by John Dalmas
Looking back, he shouted orders. The cohorts spread out downstream and crossed in files by platoon. In every file, no man started across till the man ahead had made it.
When all were across, they started north again.
* * *
With Raien gone, Varia was nearly alone. Even Rorie, their youngest, was gone. A private learning the military profession, he'd left with the 1st Royal Cavalry Cohort. It had marched south from Duinarog in mid Ten-Month, then turned east on the South Shore Highway, along the Imperial Sea.
She'd arranged other employment for all the household staff but three: Talrie, who now took care of all maintenance work, and tended the furnace and water heater; Talrie's wife Meg, who'd been cook, now handled all the kitchen work; and Correen, who'd become Varia's all-purpose housegirl. If additional help was needed from time to time, she'd hire temporary workers.
Most of the house was closed off and the furniture covered. The doors were ajar, however, so the house's cats could patrol for the mice which might otherwise damage the furniture. All the horses were boarded out except Chessy, Varia's own. Chessy she cared for herself, feeding and brushing her, bedding her down, and cleaning up behind her. Meanwhile she'd begun work at the Royal Archives, as a volunteer historian's assistant, and had already become quite knowledgeable about the job.
At home, after supper on Solstice Eve, she sat down to read. It was a book she'd brought with her from Farside, thirty years earlier on maternity leave: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Amazingly it had survived Ferny Cove—which was better than her children by Will had done—and Raien had gotten it back for her through diplomatic lines after the war.
But reading by oil lamp tired her eyes. After two or three hours, she took a hot bath and went to bed.
After a time she awoke with a start, to the covers being jerked away. Hands grabbed her arms, and before she could resist or even scream, she was flopped onto her stomach, her face pressed into the featherbed. Other hands gripped her ankles, and quickly she was tied, then gagged. Someone stood her up, and a cloak was draped over her.
"Excuse us, Your Ladyship." The tone was sardonic. "Your life is threatened here. We're taking you away. To safety, you understand."
"Shut up," said another. Then someone slung Varia over a shoulder and carried her out into the winter night.
A carriage sleigh stood waiting in the street. Two people sat in back, but even with snowlight it was too dark inside to distinguish features. One, by his aura, was an enforcer type, perhaps a bodyguard. The other she classified as marginally psychotic.
They waited while her abductors returned to the house and went inside. "Here," the enforcer said to her. "I'm going to take out your gag and open your mouth. One screech and I hurt you. Badly."
She sat carefully still, and felt fingers loosen the gag.
"Now open," he said. "His lordship will give you a draft of something. Drink it!"
She felt a flask at her lips, and accepted it. It tilted slightly. The taste was of brandy, good brandy, and she swallowed its warmth. There was, she thought, something in it. There had to be.
In a minute the front entrance opened again. Before her abductors closed it behind them, she saw flames inside. "There are people in there," she whispered muzzily; the drug was taking effect.
"No, my dear," the second man said. "There is no one. Not a living soul."
Of course not, she realized. All three would have been killed. Meanwhile she'd recognized the voice. Not one she knew well, but she recognized it. It seemed to her she wouldn't come through this alive.
PART SIX
Expansion And Intensification
Macurdy awoke to dread, and sat up slowly, not breathing, trying to hold the darkness to him. But it lightened, became a murky, smoky red. There was a smell of burning flesh and hair.
"So! There you are, Herr Montag! You cannot hide from me, not even in your dreams."
It was Kronprinz Kurqôsz. His ears had become horns. With a table fork, he raised the cube of raspberry jello that encased Macurdy, and peered closely, his eye enormous. "You thought I did not know who to blame." His low laugh rumbled. "It was you who inconvenienced me in Bavaria, and who burned down my gatehouse. Now you annoy me with your foolish little armies."
His smile was not pleasant. "You will waken soon, and discover this was only a dream. But do not feel relieved. You think you have seen sorcery? When my lightning strikes, I will have your soul in a bottle! With all the others."
From a dream by Curtis Macurdy
in the forest behind voitik lines
33 The Alliance Makes Itself Felt
Kurqôsz met daily with his staff and their aides, to review and plan. This morning, the emphasis was on enemy raids on supply trains.
There were three suitable east-west roads through the central forest region. Initially the trains had been sent by whatever route was shortest to the reception point. After the first raids, that policy had been dropped. Everything had been routed on one road, which was patrolled by strong cavalry forces.
Almost at once the raiders had taken to felling numerous trees across the road, in places where turning was difficult, and the nearest detour well behind the train. Sometimes the detour was blocked too. And clearing the road was slower than felling the trees had been, for typically the felled trees lay atop each other, making access cumbersome and slow for the axmen clearing them.
So numerous small patrols were sent out to interrupt, pursue, and kill the axmen. But the axmen had pickets posted, and horses at hand to flee on. Pursuers had been led into ambushes. Patrols had been waylaid on the road.
It seemed to the crown prince that the raiders were little bothered by his counterefforts. They adjusted simply and quickly, and whatever they did was troublesome.
Now all three east-west roads were being used again, with larger escorts. Hithik cavalry drew escort duty. Rakutik companies were assigned patrol and counterstrike duties.
But roadblocks were still made. And raids continued, causing losses of men, draft horses, wagons and supplies. And time.
Even so, hithik troops along the Deep River Line were undoubtedly more comfortable and better fed than the raiders. The raiders' horses in particular must be suffering from hunger. At any rate, on several occasions the raiders had waited by hay wagons till the last possible minute, to let their horses feed. And if they made off with nothing else, they took sacks of corn and other feed grain.
"Now," Kurqôsz said, "Captain Gevlek has a raid to show us, from earlier this morning. I haven't seen it myself yet. Give him your attention."
They turned their awareness to that vast repository that was the voitik hive mind, and let the crown prince's deputy communicator focus the attention. A sequence of images began to run for them.
What they watched had been recorded by the eyes and ears of a supply train commander. It was a gray winter morning, and the train was proceeding slowly down a forest road. Occasional small snowflakes drifted reluctantly down, as if lost.
Abruptly a trumpet blared, snatching the commander's attention, sharpening his perceptions. The wagons halted at once. The commander was positioned somewhat back from the lead wagon; he'd decided it was the safest location. There were shouts from ahead, and within seconds, others from behind. With his mind, the commander called the system coordinator at headquarters, giving the situation and approximate location. That would alert road patrols, rakutur, that might be near enough to help.
The commander was on foot, of course, and his guard squad closed protectively around him. Damn it, he thought, I can't see this way! But he said nothing. As a voitu, he was a favored target. Often the raiders attacked the advance and rear guards to draw and engage the rest of the escort. Other raiders then emerged from the woods to kill the wagon horses. If they succeeded in killing and driving off the escort, they then looted some of the wagons, and set fire to the rest.
The shouting was much nearer now, some Hithmearcisc, some Vismearcisc. One of his guard
s, then another, fell from their horses. Both were to his right. With sudden decision, the commander gripped his trumpeter by a shoulder. "Stay!" he snapped, then broke between two mounted guards on his left and sprinted into the woods through old hard snow. He saw no one, and after fifty yards or so, stopped. Kneeling behind a large sugar maple, he looked back. The roadside undergrowth was too thick to see what was going on, but shouts and the clashing of sabers were mixed with the whinnying and screams of horses. These were not the noises of looting and burning he'd learned through the hive mind. Perhaps his escort would prevail. It was half again the size in recent use. He would, he decided, wait where he was till he knew.
Two minutes later the noise had changed to excited shouts in Hithmearcisc. Apparently the raiders had been driven off. A trumpet blew assembly. Rising, the commander trotted back to the road. The fighting was over. The mounted soldiers, riding back to their positions, seemed somewhat fewer. His trumpeter lay dead and trampled.
That, thought the commander, could have been me. To see better, he clambered onto a wagon whose horses were down. The driver lay back on one of the flour sacks he'd been hauling, a broadheaded arrow through his neck; the amount of blood was startling. Ahead and behind, the road was blocked by wagons. Many of their horses were down. He hissed an expletive. The sound horses would have to be unhitched, used to pull the dead and down animals out of the way, then assembled into new teams. Wagons without teams would have to be pulled from the road. Meanwhile the raiders...
The hive-mind recording stopped abruptly with a brief shocking pain exploding in the commander's neck, presumably from an arrow. Some ylf had stayed behind, concealed. To kill a voitu was worth more than killing a hundred hithar. It was worth dying for.
Lips thinned, Kurqôsz withdrew his attention from the hive mind. And that, he told himself, was one of their less successful raids. "How was this allowed to happen?" he asked.
"I do not know," the communicator answered. "Two companies of cavalry had passed down this road half an hour earlier, with scouts out on both flanks. At that time there were no raiders within two hundred yards of the road."
How does the enemy know where to be? Can there be spies among my hithar? But even if there are, how could they communicate what they know? Kurqôsz shook off what could only be another useless chain of unanswerable questions.
He looked around the table. "This column," he said, "was twice the size of any earlier column, with three companies of cavalry protecting it. Otherwise it would have been worse. We make adjustments, then they do. What we need to do is predict correctly how they will adjust, and take advantage of it. And make adjustments of our own that will bring predictable responses. Work on it!
"So far we have lost more than five hundred men dead or disabled, while finding eighty-six enemy dead and only twenty-seven wounded. They take their wounded with them whenever possible, and no doubt some of them die later. But the ratio of our losses to theirs is nonetheless unacceptable.
"Meanwhile, the construction of freight sleighs is proceeding. On snow they are much faster, and require fewer horses per ton of freight. But that is not a solution."
An officer raised a hand. "Yes, Neszkal?" Kurqôsz said.
"One solution might be to attack across the Deep River, and drive the enemy all the way back into the Western Empire."
The crown prince stared long at him, but answered mildly. "The ylver troubling us," he said, "are already living and operating behind our lines. If we advance farther, we will simply provide them with more room to maneuver, while requiring much longer hauls to supply our forward positions. No, that is not a solution."
He examined the officer thoughtfully. "I hereby assign you to produce a new strategy and tactics. Discuss your thoughts with General Orovisz. I want your analysis by tomorrow midday, and it must be more intelligent than the suggestion you just made." The crown prince paused before adding: "Your analysis. Do not abdicate the responsibility to someone else."
Kurqôsz's gaze held the officer for another moment before finishing. "And if I'm not satisfied, I will send you out with a supply train, for firsthand experience."
He looked around the table. "Now to go on to another matter. At breakfast I was informed that a force of dwarves, estimated at a brigade or more, was crossing the Pomatik River, as if to move up the Merrawin. Apparently they are not aware that we have powerful forces a few days north.
"Intelligence has interrogated knowledgeable captives, and one of the subjects explored has been the dwarves. They are considered dangerous fighters, and other nations prefer to trade with them, rather than fight them. At Colroi I decided to adopt the same policy. But unfortunately, our ignorance of Vismearc's political geography has made an enemy of them, and they have proven formidable.
"However, in the Merrawin Valley they do not have the advantageous terrain they had in the south. Also, they are on foot and short-legged, thus we have an immense advantage in mobility and freedom of maneuver. Just now they are in hilly terrain with considerable forest cover, but within two or three days they will reach country that is open and mostly flat. I have already ordered General Trumpko to send a battalion of cavalry and an infantry division, to engage and destroy them. The cavalry will arrive first, and harass them till the infantry arrives. Then decisive action will be taken.
"Incidentally, the dwarves are said not to have pikemen; a remarkable and serious lack. If the result is what I expect, this will be an extremely important victory for us. We will have wiped out an army which has enormous prestige in Vismearc.
"As support, I have ordered Prince Chithqôsz and his circle to accompany Trumpko's force. The dwarven trade embassy at Colroi seemed quite unaffected by our use of monsters and panic storms, but they may be susceptible to concealment screens. We will see."
Again he looked them over. "If any of you have questions or suggestions, now is the time to voice them. Before we discuss longer term prospects, and I assign further tasks."
* * *
That autumn, during the Tigers' preparations for the expedition, the Cloister's teams of textile and garment makers had given their full efforts to preparing "rakutik uniforms." The actual rakutik uniforms they had as models were woolen, and presumably worn in winter. But the jackets were inadequate for living and fighting in the field in winter, and no one knew what their heavy field coats looked like, or even if they had any.
Macurdy had told the Sisters in charge to do the best they could. With his guidance, they created a winter coat design of their own—knee-length and fleece-lined, with large side pockets for gauntleted winter gloves. The exterior design and color resembled those of the autumn jackets.
They exercised the same creativity in producing winter caps—fleece-lined with ear flaps. The Tigers would wear fleece-lined versions of their own boots, and new, fur-lined mittens.
It wasn't as if they were going to stand inspection by the voitik crown prince, Macurdy thought.
Production took time, and he wanted his Tigers in action. So when they'd left the Cloister, only four companies of the 1st Cohort—what Macurdy called a "short cohort"—had been dressed as rakutur. The fifth company, still wearing Tiger uniforms, had been reassigned to the 2nd Cohort.
* * *
When they reached the confluence of the Pomatik River's Middle and North Forks, Macurdy sent the 2nd Cohort, six companies strong, west to the confluence of the Merrawin, with now full Colonel Horgent commanding.
Through the great ravens, he'd learned that the Asmehri scouts, and the Kullvordi and Kormehri, had reached ylvin lines. The Ozian Heroes would soon follow. He ordered them all to remain with the ylvin army, west of the Deep River, till people from Cyncaidh's raiders could brief them on their tactics and experiences. Finn Greatsword had cajoled a second company of Asmehri out of the wofhemst. Both companies were providing roadblocking teams, half using axes, the rest protecting them.
The 2nd Tiger Cohort arrived at the town of West Fork on the same day as the lead unit of dwarves. T
he river was thickly ice-covered now. Rather than cross where the dwarves planned to, Horgent led his force another few hours upstream, and crossed there by night. No snow had fallen since the river had frozen, so they left no conspicuous tracks on the ice.
On the other side, they disappeared into the forest. Horgent had his orders and four great ravens. He looked forward to what a Tiger would think of as the experience of a lifetime.
* * *
Two days farther east, Macurdy's short cohort had crossed before dawn, at the confluence of the North Fork, and headed north. For a day and a half they rode through rough, mostly wooded country, neither pushing their horses nor dawdling, and saw no one. Then they entered the fertile, gently undulating North Fork Plain.
Over the next two days they saw some furtive civilians, but no military personnel. Not one. The country had been razed, as if a large force had ranged south to loot and burn, and kill anyone they met. But the job had not been thorough. Humans, and perhaps some ylvin mixed bloods who could pass, had moved back into villages and towns only partly destroyed. Macurdy and his Tigers had spoken to none of them; their speech would give them away as not rakutur. At night they'd rousted people roughly from their shelters, slept in them, then left at first dawn.