The Cerberus Rebellion (A Griffins & Gunpowder Novel)

by Joshua Johnson

  “Yes, Your Highness. Perhaps they have reconsidered their position on the matter and have accepted your terms?”

  “From the look in your eyes, I would say that you don’t believe that particular bit of drivel,” Eadric said and took another drink from the cup. “They are stalling for time. They are outnumbered by two full divisions of infantry, if our scouts are correct, and their cavalry contingent barely counts five thousand. I would like to know what their artillery batteries boast, but I’ll have to be content with knowing their position.”

  “Spies would be hard to come by in such a time as this,” William agreed.

  In fact, Eadric’s spy masters had been entirely unable to turn anyone in the Kerberosi camps against their fellows. The men he had assigned to the task had argued that it would be a difficult task for anyone to turn a man against his blood and his neighbors; the history between Ansgar and Kerberos made it nearly impossibile. Eadric had allowed the men to continue to try, of course, but the gold that they kept throwing at anyone that would listen seemingly had no effect on the loyalty of those that took it.

  “Do you suppose they will offer counter terms?” William asked.

  “No. Lord Wherry was instructed to be explicit in the fact that those terms were offered directly from my hand. If they are foolish enough to think that they, mere nobles or lesser lords, can offer counter terms to a king, then this battle will be over far sooner than you might think.”

  Even facing overwhelming disadvantages, the Kerberosi could be tenacious warriors. The Battle at Gregory had given him that insight and it was his duty to remain cautious when approaching any conflict with the Kerberosi. Only a stroke of luck had caused the Kerberosi commander at Gregory to grow impatient and launch his attack, mere hours before Eadric had ordered his own forces to charge across the blood-stained valley. Had the situation been reversed, Eadric’s advance into Kerberosi territory would have been halted until still more soldiers could be called up and moved to the front.

  The gods had been smiling on the armies of Ansgar that day, but Eadric was not foolish enough to assume that they would be with him for the entirety of his campaign against these rebels.

  Payton Shield opened the tent flap once more. “Your Majesty.”

  “Yes, what is it?”

  “Lord Hanley wishes a word with you,” the guard replied.

  “Very well, send him in,” Eadric said.

  Alden stepped past the guards outside the small tent and into Eadric’s presence. Landon and Radnor Shield followed him and took up their places inside the entrance to the tent.

  “Your Majesty.” Alden bowed before his son-by-law and king.

  “Rise, Father. Here, sit beside me,” Eadric said.

  “Of course,” Alden took the offered seat.

  “What do you make of the delay in answering our terms?” Eadric asked.

  “They have much more to consider now that we are on their lands and threatening their castles. If the Kerberosi were a rational people, I would expect that they were seriously considering your offer, but if history tells us anything it is that the Kerberosi, of all of the peoples native to this continent, are anything but rational. They may be stalling for time, or they may be trying to send a message in the way that they ponder how they wish to deny our terms this time.”

  “I thought they might be trying to buy more time,” Eadric confessed. “They are outnumbered and outmatched, but perhaps they hope that reinforcements will arrive just in time to save their lives, and they have the responsibility to provide as much time as possible before we crush them.”

  Alden had been one of the strongest advocates for their current path of invasion, along the southern coast of Kerberos into their fertile farm lands and away from Hilldale, where the Kerberosi would have been able to mount raids and ambushes in the rolling hills and low valleys. William had advocated a more measured approach: less direct confrontation with the Kerberosi armies in an attempt to lessen the amount of resentment felt by their rebellious citizens.

  The southern path would allow them to cut off any help from the Earl of Forest Glen and the Kerberosi Isles; the ability to split a large part of the opposing army had been a major factor in Eadric’s decision. Being able to move supplies across Alder Bay had been another.

  Eadric’s navy—or what remained of it after the Kerberosi and Western squadrons rebelled and sailed back to their home ports—would be tangled in a vicious fight with the coastal fortresses in Forest Glen and the Kerberosi ships in the Straits of Steimor. If Eadric’s forces were able to break through the Kerberosi naval blockade, they would bring the fight straight into Hellhound Harbor and threaten Agilard directly.

  As yet no reports had arrived from Admiral Tallert and the major contingent of the Ansgari Navy that he had taken with him to clear the Straits of Steimor for Ansgari merchant traffic. Eadric had resisted the suggestion that sending the ships to the Straits was more important than maintaining security in the waters surrounding the mainland of Ansgar. When merchant ships started disappearing, however, the major merchant houses had demanded that action be taken to ensure the security of their fleets. Three quarters of the remaining Ansgari Fleet had sailed under Tallert’s command with a confidence that Eadric’s battle at Gregory had quickly taught him was misplaced.

  He could spare a schooner or a corvette to run a message to Aetheston, Eadric thought as he sipped the wine. It wouldn’t take this much time for a telegraph or even a rider to reach us.

  “Milord, the messenger has passed through our lines,” Paxton Shield said. At least, Eadric thought it was Paxton; he had trouble telling Paxton and Payton apart, especially if they weren’t standing next to each other.

  “Thank you,” Eadric said and then turned to William and Alden. “I’d like for you to hear their response.”

  “Of course, Your Highness.” William nodded and the two set in to wait.

  Another twenty minutes passed before the messenger finally stepped through the tent flaps; he was red faced and sweating from his long, hard ride. He fell to one knee in front of Eadric and presented his satchel to his King. Lord Tramaine Wherry looked tiny between the twin mountains of Payton and Paxton Shield.

  “Did they refuse my terms?” Eadric asked. He set the satchel aside. He would not learn anything from its contents that his messenger would not already know.

  “Your Majesty, they refused to provide an answer.”

  “Refused to answer on what grounds?” William asked.

  “I presented my terms directly to the traitor king,” Tramaine said, and Eadric sat up in his chair.

  “You will refer to him by his rightful title, Lord Wherry. He may be a traitor, but until he has had a trial and is sentenced as such he is still a noble of Ansgar,” Eadric said. “What did the Duke of Agilard say?”

  “His Grace said that the terms that were presented were prepared without the knowledge that they would be presented to him,” the messenger reported.

  “He’s stalling,” William said.

  “Of course he is,” Eadric agreed. “What else did he say?”

  “That was all he said about the terms. I observed, however, that when he gave his answer he was not joined by the same men that he was with when I presented the terms.”

  “Continue,” Eadric instructed.

  “I presented the terms to His Grace, a man that, by his garb, I would think to be the Baron Hilldale, another noble whom I could not guess at, and two commanders of his army. When the duke provided his answer to me, he was joined only by Lord Greenbow.”

  “They are preparing to attack while we consider whether or not to offer terms directly to Magnus,” William suggested.

  “No, William, I think not,” Eadric disagreed. “Lord Wherry, thank you for your service. My steward will see that you are taken care of.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty.” The lesser lord bowed low and left the tent.

  “Magnus knows that if he were to attack us he would lose. The only advantages th
at he has right now are the trenches that his men hide in and the cannons perched behind his lines and on the walls of that castle. Attacking us leaves him without both of those advantages.”

  “Then why bother demanding new terms?”

  “He knows that by the rules of diplomacy I must present him with new terms,” Eadric said. “If we were to attack without offering him terms, it may be enough of a breach of honor that he could use it to convince Beldane and Steimor to throw in on his side. However, while we must play his games and submit new terms, we do not have to wait until they are discussed and decided upon.”

  “What are your orders?” William asked.

  “We will draw up new terms, terms that will decide the fate of this entire rebellion right here and now. We will send another messenger across the field to present those terms to the duke. However, we will not request a response. Instead, we will tell him that if he is still arrayed for battle come dawn, that we will assume that he has refused our terms and we will consider the negotiations ended.”

  “What if he offers counter terms to stall further?”

  “If he dares to offer counter terms, they will either be so absurd as to be rejected out of hand or they will not be offered in good faith,” Eadric said with a shrug. “He has already made it perfectly clear through his actions and the words of his nobles that Kerberos will never willingly submit to Ansgar again. Any offer to do so will be a lie. We will have every right to declare the negotiations ended and to attack regardless of his protests.”

  Eadric leaned back in his chair and smiled a vicious smile. He had the chance to bring this war to a swift end and he wasn’t going to let it slip through his hands. Magnus had made a mistake in revealing his presence on the field of battle and Eadric had every intention of making the rebel leader account for that mistake personally.

  “It is late in the day,” Eadric announced. “Pass the order for the divisions to rest for the night, but to be ready to advance at first light.”

  “Of course,” Alden stood, bowed and hurried from the pavilion to pass the word.

  “Do you think this may be a ruse?” William asked when he was once again alone—or as alone as one could be with the towering Kendall Shield present—with his king. “There’s no way of knowing if the man that claims to be Lord Jarmann was really the duke at all.”

  “You’re right,” Eadric allowed, “but the chance to end this rebellion is too great not to risk that chance. Reports are already flowing in from the West that the rebels there are launching raids against our interior and have won several key battles. We need to crush the Kerberosi and return to the west with the rest of our forces.”

  Chapter 22 - Magnus

  The horizon was just beginning to lighten. Magnus stood outside of his tent sipping a cup of piping hot coffee when he heard the first thundering boom of cannon fire. He had expected Eadric to wait until the sun was above the horizon before beginning his assault, but then he had expected a great many things to have gone differently than they had. Had things gone as planned, he would have been the one threatening the interior of Ansgar rather than fighting back an invasion into his own lands.

  If there was one thing that House Jarmann had learned in its one hundred years of subjugation, it was that things changed and not always for the better. Magnus was the culmination of a century of learning how to take a bad situation and turn it for the better, and he intended to make that change with his current predicament.

  “Hold the artillery fire until they are within range,” Magnus ordered.

  “Yes, Your Grace,” Captain Rolden Mathison said. In the dark of the morning, the signal flags would be less than useless to convey messages, but the signalmen could be used to run messages.

  The Ansgari forces would not be within his cannons’ reach until they started across the battlefield. Even the fifteen-pound cannons, perched on the hilltops behind the castle walls, couldn’t reach the Ansgari battle lines. The same, however, was true for the Ansgari artillery batteries—so what was Eadric up to with early morning cannon fire?

  The answer came with the explosion of the first volley: the shells detonated far overhead and flares sprouted from the detonations. The early morning sky lit as if it were midday and Magnus could see the first movement on the other side of the field.

  Interesting, Magnus thought as he watched the Ansgari infantry begin their slow advance.

  His artillerymen had sighted out the distance at which their guns would have the range to harass the advancing infantry and memorized the landmarks. Without the benefit of sunlight, those landmarks would be nearly impossible to see. The Ansgari flares would provide them the lighting necessary to target their attacks.

  “I want one shot from a fifteen-pounder as soon as the artillerymen believe that they have the range. There’s no reason to expend our ammunition before we’re able to make it count,” Magnus ordered. He balled his right hand into a fist and pressed it into his left palm; each knuckle popped in turn.

  The Ansgari infantry advanced cautiously and the loyalist artillery continued to fire volley after volley of flares into the sky. Magnus winced when the first of his fifteen-pound cannons boomed in answer. The explosive shell fell well short of the approaching infantry line and detonated, sending dirt and shrapnel into the air.

  “Fifteen-pound battery estimates five minutes until the enemy infantry is within range,” Captain Mathison reported.

  “Tell them to wait three minutes, then fire another round,” Magnus said. He expanded his looking glass and swept it across the enemy lines.

  The Ansgari cavalry was mounted but was still well behind the Ansgari trenches. All three of the forward Ansgari divisions had begun their slow march across the field, and the light from the flares glittered on tens of thousands of bayonets. The Ansgari reserves had flowed into the empty trenches and Magnus could see their commanders pacing before them.

  The Kerberosi infantry remained silent. If the Ansgari reserves remained behind, the numbers would be even when the advancing forces marched into the volleys of the Kerberosi soldiers. Magnus’ cavalry was mounted but had remained behind the center of his line; he wanted to use them to counter the Ansgari cavalry when they finally made their move.

  “Closer,” Magnus whispered as he watched the measured, deliberate advance of the Ansgari divisions.

  Sooner than he expected, a fifteen-pound cannon boomed. The shell flew through the air for several long seconds before it landed in the center of the battlefield and detonated. The explosion was closer than Magnus had thought for only three minutes.

  “They marched faster than expected,” Alger suggested.

  “Indeed.” Magnus nodded. “Another shot in one minute.”

  “Yes, Your Grace,” Captain Mathison said.

  Closer, Magnus thought to himself. Just a little closer.

  The Ansgari cannons continued their steady rhythm of fire, and exploding flares showered the battlefield with sharp, twisting light. The infantry were still less than a quarter of the way across the battlefield but their pace would increase once they started taking fire from the Kerberosi cannons. He had given his commanders very specific instructions on how to handle the Ansgari charge and his soldiers had the discipline to maintain order.

  Magnus’ generals, and the soldiers from Beldane and Steimor, had converted a rabble of untrained farmers and peasants into a respectable fighting force. They drilled every day to ensure that their form was as close to perfect as could be expected, and the officers had learned how to command their troops. Magnus hoped that it would be enough to counter the significant imbalance of force that had played itself out on the fields before him.

  Another lone cannon fired from behind the walls of Kval Keep; Magnus silently counted the seconds as the shell flew over the battlefield. When the shell detonated, it was ahead of the Ansgari lines, but close enough that shrapnel cut into the front ranks of the advancing infantry.

  “All fifteen-pounders, fire at will,” Magnus said. �
��And have one of our ten-pound guns begin finding the range.”

  All at once, eighteen cannons thundered and fired their projectiles at the advancing enemies with jets of fire and smoke. Even in the pre-dawn darkness, Magnus could see the clouds forming around the keep and across the battlefield behind the enemy lines.

  The eighteen rounds fell to the ground amongst the Ansgari infantry. Explosions cut gaps in the enemy front lines and forced the infantry to hurry their pace to clear the lower elevations of Magnus’ artillery batteries. Cheers went up from the signal teams and from the artillerymen as the smoke settled from the first barrage, but the commanders brought their troops back under control and the second volley was loaded.

  The Ansgari infantry continued to march, albeit at a faster pace, toward the entrenched Kerberosi troops. The ten-pound cannons joined their larger brethren, but still the Ansgari soldiers advanced. They passed through small groves of trees and climbed across a dried stream that might have served as an excellent trench if either side had been able to keep the opposing artillery silent.

  Almost there, Magnus thought as the center division of Ansgari loyalists passed a small farm house in the middle of the battlefield.

  The first gunfire erupted in the still-dark morning as the Ansgari marched into the teeth of two regiments of skirmishers. The trained accuracy of the hunters and marksmen of the skirmisher regiments was augmented by the increased accuracy of the Black Mountain Long Rifle Model 1241 and the Sinclair looking glass.

  Orders had been passed to first target the officers, commissioned and non-commissioned alike, in order to sow confusion and chaos throughout the Ansgari army. Magnus noted the position of the line of skirmishers with each volley and frowned as the center began to fall back toward the trenches faster than the rest of the line.

  “Focus the artillery on the center,” Magnus ordered. It was imperative that the enemy line’s advance was held in check until he could spring his trap.