Forged in Fire (Destiny's Crucible Book 4)

by Olan Thorensen

  CHAPTER 13: WAR COUNCIL

  First Meeting

  Orosz used the quiet to adjourn the conclave for the day. Most attendees spoke within their own delegation or with other clans. A half hour passed before the four War Council members slipped away to a quieter room. Denes had been dispatched to retrieve Yozef, who then joined them at a table. The sun had set, and a single kerosene lantern lit the room and the five faces.

  As usual, Yozef initially felt out of place. Each of the other four men was a leader of tens of thousands of clanspeople. They had a lifetime of training at the expectation of being hetmen and then in leading their clans—in Orosz’s and Keelan’s cases, leading for many decades. While part of Yozef wondered why he should be a member of the council, another part, more prominent than before, was more ascendant, as if he should be there.

  “Well,” said Culich, “getting here was the easy part. Now it becomes hard. All eighteen clans are pledged to follow whatever plan we decide. Now the question is, ‘What exactly do we do?’ Before we start discussions among ourselves, do any of you have any preparatory thoughts? Yozef, do you want to start?”

  Yozef found the suggestion incongruous. He, whose total military experience before he found himself on Caedellium consisted of playing video games and reading novels from science fiction, action, and fantasy genres, was now being asked to advise on how to defend 800,000 people against a professional Narthani army. A people with no history of large-scale warfare and no concept of whatever strategies the Narthani had honed over their history. Holy shit, are they desperate! he thought for the umpteenth time.

  He had been tag-teamed the last few weeks, directly or indirectly, purposely or incidentally. First Culich, then Maera, the others such as Denes and even Carnigan, who usually was silent—all of them insisting that his help in thinking how to fight the Narthani would be important. The problem was that no matter how much he had argued during the last year against his having any special experience or knowledge, part of him thought they were right. And that scared him. He felt scared for himself, for Maera, for their son, for Anarynd, for his friends here in Caedellium, and for all the people.

  Four bearded faces looked to him for advice. He took two deep breaths.

  “We’ve already made a major step forward today by the clans agreeing to unified command structure. Yet we’ve only started. The fact is the clans have no history of coordination to the degree that we need to defeat the Narthani. This isn’t going to be easy, and we have to be realistic that it might not happen.”

  Culich felt pleased that Yozef consistently said “we” instead of “you.”

  “That, of course, is only one of a number of problems and issues I see. I’m afraid I don’t have a particular order of importance, because all seem important.”

  “Then you can just explain them in any order, Yozef,” Culich reassured him.

  “Okay, then. Your command structure. Keelan and some of the provinces have made progress setting up formal command hierarchies, but others have hardly started. This needs to be formalized and standardized. The problems that can come from not doing this aren’t too bad at the lower levels, where tens or hundreds of men are led. But by the time you get to many hundreds to thousands, we have very few men with such experience. We can’t have circumstances where decisions are made and leaders from different clans argue about who is in command. Bad decisions can be worse than chaos.

  “Then there’s the issue of who is qualified to lead. I understand the clan system, but you saw what happened at Moreland City. The Moreland hetman was a fool and got a thousand of his men killed for no reason. The same thing will happen again, in large-scale battles down to small fights with tens of men.”

  Hetman Stent clearly felt uncomfortable at Yozef’s statements. “But it has traditionally been the duty of the hetman to lead in battle. Honor demanded it.”

  Yozef started to grind his teeth and snap at Stent, until he realized Stent was stating the obvious problem with some clans, not necessarily his own. He had been expecting this response. Although he had broached this topic before, now was not the time to dally. It would keep coming up until they learned. It was time for a dose of a Septarsh, though not too much of a dose.

  “The duty of the hetman is to protect his people. Honor is a good thing and something to be acknowledged, but if concerns about the honor of the hetman harm the people, then it is not honor but self-interest, and the man is not worthy to be a hetman.” Yozef did not know a Caedellium word for egotism.

  “I tend to agree, but not all hetmen will be easily convinced,” said Stent.

  “Hetman Stent, let me give you a hypothetical situation. You are leading your men in battle against the Narthani. They have many more men and will surely defeat you and kill most of your men. You lead a charge against the Narthani and then pretend to run away, as if frightened. You do this to trick the Narthani into chasing you. Once their force is divided, groups of your men, led by other of your leaders, attack and destroy first the Narthani chasing you and then the remainder. You yourself never directly participate in the fighting or lead men directly in battle. Now, the question is, did you do the right thing?”

  Stent considered for a moment, then replied, “I presume from what you describe that only by the Narthani thinking I was fleeing and leaving many of my men would the Narthani follow me into a trap. And I assume this is only a thinly veiled situation that is not hypothetical but what Hetman Keelan did at Moreland City.”

  Yes! thought Yozef. He’s as sharp as I thought he was.

  “You’re right. That is what Hetman Keelan did at Moreland City. The Narthani were defeated. Hetman Keelan never directly led men into the fighting. After the battle, would you say that Hetman Keelan’s honor was intact or not?”

  Stent grimaced. “Of course, no one is going to question Culich’s honor. I see your point, but I must say it makes me uneasy, and it will be a difficult lesson for not only hetmen but also men who believe their positions require them to lead into battle.”

  “Then they will have to be convinced. It is critical that the four of you accept this idea. If you are not strongly behind this, it can’t spread to all the clans.”

  “I have a suggestion,” said Orosz. “I believe Yozef is right in this, but I know it will be difficult to implement in my own province. While some men will accept, many others will resist. My suggestion is that we make it clear that Keelan is already working under the principle of leadership by ability, not station. And we need to stress that we mean only in military matters. We wouldn’t want any suggestion that the rights of hetmen and boyermen are being questioned.”

  Not yet, anyway, thought Yozef, although that may come, even if not in my lifetime. Inherent rights by birth inevitably go away, but right now we have to focus on surviving the Narthani.

  “I agree that Keelan is making efforts in this,” said Culich, “but we have to recognize the limitations. Facts are that men accustomed to leadership are readier to step into the role of leading one of our new military units than someone whose life experience has been different. Yozef has described to me a man named Napoleon who rose from a common background to lead great armies. But this Napoleon didn’t go from stable boy to leading armies; he had years of experience between those two points. I believe we’ll have to keep much of the existing leadership structure until such men gain experience and better leaders rise to our attention. All we can do is find them as soon as we can and push them into more and more important positions.”

  “I want to argue with you, Culich,” said Yozef, “but you’re right. Even in Keelan, it’s a slow process. The mixed-clan units are helping, but it’s still too slow. One thing we have to do is push those men you refer to into higher positions far sooner than we should. For example, Denes Vegga. He commanded a regiment of a thousand men on the raid toward Preddi, and from all I can see, he did it well. Under other circumstances, he would have more years of experience before commanding more men, but that’s a luxury we don’t ha
ve. He’s going to soon find himself commanding what we’ll call a division—a unit of around eight to ten thousand men in several regiments. It’s the same for the two majors Denes had leading his two regiment battalions. Sixworth and Kildorn will be commanding regiments way too soon. We can only pray they are up to the task. If not, then we have to pray again but this time that we can replace them before disaster.”

  “And what of me?” asked Stent. “I also have led a thousand men into battle, once to attack Parthmal after the Battle of Moreland City and then the raid into Eywell Province. Could I be replaced as a leader?”

  Yozef had interacted with Welman Stent enough to suspect the question was more generic than specific to himself. What if another hetman tried to lead but was incompetent?

  “Then we have a serious problem,” said Yozef. “In your case, the fact that you did lead two successful actions gives us all confidence in your ability. However, and this is only a hypothetical example, what if Hetman Pewitt wants to lead a division, but it is evident to all that he is not capable? Then the other hetmen must try to change his mind.”

  There was no way Yozef was going to voice what might be necessary in such a case. If an incompetent hetman endangered the entire struggle against the Narthani and refused to step aside, Yozef, against any previous scruples, had already considered removing the hetman by any means possible. Wyfor Kales and Balwis Preddi had shown themselves capable of eliminating a senior Narthani leader, and Yozef thought both would understand the necessity.

  “Well,” said Culich, “we can only do what we can do. I can assert that Keelan will do what it can as fast as it can, and so will the other four clans in our alliance. The rest of you need to do the same, and we all work to convince other clans. Likely the best argument will be if they see our eight clans pushing the concept.”

  “Orosz will,” said Hetman Orosz, “and Bultecki will agree, perhaps reluctantly. The remainder will come around—hopefully in time to avoid too many disasters.”

  “As will Stent,” said Welman. “I’ll work on Pewitt. I think Swavebroke and Moreland present different challenges. Moreland is too chaotic and hasn’t settled on a new leadership structure. If all of us put enough pressure on them, we can almost appoint any Morelander we want into a command position, as long as we make it seem that these are temporary military positions and not part of their political struggles.

  “Swavebroke also lost some leadership and, from what I know, probably the least flexible-thinking ones. I know Harmon Swavebroke, and he’ll be a far better hetman than his father was, though I respect Margo Swavebroke for staying with the men who slowed down the Narthani to allow most of the citizens of Shullick to escape. I think Harmon will do anything necessary to drive the Narthani away.”

  Culich nodded vigorously. “I think you’re right, Welman, but there’s something else. Yozef, I know you’re uneasy with the Septarsh talk, but you have to tolerate it to some degree, especially when we need to keep some hetmen working with the rest of us and accepting some of the custom changes. Tomis has already asked me about using this to help convince the doubters and those irksome ones who cannot conceive of relinquishing any of their assumed rights. In those cases, and with Yozef’s unspoken backing, we can hint that they might be going against the will of God if an idea comes from Yozef.”

  Culich raised both hands to forestall Yozef’s objections. “I didn’t say we’d overtly state it’s God’s will. Let the person come to that conclusion on his own.”

  “With possibly a few hints and nudges,” said Stent, slapping Yozef on the back.

  “Okay, okay,” said Yozef. “Just try to keep it to a dull roar.”

  “A dull—?” muttered Hetman Farkesh.

  Culich interrupted him. “Never mind, Feren, it’s just one of Yozef’s expressions from his own language. He means he hopes we don’t pile the manure too deep.”

  Orosz had assumed the duty of recorder for their meetings and was scratching away with a quill to a sheet of paper. When Culich finished speaking, Orosz looked up. “The leadership issue was your first suggestion, Yozef.” And with a smile, he said, “I tremble to think of what’s next.”

  Yozef didn’t smile in return. “We talked about this in the conclave earlier today, but I doubt that everyone hearing the words really understood the meaning and consequences. All the people need to understand that this is total war. This is not a raid or a gathering of clansmen for a week or two, such as at Moreland City. This will require mobilizing every possible resource and tool. Tens of thousands of men will be in arms for months at a time. The rest of the population of Caedellium must support them in every way necessary. Normal activities can be carried on only to the degree deemed absolutely necessary.”

  “I understand, but what do we do about planting, tending, harvesting crops?” protested Bakalacs.

  “You already have more stores of grain than usual, since the Narthani have shut off trade. The grain you normally would trade to other lands is sitting in silos and barns. If it is not shipped or eaten, it will slowly rot or be infested with vermin. If the Narthani win, they will eat it. The only good use of it is to feed the people while we’re fighting the Narthani. In addition, the current crops are largely in the ground. Even without proper tending and with fewer people to harvest, there will still be crops produced. When combined with stores, I’d guess there will be enough food to carry the people through until the following year’s crop. Others, of course, might make more accurate estimates, but I think mine will be close.”

  Stent stroked his beard as he thought. “And what will the people be doing? I can see fighting men training and doing the actual fighting, blacksmiths making swords, men and women feeding the men, transporting the food, and all the other activities we likely don’t realize will be necessary—but even then, what else?”

  “I guarantee that all their time will be used in the total effort. I have some ideas that you’ll need to approve, but there won’t be enough hours in a day to do everything necessary to defeat the Narthani. Let me give you only a few examples. Producing tons of gunpowder, millions of musket balls, and tens of thousands of cannon balls and canister; caring for and feeding tens of thousands of horses; preparing, shipping, and delivering enough food to support all the fighting men and noncombatants in the field; building fortifications . . . I could go on and on. Some ideas I have will involve building projects as have never been seen on Caedellium and, with our time limitations, that a rational person would say is impossible.

  “We’ll mobilize medicants for thousands of wounded—many with major wounds that need immediate attention. We cannot wait to treat injuries until the men are transported to a town with medicants. It’s what the men deserve, and it’s practical. Men treated quickly will have better chances of recovery, and many will return to fight sooner. This is what Keelan did at Moreland City and now needs to be done on a larger scale. Diera Beynom tells me that only half the clans have been preparing MASH units.”

  “My clan has just started organizing these MASHes,” said Bakalacs, “but what are the fortifications you had on your list? Are you thinking of reinforcing the defenses of the major cities and towns?”

  Yozef wondered if this might be the biggest test of whether or not they would listen to him.

  “Before I answer, there is something you must realize completely, even if it’s been said before. I don’t believe there is any way you can defeat a major Narthani army in a field battle, short of a miracle from God, which we can’t count on. This means that when the new Narthani army moves to invade the free clans, we will have to withdraw from them.”

  “We’ve read and talked about your outline plan, Yozef,” said Stent. “It will be a bitter bite for many of us to abandon our cities and farms to the Narthani, even if we plan to regain them.”

  “Well,” said Yozef, “the fact is, you don’t have an army. You have thousands of brave men who are willing to die if necessary to protect their people, but that isn’t an army. You simply
don’t have the experience and tactical knowledge for that kind of warfare. However, that isn’t the only way to fight. I believe the Narthani can be defeated but only by fighting smart and using our advantages.”

  Bakalacs nodded. “I assume you refer to something like what happened at Moreland City?”

  “Something like that. There we tricked part of their forces into making a major mistake, which exposed their positions to an attack where the advantage was in our favor. We must do similar things with this new, much larger force. Among the advantages we have are mobility, knowledge of the terrain, and short lines of supply. All our men who will be in contact with the Narthani army will be mounted. That means we can reposition and move faster than they can. We know the land. There will always be Caedelli who’ve lived their whole lives within any piece of land on the island. That means we will always know more of the terrain than they will.

  “We also will be closer to our supplies than the Narthani will, once they move to the interior of Caedellium.”

  “But how is that?” asked Orosz. “It would seem about the same. For example, the distance from Preddi to Moreland is about same as Keelan City to Moreland City.”

  “True for part of their supply line, but not the most important part. From what escapees and freed slaves have told us, the Narthani are building infrastructure, the tools needed to support themselves and make weapons. I suspect the existing Narthani army is self-sufficient from Narthon by now. That won’t be the case for the new army. They need much more support and will have to bring all their ammunition and weapons from Narthon. Whatever forces and ammunition they have for a battle will probably be all they will have when the real war starts—at least for some years, until they establish more production capability on the island. In theory, more troops might be scheduled to come, along with more supply ships, but I believe they will think whatever they send with this new army will be sufficient against the level of resistance they assume Caedellium can mount. The longer they stay, the weaker they will become, as they use up their supplies. Much of their food will come from the three provinces they control, but ours will come from all the rest of the island. Our medicant treatments will be better than theirs, meaning that more of our wounded than theirs will eventually return to fight again. Their supply of horses is limited. All they will have are those taken from the three provinces, while we can draw on the entire island. We must ensure that they can’t find food or horses by foraging. We give ground but leave nothing for them. All the people need to be evacuated to safer areas, all animals moved or butchered and the meat cured or destroyed. All crops collected, if possible. If not, burned. We leave them an abandoned wasteland to move through.”