The March North

by Graydon Saunders

  The only actually troublesome point is the formally problematic one, letting the Independents loose. Nobody from the Creeks except the Headwaters Town Clerk had known that was possible, so I have to walk through the parts of the Standing Orders which apply. The Clerk has to dredge up the reasoning for allowing that from the very first Book Describing The Law.

  Nobody looks all that completely reassured; yes, it’s better to let the Independents do something surpassingly awful to invaders than have the invasion work, but, still. The idea of having uncontrolled major sorcerers around is not a comfortable one, even by implication of time limits, direct service to the Line, and the ultimate control resting with the Shape of Peace.

  Halt has to explain what, precisely, Halt had done, why sending demons off to kill people was entirely outside Commonweal law, and how sending demons off to kill some broad category of people was even more so. Using demons to obtain the parts of people you use in rituals involving demons, well. As a crime, that doesn’t have a name, because so far as anyone knows, only Halt has ever done it.

  History indicates lots of people have tried. Even if Commonweal law had applied then, none of them left anything you could put on trial.

  Halt’s grandmotherly persona can manage to explain not knowing how many people Halt’s killed for “rather some millennia, now” without cracking. Some of the folks on the civil side of the enquiry get stuck on that. Chert pointed out, gently, that this lack of knowledge applied to anyone who had ever commanded in battle, and most of those who had fought in one.

  Neither Halt nor Blossom can explain how the despair-binding worked in detail; we’re all generally willing to admit we’re guessing, even if Halt has the expected reluctance to use the word guess. Rust just shrugs, and points out Blossom is the enchanter.

  It takes several extra go-rounds, past the five full explanations, to convince anyone on the civil side I really did expect we’d all die. After that, I have to manage to explain why we kept going, or why I tried a military response to the invasion in the first place. It really has been remarkably peaceful in the Creeks, these five hundred years.

  The formal record asserts a true threat of invasion. Mechanism used to thwart the invasion greatly exceeds anything regularly permissible to an Independent under Commonweal Law. The Independents necessarily held guiltless due to having been lawfully released from those constraints by a Standard-Captain of the Line, while in formal service of the Line. Just because that’s never happened before doesn’t mean the Law isn’t there, to set rules for the possibility. Mechanism chosen arguably insufficient; certainly not known to be overkill, vengeful, nor indulgent of passions. Demons involved were Reems’ own demons, freed from a condition of subjugation. All observed demons banished by a variety of means. Banishing implied demons is asking a lot, even from Halt. Standard-Captain’s actions consistent with declared judgement that an invasion was unrecoverable if permitted to occur. Release of constraints on Independents permissible. Commonweal can’t act if it can’t get itself into the future; ethics constrained by requirement to permit Commonweal existing in future.

  Chert looks, if you can see through the standard-binding, deeply relieved. Halt goes on looking contented.

  The general hasn’t spent any time in the Creeks; most of Chert’s service has been watching the long South-west Edge, that mess of small hills. No time over in the Creeks and not much down by the Iron Bridge. Chert got pulled in, the Twelfth got pulled in, when the Eighteenth…refused to abandon their posts in extremity. And now the general and the army have a mess that won’t stop growing, so Chert wasn’t expecting good results from the enquiry.

  I wouldn’t have, two years ago.

  Peaceful Creeks, sure, but no one is that peaceful by accident. They take “getting into the future” seriously.

  The next day the general, pennon, and associated colour party start marching out of Headwaters and back toward the Army Of The Iron Bridge at dawn. The Fourth Battalion of the Twelfth, three days on the road, marches past them into Headwaters. They weren’t part of the original plan, but something has to provide cover against stray demons and the possibility of a resurgent Reems.

  The hundred kilometres of ground we didn’t march on, either direction, could have had another Reems army just as big in it. I doubt it very much, but even one medium sorcerer would be a problem for what’s left of the Wapentake of the Creeks.

  Stray demons are wretchedly inevitable, but one demon at a time isn’t close to trouble for an alert battalion. It would be less a comfort if demons seemed able to figure that out, but not so far.

  Having two battalions passing each other on the road is another thing the Creeks haven’t seen for five hundred years. Barges stop in the canal so the crews can watch.

  Aside from written orders and policy for the Fourth of the Twelfth, the remnants of the Wapentake, and Blossom’s experimental battery, Chert’s leaving behind gerefan, clerks, and regular Creeks all in a hurtling mass of preparations for electing a Parliament, a discussion about where to put the second Commonweal’s Shape of Peace, another one about whether there’s a judging-hall large enough to be the Main Court somewhere in the Creeks, and a massive exercise in food accounting. This winter isn’t a problem; next winter will be, at least as planning. The half-million displaced folks in the Folded Hills will be hard-pressed to get sufficient agriculture started in one summer, and no-one in the Creeks knows for sure what the displaced are going to be able to bring with them, or if anybody in either group knows enough about weeding in the Folded Hills.

  The general’s more than done a general’s job by getting everyone to believe in the necessity of a second Commonweal without having to come right out and say that the Commonweal as was, the First Commonweal, isn’t especially likely to survive the creatures coming out of the Paingyre. No-one knows what the Iron Bridge warding was, so no-one knows how to put it back. If the creatures are bound to occupy the whole watershed, stopping them for more than ten years or so has to be considered unlikely. A distinct watershed — the things out of the Paingyre have had centuries to get over the flanking hills, and even closer to the sea no one’s seen in a thousand years, what at least was a flat coastal plain — has better odds.

  Rust returned to the Commonweal the first day, wanted up by Meadows Pass, as soon as the ghost horse can get there.

  Another chance to kill an Archon ornately had drifted out of Blossom’s head toward mine, watching Rust ride away night before last.

  “Shan’t insist on ornately” had been Halt’s contribution, spoken out loud to apparently empty air. Just precisely how Halt had heard us, or how the standard had known to pass a distant Halt’s words on to me, and to Blossom, and to no-one else, well. Some things you have to explain by shrugging and saying “Well, it’s Halt”.

  Rust was dutiful and useful and I still can’t bring myself to mind having Rust far away. No amount of good and plain keeps you from expecting the honest.

  The Standard-Captain of the Fourth of the Twelfth goes by Crinoline. I don’t find out why there are all these face-cracking looks from townsfolk until after I get through my best attempt at a situation briefing. Had no idea that a crinoline is what you wear under your dancing skirt. Two classes ahead of me in Officer’s School, and one behind Blossom.

  Halt does me the kindness of explaining to Crinoline directly that Halt will be leaving, but not for very long. There’s some stuff Halt needs to go retrieve, people sharing a newly-former dwelling place to inform, some bequests to make, and some transport to arrange, before Halt returns. Halt remains a Staff Thurmaturist, and very properly and formally petitioned me for leave to go do those things. Rust had asked leave to depart, a formality after Chert’s orders, but polite.

  Eustace is staying. Halt has it that Eustace is serially digesting three tons of heads, and isn’t up to travelling in any real haste.

  That’s visibly reassuring to some of the Headwaters folk, that Halt is leaving livestock. Leave that much sheep, and they ca
n believe you’re coming back.

  Crinoline, faced with the prospect of roving demons and no Halt, isn’t looking delighted. Can’t manage a really grim face, because the howdah has not only just finished putting on shoes, it’s doing limbering-up exercises, and the Foremost in their wrath would have trouble looking completely grim watching that. Halt is putting in some extra hat pins, donning an over-wimple dust-cloth thing over hat and, sweepingly, shoulders, more hat pins, a demon-faced brooch to connect dust-cloth to Halt’s coat, and then actual goggles.

  That Blossom will be staying doesn’t reassure. Crinoline has never heard of Blossom.

  Dove hauls a succession of images out of our standard, Blossom setting up the demon-ward, the range and variety of demons that got stuck in it, and their melty fates. Crinoline looks marginally reassured, and then a great deal more so when Halt conveys a last “strict herbivory Blossom dear, not even any eel-tree” instruction to Blossom and Eustace, already a vast dejected lump of mutton, contrives to look morose.

  The howdah really does have a boarding door in its right side. Halt steps in, sits, waves jauntily, and is just gone. You can hear the thunk of the door closing, and a fading pat-pat-pat sound from the howdah’s feet running across the water of the swamp.

  Blossom looks, briefly, furious. What looks like a letter hadn’t made it all the way out of the back of Blossom’s sword belt, and slides back in. Blossom exhales, eyes closed, face smoothing out. There aren’t any sparks anywhere, especially not in Blossom’s hair. That might be good.

  Blossom looks at Eustace with apparent calm. “We going to have the argument again?”

  Eustace’s nose drops to the dirt, ears drooping.

  “Good sheep.” Blossom’s gauntleted hand rings off the front of Eustace’s great curling right horn, pat-pat-pat, before Blossom starts walking, back toward the experimental battery. Eustace’s head comes up, just enough, to follow like a puppy at Blossom’s heels.

  Crinoline looks at me, says Artillerist like a curse.

  The Part-Captain is an exemplary artillerist.

  I get narrowed eyes. Which list?

  Short List. I don’t tell Crinoline what I told Chert, about Halt’s assessment. That’s what gets described as “highly prejudicial”.

  Crinoline’s heavy battalion is close to full establishment at two hundred twenty-three files. Five files short of book-strength, when they haven’t been purely in reserve. Hell things cost you, they haven’t managed to cost Crinoline much. Custom says that’s entirely the troops’ credit, and not Crinoline’s. Custom doesn’t want the Standard-Captain to start listing dead names.

  One battalion’s still nothing like enough, you’d need four brigades to really cover the whole northern-trending-south-as-it-goes-east edge of the Creeks, out to the limit of settlement where the alkali flats and the wasteland starts.

  It’s not likely we’ll see anything medium out of the Northern Hills; if there’s anything from Reems intact up there, it’ll either be small, sneaking groups, four files at most, or a brigade-plus in size, an actual army.

  Two solid hours of maps has Crinoline planning to move Chuckles’ supply point east, to the upper Blue Creek, some south and well east of Headwaters.

  Chert commended Blossom, and left orders that have Blossom securing the full range of artillery shot in regular production, a new carriage for tube one, exploring tube production, and, if successful with tube production, training new artillerists, in that order, but Part-Captain Blossom’s been relieved from command of the formerly experimental battery.

  The Master Gunner will be out of the cast in a décade or so, the doctors having taken some pains with encouraging forearm bones to knit. Hank can run an emplaced battery just fine. Crinoline would second some files to the battery if necessary, but it looks like they’ll be able to recruit enough. Nothing like half the Territorial company not coming back to convey that things are serious.

  Fourth of the Twelfth can march out, do enough wall-building at the supply point that they could all fit, and then patrol in big loops between there and Headwaters, which will cover every plausible route down from the mountains to the dry Westcreek. The battery gets emplaced on the east bank of the West Wetcreek, above the landing for the original supply point. Covers the whole patrol loop, just, and at least a hundred kilometres of the road through the Folded Hills, which we must hold irrespective of the direction of threat.

  Crinoline doesn’t really believe the range numbers, or like the idea of using red shot at that range, but that will let them cover the Folded Hills east to about hundred kilometres past Blue Creek, half the Creeks, more than half the population, and keep the Fourth concentrated. A full heavy battalion ought to be able to get in front of anything Reems could send, and once blocked the battery can hammer them. There are only two of the heavy hot reds left, which is why making shot is Blossom’s first job, but enough fast iron will get the job done.

  It’s all sensible and logical and Crinoline doesn’t believe it. Seen it, so far as the Wapentake’s standard’s memory goes, but as visceral belief it’s not there.

  When you get them emplaced out there, get the Master Gunner to show you a heave with plain long shot.

  Deal.

  Crinoline heads off to make it a planning exercise for the Fourth’s company commanders, that consistent fate of Part-Captains.

  I have to move.

  The gerefan for Westcreek want the Standard for the Second Heavy of the Seventieth Territorial Brigade, that mostly hypothetical formation, to be part of the memorial. We’re going to need new standards once the second Shape of Peace exists, so it seems to the gerefan that there is no harm in this.

  There isn’t, really, though a lot of people are likely to be upset if anything happens where I’d want to grab it out of the memorial between now and new standards showing up. Change the Shape of Peace, and it won’t work, the standards aren’t going to transfer.

  Blossom appears after the armour stand gets shifted out of the standard onto some warehouse floor — always move that first, or you’ll knock it over trying to move past it — and offers to help. You can invite people into a standard, but it’s an every-time thing; they can leave on their own, but one invite is one entry for everybody but the Standard-Captains.

  And Blossom, who is a standard.

  It’s good to have the help; there’s half a tonne of books and maps in there. Even at company strength for the last three centuries, half a thousand years of battalion records adds up.

  Any time there’s a change of quarters, there’s that point at the end when you’re checking to see if you missed anything. Nothing of mine, nothing in the map room or the records room but Blossom, gone completely sorcerer and looking at the ceiling frieze. It’s bronze, and full of runes I can’t read.

  Better to say Blossom’s gone full enchanter; segments of the runes are lighting up, one at a time. Sometimes it’s parts of the border, asymmetric knotwork that looks like the snakes were too drunk.

  “This is one of the original standards.” Blossom manages to sound certain and disbelieving at the same time, saying this.

  There were twelve; the Foremost departed with three of them.

  “It’s been in the Creeks since the Line first came through, same as the Captain’s House.”

  Blossom nods.

  “How optional is this Shape-of-Peace thing?”

  “It gets you off the existential threat list.”

  Blossom looks enormously sad, but goes right on looking up at the frieze.

  “Those” — chunks of the frieze light up, gently, green and cyan and gold — “are there so a sorcerer can participate in the focus.”

  Saying things gently isn’t my worst skill, but it’s nothing I’d ever try to make a living at. “Laurel didn’t intend the standard-binding to achieve independence. Every historical source agrees on that.”

  Blossom, nodding, manages to look sadder still.

  “Plug you into a signa like” — my chin comes
up, to indicate the frieze. “You could make the signa. You’re going to make the signas, and the standards, for the Second Commonweal’s Line.”

  Blossom looks startled, maybe halfway out of the full depth of sad.

  “Best enchanter we’ve got.”

  I get an eloquent “can’t very well argue with that” look.

  “You could be the signa, yourself.”

  No trace of surprised reaction. Of course Blossom’s thought about it.

  “The only possibility of stopping you would be plugging a whole bunch of nothing-like-as-good sorcerers together, using some kind of modified standard binding, to try to get a brigade that could, maybe, stand up to yours. That’s the Bad Old Days returned, and with no real hope of getting rid of them again.”

  Never mind what’d happen to the landscape, anywhere you had a fight like that.

  “The Commonweal is made out of magic; the Shape of Peace, the Standards of the Line, the mechanisms of the geans, and the courts of law, it’s all a collective application of very complex spells. It works because the rules are the same for everyone.”

  As nearly as we can manage, anyway.

  “Those rules don’t apply to you. Not because you claim you’re important, not because you break the rules. They just don’t, any more than wood lettuce tea will make me sick.” It’ll kill most non-Creeks, but graul can eat anything.

  A grin, brief and shallow, but still. At least the memory of bent metal.

  “Getting the Commonweal into the future means making you into the rules. You, and Halt, and anybody else the rest of us can’t be sure couldn’t just take over the whole enchantment that makes the Commonweal possible at all.”