Akuyun smiled. “It says sixty-five thousand. The entire Twenty-Ninth Corps.”
Saljurk whistled.
“Great Narth!” exclaimed Kalcan. “You’re right! They really do want Caedellium, don’t they? I guess that answers any doubt that they have great plans to use the island as a jumping off and resupply base against Landolin or the Iraquiniks or both.”
“And when might they get here?” asked Saljurk in his bass voice.
“Ah, Perem. You ask the right question for our situation. The dispatch says they should be arriving in about three months. They’re waiting for enough troop transport ships to be finished so they can send the entire corps in one convoy.”
“That means almost a hundred transports,” said Kalcan. “I know the design they planned on using, though I’ve never seen one of the ships. They’ll be big, lumbering tubs, slow as hell, but able to carry eight hundred troops each. Granted, the conditions are bound to be cramped, but it’s just from Ezarkin to here. It’s not like they’ll be sailing the Great Ocean. Besides the troops, they’ll bring all the supplies, weapons, and gear to support such a force. However, what about cavalry? Horses may be stinking, stupid beasts, but you’re going to need more cavalry than you’ve got now to counter the clans’ mobility.”
Akuyun referred to the fourth sheet, which Kalcan and Saljurk inferred listed a summary or manifest of what could be expected. “It says there will be ten thousand cavalrymen. No horses. We’re instructed to prepare sufficient mounts and remounts for cavalry, artillery trains, supply wagons, and extra horses. It doesn’t give explicit numbers, so I’ll estimate twenty thousand horses, maybe twenty-five. I’ll have to get with Tuzere and Zulfa to be sure the horses can be ready in three months. Also, Tuzere, along with Colonel Ketin and his engineering staff, will need to plan for the initial bivouacking of that many men. We can’t simply house them in Preddi City. Not that many. Once they’re here, we can see what Marshal Gullar intends and make longer-term quartering plans then.”
Akuyun read the four pages again, then handed them to Saljurk. “Major, see that ten copies are made, and send messages to Brigadier Zulfa, Administrator Tuzere, and Assessor Hizer that there will be a senior staff meeting tomorrow morning an hour past sunrise. They’re to bring their immediate subordinates. In the message, simply state that the meeting will be to discuss the contents of the latest dispatch from Narthon. I think they’ll all know what dispatch and what topic I’m referring to.”
Two hours later, Akuyun reached his family’s villa a mile from his headquarters. The original owner had been an important trader, rich from exports and imports. He and his family had been transported to Narthon as slaves soon after the Preddi clan was crushed. Not that the trader had been active in fighting the Narthani takeover. However, he was too prominent a figure for the Narthani to let him remain on Caedellium. When Akuyun first assumed residence in the villa, he had wondered at the trader’s fate. He hadn’t thought of the man for two years.
Rabia, Akuyun’s wife, waited for him inside the residence’s main door. Word had quickly spread that a sloop from Narthon had arrived and that Admiral Kalcan and an officer from the sloop had rushed to Akuyun’s office.
Although her face appeared calm, Akuyun wasn’t fooled. She held her folded arms tight against her body, the grip of her fingers turning the skin on her arms white. He didn’t dally in reassuring her.
“Good news from Narthon, Rabia,” he said, with a smile bigger than justified by his own feelings.
She relaxed her arms and strode quickly to embrace him, momentarily burying her face in his chest before raising her head and whispering, “Thank Narth. I know we didn’t expect the worst, but one never knows. Come inside and tell me all about it.”
The next morning, Akuyun faced the same sea of faces he’d addressed earlier, when he’d announced the mission’s change from offense to defense: from subjugating the entire island to securing the three provinces they controlled. This time he had more positive news, though he would caution they weren’t yet out of danger.
“Gentlemen, I’m sure you’ve all heard the rumors. We’ve received dispatches from Narthon that clarify our current and future missions here on Caedellium.”
Chapter 4: Seal the Borders
Military Intelligence Unit, Caernford
Yozef considered the MIU one of his better introductions—not that he told anyone else his opinion. Maera and Owill Brell, the recruited Adrisian clansman, took the idea and elaborated on Yozef’s initial concept. Reorienting clan thinking on how to respond if the Narthani attacked a single clan was the unit’s first contribution. The MIU suggested a different framing: how to prevent such an attack in the first place or, if it occurred, how to induce the Narthani to withdraw.
The MIU proposed preparing to carry out destructive raids into Narthani-controlled territory with enough men to compel the Narthani to keep their forces close to their own territories. Unfortunately, the plan was not advanced enough to launch a raid into the southern Eywell and Preddi provinces in time to save Shullick, but a thousand-man raid, led by Denes Vegga, had burned a swath through southern Eywell and across the border into Preddi Province before returning to Keelan. Another raid, led by Hetman Stent, razed the countryside surrounding Hanslow, the Eywell capital. The success of the raids and Yozef’s arguments that the Narthani were unlikely to launch any more major sea-borne attacks on coastal provinces heartened the clans, especially those bordering the Narthani-allied clans, Selfcell and Eywell.
Now, a thousand-man dragoon regiment encamped permanently near the Keelan town of Dornfeld, twenty miles from southern Eywell. The clans stationed another regiment at the Moreland town of Lanwith, a town destroyed by an Eywellese raid and where Anarynd Moreland and her aunt had been captured and enslaved. Moreland and Stent believed that rebuilding the town and positioning a regiment there sent a message to the Eywellese that a spear now pointed at the Eywellese heart.
Although a dragoon regiment always remained present at the two sites, the regiments rotated out as more units were formed and trained. The clans commenced a pell-mell pace of preparation for the intended attack on the Narthani, though none of the new units would have been considered operational by any experienced military organization Yozef could conceive of. Yet the clans became far more organized than they were before. Yozef felt a lingering disappointment that too few regiments integrated men from different clans. His incessant harping that the clans needed to work together as a single Caedellium people made slow headway. As a result, men from single clans still composed two-thirds of the regiments. Yozef feared reactions when the inevitable happened and a regiment suffered major casualties or was lost completely. A thousand deaths in one action would be bad enough when spread among half-a-dozen clans but devastating if all the men came from a single clan.
Although Yozef often visited the MIU, and Maera kept him updated, he waited for the unit to prepare white papers, summarizing major recommendations. The name didn’t exactly fit the origin of the phrase from the British government, laying out major policy positions, but Yozef liked how it sounded.
“Why are they called ‘white papers’?” Denes Vegga asked when he first heard of the concept.
Yozef couldn’t remember how the term white paper originated, although he had prepared for the expected question. He also suspected his fabricated answer might be correct. “Such important documents should be written on the best and whitest paper possible to indicate the importance of the writing and to assure the reader that the thought that went into what was written was the careful consolidation of many individuals’ contributions. After all, isn’t white the symbol of truth and honesty?”
Denes had grunted, Balwis shrugged, Culich nodded sagely, and Carnigan laughed. Good enough responses, from Yozef’s viewpoint. White papers they were.
Unfortunately, Yozef ended up answering the same question so many times that he started shortening his response to “It just comes to me,” a phrase already associated with
rumors that he received instructions from God. He didn’t know how many times he’d used the phrase, until Mared Keelan asked him, “Why white papers?” and he’d unthinkingly given the key phrase. After Mared left, content to get an answer she could tell others about, Carnigan raised an eyebrow and chortled, “Really, Yozef? I think you need a new ‘go away and don’t ask any more questions’ response.”
When the day came to present the first white paper, Yozef, Maera, and Culich rode a carriage into Caernford, there to join a dozen other Keelan leaders, along with the Gwillamer and Mittack hetmen and their advisers. They’d planned the meeting for when the other two hetmen would arrive in Caernford to discuss final issues in adding the Hewell and Adris clans to the existing Tri-Clan Alliance. Among the discussion topics was a new name. A five-member Tri-Clan alliance made little sense.
The MIU quarters now included a building adjacent to the original second floor of a commercial structure. The expanded space had a meeting room capable of handling up to eighty people. Thirty-three attended on this day.
When the three of them arrived from Keelan Manor, Maera left Yozef and went to sit with the MIU members clustered in chairs at the right-front of the room. Owill Brell led the presentation. Next to Maera sat her third cousin Riona Klofyn, an abrasive woman whom Yozef disliked and whom Maera found exasperating. However, Klofyn’s devious temperament and proven innovative thinking made her a valuable member of MIU. Yozef hoped she learned to temper her tongue before he couldn’t stand her any longer and removed her from the MIU, no matter her contributions.
Yozef knew most of the other MIU members. Halwon Ristwyn was a twenty-year-old Stentese mathematician and one of the first regular correspondents with Cadwulf Beynom after Yozef introduced Cadwulf to whatever mathematics Yozef could remember. Halwon was perhaps an even better mathematician than Cadwulf, and Yozef suspected Halwon would have worked for the U.S. National Security Agency in code breaking and development if he’d lived on Earth.
Gartherid Kennrick, a son of Pedr Kennrick, lost a leg as a youth during a foolish wagon race. He had assumed daily operations of the Kennrick properties, while his father spent most of this time as one of Hetman Keelan’s main advisers. Gartherid’s organizational talent and his knack for keeping groups on point during brainstorming sessions proved a valuable buffer to the less focused thinking of some MIU members. Isla Luwis was Vortig’s eighteen-year-old daughter, a pleasant young woman who asked questions about everything and who was meticulous in examining and producing reports. Yozef had revised his first impressions of both Gartherid and Isla—initially thinking they had been added to the MIU staff only because of their families.
The final MIU member most familiar to Yozef was Sissel Morgan. The forty-nine-year-old grandmother was the only woman registrar in Keelan, persnickety, and possessor of an eidetic memory.
At first, Yozef worried that the MIU had too many members from the inner circle of Keelan leaders. At his urging, Brell had brought in new members recommended by personal contacts in other clans. Thus, Yozef saw five new faces in the MIU group, two of whom he recognized and three he didn’t. He’d get Maera to introduce them after the meeting.
Yozef accompanied Culich to greet the Gwillamer and Mittack hetmen, following his father-in-law in the customary handclasps, glad he didn’t have to remember whether it was hand or forearm with these hetmen—the northern clans practiced forearms. Yozef hadn’t yet adjusted to the reality of being elevated to a level near that of a hetman, as evidenced by the greetings he now often received.
“So, Yozef, what surprises do you have for us today?” asked Cadoc Gwillamer.
“No surprises, Hetman Gwillamer, only some further thinking concerning our discussions about sealing off our borders from the Narthani.”
“Hetman? Please, Yozef. At least in informal sessions, I’ve already asked you to call me Cadoc.”
“Uh . . . sure. Cadoc.” The Gwillamer hetman was the most insistent of the hetmen to be on a first-name basis, but several others followed his lead. Yozef remained uncertain what each hetmen expected, though he’d become more accustomed to the familiarity. Yet he still felt awkward when interacting with the men, many of whom had decades of leadership over tens of thousands of clanspeople.
Culich rescued Yozef from his current discomfiture. “I think we’re all here. Owill, please begin.”
The Adrisian stopped talking to the other MIU members and went to the cloth-covered 4 x 8–foot blackboards lining the room’s front wall. His ambling pace came not from indolence but from an arthritic knee that acted up after storms. At the wall, he pulled off the cloth covering the central blackboard to reveal two bullet points.
“We’ve titled this white paper ‘External Security,’ as defined by the need to stop any information flow from the free clans to the Narthani. There are two parts to our proposal.” Brell turned to the blackboard and pointed. “‘Seal the borders’ and ‘Narthani agents.’
“The basic rationale for the proposed actions is to prevent the Narthani from having any knowledge of what’s happening elsewhere on Caedellium. Whatever action we decide on, the more unexpected, the more uncertain will be the Narthani leadership and the less likely they will risk more offensive actions. I’ll summarize the two categories’ recommendations you see written on the blackboard.”
For the Gwillamer and Mittack delegations, it was the first time they had seen blackboards of this size. Although schools used black slates and people making local announcements occasionally used smaller blackboards, Yozef had introduced larger blackboards, first in his workroom in Abersford and then at his shops. The mathematics cadre forming under Cadwulf Beynom had adopted them with a vengeance. The chalk came quarried from seaside cliffs in Bevans and Pawell provinces. Yozef preferred the Pawell chalk because it fractured into pieces easier to use than the Bevans chalk.
Brell pointed to the first action item. “Although the hetmen have discussed more patrols along borders, we believe this needs to be more organized because we’ve discovered that the patrols, especially along the Eywell/Moreland border, are so porous as to be ineffectual. At Yozef’s suggestion, Balwis Preddi’s platoon of Preddi escapees pretended to be individual Eywell or Narthani agents or reconnaissance patrols of up to thirty men. They found it ridiculously easy to avoid our patrols.” Brell nodded to Balwis, attending the first part of the meeting. “Ser Preddi, perhaps a word or two of your impressions might be appropriate.” Brell knew the ex-Preddi’s opinion of the patrols.
Balwis didn’t move from leaning against the back wall. “A goddamned herd of balmoths could cross the border into Moreland most days without anyone noticing. The Morelanders’ patrols are too few, too small, and too regular. Half the time they don’t even look around, just ride hard along the same route they always take. They wouldn’t detect a Narthani unless their horses ran over one. Once, my whole platoon sat on our horses not a hundred yards from five galloping Morelanders, who never looked our way.
“Things are better along the Keelan and Stent borders, meaning we had to sneak around a bit to cross undetected. Along Stent, at one place we crossed so many times it would have equaled a battalion-strength force. It was harder on the Keelan borders, especially the Dillagon Mountains. At least in the mountains, there’s the excuse the terrain is so rough. We had to cross on foot after we left the horses.”
“Thank you, Ser Preddi,” said Brell. “And be sure to thank your men for their efforts in these tests.
“So,” said the Adrisian, “I think you see the problem. If we’re serious about shutting off the borders, we need significant changes.
“Our first recommendation is that Hetman Stent assumes responsibility for patrolling the northern two-thirds of the Eywell/Moreland border. The reality is that the losses at the Battle of Moreland City left the Morelanders so disorganized that no one, especially the Morelanders, fully understands who is in charge and what orders to follow. Hetman Stent would provide visible leadership, along with some of his own men.
However, the Morelanders would still be required to supply most of the men for the patrols—they just wouldn’t be giving the orders.”
When Hetman Mittack started to say something, Brell anticipated the question. “And yes, the obvious question is, would the Morelanders agree? The answer is that they won’t be given a choice. We propose that the hetmen here today contact the other hetmen to explain what is being proposed and solicit their support. Maera Keelan has analyzed the likely responses, and we believe enough hetmen will vote to support our entire set of suggestions to mandate compliance.
“At the same time, Hetman Keelan will continue to lead patrolling the Keelan/Eywell border and assuming control of of the southern one-third of the Eywell/Moreland border. What needs to change along the entire borders to Selfcell and Eywell provinces are increased patrols of different sizes, preventing patrols from passing through any territory on a regular timetable, and, where feasible, creating permanent watch stations on mountains, hilltops, and required fords. Where there is no such spot, we should establish several permanently manned picket positions. Yozef suggested we let all men carrying out the patrols know that our people will make regular attempts to sneak past them—much as Balwis Preddi and his men have done. If the patrols know word could spread that they failed their duty, it’s more likely the men will stay alert.”
Balwis spoke up. “That’ll only work for certain men. You need more direct, personal consequences for them not doing their fucking jobs.”
“Any suggestions?” Maera asked of Balwis, not perturbed by the Preddi’s salty language.
“Some patrol areas are the shits to get assigned to. Like the Boonford swamp area in the middle of the Moreland/Eywell border. A damn quagmire that smells like shit and whose smell lingers on you, even after bathing. Same with the Dillagon Mountains being an area to avoid. Although in that case, it’s the cold in the higher regions. Let it be known that failure to detect our attempted test crossings, when we pose as Narthani and Eywellese, will result in posting to those areas.”
Forged in Fire (Destiny's Crucible Book 4) Page 4