by David Weber
“Aye, aye, Your Majesty.” Gerard touched his shoulder in salute and nodded to Lieutenant Lahsahl.
A moment later, the lit signal lanterns went soaring up to Empress of Charis’ mizzen peak.
“Now isn’t that a pretty sight?” Edvarhd Wystahn murmured.
He stood on the rock where the Corisandian lookout had been perched the night before, and he had to admit that the fellow had had a breathtaking view out across the sparkling waters of White Horse Reach. At the moment, Wystahn had come into possession of that view, however, and he suspected that its former owner would have been much unhappier than he was at what he saw so far below him.
The transport galleons lay anchored or hove-to while their own boats pulled strongly towards the shore. The flat-bottomed assault boats had already landed the men they’d brought with them all the way from Dairos, and delighted they must have been to hit the sand, Wystahn thought with a grin. Those assault boats had amply proven their worth, but they were Shan-wei’s own bitch in any sort of seaway, and it was as certain as anything could possibly be that at least one or two of the embarked Marines aboard any one of them would fall victim to seasickness.
And once the first poor unhappy sod pukes, everyone starts to. I’ll bet every one of ’em was grass-green and heaving by the time they got ashore!
If so, they’d shown no sign of it as the first wave of infantry formed up into columns and headed inland. The boats had landed Brigadier Clareyk’s Third Brigade and Brigadier Haimyn’s Fifth Brigade first, followed by Brigadier Zhosh Makaivyr’s First Brigade. Now those six thousand men were spreading out to screen the inland side of the landing zone while their assault boats headed out to the waiting galleys to help fetch the other nine thousand men prepared to come ashore behind them.
Personally, Wystahn figured the odds were less than even that they were going to manage to fully pull off the emperor’s plans. There was too much chance that they’d missed an observation post, or that some random cavalryman would stumble across them, or that some inland signal post would spot them before they could get fully around into the Corisandians’ rear. But that was fine with Edvarhd Wystahn. If it worked, it worked, and the war would probably be well on its way to being over. And even if it didn’t work, it would force the Corisandians to pull out of that damnable position in the pass without Wystahn and his fellow Marines being forced to assault those formidable earthworks head-on. Which meant Ahnainah Wystahn, of the Earldom of Lochair, was much less likely to find herself a widow.
“What?!”
Koryn Gahrvai stared at his aide. The lieutenant looked back mutely, his eyes huge, then held out a sheet of paper.
“Here’s the signal, Sir,” he said.
Gahrvai managed—somehow—to not quite snatch the paper out of the young man’s hand. He stepped closer to the open fly of the command tent to get better light, and his eyes flashed over the lines of smudgy pencil. Then he read it again. And a third time.
It didn’t get any better.
He raised his head, gazing sightlessly out of the tent at the everyday business of the encampment around him for what seemed a short eternity. Then he turned back to the senior officers’ conference which had just been so abruptly interrupted.
“Somehow, Cayleb’s gotten round behind us,” he said harshly.
Heads jerked up in disbelief, and the officers standing around the map table looked back at him with expressions which were almost as stunned as he felt.
Baron Barcor’s expression went a bit further than that, however. His face froze for a heartbeat, and then Gahrvai could actually see the blood flowing out of it as it turned the color of cold, congealed gravy. Which was scarcely reassuring, given the fact that Barcor had been promoted to command the entire army’s rear guard after his performance at Haryl’s Crossing. Gahrvai had picked him for the position because it was prestigious enough to serve as an ostensible reward for the man while actually making him, in effect, a mere administrator for the forward positions’ reserves. Gahrvai had never intended to commit any of “Barcor’s” men to action under the baron’s own command; instead, he’d planned to slice off battalions and regiments as required and “temporarily” assign them to the command of men like Earl Mancora.
Mancora, who’d been slightly wounded at Haryl’s Crossing but had somehow made it back to the rear with a pitiful handful of his wing, looked equally astounded, but lacked the “stunned draft dragon” expression in Barcor’s eyes. Unfortunately, Mancora had been assigned to command the farthest forward of the positions in Talbor Pass.
Which means I’ve got exactly the wrong men in exactly the wrong places . . . again, Gahrvai thought bitterly. Mancora would have his men on the road within the hour. Langhorne only knows how long it’s going to take Barcor to get his arse in motion!
“How bad is it, Sir?” Mancora asked quietly.
“I’m not sure,” Gahrvai admitted. “According to this, though,” he waved the dispatch, “they somehow got ashore in the sector closest to the pass without a single one of our observation posts warning us.”
“But that’s impossible!” Barcor blurted, then added a hasty “Sir.”
“That’s exactly what I would have thought,” Gahrvai agreed grimly. “Unfortunately, we’d both be wrong, My Lord. They must have landed right at dawn. How they managed to eliminate our lookouts before they got a single message out is more than I could say, but from this, they’re already within fifteen or twenty miles of the western end of the pass.”
Barcor’s stunned look was beginning to turn into something entirely too much like panic to suit Gahrvai.
“Do we have any strength estimate, Sir?”
The question came from Colonel Ahkyllys Pahlzar, the man who’d been Charlz Doyal’s second-in-command. Pahlzar had assumed command of Gahrvai’s artillery following Doyal’s capture by the Charisians, and he really should have been officially promoted when he did. It was a temporary oversight Gahrvai intended to rectify as soon as possible, and at the moment Pahlzar’s calm voice was a welcome contrast to Barcor.
“No, Colonel. I think, though, that we can assume he’s present in strength. We’ve already determined that he’s not the sort of commander to throw out a weak and unsupported force to be chopped up.”
Barcor winced visibly at Gahrvai’s reminder of what had happened at Haryl’s Crossing. Some of the other officers present seemed equally unhappy, but others—like Mancora and Pahlzar—only nodded.
“All right.” Gahrvai shook himself, then stepped briskly across to the map table and looked down at the dispositions indicated on it. He would have given anything to be magically able to transform his command arrangements. Unfortunately, miracles were beyond him, and so he looked up at Barcor and forced himself to radiate confidence in his subordinate.
“I want you to return to your command as quickly as possible, Sir Zher. We can’t afford to let them pin us in the pass. There’s a good position here.” He tapped the map at a point about four miles west of the pass proper, where the royal highway passed between a pair of hills. A small farming town named (accurately, if not precisely originally) Green Valley sat in the saddle between them, straddling the highway. “If you can get there quickly enough, your men can dig in in and around the town and make them come to you. If they refuse to attack you, or try to maneuver around you, it’ll buy us time to reinforce you and get more of our men out of the pass. If they don’t do either, we’ll be able to continue moving out of the pass and around the northeastern edge of your men, as long as you hold your position.”
Barcor stared at him, then nodded almost convulsively. Gahrvai hovered on the point of relieving him and handing command of the rear guard to someone else, like Mancora. But there wasn’t time for that, either. If he wasted precious hours getting someone else into Barcor’s place—and getting word of the change of command to all of Barcor’s subordinates—Cayleb’s steadily advancing Marines would be knocking on his army’s backdoor before the first man marched out of his
encampment.
Of course, that’s altogether too likely to happen anyway, if I leave Barcor in command. But I’m just going to have to take my chances on that.
“In the meantime,” he continued out loud, “I’ll signal immediate orders to Earl Windshare to harass and delay the enemy. It doesn’t sound as if they have any cavalry of their own with them. With any luck, he’ll be able to slow them down enough to let you get into position.”
“Yes, Sir.” Barcor’s response sounded strangled, and he cleared his throat harshly. “With your permission, Sir,” he said in a more normal-sounding voice, “I’d best be getting back to my men.”
“Of course, My Lord.” Once again, Gahrvai projected all the confidence he could as he clasped forearms with Barcor firmly and thanked God that the baron couldn’t possibly know what he was really thinking. “The rest of the army will be right behind you.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
Barcor released Gahrvai’s forearm and headed out of the tent looking almost like a resolute commander who knew what he was about. Gahrvai allowed himself a moment to hope there was more truth than usual in that impression, then turned back to the rest of his officers.
“My Lords,” he said, “please be thinking about what we have to do while I draft Earl Windshare’s instructions. Earl Mancora.”
“Yes, Sir?”
“It’s remotely possible that this is only a diversion, intended to panic us into falling back from our current position. To safeguard against that possibility, I want you and your men to stay right where you are. At the same time, however, I want you to begin planning now for a rapid withdrawal if it turns out Cayleb really is behind us in strength. Be sure you and Colonel Pahlzar coordinate the withdrawal of his artillery carefully.”
“Of course, Sir.”
“As for the rest of us,” Gahrvai surveyed the other officers around the table, “I want every unit behind Earl Mancora’s ready to move west within the next two hours.” One or two expressions blanked, and he smiled thinly. “Gentlemen, we’re like beads on a string here in this pass. None of us can move until the man immediately to our west is already in motion. Don’t think Cayleb hasn’t considered that, either. So, yes. Two hours I said, and two hours I meant. Is that clearly understood?”
Heads nodded, and his smile turned a bit warmer.
“I would recommend that each of you send one of your aides back to your command immediately with instructions to begin preparing to move. I’ll try to have all of you personally back to your men as quickly as possible. Now, if you’ll excuse me?”
Cayleb and his mounted bodyguard cantered briskly up the flank of the marching column of Marines. They were accompanied by a hundred-man cavalry company, one of the very few the Marines had. It wouldn’t be enough to beat off any sort of serious attack, but the entire compact force was fast and agile. Besides, the column was always available for them to fall back on, and if an entire brigade of Marines couldn’t stave off an attempt to kill or capture the emperor, then this entire operation was already effectively doomed.
That was Cayleb’s view of the situation, at any rate, and he was sticking to it. Merlin had done his dead level best to argue the youthful emperor into changing his mind, but Cayleb was adamant. And, Merlin had to agree, there was quite a bit of logic on the emperor’s side, whether he liked it or not. For good or ill, Cayleb was the only interface through which Merlin was able to directly affect the deployment of the Charisian field force. Merlin certainly couldn’t turn up in Brigadier Clareyk’s command area and start telling him where to move his troops to meet threats his own scouts hadn’t detected. Cayleb could give whatever orders he wanted, and the troops were rapidly coming to the conclusion that his ability to read a tactical situation on land was just as good as it was at sea. Given that set of circumstances, Merlin had been forced to admit that having Cayleb at the point of the Charisian spear made at least some sense.
Besides, Cayleb was the emperor—a point he wasn’t particularly loath to make whenever it suited his purposes.
It’s a good thing he really is smart as a whip, Merlin reflected as he rode just behind and to the emperor’s right. Stubborn as he is, we’d be in an incredible mess if he decided to get up on his “emperor’s horse” this way and he wasn’t a bright fellow. I suppose we’re fortunate he has the habit of command, too, all things considered. It’s a hell of a lot better than indecisiveness, God knows! But I hope Sharleyan and I can keep him from getting too confident. It’s going to be really hard for someone with his authority to avoid the trap of always insisting on going his own way, especially as he gets older.
The head of the column came into sight, and Cayleb and his escort slowed down as they spotted Brigadier Clareyk’s mounted command group under the brigade’s dovetailed standard with its embroidered kraken and huge “3” in scarlet and gold. The brigadier had obviously been informed that they were on their way, and he and his staff trotted to meet the emperor.
“Your Majesty,” Clareyk said, bowing from the saddle.
“Brigadier,” Cayleb acknowledged. “I hope you won’t feel I’m trying to joggle your elbow,” the emperor continued, “but I’ve discovered that there are only so many times I can sit around safely aboard ship while I send my Marines off to get into trouble without me.”
He’d raised his voice slightly, and Merlin saw several of the nearby Marines grinning as they marched past. The emperor’s remarks would spread throughout the brigade within the hour, he felt quite sure. By nightfall, they’d probably have spread through the entire expeditionary force west of the Dark Hills.
“Of course, Your Majesty,” Clareyk agreed with a smile, although Merlin was quite certain that at this particular moment the brigadier wished Cayleb were just about anywhere on Safehold except with Third Brigade. But then Clareyk glanced rather oddly in Merlin’s direction, and the man who had been Nimue Alban suddenly wondered just how much Clareyk really had guessed about him.
“Have your scouts reported any sign of Gahrvai’s cavalry?” Cayleb asked more seriously, and Clareyk grimaced.
“My mounted scouts are unfortunately thin on the ground, Your Majesty, and I haven’t wanted to let foot patrols get too far out on the column’s flanks, under the circumstances. So far, we’ve had a handful of run-ins with the other side’s cavalry, but only in ones and twos.”
“Their scouts running into our scouts,” Cayleb agreed with a frown of his own. “Has there been any fighting?”
“I’ve had a couple of reports.” Clareyk nodded. “So far, it’s worked out in our favor in each case. On the other hand, I expect I’d only hear back about the ones where it did work out in our favor,” he added with a wintry smile.
It was Cayleb’s turn to nod, and he scratched thoughtfully at the wiry whiskers of the short, neatly trimmed beard he’d grown since leaving Charis. He gazed off to the northeast, obviously thinking hard, then looked back at Clareyk.
“I think we can expect Earl Windshare to come calling,” he said. “In fact, I’m a bit surprised he hasn’t already arrived. I know we discussed the possibility in our planning sessions, Brigadier, but I’ve got a feeling he’s going to arrive in greater strength than we’d anticipated.”
“I see, Your Majesty,” Clareyk said calmly, then let his eyes flick sideways to Captain Athrawes before he looked gravely back at his emperor. “Do you have any suggestions to make?”
“Actually,” Cayleb said, his own eyes narrowing slightly, “I do. It’s occurred to me that the fact that Windshare hasn’t arrived yet probably indicates we did take them by surprise. It may also indicate,” he looked directly into Clareyk’s eyes, “that their infantry has been slower about getting into motion than they’d hoped. In fact, I suppose it’s even possible Gahrvai’s infantry hasn’t actually started moving at all yet.”
“If our spies’ reports that Baron Barcor’s been placed in command of his rear guard are accurate, I’d say that was certainly at least a possibility, Your Majesty,” Clarey
k agreed.
“Well, if that should be the case, then I’d expect someone like Windshare would be particularly determined to slow us down, especially if he has more of his men with him than we’d anticipated he would. As a matter of fact, I believe he’d probably be looking for an opportunity to do just that by launching a decisive attack on our leading column. Your column, Brigadier.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“If he should be tempted to do that, then the opportunity would arise for us to decisively defeat him, instead. How confident would you feel about your ability to deal with, say, three or four thousand cavalry?”
Clareyk’s eyes narrowed as Cayleb threw out the number. He cocked his head to one side, obviously considering the figures, then turned in the saddle to survey the terrain through which he was currently advancing.
“Assuming, of course, that your numbers are close to correct, Your Majesty,” he said, flicking another of those lightning glances in Merlin’s direction, “and given the openness of most of the ground between here and Green Valley, I think we could handle that many cavalry without too much difficulty. We’re more spread out than I might wish, but they aren’t going to be able to sneak into charge range without our seeing them in plenty of time to form square.”
“I realize that,” Cayleb said a bit more slowly. “But if you form square, and if Windshare is smart enough—and patient enough—to simply sit there, he wins. All he really has to do is delay us long enough for Gahrvai to get his infantry out of Talbor. If he settles for holding you under threat, keeping you formed up in one place in square, instead of continuing to advance, he’ll buy Gahrvai the time he needs.”
“And you’d like me to tempt him into not being smart and patient enough, Your Majesty?”
“Exactly.” Cayleb nodded. “Every report I’ve seen on Windshare says he’s aggressive. Someone even described him as ‘thinking with his spurs.’ I think that’s probably unfair—if he’s not the sharpest man ever born, he’s not exactly stupid, either—but his instinct is definitely to hit hard and fast. Given the threat we pose to the rest of Gahrvai’s troops, and the fact that he probably doesn’t have the most lively faith in the world in Barcor’s quickness off the mark, he’s going to be even more tempted to do that if he thinks he sees an opportunity. So I’d like to convince him that he does.”