At the Sign of Triumph

by David Weber

  But 3rd Company had carried the brunt of 4th Battalion’s advance ever since the Dohlaran positions around Atlyn had collapsed. Mahkgavysk’s casualties had been significant over that fifty-mile distance, so when the Dohlarans on that hill demonstrated that they meant to be difficult, Major Edmyndsyn had pulled 3rd Company back and given the job of clearing it to Captain Zohannsyn.

  So now it’s our turn, Ahldyrs told himself as he reached the base of the hill himself and started up it, fifteen yards behind his leading squad.

  * * *

  Rifles began to flash and crack in the darkness as Lieutenant Tyrnyr slid into his waiting lizardhole. He doubted like hell that any of his riflemen could actually see what they thought they were shooting at, but they might be able to. And at least those barking rifle shots demonstrated that some of 1st Section’s men were still alive and in action.

  “Give ’em hell, boys!” he screamed. “Give ’em hell! Twenty minutes—we have to hold them for twenty minutes!”

  He might as well have asked for twenty years, he told himself bitterly. The regimental reserve was supposed to reach 2nd Company’s positions within twenty minutes of a serious heretic attack, but that was in daylight.

  And when there are no Shan-wei-damned heretics in the way, he added bitterly as he heard a sudden outbreak of riflefire from his extreme left.

  He stood upright in his lizardhole, craning his neck, and cursed viciously as the blinding rakurai of muzzle flashes swept across the roadway north of Seventy-Foot Hill. More riflefire flared and flashed farther down the hill, its deadly beauty marking the firing lines of 2nd Company’s other platoons, but the heretics had already cut the road. Now that flank of their attack was wheeling away from the hill. The bastards were settling in between 2nd Company and the rest of the regiment, and—

  Something sizzled past his left ear and he dropped back down into the hole, punching its side with a despairing fist. If the heretics succeeded in cutting that road, or even simply prevented the reserve from using it.…

  * * *

  First Platoon swept up the slope in a grim, purposeful wave without firing a single shot to pinpoint its men in the dark.

  Unlike any other army—even the RDA, which had become one of the best armies in Safeholdian history—the Imperial Charisian Army very seldom told its junior officers how to do their jobs. It trained them exhaustively, taught them a common doctrine, put them through the most demanding field problems it could come up with. But when it came to actually using that training, it told them what they were supposed to do, not how. They were responsible for understanding their superiors’ intentions and then accomplishing them. In the process, they were supposed to think for themselves and be perfectly willing to adapt, improvise, and overcome as they went along, and those same expectations extended downward to their sergeants, corporals, and even privates.

  That was why the ICA was prepared to attack even in darkness, when no other army could risk the loss of cohesion—the loss of control—night attacks entailed. Few of their opponents—not even Allayn Maigwair, who’d turned out to be a far better military thinker than anyone in Charis would have believed before the Charisians encountered the Army of God—truly understood that. To them, loss of control equaled chaos, and the Temple Guard had understood long before anyone ever heard of the Army of God that no organized force was ever outnumbered by a disorganized mob. But 1st Platoon, 4th Company, 8th Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade, Imperial Charisian Army, wasn’t disorganized. It was simply decentralized into its individual squads … and the farthest thing from a mob imaginable.

  “Keep moving! Keep moving!” Corporal Zherald Tohmys bellowed as the blinding blink lizards of Dohlaran riflefire sparkled against the black backdrop of the hillside. He reached out, grabbed Haarahld Kyngsfyrd’s web gear, and dragged the stumbling 3rd Squad private back up off his knees. “Climb the frigging hill, damn it! Don’t kiss it!”

  Ahead of him, the first grenades exploded.

  * * *

  “On the left!” someone screamed. “They’re coming up on the—!”

  The warning died, turned into a keening wail of agony in the ear-shattering explosion of a heretic hand-bomb.

  The hillside was a hellscape of darkness stabbed through by lightning bolts of riflefire, thunderclaps of grenades, shouts of warning, or command, or simple fury.

  Second Platoon was dying, but it was dying hard, and Ahmbrohs Tyrnyr swung towards the warning shout, bringing up the revolver he’d taken from a dead heretic in a two-handed grip and cocking the hammer. He had only twenty cartridges for it, but while they lasted …

  There! He saw movement, a shape silhouetted against the flickering glare of explosions and muzzle flashes. A shape that was moving, when every one of his men knew to stay put in his lizardhole in the dark—that the rest of the platoon would assume anyone who wasn’t in his hole was a heretic.

  The revolver roared, and he’d remembered the first rule of a firefight in the dark and closed his eyes the instant before the trigger broke to avoid the blinding eruption of his own muzzle flash. He opened them again, just as quickly, and saw another shape moving to the left of the first. Or maybe it was the first, and he’d missed. It didn’t matter. He swung the muzzle, cocked the hammer, squeezed. The revolver thundered again, and he reopened his eyes, searching desperately for another target, knowing his muzzle flashes had marked his position for any heretic in the vicinity.

  Something moved at the corner of his vision. He twisted towards it, bringing the revolver around, lifting the muzzle, and grunted in explosive agony as the fourteen-inch bayonet drove all the way through his left shoulder. He slammed back against the rear wall of his lizardhole and squeezed the trigger.

  The range was less than three feet. The bullet struck its target with almost eight-hundred-foot-pounds of energy, and a deeper, more personal darkness smashed the lieutenant under as the man he’d just killed toppled into the lizardhole and a steel helmet hit him in the face like a piledriver.

  .XII.

  Army of the Seridahn HQ,

  Kraisyr,

  Duchy of Thorast,

  Kingdom of Dohlar.

  “How bad is it, Fahstyr?” Pairaik Metzlyr’s voice was very quiet.

  He stood with Sir Fahstyr Rychtyr, Colonel Ahskar Mohrtynsyn, and General Clyftyn Rahdgyrz in the office Rychtyr had appropriated from the town of Kraisyr’s mayor, staring down at the map covering the mayor’s desk. There was no one else in the office—at the moment—but urgent voices could be heard through its open door and no doubt another of the general’s clerks would turn up momentarily with fresh tidings of disaster.

  “I’m afraid it’s about as bad as it gets, Father,” Rychtyr said heavily.

  He kept his own voice down, for the same reason his intendant had, but his gray eyes met Metzlyr’s gaze without flinching. Then he straightened, running one hand through his graying, sandy hair and sighed.

  “They’ve not only cut the road, they’ve taken both the Saiksyn Farm and Cahrswyl’s Farm,” he said, his worn face grim. “That gives them control of the road from Cahrswyl’s to Kraisyr … and of the only solid ground between the road and the swamp.” He shook his head. “I can’t put the front back together, Father. Not before they cut the Waymeet-Fronzport High Road, anyway. And according to Brigadier Byrgair, their right flank’s less than ten miles from the Bryxtyn-Shan High Road right now.”

  “It may be that close, Sir, but it hasn’t reached the damned road yet,” General Rahdgyrz rasped. The one-armed general’s eyes—well, his left eye; the right one was covered by a black eye patch—was very dark in a lean, strong-nosed face.

  “No, no it hasn’t, Clyftyn,” Rychtyr agreed, smiling at the tall, narrow-shouldered general whose long black hair spilled down his back in a thick, old-fashioned braid. That braid was matched by a flowing beard that covered his chest, as if a stained-glass seijin from the War Against the Fallen had returned to take up his sword once more, and the image was more than skin deep.
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  Rahdgyrz had become Rychtyr’s ranking subordinate after Sir Ohtys Godwyl’s death in a Charisian bombardment, and Rychtyr had been prayerfully grateful for him more than once since then. They’d known one another for twenty-five years, since long before the Jihad, and if there was a braver man in all the world—or one more fiercely devoted to Mother Church—Sir Fahstyr Rychtyr had never met him. Rahdgyrz had been one of the first to volunteer for the initial, disastrous naval campaign, and he’d lost his right leg five inches below the knee aboard the galley Saint Taitys, fighting under the Earl of Thirsk in the battle of Crag Reach. That would have been sacrifice enough for most, but not for Clyftyn Rahdgyrz, who’d returned to field service as soon as he’d adjusted to his peg leg. He’d bulled through every objection, pointing out that he could still ride as well as he ever had and a general had no business fighting on foot, anyway! He’d gotten his way—he generally did … and lost his left arm above the elbow under Sir Rainos Ahlverez at Alyksberg. He’d only been invalided for about three months that time, rejoining the field army before Thesmar just after Ahlverez marched off to Desnairian-engineered disaster in the Kyplyngyr Forest, and he’d fought like a great dragon when Hanth counterattacked out of Thesmar. And, as always seemed to happen, he’d been wounded yet again. This time, he’d been out of action for less than a month … but he’d returned to his command without the vision of his right eye.

  And to Sir Fahstyr Rychtyr’s knowledge, he’d never complained a single time about the wounds he’d sustained in God’s service. There was a reason Rychtyr’s army called Clyftyn Rahdgyrz “the Slash Lizard,” and the general had never failed him.

  “The heretics haven’t reached it yet,” Rychtyr said now, “but they’re damned close.” He tapped the map with his forefinger. “Brynygair’s brigade’s done incredibly well to slow them as much as it has, and I know he’s got some terrain to work with. But it’s only a matter of time, and not much of that.”

  “I’ve already sent Gairwyl and Klunee to support Brynygair,” Rahdgyrz said stubbornly, and it was his turn to tap the map with his remaining hand. “You’re right about the terrain, too. I know the woods aren’t all that thick, and most of the rivers are barely creeks, now that we’re into summer. But the Chydor’s still running deep, and Brynygair has the fords covered. Once Gairwyl, especially, closes up to the river, he’ll squeeze every ounce of advantage out of anything he has to work with, and I can have two more regiments up to support them within … six hours, at the outside.”

  “I know you can—I know you would, and you’d be standing at their heads, sword in hand.” Rychtyr squeezed the general’s shoulder. “Just like I know your men would fight like dragons for you. But I need them—and you, you old slash lizard!—alive. I know every one of you would die in your tracks, but the best you could do would be to slow them down for maybe two days. Every hour more than that would require a separate miracle, and you know it.”

  “But—” Rahdgyrz began, his expression mulish, but Metzlyr raised a hand, and the general closed his mouth on whatever he’d been about to say.

  “If you can’t keep them from cutting the road, what do you intend to do now, Fahstyr?” The intendant laid one hand on Rychtyr’s forearm. “I’m not trying to paint you into any corners, my son, and I know right now your thoughts have to be with your men. But I’ve come to know you pretty well, and I’m sure you were already thinking about your options in the face of this sort of disaster.”

  “There’s only one thing we can do, Father,” Rychtyr told him with bleak honesty. “We have to fall back, and not just a few miles this time. The terrain along the canal between Waymeet and Shandyr’s too open, too flat, and the heretics are too mobile. For that matter, there are too many of these damned farm roads, and Langhorne knows their mounted infantry’s too damned good at finding its way along them. I need to fall back far enough to build a defensible front again—probably between Duhnsmyr Forest and Kaiylee’s Woods.”

  Metzlyr nodded in understanding, although his expression was deeply troubled. Rychtyr was talking about a sixty-mile retreat, and the thought of giving that much ground was … unpleasant.

  But the general wasn’t done yet.

  “And,” he added unflinchingly, “I need to evacuate Bryxtyn and Waymeet … assuming there’s still time.”

  “Evacuate?” Rahdgyrz’ eye widened. “Those are fortresses, Sir! We can’t just hand them over to the heretics!”

  “We can’t keep the heretics from simply taking them anytime they decide to, Clyftyn,” Rychtyr replied. “For that matter, they don’t even need to take them. Waymeet blocks the junction of the Sheryl-Seridahn Canal and the Sairhalik Switch Canal, but now that the heretics have Canal Bank Farm—” he tapped another point on the map, thirty-five miles south of Waymeet “—they’ve already cut the Switch. Besides, they aren’t using the damned canals now, anyway! Holding the city won’t deprive them of any significant strategic or logistic advantage, and Bryxtyn isn’t even on one of the canals. Yes, they’re both fortresses, but they were designed against the old-style Siddarmarkian army, against someone without new model Charisian artillery or Charisian logistics. In terms of importance to the Jihad, they’re really only names on a map now. But General Iglaisys has seven thousand men in Bryxtyn and General Symyngtyn has ten thousand in Waymeet. Between them, that’s seventeen thousand, and we were down to barely forty-five thousand before the heretics’ most recent attack. If we leave them where they are, they’re useless to the Jihad. If Iglaisys and Symyngtyn pull back—if they can pull back, get out before the heretics cut the high roads behind them—they’ll increase our available field force by almost forty percent.” He shook his head. “Believe me, they’ll be a lot more valuable to the Jihad in the field with us than sitting behind old-fashioned stone walls that won’t last two five-days against Hanth’s artillery.”

  “Sir, I swear we can bleed them before they cut the high road!” Rahdgyrz’ tone was respectful, but his dismay was obvious and his expression was almost desperate. “You’re right, my boys’ll die where they stand if I ask ’em to! And if we can’t stand and fight for major fortresses, where can we stand?”

  “Clyftyn, we will fight—we are fighting,” Rychtyr said. “A wise man doesn’t pick a fight he can’t win, though, and when they broke our front, they broke our lateral communications behind it. That means they can transfer forces, shift their weight, faster than we can. Shan-wei! They could do that before, given how many mounted infantry and dragoons have reinforced Hanth! They can just do it even faster now, and from Brynygair’s dispatch, they’d started doing exactly that even before they cut the Cahrswyl’s Farm Road.”

  Rychtyr shook his head, his eyes unhappy but his expression resolute.

  “Yes, we can bleed them before they actually cut the high road. And with you in command on that flank, we could probably inflict a lot more casualties than we took, especially in that kind of terrain. But they have the men to absorb those casualties; we don’t. It’s that simple. And that’s the very reason I need to pull those garrisons out, add them to our field strength. Our best guess is that Hanth has close to eighty thousand, maybe even ninety thousand men, and he’s got more mounted strength than we do even proportionately, much less in absolute terms. I need the additional manpower, and I need someplace I can anchor my flanks on natural obstacles again. And that’s here.”

  His forefinger stabbed a point west of the city of Shandyr.

  Rahdgyrz glowered down at the map, and Metzlyr gripped his pectoral scepter as he stepped up closer beside the general and gazed down at it, as well. But then, finally, the intendant inhaled sharply and looked back up once more.

  “I very much fear you’re right … again, my son,” he told Rychtyr. “I don’t like giving so much ground, especially when your army’s fought so magnificently this long. But neither do I want to see that army cut down in a battle that can’t stop the heretics, anyway. Godly men should always be prepared to die in His service … but not whe
n they know their deaths will accomplish nothing.”

  “You’ll support the evacuation of Bryxtyn and Waymeet, Father?” Rychtyr asked softly, and Metzlyr nodded.

  “Even that, my son.” He produced a rather twisted smile. “I suspect a few people in Gorath won’t be very happy with us, but your logic’s compelling. In fact, if you concur, I’ll recommend that as many troops as possible be combed out of the Kingdom’s other fortresses and sent to us, as well. As you say, they can accomplish little sitting behind stone walls the heretics can either avoid or blast to pieces.”

  Rahdgyrz’ single remaining eye was desperately unhappy as he looked back and forth between his commander and the intendant, and Rychtyr squeezed his shoulder again.

  “I know you don’t agree with me on this one, Clyftyn, but I need you to go back out there and fight like Chihiro himself for me again. Buy me as much time as you can. You said you could bleed them? Do it! Cost them every casualty you can, slow them up any way you can think of. Hold that road open until Iglaisys and the Bryxtyn garrison can break clear, but don’t get yourself tied down in a fight to the finish! I’m not sure Iglaisys can get his men out of the city and join us at this late a date anyway, and if he can’t, I don’t want to lose your men—or you—reinforcing failure. You’ve got to promise me you won’t set your teeth into the heretics and hold on too long. Can you do that for me? Will you do that for me?”

  “Of course I will, Sir.” Rahdgyrz’ voice was hoarse, but he met Rychtyr’s gaze levelly. “You can count on me and my boys. As Langhorne’s my witness, we’ll still be standing on that damned road when Iglaisys’ rearguard marches past us!”

  “I’m sure you will be, Clyftyn.” Rychtyr gripped both of the taller Rahdgyrz’ shoulders and shook him gently. “I’m sure you will. Just be damned sure you get back to me without losing any more body parts, understand?”