The March North

by Graydon Saunders

  “It’s from parts, not a hot red shot, so inventory’s the same.”

  “Parts, Blossom dear?” Halt does a matronly voice full of disbelief incredibly well.

  “Most secure place I’ve got is the battery commander’s waggon. Wasn’t planning on doing any shot fabrication on the move, I couldn’t bring myself to leave some of the hotter supplies lying around without supervision.”

  Halt nods over sipping, and makes it look graceful. Some of that stuff will try to get out of its jars, a subject covered in dreary detail in the field manual, mostly under putting out fires and restraining the suddenly struck mad.

  It’s rather nice, for tea.

  Halt’s shawl is still up; Eustace finished the berry bush and fell asleep in the ruins, as it were. The howdah, looking morose and splattered, has crept up to crouch behind Halt. Halt cocks an eyebrow at Blossom, who looks wry and waves meaning across the empty air. The howdah is suddenly shiny, and then not at all morose.

  Can’t see how it could make any noise, never mind contented chirping, but it does.

  “I’ll keep an eye on the sapping party; you get some rest as well, Part-Captain.” You, too, Twitch. No need to push it yet, so we don’t.

  “How much sleep do you need, Captain?” I’ve never heard of an Independent who needed as much sleep as humans typically do. It’s either wanting to point that out or plain curiosity behind Blossom’s question, I can’t tell.

  “Twelve hours, twice a month, is plenty. Go a season awake and I’ll sleep five days.”

  Blossom looks outright startled.

  “Laurel’s is one of the few examples of troop-improvement that worked.” Halt’s looking at the pouring, topping up only Halt’s cup of tea. Mine’s not far enough down to justify additions.

  Blossom goes and lies down; Twitch gets the pickets set up to swap in three hours, which should be halfway through the down time, and pretty much everybody in camp racks out.

  I sit there, and finish my tea, and my lunch, even the alleged cheese, and keep a fairly distant eye on the sappers; no sense having the focus right there and possibly alerting someone.

  With the focus and the camp quiet, it’s mostly a chance to listen to the mountains.

  Chapter 20

  The four files on rock-moving duty aren’t sure whether to look pleased or worried.

  They’ve done a good job; there’s a nice hole in the otherwise solid rock, and behind that there’s a long stretch of cave.

  A little bit of bridging over the spring and the cave looks entirely fine for waggons. Eustace is going to have to mind horns and ceiling, but I expect will manage.

  Quick work, too; the replacement files for the pickets are getting collected to head out.

  “Good job. One file stays on watch, the other three rack out.” Doesn’t look like I’m going to have to be more specific than that; the file closers aren’t even looking like they’re going to resort to dice to decide.

  About an hour before dusk, the two files sent off to be sappers comes back. So far as a distant over-watch can tell, nothing paid them any attention beyond a few birds; something like a crow, but with a lot of blue. Blossom left them some vigour and cranberries with the gunner in charge of the watch to the east. They drink it. A range of faces get made.

  There might be a reason of art you have to leave the vigour and cranberries purely tart. Or maybe this Grue likes the faces.

  Dinner, actually cooked, or at least boiled a little, and actual coffee. The company gets its great vat of much-boiled wood lettuce root stuff, and seems better for it. Rust is recovered enough that the pitcher-of-cream trick works fine, but obviously not entirely recovered. Blossom takes a slow squinty look at Rust and comes back from the battery commander’s waggon with a silver flask and a stern look. Rust takes a couple of good swallows from the flask, and doesn’t make faces. The grass for a metre around Rust’s feet goes from knee high to past a Creek waist, but Rust doesn’t make faces. Blossom tsks a little, taking the flask back, and Halt outright grins. Even Halt is eating something, instead of just drinking tea. I may someday get used to seeing pieces of hardtack balanced on the edge of Halt’s saucer like they’re sugar cookies.

  The medics are moving around making sure that anybody bruised or battered has applied their diverse unguents, and that the variously lightly damaged have stayed patched. One or two of the medics seem sufficiently challenged by Halt’s dosing the badly hurt that they may go for Independents. Creeks don’t tend to leave, even to study; it’s not like the area is sparse in talent with the Power. The way the south frontier with the Paingyre is going, they might not be able to leave.

  We can leave here, though, no problem. None of the pickets have seen anything, the buried surprise hasn’t gone off back in the valley, and there hasn’t been so much as a stray thought land on the focus.

  It feels like Twitch is standing behind my left shoulder when Twitch is paying attention to the outside world. Not turning to look takes a bit of effort. It would be easier if it didn’t look like Halt and Rust can see Twitch standing there just fine. Blossom and the Master Gunner are to my right and there’s this sort of space off to the left for Eustace, who is maintaining a martyred look while the howdah, under stern injunction from Halt, climbs back down and puts on what I have to call shoes.

  “The Northern Hills have been considered suspect terrain for longer than the Commonweal has existed; I think what we’ve seen today is an indication that it is in fact a conscious terrane. If that’s true, I believe it wants Reems’ attempts to colonise it stopped, and for whatever reason can’t do that itself.”

  Probably wasn’t expecting bulk solid despair, either.

  “If that’s not true, there’s at least a chance that this is an elaborate setup on the part of Reems to get us to bury ourselves.”

  Elaborate goes with Reems. Subtle doesn’t, and this would be subtle, if that’s what it was.

  “So far as I’m aware, the level of subtle control over the landscape we’re seeing is inconsistent with anything but a conscious terrane; that no matter what their best wizards know or how much power can be channelled through the Archon, there is no known mechanism whereby they could make subtle changes in the landscape in response to our presence.”

  Rust looks at Halt, gets half a head shake, and looks back at me. “Not that I’ve ever heard of.”

  Here goes.

  “Attention to orders.”

  “The battalion will proceed into the cave behind the spring. Two Platoon will lead, then tubes one and two, the colour party, the baggage, tubes three and four, Three Platoon trailing. One Platoon will attend on the standard.”

  “I believe we are being assisted by the conscious terrane of the Northern Hills, which doesn’t like being colonised by Reems.” Since everyone knows the Hills are a lot less fussed about travellers or naturalists than anybody trying to log or mine, this gets taken calmly.

  “Be polite; no graffiti, no trash, if you just have to take a crap use a bucket.”

  “Two, Radish — there’s a fine line between haste and recklessness. I want to move just on the haste side of it, but I want to NOT fall in a hole even more. Got it?”

  Radish’s “Sir” is clear out of the mass acknowledgement.

  I do the thing with focus that would be looking at Twitch if Twitch were walking around, and get a surprise.

  “Everybody remember their Granny’s stories about the Hollow Hills?” The ghost’s voice is strong, the focus shaking air, and even half of the artillerists are nodding. Every single Creek is nodding, Line and drover and medics. It makes me wonder just how their ancestors got to the place.

  “Do this right, and you’ll get to tell your grandchildren you walked under the Hollow Hills yourself, with Halt and a graul Standard-Captain.”

  There are weird grins, and some bashful eyes, and Twitch gives them half an inhale before “Advance in order of march!

  “Two Platoon, march in haste, march!”

  Which is
just what they do; it’s a neat job of bridging, too, broad and arched and shifting the spring pool a little deeper and to one side. I can feel the Master Gunner sorting out with the still short-crewed tube one that it’s tube one, tube two, then all the spare caissons.

  I’ve been in a line battalion where the lead company going into an open field battle didn’t have this mood.

  Even an easy-going bunch of Creeks aren’t too fond of Reems after the last couple of days.

  Blossom’s standing to my left with a sword on, to all appearances a Line issue cavalry sword, that rare item, and is leading the horse-thing. It’s pretty clearly convinced we’re all quite mad to be going in that hole, and it just as clearly knows in its bones arguing with Blossom never works.

  Halt’s standing on my right with the howdah out front; I suppose that makes sense, it’s got lots of limbs and extra grip if the ground gets bad in there. Then Halt, then Eustace, who likes this less than Blossom’s horse-thing does. Can’t explain to Eustace that the caissons are heavier.

  The ghost horse shows no sign of caring, nose at Rust’s left shoulder, both standing outside of Blossom.

  The first bunch of spare caissons rumbles over the bridge, and then it’s the colour party’s turn. Two files ahead of the standard, two behind, and the Staff Thaumaturgists and the Captain and the Part-Captain all in the middle, along with the riding animals. Which is not a good plan if there’s a cave-in as we go by, but, well. It’s not different from the overall risk.

  There’s really good footing in the cave, wet sand mixed with drip-lime that’s mostly concreted it; the caisson wheels aren’t leaving ruts, never mind the stores waggons.

  We get round the first turn and start to head down, a nice, even, curving passage with just enough grade you can tell it’s for-sure down. Blossom’s left hand waves — reins in the right — and the driving lights on the caissons in front of us come on. It looks kinda like water erosion, but much too even, and regular, and there’s still that excellent footing.

  “So what’s the plan?” Just spoken, quietly, from the Part-Captain. It doesn’t feel like walking all that quickly. We’re at a good hastening pace, somewhere between five and six metres per second, but it doesn’t feel like it. It’s hard enough to keep track of how fast you’re really moving when hastening when you can see landmarks. Without needing to build the road, though, we could be a hundred and twenty kilometres away in six hours. That puts Rust’s worst-case peak-of-pass distance well within range.

  “When we emerge, we’re going to be extremely lost. If there’s a major Archonate fortification there, we reduce it, making sure we destroy any major enchantments in the process. If there isn’t, we skip straight to getting un-lost.

  “Anything more specific waits until we see the terrain; for all we know now, we could have to bubble everything up from under a glacier.”

  I get a flash of the metal bending-grin.

  I can feel the moment the tail end of Three Platoon crosses into the cave; the rock wall slumps up and restores itself out of the bridge.

  Looks like it kept the larger pond.

  Chapter 21

  It’s maybe an hour until effective dawn. We’re high, and it’s cold, and the air’s thinner, but not too thin.

  I’ve marched over worse roads in the Commonweal.

  There’s the major fortification, all right. Maybe two kilometres away.

  How can we tell it’s Reems? Getting suckered into smashing somebody else wouldn’t be a good start to the day.

  Halt points, cane, not a chin lift. Blossom gives some quiet orders through the standard, and the gunners pull out the instrumentation. The word comes back before all of Three is settled on the right flank. It’s the same road.

  We’ve emerged on the west side of the north slope of the pass: we’re coming back at the fortress from the Reems side. The terrane has a sense of humour.

  The pass isn’t dead straight; there’s a kink to it, the point of it pointing a bit south of east. We’re on the west side, inside and just a bit higher; somewhere between the outer and the inner battlements in height. From the look of the rock, and the vertical slope the cave opened in to emit us, we’re standing on where the folks who built that fortress quarried the stone.

  Standard-Captain. The first quick crackle as the tinder catches and you get that whiff of pine-sap going up fast. The Archon of Reems resides in that fortress in this hour.

  My eyebrows aren’t the only ones going up. Halt’s gone so far as a head-tilt.

  By my name in The Shape of Peace. Like walking past a lime kiln.

  The standard is utterly certain Rust is telling the truth.

  Halt mouths a word; five square metres of rocks go slick with frost. Blossom gives Halt a prim look.

  An artillerist with a telescope throws an image at me, the east tower of the north gatehouse and five guys wrapped in scarlet cloaks with gold-chased helms and serious spears. Iron Guard.

  The first faint blush of dawn touches the top of the peaks to the east. From inside the main keep, a scream and a light build together into a flash and silence.

  Fire-priests. Various concerned looks slide into disgust or disdain.

  Attention to orders.

  Rust, I want you to try to reduce the fortress. I don’t think it’ll work, we’re not going to wait to see if it works, but this is not a diversion.

  Unless you derive an essential benefit from fighting from inside the focus — Rust demurs — I want you to attack from somewhere that won’t draw attention toward the battalion. Beyond that, I don’t care where, so long as you can get there before the valley floor hits functional twilight.

  Rust flips back a coat lapel, and there’s the white thread and the black. I doubt Rust needs sunlight to distinguish them any more than I do, but at least I know Rust understands.

  Once you start, One, Two, the colour party, and Halt will assault the western fortress face. Objective is the road enchantment. Three covers the battery and the baggage. Use the time where the assault is crossing the valley to dig in, there’s no telling what’s coming out of there. Make sure you’ve masked the baggage and the medics.

  The assault will continue until the enchantment is destroyed or all of Rust, Halt, and the Standard have fallen.

  There’s a settling through the company. The battery spreads out a bit, and starts shifting the caissons so the spares are up even with the primary. Some of the artillerists are looking a bit wild around the eyes, picketing bronze bulls.

  All clear on the objectives?

  Nods, a curl of brimstone, a toast with a teacup from a grandmotherly woman, head under a shawl drawn up like anyone would in the cold, something that feels like what would happen if you could make a bell out of the Power and get it to ring. A mass yes from the Line. It’s getting harder to tell the artillery and company voices apart, even the live ones.

  Privately now, especially since I wouldn’t bet that bell thing means Blossom is happy.

  Sergeant, Part-Captain; Dove’s got the cover force because Three’s got the best odds of keeping you alive if a ground force gets here. Blossom, you manage the door-knockers and then you leave the shooting to the gunners. You’re in command, not running an artillery tube. If Rust and Halt and the Standard go down, get out: you, personally, get word back to the Commonweal by whatever necessary means. That specifically includes abandoning anything or anyone that’s going to risk your return. That is a direct, specific, and binding order.

  It’s important Dove knows that too; the standard knowing is normally the important thing, but if this order applies the standard’s not going to be available.

  Three’ll handle any Archonate troops, you’re going to have to deal with everything else and it could be anything. Whatever it is, elegant buys no yams; overkill.

  I can feel Dove nodding, Dove’s head isn’t moving. I can feel Three agreeing with Dove, too.

  Overkill?

  That is a technical question, and a good reminder. It gets a not-p
rivate answer.

  Part-Captain, Staff Thaumaturgists, those serving in the Line, those of the Line; the Line is engaged in war beyond the borders to prevent invasion of the Commonweal. Do no harm to one another; by all other expedient means, achieve the objectives of your orders this day.

  A Standard-Captain of the Line, I declare this the duty of the Line, necessary and unavoidable.

  The standard swallows a memory of the words; there’s going to be a court, when we get home, and they’re going to want to hear them.

  All three Independents look a little croggled. I don’t think Blossom knew the restrictions of the Shape of Peace on the exercise of the Power had an abeyance clause. The company heard it as “don’t worry about who might be behind the door, just kick it in” which is true, too. The battery is going to shoot what Blossom tells them to shoot, unless the Foremost show up and stand in front of the tubes, but that was true already. And maybe even then.

  Rust, get going. Good luck.

  A wry wave at Rust’s hat, and at least eight hundred years of not dying rides the silent ghost of a horse away into shadows.

  Drop your marching kit with the baggage. DO NOT drop your water. I was expecting this arrangment back in the meadow, and so was Twitch, so there isn’t much in the way of moving pointy sticks around. We’re low, and the colour party has most of them.

  Blossom hands me four; the tips are flaked glass, a dull dark cullet glass with unsettling colours in it. The other eight from the bundle go to individuals in the colour party. “Suitable for annoying demons.”

  Quietly, Two, Halt, and the colour party move downhill and left, so we’re under the line of fire. Twitch, you’ve got tactical control once we’re through the wall. Up to the wall, we bubble up and move as fast as we can. We start running just as soon as Rust starts in on the fortress. Ten metres per second, two kilometres, a bit less; call it three minutes. Practically forever.

  Blossom, we’re going to start running as soon as Rust starts in; if they start raising the wall-wards, start shooting. Otherwise start shooting whenever you’ll have the breach in the outer wall just before we get there.