“And the Army of God?” Eastshare asked harshly, his face tight.
“It cost them close to ten thousand casualties.” Zhevons’ voice was flat now—hard. “They came over the redoubts in the end, Your Grace, but they paid in blood for every inch of that ground. Taisyn and his men gutted six of their divisions before they went down.”
“The river?” Eastshare did his best to make his voice equally flat, armored with professionalism, but it was hard.
“Still obstructed. I estimate it’s going to take them at least another two days, probably three, to clear it.”
Eastshare nodded slowly, his eyes back on the map. Zhevons might use the verb “estimate,” but if his estimates were anything like Merlin Athrawes’.…
“Are they pushing troops beyond it?”
“Not yet. In another day or so, perhaps.” Zhevons showed his teeth. “They’re too busy reorganizing around the casualties, Your Grace. They’re bringing fresh infantry divisions to the head of the column, and that’s taking longer than Kaitswyrth expected thanks to the way their barges got packed together with the river blocked. They’ve got a few cavalry patrols probing down the high road toward Haidyrberg, but they’re not more than twenty-five or thirty miles beyond Brigadier Taisyn’s positions. I think it’ll be a few days before they’re feeling any more adventurous than that.”
“Good.”
Eastshare studied the map for a few more moments, then tapped a spot with his finger.
“Here, do you think, Master Zhevons?”
Zhevons craned his neck, looking at the map. Unlike the Army of God’s, Eastshare’s maps had been updated by the Republican Army before he set out. They gave a much more accurate idea of the actual terrain, including the changes which had occurred in it since the Day of Creation. The Temple Loyalists were still in the process of finding out just how far off their maps were, although they’d managed to avoid the worst consequences so far, thanks to the fact that they’d been advancing through territory where they could expect to find local guides.
Of course, Kaitswyrth didn’t have “local guides” when he ran into Taisyn’s position, the seijin thought with grim satisfaction. I wonder if he’s starting to get some idea of just how much bad maps can cost him in the end?
“If I might suggest, Your Grace, I think this might be the better position.” He laid his index finger on a spot ten miles farther west than the one Eastshare had indicated, where the high road came closest to the canal. “There was a forest fire through here six or seven years ago,” he said, tapping the spot gently. “The fire scar’s almost twenty miles long, north to south, with man-height saplings scattered through it and a few old-growth nearoak and even two or three titan oaks that survived the fire. It’s mostly brush and undergrowth, with a lot of wire vine in places. The titan oaks will provide natural lookout posts and OPs for your mortars and artillery; it’s wide enough east to west to give your guns as much as five- or six-thousand-yard fields of fire, especially between the river and the high road; and that undergrowth’s God’s own abatis.” He looked up to meet Eastshare’s eyes and smiled coldly. “They’ll play hell getting lines of infantry through that, Your Grace.”
Eastshare rubbed his chin thoughtfully, contemplating the map. It was closer to the Army of God’s current position than he might have wished, but assuming Zhevons was right about how long Kaitswyrth was going to take getting himself reorganized, that might not be as dangerous as he’d feared. And that kind of terrain would make miserable going for the cavalry he didn’t have, while the sort of fire lanes Zhevons was describing would go a long way towards letting his superior weapons equalize the numerical odds.…
For a moment, he wondered why Taisyn hadn’t chosen the same position, but then he shook his head. Taisyn had had only four thousand men, only two thousand of them with rifles, and he’d been forced to rely on borrowed naval artillery—powerful, but cumbersome and slower-firing than proper field guns. He’d needed that hilly terrain if he was going to hold against such an enormous numerical disparity.
“I think you’re right, Master Zhevons,” he said finally. “Our lead battalions can be there by tomorrow evening, using the river. I can have the engineers up to support them by morning, and the rest of the infantry and the field artillery by this time day after tomorrow.”
He let his hand lie flat on the map, his palm over the designated spot, and looked up at Zhevons.
“I don’t think they’ll be getting by me anytime soon.” The words were ordinary enough, but they came out in the tone of a man swearing a vow to the ghosts of Mahrtyn Taisyn’s slaughtered command, and Zhevons nodded.
“I don’t think so, either, Your Grace,” he said softly.
.IX.
Guarnak, Mountaincross Province, Republic of Siddarmark
“Well, Captain Bahrns, I’d say they know we’re here now,” Zhaimys Myklayn observed as another volley of rifle fire whined and bounced from HMS Delthak’s casemate.
“You might have a point about that, Master Myklayn,” Bahrns agreed judiciously as he peered out the vision slit.
He was more cautious about that than he had been. Young Ahbukyra Matthysahn wouldn’t be using his right hand to sound any more shrieks on Delthak’s whistle. Not after the flattened rifle bullet screamed in through the slit and turned his elbow into shattered bits and pieces. They’d suffered a dozen casualties on the gundeck, as well, from the same source, and more among his infantry, but his gunners and the troop barges’ riflemen—and carronades—had repaid the Temple Loyalists at a usurious rate.
Which’ll be damned small comfort to their survivors, he thought grimly. But at least I won’t be losing any more infantry in this next bit, thank God.
He was feeling the exhaustion now, and he knew that was true of all the rest of his people, as well. It certainly ought to be, given that they’d been sailing across the interior of the Republic of Siddarmark for almost an entire five-day.
And as Myklayn had just pointed out, whatever had paralyzed the semaphore stations was clearly no longer a factor. Not at their current position, at least.
“How much farther d’you think we can get, Captain?” Myklayn asked in a lower voice, and Bahrns shrugged.
“I’d love to go all the way to Saiknyr. That’s not what the orders call for, though … and probably just as well.” Bahrns grimaced. “We’re running more risk than a sane person would going as far south as Guarnak.”
“Had the same thought m’self,” Myklayn acknowledged, and grinned. “Guess it’s just as well there’s not so many sane people aboard your ship, then, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you mean, Master Myklayn!” Bahrns said virtuously, then ducked reflexively as another volley of rifle fire spanged off the conning tower’s armor.
“Master Blahdysnberg!” he called down the voice tube. “Those … people on the north bank are beginning to irritate me!”
“I’ll deal with them for you in just a minute, Sir!” Blahdysnberg’s voice came back, and two guns in the forward section of Delthak’s larboard broadside bellowed almost before he finished speaking.
The rifle fire slackened immediately, and when Bahrns looked back out, the Church infantry who’d been drawn up in a two-deep line to blaze away at the invaders had been turned into so much ripped and torn flesh.
“Very good, Master Blahdysnberg!” he said.
“Thank you, Sir!”
Delthak’s black paint had acquired any number of scrapes, scratches, and scars during the course of her thousand-mile voyage to her present position, but her armor had sneered at the worst the Army of God could do, and speed had kept her ahead of any effective response.
So far, at any rate.
He coughed as gun smoke drifted up the access ladder from the gundeck. That gundeck was a close enough approximation to hell when the guns were firing, he thought; his stokers, laboring over the boiler furnaces, opening the iron doors and shoveling in the coal, raking out the ash and clinker, cleaning the g
rates even as they continued steaming, had it worse. He’d seen to it they had all the fresh water they could drink and used extra hands to spell them whenever he could, and when the Delthak Works had designed the conversion, they’d provided the fire and engine rooms with blowers, sucking in air through mushroom-headed ventilators spaced across the hull between the funnels. That helped a lot, as well, but he knew exhaustion was even more of a factor for them than for the rest of his crew.
Not that much longer, boys. We’re more than halfway home—assuming we ever get home, of course.
He moved to the forward view slit, and his lips drew back as he saw what he’d come for. The city of Guarnak was a major transshipment point on the Republic’s northern canal system; at this moment, it was also the forward staging base for Bishop Militant Bahrnabai Wyrshym’s entire army. With no word from anyone since they’d set out, Bahrns had no idea how the campaign in the Sylmahn Gap was proceeding. For all he knew, Wyrshym’s men had blown their way through the Gap and were advancing on the capital at this very instant. But from the huge raft of barges, moored two- and three-deep along the curving canal front, and the mountains of crates, bags, and casks piled along the wharves—
It looks like Baron Green Valley got here in time, after all, Halcom, he thought with savage glee. And, oh my, what a lovely target he’s given you!
“Both engines slow astern! Helm, come a half-point to starboard!”
Confirmations came back, and Delthak slowed, turning to her right in the bend of the canal, bringing the three guns of her forward battery—and all eight of the guns in her larboard battery—to bear on that sprawling cluster of barges and supplies.
“Master Blahdysnberg!”
He didn’t use the voice tube, this time. Instead, he leaned over the edge of the access trunk, and Pawal Blahdysnberg appeared at the base of the ladder, looking up.
“Yes, Sir?”
“This is what we came for, Pawal,” Bahrns said simply. “Make it count.”
* * *
Bishop Militant Bahrnabai stood on the second story of one of the canal-front warehouses, staring through his spyglass at the ugly, black monster turning to bring its guns to bear on his helpless barges, and tried not to curse.
It was hard.
Langhorne! How in Shan-wei’s name did they get within two days—two days!—of Guarnak without anyone so much as telling me they were coming?! Did they just fly across everything between here and the coast?! Where the hell was the semaphore?! Hell, for that matter, hasn’t anyone but me ever heard of horseback couriers?!
There was going to be Shan-wei to pay for this, and he wondered where the other one of them was. There were supposed to be two of them, according to the fragmentary reports he’d finally gotten, but only one was anywhere to be seen.
Maybe somebody actually managed to sink the other bastard, he thought venomously. That would be nice. But now—
He’d done what he could, especially after what the heretics had done to his gun line outside Serabor. That debacle still left a sour taste in his mouth, but Gorthyk Nybar had been absolutely right to pull back. Some of Wyrshym’s other officers had argued for digging in farther forward—at Terykyr, perhaps—but Gorthyk had been right yet again. With the high road bridge across the Wyvern Lake narrows destroyed, the heretics couldn’t follow up their advantage before the Army of God figured out how to respond to their newest weapons. And they weren’t leaving the cliff-top lizard paths to the enemy any longer, either. The vicious fighting among the clouds was costing him more men than the heretics—he was certain of that, given their Langhorne-forsaken ability to load and fire while prone—but he had more men, and the back-and-forth, bickering action at least kept them from getting those … those portable cannon of theirs around behind his main positions. And no matter what the heretics at the other end of the Gap might do, his army had tightened Mother Church’s grasp on everything north of the Moon Thorns and west of Ranshir Bay. He was perfectly willing to sit here and keep the cork in the bottle while the Grand Inquisitor’s agents figured out how the heretics had accomplished their latest surprise.
And once we know that, once we’re able to do the same thing, we’ll head right back down the Gap and kick their asses up between their ears!
The thought was a distant voice in the back of his brain as he looked down at the thirty-one twelve-pounders—most of his army’s surviving field guns—emplaced along the canal side behind hasty breastworks of sandbags and paving stones. The range was absurdly short as he watched them take their aim, and he felt his lips tighten in anticipation. The tiny bit of information he’d received suggested shells, at least, had no effect on the thing’s armored sides, so he’d ordered them to load with round shot … and to fire with double powder charges.
His artillerists understood the threat that black monster represented, and they hadn’t even blinked at his dangerous command.
Now that long row of cannon exploded in a thunderous, rolling blast, and the brown water around the Charisian ship was suddenly lashed into white, tormented foam by plunging masses of iron.
* * *
Delthak’s hull rang like an enormous bell—or perhaps more like an even more enormous set of wind chimes, Bahrns thought, listening to the rapid-fire impacts of iron round shot on his ship’s steel armor. One punched through the starboard funnel, sending smoke streaming out both sides of the new vent. More hit the navigating bridge punching ripping holes through its wooden planking. At least three hit the conning tower itself, with a clanger like the world’s biggest sledgehammer. But for all the noise, all the fury of muzzle flash and smoke boiling above the enormous battery of field guns, not a single man aboard Delthak was injured.
Halcom Bahrns looked through the view slit as his ship came almost to a halt under the pull of her reversed engines.
“Stop engines!”
“Stop engines, aye, Sir!” the telegraphsman responded, and the bells jangled as the last of Delthak’s forward momentum dissipated.
“Any time now, Master Blahdysnberg!” he called down the access way.
“Cover your ears, Sir!”
The response was scarcely proper, Bahrns thought with a grin, but it was good advice, and he took it … just as Delthak fired back at last.
* * *
Wyrshym’s eyes went wide in astonishment as eleven thirty-pounders fired almost as one. Their shells slammed into the tight-packed barges, completely ignoring his thundering fieldpieces, and explosions answered. Huge flashes, clouds of splinters, pillars of smoke—they spewed up like loathsome, hell-born mushrooms, and as he watched those cataclysmic explosions, the bishop militant was enormously grateful he’d ordered the barge crews ashore.
He looked back at the iron ship and saw his field artillery’s round shot bounce like so many spitballs. Some of them went spinning high into the heavens, but others continued across the canal, crashing into buildings on the far side.
And they were accomplishing exactly nothing.
“Message to the artillery,” he grated, never turning away from the window or lowering his spyglass.
“Yes, Sir?”
Wyrshym heard the quaver in the white-faced lieutenant’s voice, but he was hardly in any position to rebuke the youngster for that! And at least the lieutenant, like those artillerists along the canal, was standing his ground in the face of yet another hell-spawned heretic invention.
“They don’t even care about our guns right now,” he said. “They’re too busy concentrating on the barges and our supplies. But once they’ve finished with that, they’ll get around to the guns. Tell them to pull back. There’s no point getting them destroyed for nothing.”
* * *
The Guarnak canal front was an inferno, roaring like a Delthak Works blast furnace.
The barges were a burning, smoking sea of flame, and more shells ripped into the warehouses beyond, setting fresh blazes with every shot. Three stupendous blasts had answered direct hits on barges loaded with gunpowder, and Bahrn
s was just as happy they’d been as far away as they had. A sixty-foot chunk of wreckage from one of them had been blown straight into the air and crashed back into the canal barely fifty yards from Delthak’s prow. He didn’t like to think about what that could have done if it had hit the top of the casemate. At the very least, it would have carried away the funnels, and probably the ventilator intakes, as well.
And there was enough wreckage floating in the canal now to make him nervous about his propellers, too. Especially since it was too narrow for him to turn around.
He looked back at the Church artillery and discovered it was gone.
Wrong move, Halcom. Idiot! The barges and the warehouses weren’t going anywhere, so why didn’t you deal with the artillery first and then take your time with the immobile targets, genius?
Well, no one was perfect, he supposed, returning his attention to the river of fire which had once been a line of wharves piled with supplies for the Army of God. He probably hadn’t destroyed anywhere near as much of Wyrshym’s supply depot as it seemed, but every little bit helped.
Besides, destroying these supplies isn’t really what the operation’s about, is it?
“Dead slow astern both,” he said.
“Dead slow astern both, aye, Sir.”
“And now we’re going to be very careful, Crahmynd,” he said quietly to the helmsman. He’d deliberately rested Fyrgyrsyn, changing the watch schedule to do it, to be sure he had his best man on the wheel at the critical moment, and the gray-haired petty officer looked at him and nodded.
“Just you give the orders, Sir,” he said calmly.
“I’ll do that thing.”
Bahrns patted the helmsman’s shoulder, then moved to the aftermost vision slit, peering back across the casemate. The smoke from the pierced funnel didn’t help, and neither did all the other smoke from the raging fires Delthak’s guns had set. At least the wind was out of the northwest, pushing the worst of it to one side. And at least he had a good ten feet of overhang aft of the propellers. That ought to find the canal bank and stop him before he rammed the screws into it, though the rudder was another matter.