Like a Mighty Army

by David Weber

  “What sort of ‘value’?” he demanded.

  “Why, a complete description of the heretics’ new steel-making process, Your Grace,” Rayno said, and nodded at the sudden change in Clyntahn’s expression. “I’m no mechanic myself, so my ability to assess the information is limited. I believe there are some gaps, and I could wish there were more technical drawings to accompany the text. In addition, it deals only with blast furnaces and something called ‘open hearth’ furnaces, not with all the other devices our agents suggest the heretics have employed to increase their productivity so markedly. However, as part of the description of the furnaces, there’s also a discussion of something called a ‘steam engine.’ I’ve found no directions for building one of them, but there’s a lengthy description of the principles upon which they work. I suspect our own mechanics and artificers might be able to create ‘steam engines’ of their own if those principles were shared with them.”

  “Schueler,” Clyntahn said very softly. Then he shook himself, hard.

  “Tell me more about this ‘steam engine,’” he said.

  .III.

  Allyntyn, Midhold Province, Republic of Siddarmark

  Baron Green Valley shivered despite the fire crackling on the grate of the more or less intact house he’d commandeered as his headquarters. It stood on what had been the better side of town, and houses in northern Siddarmark were strongly built, with thick walls to hold heat in winter and shed it in summer. Unfortunately, like most of Allyntyn, this one’s condition was less than pristine. There were holes in the roof, the second-floor windows had been boarded over, there were drafts in the damnedest places, and most of the legal owner’s furniture had been used for firewood by the previous occupants.

  Despite which, it was in better shape than the majority of the town. And the fact that the fire on his grate was coal-fed, whereas the Temple Loyalists had been reduced to burning the furniture before their hasty withdrawal from Allyntyn, said a great deal about the difference in the state of their supplies.

  He stepped closer to the fire, rubbing his palms briskly. Technically, the northern hemisphere’s autumnal equinox was less than a month past, but he remembered how one of the Siddarmarkian cavalry officers attached to his command had described Midhold’s climate. “One month of summer, five months of winter, and four months of damned poor sledding,” he’d said, and nothing Green Valley had seen yet contradicted him. Technically winter or not, there’d been a heavy frost overnight before the fog came up shortly after dawn, and this raw, dreary morning was quite cold enough for Green Valley’s Charisian-born sentiments. Winter in Chisholm had been a miserable experience, but Allyntyn was well north of Ahlyksberg. In fact, it was at almost the same latitude as Ramsgate Bay, and without the moderating influence of the Chisholm Current.

  He grimaced and turned to the map on the table in the center of what had been someone’s formal sitting room. That table was one of the few items of furniture to have survived, and he found himself wondering if its owner would ever return to claim it. For that matter, was that owner even still alive? He liked to think so. He liked to think someone in the riven and harrowed wasteland which had once been Midhold Province would survive and someday take up the task of putting his and his family’s lives back together again.

  That was harder to believe on some days than on others.

  He frowned at the map’s penciled-in positions of his own and known enemy units. He was actually rather better informed about those enemy units than young Slokym had been when he updated the map, and Owl was quite capable of showing him detailed topographical maps with real-time imagery. He preferred that in a tactical situation, but somehow he still found it easier to think and plan looking at the sorts of maps he’d grown up with.

  So far, his march around Bahrnabai Wyrshym’s flank had gone well, and the Temple Loyalist cavalry had lost heavily learning to leave Charisian infantry well enough alone. Wyrshym had reacted to the threat by shoring up his left with his better infantry divisions, however, and the lessons Nybar and his fellows had learned were obvious. They were paying far more attention to scouting—and to denying his own patrols freedom of movement—and there were no pikemen in their order of battle. They’d also developed a love affair with the shovel. Bitter experience had taught them the difference in vulnerability between riflemen who had to stand upright to load their weapons and riflemen who could lie on their bellies behind fallen logs or farmers’ rock piles. There wasn’t much they could do about the fact that they were stuck with muzzleloaders—yet, at least—but they’d discovered the beauty of entrenchments and breastworks.

  I really wish they were Desnairians, he thought, his finger resting on the position of Gorthyk Nybar’s Langhorne Division in the middle of the Northland Gap. These troops aren’t just better disciplined and motivated, they’re better led, and that’s a pain in the arse. Their cavalry took it in the ear the first few times we ran into them, mostly because of how well they’d done against the Siddarmarkians in the western provinces. But the survivors did learn, and they did it fast. Worse, they made sure they passed the lessons on to their people who hadn’t run into us yet. So they’re smart, they’re not afraid to learn, and they’re willing to admit it to their superiors—in the Army, at least—when they screw up. That’s a bad combination, and if Nahrmahn’s right about this new rifle of theirs, things’re going to get worse.

  Still, taking one thing with another, he was far happier to be in his shoes rather than theirs.

  At the moment, his two Charisian infantry regiments were both understrength by five or six hundred men, although the majority of those troops would be returning from the healers over the next few five-days, and Major Dyasaiyl’s battalion of scout snipers was down to just over a thousand men. But Brigadier Mohrtyn Braisyn’s 3rd Mounted Brigade had joined him last five-day, and the 1st Brigade of General Fhranklyn Pruait’s rifle-equipped 2nd Siddarmarkian Division had also joined. Counting his roughly twenty-four hundred Siddarmarkian cavalry, he had twenty-three thousand men, not counting his artillerists, and that was two-thirds of Wyrshym’s total field strength, now that he’d sent the pikemen to the rear. Then there were the twenty thousand or so Siddarmarkian militiamen not under his command but productively occupied in rooting out the last nests of Temple Loyalist “rangers” in Midhold and western Mountaincross.

  They were being no gentler about it than they had to be, those militiamen, and the exodus was headed in the opposite direction this fall. Green Valley took no pleasure in the thought of exposing anyone’s noncombatants, especially children, to cold and hunger, but it was also hard to work up as much sympathy for them as he supposed he ought to feel. At least they weren’t being ambushed by their own neighbors as they struggled through the Kalgaran Mountains’ steep, stony paths. And while the Republic’s militia was grimly determined to punish any “ranger” rearguard it could overtake, it didn’t go out of its way to harry their women and children. As for Green Valley’s men, they’d been ordered to push fleeing Temple Loyalists through the Northland Gap as firmly but gently as possible.

  And not just out of the goodness of my heart, either, he reflected grimly. Every mouth that “flees the heresy” is another one Wyrshym’ll have to feed and house over the winter. And in another few five-days, we’re going to start making his situation even worse.

  At the moment, his own supply lines were in good shape, despite the fact that the weather was turning steadily nastier. The first few five-days of autumn had been unseasonably mild, but the local weather prophets predicted a hard winter, and Owl agreed with them. By mid-November, at the latest, rivers and canals were going to freeze hard in the northern reaches of East Haven. In some ways, however, that would actually improve his logistics, given how successfully Cayleb’s semaphore negotiations with the Raven Lords had turned out.

  The Raven Lords had few export commodities, but they did have two: snow lizards and caribou. Raven’s Land snow lizards were actually smaller than the Mainland species
, especially the ones bred in North Harchong and on the vast Temple Lands farms up near Hsing-wu’s Passage, but the caribou—genetically modified by Shan-wei’s terraforming teams like so many of the Old Earth species introduced to Safehold—were much larger than their ancestors. Raven’s Land bull caribou averaged over seven hundred pounds, and bulls as big as eight hundred and even nine hundred had been recorded. One legendary specimen, Goliath of Tymythtyn, had actually been weighed at just over eleven hundred pounds, although rumor had it the scales had been … adjusted for the occasion.

  Neither snow lizards nor caribou were as efficient as dragons for sheer draft power, but they were better suited to the northern climate than even Mainland mountain dragons. That was a good thing, because once one got north of Grayback Lake, there were no canals and virtually no navigable rivers in Midhold—a big part of the reason Midhold, despite its proximity to Old Province, had boasted barely a third of Old Province’s pre-rebellion population. True, the Black Adder River flowed out of the Black Hill Mountains, but only its lower reaches were navigable and it didn’t go anywhere particularly helpful to Green Valley, anyway. That meant his supplies would have to be hauled overland, just like Wyrshym’s. But he had less men to feed and thanks to the Raven Lords’ evolving attitude towards the Charisian Empire—and its gold—he was confident he’d have all the caribou and snow lizards he needed when the time came.

  But that time isn’t here yet, he reminded himself. Right now we need to consolidate, build up a forward supply point here at Allyntyn while the militia finishes cleaning out the “rangers,” and make sure the troops are properly winterized. Let Wyrshym sweat while he worries about what we plan to do next.

  It was likely, or at least possible, Wyrshym would decide Green Valley was going into permanent winter quarters, since Safeholdian armies seldom campaigned in winter very far north of thirty-five degrees latitude. But no law said an army couldn’t conduct active operations during the winter months, and the ICA had given quite a bit of thought as to how one might do exactly that. Green Valley’s troops would shortly be equipped with proper winter uniforms, and his mounted infantry’s horses were all High Hallows.

  The High Hallow breed was the result of several centuries of selective breeding by the Dukes of High Hallow in Chisholm, starting from Old Earth Morgan horses who’d already profited from the attentions of Pei Shan-wei’s geneticists. They were smaller and lighter—and far more stubborn—than the powerful, spirited chargers Mainlander armies favored, not to mention being shaggy and far from dashing in their heavy winter coats. In fact, Brigadier Braisyn’s men had already heard a few comments about undersized, runty ponies, but they didn’t much care. Shaggy and less flamboyant a High Hallow might be, but they could get by on less feed, keep going when those dashing chargers collapsed and died, and thrive in temperatures which would kill most other breeds in short order. More, they had the sheer, stubborn determination to keep them on their feet when even their stamina should be at an end. They would have fared much less well in a climate like that of Old Charis or Corisande, but they weren’t in Old Charis or Corisande. And if they looked less impressive thundering across a field of battle behind streaming banners and the blare of bugles, that was just fine, because Charisian mounted troops had no intention of launching the sort of glorious charge which had gotten Colonel Tyrnyr’s troopers massacred at Maiyam. If they absolutely had to engage in mounted combat, they would, but as a general rule they preferred to leave that sort of foolishness for Desnairian or Harchongese aristocrats. Charisian cavalry were dragoons—mounted infantry who depended on their horses for mobility but fought on foot with rifles, bayonets, hand grenades, and (increasingly) revolvers. That was the reason their formations were described as “mounted regiments” rather than “cavalry regiments.” And for that kind of combat, especially in ice and snow, the High Hallow was the perfect mount.

  A point Baron Green Valley intended to demonstrate to Bishop Militant Bahrnabai sometime in the next few months.

  He smiled down at the map again for a moment longer, then turned back to the fire, rubbing his hands and offering them to the warmth.

  .IV.

  Sarkyn, Tairohn Hills, and Archbishop’s Palace, City of St. Vyrdyn, Princedom of Sarkyn

  The breeze was decidedly on the nippy side this morning, Mahlyk Pottyr thought grumpily.

  And well it should be! It wouldn’t be so very many more five-days before the Holy Langhorne froze solid. Under most circumstances, Pottyr would have been looking forward to that. He’d been born and grown up in Mhartynsberg, just across the Sardahn border into Charlz, and he’d seen sixty-five northern winters. All the signs indicated this one was going to be as cold, hard, and early as the last one, but the lockmaster’s cottage here in Sarkyn had thick walls, a snug roof, and a well-filled coal cellar. Once the canal froze, Pottyr should have been able to look forward to spending the short winter days and long winter evenings in his favorite armchair in front of the fire, listening comfortably to the icy cold moaning as it prowled the Tairohn Hills on paws of snow-clawed winter wind.

  Circumstances were rather different this year, however. Pottyr wasn’t sure he really believed all the tales of bloodshed, murder, and starvation coming out of the Republic. He’d seen too many refugees, often emaciated or missing ears or fingers—or both—to frostbite straggling westward along the canal to doubt there was a horrifying amount of truth to them, but still.…

  He gave himself a shake, hands deep in his coat pockets, and wished he’d been smart enough to grab his gloves before venturing out. The sunlight pouring down on Sarkyn and touching the canal water with reflections like laughing mirrors had no body, no strength. It lay across the town like an in-law’s smile, feigning a warmth it didn’t truly feel. He’d be glad to get back indoors, out of the sharp-edged breeze, but this was one of the special barge trains.

  They’re all special, Mahlyk, he scolded himself. The Army needs every ton of cargo we can get forward, even if it is piling up at Lake City. Damned heretics!

  Pottyr couldn’t remember ever seeing so many barges, even on the Langhorne, but the semaphore kept him in touch with the other lockmasters between Sarkyn and Lake City. The Canal Service had never much cared about political borders; its job was to keep the canals open, come what might, and its senior members stayed in close touch with one another. He’d been horrified—and enraged—when the Charisian Shan-wei worshippers shattered the entire northeastern arc of the system, and the messages about the mountains of cargo stacking up at Lake City and Traymos were grim proof of the damage. Vicar Rhobair’s crews were accomplishing near miracles, even if Pottyr couldn’t really like the slapdash nature of their repairs, but they’d never set all that right before spring. And in the meantime, the endless chain of draft dragons being shipped back west for the winter suggested that logjam of cargo wouldn’t be moving very fast overland, either. He was a dutiful son of Mother Church, but even so, there were times he wondered how much sense there was in continuing to rush supplies eastward if no one could get them to the Army of God at the end of it all.

  Plenty of snow lizards going up with ’em, Mahlyk! More to come, ’cording to the manifests. Saw the runners for them sleds, too, didn’t you? You just worry ’bout gettin’ ’em east of Sarkyn. Reckon Vicar Rhobair can take it from there! Prob’ly manage just fine ’thout your advice while he’s at it, too.

  He snorted at the thought, then moved a little closer to the edge of the lock chamber’s solid, centuries-old stonework as the draft dragons whistled and the first of the special barges nudged obediently into it.

  It didn’t look particularly dangerous, despite the bright red, black-barred streamers all the specials flew at bow and stern. Appearances could be deceiving, however, and it was Mahlyk Pottyr’s job to get it and its companions safely through his locks and back on their way to Bishop Militant Bahrnabai.

  The Holy Langhorne was one of the world’s most ancient canals, and the oldest canals had the fewest locks. The sam
e chapters of the Writ which detailed the construction practices to be followed by mere mortals made the reason for that scarcity of locks abundantly clear. Where men were forced to detour around mountains, build steep stair steps of locks to carry the canal barges forward, the Archangels hadn’t cared what might have lain in the way. Anyone who doubted that was the case only had to look at the canal cuts right here in the Tairohns. Why, the sides of the Ambyltyn Hill Cut, no more than four miles east of Sarkyn, towered over four hundred feet above canal level at the cut’s deepest point! And smooth, like polished marble!

  He shook his head, once more wondering how anyone could possibly be as insane as these Charisian heretics, mad enough to flout the word and spit upon the wisdom of the agents of God who’d simply commanded the Ambyltyn Cut into existence. Did the fools think they were mightier than the hills and mountains? That they could somehow defy the immortal, omnipotent will before which the very bedrock of the world had bowed its head in meek obedience?!

  Fortunately, that wasn’t something he had to worry about. His business was with the Sarkyn Locks, and that was enough for him. Even the Archangels had found it necessary to provide the occasional lock to maintain the water levels in those endless, arrow-straight stretches of canal, and that was the reason Sarkyn existed. It was a small town, really, with no more than a few hundred houses, a sparse necklace of hardscrabble hill farms beyond them, and the town church, but its locks were a critical step in the Holy Langhorne’s progress, and that was why someone with Pottyr’s experience had been put in charge of them.