Like a Mighty Army

by David Weber

  Ahlverez looked at the captain and raised one eyebrow. Sir Laimyn Kahsimahr, the youngest son of the Duke of Sherach, was assigned to the staff of Sir Borys Cahstnyr, the Army of Justice’s quartermaster. In fact, as nearly as Ahlverez could determine, Kahsimahr was Cahstnyr’s staff. Although the youngster—he was only in his middle twenties—seemed both energetic and intelligent, he was rather in the position of a man trying to bail out Gorath Bay with a teaspoon.

  Cahstnyr was over seventy, and owed his position to the fact that he was the brother of the Duke of Sherkal, who’d been prevented from lending his own talents to the Army of Justice because he was even older than Sir Borys. Cahstnyr seemed a decent enough type who took his duties seriously. Unfortunately, he clearly had very little idea of how to discharge those duties. The size (or absence) of his staff and the appointment of someone as manifestly unequal to the task as he was himself only underscored the Desnairians’ casual attitude toward the task of keeping an army in the field supplied. Logistic incompetence had contributed more than a little to how roughly the Siddarmarkian Army had handled them in the past, and it was a pity they hadn’t taken that lesson to heart.

  What made it even more infuriating was that Mother Church had taken over responsibility for moving supplies in the Desnairians’ rear areas. Traffic moved almost as smoothly and efficiently along the canals and high roads from Desnair to the Army of Shiloh’s position before Thesmar as it did from Dohlar. And that, unfortunately, simply meant that a veritable mountain of Desnairian supplies was accumulating at that point, since the Duke of Traykhos had graciously declined Vicar Rhobair’s offer to assist the Imperial Desnairian Army’s efforts to keep itself fed in the field. Why he’d done that was more than Sir Rainos Ahlverez could divine, although he was willing to grant the possibility that Traykhos actually believed the Army of Justice was equal to the task. He couldn’t imagine what might have convinced Traykhos of that, however.

  Be fair. Their supply arrangements could be still worse. Just think about the Harchongians! For that matter, our quartermaster corps was a disaster waiting to happen before we reorganized it, and you damned well know it. Just like you know you’re damned lucky you have Tymplahr himself running it for you. Especially after you tried so hard to avoid him!

  He frowned. That wasn’t one of his happier memories, but it was one he made himself reflect upon every so often, just as he made himself revisit his original attitude towards Makyntyr. Sir Shulmyn Rahdgyrz, the Baron of Tymplahr, had been intimately involved in building up the pre-Jihad Navy as part of King Rahnyld’s effort to control the Gulf of Dohlar. In fact, he’d been both knighted and raised to the nobility for his services to the Crown … and to the Navy. He was able, unusually honest, and a fervent son of Mother Church, and those three qualities explained why the Duke of Fern had chosen him to organize the Army’s supply system in cooperation with Vicar Rhobair’s advisers. The fact that he’d worked so closely and enthusiastically with Earl Thirsk in his efforts to rebuild the Navy—and that he and Thirsk were close friends—explained why Ahlverez had tried to decline his services.

  He’d done a remarkably good job, and when the Army had been ordered into the field, he’d volunteered (successfully, despite Ahlverez’ quiet opposition) to command the quartermasters he’d trained. The fact that he’d been made a general, with two full colonels as his immediate subordinates, said volumes about the differences between Desnairian and Dohlaran attitudes when it came to keeping their men fed and supplied. Ahlverez had come to realize, even before uniting with the Army of Justice, that the failure of his effort to decline Tymplahr’s services had been one of the more fortunate things ever to happen to him. Since coming under Harless’ command and seeing the Desnairian arrangements, he’d spent more than one night in prayerful thanks to the Archangels for proving how much wiser than him they were.

  “And just what did young Kahsimahr have to say about it?” he asked Lattymyr after a moment.

  “Well, he didn’t want to be openly critical of Duke Harless or Sir Borys, of course, Sir. But from the questions he was asking, what he’d really like would be to overhaul their existing arrangements into something more like ours. There aren’t enough dragons or wagons for them to do that, though, and even if there were, they don’t have the drovers or the organizational structure to support it. From a couple of the things he said—and even more from things he didn’t say, to be honest—Sir Borys is already tearing his hair out over the situation, and he’s given Laimyn—I mean Lieutenant Kahsimahr—a lot of extra authority to try to straighten out the situation.”

  “Authority?” Makyntyr snorted. “How much ‘authority’ can a lieutenant have, Lynkyn?”

  “A bit less than a captain, Sir,” Lattymyr replied with a smile, and Ahlverez chuckled. “Seriously,” his aide went on, smile fading, “I happened to overhear him ripping a strip off a colonel day before yesterday.”

  “A colonel?” Makyntyr repeated, eyebrows rising.

  “Yes, Sir. One of Earl Hennet’s regimental commanders.” The captain shrugged. “Laimyn chewed him up one side and down the other—respectfully, of course—over something to do with transporting the officers’ personal baggage in the quartermaster’s wagons. I don’t think he was in favor of the idea.”

  His superiors laughed, despite themselves, and Lattymyr shrugged.

  “What may be even more important, the colonel took it, Sir Rainos, and I doubt he would’ve if he hadn’t expected Hennet or Harless to support Laimyn if he pushed it. That’s one of the reasons I think they’re genuinely doing their best. It’s just that the hole’s so deep they can barely see daylight looking straight up at midday.”

  Ahlverez found it remarkably easy to stop laughing as he contemplated the accuracy of his aide’s last comment.

  Where the Royal Dohlaran Army assigned individual dragon-drawn wagons to each of its regiments, the Imperial Desnairian Army relied upon a centralized transport pool. Each Dohlaran regiment’s wagon moved with its regiment, whether on the road or in the field. As it was depleted, it returned to the main transport column moving down the canals or along the roads behind the rest of the army. If there was time, it was reloaded and sent back to rejoin its assigned regiment. If there was insufficient time for that, its drovers simply exchanged it for a fully loaded wagon and hurried back.

  The size and weight of the articulated wagon a dragon could draw—twenty or thirty tons, in anything like reasonable going—allowed the army to move smoothly, confident its supplies would keep up with it. That wasn’t to say that even a Dohlaran army moved at anything much above a walk once it was forced to abandon the speed and efficiency of the canals, but it did move at a steady walk, with a ten-minute rest stop each hour. And if a unit was forced to halt for some reason, it simply moved off the road to be bypassed by the rest of the army without anyone finding himself suddenly out of supply and starving.

  The Desnairians had nowhere near that flexibility. They had sufficient carrying capacity for their army’s ammunition and food, but there was no way they could possibly transport sufficient fodder for over a hundred thousand cavalry mounts, half that many again remounts, meat animals, and their draft animals. They simply didn’t have enough wagons for that, and the ones they did have formed a column of their own, moving at the rear of their entire vast force. The cavalry could at least find grass to graze their horses and the quartermaster could graze the accompanying cattle, and it was late enough in the year that any volunteer crops which had sprung up untended by the vanished farmers at the scores of abandoned farms could be scooped up, as well … assuming they hadn’t yet rotted in the fields, at least. That meant they probably could forage for the fodder and grazing they required, but sending out foraging parties—and stopping to graze—could only slow their rate of advance. And then there was the problem that the South March Lands had been so sparsely populated. It was over eight hundred miles from Thesmar to Fort Tairys, their objective, the last two hundred on little better than country la
nes and farm tracks. The high road, built to the Writ’s standards, offered good, hard going as far as the town of Kharmych, but without the network of secondary roads found in more populous provinces. That meant the entire Army of Shiloh had to move along the same highway like some huge, lurching serpent.

  Left to its own devices, with its well-organized supply train and wagonloads of fodder, Ahlverez’ army could have made fifty miles a day along that high road and over twenty miles per day even cross-country. Unfortunately, his army was trapped behind the Duke of Harless’ army, which would do extraordinarily well to make twenty miles a day even with the high road, given the need to send out those foraging parties and stop to graze its horses. Its cavalry and infantry regiments alone would have formed a seventeen-mile column. By the time artillery, supply wagons, remounts, livestock, the inevitable camp followers, and the personal servants required by all those aristocratic officers were added, it was the next best thing to twenty-seven, even with the herds of meat animals and remounts spread off the road as much as possible.

  Which means, given how damned slow we’re going to move, that Harless’ rearguard units will end up every night seven miles west of where his vanguard bivouacked the night before. And that we might as well sit on our arses here at Thesmar for a solid five-day before we set out to overtake them.

  They weren’t going to do that, of course. It would have underscored their allies’ sluggishness, which might’ve been taken as a deliberate insult. So, instead, they’d set out around midday tomorrow, by which time the rear of Harless’ army might actually be out of sight from the heretics’ entrenchments.

  “You’re probably right, Lynkyn,” he said finally. “I’m sure they are doing the best they can. And the truth is, we ought to be helping them any way we can. I tried to suggest that to Duke Harless, but—”

  He chopped himself off before he suggested that Harless seemed more focused on protecting the honor of the Imperial Desnairian Army by insisting it could meet its own needs than on finding the help he clearly needed. And that young snot Fyrnach hadn’t helped one bit. Whatever Harless might think about Desnairian honor, his grandnephew’s attitude was perfectly clear, and despite his relatively junior rank he was in a position to do plenty of damage simply by manipulating the duke’s schedule or selectively choosing which reports to draw to his attention.

  “We’ll just have to do the best we can,” he said instead, eyes back on that enormous column as it lurched away from Thesmar. “And if the time comes that the Duke calls on us to assist Sir Borys and young Kahsimahr, we need to be ready to do what we can. Remind me to discuss that with Sir Shulmyn this afternoon, Lynkyn.”

  “Of course, Sir.”

  .VI.

  St. Bahzlyr Canal, Tarikah River, Tarikah Province, Republic of Siddarmark

  “Well, this is a Shan-wei-damned mess.” Sygmahn Dahglys glowered out over the racing water, then gave himself a shake and looked over his shoulder at Father Avry Pygain. “Sorry about that, Father.”

  “I’ve heard worse, Master Dahglys.”

  The brown-haired, brown-eyed Chihirite upper-priest had extraordinarily long arms and legs for his height. He looked rather like a stork when he walked, Dahglys thought, and he had a fussy clerk’s way about him. That was reasonable enough for someone who belonged to the Order of the Quill, though—they were clerks and scribes—and however fussy he might be, he was sharp and efficient when it came to discharging his duties as Archbishop Arthyn Zagyrsk’s secretary.

  “As a matter of fact, I’ve heard a lot worse over the last year or so,” Father Avry sighed. “And for a lot less cause than this.”

  “It’ll be a right bastard setting this right, begging your pardon, Father,” Sairahs Mahkgrudyr agreed. The fair-haired Canal Service pilot spat into the water in obvious disgust, ice-blue eyes bleak and hard with the hatred of a man who’d spent thirty-five years piloting barges along the thousands of miles of canal the Holy Writ required men to maintain and preserve, not wantonly destroy.

  “They knew what they were doing, right enough,” Wyllym Bohlyr put in through the teeth clenched on the stem of his pipe. “Saw that clear enough in Fairkyn, and now this.” He shook his head. “Knew exactly where to put the charges, didn’t they just?”

  The silver-haired Fairkyn lockmaster—who no longer had any locks to run, thanks to the same batch of heretics—had a point, Dahglys reflected, studying the damage with the eye of a trained engineer.

  The broad, brown water-filled ditch running in front of them, its surface lashed with yellow ribbons of foam, had once been the St. Bahzlyr Canal, a four-mile stretch of the Tarikah River canal system. It had cut across a meandering eleven-mile loop of the river, reducing any barge’s journey by over six miles and simultaneously avoiding three sets of shallows, each of which would have required their own locks for anything much larger than a rowboat. Unlike most of the canals in the Temple Lands, where the walls and floor were poured concrete, or the newer canals farther south here in Siddarmark, where kiln-fired brick was often used, the St. Bahzlyr’s walls were native stone, shaped by hand, squared, and laid up with mortar. Because the river level dropped almost forty feet between the St. Bahzlyr’s upper and lower ends, it required a set of locks at each of those ends, and the heretics had blown both of them into kindling. The splintered remnants of the upper lock’s stout nearoak timbers still hung from the gate frame, tracing lines of foam in the water racing through the broken lock chamber. Charges had also been set in the walls of the chamber itself, ripping them apart and spilling shattered stone and mortar into the water. And, not content with that, the heretics had planted additional charges at three separate spots along the St. Bahzlyr’s length, caving in the walls at each of them.

  The water roaring unfettered through the canal cut had done the rest.

  “It’s the scour that makes most of the problem,” he said. “With the gates gone and the stonework blown to Shan-wei’s hell the current just ripped everything apart. And the head of water behind the weir only made it worse. I’m half afraid we’ll have to open a breach in the weir to relieve the pressure before we can get the canal properly cofferdammed.”

  He looked away from the ruined lock chamber at the sturdy stone weir stretching across the Tarikah. Before the heretics destroyed the St. Bahzlyr, the crest of the weir had been a smother of white and brown water, pouring over the top of the ten-foot structure. Its primary function had been to raise the water level behind it, impounding what amounted to a lake almost five miles long, to ensure sufficient water to supply the heavily used canal, especially during periods of low water. Admittedly, the outflow from East Wing Lake meant low water was a rare occurrence along this stretch, but it did happen. Even if that hadn’t been true, the drop between this point and the canal’s lower locks required the extra water, particularly during harvest season when barges passed through it virtually end-to-end, each carrying its own charge of water down the canal. In addition, the weir supplied sluices on the south bank of the river which had powered the waterwheels of more than half a dozen grist mills and manufactories.

  The grist mills and manufactories were charred wreckage now, courtesy of the heretics, and the water flow across the weir’s crest was a shadow of what it ought to have been. Even with the spillways wide open, though, enough water had been forced through the St. Bahzlyr to shred its walls once the stonework’s integrity had been violated. Worse, it was still shredding them. The current was like a monster prybar, levering the individual stones out of the mortar and then gouging at the ballast and earth behind them.

  “Whether we break the weir or not, the first step’s closing off the upper end,” Dahglys said, planting his hands on his hips and glowering at the river some more. “And it’s going to take time, and it’s going to take manpower, and we don’t have enough of either of them to get it done before snowfall.”

  His companions looked at one another silently as someone finally said what they’d all known from the instant they set eyes on
the problem. Unfortunately, their orders were to repair the canal before winter closed down operations, and those orders carried the Grand Inquisitor’s own imprimatur.

  “Father Tailahr will be shipping us the prefabricated timbers for the lock chambers within the next five-day or so,” Dahglys continued. “The chamber’s—both sets of chambers have—been so thoroughly washed out, though, that it’ll take at least three or four five-days just to clear the wreckage, square the walls, and set footings for the timbers. We’ll still have to hang the new gates, replace the windlasses and the valves, install the planking, and ballast it all right and tight. And that doesn’t even consider the fact that we’ve got to rebuild at least three miles of canal wall between here and the lower locks.” He shook his head and looked at Pygain. “I can get the materials we need, I think, Father, but I just don’t have the manpower.”

  “There’s never been enough local manpower to maintain the canals in Tarikah and Icewind,” Mahkgrudyr said with a sigh. “We’ve had to ship in work crews from the east every spring.”