by RW Krpoun
Chapter Thirty-Six
By mid-Marlt the frosts were breaking and rain was falling out of the cold skies rather than snow, signaling the end of winter proper and the keenly anticipated beginning of the campaign season. They had started a few weeks late last year, but the fifty-seventh year of the Third Age would see no such wastage: the instant the ground was dry enough to support massed troops the war would resume with a will.
Grand Commander Descente stood under the awning stretched in front of his command tent and watched the rain come down onto the sodden ring of defenses around Sagenhoft. The engineers were working hard to shore up against the transformation from frozen earth to cloying mud, and the quartermasters fought mold and rising damp in the supply tents and artillery parks. The city was a murky line of walls in the rain-blurred distance, a goal that Descente was secretly wondering if he would ever reach. Since the artillery bombardment had halted five months ago the Duchy had evacuated or absorbed the refugees into the gaps in the city’s populace created by disease and war. The water shortage was ended thanks to the rain and snow, and the breach they had hammered open last fall was nearly repaired. On the positive side, his stone-cutters had been busy despite the cold and there was plenty of ammunition on hand with which to hammer open the old breach or create a new one entirely.
Turning, he entered the musty tent whose canvas was stained, patched, and sagging in places from the effects of the winter; when the Bohca moved, hundreds of tons of tentage would be burned, being too worn to warrant transporting. Moving to the map table he seated himself and accepted a bowl of steaming fish chowder and a mug of tea from an aide, eyeing the lines and symbols that represented the area of operations.
His Seers were standing firm on the first of Kammteil as the earliest date on which the army could move, now somewhat less than six weeks away. Descente had no intention to waste a single day in coming to grips with Laffery and settling the problems of the campaign as soon as possible. He had been surprised that he had not been relieved during the winter, but was unsure whether that meant that the Council of Seven still had faith in his abilities or that there was no one of suitable rank willing to take the responsibility for the coming campaign.
Bohca Tatbik had not been idle during the winter; although he had received no additional Gates other than those called in from intelligence operations, careful management had allowed him to bring his Direbreed back up to strength and to import several thousand Orcs, bringing those units very nearly up to strength. It meant that he could bring through only a fraction of what he needed to rebuild his remaining Holdings, but he had solved that problem by ruthlessly combing out his support units for able-bodied men and women who had spent the winter learning how to be infantrymen. By now his army was rebuilt, freshly drilled, and nearly up to strength, although the units lost at the Third Battle of the Royal Bridge could not be replaced. Gichin had likewise rebuilt Bohca Ortak while he waited for his relief, having an easier time of it as he had had overland access to the Plains and the use of several units from Bohca Neft in the north, which had been stripped of much of its fighting strength to ensure that the center was well manned for the spring campaign.
Laffery still occupied the ridge at Dorog, and was relentless diggingly in and drilling his troops, whose units were brought back up to strength by a steady trickle of replacements; the South Army stayed at Early Point and the Sagenhoft garrison drilled and waited as well.
His course was obvious, which was why he had hesitated so long before issuing the orders that would make it official: every time he had taken the obvious course when dealing with Laffery it had turned out poorly for him. Now the Grand Marshal sat like a spider in his fortified ridge astride Bohca Tatbik’s supply line and waited for Descente to come to him. That made the Grand Commander uneasy, for it smacked of Laffery’s Ford, the abortive march to Lightwater, and the Third Battle at the Royal Bridge. If he did the obvious, it would be the Third Battle at Dorog, and the threes had not been kind to the Hand so far.
The Council had placed the commanders of Bohca Ileri and Bohca Ortak under his operational command, and had ordered him to see to the destruction of the Army of the Heartlands and the reduction of Sagenhoft before the coming winter, regardless of cost. They even released twenty Minions of the Void to him along with their entourages, called Talons, to act as commanders for key sub-units and to motivate the troops. The presence of so many Altered indicated the desperation the Council felt, as they were normally reserved for the defense of the homeland.
The obvious move would be to march east with Bohca Tatbik while Bohca Ortak marched west and strike Laffery from both sides at the same time. Of course Laffery had fortified both sides of the ridge, and was obviously expecting and training for just such a battle, but it bothered Descente that the general would act so predictably. Certainly the fortifications would give the Heartland an advantage, but Laffery would face over one hundred ten thousand infantry and twenty thousand mounted troops coming at him from both sides, and no matter how well dig-in his troops were if the Hand were willing to pay the price the ridge would fall and the Heartland Army would be destroyed. And the Council had decided that any price was acceptable.
“Attend me,” he called, and the staff clustered close. “We shall march on the first of Kammteil, heading west to engage the enemy at Dorog; Bohca Ortak shall march so as to match our arrival at Dorog. Bohca Ileri will be withdrawn with the siege gear to the Royal Bridge forts until the Heartland is destroyed. Once the Heartland is destroyed we shall march west, reinstate the siege, and reduce Sagenhoft.” Now all that remained was the details.
And the fighting.
Grand Marshal Laffery stood in the lee of a wall made of bags filled with river-sand and watched as Dwarven engineers supervised a line of convicts as they widened a drainage ditch; with spring’s rain, it was a savage battle to protect the defenses from water-damage. The Lanthrell watching the enemy had reported that the siege gear was being removed from storage around Sagenhoft and was being shipped back to the Royal Bridges, moved by water wherever possible to save wear on the ruined roads and the Hand’s battered transport system.
They would come for the Heartland here at Dorog, for one final battle to resolve who would control the central Realms, and Laffery, who had always hated these vain-glorious, one-roll-of-the-dice engagements, was playing deliberately into their hands. There were ugly rumblings in the Arturian and Realmsmens’ ranks (although Duke Radet had stood loyally by him) and his own brother and monarch, was vocal in his disapproval. Only intersession by Nicholas I had allowed him to retain his command, and that only by dire threats. Part of the problem lay in his own refusal to discuss his plan of battle for the coming fight with anyone, lest the information leak to the enemy. After the success at the Third Battle at the Royal Bridge everyone wanted to go to a war of maneuver once the spring came, but Laffery knew that the Hand had suffered only a local set-back at the Royal Bridge, and that when the ground dried he would face a better enemy army than had crossed the Wall last spring.
He had spent months agonizing over the variables, and in the end had held fast to his plan of desperation. When the Hand marched on Dorog, the war in the central Realms would be decided by a single stroke, one way or another.
“The base is called ‘Green Reach’,” Arian explained to the assembled Badger officers. “It is sixty-five miles due east of the Wall at a point roughly opposite Mancin. It will be guarded by a weak Darkhost, roughly three hundred young Direbreed, and further occupied by about three hundred support personnel. It will be defended by a ditch and stake belt, but no formal defenses. The base is roughly an oval encompassing around twelve acres of ground, and contains scores of half-sunken stone warehouses and new, temporary sheds. In the center is an oval stone building called a ‘keep’ which serves as the headquarters and logistics area for the base; the enchanted devices used to communicate will be stationed there, the base having contact both with Bohca Tatbik and the homelands.”
> “Four paved pole sheds house the Gates which are the base’s reason to exist, two from the Homelands and two connected with Bohca Tatbik, the sheds being positioned in a box pattern some distance around the keep.”
“Our plan is simple enough: a team shall take the Gate egran onto the plains a day’s march from the base and scout while the Company joins them via the Gate. The Company will assault the base and secure as large a portion of it as is feasible, using the Gate to evacuate loot back to these quarters, and ultimately allowing the Company to withdraw as well. Three Badgers will act as a rear guard, securing the egran and withdrawing via the Orbs of Sending, which will likewise bring them back here.”
“Who will tend the egrai left here?” Maxmillian asked.
“The egrai can be left in a semi-active state indefinitely,” Axel explained. “It is the Egran which is the complex portion of the activation in this case, but as a point in fact I’m going to leave Picken to tend the egrai, along with a base guard of the Captain’s choosing, of course.” He smiled. “Under the circumstances, all Picken will be doing is acting as an observer here at this end; the Gate can be fully controlled from either end so long as both portions are undisturbed.”
“How are we going to narrow the odds enough to be able to both secure an area and pillage?” Janna asked. “Three to one are not the best odds, even from surprise.”
“We’ll have enchantment on our side to help even the odds, but I plan to take thirty of the best irregulars along with us, ten per platoon. We’ll tell them at the last minute, but I’m sure they’ll jump at the chance to hit the Hand in so sensitive a spot. They’ll make up for the half-dozen Badgers we’ll leave behind to secure this base, and help even out the odds a bit.”
“Do you think there will be valuables stored in the keep?” Starr asked.
“Possibly, although I would think that they would be of the nature of personal graft rather than official storage. The really high-value items, such as enchanted goods and gems, would be sent through post-haste, especially as they will be small items easily shipped. What I expect to grab are the top of the second line: bullion, coins, art works, weapons, furs, and other items with enough bulk to prevent their fast transport. While the transport team makes its way onto the Plains the rest of the Company will practice withdrawing through a Gate, and moving loot; the guards who stay behind will likewise practice shifting the loot as it comes through.”
“Who goes onto the Plains with the egran?” Starr asked in a tone which suggested, ‘who is going with me’.
“You and two scouts of your choosing, Henri, a Healer from the non-combatants, and one other Badger; you’ll be in command,” Durek explained. Seeing the little Corporal’s surprised look, the Dwarf smiled. “It’s time you were prepared for greater things. Choose people who can ride Eyade ponies, because we’ll have to abandon all mounts on the Plains, I don’t want to risk trying to get a horse through a Gate.”
“What’s the timetable?” Philip inquired.
“The team leaves in two days’ time, with the raid planned for the first week of Kammteil, say between the seventh and tenth; that will give the scouts plenty of time to watch the base and for the Company to form up and prepare.”
“Things ought to be moving back at the main war, by then,” Henri grinned. “I hope there’s still a Realms left to come back to.”
Henri sat on a sunbaked yalla skull and gnawed on a reheated steak from an antelope Starr had bagged the day before. Using two pack horses and an enchanted belt pouch whose interior capacity was the size of a trunk the transport party had brought a large quantity of foodstuffs with them, mostly dried vegetables, flour, oatmeal, and similar goods, but all were gone and the salt, spices, and cooking oil were running low. Fresh meat was plentiful as game abounded on the Plains, but after forty-six days Henri felt that he would cheerfully kill for an omelet, fresh bread, or sausage. What he did not want to do was eat antelope, rabbit, grouse, or wild yalla ever again.
It was the seventh of Kammteil, and the transport party was on its twenty-ninth day of spying upon Green Reach, a period of time sufficient for each of the party to memorize the entire place, to come to recognize individual Direbreed in the guard force by face and mannerisms, and to get a detailed grasp of the intricacies of supply transfers via Gate and the storage of captured loot; Jothan claimed he was getting an idea how the graft was working. They had complied detailed rosters for the guards, established an exact count of the garrison and staff (three hundred four Direbreed, six Human officers, seventy-one support personnel, two hundred and eight slaves), identified where the best storage points for the Company’s desired loot were located, and built a scale model of the place in their camp four miles from the base.
Four miles one way was quite a distance to walk for each scouting mission, all the more so since the Direbreed didn’t bother to leave the base, and no Watcher was assigned to the place, something which had surprised them when they had worked it out. Still, they walked the miles as it was better to be safe than sorry, something experience had hammered deeply into their habits.
Other good news was that the ditch and stake belt were in exceedingly poor repair and the sentry posts and guard patrols were indifferently manned, as the Direbreed were frequently used as work details.
In all the wizard doubted that the Company had ever had such a detailed survey of an enemy site as this team had accomplished, and sincerely prayed that he would never be on another such detail ever again. Opening the glass cylinder that was one of the Orbs of Lore, he thrust a short note through the narrow opening and pressed the stopper back in place. Uttering a command word, he dashed the cylinder against a handy rock, then toed aside the fragments to ensure that the paper was gone. He had taken two, and two were left with Axel; they had exchanged notes one day after the group reached the base, and now it was time to communicate again.
If the Orb worked properly, smashing the glass activated an embedded enchantment which sent the paper in the manner of a mini-Gate to a specific location, in this case a small box that Axel carried. A few minutes later there was a tug in Henri’s belt pouch; he drew out a small box and opened it, finding a small sheet of paper and a few glass fragments.
Nodding with relief, he drew the egran from the case they had made for it and began the simple process of activation.
He hoped they would be bringing fresh bread with them.
“I thought we were coming in a day’s march away,” Durek demanded of Henri.
“They don’t have a Watcher at Green Reach,” the wizard shrugged. “No point in wasting time walking.”
The Captain gave that some thought. “All right.”
“What’s been happening back in the Realms?” Jothan and Duna trotted up to the Dwarf.
“The siege train’s at the Royal Bridge while Bohcas Tatbik and Ortak march to take Dorog in a vise. We destroyed or captured twenty-two Hand wagons and killed some Eyade and a Goblin patrol, losing only irregulars and a few Company wounded, none serious. Bad news on the money front: Bernian Chaton died in his sleep a few days after you left, we only got the news just a couple days ago ourself, along with a letter releasing us from Sagenhoftian service at the end of this month. The Kingdom of Ithania is picking up our contract, but after the exchange rate difference we’re going to me making one-fifth less than we were before.”
“They dropped us?” Henri demanded, blood standing out in his sun-darkened features. “After all we did for those bastards, they fire us?”
“So it seems,” the Captain smiled tiredly. “They gave us an excellent letter of recommendation, but remember that on paper the late Lord Chancellor was our paymaster, not the Duchy. The Duchess is grateful for our previous help, but she’s not willing to spend six thousand ducats a month for a Company in Ilthania.”
“Cheap bitch,” Duna spat.
“Did Chaton die of natural causes?” Jothan asked.
“Apparently so, the Duchess ordered a score of Watchers and Healers to go o
ver his body and chambers to ensure that it was not in retaliation for anything he had done while Regent, but the Healers say that his heart gave out, apparently from the strain of all the work. They had been treating him for some months, I understand.”
“When’s the battle at Dorog going to happen?” Jothan grinned at Henri, who was still cursing the Duchy.
“Within four to six days unless something comes up. They’ll be pulling out the stops on both sides, so it ought to be interesting. We’ll hit here in a couple days, say the ninth as a rough guess, a dawn attack for the usual advantages. Do they have dogs or sentry beasts?”
“No, thank the Eight,” Henri observed, still fuming. “The Gates are good for about six hours apiece per twenty-four hour period, so they normally conduct operations during daytime.”
“Good.” Durek looked over at the Gate. “There’s the last of the Company coming through; let’s have an officers’ call and get the briefings underway.”
Grand Commander Descente watched as the last of his army moved into their night camps, positioned three miles west of the fortified ridge of Dorog; Bohca Ortak was an equal distance from the ridge’s east slopes and tomorrow, on the ninth of Kammteil, they would close like the jaws of a trap and destroy the enemy.
His army consisted of eight Lardina of wolf riders, ten Orc Horcs, seventy Darkhosts, fourteen Eyade Ket, three Sacred Bands, and twelve Holdings of Hand troops, plus his surviving winged beasts, while Bohca Ortak had four Lardina of Goblins (one wolf rider, three foot), three Horcs, fifteen Darkhosts, ten Eyade Ket, one Sacred Band, four Hand Holdings, and two Felher Swarcs.
He had stripped both Bohca Ileri and Neft, and the combined forces would field over thirteen thousand wolf-riders, fourteen thousand Eyade nomads, and nearly one hundred thirty thousand infantry of various races, while Laffery could field between fifty and sixty thousand foot.