Safehold 10 Through Fiery Trials

by David Weber

  “Very good,” Krugair replied, unclipping his safety line and moving to a point from which he could see the illuminated faces of the altimeter and compass. “Come to a heading of south-southwest and increase speed to forty knots.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir. Coming to south-southwest and increasing speed to forty knots.”

  The engine room telegraphs clanged, the rpm of the four propellers—each with three blades, rather than the two of earlier airships—accelerated as the steam throttles were opened wider, and HMAS Aivahn Hahgyz sailed majestically across the stars as she circled back the way she’d come.

  .II.

  Town of Taizhow, and The Kwyfan Crossroads, Zhyndow-Zhutiyan Road, Chynduk Valley, Tiegelkamp Province, Central Harchong.

  “Those bastards aren’t going to enjoy this at all,” Grand Duke Spring Flower growled with undisguised satisfaction as he glowered down at the map. “And I don’t want any more reports about that son-of-a-bitch Syngpu being ‘wounded,’ is that understood?”

  He raised his smoldering eyes to Zhailau Laurahn, and the man who no longer found it strange to think of himself as the Baron of Qwaidu nodded. He had more than enough bones of his own to pick with Tangwyn Syngpu.

  “Dead on the ground or back here where he can be made a proper example of—one or the other!” Spring Flower went on. “I’ll settle for dead if I have to, but he’s done us enough damage I want him here, where we can show everyone else what happens to people who screw around with us. So you tell the men he’s worth five thousand marks to me alive but I’ll cough up only one thousand for just his head!”

  Qwaidu nodded again. If the notoriously parsimonious Spring Flower was prepared to come up with that kind of money, he was obviously serious. And he’d learned from others’ example that rulers who promised rewards and then didn’t deliver came to bad ends, so he wasn’t just venting this time.

  “I really want all their precious ‘Valley Council’ back here where they can be dealt with properly, if we can get them,” the grand duke continued, “but I’ll settle for dead for them, too, if I have to. The important thing is, we end this crap!”

  Qwaidu nodded a third time. In his fairer moments, of which he had as few as possible where Tangwyn Syngpu, Miyang Gyngdau, Zaipu Ou-zhang, and Yngshwan Tsungzhi were concerned, the baron had to concede that the Valleyers didn’t actually go out of their way to cause trouble outside the confines of their own Valley. The problem wasn’t what they did; the problem was what they were: a prosperous, thriving community which refused to bend the knee or the neck to its betters. Specifically, they refused to bow before the Grand Duke of Spring Flower.

  And, by extension, to His Majesty, Zhailau. Don’t forget that! the baron reminded himself.

  The emperor certainly wasn’t going to forget. He’d made that clear enough. In fact, Qwaidu rather suspected the emperor and the rest of the imperial court in Yu-kwau saw the Valleyers as stand-ins for the United Provinces. Zhyou-Zhwo couldn’t get at Boisseau or the other coastal provinces whose rail lines and manufactories were growing so robustly, so Chynduk would have to take the blows in their place.

  That was fine with Qwaidu. He didn’t care why Yu-kwau supported them against Syngpu, Gyngdau, and the others. All he cared about was that it did.

  Of course, it was entirely possible his troops would catch neither Syngpu nor the other Valley leaders, but that was acceptable, too. Whether or not he managed to drag them out of their hidey holes, starvation and cold would finish off their resistance after he burned their barns and killed or ran off their livestock. He was under no illusion that he could get all of their barns or all of their animals, but with the new weapons from Yu-kwau, he could go wherever he wanted, and that meant he could damned well get enough of both to starve the bastards out.

  “The only thing I’m still a little worried by are those reports of the damned ‘airships,’” he said now, looking down and running his finger across the same map. “I know they’re all half-arsed rumors of rumors, not anything solid. But the frigging Charisians are flying the damned things all over the damned world. There’s plenty of confirmation of that! And there are enough rumors of people seeing them over Boisseau and the Chiang-wus to make me think there has to be something to them, Your Grace, and the terrain’s going to give them enough opportunities to surprise our scouts and columns without someone sitting in a damned balloon and looking down on every move we make.” He grimaced. “I’m not saying they could stop us, Your Grace. I’m just saying that if they really have one of the things, we’re likely to get hurt a lot worse than we would otherwise.”

  “By a balloon?!” Spring Flower shook his head and made a sound of disgust. “Don’t worry about any damned balloons. Earl Snow Peak assures me that all they can do is spy on us. And that assumes half the lies the Shan-wei–damned Charisians and their arse-kissing friends tell are true! How likely do you think that is?”

  Actually, Qwaidu was prepared to think most of what the Charisians said was reasonably accurate. And the possibility that “all they can do is spy on us” was precisely what he was worried about. “Commander” Syngpu and his ragged-arsed peasants and serfs were masters of concealment and perfectly comfortable operating dispersed, shooting at him from behind stone walls and wood piles and then filtering away before he could put in a charge to overwhelm them. They were Shan-wei’s own challenge to dig out of the woodwork at the best of times. If they had someone standing on the equivalent of the tallest mountain in the vicinity and shouting reports on Qwaidu’s movements, they’d be even harder to spot before they opened fire … and a hell of a lot harder to catch once they did.

  There were many things about Earl Snow Peak which inspired less than total confidence in the baron, including his estimates of the ‘airships” potential threat. It seemed reasonable to Qwaidu that anything which could carry people could carry people with rifles, which suggested they could at least harass the hell out of ground troops! But if they came close enough to shoot at his men, then his men could shoot back at them, and they finally had modern weapons to do it with. Weapons which still relied on black powder, rather than the ‘smokeless powder’ Charis was willing to provide to its friends, perhaps, but the new Desnairian rifle—christened the Harless, although Qwaidu would have preferred a different name, given what had happened to the Duke of Harless in the Shiloh Campaign—still gave a rifleman six shots as quickly as he could work the bolt. Seven shots if he started with one in the chamber. A few hundred of those firing upward should discourage any “airship”!

  “Well, Your Grace,” he said finally, straightening and standing back from the map table. “Time I was going. I’m hoping you’ll be five thousand marks the poorer in a very few days now.”

  “So do I, My Lord.” Spring Flower smiled thinly. “So do I.”

  * * *

  “Sir, we’re starting to take some fire from the right flank.”

  Captain of Foot Rung looked up from his conversation with Sergeant Major Chaiyang. He’d been listening to the sergeant major very carefully, because while Hanbai Chaiyang might still be “only” a noncom, he was the noncom, as far as Baron Qwaidu was concerned. He was seldom far from the baron’s side, especially these days, and when he was, it was because the baron had sent him to make sure there were absolutely no misunderstandings.

  And after certain misadventures Zhungdau Rung’s cavalry company had experienced at places with names like “the Yang-zhi Farm,” misunderstandings with the baron were very high on the captain of foot’s list of things to avoid.

  “What sort of fire?” he asked the messenger now, acutely aware of Chaiyang’s silent, listening presence.

  “Captain of Bows Pyng said to tell you it’s mostly long-range, harassing fire, coming from that belt of trees north of the farm, Sir. He estimates there could be as many as a hundred men in there. Maybe two hundred, judging from the powder smoke. He says he’s pretty sure they’re firing from prepared positions.”

  Rung pursed his lips and nodded slo
wly. He wasn’t surprised, although that made the news no more pleasant.

  In the wake of the Grand Duke’s troops’ last incursion into the Valley, they’d been forced to pull back to the ruins of Zhyndow to escape the galling sniper fire and hit-and-run raids the Valleyers had brought to bear. They could have stayed farther forward, but only at the cost of a constant, niggling stream of casualties, and that was bad for morale.

  The downside of pulling back, however, was that the Valleyers had been given plenty of time to go over the ground and make their best deployments. Rung strongly suspected that having given them that time was going to prove expensive. But at least it was only his people’s job to find the bastards. It was someone else’s job to go in and dig them out.

  He considered Pyng’s message. He couldn’t really call it a report, but the captain of bows had covered the essentials. And if he said there were over a hundred of the rebels in that patch of woods, there probably were. Kaujyng Pyng was the third officer to command 2nd Squadron’s 3rd Platoon since Maizhai Rwan-tai got himself ambushed and killed. Neither of the other two had worked out. Well, in fairness, the second of them had gotten himself killed trying to break up a brawl over a woman before he’d had time to work out. And the court-martial had cost Rung three more troopers, as well. Couldn’t have an officer getting himself killed by doing something stupid and then let the other half of the stupid walk away, could he? But Pyng was reliable. Solid.

  Good. I won’t have to waste more men sending them up that damned slope to confirm it!

  It was time to turn the advance over to that “someone else,” at least until the flank of the main road had been cleared for his cavalry.

  “Message to Captain of Horse Lwanzhi,” he said crisply, still aware of the silently listening sergeant major. “Inform him that my scouts have confirmed rebel riflemen in strength in the woods above the high road at the Kwyfan crossroads. My troopers will hold in place until his infantry can clear the trees.”

  * * *

  Captain of Horse Zhaigung Lwanzhi, the commanding officer of the Sochal Infantry Regiment, muttered balefully as he finished reading the brief note. He and Captain of Foot Rung were technically the same rank, and Lwanzhi’s infantry regiment was twice the size of Rung’s cavalry company. But Rung had been with Baron Qwaidu almost two years longer. That made him senior, and that was that.

  On the other hand, Lwanzhi conceded, for a stupid fucking cavalryman, Rung wasn’t that bad. He had at least part of a brain, anyway. And he was right. Screwing around in the woods wasn’t what cavalry did best. It was what infantry did … damn it.

  But at least all the men have Harlesses and not those crappy single-shot St. Kylmahns!

  He scowled down at his map. It wasn’t anything like as detailed as he would have preferred, but it showed the woods clearly enough. They were actually a chain of consecrated, interconnected second-growth woodlots that stretched for over twenty miles in a gentle arc along the contour lines above the Kwyfan Farm. If he’d been going to set up a delaying post, that’s where he would have put it, too. And digging them out was going to be a genuine pain in the arse.

  Best begin the way we mean to go on, he thought. These bastards’ve already shown us it’s going to cost to dig them out of anywhere, and Rung may be wrong about how many men they’ve got bellied down in there. Man could hide a couple of regiments in that much wood, if he really wanted to. So—

  “Tell Captain of Foot Raulai and Captain of Foot Zhweiau I need them,” he growled at an orderly. “Now! We’re burning sunlight here!”

  * * *

  “Any idea what we did to draw the short straw, Sir?” Platoon Sergeant Mahnpyng Nyng-gi asked sourly as 1st Company started up the steep slope through the discouraging whistle of bullets with 3rd Platoon leading the way. Clouds of white powder smoke rolled through the trees atop the slope like an orphaned fog bank as the Valleyers bellied down up there sent those bullets down to greet them.

  “No idea at all,” Captain of Bows Kengbwo Gyng replied in an equally sour tone. He was about two-thirds Nyng-gi’s age, but the two of them had been together for almost two years now, and Gyng had commanded 1st Company’s 3rd Platoon for the last year and a half. “Most likely, we just did our job too damned well last time.”

  “Might be a good idea not to do it quite as well this time, Sir. Within reason, I mean.” Nyng-gi’s eyes were bleak as another of their privates went down. At least this one wasn’t dead, although from his screams that might not be true much longer.

  “I’ll bear that in mind.”

  Gyng ducked as a bullet “wheeted” overhead. It probably hadn’t been as close as it seemed to him, and he remembered the old adage. Any bullet you heard wasn’t a problem.

  He looked back over his shoulder and grunted in something as close to satisfaction as he could manage at the moment. The crossroads and Kwyfan Farm’s buildings were close to four miles from the belt of woodland, but the main road ran along the northern edge of old Kyngswun Kwyfan’s cultivated area. That put it within long rifle shot of the woods. Even if it hadn’t, they couldn’t afford to leave that many men up on their flank, ready to pounce on supply trains or reinforcing columns. Or, for that matter, to close in behind them if they ran into something as nasty as they’d hit last time and had to retreat.

  Had he been given the option, he would have declined the honor of leading the way up that slope. He hadn’t been, but at least Captain of Horse Lwanzhi believed in using however big a hammer it took. His entire 1st and 2nd Companies, each nominally three hundred men strong, were deployed, advancing behind a skirmish line as they swept up the slope. The regiment’s remaining three companies waited in column on the southern edge of the road, far enough out to be safe even from Valleyer marksmen but close enough to support his leading companies if they needed help.

  Hopefully, the stupid peasants could do the math. There might be the two hundred of them Captain of Horse Rung’s troopers had estimated, but with six hundred infantry—all armed with the new magazine rifles—coming at them, it was time for them to be elsewhere.

  Although, he thought grimly as another member of his platoon went down, they obviously weren’t leaving until they were good and ready.

  Just you stay where you are, then, if you want to be all bloody-minded about it, he thought venomously. Let us get to hand-bomb range. Better yet, hang around until we can dangle you upside down over a slow fire!

  * * *

  “Bastards’re hanging in there better than I expected,” Captain of Horse Lwanzhi growled, watching through his spyglass—and wishing he had one of the double-glasses Baron Qwaidu and Captain of Horse Rung had managed to obtain.

  “Maybe,” Captain of Foot Renshwei said. “Might not be s’ bad if they do, though. Probably nail more of ’em here, if they decide to make a real fight of it.”

  Lwanzhi grunted, because his second in command was right. And by their worst-case estimates, they had at least four times the manpower the Valley could afford to put permanently under arms. So they could afford to lose men. It wasn’t written anywhere in the Holy Writ that they had to be his men, though.

  “Looks like the skirmishers’re just about up to the fence line,” Renshwei observed, and Lwanzhi grunted again. The “fence” along the edge of the woodland scarcely deserved the name. It was intended to keep the Valleyers’ sheep and cows from wandering into the woods, and there wasn’t that much to attract them on the other side of it anyway. It was more of a reminder than an actual barrier, and it wasn’t going to hinder his skirmishers much at all. Especially not with the formed lines behind them ready to lay down covering fire. In fact, in about another five or six min—

  * * *

  “And … now!” Platoon Sergeant Taiyang snapped, and Corporal Tungkau yanked on the line.

  Baron Qwaidu was quite correct that an airship couldn’t shoot at people on the ground without having the people on the ground shoot back. Unfortunately for him, that wasn’t the only way they could hurt him
, because a five-ton, air-dropped pallet could carry an interesting assortment of things. For example, a Mark IV Mahndrayn rifle weighed just under nine pounds. Allowing for shipping materials and the weight of the pallet itself, a single pallet could deliver almost nine hundred of them. And each round of ammunition weighed about 1.6 ounces, so the pallet next to it could deliver ninety-six thousand rounds to keep those rifles fed in action.

  At the moment, there were three hundred Valleyer infantry in those woods, all of them armed with Mark IVs and half of them armed with flintlock St. Kylmahn conversions, as well. They were the ones who’d been shooting at Captain of Horse Lwanzhi’s infantry and producing all those clouds of powder smoke. Now they laid aside the flintlocks.

  Nor had rifles been all Lieutenant Krugair and his airship had delivered, as Captain of Bows Gyng discovered—briefly—when Tungkau pulled the cord and the forty Shan-wei’s sweepers spotted along the line of the fence detonated in a stupendous, rolling blast. Each of the directional mines hurled almost six hundred half-inch shrapnel balls into the faces of Lwanzhi’s astounded infantry.

  And then all three hundred Mark IVs went to deadly, aimed rapid fire, and unlike the black powder, six-shot Harless supplied by the Desnairian manufactories, the Mark IV Mahndrayn boasted a ten-round magazine and a much higher velocity—and flatter-shooting—cartridge. One that didn’t emit billowing clouds of smoke to mark the shooter’s position … or obscure his view of the target.

  * * *

  “Shan-wei!” Zhaigung Lwanzhi swore as the entire line of the fence disappeared behind a rolling wash of explosions. He’d never faced the directional land-bombs the Charisians and their allies had used against the Mighty Host during the Jihad, but he realized what he had to be seeing as his entire skirmish line—and most of the rifle line behind it—went down like grass before a Charisian reaper.