Emberverse 08: The Tears of the Sun

by S. M. Stirling

  “And there you have it,” she went on to the room at large as he took up his position behind her. “You can quickly identify the natural shots. Bolts are reusable, so there’s no limit on practice. Any laborer, any healthy peasant girl, can load. Have two or three behind the shooter handing forward loaded crossbows. That will augment your firepower quite a bit, especially here with the large circuit of the city walls to hold, and let you use your trained men where you really need them. The enemy are not going to sit down to two-year sieges, or an artillery and combat-engineering duel. If they come, they’ll try ramps, siege towers, and plain old ladders, to swamp you with massed assaults regardless of costs. Shoot the guts out of them, break their hearts with losses, and you can stop them. Then your walls will be the anvil against which we’ll hammer them to death.”

  Eventually, she thought but did not say.

  The commoners were nodding enthusiastically. She thought she saw signs of hidden stomach cramps among some of the nobles, though not the Count, and the Countess was beaming and nodding herself. The Association had conquered as far and fast as it had because its leaders had quickly grasped the consequences of the Change, equipped their forces with effective gear based on pre-gunpowder weapons and armor, and given them at least some training from their own experience as hobbyists. That expansion had slowed and then stopped when the PPA ran into others who’d had variations on the same idea and time to recover from the shock of the Change and implement it. A lot of the nobles here were survivors of encounters with massed Mackenzie longbowmen or Bearkiller lancers or Corvallan or Yakiman pike-hedges, or the children and younger siblings of those who hadn’t survived the experience. She let them take the full force of her glacier-colored eyes for a moment.

  There was still a good deal of indigestion at the thought of letting too many of the lower classes have weapons which could penetrate the armor of a knight.

  “This program will be implemented immediately and fully. So the High King in his wisdom has decreed,” she said.

  Which settles that, her glance said. Or I will settle you.

  The silver notches in the hilt of the long sword that was in Lioncel’s arms once more reinforced the message. When the civilians and the clerics had left, the staff came in and removed the lower table. Lioncel and Armand set up the map easel in its place, and a baron tried again while they were at it:

  “My lady Grand Constable, are you sure about the crossbows—”

  “Yes, my lord. I am. More to the point the Lady Regent, Her Majesty Mathilda, and His Majesty Artos the First are sure. Any questions?”

  He subsided and she went to the map, drawing her dagger to use as a pointer.

  “Everything I said to the good burghers was true. What I didn’t dwell on—this sort of thing is how we’re supposed to earn our keep, my lords—is that we estimate that the enemy are still going to be coming straight at us with between one hundred thousand and one hundred twenty thousand men.”

  Grunts of frank dismay at the numbers, which were horrific; even a generation after the Change, the far interior was still much more densely populated than the areas towards the coast where the big cities had been, and that translated into more fighting men. She was, within limits, glad that nobody here was gasconading about wading ankle-deep in enemy blood. But then these men had been on the front line for more than a year now. She nodded, a crisp gesture of acknowledgement:

  “They’re out to break us this year because if they don’t they won’t be in a position to try again. This has been a slow, cautious, methodical war so far. On our part, it was a delaying action. It won’t be anymore.”

  Saints were invoked—which might actually do some good, now—and there was a flicker of men crossing themselves. Maugis de Grimmond shrugged and spoke lightly:

  “At least the High King didn’t have to sneak into the Prophet’s domains and throw something into a volcano.”

  That broke the momentary dismay, and turned it to grim amusement. Tiphaine nodded thoughtfully to the young nobleman, took a sip from her brandy-spiked coffee cup, put it down and went on. The point of her weapon traced lines above the silk of the map.

  “That’s the good part; the bad is that the Temple in Corwin isn’t going up in smoke or falling into a pit and his armies aren’t going to flee in despair either, even though the High King has the Sword. They’re massing here outside Spokane, and here at Lewiston on the Snake, we think to keep their horses from stressing the grazing too badly in either place. They can’t move directly west out of Spokane; too dry once you leave the Palouse and hit the Columbia plateau.”

  The red-haired baron of Tucannon nodded: “I hunted antelope there with my father a few years ago. I saw the skeleton of a jackrabbit lying beside an empty water canteen it had been carrying.”

  A few chuckles at that; a lot of that country had been irrigated from Grand Coulee, but while the dams still stood the giant pumps that filled the canals had stopped flowing at six fifteen p.m. Pacific time, 1998. Those of the population who’d survived had ended up in places like this, where rainfall or windmills or simple gravity-flow ditches provided enough water. Nobody went there anymore except a few hunters.

  Tiphaine waited impassively a moment and then went on: “There’s no fodder there this time of year either. We could hold the north-south line of the Columbia above the bend forever, especially with the Free Cities backing us up and supplies and reinforcements easily available from the Yakima valley and the baronies in the east-slope valleys and the Okanagan.”

  Her pointing dagger went south of the great river, into what had once been Oregon.

  “The enemy occupied everything south of the Columbia last year, nearly as far as the boundaries of County Odell, after that cluster-fuck at Pendleton—which doesn’t seem to care we now have their precious Bossman prisoner. And Bend fell a bit later, along with the rest of the Central Oregon Rancher’s Association territories. Then the enemy spent months trying to force the passes of the High Cascades into the Willamette, and got nothing but bloody noses from the Mackenzies, Bearkillers and Corvallans. Then they died by the thousands in the winter blizzards because they didn’t pull back in time.”

  A set of shark grins, or in a few cases winces; this time they were trying to imagine light horsemen riding into the teeth of those singing clouds of bodkin-pointed death the Mackenzie longbows could produce. Or caught cold and foodless in the huge snowfalls that stretched from October to May at those elevations, with the raiding parties of the Clan slipping through the forests around them like the wolves of Hecate they called themselves.

  “Meanwhile the forces that the CORA left behind are waging a cavalry guerilla all over the range country and the foothills east of the Cascades, every inch of which they know, with their families safe in the Willamette and the forts for supplies and refuge. So now it’s our turn. We have strong castles at all the crossings of the Columbia from the Wallula Gap to the Gorge, so they can’t try to cross in strength to the north bank—incidentally, my lords, does anyone want to complain again about the way the Lady Regent forced everyone to spend money and sweat on fortifications and stockpiles the last fifteen years? No? Good.”

  Her knife-point moved again, through the rolling lands between the Blue Mountains and the Snake River.

  “They have only one option; out of the Palouse and down old Highway 12 from Lewiston to Walla Walla, then to the Wallula Gap and west north of the river.”

  “How are they going to get past the river at the Gap?” Tucannon asked. “The castles there are very strong. Not much point in sweeping down Highway 12 and then sitting and watching the fish jump and trying to catch round shot and bolts with your teeth.”

  “Invest the castles and then use barges and pontoons to cross the river,” she said. “Unless they can take the bridges up near Kennewick. We have castles covering those, but we couldn’t build enough to cover all possible water crossings.”

  The fighting-men looked at each other; a few smiles flickered into be
ing.

  Good. They’re starting to see the enemy’s problems, not just ours.

  “Well, good luck supporting a hundred thousand men on the other side of the Columbia that way,” de Grimmond said.

  Tiphaine nodded. “That’s why we can’t fight the decisive battle here in the Eastermark—”

  “Why not?” a baron whose estates were near Dayton said.

  “Here they’ll still be close to their bases and they can use the railway and the Snake River to bring up supplies. I’m going to fight one or two battles, making them come to me because they’re in a hurry, bleed them, and then withdraw westward north of the Columbia, harassing them with the river to guard my right flank, and ultimately joining up with the force the High King is putting together back around Goldendale in Aurea County. You will hold this city and your keeps; if they leave enough men to invest you closely . . . Good.”

  “Good?” someone asked.

  “Good because anyone sitting in front of your gate is out of the fight just as much as if you’d chopped his head off. Or better, because the enemy still has to feed him. If they don’t invest you closely, come out and raid their lines of supply. And we’re going to scorch the earth; I don’t want one kernel of grain or one sheep left for them—”

  That led to howls; they subsided quickly faced with the obvious necessity, especially since the Count backed her energetically, along with de Grimmond. When they were listening again she continued:

  “That’s why we’ve built all those castles; castellation makes an attacker’s life a misery. We’ll draw them west, and each mile they advance will make them weaker and drive them mad with frustration, like chewing on meat full of gristle. Then, when they’re stretched out and worn down, the High King will bring all our forces against them in a position he chooses and that they can’t get around. By then they’ll be desperate, with winter coming on and a hostile wasteland behind them; they’ll have to go all-out to beat us so that they can get at our supplies. They won’t be able to refuse battle, which means that they’ll have to fight on our ground and our terms. We estimate that His Majesty, Artos, will be able to muster around eighty-five thousand for the decisive battle. If we win that, we win the war—though it won’t be over that day. And that, gentlemen, is our strategy.”

  And I hope nobody is stupid enough to ask exactly where and when Artos plans to hit them. Athena, gray-eyed Defender of the Polis, you who love the warrior’s skill and care and craft in defense of home and hearth and those we are sworn to protect, let this work!

  That brought a slight mental stutter; it was the first time she could ever recall spontaneously praying about anything without a deliberate decision, even now that she knew there was something to it. And something touched her then, a feeling of chill relentless clarity like the flicker of a great spear moving faster than a beam of pure light. It was gone before she could be certain it was anything more than her own mind functioning in total focus.

  Then she went on:

  “Lord Forest Grove has been screening against their advanced elements, and will give you the details on their dispositions and probable intentions. Lord Rigobert, the floor is yours. And I believe Lord Maugis has some thoughts on how we can act against the enemy’s rear elements and transport.”

  She sat and waited out the discussion that followed, which lasted until everyone was yawning despite the rare, nerve-jolting treat of unlimited coffee. It was focused on details in any case; nobody was trying to talk her into a monumental last stand in defense of their favorite vineyards. At the last the meeting broke up, most of the men looking reasonably satisfied, or at least knowing what they were supposed to do and understanding the reasons for it, which would do. She stopped the Count on his way out.

  “Your lordship, there’s something else that my lord de Stafford and I must speak with you about. Something more immediate.”

  “Yes, my lady?” de Aguirre said.

  His eyes were haunted with the knowledge of what was about to come crushing through his people’s lands, regardless of how the ultimate strategy worked. He’d probably be glad to have something more immediate to worry about.

  “My lord Count, the entire military leadership of the Eastermark, plus myself and Lord Forest Grove, are here in your palace tonight. It’s a very tempting target. Or I would think so, if I was on the other side, and I got my start in clandestine operations. Walls keep out armies, not black-operations teams.”

  His face changed, and de Stafford set a hand on his shoulder. “Here’s our plan, my lord,” he began.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  COUNTY OF THE EASTERMARK

  CHARTERED CITY OF WALLA WALLA

  CITY PALACE OF THE COUNTS PALANTINE

  PORTLAND PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION

  (FORMERLY SOUTHEASTERN WASHINGTON STATE)

  HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL

  (FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)

  AUGUST 24, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD

  Now this is like old times, Tiphaine thought, with a hint of grim amusement. Except that in the day it was usually me sneaking in through the window to kill someone.

  She had to admit it was well done. There had been hardly any noise at all, nothing like as loud as the occasional call of all’s well from the watchmen in the town’s streets, or the challenge-and-response from the completely useless guards patrolling the outer perimeter of the palace. Being that quiet while you were hanging upside down from a silk rope and sawing through steel bars with a diamond-dusted flexible saw was not easy.

  A flicker of light crossed her closed lids, some lantern reflecting upward. The bed was extremely comfortable and the day had been long, but she had no difficulty staying in a half trance, breathing deeply and completely relaxed but in a stable state halfway between waking and sleep. She’d learned the trick of that not long after the Change, when she and Kat had to keep watch and watch. An instructor of Sandra’s, a Korean so silent she’d never even learned his name, had taught her how to do it consciously at will later as one part of a training program designed to strengthen the strong and destroy the weak.

  It was nearly as restful as real sleep, and had the advantage that your senses were if anything more acute than in the normal waking world.

  A squeak. That would be the diamond cutter on the windowpane, now that the bars were out of the way. Her new-minted knights had been precisely right so far on the way the enemy would come. It was a compliment to her training of them.

  In the darkness she grinned like a wolf.

  Lady Sandra’s school has left a legacy that will travel down the generations.

  The sheets and pillows smelled of clean linen and lavender, and felt crisp and smooth under her fingers as she slowly pulled the coverings off. She was in working clothes, dark trews and shirt and jerkin, sock-shoes of glove-soft leather with doubled soles that gripped like fingers. Light mesh lined the jerkin, but for this sort of work you relied on speed.

  It’s actually more pleasant than being a general, she thought. Straightforward, in a sneaky sort of way. But to acknowledge the absolute truth, I’m sick of both. I have been for years.

  She opened her eyes, keeping them down; she was facing away from the windows. Starlight and a little moonlight were perfectly adequate if you didn’t try to close-focus on anything. They painted the room in shades of pale gray and sliver and blue. One leg moved out, and she caught her left heel on the edge of the mattress and bent the knee.

  Of course, this could go wrong. You’re never quite certain with knives, but we need them alive. You know, when I was in my twenties, I used to positively enjoy this sort of thing. Now I just worry about leaving Delia a widow . . . damn, she could be widowed twice in this war.

  The thought was very distant. So was the knowledge that she rather liked the Count Palantine and his wife, and that if it had been peacetime she would have enjoyed visiting the Eastermark with Delia and Rigobert and the children. They had some astonishing falconry here, if you could call using great golden eagles to h
unt pronghorn antelope that.

  And the Count had mentioned a hunting and skiing lodge in the Blue Mountains that he’d be glad to lend her sometime, obviously one of his favorite haunts. Bear hunts, and sleigh rides, and cross-country skiing in cold that was dry and hard and bracing, not the damp bone-chill of the Willamette. Lioncel and Diomede would love that; they’d tire themselves out, shovel down big dinners and sleep like the dead, and she and Delia could make love on tigerskins before a great roaring fire.

  I am going soft in my old age.

  She smiled and slid the dagger a little closer under the pillow. There was something about the approach of a knife aimed at you that you could feel. And there was a shadow of a shadow on the wall away from the windows, a suggestion of movement. It would vanish if she tried to focus on it, but if you didn’t try to do that it was clear as noon; and also the back of her right hand itched. That might be . . .

  What was the old word? Ah, psychosomatic. Or it might not.

  “Now,” she said conversationally.

  And flipped herself out of the bed, pulling at her heel and twisting herself around in midair to land in a fighting crouch, knife out with the point low and left forearm across her body with the palm and fingers stiffened into another weapon.

  The dagger in the assassin’s hand was already streaking down towards the spot where her back had been an instant before. The man had his full weight behind it, flinging himself forward and down to drive the length of watered steel all of its twelve inches deep and hard enough that the flaring edges would slice apart the ribs.

  Good professional stroke, Tiphaine thought. That would have done it nicely. You want to kill someone with a knife, don’t waste time on fancy.

  Two more Cutters in dark clothing were climbing in through the windows. Armand and Rodard dropped silently from where they’d been waiting, heels braced on the little ledges above. Both struck the men below feetfirst, and the crossbows the assassins had been carrying dropped; one went off, and the bolt struck the plaster and board of an interior wall with a crunching whap. The sworn killers of the Church Universal and Triumphant always operated in threes; it was one of the few things they had in common with the Mackenzies.