The number of ships of either type remaining in reserve was looking smaller every day.
Verescens took two more of the crude but colorful wooden game pieces as he thought of them, and placed them by the other one just off Sinopus.
“This would be a minimum. We have to keep an eye on them, Master. And yet they are terribly vulnerable to a superior fleet, of especially the Heloi. Windermere, not so much—as for Lowren’s little ships, they have their uses, no doubt. But I don’t think they are heavy enough to take on our major naval units except under the most favorable circumstances of wind, and most likely, vastly superior numbers...”
“What about Windermere?”
“They have excellent transports, and a small number of proper warships, all two and three-masters.” The ships of Windermere were the most seaworthy of them all, he added. “Their problem is that they are rather more suited to peacetime use—chasing smugglers and enforcing maritime law.”
The Heloi relied on single-masted galleys, but then they had the seamen to man them. The Heloi loved nothing better than to ram and board, the Windermere ships tended to stand off and bombard with all sorts of missile weapons, rock-throwing catapults and then there was their use of fire-tipped javelins.
Jumalak moved around Verescens, as another senior officer entered the room and came over. He saluted in a quick and informal fashion, and took a good look at the men and the map.
“So you’ve heard, Rottewald.”
“Yes, oh, Great One.” The fellow chewed a lip and eyed Verescens.
“Do we know where the enemy fleet...or fleets are now, sir?”
“No.”
Verescens rubbed his pointed beard in an absent manner as he studied the board.
“In the south...” Verescens was thinking out loud, but it was not unwelcome.
Jumalak was rather stumped by this one.
“...in the south, the campaigning season is much longer. But up north—where we get at least some of our supplies, and where many of our troops are stationed, the season is much shorter...”
“And?”
He bit his lip. The Great Sea was almost two thousand miles from north to south, and the southern arm, off to the east, went six hundred or so miles further south than that.
“I don’t know, Master. And that worries me to no end—”
Rottewald had a thought.
“With enough supplies in Sinopus, they could support a large incursion of horse into our northern provinces.”
Rottewald had a point. Reports from the lands north of the Great Sea had been greatly reduced since the fall of Sinopus. With sufficient gold, and a recent impressive victory, it was certainly possible that the more remote northern tribes would come in on the enemy’s side. There was no incentive for them to declare themselves, except by attack. Otherwise they would await events.
They might be barbarians, but they were rarely complete fools.
As for Verescens, he rather doubted, at least for this season, major land attacks from the north. It was just too early for that. The attack on Sinopus, successful as it was, was merely a feint. The real center of operations was to the south. If the Empire fell, or if its power was seriously reduced, then the balance would shift across the whole region. The smaller powers could see that very well.
He knew what he would do if he was the enemy.
The real question was how to prevent them.
***
As the campaign wore on and spring turned into summer, the enemy’s strategy became clearer.
“Damn it!” Jumalak was furious, furious at his military and naval commanders, was mostly angry with himself.
Yet he and Verescens, and all of the other generals, were hard-pressed to come up with ideas as to what to do about it.
Strong forces had been raiding their sea-borne supply lines. Reports indicated a combined fleet from a total of four or five nations, for the coastal republics had committed themselves finally to oppose Jumalak and risk annihilation—what fools they had seemed at the time. Events had not borne this out.
The Horde, relative newcomers to the sea, seemed to have made every mistake in the book. It was common talk in the streets and taverns.
As was so often the case, public opinion wasn’t being strictly fair, as Admiral of the Fleet Apodasius explained. The combined enemy fleets were choosing their targets judiciously. They never attacked without some advantage of numbers, wind, or weather. They struck swiftly, taking one small ship or a squadron of supply ships in one place. Then they disappeared, only to reappear hundreds of miles away. The ships of the Horde, attempting to cross the Great Sea for the southwestern front, were constantly tacking into the prevailing southwest winds, and the fact that their enemy was based on that upwind shore was to give up any advantage. Until they had actually acquired some experience in naval warfare, it had been difficult to assess the hazard properly. The navy, while not yet pressing for withdrawal from the Kthmarra front, was expressing deep concerns about resupply and defending the attackers from further surprises. This was especially true over the winter months and the storm season leading up to it. It had been all too apparent that Kthmarra had been extensively-refortified and no doubt stuffed to the rafters with wine, oil and provisions.
“Suggestions, anyone?”
There were murmurs but no clear voices rose above the muddle.
One thing seemed clear, there was to be no overwhelming victory this year. It was as Verescens had always feared it would be, a war dragging on most likely for years.
Yet the situation was still militarily advantageous to the Horde. Their ships far outnumbered those of the enemy. They had gobbled up great swathes of territory, especially along their common border with the Empire in the southeast. The petty coastal states had been chastised, and their governments dismantled, although Massagetaiia still held out. Their small battle fleet had been destroyed and they could eventually be starved into submission.
It was hard to suggest anything different from what they were doing now.
“We must hold what we have taken.” Jumalak looked up and around at the faces, grimmer now that they had seen loss, failure, and the cost of war.
They had already lost two or three hundred thousand men, and ships carrying reinforcements were ships that were not carrying their proper allotment of food and fodder.
Several generals had already spoken at some length on the subject of consolidating their gains and planning something just a little bit different for next season.
Verescens sighed, deeply. What was truly vulnerable was their land force at Kthmarra. It was ensconced on an extensive beachhead. This was a large proportion of their forces, including the siege train for the attempt to take Kthmarra, stuck way off at the southwestern end of the Great Sea.
He had this terrible feeling that if they knew exactly what the enemy fleets were doing, they wouldn’t like it one little bit. So far they did not have a consensus.
All the really important decisions were being taken in other places.
Chapter Nineteen
Commander of the Horde’s forces in the Kthmarra campaign was General Aabdicus. Following standard practice, he had landed his forces from a large fleet of transports and warships on the coast seven or eight miles from the city.
His fleet was anchored offshore. The fleet had sufficient reserves of manpower and weapons to defend itself and the beachhead from seaborne assault. It was also, in the last resort, a means of retreat. The fortunes of war being what they were, sailing into the heavily-defended port of Kthmarra was seen as too bold from the onset. They had simply landed a few miles away. The Hordesmen had again followed standard practice, throwing up first a breastworks and then a properly-constituted camp, laid out in rows, with streets, gates and small guard towers on the corners.
With a fifty thousand men at his disposal, General Aabdicus had moved on from there to circumvallate the city and fortress of Kthmarra. It was now cut off from its extensive hinterland to the south and west.
Further up the coast, the territory of the Empire of the South ended abruptly and then there was a barren, cliff-lined stretch of land that pretty much all civilized peoples were content to leave to the Iazyges.
His estimate of the garrison were about twenty-four thousand, plus any number of able-bodied males in a city of about a hundred thousand or so it was said. The investing force included five thousand cavalry, and the garrison had more than double that. It was interesting that they hadn’t done more with it so far.
Historically, its sea port and its commercial captains had dominated this end of the Great Sea for centuries, before the place fell into desuetude, eventually to catch the notice of the Emperor Kullin’s ancestors.
The garrison commander, confronted by a superior force, and yet one that was a long way from home and succor, wisely decided not to risk a set-piece battle on the plain. He withdrew all forces into the city and was prepared to withstand siege.
If nothing else, the men of the garrison had a lot of horsemeat to look forward to.
This was how the situation stood even as the Khan and his advisors wondered not only what to do next, but what the other side was going to do next.
With not much time until the season for attacking at least was over, it was anybody’s guess—and anybody’s move.
At most, there were six or seven weeks left in the season, by their own reckoning, and there was much that could happen in that time.
***
The Lemni had originally come from far to the east. The sagas and traditions seemed to indicate that they had adopted the horse and the bow at about the same time. The Lemni had always used boats, of course. They had first come to the notice of the more civilized lands of the south and west because of their coastal raids, which emanated from the mouths of the largest rivers along the fringes of the Great Sea. Those early ships, with short, skinny little masts, no keels to speak of, and their simple lateen sails were not much more than seagoing canoes. Long before the rise of the Horde, they had broken out of the narrows separating the two major arms of the Great Sea. This had happened in more than one wave of migration. The band that eventually became the Lemni was no different. Those ships of old may have been smaller and cruder, but they weren’t that much different from the ships Lowren now led.
They had never been entirely without ships. Ships to trade, ships to fish and ships to make war, were all a part and parcel of their cultural framework. But Lowren and his captains were learning much from the greater vessels, the level of skill and equipment, and from listening to the captains and the admirals of the fleets of Windermere and the Heloi.
When operating alone or on their own, the Lemni and the other groups handled their ships in their traditional manner, and his own ships were built for little more than raiding. The Heloian vessels, on the other hand, were built specifically for ship-to-ship warfare in a way that he had no experience with. With his limited resources, he might have never had a chance to learn or to even see it in action.
With the enemy fleet exposed in shallow water and with their troops encamped within their bastions for the most part, foraging or raiding parties aside, all of the choices were up to the attackers. What was most striking was that the naval commanders of the Horde didn’t seem to see the danger.
With the example of Sinopus, and not all that long ago, they should have at least been more alert to the possibility of fire-ships. Enemy ships went back and forth to the eastern ports, but steered clear of the more populated coastal seas of the Empire of the South, where presumably they were more apt to be challenged.
Enemy ships patrolled regularly eighty or a hundred miles up the northward-curving west coast from Kthmarra.
The impression on the part of the allies was that they were fearful of a surprise attack from east or west.
With a little consultation, a plan had quickly come together. The Lemni ships were to come down from the north. They would travel close inshore by night, and lay up under cover by day. The coast was mapped well enough and they had experienced pilots on loan from various interested parties. They were dispersed and laid up during daytime in marshes, up some long, winding bays, and in river mouths for the journey, right up until the point of concentration. This had occurred the previous evening, just as planned.
Lowren and the ships of Lemnia had been given an important and honorable role, but it looked as if all the glory would go to the Heloi. As for the ships of Windermere, they were to stand off the coast a few miles, prepared to engage any ships that attempted to interfere. In the face of a superior force, they would fall back on the Heloi war-galleys and cover the withdrawal of the Lemni…
Rounding the point of the Kthmarra Peninsula just after midnight, they had been creeping along in what silence they could generate, waiting to catch a glimpse of their quarry.
Sometimes just breathing properly was the key to military success.
***
The pallid light of dawn grew steadily. Looking back, there were multiple v-trails, their own as well as the wakes coming off all the boats, and every stroking oar added its own new flourish. The rows of wavelets followed them up the beach, crashing along in their own small way, unwelcome heralds of their coming.
The ships rocked and the incoming tide swelled the sea under their keels.
Just as predicted, a heavy fog hung off the mouth of the bay, over the colder waters of the Great Sea proper. This seasonal fog would usually take until mid-morning to burn off. On some days in late autumn, when the sun didn’t come out at all, that dismal mist wouldn’t lift all day. In those cases, the nights were usually clearer. Generally speaking, those were calm days whether day or night. Until winter, most traffic would be doing just what they were doing, staying close inshore.
There was very little fog on the bay itself, sheltered as it was by the headland of Kthmarra and the hills on the south side, above the bay of the same name. Being shallower, the water was perhaps a little warmer and there was shelter from the cold winds coming down over the ridges and hills.
The boats edged through the water, which was calm and glassy. Men stood on a small perch, high on the bows, but their best information was that the bottom dropped off quickly along this shore. At this time of day, there was no way they were going to see shoals or a big rock before they were on it. Twenty or thirty feet of water would be more than enough.
The figure at his side turned, a look of exultation on his dark, wide face. He had small, very bright blue eyes and the most engaging grin a relatively toothless man could have. Pointed mustaches, black and grey now that he was in his forties, framed a wide yet expressive mouth.
“Vaeomon.” The small contingent of Sicurri aboard Cygnus were an impressive sight in their padded black leather strip-armor, polished black leggings, and all armed with a medley of personal weapons. “Is everybody happy?”
Vaeomon nodded.
“Yes—very much so.”
Their beastly little black bows were much in evidence.
Lowren himself wore his habitual sea-going rig of helmet, fit snugly to his head but not strapped on. This was for safety in any sea-borne operation. He wore a breastplate, which would be easier to remove compared to the more usual shirt of mail if he should fall in the water. That had two simple buckles on the left side.
He wore a Heloi leather strip kilt this time, his sandals were tied properly and his sword was girded at his side.
“It is an honor to be here, Lowren. Very impressive. Thank you for thinking of us.” Vaeomon turned and interpreted for his fellows.
One of the Sicurri chieftain’s hulking sons, unable to speak the dialect, slapped Lowren on the shoulder, giving him an earnest look. His brother stood there grinning and nodding. They seemed to listen well, as if straining to catch his inflections. Then again, some of the words must have been unfamiliar. That was certainly true aboard the boat.
The Sicurri were not quite virgins to the sea, but their imaginations had been fired upon seeing the ships of the Heloi and especiall
y Winderere up close. The small ships of the Lemni didn’t stand up very well in comparison. Lowren knew that well enough. With the taps now turned open on a river of gold from a suddenly more attentive Emperor Kullin, there was the possibility of putting some of his new knowledge into practice. The Sicurri found the gold as welcome as he did, for they all had to be fed after all, and so did their families back home.
Assuring the Sicurri that this would be the place of most danger—and thereby the most honor, was a fairly convincing argument once they’d seen his boats. But the Heloi didn’t want or need them aboard, and speaking more privately, they probably wouldn’t have them at any price. Even the Sicurri had agreed they would be useless aboard the ships of Windermere, with the blue-water mission they had been assigned.
More than anything, the Sicurri were part of the alliance and wouldn’t be kept out of any good fight once they’d made some new friends. They had given their word and their oaths upon it. But the lure of gold and greater power over their own destinies would no doubt have played a prominent role in their thinking. Coming from the same forested steppes as the Lemni, they’d had long canoes and sailing barks of their own, at least historically speaking. The Sicurri, a related nation, had been encamped on the borders of Lemnia for over a quarter of a century. Lowren and Vaeomon had engaged in a few long talks over the years and seemed to get on pretty well. Vaeomon didn’t have any daughters, or the two nations might have been connected by marriage before now.
“You’ve got to promise not to hog all of them Hordesmen to yourself, Lowren.”
The Conqueror Page 18