At the Sign of Triumph

by David Weber

  “It could be far worse, My Lord,” Captain of Horse Kaishau Hywanlohng, Silken Hills’ chief of staff replied. “Everything we have is still very preliminary, of course.” The captain of horse shrugged. “We’ve gotten a couple of wyvern messages from Earl Red Sun that give at least some detail, but we haven’t heard anything yet from the other commanders in the Gap.”

  “Probably one reason the motherless demon-worshipers like to attack in the Shan-wei-damned dark, when the semaphore’s useless,” Silken Hills growled, and Hywanlohng nodded. He didn’t doubt that was a major part of the heretics’ predilection for night assaults, although he’d come to the conclusion it was only a part of the reason.

  The chief of staff was a hard-bitten professional, who’d served in the Harchongese Army for a quarter century before the Jihad, and he’d been deeply impressed by the way the IHA’s standard of training had leapt upwards under commanders like Earl Rainbow Waters … and Earl Silken Hills, to give him his due. He was also realist enough to recognize how huge a debt the Mighty Host owed to its AOG mentors, as well as to the manufactories pouring out the weapons with which it had been armed. By his most conservative estimate, the Mighty Host of today was at least ten or fifteen times as dangerous, on a man-for-man basis, as it had been. Yet for all its improvements, the Imperial Harchongese Army remained a far less … limber weapon than the Imperial Charisian Army. The heretics fought at night because they trained to fight at night. Because they embraced the darkness, moving through it with a fluid assurance Earl Silken Hills’ infantry simply couldn’t match. It was the same sort of small-unit capability which made heretic patrols so much more dangerous than the Mighty Host’s.

  “Whatever their logic, My Lord,” he said out loud, “it looks like it will be sometime tomorrow morning before we get anything definitive from the bands south of Red Sun’s. From what he’s saying, though, it would appear High Mount’s decided he needs something a little more … methodical than the sorts of bombardments the Dohlarans have reported.”

  “He does?”

  Silken Hills cocked his head, one eyebrow rising, and Hywanlohng nodded. One thing about the earl, he reflected. Silken Hills was an aristocrat of the old school, with a fervor for the Jihad his chief of staff doubted the Grand Inquisitor himself could have improved upon, and he hated heresy—and heretics—with every fiber of his being. But it wasn’t an unthinking hatred. He actually listened to briefings, and he’d never been too proud to learn from his adversaries, however much he might despise them for their sins. He’d spent hours discussing the Dohlaran General Rychtyr’s reports with Hywanlohng and his senior subordinates, and given the nature of the anticipated assault, he’d paid special attention to Hanth’s use of his angle-guns.

  “Yes, My Lord. Earl Red Sun hasn’t reported any of Hanth’s … sophistication, for want of a better word. As of his last wyvern, the bombardment had been underway for over three hours, concentrated on no more than a couple of regiments’ frontage. Apparently, he’s really hammering those regiments, but it doesn’t sound like he’s spreading his fire very wide and Red Sun hasn’t seen any sign of the false breaks or other deception measures Hanth has employed. I can’t believe High Mount isn’t aware of how successful Hanth’s artillery tactics have been, so if he isn’t using them, there has to be a reason. And the only one I can think of is the difference between our fortifications and the Dohlarans’.”

  Silken Hills nodded slowly, rubbing his chin as he gazed down at the relief map his engineers had built for him. As a place to break through the barrier of the Snakes, the Tylmahn Gap was far superior to any other choice, but that wasn’t saying much. It might favor the defense less than winding lizard paths did, yet he was confident of his men’s ability to bleed the heretics badly when they attacked, no matter how much artillery they might have. And the fortifications the Southern Host had built were almost certainly deeper and stronger than anything Rychtyr might have had in his confrontation with the Army of Thesmar.

  “Treating it like a siege, is he?” the earl mused, still rubbing his chin.

  “That’s what it looks like so far, My Lord. But only so far,” Hywanlohng cautioned. “It’s much too early to decide definitively that that’s what he’s doing, I think. But it’s clearly a possibility. And the truth is that no one’s ever had to attack ‘fieldworks’ like the ones Captain of Horse Rungwyn’s designed. I know I damned well wouldn’t want to send in any assaults until I’d broken as many bunkers and dugouts as I could, first!”

  “Well, that’s one of the things Earl Rainbow Waters hoped might happen,” Silken Hills pointed out. “And unlike the northern end of the front, we don’t have any open flanks they can maneuver around with their frigging mounted infantry.” He snorted harshly. “Damned good thing we don’t, either, given how useless our own cavalry’s likely to be!”

  Another point in the earl’s favor, Hywanlohng thought. He was realistic—and honest—enough to step outside the aristocracy’s traditional contempt for infantry … and for anyone else’s cavalry, for that matter. The same reports which had detailed Hanth’s artillery tactics had described the effectiveness of his mounted infantry in terms which made it only too clear no Harchongese cavalry brigade could consider itself remotely the equal of its Charisian counterpart.

  Unfortunately, the one group of people apparently unable to recognize that fact were the Mighty Host’s cavalry commanders.

  “I’m sure High Mount can hardly wait to break those mounted brigades loose in our rear,” Silken Hills continued, “but first he’s got to get through our front, and we can afford a lot more casualties than he can.” The earl shrugged. “Add that to the way the bastards seem to be able to make shells and cannon breed like rabbits, and it probably makes a lot of sense—from his perspective—to use up as much ammunition as it takes to kick in the front gate for his infantry. If he can do that, he can damned well create flanks to work around, but first he’s got to do the kicking.”

  Hywanlohng nodded. It was pure speculation at this point, but it was logical speculation that fitted everything they definitely knew.

  “Shall I write up a dispatch for Earl Rainbow Waters tonight still, My Lord, or wait until we’ve heard from the other band commanders?”

  “He’s not going to be magically able to do anything about it whenever we tell him,” Silken Hills observed with a grunting laugh. “All we’d do sending him bits and pieces would be to convince him we’re a lot more nervous than he’d like us to be.” He shook his head. “Tomorrow morning—or even afternoon—will be soon enough.”

  * * *

  “Your chocolate, My Lord,” Corporal Slym Chalkyr murmured, gliding up behind the Duke of Eastshare and sliding the heavy mug on to the corner of his desk. “Try not t’ spill this one on the maps.”

  There were drawbacks, Eastshare thought, to having long-term, trusted henchmen looking after one.

  “I spilled one cup of chocolate on one map five months ago,” he pointed out mildly … relatively speaking.

  “An’ spent the next three days complainin’ about it,” Chalkyr retorted. He seemed singularly unimpressed by the duke’s scowl as he withdrew from the office as silently as he’d entered.

  “For a quarter-mark and the powder to blow him to Shan-wei…” Eastshare muttered, and heard something very like a smothered laugh from the far side of his desk.

  “You think I don’t mean it?” he demanded, fixing Major Braynair with an icy brown glare.

  “No, Sir. It’s not that I don’t think you mean it—it’s that I know you don’t,” Braynair replied. “Mind, I can see where the fantasy might be tempting from time to time, but you know you’d be helpless without him.”

  “I put on my own boots—yes, and buttoned the fly of my trousers, now that I think about it—all by myself this morning, Lywys!”

  “Of course you did, My Lord.”

  Eastshare glowered at his aide, but he couldn’t keep it up. Partly because Braynair was entirely correct. But that was
the smallest part of the reason he couldn’t, he assured himself. A mere bagatelle and totally irrelevant.

  “Fortunately for you, you’ve done an excellent job over the last several five-days,” he said. “Because of that, I’m prepared to overlook your sad misjudgment of my ability to function even without Slym nagging me to within an inch of my life.”

  “Thank you, My Lord,” Braynair said earnestly. “I appreciate it.”

  Eastshare snorted and returned his attention to the dispatches he’d been reading when the fresh cup of chocolate arrived. As always, whether he cared to admit it or not, Chalkyr’s timing had been excellent. There was quite a mountain of those dispatches, and he and Braynair had been working their way through them for over three and a half hours … starting after supper.

  He leaned back in his chair, sipping chocolate while he finished the current message, then laid it atop the “read” stack and turned the chair to face Braynair.

  “Unless you’re concealing some horrendous catastrophe in order to evade my ire, things are going well,” he said. “In fact, they’re going so well I’m starting to worry about when the other boot is going to fall on my toe!”

  “I know, My Lord. Like Baron Green Valley always says, ‘What can go wrong, will go wrong.’” The major shrugged. “I’m sure all kinds of things are going to prove him right before we’re done, but so far—so far, My Lord—it really does seem to be going well.”

  “Um.”

  Eastshare climbed out of his chair, stretched hugely, and walked across to consider the enormous map. He clasped his hands behind him, rocking gently on the balls of his feet as he contemplated the arrows stretching across it. His own Army of Westmarch and Trumyn Stohnar’s Army of the Sylmahn had the farthest to go to reach their objectives. At the moment, their columns were on the road, moving steadily west and—in his own case—northwest. They’d actually begun their march well before Earl High Mount’s artillery opened fire in the Tymkyn Gap, yet it would still be some time yet before they were ready to attack. But that was fine. One reason their troops had been held so far back was to prevent Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s spies from getting an accurate count on their numbers or realizing where they were actually headed. Now that High Mount’s guns were blazing away, even someone as canny as Earl Rainbow Waters must be looking in that direction. And since that direction happened to be seven hundred miles southwest of Eastshare’s current position and the next best thing to a thousand miles south of his first major objective, that was just fine with him.

  Have to admit, I thought Kynt and the Emperor were getting a little too clever when they came up with this one, but damned if it doesn’t look like it’s going to work. And anything that keeps my boys from punching straight into Rainbow Waters’ front is downright brilliant as far as I’m concerned!

  He stood a moment longer, contemplating those arrows, then sighed.

  “There was a time,” he said to nobody in particular as he trudged back to his desk, “when I thought things like bullets and swords were more important than reports.”

  “Well, My Lord, I’ll grant you they’re more interesting, anyway. I remember what the Baron had to say about that.”

  “What? You mean when he said there was nothing in the world quite so exhilarating as to be shot at … and missed?”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking about,” Braynair acknowledged. “He’s got quite a way with words, doesn’t he?”

  “Probably something in the water in Old Charis.” Eastshare flopped just a tad less than cheerfully back into his chair. “His Majesty turns a mean phrase on occasion, too.”

  “Yes, My Lord. I was particularly fond of ‘Hit them where they ain’t.’” It was Braynair’s turn to contemplate that map. “I like that one … a lot.”

  .VII.

  Lake City,

  Tarikah Province,

  Republic of Siddarmark;

  and

  The Temple,

  City of Zion,

  The Temple Lands.

  “The latest dispatches from Earl Silken Hills, My Lord.”

  Earl Rainbow Waters looked up as his nephew deposited a thick stack of paper on his desk. It was raining hard outside his office, raindrops pounding on the roof like galloping cavalry. It was barely midafternoon, yet it was hard to see East Wing Lake through the downpour, and he heard the rumble of distant thunder, like some grim echo of the thunder rumbling in the Tymkyn Gap.

  “Shall I assume you would already have informed me of anything unexpected?” he inquired, sitting back and freshening his cup of tea.

  “I’d say the only unexpected thing is that none of us anticipated Earl High Mount would spend quite this much time preparing the way for his assault,” Baron Wind Song replied, shaking his head.

  “I feel much the same,” Rainbow Waters acknowledged. “Has Silken Hills included an updated report on the state of his fortifications?”

  “He has.” Wind Song sorted through the stack of dispatches for a moment, until he found the one he wanted. “Here it is, Uncle. I’ve glanced through it, but it’s very similar to his engineers’ previous estimates. Apparently, Captain of Horse Rungwyn’s fortifications are even more resistant than we’d expected.”

  Rainbow Waters held out his hand. His nephew placed the report in it, and the earl flipped through it quickly, lips pursed in a thoughtful frown. He came to the end and laid it aside to reach for his teacup and sip pensively.

  “Well,” he said finally, “it’s gratifying to discover that the intelligence upon which our deployments is based may actually be accurate.”

  He had not, Wind Song noted, added the words “for once” to his statement.

  “And if Eastshare and Green Valley truly intend to force the issue in the south, Silken Hills may very well be right about the reasoning behind this deliberate artillery assault. But it’s been four days now, and it seems evident their artillery is proving less effective than our artillery proved when we tested it against the Captain of Horse’s works.” He sipped more tea. “I must admit I’m surprised—gratified, but surprised—by that. Perhaps we’ve overestimated the effectiveness of their artillery in general. Not that I intend to leap to any such conclusion until we’ve seen what happens in an open field battle.”

  Wind Song nodded, and the earl frowned thoughtfully for several more minutes.

  “The thing which perplexes me, however, is that both Green Valley and Eastshare have abundantly demonstrated their flexibility, their ability—and willingness—to modify plans in the face of … operational realities. If Silken Hills’ works are proving more resistant than they’d anticipated, why haven’t they attempted something elsewhere? The campaigning season is short, and even shorter here in the north than in the south. I would have expected them to attempt to force the issue here if their original plan is bogging down there.”

  “That thought had occurred to me,” Wind Song admitted. “At the same time, My Lord, it would surely be a mistake to ascribe superhuman powers to Green Valley and Eastshare. Or to the rest of their commanders, for that matter.”

  “Superhuman or not, they have a remarkable record of successes,” Rainbow Waters pointed out. “The Siddarmarkians suffered disasters in plenty during the ‘Sword of Schueler,’ and the Army of God advanced almost entirely across the Republic in only two or three months. But aside from what happened to their Brigadier Taisyn on the Daivyn—and it must be painfully obvious to any but the most bigoted that he and his men understood fully from the very beginning that theirs could be only a forlorn hope—the Charisians have enjoyed a virtually unbroken chain of victories. Decisive victories, I might add, and they won none of them by ‘playing it safe.’” He shook his head. “Their tendency to always seize the initiative, to drive home an attack and make their opponents react to them, has served them well. Audacity isn’t always a virtue. It could be argued that it was the primary contributor to the handful of naval defeats they’ve suffered, after all, and no one can count on being lucky every time. B
ut it sticks in my mind, Medyng. I still think they should have concentrated their major effort here, in the north, driving for the Holy Langhorne. It … bothers me that they chose otherwise, however convincing the logic behind what they actually decided to do instead. And it bothers me even more that they haven’t punched with their right hand if their left hand is blocked. This reminds me of the story of the spider monkey and the tar puppet, and Green Valley, for one, is far too astute to punch both hands into the same tar.”

  “I understand, Uncle. And under other circumstances, I’d share your concerns to the full. Indeed, I do share them. But the fact remains that they’re doing precisely what all of our spy reports told us they would. And as you’ve pointed out many times, this year’s campaign is different, for both sides. We both have much larger armies in the field, there’s far more artillery on both sides, and the Mighty Host and Archbishop Militant Gustyv’s Army of the Center are far better dug in, equipped, and supplied than anything they’ve tackled yet. Not only that, but I think it’s important to remember they’ve managed that ‘virtually unbroken chain of victories’ in no small part by picking their targets very carefully and by capitalizing on the opposing commanders’ weaknesses.”

  “I believe it might be argued that that wasn’t the case with Bishop Militant Bahrnabai,” his uncle said dryly. “I seem to recall a somewhat audacious naval expedition halfway across the continent using canals. That’s the sort of … improvisational adaptability I’ve come to expect out of them.”