by David Weber
“In the meantime, Your Eminence,” Rainbow Waters continued, “I think—”
He broke off, eyebrow rising, as a member of his staff appeared in the compartment entrance.
“Yes, Giyangzhi?” he said.
“I’m afraid an urgent dispatch has just arrived, My Lord.”
There was something odd about the officer’s voice and his expression was taut as he extended a single sheet of paper. Rainbow Waters accepted it and his eyes ran over the tersely worded dispatch. They seemed to widen for a moment, then he handed the message to his nephew and looked at the two archbishops.
“Your Eminences, I fear the situation on the northern front has just been … simplified,” he said.
* * *
Kynt Clareyk, Baron Green Valley, rode briskly down the broad, deserted avenue through a windblown drift of cinders and ash, surrounded by an entire watchful company of mounted infantry. An inferno roared all along the lakefront, a solid wall of fire that stretched for miles as it consumed warehouses packed with sufficient supplies for a million men for at least three months in a roiling torrent of flame and dense, choking black smoke.
He felt a profound sense of satisfaction as he looked around at the prize his army had taken, but he wished the Earl of Crystal Lake had been just a bit less decisive. Greedy of him, he knew, but he’d hoped the earl would find it difficult to cope with the sheer scope and surprise of Ahrtymys Ohanlyn’s new bombardment plan. Unfortunatey, Rainbow Waters had chosen what amounted to his deputy commander because he trusted that deputy’s capabilities, and the earl was an excellent judge of men. Mahzwang Lynku might be seventy-nine years old, and he might be increasingly frail physically, but age had done nothing to dull his quick intelligence and, despite his frailty, he had more energy than many officers who were two-thirds his age.
He’d needed both those qualities—badly—over the last few days. It was simply the Allies’ misfortune that he had them.
The arrival of twenty thousand tons of shells filled with Sahndrah Lywys’ Composition D had provided Ohanlyn’s gunners with an entirely new level of lethality. The new filler was both much safer to handle and twice as powerful, on a pound-for-pound basis, as black powder. It was also much denser, so twice the weight could be poured into the same shell cavity. That made a shell filled with it four times as destructive as one filled with black powder … and that meant the new 8- and 10-inch shells, in particular, had just become utterly devastating.
While the new shells were being distributed to his batteries, Ohanlyn had used the Balloon Corps to map the deployments of the three Harchongese bands holding the twisty sixty-seven miles of the Tairyn River line between the Great Tarikah Forest and East Wing Lake. There’d been close to ninety thousand men in those bands, and Lord of Foot Crystal Lake had put sixty thousand of them into the actual trenches while he held the other thirty thousand in reserve behind them, beyond even Charisian artillery’s effective range and ready to counter attack any fresh breakthrough. That hadn’t counted the battered bands refitting their divisions in Lake City itself, of course.
Unfortunately for the Mighty Host, Green Valley hadn’t had to attack the entire front. Instead, he’d chosen a ten mile segment of it for which the St. Ahgnista Band was responsible, five miles south of the lake, and Ohanlyn had deployed almost five hundred medium and heavy angle-guns and a hundred and twenty rocket batteries against it. That was a heavier density of artillery than in the vast majority of attacks in Old Terra’s World War One, and unlike the armies who’d faced one another on the Western Front in 1916 or 1917, the Mighty Host, with no balloons of its own, had been totally unable to keep track of Charisian movements beyond two or three miles—if that—of their own front lines. They hadn’t had a clue that Ohanlyn’s batteries were in motion as he assembled his sledgehammer … until that hammer came down.
The artillery general had spent two full five-days on his preparations while Green Valley held his infantry south of the lake in place, resting his assault brigades and continuing to pound away at the shrinking Vekhair pocket with his right. It was remarkable how ineffective Hainryk Klymynt’s artillery had been at Vekhair, but his showy bombardments—with old-style shells—had kept even someone as sharp as Crystal Lake looking in that direction while Ohanlyn and Green Valley’s brigade commanders made their preparations. Ohanlyn had pre-registered all of his heavy batteries, but he’d done it one battery—indeed, one gun in each battery—at a time, and he’d been careful not to use any of the new ammunition while he was about it.
And then, at 11:20 in the morning, when the majority of the Tairyn River Line’s men were sitting down to lunch, Ohanlyn had unleashed a savage, howling hurricane of a bombardment. The Mighty Host had experienced heavier bombardments than anyone else in the entire history of Safehold … but not even they had yet experienced anything like this. The sheer, stupendous weight of shells was beyond belief, and the rocket bombardment had laid a solid carpet of high explosives across the defenders’ front lines. Not only that, but each launcher had been provided with three reloads, and all four of them were launched within the space of barely an hour while the aerial observers directed the heavy guns’ fire with deadly accuracy.
And then the bombardment ceased.
It didn’t slow, didn’t taper off. It simply stopped. Every single gun ceased fire in the same minute … and when they did, the assault brigades stormed forward with their shotguns, their flamethrowers, and their satchel charges. Ohanlyn “gun dogs” had reopened fire, switching their attention to known Harchongese artillery positions that might have interfered with the attack, smothering them in a blanket of shells—using the older, black powder-filled projectiles—which silenced them completely.
The defenders had been too stunned, too mentally devastated by the suddenness of the holocaust—and by how rapidly the attack had followed on that holocaust’s heels—to offer anything like effective resistance. Green Valley’s lead assault companies had flowed through the wrecked Harchongese positions like the sea, bypassing the handful of points at which defenders were still capable of fighting back, leaving the follow-up echelons to deal with the holdouts. They’d cut completely through the two-mile-deep fortified zone in barely two hours, and in those two hours the St. Ahgnista Band had simply ceased to exist as an organized formation. Almost a quarter of the St. Jyrohm Band, on St. Ahgnista’s left, was wiped out along with it, and what remained of St. Jyrohm’s forward deployed regiments were pinned between the Charisians who were suddenly in their rear and the lake. Green Valley didn’t bother to storm that portion of the front. There’d been no need; the troops trapped in those fortifications couldn’t withdraw, and he had no intention of losing any lives assaulting them.
Earl Crystal Lake, with only an incomplete appreciation of the scale of the disaster, did what any determined, intelligent commander would have done: he threw in a heavy counterattack from his reserve. But that counterattack ran into a devastating curtain of artillery, brought down upon it by the Balloon Corps’ now highly experienced observers. It recoiled and fell back hastily—the only thing it could possibly have done under the circumstances—and by nightfall, the Army of Tarikah’s spearhead had advanced fifteen miles beyond its start point and started digging foxholes of its own while the mortars dug in behind it.
Green Valley had watched through the SNARCs as reports of the disaster flowed into Crystal Lake’s headquarters, and he’d been deeply impressed by the Harchongese commander. Despite the proof of the Army of Tarikah’s crushing power—despite the loss of over thirty-five thousand men in the space of a few hours—the redoubtable earl had refused to panic. Nor had he allowed himself to be paralyzed by the sheer scale of the catastrophe. He’d reached his decision by midnight, barely fifteen hours after the bombardment began, and the orders had gone out by courier to the brigades continuing to cling to the southern stub of the Tairyn River Line.
Those brigades, aside from sacrificial rearguards, had been in motion westward by dawn. Nor had
Crystal Lake stopped there. With Green Valley’s advanced infantry less than fifteen miles from Lake City’s outer defense perimeter, and with no way to estimate how quickly the Charisian guns could bring their devastating new power to bear against that perimeter, he’d had the moral courage to order the evacuation of Tarikah Province’s capital city, as well.
Green Valley didn’t even want to think about how Zhaspahr Clyntahn was likely to react to that, but Crystal Lake hadn’t hesitated. He’d ordered the systematic destruction of as much of his own fortifications as possible, and any artillery that couldn’t be on the road within twelve hours was blown up in place. The thunderous explosions had rolled around the city for hours as the guns—and the mountains of supplies Rainbow Waters had collected at Lake City—were blown up or put to the torch. Meanwhile, the capital’s garrison had been ordered back to the Gleesyn-Chyzwail Line south of East Wing Lake and what remained of the Tairyn River Line’s defenders were ordered to form a defensive front between the Tarikah Forest and the Gleesyn-Chyzwail Line, covering the Gleesyn-Sairmeet High Road to protect the Sairmeet garrison’s lines of communication.
Crystal Lake had made his decisions and implemented them so swiftly not even Charisian mounted infantry could have interfered with his movements. Or not, at least, without operating beyond the support of their own artillery, and even with the Army of the Hildermoss added to his command, Green Valley remained too hugely outnumbered by the Northern Mighty Host to take that sort of liberties with Harchongians.
It was difficult even for the SNARCs to provide definitive numbers on Earl Rainbow Waters’ casualties to date, but Owl’s best estimate was that, combined with the Tairyn River Line disaster, the Mighty Host had suffered close to a hundred and seventy-five thousand dead, wounded, and prisoners. That was a staggering number, greater than the entire combined initial strength of the Army of Tarikah and the Army of the Hildermoss … and represented less than fourteen percent of the Northern Mighty Host’s starting strength. Green Valley and Klymynt between them, on the other hand, had suffered around fourteen thousand combat casualties—only about a third of them fatal, thank God—which was only eight percent of the Harchongians’ losses. With “nonoperational” casualties from accidental injuries and illness included, his and Klymynt’s total casualties rose to just under seventeen thousand, which was ten percent of their initial strength. That might not sound too dreadful, aside from the agonizing human cost hidden behind those bland numbers, especially given the new troops arriving from Chisholm to reinforce them. But their losses were overwhelmingly concentrated in his specially trained and equipped assault brigades. Some of the battalions in those brigades were down to little more than forty percent of their assigned strength, and rebuilding them with replacements straight from Chisholm, without time for those replacements to integrate into their new formations, could only compromise their combat effectiveness.
And that’s exactly what Rainbow Waters intended to do to us, Green Valley thought grimly. He meant to hurt us worse than this—and expected to do it faster than this—because he didn’t have a clue the Balloon Corps was coming or just what that would mean for artillery and operational movements. But he’s no more likely to panic than Crystal Lake did, and there’s the next damned best thing to six hundred thousand fresh Harchongese infantry en route to the front. They’ll take a while to get here, but within the next three five-days—by the end of August, at the latest—he’ll have received enough fresh brigades to replace every man he’s lost. In the same timeframe, Hainryk and I are looking at maybe another forty thousand. We’re costing him one hell of a lot of casualties, but in absolute numbers, including current field strengths and reinforcements in the pipe, the loss ratio is actually slightly in his favor.
Of course, there came a point at which comparative loss ratios became meaningless. A point at which those in command realized their own losses were simply unsustainable, whatever the other side’s might be. And however tough-minded Rainbow Waters, Crystal Lake, and the Mighty Host’s other field commanders might be, they weren’t really the psychological target of the current offensive. No, that target lay elsewhere … in a city named Zion.
He shook that thought aside as his escort drew up before the modest two-story palace beside Tarikah Cathedral. He looked around again, noticing the firefighting parties his brigade commanders had organized to prevent sparks and drifting embers from spreading the warehouses’ blaze to the city’s civilian housing, and swung down from the saddle. He handed the reins to one of his escorting troopers and ascended the palace’s front steps, with Bryahn Slokym and half a squad of infantry at his heels.
A very nervous looking upper-priest opened the huge, carved door as the baron reached it. The cleric was brown-haired and brown-eyed, with long, stork-like arms and legs, and he bobbed an awkward bow.
“General Green Valley?” He sounded tentative, his tone anxious, and Green Valley nodded.
“I am … Father Avry.”
The Chihirite stiffened in surprise as Green Valley addressed him by name, but he clearly had other things to worry about, and he drew a deep breath.
“The Archbishop is waiting in his office,” he said. “If that would be convenient, of course, My Lord,” he added quickly.
“That would be entirely convenient, Father. Please, take me to him.” The priest nodded, and Green Valley looked at the bodyguards standing behind Slokym. “I think you lads can stay here,” he said.
The squad leader looked rebellious, and Green Valley frowned.
“Let me rephrase that,” he said pleasantly, “you lads not only can stay here, you will stay here. Would it happen that I need to be any clearer than that?”
The corporal looked appealingly at Captain Slokym, but the captain only shook his head.
“No, My Lord,” the corporal said finally, looking back at Green Valley. “That’s … clear enough.”
“Good,” Green Valley replied, then relented a bit. “Don’t worry, Corporal. I’m armed, Captain Slokym is armed, and the last thing anyone in this palace wants is to harm me in any way. Isn’t that correct, Father Avry?”
He cocked an eyebrow at the priest, who nodded quickly.
“There, you see?” Green Valley said cheerfully. “And now, Father, if you’d lead the way?”
The man who came to his feet as Green Valley entered the large, book-lined office had thinning silver hair, a receding hairline, and intelligent—and worried—gray-blue eyes behind the lenses of wire-rimmed spectacles perched on a beaky nose. He wore the white cassock of an archbishop, badged with the green of Pasquale, and he looked far more composed than Father Avry had.
He also, Green Valley thought with a surge of sympathy whose warmth surprised even him just a bit, looked absolutely and totally exhausted. The baron compared the man before him to the imagery Owl had captured of him two years before, and there was at least ten years’ difference between them.
“Baron Green Valley,” the archbishop said.
“Archbishop Arthyn,” the baron replied, and bowed rather more deeply than simple courtesy required. Arthyn Zagyrsk’s eyebrows rose, despite his formidable self-control, and Green Valley straightened. “I’ve been looking forward to this meeting for some time, Your Eminence.”
“Indeed?” Zagyrsk smiled bleakly. “I don’t suppose I should be surprised. Lake City is—was—the last provincial capital in Mother Church’s hands. And I imagine I’m the last of her archbishops in Siddarmark. The end of an epoch, one might say.”
“One might,” Green Valley agreed. “And I won’t pretend I don’t feel a certain … satisfaction in knowing Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s invasion and the butchery it perpetrated on the Republic is about to be brought to a crushing end.” His brown eyes were far bleaker than the archbishop’s smile had been. “There isn’t enough justice in the world to compensate for the suffering, anguish, and death that man has inflicted, Your Eminence.”
“No. No, I don’t suppose there is.” Zagyrsk shook his head, then square
d his shoulders. “And I’m sure ‘justice’ figures into your instructions about any of Mother Church’s prelates who fall into your custody, My Lord. I’m prepared to submit to whatever your Emperor and Empress—and the Lord Protector, of course—have decreed. I would beg for mercy, or at least leniency, for those like Father Avry who had no choice but to obey me as their ecclesiastic superior.”
Father Avry’s face tightened as if he wanted to reject Zagyrsk’s words, but Green Valley shook his head before the Chihirite could speak.
“I don’t think you quite understand, Your Eminence. Yes, I feel an enormous satisfaction at having liberated Lake City from Zhaspahr Clyntahn and his butchers. And I do have instructions concerning you. But those instructions are to inform you that Emperor Cayleb, Empress Sharleyan, and Lord Protector Greyghor are fully aware of how long and how hard you, Father Avry, and Father Ignaz fought to mitigate the excesses of the Inquisition. They know you insisted on proper food and medical care for the concentration camp prisoners assigned to forced labor in Tarikah. They know you opposed the Inquisitor General. They know Father Ignaz smuggled over eight hundred children out of Camp St. Tailahr in clear defiance of his direct orders from his own superiors. And they know how hard—and how successfully—you fought to keep the Inquisition away from the citizens of Tarikah Province. You couldn’t prevent what happened elsewhere, Your Eminence, and you couldn’t stop what the Sword of Schueler did to the people of your archbishopric. But you did every single thing you could to protect them—Reformist, as well as Temple Loyalist—from the very beginning. So, yes, I do have instructions concerning you. And those instructions are to leave you here, in your archbishopric, doing what you’ve done so well for so long. Whether or not it will be possible for you to remain permanently, once this jihad ends, is another question, but the Writ says the sheep will know the good shepherd, and so do Their Majesties and the Lord Protector.”