by David Weber
"It's not just to get us to the computer!" she said fiercely, then smoothed her own tone as a few officers stirred in surprise. She shook her head and went on more calmly. "It's life and death for all these people, Sean—you know that."
"Yeah? And whose fault is that?" he growled.
"Ours," she said unflinchingly. "Mine, if you want to be specific. But it's something we blundered into, not something we did on purpose, and if we started all this, then we have to finish it."
Sean closed his eyes and tasted the bitterness of knowing she was right. It was a conversation they'd had often enough, and rehashing it now would achieve nothing. Besides, he liked the Malagorans. Even if he'd borne no responsibility for their predicament, he still would have wanted to help them.
"I know," he said finally. He opened his eyes and smiled crookedly, then patted the hand on his elbow. "And it's no more your fault than it is mine or Tamman's or Brashan's—even Harry's. It's just knowing how many of them are going to get killed because I didn't push hard enough." She started to open her mouth, but he shook his head. "Oh, you're right. People make mistakes while they learn. I know that. I only wish my mistakes could be made somewhere that didn't get people killed."
"You can only do the best you can do." Her voice was so gentle he longed to take her in his arms, but God only knew how his officers would react if he started going around hugging an "angel"!
He actually felt his mouth quirk a smile at the thought, and he folded his hands behind him again and walked slowly around the table, studying the relief map from all angles. If only there were a way to use his mobility! Someone—he thought it had been Nathan Bedford Forrest—had once said war was a matter of "getting there firstest with the mostest," not absolute numbers, and the one true weakness of Ortak's position was its size. He had fifteen kilometers of frontage—more, with the salients built into his earthworks—and that gave him barely two thousand armed men per kilometer even if he withheld no reserve at all. Of course, he had another thirty or forty thousand he could send in to pick up the weapons of their fallen comrades, but even so he was stretched thin. If Sean could break his front anywhere, and get behind his works, he could sweep them like a broom. But there was no way he could—
He paused suddenly, and his eyes narrowed. He stood absolutely still, staring down at the map while his mind raced, and then he began to smile.
"Sean? Sean?" Sandy had to call him twice before he looked up with a jerk. "What is it?" she asked, and his smile took on a harder, fiercer cast.
"I've been going at this wrong," he said. "I've been thinking about how Ortak has us blocked, and what I should have been thinking about is how he's trapped himself."
"Trapped?" she asked blankly, and he waved Tibold closer and pointed at the map.
"Could infantry get through these swamps?" he asked in Pardalian, and it was the ex-Guardsman's turn to frown down at the map.
"Not pikes," he said after a moment, "but you might be able to get musketeers through." He cocked his head, comparing the exquisitely detailed map the angels had provided to all the ones he'd ever seen before, then tapped the southern edge of the swamp with a blunt forefinger. "I always thought the bad ground was wider than that down along the south face of the valley," he said slowly. "We could probably get a column across this narrow bit in, oh, ten or twelve hours. Not with guns or pikes, though, Lord Sean. There's no bottom to most of this swamp. You might get a few chagors through, but arlaks would sink to the axles in no time. And even after you get through the swamp, the ground's still soft enough between there and the river to slow you."
"Would Ortak expect us to try anything like that?" Sean asked, and Tibold shook his head quickly.
"He's got the same maps we had before you and the ang—" The ex-Guardsman bit the word off as he remembered how Lord Sean and the angels kept trying to get people not to call them that. For a moment his face felt hot, but then he grinned up at his towering young commander. "He's got the same maps we always had before. Besides, no Guard captain would even consider leaving his pikes and guns behind."
"That's what I hoped you'd say," Sean murmured, and his brain whirred as he estimated times and distances. The Mortan was the better part of three unfordable kilometers wide above and below Erastor, but it could be forded at Malz, a farm town ninety-odd klicks below its junction with the Erastor River. If he moved back west, out of sight of Ortak's lines, and threw together enough rafts . . . Or, for that matter, could his engineers knock together proper bridges? He considered the thought for a moment, then shook his head. No, that would take a good two or three days, and if this was going to work at all, he didn't have two or three days to waste.
"All right, Tibold," he said. "Here's what we'll do. First . . ."
High-Captain Ortak stood in his entrenchments' central bastion and stared west. Drizzling rain drew a gray veil across the Keldark Valley, limiting his vision, but he knew what was out there and breathed a silent thanks for his enemies' lack of initiative. Every day that passed without attack not only helped the morale of his battered force but brought its desperately needed relief one day closer.
He strained his eyes, trying to make out details of the earthworks the heretics had thrown up to face his own. Part of him shuddered every time he thought of the cost of taking that position once the Holy Host had reinforced and resumed the offensive, but not even that could shake his gratitude. He knew how thin-stretched he was, and if the heretics had been willing to throw a column straight at him anywhere—
He shivered, and not because of the rain. He disliked having to stand with a river at his back, but the Erastor was fordable for most of its length. If he had to, he could fall back across it, though he'd have to abandon what remained of his baggage, and this was the best—probably the only—point at which to stop an army from the west. Conscripted laborers were building another position in his rear at Baricon, but Baricon was better suited to resisting attacks from the east. No, he had to hold the heretics here if he meant to keep them out of Keldark, and if they ever got loose in the duchy their freedom of maneuver would increase a hundredfold. After what they'd done to Lord Marshal Rokas at Yortown, that was enough to strike a chill in the stoutest heart.
He wrapped his cloak about himself and pursed his lips in thought. The semaphore chain across Malagor had been cut, but it continued to operate east of him, and the Temple's dispatches were less panicky than they had been. The secular lords were being slow to muster, but the Guard had stripped its garrisons throughout the eastern kingdoms to the bone, and fifty thousand men were on their way to him. Better yet, the first trains of replacement weapons had begun coming in. There were less of them than he would have liked, especially given what the heretics had captured at Yortown, but he'd already received eight thousand pikes and over five hundred joharns. If the reports from Yortown were right, the heretics had found some way to give joharns and malagors the range of rifles, which suggested final casualties would be atrocious even if the Guard managed to rearm every man, but that should be less of a factor defending entrenched positions than in the open field. They were going to have to find some reply to the heretics' weight of fire in the future, and Ortak was already considering ways to increase the ratio of firearms to pikes, but for the moment he had a stopper in the bottle and the heretics seemed unwilling to take the losses to remove it.
He sighed and shook himself. The light was going, and he had more than enough paperwork waiting to keep him up half the night. At least his quarters in Erastor were better than a tent in the field, he told himself, and smiled wryly as he turned and called for his branahlk.
Sean MacIntyre dismounted and wiped rain from his face. He could have used his implants to stay dry, but that would have felt unfair to his troops, which was probably silly but didn't change his feelings. He smiled at his own perversity and scratched his branahlk's snout, listening to its soft whistle of pleasure, and tried to hide his worry as the sodden column squelched past.
It was taking longe
r than planned, and the rain was heavier than Israel's meteorological remotes had predicted. The cold front pushing down the valley had met a warm front out of Sanku and Keldark, and Brashan's latest forecast warned of at least twenty hours of hard rain, probably with thunderstorms. They would make the ground still softer and the going harder, and they were also going to deepen the fords at Malz, but at least it didn't look as if the Mortan would reach critical depths. Or, he thought grimly, not yet.
Tibold splashed up on his own branahlk and drew up beside him.
"Captain Juahl's reached the bivouac area, Lord Sean." The ex-Guardsman's tone made Sean crook an eyebrow, and Tibold sighed. "It's under a handspan of water, My Lord."
"Great." Sean closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, then flipped his fold com up to Sandy's hovering cutter. "Got a problem down here," he subvocalized. "Our bivouac site's underwater."
"Damn. Hang on a sec," she replied, and brought up her sensors, berating herself for not having checked sooner. She frowned in concentration over her neural feed as she swept the area ahead of the column, then her eyes brightened. "Okay. If you push on another six klicks, the ground rises to the south."
"Firewood?" he asked hopefully.
" 'Fraid not," she replied, and he sighed.
"Thanks anyway." He turned to Tibold. "Tell Juahl he'll find higher ground if he bears a bit south and keeps moving for another hour or so."
"At once, Lord Sean." Tibold didn't even ask how his commander knew that; he simply turned his branahlk and splashed off into the gathering gloom, and Sean leaned back against his own mount and sighed.
He had twenty-five thousand men marching through mud towards fords which ought to be passable when they arrived, and he was beginning to wonder if he'd been so clever after all. Pardal's days were long, and on good roads (and Pardalian roads would have made any Roman emperor die of jealousy), infantry routinely made fifty kilometers a day in fair weather. Marching cross-country in the rain, even through open terrain, they were doing well to make thirty pushing hard, and they hadn't even reached the swamps yet. The men were in better spirits than he would have believed possible under the circumstances, but they'd marched for three grueling days, mostly in the rain and with no hot meals. Even for someone with full enhancement, this march was no pleasure jaunt; for the unenhanced, it was unadulterated, exhausting misery, and they were barely halfway to the fords.
He flicked his mind back over the latest reports from their stealthed remotes. Ortak was receiving fresh weapons, but any additional reinforcements were still at least twelve days away. Even allowing for his column's slower than estimated progress, Sean should be back north of the Mortan within another four days, but he was grimly aware of the risk he was running. The valley's peasants had been moved out by the Holy Host on its way in, and the Temple's troops had already accounted for everything that could be foraged from the abandoned farms. Pack nioharqs had accompanied them this far, but they'd have to be sent home once the column reached the swamp. From there, Sean's infantry would have to pack all of their supplies—including ammunition—on their backs, and that gave them no more than a week's food. Which meant that if his plan to surprise Ortak didn't work, he was going to find himself with twenty-five thousand starving men trapped between Erastor and the Guard reinforcements.
At least Ortak was cooperating so far. The high-captain "knew" the terrain south of the river was impassable, and he was too short of armed men to spare many from his prepared positions. He had pickets east of the Erastor, but they were fairly close to the bridges. It was still a bit hard to adjust to a pre-technic society's limitations, and despite everything, Sean felt vaguely exposed. His column was barely fifty air kilometers from Ortak's position, and it was hard to believe Ortak had no suspicion of what he was up to, yet the high-captain's deployments and the reports of Sandy's eavesdropping remotes all confirmed that he didn't.
The thought drew a wet chuckle from Sean. Miserable as he and his troops might be, they had the most deadly weapon known to man: surprise. And at least if he screwed up, it wouldn't be because the Guard had surprised him.
He gave his branahlk another scratch, then swung back into the saddle and trotted forward along the column.
Father Stomald stepped into the command tent and paused. The Angel Harry stood alone, staring down at the map and unaware of his presence, and her shoulders were tight.
The young priest hesitated. Part of him was loath to disturb her, but another part urged him to step closer. An angel needed no mortal's comfort, yet Stomald was guiltily aware that he was coming less and less to think of her as he ought.
The angels had fallen into a division of their duties which was too natural to have been planned, and the Angel Harry's share of those duties had brought her into almost constant contact with Stomald. The fighting of the war in which they were all trapped was the task of Lord Sean and Lord Tamman, but ministering to its consequences was Stomald's task. It was he who had begun it, whatever his intent, and it was he who must bear the weight of caring for its victims. He accepted that, for it was but an extension of his priestly duties, and his own faith would have driven him to shoulder that weight even if he could somehow have avoided it. But he was not alone before the harsh demands of his responsibilities, for as Lord Sean and Lord Tamman had Tibold and the Angel Sandy, Stomald had the Angel Harry. However grim the burden he faced, however terrible the cost war and its horrors exacted, she was always there, always willing to give him of her own strength and catch him when he stumbled. And that, he thought, was why he had come to feel these things he should not—must not—feel.
Yet knowing what he should not do and stopping himself from doing it were two very different things. She seemed so young, and she was different from the Angel Sandy. She was . . . softer, somehow. Gentler. The Angel Sandy cared deeply—no one who'd seen her face the night after Yortown could doubt that—yet she had a talmahk's fierceness the Angel Harry lacked. No one could ever call either angel weak, but the Angel Sandy and Lord Sean were kindred souls who threw off uncertainty like a too-small garment whenever it touched them. Their eyes were always on the next battle, the next challenge, yet it was the Angel Harry to whom those in trouble instinctively turned, as if they, as Stomald, sensed the compassion at her heart. Any angel must, of course, be special, but Stomald had seen how even the most hardened trooper's eyes followed the Angel Harry. The army would have followed Lord Sean or the Angel Sandy or Lord Tamman against Hell itself, but the Angel Harry owned their hearts.
As she did Stomald's, and yet . . .
The priest sighed, and his eyes darkened as he admitted the truth. His love for the Angel Harry was wrong, for it was not what a man should dare to feel for one of God's holy messengers.
She heard his soft exhalation and turned, and he was shocked by the tears in her one good eye. She wiped them as quickly as she'd turned, but he'd seen them, and before he remembered what she was, he reached out to her.
He froze, hand extended, shocked by his own temerity. What was he thinking? She was an angel, not simply the beautiful young woman she appeared. Had he not learned to rely upon her strength? To turn to her for comfort when his own weariness and the sorrow of so much death pressed upon him? How dared he reach out to comfort her?
But he saw no anger in her eye, and his heart soared with curiously aching joy as she took his hand. She squeezed it and turned her head to look back down at the map table, and Stomald stood there, holding her hand, and confused emotions washed through him. It felt so right, so natural, to stand with her, as if this were the place he was meant to be, yet guilt flawed his contentment. He was aware of her beauty, of her wonderful blend of strength and gentleness, and he longed, more than he'd ever longed for anything other than to serve God Himself, for this moment to last forever.
"What is it?" he asked finally, and the depth of concern in his voice surprised even him.
"I'm just—" She paused, then gave her head a little shake. "I'm just worried about Sean," she said
softly. "The way the river's rising, how far they still have to go, the odds when they get there . . ." She drew a deep breath and looked at him with a wan smile. "Silly of me, isn't it?"
"Not silly," Stomald disagreed. "You worry because you care."
"Maybe." She still held his hand, but her other hand ran a finger down the line of Lord Sean's march, and her voice was low. "I feel so guilty sometimes, Stomald. Guilty for worrying so much more about Sean than anyone else, and for having caused all this. It's my fault, you know."
Stomald flinched, and self-loathing filled him as he recognized his own jealousy. He was jealous of her concern for Lord Sean! The sheer impiety of his emotions frightened him, but then the rest of what she'd said penetrated, and he shook off his preoccupation with his own feelings.
"You didn't cause this. It was our fault for laying impious hands upon you." He hung his head. "It was my fault, not yours, My Lady."
"No it wasn't!" she said so sharply he looked up, dismayed by her anger. Her single eye bored into him, and she shook her head fiercely. "Don't ever think that, Stomald! You did what your Church had taught you to do, and—" She paused again, biting her lip, then nodded to herself. "And there's more happening here than you know even yet," she added with quiet bitterness.
Stomald blinked at her, touched to the heart once more by her readiness to forgive the man who'd almost burned her alive, yet confused by her words. She was an angel, with an angel's ability to know things no mortal could, yet her voice suggested she'd meant more than that. Perplexity filled him, and he reached for the first thing that crossed his mind.
