At the Sign of Triumph

by David Weber

  I wish to hell he’d never come up with his damned realization that a tactical defense could be the best strategic offense, but it probably would’ve been expecting too much for someone as smart as he is not to realize that. I can actually accept that. But did the insufferable pain in the arse really have to be able to convince his entire damned army of that? That’s just a little much.

  Whatever else might happen, the new-model Mighty Host was most unlikely to simply shatter. It was far more probable that it would conduct a tough, resilient fighting withdrawal along the routes Rainbow Waters’ commanders had already surveyed and marked on their maps. The kind of fighting withdrawal that would get a lot of Charisians and Siddarmarkians killed. Kynt Clareyk couldn’t help admiring a commander who could overcome the prejudices of his birth—and the inveterate, hard learned distrust of serfs who’d been abused for centuries by people from families just like his—sufficiently to create that kind of fighting force out of the functionally illiterate men who’d been conscripted for the Mighty Host, but he sure as hell didn’t need to like the consequences.

  And that was why he was so happy Nahrmahn’s suggestion appeared to have worked out so well. By the time the Allied offensive actually kicked off, Gustyv Walkyr’s AOG divisions, supported by perhaps a hundred and fifty thousand Border State levees, would have sole responsibility for almost nine hundred miles of the Church’s front, from the southern end of the Great Tarikah Forest all the way to the northern end of the Black Wyvern Mountains. His men would be “corseted” on either side by Harchongians, but they represented an undeniable soft spot in the Church’s defenses. One the Allies thoroughly intended to exploit, and he felt a powerful surge of eagerness to be about it. He fully expected the upcoming campaign to be the bloodiest—from the Charisian side, at least—they’d yet fought. But he also expected it to be decisive, despite the worst Taychau Daiyang could do, and if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be because he and his fellows hadn’t planned for every contingency they could think of.

  The canals were thawing, the ICN’s ironclads—including the original Delthaks—would soon be free to operate along the rivers and canals in the armies’ rear, and the first steam-powered canal barges would be available as soon as the ice melted. Hsing-wu’s Passage would be navigable within another three or four five-days, as well, and the Navy was waiting impatiently. Both its galleons and another half dozen City-class ironclads were ready to push into the Passage the instant they possibly could with orders to take, burn, or destroy any attempt to move seaborne supplies. And when there weren’t any of those supplies to interdict, they could amuse themselves raiding the Temple coastal shipping cowering under the threadbare protection of the protective batteries in the larger bays and inlets along the Passage’s flanks.

  Like Eastshare, he was thoroughly unhappy about the new rockets Lynkyn Fultyn had devised to supplement the Church’s artillery. For that matter, he was less than enthralled by the proliferation of field guns, angle-guns, and first-generation mortars appearing in the Mighty Host of God and the Archangels’ artillery parks now that the Church’s foundries were producing good quality steel in quantity. Still, his own artillery was stronger—in absolute terms, certainly and probably even relatively in comparison to the Temple’s—than the year before, and the small arms situation was highly satisfactory. Virtually all of his Charisian infantry had been equipped with the M96 magazine-fed rifle, and over half of the Republic’s infantry had been reequipped with Trapdoor Mahndrayns, a third of which had been converted right here in Siddarmark. Sandarah Lywys Composition D-filled shells were actually a little ahead of schedule, although he still wouldn’t have them in time for the campaign’s opening moves, and almost a third of his infantry’s rifle ammunition was now smokeless, which would probably come as a nasty surprise to the Temple.

  The Republic’s manufactories had recovered almost completely from the dislocations of the Sword of Schueler, and their production was climbing nicely, as well. Siddarmark-built versions of Charisian-designed weapons—and even innovations which owed nothing at all to Charis—were beginning to make their way onto the battlefield in ever increasing numbers. Green Valley was delighted by the increase in weapons production, but he was even more delighted—for a lot of reasons—that Siddarmark was clearly catching what Merlin called the “innovation bug.” And in this case, one of those reasons was Ahntahn Sykahrelli.

  Sykahrelli, an artificer in a Midhold Province manufactory before the Sword of Schueler, had enlisted in the Republic of Siddarmark Army before the first Charisian Marine’s boot ever touched a Siddar City dock. Since then, he’d risen from the enlisted ranks to the rank of major and put his technical background to good use as an artillerist. He’d seen a lot of action in the process. He’d been only a sergeant in the Sylmahn Gap Campaign, but he’d also assumed acting command of his battery after every one of its officers had been killed or wounded, and that battery had been the lynchpin of the final gun line which had held the line at Serabor with its teeth and fingernails until Green Valley could move to Trumyn Stohnar’s relief. He’d commanded the remnants of no less than three batteries, with almost enough men to have fully crewed one, by the end of that bloody night, and he’d come out of it with a battlefield promotion to captain and the Cross of Courage, the Republic’s highest award for valor.

  It wasn’t too surprising that a man with his experience had understood the implications immediately when he was briefed on the new Temple rockets. But he’d also been inspired, and—taking advantage of the better propellants and, especially, the Lywysite his Charisian allies could provide—he’d produced a man-portable rocket of his own. The initial version was actually light enough to have been shoulder-fired, if there’d been some way to protect its user from the back blast. Green Valley felt confident a solution to that problem would be found eventually—if Sykahrelli didn’t come up with one, no doubt the Delthak Works would be “inspired” to—but in the meantime, he’d up-sized it a bit and turned it into a crew-served weapon whose portability and devastating punch offered all sorts of possibilities. It would also be available in quantity, if not in the numbers Green Valley would have liked, and neither the Temple Boys nor the Harchongians were going to like that one little bit.

  No, he thought, bringing his eyes back from the maps to his superior, they aren’t. They won’t like the Balloon Corps or some of our other surprises, either. And I don’t give a damn what the other side’s come up with. End of the day, our boys will kick their arses up one side and down the other. We may lose a lot of good men along the way, but this year, by God—this year—we end this frigging war.

  “All right, Bryahn,” he told his aide. “Now that you’ve got us properly ensconced, cups in hand, august posteriors parked in our chairs, donut crumbs covering our tunics, why don’t you begin with a quick overview of our current deployment? After that, I think a detailed review of Rainbow Waters’ most recent adjustments at Ayaltyn and Sairmeet are probably in order.”

  He cocked an inquiring eyebrow at Eastshare, and the duke nodded.

  “That sounds like an excellent place to start,” he agreed. “But first, I understand your patrols have brought back some examples of a new footstool the Harchongians have deployed?”

  “Yes, they have,” Green Valley confirmed rather less cheerfully. “It’s actually more of a foot stool crossed with a sweeper though.”

  “A sweeper?” Eastshare cocked his head. “From the initial reports, I was thinking they were more like fountains,” he said, using the ICA’s term for the “bounding” mines Charis had fielded a couple of years earlier, and Green Valley scowled.

  He’d hated the fountains even when Charis had held a monopoly on them, but they’d been too useful not to be utilized at a time when the ICA was so desperately outnumbered.

  “I can see where you might’ve gotten that impression,” he said, “but they don’t seem to’ve figured out how to make them launch themselves. Instead, they’ve come up with a sort of domed footsto
ol with a hundred or so old-style musket balls embedded in a ‘roof’ of pitch and resin. When the charge goes, it sprays the musket balls directionally in a cone. It might be more accurate to call the pattern a hemisphere I suppose, though, now that I think about it.” He shrugged. “Either way, the things are going to be a major pain in the arse.”

  Eastshare made a less than delighted sound of agreement. Like Green Valley, he’d always recognized the consequences of introducing a weapon like the footstools. He’d even considered objecting to their use, but no commander worthy of his men could refuse to embrace such a potentially effective weapon when those men were going to be outnumbered a hundred-to-one … or more. And they’d been enormously useful. In fact, they’d probably been the decisive factor—or at least one of the decisive factors—in his ability to stop Cahnyr Kaitswyrth’s advance after Kaitswyrth massacred Mahrtyn Taisyn and his men. But the wyvern he’d worried about seemed to be coming home to roost, although at least Green Valley had insisted on devising a doctrine for dealing with footstools—sweeping them, he called it—at the same time he’d come up with one to employ them offensively. It was a slow and dangerous process, however, and that, unfortunately, would favor the Mighty Host more than the Allies in the upcoming campaign. Anything that clogged Allied mobility—and especially the mobility of Charis’ mounted infantry—had to be considered a good thing from Rainbow Waters’ perspective.

  “Well, I can’t say I’m happy to hear that,” he observed. “We knew it was coming eventually, though. And at least your boys’ve made sure it doesn’t surprise us. That’s something. In fact, that’s a lot! Your scout snipers brought it in, Kynt?”

  “Yes.” Green Valley nodded, then smiled. “I can’t help suspecting Rainbow Waters probably didn’t want them laid quite this early. He knows how active our patrols are, and he’s too smart to not want to surprise us with it.”

  “A local commander trying to be sure he gets them in before you jump him, you think?”

  “That’s exactly what I think.”

  In fact, Green Valley knew that was what had happened. And while he was grateful for the warning, he could wish Rainbow Waters hadn’t engendered enough independence of mind in his frontline commanders to make something like this possible. The “seijins” could have “discovered” the new weapon’s existence in ample time to plan for the upcoming campaign. In fact, the report had already been written when the scout snipers quietly dug up an actual example and brought it in for examination. In a lot of ways, he would have preferred to rely on the seijins rather than face an army whose officers had learned the value of initiative … and who weren’t afraid of their superiors’ wrath if they got caught exercising that initiative, even against orders.

  “Well, thank Andropov for small favors!” Eastshare said philosophically, then leaned back in his chair and waved a donut with a bite taken out of it at the captain standing, pointer in hand, in front of the huge map of Tarikah Province.

  “I apologize for the interruption, Captain Slokym,” he said. “I’ll try to keep my mouth shut until you get through your initial briefing.” He smiled crookedly. “And I’ll also try to remember how much I always hated being interrupted by monumentally senior officers when it was my turn to do the briefing.”

  “I promise you, Your Grace,” Slokym said solemnly, “that such an ignoble thought would never cross my mind.”

  “Junior officers who lie to generals come to bad ends,” Eastshare remarked to no one in particular, his eyes carefully fixed upon the ceiling.

  “I believe I’ve heard that, Your Grace,” Slokym said and laid the tip of his pointer on the town of Ayaltyn.

  “To begin, Sir,” he said in a much more serious tone, “the Harchongians have been thickening the overhead cover on their bunkers here at Ayaltyn, and if they’re doing it here, they’re probably doing the same thing everywhere else, as well. We suspect that’s the result of more of those tests Captain of Horse Rungwyn and Lord of Foot Zhyngbau have been conducting.” He grimaced. “Whatever inspired it, it’s going to make them harder artillery targets when we launch our attack. Unfortunately, we’re still going to need the river line, and that means dealing with Ayaltyn somehow. That’s why we’ve moved the Fourth Mounted around to the west and given Brigadier Tymkyn two extra battalions of M97 field guns and a hundred or so of Major Sykharelli’s new rockets, plus a company of mounted engineers with demolition charges and the new flamethrowers. In addition, we’ve—”

  His pointer moved again as he spoke briskly, confidently, without ever consulting the notepad in his pocket, and High General Ruhsyl Thairis, Duke of Eastshare, cocked his head and listened intently.

  JUNE

  YEAR OF GOD 898

  .I.

  City of Zion,

  The Temple Lands.

  The Wednesday wind blowing sharply off Lake Pei spread the voices of Zion’s thousands upon thousands of bells all across the City of God on Safehold. They sang their ageless song of God’s love for His creation and His children on this, His day, and that song was more welcome than ever in these times of worry and despair. It promised His people comfort and ultimate victory, whatever temporary reverses His servants here in the world might suffer. It would be God’s Day, the highest holy day of the year, in only two more five-days, and the entire city was already bedecking streets and buildings with banners, spring flowers, and icons of the Archangels and Holy Martyrs while its hundreds of churches and cathedrals purified and reconsecrated themselves in anticipation of that joyous celebration. After April’s terrible news from the Gulf of Dohlar and May’s dreary, late-spring snows, His people needed that promise, that confirmation that they truly were His and that He would never forget them.

  The wind spreading that joyous music across the city was brisk enough to strike a chill even in the bright June sunlight, but the picked bodyguard of Temple Guardsmen and agents inquisitor made a brave show as they waited on the immaculate, marble-faced quay consecrated to the Temple’s use, like an island of snow-white sanctity on the bustling Zion waterfront. Polished armor and the silver-plated heads of the halberds the Guard still carried on ceremonial occasions flashed back the sun, which gleamed less brilliantly from the burnished barrels of far more businesslike rifles and pistols. Banners snapped above them—Mother Church’s green-and-gold and the flame-badged purple of the Inquisition.

  Wyllym Rayno had been scheduled to join them, but the Grand Inquisitor had decreed otherwise at the last minute. Probably, Rayno thought, watching through a parapet-mounted spyglass from the Temple Annex roof, because for all the pomp and ceremony, Zhaspahr Clyntahn was less than pleased with the man those guards were there to escort directly to his first audience. Rayno couldn’t be certain that was why his own agenda had been changed. He only knew his new instructions had been waiting when he’d emerged from the Temple side chapel dedicated to the Archangel Schueler after celebrating his own Wednesday mass. On the other hand, he did know it would have been like his superior to “send a message” to the Inquisitor General by deliberately changing Rayno’s itinerary to snub Edwyrds only after making certain the Inquisitor General had received his own copy of it. After all, if he hadn’t received his copy first, he wouldn’t have known he was being snubbed, would he?

  Petty of Zhaspahr, but it does get his feelings across, doesn’t it? the archbishop mused, deflecting the spyglass from the bodyguards to the vessel still the better part of two miles out from the waterfront. Like so much else of the Temple, that spyglass was a holy relic, finer than anything mortal hands could make, with lenses that were water-clear and powerful. Now he turned the focusing knob until the boat leapt into crystalline clarity, only an arm’s length away despite the distance, and smiled as he saw spray bursting white on the purple-bannered schooner’s weather bow.

  It must be chilly out there—among other things—in the boat bouncing in the steep, choppy waves. The thought amused him, since Inquisitor General Wylbyr’s vulnerability to motion sickness was well known and h
e wasn’t exactly basking in the esteem of the Inquisition’s adjutant at the moment, either.

  Of course, Rayno thought, moving the spyglass slowly and delicately in hopes of finding a green-faced Edwyrds leaning over the lee rail, we’ll have to project all of that approval and brotherly love very publicly before we send him back. What I’d like to do is to replace him with someone with a clue, but that would mean someone who’d recognize the need to … moderate the enforcement of Zhaspahr’s directives, and that probably wouldn’t work out any better in the end. Somebody willing to do that might actually at least slow the bleeding, but he’d be lucky to last three five-days before Zhaspahr yanked him home to face the Punishment himself.

  The frown that crossed the archbishop’s face was far more worried than he would have permitted himself in front of witnesses. Clyntahn was digging in ever more deeply on his demand that the least sign of heresy be immediately punished. He might still recognize the need to show at least some moderation here in Zion and in the Temple Lands generally, but even that was eroding as he became more and more determined to yield not a single inch more ground. And whatever he was willing to concede here, he insisted upon a complete crackdown on anything that even might be a sign of heresy in the portion of Siddarmark still occupied by Mother Church’s forces and even—or perhaps especially—in the Border States, where the looming threat of heretic invasion, with its suggestion that the heretics might actually be winning their blasphemous war, threatened the faith of Mother Church’s children.