
Clymyns was one of Edwyrds’ special Inquisitors, responsible for ferreting out those who’d managed—so far, at least—to conceal their heretical leanings. Judging by the number of “secret heretics” he’d hauled before the Inquisition, he was very good at his job, too. And, Dahglys knew, he was also one of the Schuelerites who believed a heretic should make recompense in this world before he was sent to the hellfire and torment he’d earned in the next. He’d been arguing for some time that those confined in the Inquisition’s concentration camps might be profitably used as forced labor. It wasn’t as if someone who’d turned his or her face against God and the Archangels had any legal rights, and there’d be time enough to put them to the Punishment after Mother Church had required them to help repair and rebuild all that had been destroyed in the Jihad their heresy had loosed upon the world.
Dahglys understood the argument, but nausea rippled at the thought of employing what amounted to slave laborers already condemned to death. He had a strong suspicion the Inquisition would insist on providing overseers, and the methods they were likely to employ would be brutal and pitiless. Indeed, Clymyns had scarcely even attempted to veil his belief that they might as well be worked to death, for what did it matter what happened to the bodies of those already condemned to burn in hell for all eternity? Surely there was no need to waste food or warm clothing, medical care or weather-tight housing, on those who had willfully made themselves the enemies of God Himself?
Sygmahn Dahglys was a loyal son of Mother Church. He loved God and the Archangels, he revered their teachings, and he was dedicated heart and soul to the defeat of the heresy. But the thought of being part of what someone like Clymyns would make of those laborers’ lives was enough to sicken anyone.
The Book of Schueler required they be put to the Punishment. That was harsh, even cruel, but it was clearly God’s command, and the Inquisition taught that its purpose was not simply to punish sin but to attempt to reclaim the sinner even from the lip of the grave. Dahglys was horrified that anyone should set his own will against God’s and condemn himself to such a penalty, yet the Writ was clear and unflinching. No loyal son of the Church could deny that it must be done.
But if that was true, then let it be done swiftly. Let Mother Church and the Inquisition show the condemned at least that much mercy. There was no need to turn the time they had left into a thing of horror. No need for men who served God to lower themselves to the level of Shan-wei and those who served her.
And who’s going to be the first to tell Clymyns or Archbishop Wyllym that, Sygmahn? Are you? Are you going to set your will in opposition to the Inquisitor General and the Grand Inquisitor himself? Are you going to question the measures required, however terrible they may seem, if the Jihad’s going to be won? And will you let your own queasiness prevent you from putting this canal back into operation when it must be put back into operation if the Army of the Sylmahn’s going to hold against the legions of hell?
“How many men could Father Zherohm provide?” he heard his own voice ask.
“I’m not certain,” Pygain admitted. “At the moment, there are somewhere around twenty thousand in the camp at Traymos. That’s the closest one.”
Dahglys nodded slowly. Traymos was on the southern shore of Cat Lizard Lake, a hundred miles from the St. Bahzlyr, but the … workers could be transported almost all of that distance by water. Of course, a third of those twenty thousand were almost certainly children, or too young—or too old—to stand up to the demands of the task, at any rate. But even so.…
“We’d have to feed and house them.”
“I’ll speak to His Eminence.” Pygain’s expression turned even tighter, if that were possible. “I’m sure he’ll insist on providing the best living conditions he can for those assigned to the task.”
So Archbishop Arthyn isn’t an admirer of Father Zherohm? Dahglys kept his own expression as neutral as possible. I suppose that’s good to know. At least it’s a way to salve your conscience, isn’t it, Sygmahn? You can tell yourself they’ll actually be better off working for you than in one of the Inquisition’s camps. Shan-wei! It’ll probably even be true, and isn’t that a hell of a thing?
“All right, Father,” he sighed. “You’d better go ahead and inquire into the possibilities. And while you’re doing that, I’ll send a semaphore message back to Zion and ask Father Tailahr to expedite those materials.”
.VII.
Greentown, Traylmyn’s Farm, and Maiyam, Midhold Province, and Guarnak, Mountaincross Province, Republic of Siddarmark
“Slow down. Slow down, man!” Colonel Walkyr Tyrnyr snapped. “You’re not making any sense. Or if you are, you’re going so damned fast I can’t tell it!”
Tyrnyr, the comm
anding officer of the Army of God’s 16th Cavalry Regiment, wasn’t a naturally choleric man, but he sounded undeniably testy at the moment, and who should blame him? Between the so-called militiaman’s accent and how rapidly he was gabbling out his report he was practically incoherent—or incomprehensible, at least—and what he seemed to be saying was preposterous, anyway.
“They’ve taken Chestyrvyl.” The militiaman drew a deep breath and forced himself to slow down, although Tyrnyr still found his rustic Siddarmarkian accent difficult. “I don’t think more’n a dozen men got away, and they’re sendin’ a column from Chestyrvyl cross-country t’ Charlzvyl. They’re less’n thirty miles from Maiyam on th’ canal, too, and they’re Charisian regulars—you c’n tell from the uniforms! Must be forty or fifty thousand of ’em, Colonel!”
Tyrnyr glanced across the field desk at Major Ahrthyr Wyllyms, his second-in-command. Wyllyms looked as astonished as Tyrnyr felt. Which wasn’t a great deal of help at the moment.
“They don’t have forty thousand men,” the colonel said, turning back to the militiaman. “The heretics never had more than thirty thousand Charisians in the Gap to begin with, and they’re still in contact with our lines south of Wyvern Lake.”
Unless, a small voice in the back of his brain said, they’ve landed reinforcements at Siddar City and our spies just haven’t told me yet. But speaking of telling us yet—
“Why haven’t we heard about this before they got so damned far along the canal? That’s almost eight hundred miles from Wyvern Lake as the wyvern flies, and the heretics are no frigging wyverns! Somebody should’ve seen them and reported them before they got that far east of the Gap!”
“How should I know?” The militiaman sounded a little testy himself, the colonel noted. “Major Bryskoh got word from Colonel Tahlyvyr at Maiyam by boat up th’ river and ’cross the lake. Colonel Cahstnyr’s come in by semaphore. There’s no semaphore line from Greentown t’ here, so the Major sent me.”
Tyrnyr grunted and raised one hand in a semi-placating gesture. He should have thought of that for himself. The fact that his brain was still trying to cope with the preposterousness of the fellow’s news was no excuse. And the fact that the message was from Haimltahn Bryskoh suggested he ought to pay attention to it however preposterous it sounded, he thought.
Bryskoh, who commanded the 1st Greentown Militia, had no formal military training, but he wasn’t a fool by any stretch of the imagination. A prosperous farmer and miller before the Rising, he’d become the leader of the Faithful in and around the small city of Greentown, where the Mountaincross River flowed into Grayback Lake from the north. His “militia” consisted almost entirely of civilian volunteers, like the fellow in front of him, but they’d had the better part of a year to acquire discipline, and unlike some of the bands fighting in Mother Church’s name, they’d done just that. And they’d shown themselves ready to do their duty, however grim, without letting that discipline break down.
Lyndahr Tahlyvyr, commanding the Maiyam Militia, was one of the rare Midhold Faithful’s officers who could claim pre-Rising military experience, which was the main reason he’d been given the strategically important post he held. Unlike Bryskoh, he’d been a lieutenant in the Siddarmarkian regulars, and a relatively good one, as far as Tyrnyr could discover. That was the good news. The bad news was that he’d been in command of his understrength “regiment” for less than a month. It was composed of the same sort of volunteers as the 1st Greentown, but they were more poorly armed than Bryskoh’s men and Tahlyvyr had been given little time to instill the sort of discipline that provided unit cohesion.
And then there was “Colonel” Brysyn Cahstnyr, commanding the 3rd Mountaincross Rangers at Charlzvyl and self-appointed to his present rank. Cahstnyr and his men—like too many of the “ranger” companies operating against the heretics in Midhold and Mountaincross, in Tyrnyr’s private opinion—were no better than brigands themselves. He couldn’t fault their fervor or their faith, or even their determination to drive out heresy and apostasy with fire and the sword, but they’d spent their time swooping down on isolated farms and small villages, identifying the heretics to be burned out and seeing to the necessary burning, rather than organizing or drilling as military units.
Walkyr Tyrnyr would shed no tears for heretics or their get. And if the victims of excesses by Cahstnyr’s men or the other “ranger” companies weren’t heretics, they ought to have made sure the Inquisition knew it before Cahstnyr and his ilk came calling. For that matter, the whole Republic had been one huge nest of heresy just waiting to happen, or the Grand Inquisitor would never have launched the Sword of Schueler. It was past time the entire source of corruption was burned out once and for all. But there was nothing in The Book of Schueler about raping and pillaging, and the brutal tactics of men like Chastnyr contributed to the breakdown of discipline and military effectiveness. He wanted people like Cahstnyr as far away from his own command as possible, where their possibly … excessive enthusiasm for punishing the servants of Shan-wei was less likely to infect his cavalrymen.
Of course, the report also raised the question of what had happened to Major Kahlvyn Rydnauyr. His 5th Mountaincross Rangers—such as they were and what there was of them—were (or had been, at any rate) responsible for garrisoning what had once been Chestyrvyl at the extreme southern end of the lake. He and Cahstnyr were very much of a likeness. Tyrnyr would miss neither of them if something nasty truly had happened to them, and it sounded as if something had in Rydnauyr’s case, at least. Still, the rangers knew the geography and terrain of eastern Mountaincross and southern Midhold better than anyone else, so just how had these Charisians, or whoever they were, managed to surprise even Rydnauyr so completely?
He frowned as he considered that, but what really mattered at the moment was that neither Bryskoh nor Tahlyvyr was likely to send off hysterical messages without first trying to be sure they knew what they were talking about. Cahstnyr was another matter, of course, and Bryskoh was simply relaying reports from him and Tahlyvyr. That was a pity, since of all three Faithful commanders, Bryskoh was the most levelheaded and possessed the best judgment. Tyrnyr would’ve been much more willing to believe the reports if they’d come from Bryskoh and one of the others had been the fellow simply passing them along.
Still, what Bryskoh’s runner had said made sense. The main semaphore line followed the high road from Allyntyn to Charlzvyl, in the fork where the North Mountaincross and South Mountaincross Rivers met two hundred and thirty miles west of Grayback Lake. From there it went south to Braikstyn and then on to Siddar City, skirting around the lake, and Greentown was served by a secondary connection to the main line. The line south of Braikstyn had been burned by the Faithful in the early days of the Rising and not repaired, which had turned Charlzvyl into a stub at the far end of the semaphore chain and probably didn’t do much for Cahstnyr’s panicky sense of isolation at the moment.
Tyrnyr’s own regiment was stationed southeast of Greentown, however, covering a line between that city and Maiyam, in the middle of farming country which had never been connected to the semaphore at all, which left him floating in space as far as the rapid transmission of information was concerned. Colonel Bairystyr, the CO of the 73rd Cavalry Regiment and the senior officer of the screen Bishop Militant Bahrnabai had thrown out southeast of the Kalgaran Mountains, had his headquarters almost directly on the semaphore line north of Greentown, so he was undoubtedly already in possession of Bryskoh’s message. It was a pity that Tahlyvyr’s boat to Greentown hadn’t bothered to pass the message to Tyrnyr as it went past, but at least he had it now. And it was probable that Tahlyvyr had sent a courier overland to Colonel Bryntyn Pahlmair’s 53rd Cavalry, northeast of Maiyam itself. It wouldn’t do to make any assumptions in that regard, however.
“Find a courier,” he told Major Wyllyms, still gazing down at the map. “Send him off to the Fifty-Third with all the information we currently have.”
“Yes, Sir.”
&nb
sp; Well, that part was easy enough, Walkyr, the colonel told himself. And what do you propose for your second move?
He ran a fingertip along the line of cavalry pickets Bairystyr had established as per the bishop militant’s orders. That line was almost three hundred miles long, which was a lot of ground to cover with less than a thousand men. Their function was to locate and identify any effort by the heretics’ regular forces to move into Midhold and to assist Faithful units like the 1st Greentown and Maiyam Militia—and even Cahstnyr’s rangers—as needed against the threat of heresy and Shan-wei worship. Bishop Militant Bahrnabai had never intended them to stop the advance of “forty or fifty thousand” Charisian regulars, but he did expect them to stop or to at least slow down and harry any smaller, lighter forces. And he’d placed Bishop Zhaksyn Mahkhal’s Port Harbor Division and Bishop Qwentyn Preskyt’s St. Fraidyr Division at Allyntyn to deal with anything Bairystyr’s cavalry couldn’t. But Allyntyn, unfortunately, was three hundred and fifty miles as a wyvern might fly northeast of Greentown, scarcely in a position to support Tyrnyr and his cavalrymen at the moment.
He and his fellow cavalry commanders had been forced to split up their regiments into quick reaction forces. His headquarters were forty miles northwest—more north than west, really—of Maiyam, and he had two of his four companies with him. Captain Adym Zhadwail, commanding his first company, had the other two thirty miles farther to his own west, so that between them they could cover the ninety miles of the screening line which was the 16th Cavalry’s responsibility. Bairystyr’s 73rd had the ninety miles between his own position and the Kalgaran foothills, and Pahlmair’s 53rd had the last ninety miles, beyond Maiyam. If he’d been Bairystyr, Tyrnyr would’ve put his own regiment in the center of the line, but considering how long it had taken Bryskoh’s message to reach him here, perhaps Bairystyr had known what he was doing when he stationed himself so close to the main semaphore line.
