by RW Krpoun
The dark little Badger snuggled closer to the ex-sailor. “I just hate the waiting.”
Halabarian and Starr were down the street from the Red Fox, sitting under a battered willow; the minstrel was letting his hands rove while they kissed, and the Corporal wasn’t doing much to stop him, nothing at all, to be factual. The older Threll had already suggested that they adjourn to his quarters, a simple Threll-style bower in the upper reaches of an old oak on Dragon Isle, but Starr had demurred, at least for the moment. Part of her was very willing, of course, spurred on by the knowledge that Jothan had been bedding Duna for some time now, and that fact rankled: somehow it didn’t seem right that she was still a maiden while Duna had moved on to, well, moved on. But Threllish customs are strong in a long-lived people, and while Starr had spent better than half a decade associating with Humans, she was still a child of the Lana, and customs dictated that taking the relationship to the next level required certain steps to be fulfilled; Halabarian, on the other hand, was wont to cut corners, if she let him.
And while the temptation was strong, so was her resolve: it could happen soon, but it wouldn’t happen in this stinking stone-pile, of that she was certain. A Lana was out of the question, of course, given their circumstances, but they would have to be somewhere where Nature dominated.
At least for the first time.
As the sun rose on the seventeenth Commander Descente was at his usual position, standing on the rough planks of an observation tower halfway between the Assault Line and the Inner Line, watching the heavy engines, which had been firing all night, pound away at the wall. His artillery commander complained that the weapons were being worn out and the quartermasters were ripped their hair out over the demands for ammunition to be cut from the quarries, carved, and carried to the Assault Line, mewing constantly about wains and dray animals being ruined by the pace he had set, but the Grand Commander ignored them all. Autumn was here, and Sagenhoft still stood; the Heartland Army was growing to the north, and Sagenhoft still held. Hours were precious-he would throw away lives and treasure with both hands to bring this campaign to a successful close before the snow fell. No cost could be too great now that they stood poised upon the brink of tremendous victory and utter defeat.
The breach was widening; it was a good forty feet across, the wall crumbled down to a pile of rubble barely a quarter of its original height, the shattered stones easily climbable; the assault trenches were barely twenty yards from the wall, ready for use, as were the siege towers and drills. At this rate in five more days they would be ready to move, the breach large enough to let him pour troops through in an unbreakable wave that would bring him North Town in two day’s fighting.
And fight they would because despite all their promises the intelligence efforts had failed; he had even had to send in another Markan-Hern to replace the idiot who had been running things after he had let some bounty-hunting mercenaries take his head. Magda Lyris, the priestess he had sent in to take over, had promised him wonderful things, but he knew better. The bungling idiots hadn't been able to manage a simple assassination, much less opening the gates of a fortified city. Descente had been of the Ra before joining the ranks of the Hern, and never lost sight of that. Treachery and subterfuge had its place, but it wasn’t something you could count on. Look at how that bastard Laffery had wiggled out from so many neat nooses, and sprung a few himself as well.
He watched the stones fly for a bit, the weight of command dragging at his shoulders. There were a thousand details to attend to each day, a hundred decisions to be made, policies to be set, amended, terminated, and adapted. Every staff officer considered his or her aspect to be the key to the resolution of the siege, and that every unforeseen event that came up was a crisis of ominous proportions. After sitting in place for three months his army was getting stale, losing its edge, while the vassal troops were getting harder to control. They were bored and quarrelsome, the remaining veterans of the fighting that brought them here demanding more loot and captives while the newcomers were getting loud in their demands for battle and war’s glory. Worse, there were packs of Lanthrell lurking around just outside the Outer Defenses, and hardly a patrol or detail left the earthworks without losing at least one member to an arrow, while the long-legged bastards were impossible to find. They were inflicting no serious losses to a force this size, of course; the Hand lost more vassals killed in duels each week than the Threll slew, but the effect on morale was far more serious. Fortunately, there appeared to only be a couple dozen of the tree-hugging bastards out there, enough to annoy but certainly not enough to do any real harm.
The news that Navian Marines were due to arrive shortly was bad; the Navians had the best navy in the world, and had made ship-to-shore operations their specialty. The Marines would be professionals, well trained, well motivated, and nearly all veterans. A few hundred such men in the right place could cost the Hand dearly.
A commotion of voices and the sounds of someone climbing the ladder as if the entire Sagenhoft Army was at his heels brought a curse to Descente’s lips. They were at it again, some bungling moron charging up the ladder to advise him that three oxen had been stolen, cooked, and eaten by the Eyade, or that a wolf-rider patrol had charged into a thicket after a Lanthrell sniper and not come back out again. Everything was a crisis to these people, all the more so because there wasn’t enough real work to keep them busy. His staff was designed to support an army on the move, a job it did extremely well, but having gone into static positions the staff suddenly found itself with time on its hands, and as every commander knew the two biggest dangers in the military were a newly-commissioned officer with a map and a staff officer with not enough work to keep him busy.
He was surprised, then, when the climber turned out to be none other than Tyden Kansa, his operations officer. “Tyden? What are you doing here?”
“Out of breath, for one thing,” the man paused at the railing to suck in a couple lungfuls of air before speaking further. “I’m out of shape, sir.”
“The whole blasted Bohca is,” Descente snapped. “What has you out running about?”
“News, bad new indeed,” the operations officer mopped away sweat with a silk handkerchief. “Word just came in, I was at the tent on other business and thankfully the duty officer had the sense to grab me first thing. I waited around long enough for it to be confirmed, and then came running.”
“You ran from where we’ve the communication devices? By the Void, man, you’re daft, that could kill you.”
“It was needful, sir: Laffery is moving. He issued his orders four hours before dawn, the Heartland has been having regular drills for this sort of thing, so they’re doing far better than they would have a month ago.”
Descente felt the world twist around him. “He’s moving?”
“Yes, sir. The Army of the Heartlands is marching south.”
Two hours later the Grand Commander sat in what had been an inn’s common room and listened to his staff officers and subordinate commanders argue. It had been confirmed beyond the shadow of a doubt: Laffery’s troops were on the move. They would be lucky to make five miles before sundown, having had to break camp and form up from scattered positions, but tomorrow they would be in full form on a good road, and even the Arturians had cut their baggage train down to a much more compact organization.
The arguments swirled around three positions: the first group held that they ought to sally forth, leaving just enough troops behind to secure their siege gear, supply Gates, and the earthworks, and march north to meet and defeat the Heartland Army. The second group wanted to press home the assault on the breach, secure North Town, and then turn to face Laffery from behind the Outer Defenses, to let him dash his army to death against dug-in Hand troops. The third faction, and the one whose members’ names the Grand Commander was marking for reassignment, was arguing that they should just stay put and wait, so that they would have their forces’ full strength tucked behind the Outer Defenses when Laffery arri
ved with an army one-half their size. Obviously, the urease that had set in after the incident at the ford had bit deeper than he had thought.
The third option was defeatist, while the other two were gambles. The first option would mean pulling the artillery out of the Assault Line, as the troops left behind would not be sufficient to guard them against any sallies. While they were gone the defenders could repair the damage, causing considerable ground to be lost. The second option meant assaulting before the breach was fully ready, which would mean heavier losses than expected, narrowing the odds between the two armies. However, once they were in the city Laffery would have to challenge the Outer Defenses despite his inferior force. Of course if the first assault failed, the Hand would have lost troops without any gain.
Descente worked at the possibilities while listening to the discussion with half an ear. No doubt this was the point Laffery had waited for, when things hung in the balance. The question before him, however, was what course was Laffery trying to get him to take? Did the Grand Marshal want him to halt the siege and rush north, only to have the Heartland dance away, thus buying still more time for the city? Or did he want Descente to wear down his troops fighting room-to-room through North Town in order to narrow the odds in a field battle?
The more he considered it, the more the embarrassment back at the ford came home: Laffery had led him around like a veteran whore luring a boy looking for his first time, costing the Hand a week or more, not to mention the dragon and a large number of operatives. Laffery played for time, he concluded, and wisely so, but such a trick would work only once.
“Enough.” The voices stilled instantly. “We shall mount a general assault as per our general plans on the eighteenth, two hours past sun-down. If we do not take a significant bridgehead within the city walls, we shall immediately disengage and march north, halting the siege but not lifting it; should we establish a foothold, we shall exploit it and secure North Town while the Outer Defenses await the enemy. In either case, we shall bring this campaign to a successful conclusion.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
He gave the toe of the left boot a last buff and sat back, pleased with the shine; that was one of the things you never forgot, how to give a boot a shine. He hadn’t done it in years and just look at them, bright as a newly-minted ducat. There was nothing, he thought as he pulled on the boots and climbed into his war gear, like a nice polished pair of old boots to make you feel your best. It had been a while since he had felt his best, years in fact, but he was feeling it now. He settled his sword comfortably on his hip and looped the chain that supported the insignia of the Lord Marshal of the Duchy’s Army over his head, the only part of him that marked him as more than just an officer. He had learned many bloody years ago that you don’t go marching about with plumes and fancy dress unless you wanted to be the first one picked off.
He had to pause and catch his breath after he was fully equipped since for the last year any exertion bound his chest and left arm with dull pain, and frequently his lips would turn pale blue; the Healers told him that if he watched what he ate and took life slowly, retired and was careful, he might have two to four more years. He admired the glowing leather of his boots and ignored the fading pain. He had taken some advice, eating stewed vegetables and trying new exercises, trimming off twenty pounds. But retire when a war was coming? Impossible.
His wife was waiting for him at the front door with his shield leaning against her leg, a thin, worn woman in a good dress standing in the hall of a fine house on Dragon Isle. It was strange, he could look at her and still see the young woman who had defied her parents to marry a Lifeguards Serjeant, who had lived in poor quarters, pinching every penny he earned as he was commissioned and worked his way up the ranks. Now he was the Lord Marshal, the Army’s top soldier, and she had ducats by the pound, but he still thought of her as the girl who married a Serjeant.
“I’m off to the wars, lass,” he caught up his shield and slung it over his shoulder. “Don’t wait up.”
“You’re a damned old fool,” she snapped. “What are you doing in armor, Hergo? Fassburg is the Garrison Commander; let him fight the battle.”
“Oh, I will, I will. I just thought I would do a turn around the ramparts, it should buck up the troops to see the Lord Marshal out there.”
“Do a turn around the breach you mean.” She was not fooled.
He sighed, and took her hand. “I’ve put boys too young to shave into the ranks, lass, with spears still warm from the forge in their hands, and them hardly knowing which end you’re supposed to point at the enemy. When the Hand hits the wall they’ll die in droves. I can’t sit back while they fight, not me who’s been a soldier fifty years, man and boy. I’ve done all I could to get things ready, and now I’ve got to take my place and do what I must do.”
There were tears shining like opals in her eyes, but her face and her tone never waved. “You’re not well, Hergo, not well at all.”
“Aye, true enough, m’girl, true enough. But I’ve still got the strength to climb a wall and stand for my city. The Old Duke, may the Eight bless him, charged me to keep his city safe, and I’ll see the deed done.”
“You’ll go off and leave me a widow,” her chin was starting to shake.
He swallowed hard. “You’ll be a widow sooner or later, girl. Some ways are better than others.”
She hugged him, her arms straining to reach all the way around his steel-clad barrel of a chest. He squeezed her tight. “Goodbye, wife.”
As the glow in the west faded and the stars emerged in the clear autumn sky overhead the Badgers formed up in the street in front of the Red Fox, section leaders checking equipment while platoon leaders counted bodies. Henri was going over the handcarts loaded with supplies with Jothan, who was acting as an assistant quartermaster these days. Durek puffed his pipe and watched, pleased to see the smoothly-operating machine that was the Company.
“They’re looking very good,” Axel observed as he limped up. “The drilling has paid off in spades, we’re as well-trained as any unit in the city.”
“And well equipped, too; twenty shirts of mail between the two Hand headquarters, not to mention plenty of arms, although we’ve sold just about all the spares.”
“Last pay day was the biggest shares ever paid out in the history of the Company,” the wizard nodded. “And a gold stud before morning, that’s certain; the Hand’s going to try for the city before Laffery gets too close.”
“And before the breach is ready,” the Captain pointed out. “Things may not go so well for the Hand.”
“I certainly hope so,” the wizard sighed. “It seems strange to go into action without Janna.”
“That it does, but she’ll be at the next one”
Axel laughed. “Eleven years; Bridget was a snip of a girl fresh out of Temple-school, I barely knew a single spell, Janna....Janna still talked like a Silver Eagle and wasn’t scarred yet, do you remember? And the others....it seems so long ago, but I can remember it so clearly.” The broken wall shuddered as four hundred pounds of stone slammed into it, the crash jerking Axel back to the present. “Well, enough of a stroll down memory lane. We’ve bloody work ahead of us.”
“Axe and sword work,” Durek nodded, hefting his weapon. “And plenty left over for your spells, as well. There’s the horn, we’d best be moving into position.”
Grand Commander Descente was sweating like a man betting his home on a single hand of cards. The attack would be focused upon the breach, with diversionary attacks being mounted all along North Town’s walls by siege towers to keep the defenders busy.
After some careful consideration Descente had decided to use Orcs for the assault on the breach, with Goblin wolf-riders as a follow-up force. His own Holdings and Sacred Bands were too precious, the Eyade were useless in an infantry role, the Dayar were too useful for siege operations, and the Direbreed should not be sent onto any field where their Breedstones could not be recovered. Of course, one does not simply go
to a vassal force and tell it to charge into what everyone knew was going to be a bloodbath, and expect to be obeyed. Instead, he had announced that the various representatives of the different forces within Bohca Tatbik would dice for the honor of storming the breach, with loot and slaves being apportioned accordingly. It had been a simple matter to ensure that the Orc’s representative won. The Orcs, pig-brained morons that they were, were delighted at the ‘honor’. It had taken quite a while to get sorted out as to which Horc would do what, but in the end they managed.
He was in the observation tower now, watching the beasts form up by lantern-light. They were big, burly creatures, standing slightly taller than a man and much broader and heavier of bone. Hairless, with thick, slightly scaly hides the color of the scum that forms on dank ponds, taloned fingers, and massive fang-like teeth on both top and bottom, the Orcs seemed the very embodiment of violence made into flesh. Their facial features were course and broad, with black eyes swimming in remorseless pools of red or yellow, eyes that spoke of the violence and brutal humors that lurked very near the surface. As a people the Orcs were fierce, fearless, completely devoid of mercy, compassion, or pity; pure warriors, they lived for battle, loot, rape, destruction, and served only the Dark One or their own bloody purposes. Gifted with a rugged stamina, amazing health, a high rate of birth, and a cultural obsession with strength and personal victory, they were the best heavy infantry at the disposal of the Grand Commander, as good as his Scared Bands, he reluctantly admitted. Their weaknesses, however, were a pig-headed stubbornness, short attention spans, and virtually no loyalties beyond personal allegiances, which made Orc troops less fearsome as units than Orc warriors were as individuals.
These were well armed and equipped, of course, the Hand had seen to that: each wore a heavy sleeveless tunic (commonly called a jack) of stout bull's hide to which overlapping metal scales had been sewn. Some wore leather bracers to protect their arms, others left their limbs bare to display scars or tattoos. Their iron caps likewise were decorated with nation and tribe markings, skulls, and other fetishes that marked the wearer’s prowess. Besides a fighting knife or dagger (or two) every Orc had a heavy, single-edged, point-less cleaver-sword called a renac that was their national weapon, and a heavy thrusting spear; a few knew how to use bows, and nearly all would be skilled with the javelin or throwing club. Their shields were of wood covered in several layers of leather and rimmed with iron; each bore the inverted triangle containing the seven-fingered clawed hand of the Dark One that marked them as servants of the Hand of Chaos.