by David Weber
That’s why you have the entrenchments, Hauwerd, he told himself. And the guns, and the rifles the Dohlarans were kind enough to provide you.
He could have wished for a few thousand landmines, too, but that wasn’t the sort of weapon Marines usually carried around with them. That was an oversight he planned on rectifying in the very near future, however, and in the meantime, his engineers had improvised by burying thirty-pounder shells rigged to percussion locks or quick match fuses along the approaches to the entrenchments. They had more of them—and quite a few fifty-seven-pounder carronade shells, as well—distributed to the front line positions where their fuses could be lit by hand before they were rolled down into approaching attackers. And one of the reasons Admiral Hywyt had come up with so many seamen to reinforce Hanth’s strength was to provide the gunners for the naval thirty-pounders with which those entrenchments bristled.
Hauwerd Breygart wasn’t going to make any rash assumptions about the quality of the army about to inundate the southern reaches of the South March Lands, nor was he immune to the sort of anxiety someone facing odds of better than ten-to-one must inevitably feel. Yet as he stood there, taking one last look around before he dutifully reported back aboard the schooner to return to Thesmar, what he felt most strongly of all was confidence.
It’s always possible we’ll lose it all in the end, he thought grimly. But if those bastards take Thesmar, they’ll do it by stacking their own men’s bodies high enough for them to climb over the entrenchments.
* * *
“And might one ask where you’ve sprung from this time, Seijin Ahbraim?” the Duke of Eastshare inquired politely.
“From roaming about on the earth and walking around on it, Your Grace,” Ahbraim Zhevons responded. Eastshare raised an eyebrow but otherwise only nodded, and Zhevons smothered an inner smile. The duke couldn’t possibly have gotten the joke—no one on Safehold had ever heard of the Book of Job—yet the quote had been irresistible, given Merlin Anthrawes’ status as Shan-wei’s servant. The temptation to smile disappeared quickly, however, as he recalled why he’d come.
“You seem to be rather farther west than the last time you and I spoke, Your Grace,” he observed, and it was Eastshare’s turn to smile, which he did—broadly.
“You picked an excellent position for us,” he replied. “And that idiot Kaitswyrth was kind enough to assault it. After that, we decided we might as well take advantage of the opportunity he’d been so good as to provide. We’re still in the process of prisoner interrogation, but as nearly as we’ve been able to understand his thinking, he decided he had to have enough manpower to bull his way through us like a rogue dragon, no matter how well dug in we were.”
“My sources suggest the same thinking,” Zhevons agreed. “And they also suggest his ‘Army of Glacierheart’ won’t be worth very much in offensive terms before winter. Nobody’s prepared to guarantee that, of course, but it does seem the inquisitors attached to his divisions have become rather more … circumspect than they used to be for some reason.”
This time Eastshare’s smile was ugly, and Zhevons returned it with equal satisfaction. Despite Cayleb and Sharleyan’s proclamation, the Schuelerites in the Army of Glacierheart had remained too deeply imbued with the inviolability of the clergy to truly believe it could possibly apply to them. That long, staked line of heads had disabused them of that notion, and quite a few of them had exhibited a pronounced decrease in their eagerness to encourage the units to which they were attached to launch desperate attacks. It was entirely possible they would regain that eagerness—however much he despised and hated them, Zhevons wasn’t going to make the mistake of underestimating the strength of their belief—but it was going to take time.
“Unfortunately,” he continued, “Ahlverez isn’t going to join Kaitswyrth after all. He’s headed south—by this time he must be as far as Fort Sheldyn—and Duke Harless has to be closing in on Thesmar by now from Silkiah. Our best information is that Earl Hanth and General Fyguera are even better dug-in around the city than you were on the Daivyn, but if Harless and Ahlverez leave a force to screen Thesmar and simply ignore the garrison, they can probably be as far east as Fort Tairys in another three or four five-days.”
Eastshare’s face tightened.
“And Fort Tairys is already in rebel hands,” he said flatly, and Zhevons grimaced in agreement.
In fact, Fort Tairys wasn’t merely “in rebel hands”; General Lairays Walkyr, its commander, had spent months circling it with massive earthworks. They weren’t all that well laid out, and they were too extensive for the present garrison of mutineers and rebels to adequately man, but they were certainly powerful, and plenty big enough to hold a Desnairian garrison even Charisians would play hell is evicting. Which, given its location, would be a very bad thing.
“Once they reach it,” the seijin said, “they’ll be loose in Shiloh with a secure rear. And if they hook back to the north towards your own supply line or head east towards Old Province.…”
Eastshare nodded hard.
“The problem is that what we’re holding right now is a crust,” the duke said. He hauled a map of the Republic out of a drawer and spread it across the table. “They’re not getting past us here or in the Sylmahn Gap,” he tapped his own position and then Green Valley’s for emphasis as he spoke, “but if they get into the heart of the Republic, we simply don’t have the manpower to intercept them—or anyplace to put a cork into the bottle the way I’ve done here and Baron Green Valley’s done in the Gap.”
“Exactly,” Zhevons replied. “There’s some good news to go with the bad, though. The Lord Protector’s about ready to send a division worth of his new rifle regiments your way. One brigade’s ready to move now, and the second will be ready to deploy in a few more five-days.”
“Really?”
Eastshare looked up from the map with an interested expression. The Republic of Siddarmark Army fully realized the need to adapt to the new model weapons which had turned all existing military doctrine topsy-turvy. The middle of a war for survival was no time to be creating brand-new unit organizations, however, so Lord Protector Greyghor Stohnar and his seneschal, Daryus Parkair, had decided to stick with the existing RSA regimental structure, but with five rifle-armed companies, each of four hundred and fifty men, per regiment. They’d adopted the Charisian model of combining two regiments into a brigade, yet whereas a Charisian division consisted of two brigades, one of the new Siddarmarkian divisions would consist of three. Given the fact that a Siddarmarkian regiment was barely half the size of its Charisian counterpart, a Siddarmarkian division would remain considerably weaker than an ICA division, but it would still be a big, powerful formation.
At the moment, however, the new rifle regiments which would make up those brigades and divisions were still in the process of coming into existence, and the RSA was undergoing a certain degree of upheaval despite the decision not to change its regimental structure. Some of the upheaval had less to do with weapons and manpower availability than other portions of it. For example, the decision had been made to permanently disband the regiments which had dishonored themselves by mutinying during the Sword of Schueler. Their identities had been extinguished, their regimental numbers expunged from the Army List forever, and their battle honors had been stripped from them. The steadfastness of the units which had remained loyal in the Republic’s darkest days would be recognized by continuing to designate them as “infantry regiments,” whereas the new regiments being organized to supplement them would not bear the “infantry” designation. The same policy would be followed where cavalry regiments were concerned, although the newly raised regiments would be designated “dragoon regiments.”
Those decisions, however, were primarily administrative, a case of what the new and reorganized units were going to be called and how their self-identities would evolve. They had nothing to do with actually getting those units into the field, and the problem there was twofold. First, the men to fill them had t
o be found and trained, and training cadre was in desperately short supply, given the survival demands of the previous winter. And, second, the rifles to arm them had to be found somewhere. Eastshare knew the captured weapons he’d sent east would be invaluable in that respect, even if the Church’s muzzleloaders were tactically inferior and more poorly made than anything coming out of Charisian manufactories. And he also knew Siddarmarkian rifle production was climbing steadily as the lord protector’s number one priority, just as he knew Stohnar and Parkair had been working furiously to get the new regiments stood up. Despite that, he was deeply surprised to hear that four of them—nine thousand men, or seventy percent of his own initial order of battle—were already ready for battle.
“That’s welcome news,” he said. “And it makes me wonder.…”
He stood gazing down at the map, clearly wrapped in thought, and the tip of his index finger moved slowly back down the Daivyn to Ice Lake and from there down the river to its junction with the Snow Water just west of the city of Saithor. From there it traveled down the Graywater River to Glacierborn Lake and tapped twice, thoughtfully.
“I have a strong position here,” he said, as if speaking to himself, although he looked up from the map to meet Zhevons’ gaze. “I’ve got the high road and the river to pull back along if I need to, and Kaitswyrth seems to be unwilling to lose any more men trying to probe my positions. I can’t count on him staying that flat on his back, but even if he picks himself up and tries a fresh attack, this is perfect terrain for a fighting retreat. And we’d still have that original position in the fire scar you picked out for us if we were to be pushed back that far.”
He paused, his eyes focused on something only he could see for several seconds. Then he shook himself.
“I take it, since I haven’t heard anything official about those brigades, that they haven’t been dispatched yet?”
“I can’t say for certain whether they have or not, Your Grace,” Zhevons said, not entirely accurately. Or, rather, a bit misleadingly, since the reason he couldn’t say for certain had to do with things like SNARCs, recon skimmers, the need to keep track of complicated multiple identities, and coms. “If not, however, I’m sure they will be shortly.”
Eastshare eyed him speculatively, obviously thinking over the seijins’ record of accuracy. No competent general liked to make plans based on unconfirmed information, but it was a much easier thing to do, given Zhevons’—and Merlin Athrawes’—past reliability.
“Colonel Hobsyn’s regiment’s taken the most casualties,” he said, “but with enough artillery and one of Colonel Makyn’s scout sniper battalions to keep an eye on the enemy, he ought to be able to hold this position even if Kaitswyrth’s army finds its nerve again. Or, at least, to fight a rearguard all the way back to Ice Lake if he has to.”
“Yes, Your Grace?” Zhevons said when the duke paused once more.
“I need you to do something for me, Seijin Ahbraim.”
“And what would that be, Your Grace?”
“I need you and your spies to find out everything you can about Fort Tairys and its garrison. Numbers, who’s in command of Walkyr’s regiments, how well those regiments are equipped, what sort of artillery it may have, whether or not it’s received any rifles, its supply situation, its morale—everything.”
“We can do that, Your Grace, although I may not be able to deliver the information to you personally.”
“Good. And I’m going to take you at your word about those Siddarmarkian brigades.” Eastshare’s finger moved once more, tracking south from Glacierborn Lake, past the Clynmair Hills towards Fort St. Klair, at the northern end of the Branath Mountains. “I’m going to send a semaphore message asking to have their movement expedited as much as possible … but to hold two of them no farther west than the Glacierheart Border. I’ll’ve had time to think over your reports by the time they get there, and then—”
That fingertip moved once more, tracing the line of the Branath Canal, and Ruhsyl Thairis, the Duke of Eastshare, smiled coldly.
.V.
The Delthak Works, Earldom of High Rock, Kingdom of Old Charis, Empire of Charis
“So, overall, you’re reasonably satisfied, Ehdwyrd?”
Ehdwyrd Howsmyn tipped back in his office chair as the voice spoke in his ear. It was late, even by his standards, but the new wall-mounted gas lights, powered by the coal gas produced as a by-product of his enormous coking ovens, gave him ample light for paperwork. There was always plenty of that to be dealt with, and he’d sent his secretaries and clerks home hours ago while he grappled with decisions only he could make and waited until he could confer with Cayleb and Sharleyan—and Merlin—without someone wondering why he was talking to thin air.
Now his comfortable chair was turned so he could gaze out at the glowing, gaslit windows of manufactory work floors that were never still. Beyond them were the showers of sparks, the furnace mouths glowing like chinks in the gates of hell, screaming as their incandescent fury rose against the dark with Shan-wei’s own ferocity—in more ways than one. It painted the clouds (and the perpetual canopy of smoke) crimson and black above the largest ironworks in the history of Safehold, that furious power and searing energy. Of course, it was actually a steelworks, but he couldn’t blame most of the rest of the world for failing to note the distinction. And spectacular as that vista was, what he was actually watching were the images of his emperor and empress. They were in two completely separate locations, thousands of miles apart, but the com combined their images as if they were seated side by side and projected them onto his contact lenses as they spoke.
“That depends on how you define ‘satisfied,’ Cayleb,” he replied. “In some ways, I’m even more pleased than I expected to be; in others, I’m even less pleased.” He shrugged. “Sort of par for the course.”
Cayleb chuckled and leaned back in his own chair in Charis’ embassy in Siddar City with a stein of beer in one hand, then took a bite from the salted pretzel in his other hand and chewed appreciatively. Sharleyan—for whom the hour was considerably later than any of the others—sat in her Cherayth bedchamber with a cup of hot tea. Now she sipped delicately from the tissue-thin Harchongese porcelain and shook her head at her husband.
“You Old Charisians really are lowbrow, aren’t you?”
“Of course we are,” her husband agreed cheerfully. “Also money grubbers perfectly willing to dabble in trade with people like Ehdwyrd, and we all know no proper aristocrat would consider keeping such low company. Just think of, oh, the Earl of Swayle, for example.”
“Thank you for reminding me.” Sharleyan’s tone was frosty, and she grimaced. “When you get your new revolver assembly line running, Ehdwyrd, be sure you send me one. I have a few Chisholmian aristocrats who’d give me the perfect opportunity to field test it for you.”
“I’ll bear that in mind, Your Majesty.”
“Turning from these pleasant fantasies of bloodshed and mayhem,” Merlin Athrawes put in, “how does the aforesaid assembly line look, Ehdwyrd?”
The seijin was currently perched in the night-struck woods in the foothills of the Branath Mountains overlooking Ohadlyn’s Gap and Fort Tairys. There was no real reason he had to carry out his reconnaissance mission for Duke Eastshare in person, given the capabilities of the SNARCs’ remotes, but there were times he liked to see things with his own eyes. Besides, the breezy night was pleasantly cool and daylight clear to his enhanced vision.
“In terms of how well it’s going to work in the end, it looks very good,” Howsmyn replied. “Zosh Huntyr’s done even better than I anticipated at adapting our machine tools to pneumatic power, but I’d underestimated some of the tolerance requirements. Working at these sorts of air pressures, even a tiny leak has major implications, and the compressors were more of a pain in the arse than I expected, frankly. It’s less a matter of producing the pressure than regulating it at so many dispersed locations, and I hadn’t considered that side of things properly. I think we’re on
top of it now, but the whole project only emphasizes the need to step up my inspectors’ training programs.” He rubbed weary eyes. “It was a lot simpler when I didn’t have to worry about things like that.”
“I know,” Merlin sympathized. “But the fact that we’re so far through the process puts us light-years ahead of the Church’s manufactories.”
“That doesn’t make it a lot less exhausting,” Howsmyn said wryly, lowering his hands and looking back out the window at the throbbing, clanging, smoking, frenetically busy industrial complex he’d built literally from the ground up.
“Or less satisfying,” Cayleb observed softly, and Howsmyn drew a deep breath and nodded.