by Colin Kapp
‘I’d not given the matter a thought.’
‘Then I’ll tell you. With the Imaiz removed, T’Ampere would take the rest of the province, because nobody, not even I, could stop her. You’re the only man in Anharitte who would dare to take arms against Dion-daizan, so she sees in you a useful catspaw. If you should succeed, you will hand her Magda province on a plate. If you lose she’s lost at most five hundred men. Do you now see in what you’ve become involved?’
‘I hadn’t known the details of her ambitions,’ said Ren. ‘Therefore I find your warning timely. But I’m not sure it modifies my plan.’
‘I hadn’t expected you to be easily swayed. But if you’re still intent on turning Thirdhill into a battle ground, you should at least know in what cause your blood is being spilled. It’s your life balanced against her gain. Do you think it a fair bargain?’
‘Are you trying to warn me not to proceed with the exploit?’
‘I don’t give a damn whether you proceed or not. You’ve almost no chance of winning and a very high chance of getting killed in the attempt. Even if you win, T’Ampere will take the major prize. You can work out the odds for yourself. But I warn you—you’re engaged in an unholy alliance if you’ve listened to T’Ampere. She’s made the almost identical proposition to most of the lords in the past, but history has taught them caution. Only T’Empte ever fell for the ruse.’ reinforce my society in feud against Dion-daizan.’
‘Catuul Gras spoke of T’Empte as an empty province. What happened to the House of T’Empte?’
‘The House of T’Empte was destroyed partly by T’Ampere’s treachery and partly because Dion’s revenge was so terrible. Since T’Empte was the catspaw, T’Ampere escaped more lightly. The old vixen’s been sitting nursing her wounds these many years, waiting for someone else for her to thrust first into the fight with Dion.’
‘And now you think I’ve been elected?’
‘You’re the first new major force to emerge in Anharitte since the destruction of T’Empte. It was only a matter of time before you became included in her schemes.’
‘I’ll mark well what you’ve said,’ said Ren. ‘I promise it will he taken into account before a decision is reached. But if I decide to storm Magda—where will I find my Lord Di Irons standing?’
‘Slightly to your rear, looking the other way. You’re taking T’Ampere’s banner. Noble house against Noble house still has legitimacy—they have the right to bear arms anywhere in the city, Even the planetary government couldn’t object to your action under T’Ampere’s shield. But the cost of digging your graves will certainly be passed on to your Company.’
‘You paint a black picture.’
‘Traditionally the rocks of Thirdhill have been awash with the blood of attackers since the stones of Castle Magda were first raised. I see no reason to suppose that this occasion will be any different.’
Slowly Ren’s plans took shape. Dubious at first, Catuul Gras rapidly became an enthusiastic convert when he saw the scope and thoroughness of the agent’s ideas. Much preliminary work needed to be done and Catuul’s standing with the elders of the clans foreshortened many otherwise lengthy negotiations. A large quantity of small boats was purchased along the coast to provide ready transport both for the attack and the unlikely event of a forced withdrawal. Canvassing around the Tyrene village produced scores of useful contacts whose services would be needed when the great day came. Ren watched the steadily mounting bill for purchases and bribes and knew that this was going to be his final attempt. If this venture failed, he was unlikely to be given the money or the opportunity to try again. He had to succeed.
The more involved Catuul Gras became with the planning of the exploit, the more he began to appreciate how Ren’s unique outworlders’ view of Anharitte threw up ideas and perspectives by no means apparent to those who had spent their lives in the city. Although Ren’s knowledge of Ahhn history was not complete, his understanding of the causes and motivations of political events was a revelation to the scribe. Ideas which in outline were received in doubtful silence won enthusiastic favor when Ren placed them in careful context. Whatever the results of the coming battle, the event was certain to find a permanent place in Anharitte’s history.
For Ren the affair was necessarily a compromise. After hill experiences with Alek Hardun he felt compelled to eschew the benefits of modern outworld weaponry. This limited his armory to what could be made or found from native resources. However, he felt no such limitations on his ingenuity. Many Ahhn craftsmen found themselves building instruments of siege and war which belonged not to their own history but to that of another race far across the legendary stars.
Logic dictated that rocket projectiles would have been more effective against Magda than ballistae and chain-cannon, hut Ren was aware of a growing sense of responsibility toward the Ahhn. The release of too much advanced weaponry into their feudal society could have destroyed them just as effectively as if the ships of Rance had succeeded in their task. Alternatively, to go into battle ill-prepared was to invite disaster.
Nor were the words of Di Irons on T’Ampere overlooked. In his planning, Ren had attempted to cover all of the many aspects of the exercise brought to his attention and several facets which he had determined for himself. Overall he had contrived to construct a time of chaos such that even the prefect would find it difficult to determine exactly what was taking place. It was also hoped that even the Imaiz’s spies would present such a mass of irrelevant information to Dion that much could be achieved before the true pattern of the attack became apparent. All in all, Ren was rather pleased with his design. He was certain that Director Vestevaal would have given the whole scheme his heartiest approval.
At last Ren was ready to make his move. With the initial attack on Magda scheduled for late afternoon a messenger was sent that morning to call out T’Ampere’s men. The messenger returned with the news that the party from Secondhill would join them at midday. This was largely as Ren had anticipated. He then waited for reports from the spies he had posted on T’Ampere’s borders before ordering his men into the field.
His judgment proved correct. Coincident with the sending of five hundred men from T’Ampere to join Ren’s sortie against Magda, the mistress of Secondhill had ordered nearly ten times that number of men to the shores of the River Daizan in the east, flanking Magda province. When he had received confirmation of this fact, Ren caused signals to be flown to set in motion the next phase of his plan. T’Ampere was due for a nasty shock.
The notion pleased Ren—it was with a wolfish smile on his face that he went to marshal his own forces. Against agreement, the five hundred from T’Ampere came complete with their own officers. These were neatly disarmed by the Pointed Tails and removed from the scene with some alacrity. Moreover, the five hundred were outnumbered at least two to one by members of the Pointed Tails and other societies brought in by Catuul as reinforcements. Lacking more direct orders from T’Ampere, the five hundred accepted the viewpoint offered them and soon became integrated in the total army marching on Thirdhill.
It was thus with fifteen hundred men rather than a thousand, that Ren crossed Firstwater to Magda’s shores. Here again his strategy was not immediately obvious. Instead of taking the hill road leading directly up to the township and thence to the castle, his men marched round at the foot of the slopes defining the hill—only when they had formed a full circle around Thirdhill did they begin to ascend. Even then their activity was limited. At the rough contour where the grasslands gave way to the steeper outcrops of gray rock on which the township and castle of Magda stood, they halted and began to prepare their positions as if in readiness for a siege rather than a direct attack.
Below the siege line other teams were busy setting up the various engines and devices of Ren’s design and dragging them up the hill to the stations at carefully determined points. The sun set on a deceptively quiet scene, the growing glow of campfires spreading out along the side of the hill like a string of bright beads. I
n only a few places did activity continue after nightfall. Watchers in Castle Magda could have seen little of these secret details, because the devices were still concealed in dead ground and safely out of sight of the castle.
The first sign of renewed action came when the fires on the hillside facing Firstwater leaped into new life as blocks of pitch and barrels of crude tar were thrown upon them. The lazy breeze from the southwest carried the heavy smoke in the direction of the castle and effectively screened the movements Ren had planned for his secret weapons. These he now deployed forward to occupy positions behind preselected outcrops of rock that would serve to shield them from direct fire. Having relocated the devices to his satisfaction, Ren returned to a safe position to await the coming of first light.
Dawn brought the first skirmish. The defenders of Magda, apparently reluctant until now to show their awareness of the army gathered around them, sent out a reconnaissance party to test the strength of the enemy. The Pointed Tails were ready for them. Although Dion-daizan’s men bore small muskets of a type similar to those favored by the ill-fated Di Guaard, they were no match for the hail of steel shafts from the crossbows of the society armsmen. The reconnaissance party lost two men and retreated quickly back inside the castle gates. The attackers lost no men at all in the incident and achieved a great improvement in morale.
The coming of the early sun brought a slight freshening of the wind, which nevertheless held its prevailing course. This was precisely what Ren had hoped and led naturally into the next phase of his campaign. With the majority of his troops still holding a tight ring around the outer slopes, he again caused certain fires to be made to smoke and, under cover of the dense vapor clouds, he and twenty selected men gained the forward positions where their secret weapons had been sited. The fires were doused at a signal and into the clearing air above the frowning castle a large balloon rose uncertainly, trailing a canister on a rope beneath it.
This first balloon rose too slowly and snagged against a high battlement, its canister dangling against the outer wall. After a time the burning fuse expired and the canister fell outside the wall to explode at its foot. Although the explosive was a native product, its quality was sufficient to make a very creditable bang. In its situation it did no damage, but it was a welcome foretaste of what such a device could do if it fell inside the castle confines.
The next balloon was prepared in recognition of the fate of the first. It rose more swiftly, clearing the battlements with ample margin. The fuse, too, had been altered and made slightly longer and the attackers had the immense satisfaction of seeing the canister plummet from a height and fall squarely inside the castle walls. There was no way to assess what damage the explosion might have caused, but its arrival must certainly have been a trial to the defenders. Much structural damage was not to be expected, but the more sophisticated the defenses, the more they would suffer from casual bombardment.
Eight more balloons were released. The first six all delivered their explosive charges somewhere within the castle confines. Although they were subjected to rapid musket fire from inside Magda, the small balls projected by the weaponry were insufficient to damage the balloon fabric in any way that appreciably foreshortened the flight. The seventh balloon was shot down well before it had covered the distance to the castle.
Ren fancied that a more powerful weapon, such as a Terran rifle, had been brought to bear on this. The eighth balloon was shot to pieces almost immediately upon release, and Ren and his comrades scarcely escaped with their lives as the canister fell back on top of them.
Seeing the growing effectiveness of the defensive measures, Ren decided that the idea had been taken far enough. Under cover of a new wave of smoke he ordered a retreat and made his way back to his now jubilant forces, quite satisfied with the progress he had made. Seven explosive charges had been delivered into Magda and although they would not have caused very much damage to such a massive structure, their effect both physical and psychological on the defenders could not have been negligible. Most gratifyingly, all this had been accomplished without the loss of a single man.
Meanwhile, Catuul Gras had been visiting the township below the castle. He had found the people fully aware of the situation and anxious about their own lives and property. Catuul had struck a bargain with them—he would restrict armed offensives to the vicinity of the castle proper if the townsfolk would agree to attempt no action in support of Dion-daizan. His proposal had been rejected until he pointed out the strength of the attacking force and the indefensibility of the scattered conglomeration of buildings of the township. If defied, he had said, he was quite prepared to raze the town by fire. On this point of understanding he had taken his leave, but had not forgotten to post pickets on all paths out of the town as a reminder to the townsfolk that they were not free agents in this time of war.
Ren was concentrating now on moving his men up close to the castle, so that he could start to use the engines he had brought. The maneuver proved more dangerous than he had calculated. The muskets of Magda proved to have an unexpected range and accuracy—and at least one high-powered rifle, probably with telescopic sights, was being deployed against his men. His losses were mounting, despite all his efforts at caution, and it became obvious that a daylight attack would be suicidal. Reluctantly he retreated to the safety of the siege line and caused his ballistae to be prepared.
He had intended the ballistae to be used at shorter range, but he knew that the smaller missiles could be hurled for considerable distances, though the accuracy of range left much to be desired. Fortunately, knowing the strength of Magda’s walls, he had not intended to try to use brute force to make a breach. Instead he had concentrated primarily on the manufacture of fire bombs. These were earthenware vessels filled with inflammable spirit and ignited by a wick, which would burst and spread a formidable area of flame around the point of impact.
Now Ren rearranged the ballistae for maximum effect at a distance and had the smaller fire bombs segregated ready for loading. The losses his force had sustained earlier in the day weighed heavily on his conscience. With this in mind, he was overcautious about keeping his men well under cover and out of the line of fire. Here he sensed he was failing in his duties as a commander of an aggressive force. He grudgingly acknowledged that he was a merchant concerned with profit and loss rather than life and death and that he placed more faith in the unorthodoxy of his weapons to gain Magda than he did in the power of flesh and bone to storm a castle so well defended.
The ballistae functioned well. About sixty per cent of the projectiles actually fell within the walls of Magda. The effect was difficult to gauge, but the persistence of smoke trails long after the spirit would have naturally burned out was evidence that at least some of the fire bombs had ignited combustibles within the castle. He had a mental picture of the vessels smashing against walls and windows and the torrents of flaming spirit being spattered well into the interior of Magda’s installations. Apart from a direct hit, it was doubtful whether the practice would do much damage to the personnel, but no organization, however structured, could function without stress in the face of rapid and randomly occurring outbreaks of fire.
TWENTY-ONE
While he was engaged in pressing this newest mode of attack Ren had a visitor. Di Irons, grim and heavy and rustily bearded, pulled himself up the slopes and was guided to the place where Ren was directing operations. The prefect gave the impression of being tired of his world.
‘If ever a man could name a common cause for all his misfortunes that man is I. And the name of the misfortune is Tito Ren. What are you trying to do, Tito? Set all Anharitte on fire?’
‘Only Castle Magda—at the moment. Did you have something on your mind, Prefect?’
‘The Tyrene attacked again—the first time in over forty years. It’s too much of a coincidence to suspect your hand isn’t behind it. Only a historian could have planned a coup like that. Don’t you agree?’
Ren shrugged blandly. ‘They a
lways told me the Tyrene pirates were a myth. I may be blamed for interfering with your history, but it seems to be taking the point a bit far to include mythology. Perhaps the ghost of Di Guaard has chased them from the cellars of the dead?’
‘I’ll wager it was some more lively spirit,’ said Di Irons heavily. ‘Especially as you canvassed heavily along that shore.’
‘Tell me about their coming,’ asked Ren innocently.
‘T’Ampere lost a fortune. To protect the chateau itself she—had to call back much of the army she had originally sent to the edge of Magda province. They were so late returning that the chateau itself had been overrun in the meantime. The Tyrene took every single thing of value including her considerable treasury, fired the chateau, then retreated to the river. T’Ampere’s men tried to give chase but were balked by the fact that you had already acquired all the available boats. To complete her misfortune Dion’s men followed those she had called back and have occupied several of T’Ampere’s own estates.’
‘Aiee!’ shrieked Ren. ‘And I thought all the action was taking place up here.’
‘Far from it. And I’d advise you not to get too close to T’Ampere in the future. She knows well whom to blame for today’s work. Clever you may be, but your ways are rather obvious.’
‘Did you climb all this way just to offer me that advice?’
‘Not really. I was interested in your progress against Dion. You realize, of course, that your continued presence here is not due to your own efforts, but due to some reluctance on the part of Dion to swipe you away as one would a fly.’
‘I doubt the truth of that, but I’d be interested in knowing how you come to that conclusion.’
‘It’s a factor most of us tend to forget, but one brought well to mind by Dion’s occupation of some of T’Ampere’s estates today. To us, soldiers are all freemen, mercenaries or armsmen of societies. But even slaves will fight in the service of Dion-daizan—and today a great many of them fought against T’Ampere. Furthermore, they were both armed and trained. Consider the implication, Tito. Dion can outman your army ten to one any time he chooses and not even feel the strain. And the majority of his men are already outside Castle Magda—they have you surrounded.’