Like a Mighty Army

by David Weber

  At least they were out of the damned forest, and it was to be hoped his instructions to Rychtyr and Baron Tymplahr would at least partially improve the supply situation in another few five-days. In the meantime, they were barely forty miles west of the Branath Canal, less than a hundred and fifty from Fort Tairys. Even Harless could reach Walkyr’s command in only another five-day or so!

  With what was left of his army, anyway.

  He dismounted by the dripping, enormous pavilion that served as Harless’ headquarters. One reason the duke’s carriage was so huge was to permit him to use it for a traveling office—and dry, reasonably comfortable quarters—when it proved impossible to erect his pavilion in time to receive him, but he hadn’t needed it very often. The pavilion was sent ahead with a cavalry escort every day, and the Army of Shiloh always managed to find the manpower to have it up and ready by the time he arrived.

  Once upon a time, Ahlverez wouldn’t have found that particularly objectionable. He didn’t like admitting that, yet the truth was the truth, whatever he liked. And at least he’d learned better … and one hell of a lot faster than Harless or his senior subordinates seemed capable of grasping the realities.

  “Ready, Lynkyn?” he asked as Captain Lattymyr dismounted beside him.

  “Of course, Sir.”

  Ahlverez looked at Colonel Makyntyr and General Rahdgyrz, one eyebrow quirked, and both of them nodded. None of them knew what had led to this summons, but from the tone of Harless’ message it wasn’t good news. Under the circumstances, Ahlverez wanted his artillery commander and quartermaster available.

  “Father Sulyvyn?” He turned to Sulyvyn Fyrmyn, and the Schuelerite sighed.

  The upper-priest’s fervor for cooperation with the Army of Justice in general—and with Father Tymythy Yairdyn in particular—had cooled. It remained stronger than that of Ahlverez’ secular officers, but Fyrmyn was no fool. He continued to defend the Desnairians’ determination and purpose, yet he’d come to understand exactly why Ahlverez doubted their capability.

  “I’m ready, my son,” he said now, and Ahlverez nodded.

  “In that case, after you, Father.”

  He gestured for the intendant to precede him, and he and his subordinates followed Fyrmyn across the slick mud where boots and hooves had trampled any grass into muck. A doormat had been laid in front of the pavilion, and Ahlverez reminded himself not to grit his teeth as he took the pointed hint and cleaned his boots before stepping onto the rich carpets which floored the duke’s tent.

  Sir Graim Kyr greeted them with an icy bow. Whatever miniscule scrap of love might have existed between Baron Fyrnach and Sir Rainos Ahlverez was not prominently on display.

  “If you’ll follow me, Father,” the young Desnairian said, pointedly ignoring the upper-priest’s secular companions.

  Fyrmyn’s eyes flashed, but Ahlverez shook his head ever so slightly and the intendant’s reprimand died unspoken. It wasn’t that Ahlverez would have objected to watching Father Sulyvyn reduce the little snot to cringing, bleeding wreckage. The Schuelerite had a splendid command of invective, but he could also flay a miscreant without ever resorting to profanity, and under other circumstances Ahlverez would have paid good money to watch Fyrnach’s destruction. Unfortunately, he’d done too much damage to his own relationship with Harless’ aide. He didn’t regret it, for it had needed doing, but creating a sense of enmity between Father Sulyvyn and the little bastard, as well, could only further complicate an already ramshackle command relationship.

  So instead of eviscerating the baron, Fyrmyn simply nodded, and the party of Dohlarans followed him into the portion of the pavilion set aside as Harless’ conference area. It was considerably warmer, no doubt because it was located at the center of the outsized tent, using the air spaces around it for insulation. The iron stove—the Charisian iron stove, Ahlverez noted—also helped to explain it, and he observed the heaped coal scuttle beside it. The rest of the army might be short of fuel, but its commander appeared to be amply provided.

  Stop that, he told himself sternly. Yes, you loathe the man. And, yes, it’s hard to think of any mistakes he’s failed to make. But you’re still under his orders and it’s still your duty to take the war to the heretics. So maybe you should try concentrating on how to do that despite his mistakes instead of dwelling on how much you’d prefer to wring his neck.

  “Sir Rainos. Father Sulyvyn.” Harless stood to greet them, which was an improvement over his last meeting with Ahlverez. “Thank you for coming, although I fear the news is grave.”

  Ahlverez felt his expression tighten, and the duke nodded somberly.

  “Fort Tairys fell eight days ago,” he said flatly. “General Rychtyr dispatched word from Thesmar as soon as the messenger wyvern reached Trevyr.” His lips thinned over his teeth. “He sent a copy of Father Naiklos’ final dispatch with it. General Walkyr was already dead when it was sent off.”

  Ahlverez’ stomach was an icy void as Harless continued.

  “Apparently the heretics drove the garrison back into the fort and the inner works, then breached the fort’s walls and summoned General Walkyr to surrender. He refused, of course, and the heretics stormed the breaches. Father Naiklos says the Siddarmarkian pipes were sounding ‘The Pikes of Kolstyr’ when he sent the wyvern away.”

  The void in Ahlverez’ stomach collapsed into a single jagged chunk of ice.

  “The Pikes of Kolstyr.” No wonder Harless’ voice sounded as if it had been hacked out of stone with a dull axe. The Desnairian Army had more experience against the Republic than anyone else, and quite a lot of that experience since the Kolstyr Massacre—ordered by a maternal ancestor of Earl Hankey, if Ahlverez remembered correctly—had been less than happy. Nor did the news fill Ahlverez with happiness, given what it implied for the future. Siddarmark had always enjoyed a reputation for adhering to the laws of war, even in its conflicts with Desnair, resorting to reprisals only under severe provocation. Indeed, if Father Naiklos’ report was accurate, this was only the sixth time the RSA had sounded that march on a field of battle.

  Ahlverez doubted it would be the last.

  Of course it won’t, he told himself. It’s that kind of war, and heretics or not, I really can’t blame them for responding that way. I’ll kill every one of the motherless bastards with my bare hands, but there’s no point pretending I wouldn’t react exactly the same way in their place.

  “Father Naiklos’ best estimate of the heretics’ numbers is approximately seventeen thousand,” Harless went on. “Baron Climbhaven and I have discussed what Father Naiklos could tell us about the heretics’ bombardment, and it’s evident they must be well supplied with artillery. At the same time, they must’ve expended a great deal of ammunition, and I doubt they’ll be able to replenish it easily. I’m confident they’d learned of our approach and used so much ammunition because they were desperate to capture Fort Tairys and secure control of Ohadlyn’s Gap before we could arrive. That probably also explains their willingness to assault the works, which must have cost them heavy casualties. Unfortunately, they’ve succeeded in taking the fort. They did it eight days ago, and we’re still a five-day from the Gap even at our present rate of march. That means they’ll have had more than two full five-days to prepare their positions before we could possibly reach them, and our troops are badly fatigued from the strain of moving so rapidly.

  “Since we can’t stop them from digging in anyway, whatever we do, I propose to pause where we are for a five-day. We’ll rest the men, try to get them decently fed, before we resume the advance.”

  Ahlverez’ jaw tightened. Part of him wanted to protest, but Harless was actually making sense. They’d lost the race to relieve Fort Tairys and fuming over whose fault that was would be pointless. Their job now was to take it back, and for that they needed an army that was in shape to fight. He knew that, but the knowledge couldn’t prevent the surge of nausea he felt at the thought of once again facing dug-in heretics with breech-loading rifles and
new model artillery.

  “I don’t relish the thought of attacking Charisian entrenchments,” Harless said with a frankness Ahlverez found moderately astonishing. “We saw at Thesmar how expensive that can be. But in all honesty, Thesmar was a subsidiary objective. Fort Tairys isn’t. We could afford to call off that assault rather than paying the price to drive it home, but we need Ohadlyn’s Gap, and if Father Naiklos’ estimate of their strength was accurate, they’re probably down to no more than ten to fifteen thousand men after the attack. That means we outnumber them by better than ten to one, despite our losses on the march. More than that, we have a crushing advantage in cavalry, and I’m prepared to use it.”

  “With all due respect, Your Grace,” Father Sulyvyn said after a moment, “I agree with your intentions, but surely cavalry’s going to be less effective attacking entrenchments than it would be in the open field.”

  Ahlverez was grateful to his intendant for making the point, but Harless surprised him again.

  “Precisely, Father,” the Desnairian agreed. “However, the heretics have problems of their own. We’re only a single day’s march from the Branath Canal, and I intend to send several thousand of Earl Hennet’s cavalry up it, securing the locks and burning out any heretics along their route. He’ll also send a force up the Kharmych-Fort St. Klair High Road, which offers a potential route through the Branaths into Fort Tairys’ rear. We’ll see if they want to sit in the Gap while we take the entire canal and threaten to get around behind them.”

  He smiled thinly, and almost despite himself, Ahlverez felt himself nodding, although Harless was probably being overly optimistic. In the heretics’ place, Ahlverez would have been willing to sacrifice the entire canal as the price of retaining Ohadlyn’s Gap, and there was no way the Army of Shiloh could sustain a winter advance through the Branaths, whatever Harless or Hennet might think. But the heretics might not realize that … and if they’d pulled such substantial forces away from the Daivyn River, Hennet’s cavalry might just be able to get all the way to Glacierborn Lake or even into the rear of the army facing Bishop Militant Cahnyr. It was unlikely he could supply himself if he did, but Stohnar and his allies would have to be sensitive to the threat.

  And assuming Harless’ estimate of the heretics’ numbers is remotely correct, we have the strength to grind them away even in the Gap if we have to, he thought harshly. It’ll be ugly, it’ll be costly, and I know damned well whose infantry will pay most of the price, but it can be done, especially if Harless will let me manage the affair. For one thing, seventeen thousand men are far too few to prevent me from infiltrating infantry around them through the hills. I wouldn’t want to try it with Desnairian infantry, but my boys are steady enough for the job, and once we’ve cut the Gap at both ends, the heretics will be like spider-rats tied into a bag for drowning.

  “Obviously, we have a lot of planning to do.” Harless waved at the chairs awaiting his guests. “Please be seated, all of you, and share your thoughts with me. I don’t expect this to be easy, and I don’t expect it to be accomplished in a single day, but it will be done.” His eyes hardened and his voice was harsh. “The day is coming when the heretics who massacred General Walkyr’s men will face the Punishment reserved for them, and there will be no mercy when that day comes. That much I swear on the honor of my house.”

  * * *

  “I don’t doubt you mean that, Your Grace,” Nahrmahn Baytz murmured as he monitored the take from the SNARC’s remotes. “But you may just find you’ve been slightly overly ambitious.”

  The portly little prince leaned back in his chair and sipped wine while he contemplated the situation.

  Duke Eastshare had suffered less than two thousand casualties, barely four hundred of them fatal, storming Fort Tairys, which was far less than Nahrmahn had anticipated. Clearly he ought to leave military planning up to those whose business it was, because Eastshare had obviously known what he was doing. The fighting had been furious and intensely ugly—whatever else they might have been, Lairays Walkyr’s men had been no cowards and they’d died hard—but the outcome had never been in doubt. The only real surprise was that nearly a thousand had survived, almost all of them wounded. In fact, that was probably the reason they had survived; they’d been incapacitated by their wounds and even the Glacierheart Volunteers had seen too much bloodshed by the time the fighting was over to massacre helpless men. The wounded had not simply been allowed to survive but given the best care Eastshare’s healers could provide.

  Except for the Inquisitors, of course.

  Disposing of that many bodies was not an inconsequential task, especially in the middle of a rainy Shiloh winter when dry wood for funeral pyres was hard to come by. General Wyllys had discovered a ready supply of volunteers, however. As local Temple Loyalists fled, Shilohians who’d remained loyal to the Republic were already filtering back into the wasteland the Sword of Schueler had created. There was little there to feed them, but food was being shipped in from New Province and Southguard, and the survivors were determined to reclaim the land from which they’d been driven in fire and blood. They’d brought plenty of shovels with them, and they had no objection at all to fertilizing that land with the bodies of the Temple Loyalists who’d massacred their families and friends.

  I was actually rather impressed with Harless’ analysis, Nahrmahn admitted. Of course, he did miss a few points. I don’t suppose we should really blame him for not guessing how heavily Eastshare’s been reinforced, though.

  The Chisholmian duke’s command had already been reinforced by the 1st Mounted Brigade. The 2nd Mounted Brigade would arrive within the next few days, as would the 3rd Infantry Division. When all of them were assembled, Eastshare would command over seventy thousand men, twenty-one thousand of them mounted, and more than two hundred Charisian field pieces (not counting mortars), plus his angle-guns and General Wyllys’ naval guns. And because all that fresh influx of combat power was on the far side of the Branath and Shingle Mountains from the Army of Shiloh, Harless’ estimate of the defenders’ strength was just a little low.

  One other minor point, which I expect’ll occur to Ahlverez sometime soon, is to wonder why Eastshare didn’t even try to slow them down on their way through the woods to Kharmych. And I wonder why none of them’ve asked themselves why Walkyr chose to send “Slaytyr” to deliver his dispatch to them at Malyktyn rather than using the messenger wyvern Vahnhain used to get his final message out? I suppose even Ahlverez can be excused for assuming Walkyr thought it would be faster that way, but he still ought to be wondering why the message wasn’t sent both ways, just to make certain it got through.

  He thought about it again for another moment or two, then shrugged. It was always possible Ahlverez would grow suspicious eventually, but even the Dohlaran commander—for whom Nahrmahn had developed a rather unwilling respect—would have no way of guessing what Eastshare actually had in mind.

  In the meantime, he and Owl had some spy reports to compose for Madam Pahrsahn.

  * * *

  Merlin Athrawes stood on the cold, windy wharf and watched the weather-stained galleons forging across North Bedard Bay towards him. Siddar City’s roofs were white, the rooftop decks Cayleb had made fashionable heaped with snow, and Owl promised more and heavier snowfalls over the next five-day. For today, the skies were relatively clear, but the wind off the bay was bitter cold, and the crowds which had gathered to watch the first and second echelons of Eastshare’s Charisian Expeditionary Force make their way towards the capital’s docks were notably absent. Merlin didn’t blame them a bit, given the temperature. Still, he expected the citizens of Siddar City to turn out when the fresh influx of Charisian troops went marching through the capital.

  And this time, it was going to take a while.

  There were more than two hundred thousand men aboard that enormous convoy: nine infantry divisions, seven mounted brigades, all their attached artillery and engineers, and five thousand more armorers and quartermaster personnel t
o bolster the vast Charisian support base on the eastern side of the bay. There were still supply elements—wagons, draft dragons, and especially Raven Lord snow lizards—in the pipeline behind it, but with the arrival of this convoy, there would be close to three hundred thousand Charisian combat troops in the Republic of Siddarmark. Within the next few days, two infantry divisions and the 4th Mounted Brigade would head towards Allyntyn and Baron Green Valley while the Earl of High Mount set out for Fort Tairys with three more divisions and two more mounted brigades.

  Somehow, he thought with a thin smile even colder than the wind off the bay, I expect Duke Harless and Sir Rainos Ahlverez to be very unhappy when forty-nine thousand Imperial Charisian infantry and sixteen thousand Charisian dragoons put in their appearance on his flank.

  Pity about that.

  .XX.

  City of Manchyr, Princedom of Corisande

  The cheers and street music were reassuring, but Sir Koryn Gahrvai would have been far happier ordering Cathedral Square completely cleared. In fact, he had a squadron of Sir Alyk Ahrthyr’s cavalry handy to clear it now if the need arose, although he hoped to Langhorne that it wouldn’t. And there wasn’t any reason it should, really.