“And once he acknowledges that it’s deteriorating, at least to himself.” Aivah nodded, her expression serious. “As of now, all indications are that he hasn’t done anything of the sort. All of the Church’s setbacks have been temporary in his mind because the power and the weight of her resources—his resources, really—is so great. I doubt he truly appreciates the implications Duchairn and Maigwair have obviously recognized about our comparative abilities to raise and equip armies. Once he does realize that—once it begins to percolate through his brain that he could actually lose this war—any remaining gloves will come off, Cayleb. He won’t give a damn about the Proscriptions, or anything else in the Writ, once he realizes he isn’t going to win his jihad if he tries to abide by them.” She grimaced. “It’s not like he really believes in anything besides the Church of Zhaspahr Clyntahn!”
“Wonderful,” Cayleb said sourly, then shook himself. “All of that may be true, and you’re both right that we need to be thinking about it. For that matter, I’m not really ready to break out the assassins yet myself. But the whole discussion’s getting away from the matter actually at hand. And what you and Kynt are basically saying, Merlin, is that regardless of whether or not they decide to start producing rockets by midsummer, we need to take advantage of our better mobility while it’s still winter—before the thaw—even if it means running some serious risks.”
“More or less,” Merlin conceded.
He dropped a command into the com net, and Owl obediently projected a map of the Ohlarn Gap onto Cayleb’s and Aivah’s contact lenses.
“Originally,” Merlin said for Aivah’s benefit, “Kynt’s plan was to trap Nybar and his command as far forward as he could. What he really would’ve liked to do was to catch Nybar in an open field engagement, but there was never much chance of that, especially after Wyrshym pulled Nybar back to Fairkyn. So the fallback plan was to advance through Esthyr’s Abbey, Saint Zhana, and Saint Tyldyn—which he’s done now—to envelop Nybar at Fairkyn and crush that detachment in isolation. If Nybar hadn’t been pulled back, and if Kynt hadn’t been forced to take all three of those towns in order to clear the high road as he went, First Corps would already have dealt with Nybar, before he was so well dug in, and be on its way to Rankylyr.”
A pointer appeared on the projected map, indicating a small, mountainous city on the northwest flank of the Ice Ash Mountains in the Ohlarn Gap. The high road from Fairkyn to Guarnak, which lay roughly three hundred miles farther to the southwest, ran just below the town’s rocky perch. Artillery in Rankylyr could readily dominate the roadbed, although it couldn’t possibly reach the line of the disabled Guarnak-Ice Ash Canal, almost fifty miles to the west. Wyrshym had already emplaced three precious batteries of twelve-pounders to do just that, and his fatigue parties had built emplacements for twice as many additional guns. He didn’t have the pieces to put in those emplacements—yet—but the fact that he’d ordered their construction showed how clearly he appreciated the town’s tactical importance.
“At the moment, there’s only a relatively weak picket—just a couple of AOG infantry regiments and three militia regiments—actually in and around Rankylyr,” Merlin continued. “There are enough artillerists to man the guns, but not enough infantry to put up a serious defense. What Wyrshym and Nybar have in mind is that if and when Nybar’s forced to retreat from Fairkyn, he’ll fall back to Rankylyr, bringing his own guns with him and putting them into all those empty emplacements. And if something nasty happens to Nybar, Wyrshym has two or three infantry divisions at Guarnak. Technically, they’re his reserve for his forward positions down around Saiknyr—” the cursor swooped four hundred miles due south to Wyvern Lake in the Sylmahn Gap “—but he could also send them up to Rankylyr to deny Kynt the use of the high road while he either retreats, reorients his forces, or is reinforced by the Mighty Host of God and the Archangels. And if all of this is going on after the thaw’s set in, Kynt won’t be able to advance without the high road, whatever happens.”
He paused, cocking one eyebrow at her, and she nodded to indicate that she was following him so far.
“All right. What Kynt’s suggesting now is that he do basically what Duke Harless did with Thesmar … with the obvious difference that Fairkyn isn’t a seaport and the AOG can’t ship in supplies and reinforcements by sea. Instead of taking heavy losses capturing Fairkyn, what he wants to do is turn Fairkyn into a cage for Nybar’s entire detachment. If Makgrygair’s division can get into position, he’ll come within a few thousand men of matching Nybar’s field strength, unless Wyrshym gets the intended reinforcements to Fairkyn. Makgrygair’s Siddarmarkians wouldn’t have the strength to take the place, but especially if Kynt detaches Brigadier Tymkyn and the Fourth Mounted Brigade to support him and give him some extra mobility, he should have the strength to keep Nybar from pulling out of Fairkyn. For tactical and strategic purposes, the Army of Fairkyn will be as thoroughly out of action as if every man in it had been shot through the head.”
“As long as General Makgrygair keeps the cork in the bottle,” Cayleb put in a bit sourly, and Merlin nodded.
“As long as he keeps the cork in it,” he acknowledged.
“And in the meantime, Baron Green Valley will do…?”
Aivah’s question trailed off and she arched her eyebrows at him.
“And in the meantime, Baron Green Valley and First Corps will head up the high road towards Fairkyn. But instead of diverting to his left after he crosses the Ice Ash, he’ll continue along the high road and take Ohlarn, a hundred and forty miles to the northwest. At the moment, Ohlarn’s garrisoned by only four regiments of militia, mostly still armed with arbalests and pikes. In order to keep Ohlarn from realizing he’s coming, Brigadier Braisyn’s mounted brigade will continue to advance southwest towards Fairkyn while the rest of First Corps heads for Ohlarn. That should keep Nybar focused on the threat to his position without worrying about reinforcing Ohlarn.
“Hopefully, the first thing Nybar or Wyrshym will know about any threat to Ohlarn will be when the place surrenders. At that point, Kynt’s on the high road only a hundred miles or so from Rankylyr … and a hundred and thirty miles closer to it than Fairkyn, with Second Corps already bypassing Fairkyn in his wake and General Makgrygair moving up to invest Nybar’s position.
“From Ohlarn, First Corps takes Rankylyr. That should take about another five-day and a half. By then, Second Corps should’ve caught up with First Corps. At that point, General Brohkamp peels off someone to hold Rankylyr—probably Brigadier Traigair and Third Brigade—while First Corps takes advantage of its ability to move through deep snow and sets off cross-country for here.”
The cursor swooped again, this time five-hundred-plus miles almost due west to the town of Five Forks.
“This is the part that’s making Cayleb nervous,” Merlin said. “Marching cross-country, Kynt can’t count on moving more than twenty miles a day even with his snow lizards and caribou. In good, clear weather, he could probably come close to twenty-five or even thirty, for short bursts, with First Corps’ ski troops and snowshoes. His supply echelons couldn’t keep up with them, though, and in really bad weather, not even the Charisian Army’s going to be able to move at all. So, call it an average of fifteen miles a day, instead. At that rate, it takes him thirty days to reach Five Forks. That should let him get there with at least a couple of five-days or so to spare, assuming Owl’s long-range weather projections hold up and he doesn’t get hit by an early thaw, on the one hand, or a series of blizzards, on the other. It’ll be tighter for Second Corps, but with First Corps to break trail, Brohkamp’s men should be able to stay pretty close behind Kynt’s point. Barring those blizzards I mentioned, at any rate.”
“But once he takes Five Forks, he’ll be in the middle of enemy-held territory, with the Mighty Host north of him and Wyrshym south of him, won’t he?” Aivah asked.
“Sure he will … with fifty thousand Charisian infantry with artillery support.” Merlin’s smile wo
uld have shamed a kraken. “Not only that, but whatever happens to the weather in New Northland and Tarikah, the thaw’s going to come at least several five-days later along the Holy Langhorne Canal. That means the Mighty Host either won’t be able to move at all, or else that it’ll move very, very slowly. In the meantime, Nybar’s trapped in Fairkyn, eating his way through his stockpiled supplies. Even if he somehow slips away from Makgrygair, our artillery will be emplaced at Rankylyr when he tries to move south to rejoin Wyrshym. And whatever happens to him, no more of those new rifles and new pieces of artillery’ll be able to move past Five Forks to Wyrshym. For that matter, his entire existing supply line—such as it is and what there is of it—will be cut.”
“And what about Kynt’s supplies?” Cayleb asked sardonically.
“Kynt’s supplies are … problematical,” Merlin acknowledged with a crooked smile. “I did say I thought it was an ‘audacious’ plan, didn’t I?”
“Yes, I believe you did,” Cayleb replied affably.
“Well, according to his calculations, he ought to be able to haul along enough supplies to keep his men and his horses and draft animals reasonably well fed during his advance to Five Forks. It’ll be a long way back to Ohlarn, which he plans to make his advanced supply head after Makgrygair seals off Fairkyn, but it ought to be doable. Things get dicier after that.”
Aivah cocked her head.
“Somehow that doesn’t sound incredibly reassuring, Merlin,” she said. “What do you mean by ‘dicier’?”
“He means Kynt’s planning on eating his snow lizards and caribou,” Cayleb told her flatly.
She looked shocked, and Merlin shrugged.
“It’s always possible that if he moves quickly enough and the Church is in enough doubt about his actual objectives he’ll be able to take Five Forks by a coup de main—sorry. That’s from an Old Earth language called ‘French.’ It means ‘a blow of the hand,’ or a sudden strike that gets through your opponent’s guard. Anyway, if he can take Five Forks before anyone thinks about destroying the supply center there, he’ll have plenty of food and fodder. On the other hand, planning an operation which relied on doing that would be pretty damned stupid, so as Cayleb’s comment suggests, Kynt’s run his calculations on the basis that he won’t capture Five Forks’ supply dumps.
“To begin with, the caribou will find some forage even in North Haven. That’ll help on the advance. The snow lizards, of course, are carnivores. That presents problems of its own, but if worse comes to worst, he’ll be able to keep the snow lizards going by butchering some of the caribou as he empties the supply sleds they’re pulling. After he takes Five Forks—assuming he didn’t take the supply dumps intact—he slaughters the draft animals he doesn’t need anymore and uses them to keep his troops and probably his snow lizards fed. If he slaughters the caribou first, it would ease his animal feed constraints and let him retain all of his available grain and fodder for his mounted infantry and his artillery draft animals.”
From her expression, she didn’t feel a lot better, and Merlin shrugged.
“Best-case scenario, Aivah, he takes the supply dumps, Second Corps closes up with him, and we get enough additional draft animals forward to him—we’re expecting another convoy of caribou from Raven’s Land in a couple of five-days, for example—that he doesn’t have to do that. More probable scenario—assuming he doesn’t take the dumps intact—he does have to slaughter somewhere around a third of his caribou. Maybe half. That reduces his mobility, but it should keep his troops fed through early June. By that point, the roads will be improving, we should have Fairkyn, and the ice on the Ice Ash will have broken up, which means we’ll be able to move up the river from Ranshair and shift his primary supply head all the way up to Ohlarn, as planned. That would shorten his overland supply route from Grayback Lake by over eleven hundred miles.” He shook his head. “That’ll free up more than enough transport to keep Five Forks supplied even cross-country from Rankylyr, and by the end of June, the Navy’ll be back in Spinefish Bay. With naval gunfire support, a couple of the new Siddarmarkian rifle divisions should be able to retake Salyk quickly, at which point we begin an advance up the North Hildermoss from the coast towards Cat-Lizard Lake. There’re a lot of locks along the way that the Church can destroy to slow us down and make things difficult, but that’s still going to pose a threat Maigwair has to take seriously.”
Aivah was nodding now, her eyes intent, and Merlin shrugged again.
“With Kynt at Five Forks, Wyrshym would be in the same sort of trap as Nybar at Fairkyn. Except, of course, that if Nybar manages to hold out until the ice on the river breaks, we’ll be able to send ironclads and additional troop transports all the way upriver to reinforce Makgrygair. For that matter, we’d be able to release another couple of Charisian divisions from the Reserve here in Old Province to create an additional army outside Fairkyn, probably under General Sahmyrsyt, because with the shorter supply line, they wouldn’t overwhelm Kynt’s available transport. At that point, Nybar either surrenders or we take the town away from him the hard way.
“It’s unlikely Clyntahn will let Wyrshym retreat in time to escape what Kynt has planned for him. He’d have to pull out almost immediately, as soon as he figures out what’s coming, and you know even better than we do how hard it’d be for Maigwair or Duchairn to convince Clyntahn to let him do that. If he doesn’t, he’s stuck at Guarnak and badly outnumbered by the forces we can bring to bear once we’ve taken Fairkyn and opened the lower reaches of the Ice Ash to our river traffic, and he’s cut off from the Church’s new rifles and artillery, as well.
“If the thaw comes as much earlier in eastern East Haven than along the Holy Langhorne as usual, the Mighty Host will still be stuck in ice, snow, or mud at that point. If they are, Kynt stays put at Five Forks to block any retreat while Sahmyrsyt or Makgrygair’s Siddarmarkians advance through the Ohlarn Gap and General Stohnar comes north with the army the Republic’s been building up in the lower Sylmahn Gap over the winter. The chance that Wyrshym’s going to get out of that … isn’t very good, let’s say.”
“And if we’re unlucky about the weather and it thaws earlier than projected along the Holy Langhorne?” Cayleb asked quietly, and Merlin shrugged.
“If the Harchongians can move sooner than we’re anticipating, and if they’re able to coordinate with Wyrshym—and the Church is prepared to ignore the threat coming up the North Hildermoss and what should be happening to it about the same time down in Cliff Peak—we could be in trouble,” he conceded. “At that point, Kynt has to hold Five Forks while the Siddarmarkians deal with Wyrshym and all of our supply calculations get a lot more … complicated. But he’s absolutely right about the payoff if he can pull it off, Cayleb. And about the fact that Eastshare, High Mount, and Symkyn are going to be occupying just a bit of Maigwair’s attention, come spring. You know he is.”
“Yes, I do.” Cayleb sighed. Then he managed a crooked, half-bitter smile and shook his head at Merlin. “I do, and if I were the one leading this … this ‘calculated risk’ of his, I’d probably be just as eager to try it as he is. But I’m not.” He shook his head again. “I’m the one who has to authorize someone else to do it, and if it doesn’t work—if it turns into a disaster because we get two solid five-days of blizzards nobody anticipated, or the thaw comes early in the Border States, or it comes late on the Ice Ash—I’ll be the one who rolled the dice—because, in the final analysis, the responsibility’s mine, whoever came up with the idea in the first place—and crapped out with the lives of sixty thousand men.”
“I know.” Merlin looked across at the emperor who was also his friend, and his blue eyes were almost gentle. “I know. But look at it this way, Cayleb. If you do decide to let him do this, you’ll get to use your own dice, and the fellow you’ll have actually rolling them has a pretty damned good track record.”
“That’s certainly true,” the emperor admitted wryly. “And if he thinks he can pull it off, I don’t suppose I ought
to be telling him no. It still makes me nervous as hell, though. And I think before we make any decisions on this, we need to discuss it with Domynyk and Sharleyan, once they both wake up. And with Stohnar, for that matter, once Kynt’s official dispatch gets to us here. Most of the Army of Midland’s Charisian, but if we screw around and lose that army, he’s the one whose northern flank’s going to come apart all over again.”
Merlin nodded and Cayleb took a long swallow from his whiskey glass. His expression was sour, but Merlin knew him too well to be fooled. The emperor still didn’t like the idea, for all the reasons he’d just listed, yet he already knew he probably was going to sign off on it.
“Well,” Aivah took another sip of her own—a far more delicate and ladylike one in her case—then set down her glass, unfolded her legs, and stood, “I’m just as happy to leave all those hard, sweaty military decisions up to you and the Emperor, Merlin.” She swept Cayleb a graceful curtsey, and the emperor chuckled. “In the meantime, however, I have errands of my own to run. I appreciate your willingness to loan me your recon skimmer.”
“You’re welcome,” Merlin said solemnly. “Just try not to break it.”
“Since Owl’s going to be flying it by remote while I keep my hands safely off the controls, perhaps you should take that up with him,” she suggested sweetly.
“I guess any parent worries when his kids take the air car out without him,” Merlin sighed.
“I shall endeavor to deliver it and Madam Pahrsahn to the Cave intact, Commander Athrawes,” Owl said over the com link, and Merlin chuckled, although his humor was slightly forced.
Since the PICA Owl had built had been loaded with a duplicate of Nimue Alban’s memories and personality, the AI had been forced to find a way to differentiate between the different iterations of her. Fortunately, it was a situation the Federation had faced before.