His hand curled into a fist, and he thumped it on the map.
“We’re taking it even if it costs us two or three divisions. They can’t retreat, we’ve gotten our jump-off positions to within five hundred yards of their redoubts, and they can’t shift troops between redoubts because we’re in a position to assault all of them simultaneously. Nobody wants to throw away the lives of his men, but we’ll lose more of them later if we let these bastards hold us here too long. So I don’t want any hesitation. The columns will go in on signal, and they’ll keep right on going in unless I personally order differently.”
He looked around the circle of faces one last time. No one was smiling now, but he saw no hesitation, no doubt.
“Good.” He straightened. “Return to your commands. I’ll make the signal a half-hour before dawn.”
.VII.
Ohlarn, New Northland Province, Republic of Siddarmark
Halcom Bahrns was more than a little bemused by the Temple Loyalists’ lack of reaction to his inland invasion. The terrain leading up to the Ohlarn Gap was remarkably flat and level, and they’d passed only one more set of locks in the eleven hours since leaving Fairkyn behind. The Canal Service personnel manning those locks had been just as surprised as Fairkyn had, though, which seemed ridiculous. The captain hadn’t been impressed by Mayor Kyrst when he’d come aboard Delthak—not entirely willingly—to protest the blasphemous destruction of the city’s locks. Lockmaster Bohlyr, though, had struck him as having a working brain. Surely he’d had the wit to send a semaphore message up the canal ahead of them!
Bahrns wasn’t about to question a gift from the archangels, however. Colonel Harys’ Marines had swept up the astounded lock tenders in a pounce which seemed to have gotten all of them, and General Tylmahn’s Siddarmarkians had established a perimeter around the position while the ironclads and barges were locked through.
The average time for a canal lock to fill—or drain—in order to pass a vessel through was fifteen minutes, which meant it took about an hour to pass Delthak and each of her barges individually through each lock they encountered. Fortunately, he didn’t particularly care if he inconvenienced any barge traffic they might meet, which meant he could use both the eastbound and westbound locks at each stop, passing Hador and her barges through at the same time Delthak made the trip. He hated the feeling of immobility while they moved through, but he’d also taken advantage of it to top off Delthak’s bunkers from her coal and explosives barge, and he knew Tailahr had done the same.
That, however, had been two and a half hours ago, and they’d passed at least a dozen barges since. All of them had taken one look at the oncoming behemoths and headed for the side of the canal, and aside from one brushing collision, Bahrns and his command had passed them without incident. Somebody must have gotten ashore and found a horse, though, he thought. Which could make what was about to happen more interesting than he might have preferred.
* * *
“It’s coming!” a voice hissed.
It took Major Edmynd Maib a moment to identify it as Bynno Leskyr, Mayor of Ohlarn. The mayor—who’d held office for barely two five-days, since his predecessor had fallen afoul of Father Ghatfryd’s inquiries—was usually a blustery, confident, booming-voiced sort. That strained, frightened whisper didn’t sound a bit like him, and an ignoble part of Major Maib took a certain pleasure in it.
Stop that! he scolded himself. Yes, Leskyr’s a pain in the arse. And, yes, he probably was the one who started the rumors about Mayor Bekatyro. But Father Ghatfryd’s no fool. He’ll realize soon enough there’s nothing to them, and then it’ll be Leskyr’s turn to answer some pointed questions. And even if he is an unmitigated bastard, he is the mayor and you don’t have any better idea what the hell is headed this way than he does!
The major—the commanding officer of the 20th Artillery Regiment, Army of God—couldn’t understand why there hadn’t been more warning. The exhausted runner had panted his way into Ohlarn less than two hours ago, and all he’d been able to provide was some kind of garbled account of barges moving up the canal packed full of heretic soldiers. And about some kind of massive explosion which might have come from the direction of the Harysmyn Llocks thirty miles east of town. Oh, and at least one of the “barges” had been on fire, according to him!
That was the sum total of his knowledge, and no one was more aware than he of how completely inadequate it was. But if something was coming along the canal, why hadn’t the semaphore stations sent word ahead? Damn it, they should have had at least some warning! That was what the semaphore was for!
He glowered, wishing he’d had more of his regiment anywhere in the vicinity. Or, for that matter, that there was anything other than the local militia to back up the single battery he did have here in Ohlarn.
If the semaphore had given me another four or five hours, I might’ve had another battery here, he thought resentfully. On the other hand, six twelve-pounders should be able to deal with any barge ever built! And it’s always possible the yokel who saw them coming didn’t really see anything of the sort. Half these bumpkins still—
His thoughts broke off as he saw what Leskyr had seen. A shower of what looked like … sparks? No, not that exactly. More like … like.…
He couldn’t think of anything exactly like it, but whatever it was, there were two of it, side by side, and they were coming closer.
Major Maib swallowed hard, much more nervous suddenly than he cared to admit, and looked over his shoulder.
“The Mayor’s right,” he grated. “Stand to!”
“Yes, Sir!” Lieutenant Orlynoh Praieto replied sharply. “Sergeant Wyldyng—stand to the guns!”
Responses came back from the six gun crews of Battery B, and Maib peered into the darkness, shading his eyes with his hand, even though he knew it was useless and probably made him look ridiculous. That burst of sparks—or whatever—had disappeared, yet there was something like a faint glow, almost like smoke lit from below.…
* * *
Halcom Bahrns sighed in resignation as the shower of sparks abated. That wouldn’t have mattered in daylight, when the smoke would have precluded Delthak from sneaking up on anyone, anyway. He could have wished, however, that the stokers hadn’t been forced to throw fresh coal into the fireboxes just as the dim lights of Ohlarn were becoming visible.
Nothing we could’ve done about it, he thought. On the other hand—
“Master Myklayn, I’d be grateful if you’d step inside the conning tower.”
“Captain, I need to be able to see.” The reply came back from the bridge wing. “There’s a bridge across the canal in the middle of Ohlarn, and I need to be sure we’re high enough to take it on the casemate instead of the conning tower, so—”
“So you’ll see that from in here,” Bahrns said flatly. “I don’t know if they’ve heard we’re coming or not, but if anyone was looking this way, they probably just saw those sparks. So get in here under armor, now.” He showed his teeth in a thin smile. “We can’t afford for anything to happen to you this early into the operation.”
For a moment, he thought the pilot was going to argue. But then Myklayn stepped into the conning tower, swung the armored door shut, and dogged it firmly.
“Might be you’ve a point, Captain,” he acknowledged, smiling in the dim, red light of the lantern above the chart table. “Besides, it’s only a wooden bridge, when all’s said.”
* * *
“Sweet Langhorne!” someone shouted, and Edmynd Maib took an involuntary step backwards as the monster lumbering up the canal finally entered the spill of light from the canalfront’s lanterns.
It was enormous! A vast, slab-sided creature of the night snorting out of the darkness at preposterous speed, pushing a wide horseshoe bow wave in front of it. It was black as the darkness which had spawned it, and two tall smokestacks belched smoke. The militia companies lining the docks opened fire with arbalests and matchlocks, and the musket flashes shredded the darkness. The
y showed him the oncoming nightmare more clearly, and he saw arbalest bolts and musket balls alike skipping and sparking, bouncing as if their target were made of iron. And there were open—
“Fire!” he screamed. “Fire as you bear!”
* * *
“Glad you made that suggestion, Captain!” Zhaimys Myklayn had to speak loudly, even inside the conning tower, to make himself heard over the sudden rattle of musketry. “It’d be a mite lively out there just now!”
Bahrns nodded, but he had other things on his mind at the moment. He leaned closer to the bulkhead, peering through the starboard view slit as the darkness came alive with hundreds of muzzle flashes. He heard at least two or three musket balls slam into the armor next to the view slit, and it was entirely possible some of those other bullets were going to find their way inside the ship through the open gunports. He hoped not, but what concerned him more were what looked like several fieldpieces lined up along the canal embankment.
He strained his eyes for a moment longer, then grabbed the voice tube to the gundeck in both hands and leaned over it.
“Action starboard!” he shouted. “Field guns!”
He put his ear close to the bell-shaped mouth of the tube, and Pawal Blahdysnberg’s voice came back up it.
“Action starboard, aye, Sir! Targets are field guns!”
Bahrns nodded in satisfaction and straightened to look back out the slit.
* * *
Major Maib’s frantic warning allowed two-thirds of Lieutenant Praieto’s guns to get their shots off before the cannon poking out of those open gunports could come to bear upon them. He smiled in vicious satisfaction as the long, lurid tongues of flame erupted. He hadn’t known what was coming up the river, so he’d had Praieto load half his pieces with round shot and half with shells, and he watched with anticipation as the artillery fire ripped into the oncoming … whatever it was.
That anticipation disappeared abruptly when cannonballs skipped off it as easily as musket balls had. His jaw dropped as Praieto’s guns left it completely unmarked, and then he was flinging himself to the ground as eight thirty-pounder guns came to bear.
* * *
“Fire!” Pawal Blahdysnberg shouted, and Delthak’s guns went off for the very first time, like the hammer of Shan-wei itself.
Blahdysnberg had wondered what it was going to sound like inside the armored box. Now he knew, and he was glad he’d stuffed the cotton earplugs into place before he’d given the order to fire. The guns recoiled, squealing as the friction of the new Mahndrayn slide carriages absorbed the recoil. The muzzles came inboard, streaming smoke that turned the entire spacious gundeck into a fog-shrouded, foul-smelling cavern. The powerful blowers built into the rear of the casemate sucked the smoke out as rapidly as possible, but it still took time, and he heard his gun crews coughing and spluttering.
It didn’t keep them from reloading, though. They’d loaded with grapeshot, on the theory that anything they had to fire on in the dark would be close at hand, and that was what they reloaded with, as well. Blahdysnberg left them to it, leaning cautiously out of the starboard bow gunport to see what their first broadside had accomplished.
* * *
Screams were all around him.
Major Maib levered himself up on his hands, looking around wildly, and realized Mayor Leskyr wouldn’t be answering any questions from Father Ghatfryd after all. At least half Praieto’s gun crews—including the lieutenant, it looked like—were also dead, and others were wounded. The storm of grapeshot which could be thrown by ten thirty-pounders at a range of eighty yards was simply indescribable, and what truly astounded Maib was that anyone was still alive on the battery’s position.
“Reload!” Sergeant Wyldyng was shouting. “Reload ball! Move, damn your souls!”
The major admired the sergeant’s spirit, but it wasn’t going to do any good.
There were barges behind the lead ship, he realized, yet even they looked unlike anything he’d ever seen before. They might have started life as standard canal craft, but they’d been fitted with some sort of heavy timber upper works and what looked like sandbags. He could just make out a line of militia musketeers, frantically reloading their matchlocks, and then the barge directly behind the lead ship suddenly sprouted riflemen all along that wooden-armored side.
Most of the musketeers probably never realized what was happening. They were still reloading when a hurricane of rifle fire ripped through them like the wrath of God.
* * *
“There’s your drawbridge, Master Myklayn,” Halcom Bahrns observed as Blahdysnberg’s guns belched another terrible broadside into the night.
The captain wasn’t concerned about those field guns any longer. First, because their shot had bounced off Delthak’s armor as if they’d been so many baseballs. Second, because very few—if any—of those gunners could still be alive after the ironclad’s second broadside.
What he was rather more concerned about was the drawbridge directly in front of Delthak. It was a heavy affair, designed for freight traffic, and, as usual, it had been lowered for the night, when the barges moored and the canals shut down until there was light for movement once more. It was also right at water level, and he shook his head.
“I think about the top three feet of the casemate’s going to hit it,” he remarked, rather more calmly than he felt. The conning tower’s solid tube of armor extended down through the roof of the casemate to gundeck level. It would probably survive impact with the drawbridge, but he very much doubted that its navigating wings would. And even if it did—
“Pass the word to brace for collision,” he said.
* * *
Edmynd Maib was still alive. He was one of only three of the 20th Artillery Regiment’s personnel in Ohlarn who could make that statement, although it was going to take him a while to learn to walk again with no left leg.
He sat up, leaning back against the shattered wheel of a twelve-pounder while someone—a civilian he didn’t recognize—finished tightening the tourniquet on his splintered leg. He wondered why it didn’t hurt more, and a corner of his brain suggested that it had to be shock. That the pain would be along soon enough. For now, though, his attention was locked on the huge ship forging through the center of Ohlarn, spouting fire from either side while more rifle fire raked the night from the barge behind it.
There was another one coming in the first’s wake, and another corner of his mind wondered how many more might be out there? But even that was a distant, purely academic consideration as the first ship rammed the Ohlarn drawbridge.
It didn’t even slow down.
The bridge ripped loose with a shriek of riven wood. It folded like a jackknife, crashing down onto the terrible ship’s short foredeck, and then the ship bellowed its triumph in a high, terrible shriek of sound that went on and on and on.
Maib covered his ears, his mind a whirlpool of confusion, terror, and beginning pain, and wondered what demon had escaped from Shan-wei’s pit to loose such a horror upon men.
.VIII.
Ice Lake, Cliff Peak Province, Republic of Siddarmark
“Are you certain, Master Zhevons?” Ruhsyl Thairis looked at the brown-haired man in front of him, his eyes dark in the twilight. “Positive?” he pressed.
“I’m afraid so, Your Grace,” Ahbraim Zhevons said sadly.
He’d turned up alongside Duke Eastshare’s moored command barge an hour ago, without anyone having spotted him on his way there. Not the cavalry patrols, not the sentries … no one. Eastshare would have found that disturbing if he hadn’t become intimately familiar with someone else who could have done the same thing. In fact, this Zhevons reminded him strongly of Merlin Athrawes. There was little physical resemblance between them, and Zhevons’ tenor was quite unlike Merlin’s bass, yet there was something…, Something about the way they stood, perhaps. Or the way their eyes met his without any sense of deference to his noble rank.
Or maybe it’s just the fact that you know they’
re both seijins, he told himself, and shook his head mentally. After so many centuries without a single verified seijin-sighting, they seem to be coming out of the damned woodwork now. Not a good sign, considering how busy they were in the War Against the Fallen. But at least the Testimonies all insist they were on the side of Light then. And so far, I haven’t seen anything to suggest they aren’t this time, as well.
Of course, Zhevons hadn’t outright said he was a seijin, which was the reason Eastshare hadn’t addressed him by that title … yet. Not that such niceties really concerned him at the moment.
“When?” he asked now, his own voice heavy.
“Day before yesterday, Your Grace.” Zhevons exhaled. “It took me a while to find you.”
“I see.”
Eastshare looked down at the map. Seventy miles. That was how close he’d come … and it might as well have been seven thousand.
“How bad was it?”
He looked up from the map, and there was more than a shadow of dread in his eyes. He was a soldier, and soldiers dealt with hard truths, but this was the same army which had slaughtered Charlz Stahntyn’s men.
“They weren’t taking prisoners, Your Grace,” Zhevons said quietly. He shook his head. “It doesn’t look to me like many of our people were trying to surrender, anyway, but it wouldn’t have done them any good. The handful they did take alive, the wounded—” He shrugged. “The one good thing, I suppose, is that none of them got handed over to the Inquisition for the Punishment. I’m pretty sure Kaitswyrth gave orders Brigadier Taisyn and his senior officers were to be taken alive for that specific purpose”—in fact, he knew Kaitswyrth had; he’d listened in on the conversation through Owl’s remotes—“but all of them died fighting.”