“If we can’t, we can’t,” Sharleyan said gently. “And at least Nimue’s right that we can warn him about the torpedoes.”

  “I know, and God knows it’s important to do that, but we need more.” Hektor’s eyes turned grim, looking out of the face of a naval officer hardened by experience. When he looked like that, it was easy to forget he was only seventeen, Nimue thought. “I’ve been in situations like this with the Admiral.”

  Despite herself, Nimue’s lips twitched. “The Admiral” referred to only one person when Hektor used the title with no name attached: Sir Dunkyn Yairley, Baron Sarmouth. Sarmouth was more than a respected or even revered flag officer to Hektor Aplyn-Ahrmahk; he was the mentor and second father who’d taken a newly ennobled midshipman under his wing and finished teaching him to be a man, as well as a king’s officer.

  “I can’t remember how many times Sir Dunkyn’s said it’s not the things you don’t know that kill you,” Hektor continued. “It’s the things you do know but you’re wrong about. Generally speaking, I agree completely, but something like those spar torpedoes or how efficient the screw-galleys’ve turned out to be … those kinds of things can kill a lot of people if an admiral doesn’t know about them. And that doesn’t even consider the way the weather turned against Admiral Manthyr, or the fact that all Earl Sharpfield or Captain Haigyl really know about the enemy is what their own lookouts can actually see at any given moment.”

  “Isn’t that true for any admiral on either side, though?” Irys asked. “And I may be prejudiced, but I think Admiral Sarmouth’s done pretty well despite his lack of aerial reconnaissance. For that matter, all of your Charisian admirals have done pretty darn well!”

  “Of course, but as Prince Nahrmahn says, if you aren’t cheating you aren’t trying hard enough, especially where men’s lives are concerned,” Hektor replied, and Irys nodded. Then her eyes widened suddenly.

  “What?” Hektor asked, looking down at her. “I recognize that expression. What devious thing have you just thought of?”

  “Actually, I was thinking about that advice of Nahrmahn’s you just quoted,” she said slowly. “I think it’s time we started cheating a little more energetically.”

  “How?”

  “Well … I know Admiral Rock Point’s stuck in Old Charis because that’s where high admirals have to be, not to mention how deeply involved he is in everything Master Howsmyn, Sir Dustyn, and Baron Seamount are up to. I’ll be astonished if he doesn’t come up with some excuse to hand those responsibilities to someone else as soon as the first King Haarahlds commission. But for now he can hardly go dashing off to Claw Island, and since Admiral Lock Island was killed, he’s the only flag officer the inner circle has. At the moment, anyway.”

  “‘At the moment’?” Sharleyan repeated, gazing at her stepdaughter-in-law intently.

  “At the moment,” Irys said again, firmly, and looked back at Hektor. “I know it’s always a risk to bring someone else into the inner circle, especially from a standing start. Sometimes it still scares me when I think of the chance Archbishop Maikel and Merlin took when they told us the truth. I understand exactly why the circle’s always been so cautious, always taken the time to consider—when there was time, at least—whether or not someone would be able to accept the truth. But it occurs to me that all of us—especially you, Hektor—know one admiral very, very well. And that admiral happens to be right here in Corisande at the moment, where Sharleyan—and Nimue—would be available to help convince him you haven’t gone stark staring mad.”

  .IV.

  Ice Lake, Province of Glacierheart, Republic of Siddarmark

  “It’s good to see you again, Your Eminence,” Ruhsyl Thairis said as Zhasyn Cahnyr stepped ashore from the iceboat. “Even if it does seem a bit chilly to be dragging you out in the cold.” The Duke of Eastshare regarded the archbishop sternly. “We could have come across the lake to you, you know.”

  “Of course you could have, my son,” the silver-haired archbishop who still preferred to think of himself as “lean” rather than “frail” agreed. “But if you’d done that, I would have been denied an exhilarating outing.” His eyes twinkled. “Not even Sahmantha could object to a simple boat ride!”

  Eastshare arched his eyebrows skeptically. He’d met Sahmantha Gorjah last winter on his way through Glacierheart to halt Cahnyr Kaitswyrth’s advance.

  “Well, she didn’t object too long. That’s what I meant to say,” Cahnyr corrected himself, and the duke snorted.

  “Now that sounds more like Madam Gorjah,” he observed.

  “I see you know my keepers,” Cahnyr said. “One of these days, they’ll even let me have a sharp knife to cut my food with. Perhaps.”

  He shook his head and turned to the other officers gathered at dockside to await him. It was an impressive collection, he reflected. In addition to Eastshare, there was Sir Breyt Bahskym, the Earl of High Mount, as well as Ahlyn Symkyn, and the three generals were accompanied by their chiefs of staff, personal aides, and—in Eastshare’s case—his chief of artillery, Colonel Hynryk Celahk.

  No, it was Brigadier Celahk, the archbishop thought, noting the crossed silver swords which had replaced the single silver sword of a colonel’s collar insignia. For that matter, Eastshare’s rank insignia had changed, as well. The single golden sword which denoted a general officer in the Royal Chisholmian Army had been replaced by crossed golden swords, marking the duke as the first high general in Chisholmian—or Charisian—history. Right off the top of his head, it was difficult for Cahnyr to think of anyone who’d deserved promotion more than either of them. Although, to be fair, Eastshare always had been the Imperial Charisian Army’s senior uniformed officer. His new rank was more of a housekeeping detail than anything else, in that respect.

  “Well,” Cahnyr said, “now that I’m here, I’m sure the keepers currently in attendance—” he twitched his head at Zhorj Gorjah and Laimuyl Azkhat, standing innocently at his heels “—would prefer for all of us to get out of this wind. Somehow it seems less ‘exhilarating’ standing here at dockside than it did sailing across the lake.”

  “Imagine that,” Eastshare murmured, then bowed slightly and waved at the waiting sleighs. “After you, Your Eminence.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t a very long ride, although Cahnyr was grateful for the warm blankets and windproof, beautifully tanned snow lizard pelt his hosts had insisted upon tucking around him. It was the first time he’d ridden behind one of the Raven’s Land caribou rather than a snow lizard, however, and he found the thick-shouldered, antlered beasts impressive. They passed quite a few other caribou—and snow lizards—along the way, and his eyes glittered with a light which was harder and far, far colder than they’d ever been in more peaceful times as he saw the artillery pieces many of those draft animals were towing. After the previous year’s vicious fighting, he’d developed an appreciation for the weapons of war which once would have horrified him. Which still horrified him, actually, he reflected. It was just that there were other things which horrified him still more.

  “That’s impressive, My Lord,” he remarked, twitching his head at a massive, bizarrely shaped cannon.

  Like its smaller brethren, its wheels had been chocked onto long, broad runners to help it glide across the snow, but those wheels were much bigger than most and set farther back on its carriage. They made it look … off balance, he thought, and that was scarcely the only—or the most—odd thing about it. It was hard to make out details under the canvas tarp which shrouded it, but a large box-like framework beneath its barrel housed two side-by-side cylinders, almost like two additional, stubby guns. The actual barrel clearly moved along the top of the frame, and it had been run fully to the rear, so far back its muzzle projected no more than a few feet beyond the carriage axle. The breech seemed oddly angular under the protective canvas, as well, he thought. For that matter, the gun trail was different from any he’d ever seen before. It seemed to be made entirely out of steel, it was muc
h longer than normal, and it had been split lengthwise into two legs joined by a massive hinge at the rear of the carriage and locked back into a single unit for towing purposes.

  “It is impressive, Your Eminence,” Eastshare agreed. “That’s one of the new breech-loading angle-guns.”

  “Ah?” Cahnyr looked at it again. “I’d heard your Delthak Works were improving your existing artillery. Improving it still further, I suppose I should say.” He smiled briefly. “May I ask why the barrel seems so far … back?”

  “That’s to equalize the weight between the axles and the limber while it’s being moved.” Eastshare nodded at the two-wheeled cart—its wheels also on runners at the moment—hitched to the end of the gun trail. “When it’s fired, though, the barrel recoils to the same position without moving the carriage. That’s why the trail’s split that way, so it can be spread and dug in properly to stabilize the gun.”

  “I see.” The archbishop turned back to his general. “It seems quite substantial,” he observed. “Much larger than the thirty-pounders Brigadier Taisyn was equipped with. It actually looks a bit larger than the angle-guns you deployed last year, for that matter.”

  “Because it is, Your Eminence,” Eastshare agreed. “It’s a breechloader—basically the same weapon the Navy’s mounting in the heavy ironclads, just on a field mounting. It’s the same caliber as our original angle-guns, and its barrel’s about two feet longer, although the field version is still quite a bit shorter than the Navy’s version, to keep weight down. It has more elevation than the Navy’s pieces—or than our muzzle-loading angles, for that matter—but its maximum range is shorter than for the Navy because of the shorter barrel. Brigadier Celahk tells me it can still reach out to about twelve thousand yards, though, half again as far as our older angles could shoot, and it has a much higher rate of fire. We only have four of them, at the moment, and I’m glad to see them. Frankly, I didn’t expect to have any at all before early summer.”

  “I can see why you’d be pleased,” Cahnyr acknowledged, and shook his head, once more bemused—and possibly more than a little frightened—by the furious pace at which the Empire of Charis persisted in changing the face of war.

  So much killing, he thought sadly. So much blood and death and destruction. But terrible as it is, how much more terrible would it be if someone like Zhaspahr Clyntahn had been left free to wreak whatever vengeance he chose upon anyone who dared to defy him?

  “In a lot of ways, I’d prefer old-fashioned cannon and matchlocks, too, Your Eminence.” Eastshare’s comment surprised the archbishop and drew his eyes back to the high general’s face, and the duke shrugged. “There’s nothing demonic about any of the new weapons. Father Paityr and Archbishop Maikel have both assured me of that, and Master Howsmyn’s mechanics’ve described the principles to me often enough. For that matter, any general who doesn’t embrace anything that saves the lives of his own men has no business commanding them in the first place. And I don’t want to sound callous, but dead is dead, however a man’s killed. But sometimes…” It was his turn to shake his head. “Sometimes the number of the dead is enough to keep me awake and on my knees all night.”

  Cahnyr reached out impulsively, laying one hand on the other man’s knee.

  “That’s a good sign,” he said. One of Eastshare’s eyebrows rose, and the archbishop smiled. It was a little crooked, that smile, pulled off-center by the way Eastshare’s admission resonated with his own thoughts of only a moment before. “It’s a sign you have a conscience, my son. God and the Archangels gave you that for a reason, and it’s good you still have it.” His smile faded. “I only wish more of those who claim to serve Mother Church could say the same.”

  “I think you’re right, Your Eminence. That it’s good we still have consciences, whether or not the other side does. In fact, what worries me most is the number of good men I’ve seen losing their consciences to the need for vengeance. For that matter,” he looked away, “I can’t pretend I wasn’t … grateful when Lairys Walkyr refused my offer of quarter.”

  “Not all wounds are of the flesh,” Cahnyr said quietly. “And not all of them heal. But I think you should cherish the pain you feel when you think about Fort Tairys. Don’t let it prevent you from doing what you must, but remember what makes you who you are.”

  “I’ll try to bear that in mind, Your Eminence,” Eastshare replied, turning back to meet his gaze levelly. Then he shook himself and smiled, pointing ahead as their sleigh rounded a bend. A line of artillery pieces had been deployed, Cahnyr saw, and his eyes widened in sudden understanding.

  “I’ll try to bear it in mind,” the general continued, “but in the meantime, we have a small surprise demonstration to show you before we get you indoors and brief you on our current dispositions. They aren’t as heavy as the angle-gun we passed on the way here, but I think once you’ve seen them in action you’ll understand why I was so happy to see the heavy angles.”

  The new guns were … sleeker than the six-inch angle, Cahnyr thought, and fitted with sloped steel shields of some sort. They had the same split trails, however, and there were spades at the end of each leg, dug into solid earth. Gun crews stood waiting—fewer of them per gun than he would have expected—and he looked back at the duke questioningly.

  “Master Howsmyn’s christened them the ‘M97 Field Gun, 4-inch, Model 1,’ Your Eminence. Like the new angle-guns, they don’t use studded shells anymore, and a trained crew can fire six or seven rounds a minute out to as much as five thousand yards. And I’m afraid,” Eastshare’s smile faded into an expression of grim satisfaction, “the Temple Boys aren’t going to like them a bit.”

  .V.

  Mahzgyr, Duchy of Gwynt, and The Ohlarn Gap, New Northland Province, Republic of Siddarmark

  “I think you’ll find this interesting, Your Eminence,” Taychau Daiyang said, waving one hand at the infantry platoon marching through the snow towards them. “It was the suggestion of a young captain of spears in the Two Hundred Thirty-First Volunteers.”

  “Was it, My Lord?” Archbishop Militant Gustyv Walkyr turned to look in the direction the commander of the Mighty Host of God and the Archangels had indicated. “That would be Camp Number Four, wouldn’t it?” The Harchongian nodded, and Walkyr smiled. “I understand several interesting suggestions have come out of that camp,” he observed.

  “True. And I, for one, am grateful for it.”

  There was quite a freight of meaning packed into that sentence, Walkyr reflected. Taychau Daiyang, the Earl of Rainbow Waters, had been appointed to the rank of lord of horse for his present assignment. An earl was rather junior for such an important post in the Imperial Harchongese Army, and lord of horse might be best described as an elastic rank. It was roughly equivalent to a bishop in the Army of God or to a general—possibly even a mere brigadier—in the Siddarmarkian or Charisian armies, but there was no formal step or title between it and lord of hosts, the highest Harchongese field rank. That meant it held whatever authority the emperor (or his bureaucracy, at least) decided it needed to hold at any given moment, and Rainbow Waters had been selected over the heads of at least a score of lords of horse whose seniority far exceeded his own.

  He was also the fifth commander the Mighty Host had enjoyed since leaving Harchong. The first two had resigned in protest when they’d discovered what Allayn Maigwair and Rhobair Duchairn had in mind. The third had been removed in disgrace for incompetence and a degree of corruption not even the IHA had been prepared to tolerate. The fourth had also resigned, officially because he found it impossible to endure the arrogance and interference in his command’s internal affairs by the Army of God “advisors” attached to it. Personally, Walkyr was confident his opposition to what those advisors were attempting to accomplish had had quite a lot to do with his decision, as well.

  But Rainbow Waters was different. He was smarter than any of the others, for one thing, and far more pragmatic. The earl clearly had misgivings of his own, yet it was equally clear he u
nderstood why the Mighty Host had required such a massive overhaul. Unlike any of his predecessors, he’d gotten behind the effort and pushed both hard and competently, despite the passive resistance of at least a quarter of his own subordinates. He’d been remarkably ruthless about relieving the most obstructionist of those subordinates, too, despite the near certainty of bitter future feuds with their powerful families or patrons.

  “What have the Volunteers come up with this time, My Lord?”

  “I prefer to allow you to enjoy the surprise, Your Eminence.”

  “Ah?”

  “I believe Captain of Swords Tsynzhwei deserves to have you approach it without … preconceptions, although I’m not at all certain he came up with the idea himself, initially.” Rainbow Waters smiled faintly. “In fact, I rather suspect it came from one of his company commanders. Possibly even some lowly sergeant. I doubt the heretics are going to enjoy it, however.”

  The marching infantry had continued to approach the covered reviewing stand on which Walkyr, Rainbow Waters, and half a dozen lower-ranking officers and aides stood, and Walkyr somehow managed not to roll his eyes as he realized the entire platoon was equipped with slings. The Imperial Harchongese Army was the only major army which still included slingers in its order of battle—mostly because peasants and serfs were prohibited by law from mastering any more sophisticated missile weapon. Despite the massive effort to reequip the Mighty Host of God and the Archangels, over sixty thousand of its million infantry were still sling-armed, which meant they were the next best thing to useless on a modern field of battle.

  The archbishop militant sighed internally and prepared to find some way to express approval of whatever he was about to see without perjuring his immortal soul. Rainbow Waters might be more pragmatic than the majority of his peers, but he was still a Harchongese aristocrat which, by definition, meant proud, prickly, and deeply aware of his towering superiority to any non-Harchongian. Irritating as that might make him upon occasion, he’d made a massive sacrifice of his own honor—by Harchongese standards—simply to accept his current command, and it would never do to offend him. For that matter, he deserved a little diplomatic stroking. Chihiro knew more than a few of those peers of his back home were already plotting his assassination for his betrayal of his own kind!