He was a long, long way from home, and no one would be coming to watch his back until the canal was back in operation and Sir Rainos Ahlverez moved the main body up behind him. But the desert into which the South March seemed to have been turned was almost reassuring in its promise that no major enemy force could operate against him here, and they’d been restoring the semaphore stations as they came. He could pass messages back and forth—all the way back to Gorath and Duke Salthar himself, if he had to—although that didn’t keep him from feeling acutely lonely.
He heard the sound of approaching hooves and looked up from the map on the folding table under the nearoak’s shade as the horseman cantered up, drew rein, and dismounted.
“Colonel,” he said, and Sir Naythyn Byrgair, the commander of his lead cavalry regiment, touched his breastplate in salute.
“General,” he replied. “I understand you wanted to see me, Sir Fahstyr?”
“Yes, I did.” Rychtyr tapped the map. “According to the locals, there’s still a heretic garrison at Fort Sheldyn. They say it’s a couple of Siddarmarkian pike regiments. Sir Rainos doesn’t want them moving south to reinforce Fyguera in Thesmar, but I don’t think that’s the direction they’re likely to go anyway. I’m more inclined to think they’d retreat north.” He tapped the map again. “Up towards St. Alyk’s and Cliff Peak. It’s where I’d go if I had an army this size coming at me. They have to know the damned Charisians can support Thesmar through Sandfish Bay and Thesmar Bay. Hell, they can pull the whole damned garrison out by sea, if they have to! Even if that weren’t true, they’ve got a lot more depth to the east before we could get to Shiloh or Trokhanos, and they have to know Cliff Peak’s hanging, so if I wanted my men where they’d do some good, that’s where I’d head.”
“Yes, Sir.” Byrgair looked down at the map and nodded.
He didn’t much care for Siddarmarkians, and especially not those who’d chosen to side with blasphemers, heretics, and excommunicates, but he wasn’t about to underestimate the guts and determination it must have taken to remain loyal to Stohnar over the winter just past. It made sense that a garrison commander who’d managed to pull that off would be thinking along exactly those lines. And while the Royal Dohlaran Army had no combat experience against Siddarmarkian pike blocks, he wasn’t about to discount their lethality. The First Desnair-Siddarmark War had been a disaster for the Republic, costing them over half of Shiloh, a nasty chunk of Trokhanos, and twice as many casualties as the Desnairians had suffered. The Second Desnair-Siddarmark War, ten years later, had been almost as bad in terms of casualties, although at least they hadn’t lost any territory that time. But by the Third Desnair-Siddarmark War, the Republic had reinvented infantry tactics, after which they’d proceeded to kick the Desnairians’ arse up one side and down the other for the next fifty years, until Mother Church finally stepped in. And that was a sobering thought for the commanding officer of a cavalry regiment, since Desnairian cavalry was widely regarded—especially by Desnairians—as the finest in the world.
“If getting themselves into Cliff Peak is what they have in mind,” Rychtyr said grimly, “I don’t want them pulling it off. If we’ve got the opportunity to punch out four or five thousand of their infantry, hopefully in the open, I intend to take it.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“The high road isn’t going to help us.” The general’s finger traced the line of the road from Evyrtyn through Trevyr and on to Cheryk. “And I realize we’re the better part of a hundred miles from Fort Sheldyn. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying to intercept them before they can get away from us, especially since they’re on foot.”
“I understand, Sir.”
Byrgair nodded again, although he hoped to Chihiro that Rychtyr wasn’t about to suggest he was supposed to do the intercepting. The Dohlaran army was light on cavalry by Desnairian standards, with no more than half its total manpower mounted, and while that cavalry was good, in his own modest opinion, it wasn’t up to Desnarian standards. Which, given Desnair’s record against Siddarmarkian pikes, suggested all sorts of unpleasant outcomes to him, even though he’d done all he could to improve the odds.
The aristocracy and landed gentry were heavily represented in the cavalry regiments. That meant most of them had money, and Byrgair had seen to it that all his own men acquired at least one pair of the new flintlock pistols out of their own resources. A handful had grumbled—less at the not inconsiderable expense than at the “ignobility” of such weapons compared to the proper, knightly combat of cold steel—but they hadn’t grumbled very loudly or very long. Especially not after they’d watched their own riflemen practicing their marksmanship. Yet their pistols certainly didn’t have the range to confront Siddarmarkian arbalesters or musketeers, which left only one real tactical option, and charging pike blocks with lances and sabers was a good way to get the cavalry doing the charging gutted.
“I want you to take your regiment and cut across country,” Rychtyr said, tracing a line on the map that cut the angle of a triangle with Evyrtyn at one corner and Fort Sheldyn and Syrk at the other two. “There are supposed to be farm roads running through along this line. If there are, and if they’re as good as I’ve been told they are, you should be able to get ahead of them. I doubt like hell you can catch them before they reach Syrk, no matter how good the going is. If you can, good, but don’t founder your horses trying. And if you can’t, don’t go in after them. Try to keep them from realizing you’re in the area and wait till they clear the town, then hit them north of it, between Syrk and St. Alyk’s.”
Byrgair nodded as the general looked up at him, and Rychtyr’s lips twitched in a small smile below his bushy mustache as he saw the colonel’s expression.
“I’m not sending you alone, Sir Naythyn,” he said reassuringly. I’ll be sending Colonel Bahcher’s regiment with you. And I’ve got two batteries of horse guns—Captain Fowail’s and Captain Syrahlla’s—close enough to the head of the column to attach to you. What I don’t have is any ammunition wagons that could keep up with you, so you’ll be limited to whatever they have on their limbers. You’re senior, so the command will be yours. I don’t anticipate any problems in that respect.”
Byrgair nodded again, with considerably more enthusiasm. Sir Zhory Bahcher was unusual in having earned his knighthood the hard way. He was several years Byrgair’s elder, although his lack of noble connections meant he’d been only a captain two years ago, and he was also a hard-bitten professional who’d spent twenty years dealing with brigands and the occasional small-scale battle with raiders out of Sodar. He wasn’t terribly popular with his officers, some of whom resented serving under someone of such ignoble birth, but his troopers loved him, and he was as tough-minded and pragmatic as Byrgair could have asked for. He didn’t know Captain Fowail as well as he knew Bahcher, and he didn’t know Syrahlla at all. But Fowail, at least, had been transferred from the navy, given the desperate need for artillerists, and he seemed thankfully immune to—or perhaps simply unaware of—the romantic cavalry tradition Byrgair had been working to exterminate in his own command.
“I don’t expect you to wade straight into four or five times your own number of pikemen,” Rychtyr continued. “What I do expect you to do is to force them into a defensive posture. Slow them down. If you can get them to form square against you by threatening charges and then hit them with the guns, do it. Otherwise, hang on their flanks, get ahead of them and drop trees across the road, do whatever you can to slow them up. I’ll be coming along behind you with all the infantry and artillery I can dig up in the next couple of hours. General Traylmyn can take the rest of the column on towards Trevyr until we either deal with this or I get a dispatch from you that our information was bad or that the garrison left too early for you to catch up with them. That should let him intercept them if they do break south for Thesmar. If they don’t and we manage to catch up and deal with them, we can march down the high road through Fort Sheldyn and link back up with Baron Traylmyn at
Cheryk. Is all that understood?”
“Yes, Sir!” Byrgair slapped his breastplate again, far more cheerfully.
“Then be on your way, Colonel.”
* * *
Sir Naythyn Byrgair felt much more optimistic as he went about assembling his force. It wasn’t as difficult as it might have been, given that the real reason he and Bahcher had been chosen was that they happened to command two of the three cavalry regiments closest to the head of the column. It would have been nice if the detailed artillery had been equally easy to extract, but that would have been asking too much. The army formed a column that stretched literally for miles from its vanguard units to the supply wagons rumbling along in its rear. Two-thirds of it consisted of cavalry, although—predictably, in Byrgair’s opinion—less than a quarter of its artillery was horse artillery that could hope to keep up with horsemen cross-country. Each of its ten infantry regiments formed a column one platoon across and seventy-five yards deep. A cavalry regiment had less than half as many men as an infantry regiment, but horses were much bigger, so each of them formed a road column sixty-five yards long, and there were forty of them. Allow a sixty-yard interval between regiments, and the column stretched for over a mile and a half. But that, of course, didn’t allow for the artillery, ammunition wagons, or supply wagons, which added almost three and a half miles all by themselves.
The high road allowed that enormous column to move relatively rapidly, but only as long as it stayed in column. Each regiment was accompanied by its own dragon-drawn supply wagon, which was one reason for the extended interval between regiments that helped lengthen the column. But it also meant they could bivouac in their march order, strung along the road like beads. In turn, that meant the army could resume its march much more quickly each morning, and woe betide the colonel whose regiment wasn’t ready on time.
So far, it had worked amazingly well. Of course, so far they had yet to meet any opposition, either, so that satisfactory state was undoubtedly subject to change. The instant anyone started pulling units out of that column, chaos would quickly ensue, which meant General Rychtyr had been forced to give very careful thought to the order of march before they ever set out. He’d formed his army in the order in which he intended to deploy it when the enemy was encountered, but he’d also had to compromise by spacing cavalry along its length to give him a quick reaction force if the enemy should be inconsiderate enough to turn up somewhere other than where he’d been expected.
Frankly, Byrgair would be glad to get away from the column for a while. Despite the hard marching and ruthless discipline Rychtyr and Father Pairaik Metzlyr, the general’s special intendant, had imposed, it didn’t actually move that fast, thanks to its infantry. An average speed of two miles an hour, allowing for periodic rest breaks, equated to over twenty-five miles a day, but keeping pace with infantry as it trudged endlessly down the road hour after hour was almost as boring for cavalry as it was exhausting for the infantry in question.
Of course, when it came to wars, boredom was good in Naythyn Byrgair’s opinion. That didn’t mean he had to like it, though, and he felt a lot better about this particular break in it than he’d expected to.
He should have known Rychtyr wasn’t going to give him the kind of orders he’d been afraid of. Unlike Sir Rainos Ahlverez, Rychtyr had been actively involved in the Royal Dohlaran Army’s reorganization of its infantry ever since the Charisian conquest of Corisande. Ahlverez, like the majority of the army’s senior officers, remained a cavalryman of the old school—the sort who might just have given Byrgair exactly the orders he’d dreaded. But he might not have, at that. After all, Ahlverez had been smart enough to assign Rychtyr to command his advanced guard, and that said something hopeful about the army’s command structure.
Now, as his thirteen hundred cavalry and twelve guns left the column, heading rapidly and purposefully down the country lanes their local guide assured them struck the Thesmar–St. Alyk’s high road somewhere north of Syrk, he drew a deep breath of relief and—he finally admitted to himself—anticipation.
.VI.
North of Syrk, The South March, Republic of Siddarmark
Phylyp Mahldyn didn’t bother to curse.
First, because it wouldn’t do any good. Secondly, because he was too damned tired. And third, because, deep in his bones, he’d known it was going to happen from the moment he’d read the report about the oncoming Dohlaran invasion force.
“At least it’s only cavalry,” Major Fairstock said as he stood beside Mahldyn on the crest of the small hill.
The foothills of the Snake Mountains were clearly visible to the north, with higher peaks rising blue and misty beyond them, crowned with the white of permanent snowpack. Another thirty miles and they’d have been into those foothills, in the heavy timber growth and steep hillsides where infantry would be far better able to deal with cavalry. In fact, Mahldyn had to wonder if it was a coincidence the enemy had encountered them here.
Syrk had been all but empty as they marched through it, watched only by the hollow, hating eyes of fellow Siddarmarkians who’d given their allegiance to the Temple. Everyone still loyal to the Lord Protector had fled, obedient to his warning, or at least he certainly hoped they had. More than a few Temple Loyalists had fled as well, having no desire to find themselves trapped between warring armies, whatever their loyalties might be. He hadn’t even slowed down as he passed his column through the town, although he’d been aware even then that Syrk’s buildings would be more defensible than someplace in the open in the middle of nowhere.
Well, if you’d been thinking about defensible positions, you should’ve stayed put in Fort Sheldyn, he thought. Of course, there was the little problem that you knew it would be a death trap, given the numbers headed towards you and the fact that you had less than a month’s worth of food. So let’s not be kicking ourselves too hard over not holding up in Syrk, shall we?
At least Fort Sheldyn wasn’t going to be particularly defensible for anyone else, either, he reflected with a grimace, remembering the roar of flames as they consumed every wooden structure in the fort. He hadn’t had much gunpowder, and all of it had been old-style “meal powder,” but then, he hadn’t had many musketeers left, either, so he’d used a bit of it in strategic places along the curtain wall. He had no idea whether or not the Dohlarans would have been interested in occupying Fort Sheldyn, but at least he’d make sure that if they did, they’d have to do quite a bit of rebuilding first.
Which is all very well, and doesn’t say squat about what’s likely to happen here.
“They’re ahead of us, Sir,” Colonel Mahzyngail said grimly.
“Yes, they are,” Mahldyn agreed. “And if they’re ahead of us, one has to wonder who’s coming along behind us.”
The militia colonel’s face tightened and he nodded choppily. Mahldyn sighed and raised his spyglass, considering what he could see.
“So far, it’s just scouts, it looks like,” he said, never lowering the glass. “But those aren’t local Temple Loyalists—not in that armor, and not with horses that good. I can’t see any standards yet, but it looks like they’re wearing red tunics and—”
He broke off as a much larger, solid block of horsemen appeared behind the scouts he’d already spotted. These did have a banner, and his eyes went bleak as he saw the green wyvern on the red field of Dohlar.
“Dohlaran regulars,” he said flatly.
“Wonderful,” Mahzyngail muttered, and Mahldyn snorted in harsh agreement.
“At least Klymynt’s right about their being cavalry,” he said. “I know the lads are tired, but there’s no way in hell Dohlaran infantry got around ahead of us through cow pastures and lizard trails the way these fellows must have. And cavalry aren’t so very fond of pikes.”
“No, they aren’t, Sir,” Major Fairstock agreed.
His voice was hard, with an actual edge of anticipation, and Mahldyn wondered whether or not he envied the major’s youthful sense of immortality. Or perhaps h
e was wronging Fairstock. Langhorne knew the boy had seen more than enough wreckage and ruin over the past half year. Maybe he had no more illusions than Mahldyn himself and simply figured he at least had the opportunity to send a few Dohlarans to hell before it was his turn.
“All right.” He lowered the spyglass and turned to his two subordinates. “We know they’re ahead of us on the road, and once we got into the woods and the briars and brambles, we’d never be able to hold formation. So as I see it, our only real option is to go through them, since we can’t go around.”
Mahzyngail and Fairstock nodded, and he tapped the major’s breastplate.
“Klymynt, the Hundred and Tenth and I’ll take the lead. We don’t have enough room to deploy with both regiments up, so we’ll go up the road first to clear the way. You’ll take the middle of the formation with the Provisional Company as our reserve, and Vyktyr and the Fourteenth will watch the back door. Vyktyr, I think I’m going to borrow your arbalesters. I don’t know whether or not these bastards have pistols, but if they do, I don’t want them thinking about riding close enough to shoot us in the face.”
“Makes sense to me, Sir,” Mahzyngail agreed. “But what if they get around you and Klymynt and come at my boys?”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen.” Mahldyn waved his arm in the direction of the watching Dohlaran cavalry on the next ridgeline to the north. “The terrain’s too close and tangled to either side of the roadbed. Neither one of us is going to have a flank to maneuver around, so if cavalry wants to come at pikes head on in ground like this, let them try it.”
He decided not to mention his fear that the Dohlarans wouldn’t come at them, that they’d fall back, staying in visual contact but out of fighting range. Assuming they were willing to do that for the next five or ten miles, his men were going to enter a valley which would be almost perfect cavalry terrain. But they couldn’t turn around and go back the way they’d come, so there was no point worrying about that yet.