* * *
“—will the men of the Mighty Host.”
Well, that’s certainly a pain in the arse, Kynt Clareyk thought grumpily as he finished viewing the SNARC report. Bad enough the damned Host got itself reorganized and rearmed—did they really have to find it a competent commanding officer, too?
He growled an unpleasant word under his breath and sat back in his camp chair, holding a mug of hot tea between his palms. A strong and still-strengthening wind blustered around his tent, and Owl’s remotes promised at least thirty hours of fresh snowfall. Fortunately, while it might be steady, it didn’t look as if it would be very heavy. The AI’s forecast called for accumulations of no more than ten inches or so, but it was still going to slow his progress until it cleared.
At the moment, he was over two hundred miles southeast of Ohlarn, and the good news was that he’d pounced on the largely deserted town before anyone realized he was coming. His scout snipers and mounted infantry had snapped up its shivering, understrength garrison and the relative handful of remaining civilians—after cutting the semaphore chain west of the town—in the middle of the night. The astounded defenders had never managed to get a message out, and ski-equipped scout snipers, moving all but invisibly in the short days and poor visibility, had swept on ahead of his main body. They’d bypassed semaphore stations which might have seen them coming in daylight and struck repeatedly in darkness, chopping the chain into disconnected bits and pieces incapable of warning anyone else his main body was coming. It was unlikely he’d be able to keep that up forever, but it was likely he’d make good at least another couple of hundred miles before the Church realized what was happening.
But they’ve done a better job of figuring out what might be happening than I like, he acknowledged. And Rainbow Waters is a hell of a lot smarter than anybody else they’ve tried in command of the Mighty Host. I think he’s being a little pessimistic about how far he’ll be able to move in a day, too. And if he does start with Falling Rock.…
The sheer size of the Harchongese army had required Rhobair Duchairn to split it up between encampments, if only because of hygiene considerations. There were over a dozen of those camps threaded along more than a thousand miles of canal and river, and Gwainmyn Yiangszhu, the Baron of Falling Rock, commanded the easternmost of them all, located outside the city of Watermeet, at the confluence of the Sabana River and the Holy Langhorne Canal. Even assuming Rainbow Waters’ estimate wasn’t pessimistic, Falling Rock would be more than two-thirds of the way across the Earldom of Usher by the time the ice melted. That was still a long way from Guarnak or Five Forks, but it was more than halfway to Lake City in Tarikah, and that was a lot closer than Green Valley wanted fifty or sixty thousand new-model Harchongese soldiers.
Well, it’s not the end of the world, Kynt, he told himself after a moment. You should still have time to deal with Wyrshym, and maybe it won’t be such a bad thing if they decide to feed fifty thousand men into the furnace early instead of keeping the entire Host together in one big sledgehammer. Especially with those damned grenade-launching slings added to the mix!
That was another potentially painful miscalculation, he acknowledged. Like Walkyr, he—and the rest of the inner circle, including one Merlin Athrawes—had allowed themselves a certain contempt where slings were concerned. As Rainbow Waters had pointed out to Walkyr, that was largely because none of them had ever seen them in use, and because they’d seriously underestimated the range and accuracy of which a skilled slinger was capable. Nor had they considered the effect of specially shaped ammunition. Owl and Nahrmahn had been back over the available information since Rainbow Waters’ demonstration and discovered a point all of them had overlooked, probably because of the way they’d automatically dismissed such “obsolete” weapons. The same Harchongese laws which prohibited serfs or peasants from possessing those or firearms imposed bloodthirsty penalties for the possession of sling bullets, as well. Simple river rocks could never have matched a properly designed bullet’s range or accuracy, and the greater surface area of a stone limited its penetrating ability.
The sling grenades the Harchongians had come up with, however, were the same shape as the bullets the IHA had always issued to its slingers, as opposed to the slingers it might oppose in the event of a peasant rebellion. They were fairly sharply pointed double-ended ovoids—in fact, they looked a lot like an ancient American football—and they oriented in flight to travel point first and spin rather like a rifled bullet. Owl had recomputed their range and potential accuracy, and the result had been astounding. An experienced slinger could actually hurl his bullet at an initial velocity of almost three hundred feet per second, forty-five percent faster than a crossbow bolt, which Owl calculated would allow him to attain a range of as much as six hundred yards with a “standard” three-ounce bullet.
The sling, he’d discovered courtesy of Owl’s rather belated research, had enjoyed greater longevity than any other missile weapon in human history. In addition to its cheapness, it was easy to make and had been used in virtually every part of Old Earth except the continent of Australia. Its main drawbacks were that, even more than the bow, it required literally a lifetime’s training—preferably, beginning in childhood—and that a slinger required a lot of room to use his weapon properly. Space requirements were fine for an individual’s weapon, but far more bows, crossbows, or firearms could be packed into the same space and provide a much greater density of fire.
The substantially bigger and less dense grenades couldn’t reach out as far as bullets from the same weapons, however. A standard Church grenade weighed two ounces more than its Charisian counterpart, and the best attainable range with one of them would be no more than a hundred and sixty yards or so. But three hundred yards should be well within the staff slingers’ reach using the specially designed grenades, and even men equipped with standard slings could hurl grenades much farther than they could be thrown by hand. Under the wrong circumstances, that sort of deluge of grenades could prove extremely painful. On the other hand, slingers had to stand upright to launch their projectiles, and any massed formation that stood upright in the open within two or three hundred yards of Charisian riflemen in open terrain wouldn’t do it twice.
Brother Lynkyn’s damned rockets are going to be more dangerous than slings, he told himself. It’s just another factor you’re going to have to take into consideration, and the rifle grenades will help. Or would help, assuming you had enough of them to match the sort of volume of fire they’ll be able to put out.
He grimaced at that last thought, then ordered himself to stop fretting about it. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have enough other things to focus on.
Besides, when the rest of them started giving him a hard time, he intended to point out that neither Merlin nor Owl had seen this one coming any sooner than he had.
It might not be much, but a good tactician maximized whatever advantage he had.
.VI.
Claw Island, Sea of Harchong, and Charisian Embassy, Siddar City, Republic of Siddarmark
Sir Lewk Cohlmyn, the Earl of Sharpfield, looked up at the sound of a discreet knock.
“Enter!” he called, and the office door opened to admit his flag lieutenant.
“Yes, Mahrak?”
“There’s someone to see you, My Lord,” Sir Mahrak Tympyltyn replied.
“‘Someone’?” Sharpfield repeated quizzically, and Tympyltyn shrugged.
“I’ve never met the, ah, gentleman before, My Lord. He just sailed in through the North Channel in a fishing yawl … by himself. One of the guard boats intercepted him, and escorted him to Broken Tree Inlet, and Major Wyllyms interviewed him. He seems to be Dohlaran, which puts him a long way from home. He’s rather insistent about speaking to you, however, and he asked me to tell you Clyffyrd sent him.”
Sharpfield’s eyes narrowed, and he straightened in his chair.
“I see,” he said. “Does this visitor have a name of his own?”
“He
says it’s Cudd, My Lord. Dagyr Cudd.”
From Tympyltyn’s expression, the lieutenant recognized an alias when he heard one. On the other hand.…
“Please show Master Cudd in,” the earl said, and Tympyltyn inclined his head in a brief bow and withdrew.
The door opened again a moment later, and the lieutenant ushered in a roughly dressed, sandy blond man of perhaps forty years and a bit less than average height. The newcomer’s naturally fair complexion was darkly tanned and weather-beaten, his hands bore the calluses of hard work, and his eyes were dark brown under bushy eyebrows.
“Master Cudd, My Lord,” Tympyltyn said.
“Thank you, Mahrak.”
Sharpfield’s tone conveyed both thanks and polite dismissal. Tympyltyn looked as if he might like to object, and his eyes dipped very briefly to the serviceable fisherman’s knife sheathed at Cudd’s right hip. They rose again to meet his superior’s, one eyebrow raised, but the earl only smiled and twitched his head at the open door.
“Of course, My Lord,” the lieutenant murmured, and closed the door behind him.
“So my good friend Clyffyrd sent you, did he, Master Cudd?” Sharpfield inquired pleasantly, leaning back in his chair.
“Aye, that she did, My Lord,” Cudd replied in a pronounced Dohlaran accent. “Mind you, it’s been a while since she sent me out here.”
“I see.”
The earl’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly at Cudd’s choice of pronouns and he propped his elbows on the arms of his chair and steepled his fingers across his chest as he considered the man in front of him. The fact that Cudd knew the codename he’d used to gain admittance to Sharpfield’s office didn’t necessarily prove he truly was a Charisian spy. But for the Inquisition to have provided that name to him—and for him to have known it referred to Empress Sharleyan herself—would have required near total penetration of the Charisian spy network. That seemed … unlikely, given the Inquisition’s repeated failures against Charisian intelligence, and Master Cudd’s outlandish name was its own bona fide, in an odd sort of way.
“Tell me, Master Cudd—would it happen that you’re acquainted with a fellow named Merlin?”
“As a matter of fact, My Lord, I am,” Cudd acknowledged, and Sharpfield’s eyebrows arched as the Dohlaran accent vanished into one the earl knew very, very well. Harris Island, between Cherry Blossom Sound and Helena Sound, had produced the Kingdom of Chisholm’s hardiest fishermen for at least the last two hundred years.
“I see,” he said once more, in a rather different tone. “And may I ask why you’re here?”
“Well, as to that, My Lord, there’s a few things I think you should know about what Earl Thirsk’s been up to. For example—”
* * *
“That went rather better than I expected,” Aivah Pahrsahn said as she, Cayleb, and Merlin reviewed the SNARC imagery.
“No reason why it shouldn’t have gone well.” Cayleb sipped from the whiskey glass in his hand and shrugged. “Nimue had the proper identification, and Sir Lewk’s never been stupid. He recognized the truth when he heard it.”
“And at least now he knows about the spar torpedoes and the availability of Zhwaigair’s screw-galleys,” Merlin pointed out.
“I only wish he could get the word out to all of his detachments more rapidly.” Aivah shook her head. “I’d never really thought about the sheer distances involved in naval operations—or the fact that there’re no handy semaphore chains in the middle of the sea—until I fell into my present evil company. Now…” Her shrug was almost a shiver. “Given the radius of his operations, it may take five-days just for his dispatch boats to find everybody.”
“That’s always true for naval operations,” Cayleb replied. “And to be honest, given how … fragile the screw-galleys are and the fact that the spar torpedo’s basically an ambush weapon, it’s not likely they’ll be able to threaten any of his ships at sea. He hasn’t designated too many temporary anchorages, his captains are already pretty damned alert whenever they use one of them, and the dispatch boat skippers will hang around off the entrances to the anchorages they’re using to make sure they alert anyone headed into them.” He shrugged. “It’s the best we can do, Aivah, and it ought to be good enough.”
“I know,” Aivah acknowledged. “And as you say, that’ll probably be more than enough to prevent unpleasant surprises.”
“I’m afraid surprises have a habit of biting people on the ass no matter how well protected against them they may think they are,” Merlin observed a bit darkly. “Like those rockets of dear, sweet Brother Lynkyn’s, for example. Or his damned artillery, for that matter!”
“Admit it, Merlin,” Cayleb said with a challenging grin, “you’re still pissed off by Zhwaigair’s breechloader, aren’t you?”
“I decline to answer on the grounds that it might tend to incriminate me.”
“So that’s why you insisted we put that ‘Bill of Rights’ section into the Imperial Constitution!” Cayleb accused.
“I decline to answer on—”
“Personally,” Aivah interrupted, “and without any intention of changing the subject before this conversation bogs down completely, I’d feel happier if we knew what Khapahr’s up to.” She grimaced. “I’d like to think whatever it is has to be good from our perspective, but as Merlin says, surprises have a habit of biting people no matter how careful they are, and there are too many unknowns for me to count on that.”
Merlin nodded. Nahrmahn and Owl’s discovery that Earl Thirsk’s senior aide was quietly laying plans of his own had all sorts of potential implications—implications which could quite possibly be far more significant than ironclad galleys or spar torpedoes. Unfortunately, as Aivah had pointed out, they had no idea what Khapahr’s ultimate objective might be. The possibility that he intended to betray Thirsk in some fashion didn’t exist—his devotion to the earl was beyond question—and it seemed unlikely Thirsk was unaware of whatever he was up to. Yet they had no evidence of what the earl was aware of it—none at all—and that was troubling.
The fact that Khapahr was moving so carefully and covertly that Nahrmahn had almost missed it entirely, despite the close surveillance under which Owl kept Earl Thirsk, suggested that whatever he was up to was something he definitely didn’t want the Inquisition or Thirsk’s political enemies to know about. That ought to be good news from Charis’ perspective, but no one was prepared to count on anything of the sort. All they knew at this point was that Khapahr had met with Mahrtyn Vahnwyk, Thirsk’s personal secretary, and Stywyrt Baiket, his flag captain, to quietly—and very obliquely—discuss the hypothetical possibility of “taking the earl’s daughters for a cruise” aboard one of the Dohlaran Navy’s galleons. Exactly how Khapahr intended to get them from their homes to the galleon in question was more than even their SNARCs could tell them—probably, in Merlin’s opinion, because Khapahr himself hadn’t been able to work out that bit yet. For that matter, they had no idea what Thirsk—assuming he actually knew anything about it, which he just about had to, didn’t he?—thought he could accomplish by getting them aboard ship in the first place. Still, one thing they’d learned about the Dohlaran admiral was that he was accustomed to achieving the tasks he set himself.
“I think we’d all like to know that,” he said out loud. “And I’m sure we’ll find out, eventually. One way or the other,” he added dryly, and Cayleb chuckled. Then the emperor sobered.
“Do you think it would be a good idea for Seijin Ahbraim to have a conversation with him?” he asked much more seriously, and Merlin shrugged.
“I’d say no. Not until we have a better feel for his plans—whatever they are—anyway. On the one hand, it might be all he’d need to break with the Church once and for all. On the other hand, though, it could push him in the other direction. And if we’re wrong in hoping he might be considering some sort of defection, we could find him screaming for the guards the instant he realizes he’s face-to-face with a seijin. That could get … messy. And
it could wind up burning his bridges behind him, too.” He shook his head. “No. If he gets to the point of dropping us a note like Coris did, or if we get a positive read on where he’s planning on sending his daughters and his grandchildren, I think then it would definitely be time to send Ahbraim—or possibly even your humble servant—to have a conversation with him. For right now, though, as Aivah says, there are too many unknowns—and imponderables—for us to go mucking about.”
“Well, in that case,” Aivah set aside her own whiskey glass and rose, “would you care to accompany me to the Cave to fetch Sandaria?”
“You don’t really need me as your chauffeur, you know.” Merlin shoved himself up out of his chair with a slow smile. “Owl is perfectly capable of handling the air van for you now that it’s in service.”
“Besides which, Merlin doesn’t like flying around in something so slow it can’t go any more than three times the speed of sound,” Cayleb pointed out. “I think he finds such plebeian transport beneath his dignity.”
“I never said anything of the sort.” Merlin looked down his nose at what was arguably the most powerful man on Safehold. “I merely said it was always a good thing to have a little extra speed in reserve when you needed it.”
“Yeah, sure you did!”
Aivah folded her arms, looking back and forth between the two of them with the expression of an over-tried governess.
“I don’t really care how fast it is,” she told them. “And I realize Owl is perfectly capable of piloting me there and back again. For that matter, I might actually enjoy spending a few hours discussing certain male parties with Sandaria now that she’s decided how she feels about the Church and all those other weighty spiritual matters. I’m sure she’d enjoy the laughter.”
Cayleb stuck out an unrepentant tongue at her, and her lips twitched. She brought them back under control, however, and added a slowly tapping toe to her governess impersonation.