But this time Alyk had a point, Gahrvai thought. The whole reason for advancing this far from the Dark Hills was to attack the Charisian invaders as quickly and as vigorously as he could and, if possible, drive them straight back into the sea.
Of course, another reason for attacking them is to find out just how badly we’ve underestimated whatever new capabilities they’ve developed for their Marines, as well as their navy, he reflected.
He looked back down at the map. He’d advanced with no more than a third of his total force, and he wondered again if he’d been wise to do so. The problem was that the roads through the Dark Hill Mountains weren’t very good. That was especially true of the smaller, flanking roads, and while the royal highway itself wasn’t too bad, there was a distinct limit to the number of troops which could be moved rapidly along it without using those flanking roads. Worse, that cramped cluster of roads was his only really reliable supply line, as well, now that Dairos was firmly in Charisian hands. He could probably have gotten a larger percentage of his forces forward, but only at the expense of making it extraordinarily difficult to keep them fed and supplied with ammunition and weapons once he had them deployed.
Not to mention just how ugly things could get if that many men suddenly found themselves trying to retreat simultaneously. He gave a mental shudder as he imagined the scenes of chaos, congestion, and panic which were all too likely to ensue under those circumstances. But does worrying about what would happen if I have to retreat mean I’m going into battle already half-defeated in my own mind? Is thinking about it prudence or cowardice?
It was amazing all the ways a man could find to doubt and second-guess himself. And whatever the limitations of the roadways in his own rear might be, the road over which the Charisians were currently advancing was even worse, in many ways. So if they were the ones who had to retreat . . .
“I think you’re right, Alyk,” he heard himself saying. “And if they’re kind enough to keep coming to meet us, especially without an adequate cavalry screen of their own, then I think we should plan on greeting them right about here.”
He tapped a symbol on the map, then bent closer to peer at the name.
“Haryl’s Crossing,” he read aloud.
“Ah?” Doyal climbed out of his chair and leaned forward, studying the map.
The town Gahrvai had selected wasn’t very large. Its total population, including the outlying farm families, probably didn’t exceed four thousand, and many of them had found urgent reasons to be elsewhere once armies began heading in their direction. It sat directly on the Talbor River, which flowed out of the mountain gap of the same name, where the royal highway crossed the stream on a stone bridge. The artillerist considered the terrain east of the river thoughtfully for several seconds, then nodded.
“It looks reasonable to me,” he agreed. “This might be a bit of a problem if things don’t go smoothly, though.”
He indicated the single stone bridge.
“There’s what looks like a fairly big wooden bridge down here, to the south, at Haryl’s Priory,” Gahrvai countered, waving his finger at another map symbol, this one representing a substantial monastery. It lay south of Haryl’s Crossing and on the western side of the river, where the foothills of the Dark Hill Mountains began to rise. “There are fords north of the priory, as well, according to the map, at any rate.”
“Let me see it,” Windshare requested. He bent over the map, lips pursed, then looked back up at Gahrvai.
“I’ve got a report somewhere about this wooden bridge,” he said. “It’s not in very good shape, if I’m remembering correctly. We could probably get infantry across it, but only a lunatic would try to take cavalry or artillery across. On the other hand, I think my scouts also indicated that the river is pretty shallow along here, where the map shows your fords. I know we could get cavalry across even without the bridge, although I wouldn’t want to make any promises about infantry without double-checking. And we definitely don’t want to take any of Charlz’ artillery across this thing.”
“Do any of Sir Farahk’s militiamen know the area well enough to provide us with more information?” Doyal asked.
“I can check,” Windshare replied. “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if they do, though. They’ve been remarkably helpful so far.”
The earl sounded almost bemused, as if he still found it peculiar that the Baron of Dairwyn’s men had been so useful. Gahrvai wondered if part of that was because of how . . . un-soldier-like the baron’s militia were. They were obviously civilians who intended to go back to being civilians as soon as they possibly could, and they didn’t care who knew it. At least equally obviously, some of them, like the inhabitants of Haryl’s Crossing, would have preferred to be somewhere else. Anywhere else, if it came to that. But they appeared to feel a degree of loyalty to their baron which was rarely seen, and their assistance not simply as guides, but as go-betweens for the army and the local farmers, as well, had been invaluable. No farmer ever really wanted to see an army—any army—marching through his district, and unhappy locals could create all sorts of problems if they put their minds to it. So far, at least, the ability of Dairwyn’s men to put a friendly face on Gahrvai’s army had kept that sort of thing from happening. Whether it would remain effective once the two sides came to grips and combat started turning fertile fields into wastelands was an entirely different question, of course.
And one to which the answer is almost certainly “no,” Gahrvai thought sourly.
“I’m sure they’ll have some useful additional information,” he said aloud. “Please do check with them.”
Windshare nodded, and Gahrvai returned his attention to the map.
“I take your point about the bridge, Charlz,” he said reflectively, folding his arms while he contemplated the terrain once more. “And fighting with a river in your rear is usually considered a bad idea, even when you don’t have to worry about getting artillery across a single bridge. Still, if we take up a position on this side of the river, then whoever’s in command over there is going to stop on his side and send back for reinforcements. Which means we’d have to fight our way across the river to get at him.”
“It also means he’d have to fight his way across to get at us,” Doyal pointed out. “And the longer he stays put out here, the longer your father and Prince Hektor have to get more troop strength transferred to us.”
“Unless Cayleb decides to just sit here with a part of his army and demonstrate how determined he is to attack us while he’s actually loading all the rest of his troops back aboard his transports to strike directly at Manchyr,” Gahrvai replied. “And as for getting more troops to us, how are we going to feed and supply them all through Talbor Pass? That’s over twenty-five miles of narrow road and bottlenecks, especially as you get towards the eastern end. We could feed our entire army through the western half, but I doubt we could support more than thirty thousand men on this side of the mountains. Not if they’re going to have to sit in one place for very long, at any rate. We’d run out of forage pretty quickly, and somehow I don’t think even Baron Dairwyn would be able to keep the local farmers friendly once we’ve eaten all their cattle, trampled all their crops, and emptied all their granaries.”
“And seduced all their daughters,” Windshare added with a grin. “Besides, we’re supposed to do it my way—you know, charge straight in and smash everybody up instead of trying to get fancy.”
“And hitting them on their side of the river will at least give us a chance of catching their advance guard and cutting it up in isolation,” Gahrvai agreed with a nod. “If Alyk’s scouts are right, they can’t have more than a couple of thousand men—five thousand, at the outside. We’ve brought over twenty thousand with us.”
“And how many of them are still west of the river at the moment?” Doyal countered.
“If everyone’s where they’re supposed to be—and you know as well as I do how likely it is that none of our movement orders managed to go astray fo
r a change—we’ve got roughly fourteen thousand, including seven batteries of your field guns, either east of the river already or close enough to be there by nightfall. That ought to be enough to take care of five thousand Charisians, especially since they seem to have only three or four batteries with them.”
“Unless they speed up a lot, most of their column won’t be here until late tomorrow morning. Maybe not even until early afternoon,” Doyal pointed out. “We could get almost everybody across by then, if we worked at it.”
“No.” Gahrvai shook his head. “There’s no point wearing the men out—not to mention probably getting a lot of them lost—marching around after dark. Besides, fourteen thousand men and thirty-five guns ought to be enough to get the job done. Piling in still more men would only cramp our mobility. And if four-or five-to-one odds aren’t enough to get the job done, I don’t want to complicate things if we have to retreat.”
Doyal and Windshare both looked at him as if they weren’t quite certain they’d heard him correctly, and he snorted sourly.
“Let’s do this my way,” he suggested. “We’ll see what happens. If they bring up more strength of their own, then I’ll think seriously about putting still more of our men across the river before we attack. But if they’re as short on cavalry as they seem to be, then their scouting has to be spotty, at best. They probably don’t have a clue how many men we’ve already managed to concentrate in front of them. If we can keep it that way, keep them confident enough that they don’t stop their advance guard where it is until they can reinforce it, I think we can hit them tomorrow morning. With any luck at all, we’ll roll right over them and smash them up quick and dirty.
“To be perfectly honest, that’s what I expect to happen. But let’s not forget that everybody ‘expected’ Duke Black Water to smash up Haarahld’s navy, too. I don’t see any way they could be hiding some sort of ‘secret weapon’ from Alyk’s cavalry, but I’m not going to rush to any potentially unfortunate assumptions, either. This will let us test the water without getting in too deep. If we’re right, we crush their advance guard, and Alyk’s cavalry gets to spend the afternoon riding down and sabering fugitives. If it turns out that they do have some horrible surprise waiting for us, we lose at worst a fifth part of our total force.”
Windshare looked moderately rebellious, but he nodded without further argument. Doyal cocked his head, contemplating the map once more, then shrugged.
“I think you’re probably worrying more about surprises than you need to,” he said. “On the other hand, given your reminder about what happened to Black Water, I can live with a little over-caution. Better that than the reverse, at least! And to be honest, I’d prefer to blood my gunners under the most benign conditions we can arrange. I think they’re ready, but none of them have ever been under fire as a unit before.”
“I think they’ll do just fine, Charlz,” Gahrvai said. “Believe me, my ‘over-caution’ doesn’t have a thing to do with any concern over the quality of our troops. Especially of your gunners.”
“I never thought it did,” Doyal assured him. “That doesn’t mean it isn’t something else to bear in mind, though.”
“I’d like to spend some time this afternoon actually looking at as much of the terrain as possible,” Gahrvai continued, turning back to Windshare. “I’ll need a cavalry escort. You wouldn’t happen to know a good officer to put in command of it, would you, Alyk?”
“As a matter of fact, I would,” Windshare told him with a grin, then glanced at Doyal. “Would you care to come along with us, Charlz?”
Windshare’s tone was more than half-teasing, given Doyal’s well-known aversion to any unnecessary physical activity. To his surprise, the older man promptly nodded.
“As a matter of fact, I’d like to check my impressions from the map against the actual terrain. There are a couple of places that look pretty close to ideal for artillery deployment. I’d prefer to make sure they really are good positions before I order my people into them, though.”
“Excellent!” Gahrvai said approvingly. “Charlz, show Alyk the spots you particularly want to see. I’ve got to go draft a couple of dispatches for Father and the Prince before we go wandering off. Alyk, once you and Charlz have discussed where we need to go and what we need to see, make sure we really do have an adequate escort. I’m not feeling especially vain this afternoon, but it occurs to me that if the army loses its senior field commander, his cavalry commander, and the closest thing we have to a genuine expert on field artillery, it wouldn’t be the very best possible beginning to our campaign, would it?”
“If we let that happen,” Doyal said with a smile, “the only good thing I could see about it would be that all three of us would be safely dead, which would at least spare us from your father’s analysis of all the truly stupid things we must have done to bring it about.”
“And what exactly in my record to date convinces you that I’m not fully capable of doing truly stupid things if I put my mind to it?” Gahrvai inquired.
. VIII .
Emperor Cayleb’s Headquarters,
City of Dairos, Barony of Dairwyn,
League of Corisande
“I wish we were up against the Temple Guard,” Cayleb Ahrmahk grumbled as he stood looking down at a map of Corisande.
“Dare I ask why you’d prefer that?” Merlin inquired.
“Because Allayn Maigwair is an idiot, and Koryn Gahrvai isn’t,” Cayleb replied succinctly, in something very like a growl.
“No, he isn’t,” Merlin agreed, stepping closer to the map table.
He and Cayleb were alone, for the moment, in the library of the Baron of Dairwyn’s townhouse. It was a palatial temporary home for Cayleb’s headquarters, although their reluctant host had managed to take at least some of his most valuable knickknacks with him. Cayleb didn’t really begrudge Sir Farahk his personal treasures, however. After all, the emperor had the baron’s entire city, in exchange.
Baron Dairwyn had been unable to deny any of the points Cayleb had made in his final note to him. And, to give him his due, his concern over what might happen to the citizens of his barony’s capital if it had come down to fighting in the streets had played a major role in his decision to surrender Dairos to Cayleb. He, himself, however, hadn’t been included in the package. He’d delegated authority to the city’s mayor to treat with Cayleb, while he and his personal armsmen had hastily mounted and galloped off towards the Dark Hill Mountains, evading Clareyk and Haimyn’s Marines en route.
Most of Cayleb’s men, and at least some of his officers, had taunted Dairwyn in absentia for his “cowardice.” Cayleb didn’t agree. Dairos might have fallen, but the baron was responsible for defending the rest of his barony. Besides, he’d clearly recognized how valuable his firsthand report would be to Prince Hektor. Or, at least, to Sir Koryn Gahrvai. At this particular moment, the baron had joined Gahrvai, and his armsmen and the subjects of his barony who’d been pressed into service as militia were busy serving as Gahrvai’s local guides. Which, Cayleb admitted, was probably the most useful thing they could possibly have been doing for the other side.
Over the last six days, the majority of Cayleb’s Marines had been landed. Dairos couldn’t possibly have absorbed fifty thousand men, even if the citizenry had been happy to see them. Aside from a strictly limited garrison, whose primary responsibility was keeping the peace, the Charisian troops had poured through the city like water through a net and settled into vast, neat encampments outside the city limits. So far, they’d behaved themselves extraordinarily well, too. Part of that was undoubtedly due to the fact that they hadn’t yet had to do any real fighting, which meant they had no casualties to “avenge” upon the local citizenry. Another part of it was the eagle eye the chaplains were keeping on them, and their officers’ stern injunctions about the importance of not providing the Group of Four’s propaganda mills with the free gift of any atrocity fodder.
And, of course, there were the bloodthirsty field regulati
ons Emperor Cayleb, Admiral Lock Island, and General Chermyn had composed. Every man in the invasion army had heard those regulations read out in formation at least once per five-day. And none of them doubted for a moment that Cayleb and his commanders would enforce every stringent penalty upon any violators.
The invasion’s supplies, unlike its troops, were still coming ashore in a steady stream. Dairos had many things to recommend it, including some fairly spectacular beaches, if anyone had had time to consider going for a dip, but no one would ever confuse its waterfront with Tellesberg’s. Wharf space was limited, its warehouses were far smaller and sparser, and aside from one or two main thoroughfares, the city’s streets were much narrower and more constricted. All of that conspired to turn Dairos into a logistical bottleneck.
Cayleb and his planners had realized that was going to happen, and they’d allowed for it in their original timetable. His engineers were busy building new wharves and extending existing ones, and some public buildings and houses were being demolished to widen roads and improve traffic conditions. The astonishment of the homeowners when Cayleb insisted on actually paying them for their houses had been palpable, but that hadn’t stopped them from accepting the compensation with alacrity. Or from complaining loudly to their neighbors about how coin-pinching the payments had been.
In the meantime, the invasion force’s horses and draft dragons required enough time to regain their land legs before moving into the field, anyway, so Cayleb and his advisers had always planned on spending at least the first couple of five-days consolidating their hold on Dairos while their animals recovered and their supplies came ashore. They hadn’t quite made sufficient allowance for the limited warehouse space in the city itself, and more of their supplies than anyone liked were being stacked up under canvas, instead of a solid roof, which wasn’t exactly a pleasant thought with the storm season coming on. But at least they’d been able to send almost half their troopships back to Port Royal under escort by a third of the Chisholmian galleys. That had relieved much of the port’s congestion, and the shore patrol Chermyn had organized and rigorously trained as military police had kept things moving smoothly and relatively peacefully as their forces ashore built up.