At the Sign of Triumph (Safehold)

.XI.

The Zhonesberg Switch

and

Town of Zhonesberg,

South March Lands,

Republic of Siddarmark.

It was raining, of course.

In this particular instance, it wasn’t the depressing drizzle which had become entirely too familiar to anyone in the Army of Thesmar—or, for that matter, in the Army of the Seridahn—either. No, this was a hard, driving, icy rain, deluging out of a night sky darker than the underbelly of hell. The sound of it filled the universe: pounding, pattering, turning creeks into brawling rivers, blowing on the wind, and generally making every living thing miserable.

Except for Major Dynnys Mahklymorh’s 1st Battalion, 2nd Scout Sniper Regiment, Imperial Charisian Army.

They thought it was lovely weather.

* * *

Private Dynnys Ahdmohr dreamed wistfully of a nice, hot fire protected by sturdy, weathertight walls, where he could toast frozen toes and breathe without exhaling puffs of steam. For that matter, he would have settled for hunkering down under a scrap of tarpaulin which might keep the worst of the rain at bay while a small, miserable, smoky fire provided at least an illusion of warmth. Unfortunately, he had neither roof nor tarpaulin. And even if he’d had either of them, Sergeant Klymynty—who was not noted for his kind and gentle heart—frowned on sentries who made themselves too comfortable.

More to the point, the Army of the Seridahn had learned the hard way that sentries came to bad ends if they took liberties against the Army of Thesmar. So despite the weather, he hunched down inside his new oilskins—which, praise Langhorne, at least didn’t leak like the ones they’d replaced—and walked his assigned section of 4th Company’s perimeter as philosophically as possible.

That perimeter covered the central approach to the fortified position marked on the Army of the Seridahn’s maps as the Zhonesberg Switch. The Switch wasn’t the best defensive ground in the world, for a lot of reasons, including the scrubby, second-growth woodlot which crowded close upon it. It covered the vital road junction where the farm tracks from Byrtyn’s Crossing, Zhonesberg, and Kharmych’s Farm converged, however. It was much too far out on the Army’s right flank to be heavily held, but the heretics had shown a truly fiendish talent for exploiting any unwatched spider-rat hole, which explained what Hyndyrsyn’s Regiment was doing out in the middle of East Bumfuck in the Shan-wei-damned rain.

Stationary, sandbagged guard posts closer in to the main position actually did offer at least the illusion of overhead protection for which Ahdmohr longed, and more rudimentary—and much wetter and more miserable—posts formed a loose outer shell, as well. No one could put a solid wall of sentries across a frontage as wide as the Switch, however, especially with only four understrength companies. There had to be gaps, and Captain Tyrnyr believed in tying fixed positions together with mobile sentries as insurance. That was his policy at any time, but especially on a night when darkness conspired with driving rain to reduce visibility to zero and added a backdrop of sound that deadened all other noises, to boot. That policy had served him well, and since he was the senior officer in command of the Switch, his policies were the ones that mattered.

Ahdmohr understood that, and he wasn’t about to argue with success. Despite that, the odds of any threat to a position over fifty miles from the Sheryl-Seridahn Canal materializing on a night like this weren’t very high, in his opinion. For some reason, however, Sergeant Klymynty hadn’t asked his opinion when he was handing out assignments. And, to be fair, the heretics had demonstrated a distressing tendency to do things most armies didn’t. Including a nasty habit of creeping around on miserable, rainy nights for the express purpose of capturing any unwary sentry they could. The Army of the Seridahn had been slower to learn the value of offensive patrols and prisoner interrogation, but experience was a harsh instructor, and Dynnys Ahdmohr had no intention of finding himself the heretics’ guest while they asked—

He approached the clump of brush which marked the boundary between his and Zhaif Truskyt’s assigned circuits. He’d passed it at least forty times already. But this time was different, and unfortunately for Private Ahdmohr, the Imperial Charisian Army wasn’t interested in interrogating him tonight.

An arm snaked around the private’s head from behind. A hard, calloused palm clamped across his mouth and yanked his head back, a combat knife slashed his throat from ear to ear, and a spray of arterial blood steamed in the night’s chill. The Charisian scout sniper and his partner dragged the twitching body back into the brush, then crouched down with their mates, waiting.

If the timing held, the other sentry should be along in four or five minutes.

* * *

“What time is it?”

“Five minutes later than the last time you asked,” Sergeant Ohmahr Swarez growled. Daivyn Mahkneel was not Swarez’ favorite trooper at the best of times.

“I was only asking, Sarge.”

The private was a past master at sounding aggrieved without sounding officially insolent … which was one of the things Swarez least liked about him. On the other hand, a sergeant was a practical sort of thing to be. His job was to manage the troops and take care of all those unpleasant little details officers lacked the time to deal with appropriately. To nip problems in the bud while they were still simple, before they had to be brought to the attention of higher, better paid authority, where things like fine shades of meaning and a carefully considered sense of justice might be important. Pragmatism was a vital military resource, when all was said, and it was the Army’s sergeants who were the wyvern-eyed custodians of that precious commodity.

With that awesome responsibility in mind, Swarez chose his next words very carefully.

“Yeah, an’ you’ve been asking every five minutes fer the last half hour, fer Langhorne’s sake! Case it’s missed yer notice, none of the other lads like bein’ out here any more ’n you do, but I don’t hear them bellyachin’ ’bout the duty an’ whining ’bout how soon we get t’ go off watch. So, if you ask again before we’re relieved, I’m gonna put a boot so far up your arse you’ll taste leather for the next five-day. In fact, if I hear another word outa you at all ’tween now an’ then, you’ll get exactly the same answer plus—an’ I absolutely guarantee this—three fucking five-days of picket duty. Now, was there somethin’ else you wanted t’ say?”

Someone chuckled loudly enough to be heard over the rain drumming on the canvas tent halves which had been laced together and stretched overhead to afford at least some protection. Given just how noisy that rain was, the chuckler had to have deliberately made sure Mahkneel—whose constant whining made him even less popular with his squadmates than with his sergeant—heard it.

Swarez smiled, gazing out into the rainy darkness as he heard it. It was unlikely Mahkneel would be able to keep his mouth shut, although he supposed it was remotely possible. The Writ promised miracles still happened, after all.

An’ if the miserable prick insists on bein’ a pain in the arse, the other lads’ll sort his arse out with a little “counselin’ session” next time there’re no officers around. Prob’ly shouldn’t be thinkin’ that’s a good thing, an’ I hope they don’t get too carried away, but the—

The sergeant’s thoughts broke off, and his eyes narrowed. He cocked his head, trying to decide if he really had heard anything besides the splashing energy of the rain. It seemed unlikely, but he turned in the direction from which the possible sound had come, straining his eyes, and something tingled unpleasantly up and down his spine.

“What is it, Sarge?” one of the other members of the picket asked.

“Don’t know,” Swarez said tersely, but his hand groped for the signal flare, copied from a captured heretic signal rocket. “Thought I heard—”

* * *

“Now!” Sergeant Ahrnahld Taisyn hissed, and two squads of 2nd Platoon, 1st Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Scout Sniper Regiment, came to their feet in the muddy, rain-soaked scrub. “And remember,” he added, totally superfluously, because it was his job to, “no shooting, damn it!”

The scout snipers were understrength, like every other unit in the Army of Thesmar, but 2nd Platoon was down only nine of its nominal fifty-seven men, and Lieutenant Abernethy had picked the squads for Taisyn’s present mission with care. Not even a scout sniper could move through close, overgrown terrain in total darkness—and rain—without sounding like a draft dragon in a cornfield. But at least Abernethy and Taisyn could count on 3rd and 4th Squad to sound like small dragons.

The Charisians came out of the dark with bayoneted rifles at the ready and every safety set, sweeping through the gap they’d created by picking off Captain Tyrnyr’s layered shell of sentries. Sergeant Swarez was a highly experienced veteran with well-honed combat instincts. That was why he had time to realize he truly had heard something, to find the signal flare with his right hand and reach for the primer tape with his left. His fingers actually found the tape and started to pull it … just as a fourteen-inch tempered steel bayonet rammed home at the base of his throat.

The unlit flare fell back into the mud as his hands pawed uselessly at the blood-spouting wound. He went down, gurgling for breath, trying to shout, and a muck-covered combat boot slammed down on his breastplate as the Charisian recovered his bayonet.

* * *

“All right.” Captain Zackery Wylsynn had to raise his voice over the rain and the sullen wind tossing the leafless branches around him. “Our forward squads have informed us they’re at least theoretically where they’re supposed to be. And Sergeant Major Bohzmhyn here—” Wylsynn twitched his head in the direction of the tallish, square-shouldered noncom at his elbow “—assures me the Temple Boys don’t have a clue we’re coming. I want you all to remember he gave us his word about that.”

“Not exactly what I said, Sir.” Unlike Wylsynn, who was an Old Charisian and an ex-Marine, Bohzmhyn was a Chisholmian who’d spent the better part of twenty years in the Royal Chisholmian Army before it became the Imperial Charisian Army. As such, he had a Langhorne-given responsibility to be the voice of reason for his Charisian CO. “What I said was that none of our lads fired a single shot and none of the pickets warned anyone we’re coming. Doesn’t mean somebody hasn’t figured it out on his own.”

“Ah, I see. I stand corrected.” Wylsynn grinned at his company sergeant major. Then his expression sobered as he returned his attention to the youthful lieutenants standing around him while the rain battered their shoulders and bounced off their helmets.

“The point is that our people are in position, the engineers are out doing their jobs, and Colonel Maiyrs’ lead elements should be closing up on our point teams right about now. In another—” he pulled his watch out of his tunic and tilted it to catch the narrow beam of light from the bull’s-eye lantern Bohzmhyn cracked open “—eighty minutes or so, things’re going to get lively. So,” he closed the watch’s case with a snap, “let’s just get back and make sure no balls get dropped, shall we?”

* * *

“Got an Alyksberg officer here lookin’ for the Lieutenant, Sarge,” Corporal Clyffyrd said.

Sergeant Taisyn looked up from the bayonet he’d been honing, then stood and saluted the sodden Siddarmarkian captain who stood dripping at the corporal’s heels.

“Clyffyrd, yer an idiot,” he growled, holding out the hand that wasn’t full of bayonet to the officer. “Good to see you, Sir,” he continued, still scowling at his corporal. “Sorry ’bout that ‘Alyksberg officer’ crap. Seems Clyffyrd here don’t see too good in the dark.”

“Not a problem, Sergeant.” Captain Haarahld Hytchkahk chuckled as he clasped the noncom’s forearm.

He and Lieutenant Ehlys Abernethy’s platoon had worked together several times over the last few months, and they got along well. Which might, he reflected, have something to do with why Major Mahklymorh had chosen 2nd Platoon for this assignment.

“Hard to recognize anybody in weather like this. Or even see them in the first place … thank Chihiro!” he continued.

“Got that right, Sir,” Taisyn agreed, and craned his neck, looking into the darkness beyond the captain. “Got your people up to the initial point, do you?”

“Just getting the last of them into position now,” Hytchkahk confirmed.

“Damned good work, Sir.” Taisyn’s broad smile showed an elite soldier’s approval of good field craft. “Never heard a frigging thing—begging the Captain’s pardon.”

“Coming from you, the boys’ll take that as a compliment, Sergeant.”

“And damned well should, Sir. Not the easiest thing t’ move that many bodies in the dark ’thout somebody fallin’ over a tree root—or his own two feet—an’ lettin’ the entire world know he’s out there.”

The sergeant slid the bayonet back into the sheath strapped to the outside of his right thigh, then turned back to Clyyfyrd.

“Go find the Lieutenant and tell him Captain Hytchkahk’s here an’ his men’re assemblin’ on the IP. An’ fer Kau-yung’s sake, try not t’ get lost doing it.”

“On it, Sarge.” If Clyffyrd felt crushed by his platoon sergeant’s lack of faith in him, it didn’t show. “Captain,” the corporal nodded to Hytchkahk and faded away into the rain.

* * *

Sergeant Hairahm Klymynty slogged along the muddy trail, ankle-deep in rainwater runoff, with his head bent against the wind while his oilskin poncho flapped around his knees. He hated weather like this. He always had, and it was worse now that his knees had started to age along with the rest of him. The cold and wet weren’t doing any favors for the shoulder which had stopped a Charisian bullet the year before, either. But he was pretty sure the men he’d detailed to stand watch out here were no happier about it than he was, and he wasn’t going to lie around in a nice warm bedroll roll out of the rain—if such a thing actually existed anywhere in the world, a possibility he was coming to doubt—while he had men out here getting rained on.

Not that he had any intention of explaining that to them, of course. Just as he had no intention of mentioning the hot meal he’d arranged to have waiting when they came off duty. As far as they were concerned, those meals were going to be the company cooks’ own idea … and the only reason he was out here was to carry out another “surprise readiness inspection.” And, to be honest, making certain they were on their toes despite the miserable conditions was about as important as things came. Not that he anticipated any problems at his next stop. Ohmahr Swarez ran a tight squad. The possibility that any of his men were slacking off, no matter what the weather was doing, didn’t really exist. Still—

Something moved at the edge of his vision, coming out of the brush beside the trail. He caught it from the corner of one eye, but he didn’t really have time to react. He was, however, more fortunate than Sergeant Swarez had been; the rifle butt simply clubbed him to the ground, unconscious, with a concussion which would leave him seeing double for a five-day.

* * *

“What the fuck d’you think he was doing, wanderin’ around out here by himself?” Private Hynryk Ahzwald muttered as he and Tahdayus Gahsett dragged the unconscious Klymynty off the trail.

“Damned if I know.” Gahsett shrugged. “Looks of things, he’s prob’ly a sergeant. Might be he had it in mind to make sure his outposts were doin’ their jobs.”

“Kinda late fer that,” Ahzwald said with profound satisfaction.

“Oh, yeah?” Gahsett snorted. “S’pose he’d come along five minutes earlier an’ caught the engineers goin’ in. Think Sergeant Ohflynn’d be just happy as a Temple Boy at a bonfire if we’d’a let that happen?”

“Pro’bly not,” Ahzwald conceded after a moment.

He rolled the unconscious Dohlaran over and began tying him up securely, although that was probably unnecessary, given how hard he’d hit the poor bastard. The odds were at least even he’d never be waking up again, and if he did, it wouldn’t be anytime soon.

If the other fellow had been a genuine Temple Boy, Ahzwald would have been inclined to simply slit his throat as the easiest way to make sure he wouldn’t be posing any problems in the future. Regulations—and Major Mahklymorh—frowned on that sort of problem-solving. Still, Ahswald was a practical man … and the major wasn’t here. But he’d developed a grudging respect for the Dohlarans. They seemed a lot less inclined towards “making examples” than the Temple Boys or the frigging Desnairians, and they were tough bastards. They’d given ground quickly when the Army of Thesmar first launched its counterattack, but surprise had never turned into panic. If there was an ounce of give-up in them he hadn’t seen it, and there’d been nothing easy about the long advance from Evyrtyn. True, the Army of Thesmar had advanced better than two hundred miles since then, but the Army of the Seridahn had fought hard for every inch of that advance, and there’d been precious few atrocities on either side.

Under the circumstances, he was prepared to give a fellow veteran of that campaign at least the possibility of survival.

* * *

“Last man, Sir,” Platoon Sergeant Gyffry Tyllytsyn, 2nd Platoon, 115th Combat Engineer Company, 19th Combat Engineers Battalion, said quietly into Lieutenant Klymynt Hahrlys’ ear.

“Confirmed the head count?” Hahrlys asked. Not that he doubted Tyllytsyn’s assurance; the platoon sergeant didn’t make that sort of mistake. But it never hurt to be doubly certain.

“Yes, Sir.” Tyllytsyn smiled crookedly. “Double-checked it twice.”

“Good enough for me.” Hahrlys patted the sergeant’s shoulder. “Now let’s just make sure we don’t trip over the fuse hoses, shall we?”

“Suits me right down to the ground, Sir. How’re we doing for time?”

“That’s a good question.”

Hahrlys turned to face east, raising his arms to spread his poncho, and gestured to the private with the closed bull’s-eye lantern. Raindrops hissed into steam on the lantern’s hot case as the private leaned close and opened the tiny circular port set into the lantern’s slide. The light spilling through it seemed almost blinding to their darkness-accustomed vision, but Hahrlys’ body and poncho blocked its brilliance from any Dohlaran eyes as he held his opened watch in the small pool of brightness.

“Fifteen minutes ahead of schedule,” he said with profound satisfaction.

* * *

“Sure would feel better usin’ signal rockets, Sir,” Sergeant Pynhyrst muttered. “This doin’ it all on a watch an’ hopin’ ever’one’s where he’s s’posed t’ be.…”

He shook his head dolefully, and Haarahld Hytchkahk snorted. Pynhyrst was as reliable as the rocks of his native Snake Mountains, but he did have a talent for finding things to worry about. Which, Hytchkahk had to admit, was one of the things which made him so valuable as 3rd Section’s senior noncom.

“If you have any concerns you want to discuss with Major Stefyns or General Sumyrs, I’m sure they’ll be happy to relay them to Earl Hanth,” he said very quietly in the sergeant’s ear.

“Just saying’ I’d like a little more … control, maybe, Sir,” Pynhyrst replied. “Waitin’ around fer someone else t’ open the ball’s the sort of thing gets on a man’s nerves.”

“Now, there I can’t argue with you, Adym,” Hytchkahk conceded and thumped the sergeant lightly on the shoulder. “On the other hand, I’d rather be us than the engineers, wouldn’t you?”

“Got a point there, Sir,” Pynhyrst admitted. “Scout snipers’ve earned their pay tonight, too, come to that.”

“That they have.”

The two Siddarmarkians sheltered under the stretched canvas Ohmahr Swarez’s picket no longer required. Its protection was purely temporary, and both of them were already so saturated that it was more symbolic than useful, but at least the rain which had already soaked them to the bone wasn’t being constantly replenished by even colder reinforcements.

In most ways, Hytchkahk actually agreed with Pynhyrst. He would have preferred something more positive than “we’re all supposed to be in position by now” himself. But he understood the logic, and the attack plan hinged on achieving surprise. In theory, the Temple Boys—although he supposed calling the Royal Dohlaran Army Temple Boys might be a tad unfair; they’d certainly massacred fewer prisoners than the “Sword of Schueler” or the Army of God’s regulars had—weren’t supposed to have a clue the 3rd Alyksberg Volunteers were anywhere close to them. Hopefully, they still thought they were dealing solely with patrols of the indefatigable Charisian scout snipers, and Earl Hanth had gone to some lengths to keep them thinking that way.

The Army of Thesmar had maintained the tempo of its patrols all across the Army of the Seridahn’s front but those patrols continued to focus their main effort on the line of the canal, both as genuine probes of the Dohlaran positions and to create uncertainty about precisely what Earl Hanth had in mind for his next move. The Dohlarans had gotten much better at both offensive and defensive patrolling of their own, but when it came to that game, “better” was nowhere remotely close to “as good as” the Imperial Charisian Army. The Republic of Siddarmark had never been what anyone would have called incompetent when it came to scouting and reconnaissance, but Hytchkahk would have been the first to admit that even the RSA had learned an enormous amount from its Charisian allies.

At the moment, however, it was to be hoped Sir Fahstyr Rychtyr’s attention was firmly focused on his main defensive line forty miles west of Fyrayth, where those patrols were doing their best to keep it fixed. The last place they wanted him worrying about was the security screen far out on his right flank in these miserable, rain-soaked woods.

No, Haarahld, he corrected himself. In these beautiful, absolutely gorgeous rain-soaked woods! Langhorne, I love a good rainstorm!

His lips twitched, but at the moment it was absolutely true. And—the nascent smile disappeared—he’d had entirely too much experience with Dohlaran defenders who knew he was coming. Surprise was a beautiful thing, which was why he was perfectly prepared to rely on runners and planned timetables until the moment came. Yes, he’d prefer to positively confirm everyone was in position with the addictive, convenient, far more visible signal rockets the Imperial Charisian Army had introduced to mainland warfare. But there’d be rockets and flares enough when the moment came, and if anyone screwed up and fired one of those off prematurely, where the wrong someone could see it, surprise would go out the damned window. And if that happened …

“I think the Colonel will get the word to us when he wants us to attack, Adym,” he said out loud. “Should be pretty clear, really.”

“Aye, Sir, that it will,” Pynhyrst agreed in tones of grim satisfaction. “Can’t come a minute too soon, either.”

“That it can’t,” Hytchkahk agreed.

The Royal Dohlaran Army might not be the Army of God, but it still owed the Republic of Siddarmark—and especially the Alyksberg Volunteers—an enormous debt, and Haarahld Hytchkahk looked forward to collecting the next installment.

* * *

“Runner from Major Ahtwatyr, Sir. All of the assault teams have reported in.”

“Anything from the engineers?” Colonel Sedryk Maiyrs, CO, 3rd Alyksberg Volunteers, asked.

“No, Sir.” His aide shook his head vigorously.

“Good!”

Maiyrs nodded in sharp satisfaction. Charisian combat engineers had a tendency to be where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there, and they damned well told someone if they weren’t. It would never have done for Maiyrs to admit that he was almost as unhappy as Sergeant Pynhyrst about relying on timing and runners rather than more reliable signals, but he was confident the engineers would have informed him if they were running behind schedule.

He stood a moment longer, running over his mental checklist one last time. Then he drew a deep breath and turned to the youthful signalman at his elbow. Unlike Captain Hytchkahk, Maiyrs had all the signal rockets a man could want, and he was specifically authorized to use them when he was satisfied everyone was ready.

“Light the fuse,” he said.

* * *

“There’s the signal, Sir!”

In addition to a last name which had forced him to endure an enormous number of so-called witticisms over the last several months, Private Zhames Dohlar possessed extraordinarily sharp eyes. That was why he was 1st Platoon’s signalman. Not that particularly acute vision had been required to spot the signal rocket’s brilliant green burst; it lit the clouds’ underbelly like a fuming eye, touching the heavy rain with an eerie emerald glow.

“So I see,” Lieutenant Zhaksyn, 1st Platoon’s CO, replied in a tone whose mildness fooled no one.

Grygory Zhaksyn was a native Old Charisian who’d been a schoolteacher before his sister, her Siddarmarkian husband, and all three of their children were massacred by the Sword of Schueler. He’d embraced a new career, then, and he’d been a natural fit for the artillery. He’d commanded 1st Platoon for the past seven months, and if his men hadn’t known at first quite what to make of his careful grammar and enormous trunk of books, they damned well did now. Dohlar smiled coldly at what he heard hidden in the depths of that calm response, and then Zhaksyn turned to Tymythy Hustyngs, 1st Platoon’s senior noncom.

“I believe we can begin, Sergeant,” he remarked.

“Yes, Sir!” Hustyngs slapped his chest in salute and wheeled to the twelve M97 mortars dug into their carefully leveled firing pits.

“Fire!” he barked.

* * *

Captain Wyllys Rynshaw watched the rocket burst, then the mortars behind him coughed up enormous tongues of lurid fire, and he hoped like hell his crews had laid them in properly.

Surprise is great, he thought grimly, but getting the artillery on target’s even greater. Damn but I wish General Sumyrs had let me try at least a few ranging shots!

* * *

General Clyftyn Sumyrs watched the single signal rocket burst, vivid against the clouds. An instant later, lightning flickered along the horizon as the Charisian mortars opened fire.

“I hope we didn’t get too clever for our own good,” he said quietly, standing in the rain beside Captain Wylsynn. “By which, of course, I mean I hope I didn’t get too clever for our own good, of course.”

“Only one way to find out, Sir,” the scout sniper replied. “To be honest, I think the bombardment’s going to be less useful in the end than the illuminating rounds, but I could be wrong. And—” he bared his teeth “—I doubt like hell that it’s going to hurt anything. On our side, anyway.”

* * *

Although Earl Hanth had received two complete batteries of mobile 6-inch heavy angle-guns, improved field guns remained a hope for the future. In the meantime, he had a campaign to fight while he waited, and he and Lywys Sympsyn had invested quite a bit of thought in ways to make the best possible use of the artillery—and especially the mortars—they had.

Captain Rynshaw’s 2nd Support Company was the fruit of that thought. Sympsyn had combined two-thirds of the Army of Thesmar’s total support platoons into support companies, each three platoons strong, that could be moved around and concentrated into “grand batteries” where they were needed. They had to get a lot closer to their targets than the angles did, but they were also one hell of a lot more mobile. That meant Rynshaw “owned” thirty-six mortars—in his case, all M97 4-inch weapons—and all of them had been carefully dug in and prepared for the night’s fire mission. The only thing they hadn’t been able to do was actually range the weapons in.

Be lucky to put half the rounds within five hundred yards of the target, Rynshaw thought grumpily.

In fact, however, he was grossly unfair to his gunners.

* * *

“Stand to! Stand to!”

Captain Zhames Tyrnyr rolled out of his blankets as the urgent shout jerked him awake. He shot to his feet, as close to fully upright as the confines of his small tent permitted, automatically reaching for his boots even before his eyes were fully open.

“Stand to!”

He recognized Company Sergeant Wylsynn Stahdmaiyr’s voice. Then the bugle started sounding, and he hoped like hell Stahdmaiyr was jumping at a false alarm. If the company sergeant was, it would be the first time Tyrnyr could remember, however, and he sat on the edge of his cot while he stamped his right foot into its boot.

He’d just reached for the left boot when confirmation that Stahdmaiyr still hadn’t jumped at a false alarm arrived.

The first Charisian star shells exploded overhead with soft, almost innocuous popping sounds, and Tyrnyr swore vilely as the sodden canvas of his tent glowed under their furious incandescence.

Five seconds later, the first shrapnel bombs detonated.

* * *

“Short!” Corporal Aizak Ohkailee shouted from his tree-branch perch thirty feet above the trail.

“You sure you’re spotting First Platoon’s fire?” Sergeant Yorak shouted back.

“Langhorne, Sarge!” Ohkailee shook his head. “Course I’m not! Got a red star shell at the right time, though.”

“Well, I figure we’ll find out if you know your arse from your elbow. How short?”

“Call it two hundred yards!”

“Two hundred,” Yorak confirmed, and slapped Dynnys Bailahchyo on the shoulder. “You heard the man, Dynnys. Say it back, then send it.”

“Two hundred yards short,” Bailahchyo repeated, and reached for the sidemounted lever on his heavy, tripod-mounted signal lamp.

Ahlvyn Yorak grinned and shook his head, remembering all the care they’d taken to avoid showing even a single spark during the approach, as the shutters began to clatter and the light flashed back to Private Dohlar’s waiting eyes.

Still, I guess the bastards’ve figured out we’re out here by now anyway, Ahlvyn, he reflected.

* * *

Colonel Zhaksyn Hyndyrsyn dropped his pen and jerked up out of his chair as the first mortar bomb exploded in mid-air above the four-company strongpoint fifteen hundred yards northeast of his command post.

His regiment had been combined with Gylchryst Sheldyn’s to form Sheldyn’s Brigade. Hyndyrsyn hadn’t approved of the arrangement when he first heard about it. His approval hadn’t been required, however, and he’d changed his mind about it once the advantages made themselves apparent.

The idea had come from Sir Rainos Ahlverez’ experiences with the Army of Shiloh, and little though he’d cared for finding himself under Sheldyn’s command, Hyndyrsyn had to admit it had worked out well, especially with both regiments so badly understrength. Of the fourteen hundred men and officers he was supposed to have, he had just under eleven hundred, and if he was going to be stuck this far out on the Army of the Seridahn’s flank, he was thoroughly in favor of having friends close to hand. Of course, if both regiments had been fully up to strength, they’d still have been less than two-thirds the size of a Charisian regiment, although they’d have been a bit larger than a Siddarmarkian regiment.

They weren’t up to strength, however, and from the sound of things, Captain Tyrnyr’s detachment was about to get thoroughly reamed. And since Tyrnyr’s companies held the road junction that was the key to the entire Zhonesberg Switch.…

“Messenger!” Hyndyrsyn ripped open his command tent’s fly and bellowed at the sentry outside it. “I need a messenger right frigging now!”

* * *

Zhames Dohlar read the dimly visible light as it blinked through the rain, then began flipping the shutters of his own lantern, repeating the signal back to confirm. Unlike Bailahchyo’s lamp, it was at least remotely possible someone on the Dohlaran side would see Dohlar’s, although he suspected they’d be a little too busy at the moment to pay much attention to rakurai bugs in the trees even if they could see them through the rain.

He finished sending, and Bailahchyo opened his lamp’s shutters once again—this time in a single double-length dash of confirmation.

“Up two hundred yards, Sir!” he called down. “Confirmed!”

“Up two hundred,” Lieutenant Zhaksyn repeated, as calmly as if he were still in his Tellesberg classroom, making certain of the correction.

“Yes, Sir!”

“Very well. Up two hundred, Tymythy,” he told Sergeant Hustyngs.

* * *

Captain Tyrnyr was in no position to appreciate the exquisite choreography General Sumyrs and his Charisian artillery support had arranged for him. Each of the platoons assigned to Rynshaw’s support company fired separately to make it easier for the artillery support party assigned to it to spot its fire. In theory, one platoon was supposed to fire every ten seconds. In fact, of course, not even Charisians could keep to that sort of timing once the dance started. So each salvo included its own color-coded star shell as an identifier, as well. It wasn’t a perfect system, since there were soon a lot of star shells floating above the Dohlaran positions, but it got the job done.

By the fourth salvo, Rynshaw’s thirty-six mortars were putting over eighty percent of their rounds on target.

And in the meantime—

* * *

“Fire in the hole!” Lieutenant Hahrlys called, and reached for the ring on the varnished wooden box as the first mortar bombs warbled overhead.

The Army of the Seridahn hadn’t had the opportunity to profit from the Mighty Host of God and the Archangels’ experiments in fortification building. It had, however, amassed an enormous amount of … experiential data on the same subject during its grueling fighting retreat up the Seridahn River and then step-by-step back along the Sheryl-Seridahn Canal. Its men had discovered the beauty of the shovel and become almost as adroit at—and as fanatical about—digging in every time they stopped anywhere as the Imperial Charisian Army.

Given an hour, every single one of them had his own slit trench. Given three hours, and light breastworks crowned their fighting positions and their observation posts and any attached artillery were dug-in, with sandbags going up for additional protection. Given a full day, and communication trenches and rudimentary but serviceable dugouts made an appearance. Given a five-day, and blasting them out of their holes was Shan-wei’s own piece of work.

As an engineer, Klymynt Hahrlys appreciated a good job of fortifying a position when he saw one, and the men charged with holding the Switch had done a very thorough job indeed. No one on Safehold had ever heard of barbed wire, but they understood all about constructing abatises out of tangled, interlocking tree branches. And the Dohlarans—in a trick they’d acquired from Charisian engineers—had taken to weaving their abatises together with wire vine whenever it was available, which made a very fair substitute for barbed wire. For that matter, they were fond of studding logs with old bayonets or even sword blades and adding them to the obstacles protecting their positions.

Enough mortar fire could blow gaps even through Dohlaran obstacle belts … eventually, and if the attacker was prepared to expend ammunition lavishly enough to get the job done. There were more efficient ways, however, towards which end Baron Seamount had incorporated Doctor Sahndrah Lywys’ newly developed Lywysite into what an engineer from Old Earth would have called a Bangalore torpedo. The official name for it was the “Composite Demolition Charge, Mark 1,” but the engineers equipped with it referred to it as “Sahndrah’s Doorknocker” in honor of Doctor Lywys. By whatever name, it consisted of dynamite-loaded sections of lightweight pipe, each four feet long, which threaded together to produce a single, long demolition charge.

Watched over by protective teams of scout snipers and hidden by the darkness and pounding rain, Lieutenant Hahrlys’ platoon had very quietly assembled forty of those sections into four forty-foot long tubes, sliding them forward and under the Dohlaran obstacle belt, four feet at a time, from well outside it. Then they’d connected the waterproof fuse hoses to them and unreeled hose behind them as they retreated back into the concealment of the rainy woods.

Now the lieutenant yanked the ring and the friction primer inside the box ignited. Its spitting spark raced furiously down the main channel to the junction point of all four fuse hoses, then split and sprinted towards the waiting charges, invisible inside the hoses which had protected the fuses from the wet.

Eight seconds later, all four Doorknockers detonated as one in a long, ripping explosion that tore straight through the obstacle belt.

* * *

Captain Hytchkahk waited impatiently as the Charisian mortar fire savaged the Dohlaran position. The spectacular explosions were clearly visible from his vantage point, and he approved of them wholeheartedly. He’d felt even more satisfaction as the long, vivid pencil lines of the exploding Doorknockers ripped their way through the obstacles waiting for his assault force, however.

The scouts’ reports and prisoner interrogation identified the local Dohlaran commander as Captain Zhames Tyrnyr, and Tyrnyr was supposed to be very good. According to those same reports, he had four of Hyndyrsyn’s Regiment’s six companies under his command—about seven hundred men—and Hyndyrsyn’s Regiment had been part of the force Sir Rainos Ahlverez had taken with him to Alyksberg. By all reports, Hyndyrsyn’s men were no more atrocity-prone than the rest of the Royal Dohlaran Army, but like every other man in his regiment, Haarahld Hytchkahk had lost men he cared about in Alyksberg.

That was the real reason Earl Hanth had assigned this attack to the 3rd Alyksberg Volunteers, and they were eager to be about it.

* * *

“Second rocket now,” Sedryk Maiyrs said almost gently, and an amber signal rocket streaked into the heavens. It exploded, and the mortars stopped firing HE and shrapnel rounds instantly. Star shells continued to erupt above the smoking, half-shattered Switch, but no more explosives rained down upon it.

* * *

“Yes!” Hytchkahk hissed and raised his Charisian-designed flare pistol. He squeezed the trigger, and a brilliant red flare arced into the night.

* * *

Captain Tyrnyr looked up from the dressing the healer was tying around his badly lacerated left thigh as the first red flare popped into the night. Even as he watched, another one blazed to life. Then a third … a fourth, raging like rainy curses in an arc around the Switch’s left flank.

Of course there are four of them, he thought past the pain flaring in his wounded leg. One for each of the lanes the bastards blew through the abatises. And if they turn our left, get between us and Zhonesberg.…

He pushed himself to his feet.

“Sir, I’m not done!” the healer snapped.

“Yes, you are,” Tyrnyr said distantly.

“Captain, you could lose that leg—assuming you don’t just bleed out first!”

“Later,” Tyrnyr said.

He took a step, his leg folded, and he started to fall, but a powerful arm caught him. He turned his head and saw Company Sergeant Stahdmaiyr.

“Healer’s right, Sir.” Stahdmaiyr’s voice was pitched low, although it was clearly audible now that the portable angle-guns fire had stopped pounding them. “Let him finish, fer God’s sake!”

“I know he’s right.” Tyrnyr smiled crookedly. “Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ve got time right now, Wylsynn.” He wrapped his left arm around the sergeant’s shoulders. “Get me the rest of the way to the command post—now.”

For an instant, Stahdmaiyr looked as if he was going to protest. But then he clamped his jaw and nodded, instead.

“Come with us,” he told the Pasqualate lay brother as his CO started hopping towards the CP. “Might be you can finish tidying up once we get there.”

* * *

The last flare blazed to furious crimson life, spilling tendrils of flame down the rainy night, and the Siddarmarkian drums rolled. Then the rifle-armed Volunteers started forward, bayonets gleaming in the star shells’ light, throwing back the bloody reflections of the flares, and the high, shivering war cry they’d adopted from their Charisian allies rose fierce and hungry into the downpour.

The 3rd Alyksberg Volunteers stormed forward into the sporadic riflefire of the stunned and shocked defenders behind a wave front of hand grenades.

* * *

“Stand your ground! Stand and give ’em hell!” Lieutenant Kartyr Clymyns shouted. “Stand, boys—stand!”

Clymyns’ 2nd Platoon held the line of trenches covering the Switch’s left flank. The company hadn’t been on its positions long enough to build the dugouts they really wanted, but the trenches—almost knee-deep with water in the rain—were chest-high and he’d laid out his firing lines with care. But no one had seen a single damned thing before the first star shell burst overhead, and then Shan-wei’s own fury had ripped a gap straight through the obstacles in front of his lines. How the hell had they gotten that frigging close? And what had happened to the men he’d had out there to prevent them from doing anything of the sort?

A spasm of grief tore through him at the thought, sharp as a slash lizard’s claw even through his desperate focus on the men around him, because he knew what had happened to those sentries.

“There, Sir!” Corporal Zhaikyb Sairaynoh, one of his runners shouted, pointing to the right. “Over there!”

“Shit!” Clymyns punched the muddy side of his trench as the assault came out of the dark into the glaring brilliance of the heretic star shells. That was no Charisian attack—it came forward in an almost solid mass, not in the individual waves the Charisians favored. That meant it was the Siddarmarkians, and—

“Alyksberg!” The deep-throated bellow sounded even through the rattle of drums and the crackle of the defenders’ rifles, as if confirming his thoughts. “Remember Alyksberg!”

“Get back to the Captain, Zhaikyb!” he shouted in the corporal’s ear. “Tell him they’re hitting the junction between us and Captain Yairdyn’s company!”

“Aye, Sir!” Sairaynoh slapped his breastplate in salute and vanished.

* * *

“At a run, boys! Take ’em at a run!” Captain Hytchkahk shouted. “Take ’em at a run—don’t stop!”

There was a time and a place for the Charisians’ finely developed assault tactics, and he and his men had learned a great deal from their allies. But there were still times and places for the traditional, unstoppable charge of the Siddarmarkian pikes, too … even if it was made with bayonets and grenades instead of pikes these days.

Third Section stormed forward—four hundred men, roaring their fury, driving straight into the rippling flashes of the Dohlaran rifles. He was losing people, he knew, but not nearly so many as he might have under other conditions. The heavy rain wasn’t doing the defenders’ rifles any favors, and he knew were having their share of misfires. There weren’t many of them, though, and shock and confusion were his men’s strongest allies.

“Go!” he shrieked. “Go for the fuckers’ throats!”

* * *

“Look out, Sir!”

Clymyns’ looked up as Adulf Wyznynt, his platoon bugler shouted the warning, and his eyes widened.

“Alyksberg! Alykskberg!”

A second Siddarmarkian column came storming in from the left on the wings of that shout, riding a tidal wave of exploding grenades. He heard the screams of wounded men—his men—as those grenades arced into their trenches and exploded among them. The front ranks of the column reached the outer trench line and its leading squads leapt down into the trenches, bayonets stabbing, while the ranks behind them simply hurdled the gap and kept right on coming in an obviously preplanned maneuver.

The lieutenant snatched at his double-barreled pistol with one hand and drew his sword with the other.

The 3rd Alyksberg Volunteers swept onward, each unstoppable column driving straight for its assigned objective, and the sudden violence and utter surprise was too much even for veteran troops. Dohlarans began to break from cover, started to fall back from the fury of grenades, the deadly gleam of bayonets gilded in the star shells’ spiteful brilliance, and the terrible threat of that battle cry. Only by ones and twos, at first, but Clymyns could feel the fight going out of his men, and his eyes were wild with fury and grief as he vaulted up out of his trench.

“Sound the charge, Adulf!” he shouted, then glared at the two squads of his reserve, staring up at him from the trench he’d left.

“Come on, boys!” He stabbed his sword at that oncoming wave of death as the bugle took up the urgent call. “With me!”

He turned without another word, charging to meet the Siddarmarkians without even looking back.

Every single one of his men followed at his heels.

* * *

“Second Platoon’s gone, Sir!” Sergeant Stahdmaiyr said, and Zhames Trynyr swore. Fourth Platoon had already crumbled and 1st and 3rd were fighting for their lives. If 2nd was gone.…

“Anything from Captain Yairdyn?” he demanded.

“Nothin’, Sir. But it don’t look good,” Stahdmaiyr said grimly. “Looks like the left’s clear back t’ the reserve line.”

“Chihiro,” Tyrnyr breathed. If Yairdyn had been driven back that far.…

“We can’t hold them, Wylsynn.” His voice was bleak, his face grim. “Go find Captain Zholsyn. Tell him it’s time to get as many out as he can. We’ll buy him as much time as we can.”

“I’ll send a runner,” Stahdmaiyr promised.

“No, damn it! Go yourself, Make sure the frigging order gets through!”

“I’ll send a good man.”

“You’ll take it yoursel—!”

“No, Sir,” Stahdmaiyr said flatly. “I won’t.” He showed his teeth for an instant, white as bone under the star shells. “Happen you can court-martial me later, if you’ve a mind to.”

Tyrnyr opened his mouth again, only to close it with a snap. There was no time … and he knew the sergeant wouldn’t go, anyway.

“All right then, you frigging idiot,” he said softly, squeezing the older man’s shoulder. Then he cleared his throat. “You’d best get it off quickly, though.”

“I’ll do that thing,” Stahdmaiyr told him, and Tyrnyr drew his pistol and checked the priming while the tide of battle rolled towards him in the staccato thunder of exploding grenades and the rattle of gunfire.

* * *

“Message for Colonel Sheldyn! Where’s Colonel Sheldyn?!”

The exhausted, mud-spattered courier half ran and half staggered into the Zhonesberg command post. He couldn’t have been a day over nineteen, although the insignia of a lieutenant was visible through the liberal coating of mud, and he scrubbed fresh muck off his face as he stared around the dripping, poorly lit hut.

“Here!” Gylchryst Sheldyn straightened, turning away from the map table. The light was so bad he’d had his nose almost touching it and still found the smaller labels almost impossible to read. “What message? And who sent it?”

The courier swayed on his feet as he scrabbled in his shoulder pouch and found the hastily sealed letter.

“From Colonel Hyndyrsyn, Sir.” Urgency burned through the hoarse fatigue of his voice. “The Switch’s been overrun. Captain Tyrnyr’s dead—we think—and no more than a hundred of his people got out.”

Sheldyn’s face tightened. He didn’t need to be able to see any maps to understand what that meant.

The heretics had taken Byrtyn’s Crossing just over a five-day ago, after driving the Army of the Seridahn out of Fyrayth in two five-days of heavy fighting. They’d obviously received a significant number of heavy angle-guns, and the heretic Hanth had used them to devastating effect on the Fyrayth defenses.

That was … unfortunate, since, Fyrayth had been the most important barrier, short of the border fortresses of Bryxtyn and Waymeet, against Hanth’s advance into Dohlar itself. It had dominated the highest ground along the entire length of the Sheryl-Seridahn Canal, and that alone would have made its capture a critical loss. Worse, though, its loss had let Hanth out of the bottomless quagmire which had mired his every effort to repeat the short, flanking hooks which had driven the Army of the Seridahn back, step by bloody step, before the winter rains set in in earnest. Drainage west of the Fyrayth Hills was far better, the ground was firmer, and the network of small farming communities between Fyrayth and the border provided a network of roads. They were little more than farming tracks, but they still offered far better mobility for troops and supplies than anything east of the hills.

The heretics were out of the box, he thought grimly. Hanth wouldn’t be sending any massive thrusts down any of those muddy farm roads, but he didn’t need to. Sheldyn’s present position at Zhonesberg was more than fifty miles south of the canal. There was no way General Rychtyr could hold a continuous front all the way from there to the canal with the sort of fortified positions needed to stop a determined heretic attack. The labor to build a line of entrenchments that long, even in this weather, might have been found, but he had too few troops to man something that enormous even if it had been available.

He’d fallen back thirty-five miles west of Fyrayth to his next main position, the fortified line of redoubts and entrenchments between the villages of Maiyrs Farm, north of the canal, and Stahdyrd’s Farm, forty miles north of Zhonesberg, but that was the widest front he could hold in strength, and if even relatively light forces got loose in his rear, reached the canal and high road behind him.…

The terrain north of Maiyrs Farm was almost as bad as that east of Fyrayth, which gave his left flank a certain degree of security; at least there should be time to pull his left back if Hanth came slogging through the muck and mud to turn it. But the “road net” south and southeast of Stahdyrd’s Farm was too widely spread for that. Instead, he’d fortified the towns and major farms and garrisoned them in company and regimental strength. No one thought those garrisons could stop any serious attacks, but what they could do was to slow the heretics down, impose enough of a road block Hanth would be forced to bring up the weight for those attracks—which would use up precious time—and warn General Rychtyr if his right was seriously threatened.

“How did they take the Switch so quickly?” he demanded.

“I don’t know for sure, Sir,” the swaying courier said hoarsely. “We saw signal rockets, then heard portable angle-gun fire.” He shrugged helplessly. “Couldn’t see or hear anything more than that through the rain before Colonel Hyndyrsyn sent me off to warn you, Colonel.”

Sheldyn wanted to glare at the youngster, but it certainly wasn’t his fault!

“What about—?” he began, then cut himself off.

No doubt Hyndrysyn’s dispatch would tell him what in Shan-wei’s name was happening … assuming the other colonel knew. But Hyndyrsyn’s position was held by barely half the strength which had been assigned to Tyrnyr. It was little more than an observation post and communication point. It was unlikely to stop anything that could punch Tyrnyr out of the way so quickly.

“Find this man something hot to eat,” he said curtly to his aides, moving closer to the lantern hanging from the hut’s roof. “And find me some messengers. Three, at least.”

“Yes, Sir!” someone responded, but Sheldyn was too busy slitting open the dispatch to notice who it was.