At the Sign of Triumph (Safehold)

.I.

Baron Green Valley’s HQ Wagon,

70 Miles South of Vekhair,

The Tairyn River Line,

and

23rd Division Headquarters,

50 miles South of Lake City,

Tarikah Province,

Republic of Siddarmark.

“Come on in, Ahrtymys,” Baron Green Valley invited as General Ohanlyn climbed the steps into his command trailer.

The dragon-drawn vehicle was fifty feet long and nine feet wide, which provided room for a small sleeping compartment at one end, a slightly larger working office, and a very large map compartment with working space for staffers and clerks. It provided a weather-proof mobile headquarters that was far more efficient than anything Green Valley had possessed before, and it was also one more sign of the Imperial Charisian Army’s steadily growing sophistication.

Now he led the way across the map compartment where his staff was laying out the latest information into the greater privacy of his office with Captain Slokym at their heels.

“Have a seat,” the baron invited, waving at a chair as he unbuckled his pistol belt and hung it on the rack in one corner. “See about finding us something to eat, Bryahn,” he continued to Slokym. “I’m pretty sure the General and I will be having a working supper.”

“Yes, My Lord.” Slokym saluted, then withdrew, closing the door behind him, while Ohanlyn accepted Green Valley’s invitation and seated himself. The baron stepped past him and settled gratefully into the custom-made swivel chair behind his desk and opened the bottom desk drawer. He extracted a bottle of Chisholmian whiskey and two glasses and poured generously.

“The good stuff,” he said, shoving one towards his subordinate, and Ohanlyn chuckled. Then his eyebrows rose after he’d sipped.

“It is good,” he said.

“Seijin Merlin sent it to me.” Green Valley took a sip of his own. “The man’s unnaturally good at just about everything, even picking whiskeys.”

“And thank God for him,” Ohanlyn said sincerely.

Green Valley nodded soberly and the truth was that Ahrtymys Ohanlyn knew far more about Merlin Athrawes’ contributions to Charis than most people outside the inner circle would ever suspect. At forty-two, he was a little older than Green Valley, and he’d been a protégé and junior colleague of Doctor Rahzhyr Mahklyn at the Royal Collegewhen Seijin Merlin appeared in Tellesberg. As such, he knew the source of the new “arabic numerals,” and he knew Merlin had been instrumental—although even he didn’t realize quite how instrumental—in many of Mahklyn’s subsequent brilliant theoretical breakthroughs.

He’d also helped refine quite a few of those breakthroughs, including the invention of the slide rule. He’d gone on to assist Ahlfryd Hyndryk and Ahldahs Rahzwail in the creation of the ICA artillery’s indirect fire techniques and personally proposed the special-purpose slide rules, matched to the ballistic performance of each mark and model of gun. And if there were times Green Valley thought Ohanlyn really should have been assigned to Eastshare or High Mount, given the fact that he probably understood the new artillery even better than Ohanlyn did, he wasn’t even tempted to give him up.

“So,” he said now, putting down the whiskey glass and tipping back in his chair as he found his pipe and began filling it, “how bad is it?”

“I wouldn’t say it was bad, My Lord,” Ohanlyn said thoughtfully, leaning back with his own whiskey glass. “It’s just … less good than it was.”

That was certainly one way to put it, Green Valley reflected. His Army of Tarikah had pushed Rainbow Waters’ St. Bahzlyr Band back for over a hundred miles since launching its offensive. In fact, if he counted Ayaltyn, he’d driven Lord of Horse Yellow Sky’s band west for well over a hundred and seventy miles. Rainbow Waters had never intended to hold Ayaltyn, however. Lord of Foot Morning Star’s brigade of Yellow Sky’s 23rd Division had been supposed to fall back slowly, both to delay Green Valley while the Mighty Host’s main positions prepared for attack and—hopefully—to encourage Green Valley to demonstrate any new tricks the Allies might have come up with before the true grapple. Unfortunately for Rainbow Waters’ hopes, the Army of Tarikah’s engineers had thrown no less than four pontoon bridges across the Hildermoss River south of Ayaltyn in a single, moonless night. Two full brigades of mounted infantry had crossed them just before dawn, advanced twenty miles, then swung north to cut the Ayaltyn-Lake City High Road west of the city. Between them, they’d outnumbered Morning Star’s single brigade almost four to one, and they’d been accompanied by both their organic mortar squads and four batteries each of the new 4-inch breech-loading field guns. They’d closed the mouth of the sack, leaving no way for the lord of foot to escape, and Ohanlyn’s gun dogs had pulverized Morning Star’s supporting artillery before the infantry assaulted.

There’d never been any doubt about what was going to happen then, but the Harchongians’ stubborn refusal to surrender had been an ominous indicator of the Mighty Host’s morale. Green Valley’s infantry had been forced to clear Morning Star’s fortifications with flamethrowers and satchel charges literally bunker-by-bunker, and he’d lost almost six hundred men in the process. That was only about thirteen percent of the Harchongese casualties, but he’d suffered them against a completely isolated position, stripped of all long-range artillery support, while his own artillery and assault columns had enjoyed the advantage of aerial spotting. He hadn’t really wanted to think about what was likely to happen once he came up against the main Harchongese positions.

He’d done that now, and while it hadn’t been quite as painful as he’d feared it would after the Ayaltyn experience, it had been quite painful enough.

“It’s mostly just that Rainbow Waters is a fast learner, My Lord,” Ohanlyn continued. “Worse, it looks like he’s encouraged a lot of his senior officers to be fast learners, too. They’ve figured out a lot of the implications of the Balloon Corps, and they’re putting what they’ve deduced to good effect.”

Green Valley nodded gravely. He already knew pretty much everything Ohanlyn was about to tell him, but he couldn’t have explained how he’d come by that knowledge. So it was a good thing that Ohanlyn, one of the smartest people he’d ever met, was about to hand him a plausible source for the knowledge he already possessed.

“I don’t know where they got it, although if I had to guess, Rainbow Waters or Zhyngbau probably requisitioned it from the Wing Lakes’ fishing fleet,” the artillerist continued, “but they’ve come up with an awful lot of netting. They’re using it to help hide their angle-guns. It looks like they’re moving the guns only under cover of darkness, whenever they can, and stringing the netting across their new positions. Then they cover it with cut branches, grass, anything to make it blend into the background.” He shrugged. “Nobody ever had balloons before, so no one ever needed that kind of overhead concealment. I could wish it had taken these people a little longer to come up with it, though.”

“You and me both,” Green Valley agreed sourly.

“They’re hiding their field guns better, too,” Ohanlyn continued after a thoughtful sip of whiskey. “They were already putting them under overhead cover to protect them from our angles, but they were more concerned with stacking the sandbags high than with trying to hide them. Now they’re piling more cut greenery across them, wherever that works. Where it doesn’t, it looks like they’re stretching tarps and then covering them with dirt. Or just stacking the dirt without the tarps, when they have time.” He shrugged. “That gives them both the concealment and better cover, and they’re pretty careful about fairing the contours. They’re not giving my boys in the baskets a lot of sharp angles and vertical shadows. My observers’re still spotting a lot of them, but there’s a big difference between ‘a lot’ and ‘all.’”

Green Valley nodded again. Ohanlyn was certainly right about the speed with which the Harchongians learned. The first few times they’d tried to hide their dug-in field guns under canvas, they’d simply draped the tarps across them. That hadn’t helped as much as they’d obviously hoped it would, so they’d begun using larger tarpaulins and stretching them farther, over irregularly rounded forms, before they applied the dirt to blend them into the background.

“Frankly, I’m less worried about the field guns than the frigging rocket launchers,” Ohanlyn said much more grimly. “That was really ugly Monday. We shouldn’t have let it happen.”

“Every so often the other side gets something right, Ahrtymys,” Green Valley said. “And in Rainbow Waters’ case, that’s going to happen a lot more often than we like. You and your gun dogs—and your balloons—are saving a lot of lives, and I know you wish you could save all of them, but you can’t.”

Ohanlyn stared down into his whiskey for several seconds. Green Valley knew exactly what he was seeing, and it wasn’t a glass of whiskey. It was the torn and mangled bodies of a pair of infantry battalions which had been caught on their approach march by a Harchongese rocket bombardment. Between them, they lost almost seven hundred men, better than thirty percent of their roster strength, and lucky it hadn’t been worse.

“How did it happen?” the baron asked quietly. “I’ve read Colonel Tymyns’ report, but I’m still not clear on the details.”

“The Harchongians are hiding those damned mobile rocket launchers of theirs under tarps and netting, too,” Ohanlyn replied. “It’s a lot easier to hide converted freight wagons than it is to hide angle-guns, and they’re keeping them covered up until they need them. I’m pretty sure they’re stretching the tarps high enough off the ground for the launcher crews to get under them and aim the damned things before they ever remove their camouflage. Then they whip the tarpaulins off, fire the rockets, and run for their own trenches.” He shrugged. “What’s worst about it is that my boys in the balloons can see exactly what they’re doing but there isn’t enough time to get word to our artillery to take the launchers under fire before they get the rockets away. We’re demolishing every launcher they show us, but we’re getting too many of them after the fact, and, frankly, I don’t see a good way to stop this particular tactic.”

“I don’t either,” Green Valley said after a moment, and the hell of it was that he didn’t. “I guess the best we can do is try to make it harder for them to spot us on the approach. More smoke shells, maybe. And I’ve already put out the word that I want as many approach marches as possible made under cover of darkness. I know nights aren’t very long, this time of year, but if the bastards on the other side’re managing to move artillery and dig it back in between dusk and dawn, we should at least be able to move our troops up to their jumpoff points while they’re doing it.”

“Yes, My Lord.”

“Are they applying this … overhead awareness of theirs to other aspects of their positions?”

“They’re trying to, but it’s a lot harder to hide a trench line.” Ohanlyn smiled thinly. “They may be able to conceal individual strong points, but we know where they are well enough to strip away any camouflage with our initial bombardment.”

“Good.” Green Valley nodded in satisfaction, then let his chair come upright and pulled a folder out of the upper drawer of his desk.

“All right, two things. One is that two Victory ships started offloading in Rainshair yesterday, and the river barges are headed this way now. The first of the new shells should arrive sometime five-day after next.” Ohanlyn’s eyes widened and Green Valley smiled as the artillerist sat suddenly straighter. “Doctor Lywys and Duke Delthak have done us proud. They’ve got them into genuine volume production, and they held the initial deliveries to make sure you and I didn’t get the chance to give away the secret by using a handful here and a handful over there just because we had ’em. There’s twenty thousand tons of them coming up the New Northland Canal—probably enough for that fire plan you’ve been working on for so long.”

“Outstanding, My Lord!” Ohanlyn’s eyes were positively glowing now, and his smile would have done any kraken proud. “I’ve been looking forward to that for what seems like forever!”

“I know you have, but we can’t take the pressure off them in the meantime,” Green Valley cautioned, “so here’s what I’ve got in mind for Thursday.” He pulled a thick sheaf of typescript from the folder and passed it across. “Let’s take a look at the objectives and kick around the best use of your medium angles. It occurred to me that—”

* * *

“I’ll be damned. You guys’re still here?”

Corporal Jwaohyn Baozhi looked up as Sergeant Huzhyn rolled into 5th Section’s fighting position overlooking the Tairyn River.

“Glad to see you, too, Sarge!” he said as Huzhyn slid to the bottom of the crater, and it was true. Third Platoon’s senior noncom was probably the most experienced—and competent—sergeant in the entire 4th Company, and he knew how to lead, not drive. That was something a lot of Harchongese noncoms still had a little trouble with, but Huzhyn had taught the platoon’s corporals—including one Jwaohyn Baozhi—to do the same thing.

“Thought I’d come check up on you,” the sergeant replied as five more men scrambled down after him. “You get those rockets?”

“Yep. Right there.” The corporal pointed to the corner of the position.

“Good. And I suppose you know what to do with them?”

“Trust me, we’ve got it straight, Sarge.”

“Good,” Huzhyn said again, and looked around the noisome hole approvingly. “Smells like a latrine in here, but it’s a damned good position,” he observed, and it was.

The heretic artillery had produced a lot of large craters over the past five-day or so, and Baozhi and his section had spent an entire night covering one of them over with logs and a five-foot-deep pile of sandbags. They’d left a ten-inch gap at the bottom, all the way around, giving them a three-hundred-sixty-degree field of fire, and then shoveled dirt over the sandbags to hide their angularity. Its height on the bank gave clear lines of fire all the way down to the river’s edge—and, for that matter, let them drop hand-bombs right onto the heretics’ heads when they got close—and whenever the heretic smoke shells let up, they could see a good thousand yards back on the eastern bank. That was why the artillery had provided them with the half-dozen signal rockets to send up the next time the heretics got ready to cross … assuming the range was clear enough for Baozhi’s section to see them assembling, at least. Whether there’d still be any artillery to respond to those rockets was an open question, but if there was.…

“Figured you boys were probably getting a little low out here at the sharp end,” the sergeant continued. A smile creased his dirty face, and he slipped the heavy rucksack off his back. He heaved it across to Baozhi, who staggered as he caught it; the thing had to weigh at least sixty or seventy pounds. “Two of ’em are rifle ammunition,” he said, jerking a thumb at the equally heavy rucks the other men with him were shedding with obvious relief. “This one and those two—” he indicated the two biggest and strongest carriers “—are hand-bombs.”

“We can use them,” Baozhi said grimly while heretic bullets slapped into the face of the fighting position like slow, erratic hail. “Tried us again about an hour ago. I figure we’ll see them again sometime around sunset. Maybe sooner. We lost Dyzhyng last time.”

He jerked his head at the body lying in the corner of the position, its face covered by a scrap of blanket, and Huzhyn grimaced.

“Sorry to hear that. Seems like it’s always the good ones, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Baozhi shook his head. “Damned freak thing, too. Bullet came in through the firing slit, hit something, and ricocheted. Hit him in the back of the neck, right below the helmet.” The corporal shook his head again. “Doubt he even realized he was dead before he reported in to Langhorne.”

“Best way to go.” Huzhyn looked around, listening to the tempo of incoming fire, and pursed his lips. “How are you boys fixed for water and rations?”

“We’re good for food, but if you could get a water party up, we’re down to about a half canteen each. Kind of … irritating with the river so close and all.”

“See what I can do,” Huzhyn promised, “but it’ll probably be after dark. Lot of bullets flying around right now.”

“Whenever you can,” Baozhi agreed, not commenting on the fact that Huzhyn had just come through that “lot of bullets” and was about to go back out into it.

“Later, then,” the platoon sergeant said, jerking his head to gather up his ammo carriers, then climbed back up and out and headed for the rear once more.

Baozhi watched them go, then crossed to the firing slit again and stood at Private Gangzhi’s shoulder to peer out it. He supposed it didn’t really matter—it seemed unlikely that even one of the heretic snipers could actually see him—but he was always careful to stay to one side of the slit. The heretics who could see it tended to put their rounds right down the middle.

The ground between their position and the river had been torn and churned into a blasted, cratered wasteland, dotted with the splintered remains of trees, by heretic artillery—and by their own, he reflected. Not that he expected a lot more friendly support. The heretics’ artillery was more accurate than the Mighty Host’s at the best of times; at the worst of times, their gunners seemed capable of putting a shell into a specific five-gallon bucket, and they were really, really good at counter battery. Baozhi’s ten-man section was down to only seven, now that they’d lost Fynghai Dyzhyng, but he knew his men were still better off than the IHA’s artillerists, especially now that the heretics had their damned balloons.

Baozhi had listened carefully when Captain of Spears Zhwyailyn explained that the balloons weren’t really demonic. He believed the company XO had been telling him the truth … at least as much of it as Zhwyailyn knew, anyway. He would have found the explanation more convincing, however, if the captain of spears had been able to explain exactly how the monstrous things managed to stay up there if they weren’t demonically empowered. He would have liked explanations for quite a few of the heretics’ innovations, to be honest, but the balloons were front and center of his concerns at the moment. Without them, the heretics would still be east of St. Tailar instead of pushing their way across the Tairyn River.

Baozhi was happy enough to be shut of St. Tailar. He was as devout as the next man, but the endless expanse of unmarked mass graves, stretching literally for miles around the ruins of the concentration camp the Inquisition had built on the town’s site, had been enough to give him nightmares, especially when the artillery began ripping those graves open. The bones and the bodies—high northern winters tended to slow decay, and the stench of bodies and body parts, making up for that delay under the hot July sun—had been like a curse from the un-restful dead. He couldn’t truly believe all those people, especially the children who’d been exhumed by the terrible thunder of the shells, had been heretics. Surely not all of them—not the kids! That was the sort of thought it was unwise to voice where the Inquisition might hear, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t the only one who’d thought it.

Yet however glad he might have been to leave St. Tailar behind, he was a lot less happy about how far the heretics’ Army of Tarikah had driven the St. Bahzlyr Band since it launched its offensive. The heretics’ new super-heavy angle-guns seemed to be slower-moving than the rest of their artillery, but the lighter angles—and their own version of Mother Church’s rocket launchers—seemed to keep right up with their mounted infantry.

They hadn’t had it all their own way, at first, because Lord of Horse Yellow Sky, St. Bahzlyr’s commander, had ordered his artillerists to survey every suitable artillery position between Ayaltyn and his main forward defense line. His plans had envisioned counterattacking to relieve Ayaltyn if it was attacked, and he’d wanted to know where to put his guns when he did. The speed with which Green Valley had enveloped Baron Morning Star’s brigade had prevented that, but his gunners’ surveys had helped them predict the firing positions the heretic artillery was most likely to choose coming west. Once it became obvious no counterattack could save Morning Star—that, instead, the heretics would be calling on the band’s main positions very soon—his batteries had pre-registered their guns on as many of those points as lay within their range. They couldn’t actually see most of them when the heretics opened fire on the main defensive line, but they’d counter batteried with blind fire, using the previously recorded elevations and deflections. They’d scored in at least one case, too, silencing a pair of heretic batteries within a half hour of their opening fire. But their triumph had been short-lived. The heretic angles, guided by two of their balloons, had started eliminating St. Bahzlyr’s guns with steady, dreadful precision.

And that was what had happened again and again over the last several five-days. Each time the heretics bounded forward, the out-ranged and out-gunned Harchongese angle-guns had a fleeting opportunity to inflict casualties before they were hunted down by the heretics’ aerial spies and subjected to a deadly cascade of counter battery fire. By now, the Mighty Host’s angle-gun crews had started limbering their guns after firing only a dozen shells and attempting to withdraw before the heretics’ counterfire came down upon them.

Sometimes, it even worked.

Baozhi suspected the new camouflage schemes were working better for the field guns and the rocket launchers, so 4th Company might actually get some effective fire support next time the heretics tried to cross the ford in front of it. For a while, at least. Until the combination of balloons and angle-guns crushed the Harchongese batteries again. The rocket launchers could be devastating when they actually got their rockets off, but the smaller, portable infantry angles were really the most effective. They were far smaller, which probably made them harder to spot from the air, and they could set up much closer to the front, in any convenient shell hole or behind any handy hill, and their size made them smaller, harder to hit targets. Plus, they were far more mobile than any of the Mighty Host’s other artillery and the tactic of moving as soon as they fired worked better for them. One of his buddies, the gun captain on an infantry angle, called it “shoot and scoot,” and it seemed to work … after a fashion, at least.

But none of that changed the fundamental fact that the Mighty Host was being driven steadily westward. It didn’t take a genius to realize where that had to end if they couldn’t find a way to stop Green Valley’s advance.

At least they seemed to have a stopper in his path at the moment. The Tairyn River was narrow, little more than a hundred and fifty yards across, but it was also deeper over most of its length, and had a faster current, than the Tarikah River between East Wing Lake and the North Hildermoss. It was the most substantial terrain obstacle yet in the heretics’ path, and the St. Bahzlyr Band and its sister St. Zhyahng Band were solidly dug-in on its western bank. Langhorne knew the heretic engineers seemed able to produce pontoon bridges in the blink of an eye, but they’d have a hard time getting one across the Tairyn unobserved, and every ford was covered by positions just like 4th Company’s.

As long as they held the fifty or sixty miles between East Wing Lake and the tangled, impassable obstacle of the Great Tarikah Forest, Green Valley wasn’t getting past them, however much artillery he had.

* * *

“I’m looking for Captain Bahrtalam,” the combat engineer lieutenant said. “Anyone know where I can find him?”

“Up at the CP, Sir,” a private in one of the rifle pits said, and pointed back into the drifting mist. “Straight up the bank. Big tree, still about ten, twelve feet of it left. Turn left there and it’s about fifty yards.”

“Thanks,” the lieutenant said, and started climbing the bank.

It wasn’t all that steep, but the pounding both sides’ artillery and mortars had delivered made for treacherous footing in the misty dark. The lieutenant didn’t mind, though. Misty dark was ever so much better than bright, clear daylight with bullets whistling around his ears.

He found the tree the private had described. Once upon a time, it had been a lot taller, judging by the three-foot-diameter trunk that remained. He turned north, feeling his way carefully through the remnants of the dead tree’s companions until he saw the faint gleam of a shaded light ahead of him.

“Halt!” someone barked, and he froze. “Who goes there?”

“Mahrsyhyl,” he called back, “Ninety-Seventh Combat Engineers. I’m looking for Captain Bahrtalam.”

“You’ve found him,” a different voice, this one with a pronounced accent, replied. “Come on in.”

Lieutenant Mahrsyhyl advanced cautiously, keeping his hands well out from his sides. The gleam of light he’d seen would have been completely invisible from the far side of the river, even without the fog, he realized. Bahrtalam’s command post was in a natural hollow, with a solid earthen slope between it and the river. The lieutenant slithered down into it and tried not to notice the shotgun-armed sentry watching him alertly.

“Captain Bahrtalam?” he asked as a tallish, broad-shouldered man loomed against the light.

“Bahrtalam,” the captain confirmed in an accent that never came from Chisholm or Old Charis. He must have been one of the very first Zebediahans to enlist, Mahrsyhyl thought. “What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”

“I understand you’ve got a problem the Ninety-Seventh might be able to help out with,” Mahrsyhyl replied. “Captain Kwazenyfsky sent me to find out what it was.”

“He did, did he?” Bahrtalam smiled. “Can’t say I’m sorry to hear that! Step into my office, Lieutenant.”

* * *

“You sure this is the right place, Sarge?” Corporal Waryn Meekyn asked dubiously. “Not saying you’re lost,” he continued. “Heck, it’s been—what? At least three, four days since the last time that happened! Just kinda hard picking up landmarks in this crap.”

“And just as hard for some Temple Boy sniper on the other side of the river to deprive me of your invaluable services,” Platoon Sergeant Hauwerd Paitryk retorted. “Sort of makes me wish we’d waited for daylight.”

“Aw, don’t be that way, Sarge!” Meekyn chuckled. “You know you’d miss me in the morning.”

“Like a hangover, Meekyn. Like a hangover.”

The men of Meekyn’s squad shook their heads, grinning in the darkness. He and the platoon sergeant went back a long way, and Paitryk had already dropped off 3rd Platoon’s other three squads. It was obvious he was saving 2nd Squad for something special.

“Hold it!” someone called, and Paitryk’s raised hand stopped the squad dead. “Looking for someone?” the voice continued.

“Looking for First Platoon,” Paitryk confirmed. “Sergeant Paitryk, Ninety-Seventh Combat Engineers.”

“Good!”

The satisfaction in the one-word response was obvious, and Paitryk beckoned for the men pulling the equipment carts to take five. The obeyed with alacrity. The carts had outsized wheels and were fitted so that as many as four men could tow each of them, but they were still a bitch to get through this sort of terrain. Not that they didn’t beat hell out of trying to backpack their gear!

Paitryk left them to it while he and Meekyn moved forward again. A corporal emerged from the dark and nodded for them to follow him, and another fifty yards brought them to a foxhole scratched in the muddy riverbank. There were a couple of feet of muddy water in its bottom, but Paitryk doubted anyone much cared about that when the bullets were flying. A fair-haired lieutenant—probably two-thirds of Paitryk’s age, if that—sat on the edge of the foxhole, his feet a couple of feet clear of the water, waiting for them.

“Lieutenant Mahkdahnyld?”

“That’s me. What do you need, Sergeant?”

“I understand there’s a couple of bunkers on the other side of the river that’ve been giving your boys some problems.”

“You might say that.” The lieutenant sounded considerably grimmer than a moment ago. “Lost a quarter of my platoon this afternoon. The bastards waited till we were halfway across, then opened up. There’s one position in particular—don’t think it’s actually a bunker, more like something they threw up after the gun dogs blew the crap out of their original entrenchments. It’s high enough the bastards in it can toss grenades straight down to the ford. Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been spotting for their artillery, too. It’s the only position we’ve seen that’s high enough to see back onto our side, and judging by how quick their mortars hit us, somebody sure as hell saw us before we hit the river last time. I don’t think the balloon boys can pick it out from all the churned-up shit. For that matter, our support squad spent a couple of hours trying to take it out. No luck. I think they hit it a couple of times, but it must have a shitpot of dirt piled on top of it.”

“But you can spot it for us when we’ve got a little light?”

“Sure.” The lieutenant shrugged. “We’ve been pecking away at it—at all three of them—with riflefire, but it doesn’t seem to do a lot of good. One of my boys almost got a rifle grenade through the firing slit, but it’s the better part of two hundred yards and we don’t have an unlimited supply of them to waste.”

Paitryk nodded. The ICA’s Lywysite-filled rifle grenades were lethal when they hit, but two hundred yards was right on the edge of their maximum range, even with the new smokeless ammo, and a rifle grenade didn’t have the punch to take out a bunker unless someone managed to pop it past one of its firing slits. It wasn’t an impossible shot, but hitting any sort of pinpoint target with an RGL at that range depended a hell of a lot more on luck than it did on skill.

“Well, Sir,” he said, laying one hand on Meekyn’s shoulder, “I believe my friend here may be able to help you out. Don’t let that low forehead and those monkey lizard arms fool you. He’s actually almost as bright as most hamsters.”

“I see.” The lieutenant surprised himself with a chuckle. Then he cocked his head. “And just how is Corporal Monkey Lizard going to help me out?”

“I’m glad you asked that, Sir.”

* * *

“Roll out.” Corporal Baozhi prodded Private Yangkau with his toe, then stepped back as the private snapped awake. “Dawn in about twenty minutes,” he continued, twitching his head at the opening to the rear of their position. “Last chance to take a dump before we settle in for the day.”

“Gee, thanks,” Yangkau said, coming to his feet with a long, stretching yawn.

“Well, I don’t want to say anything about stinks,” Baozhi told him, “but there’s a reason Pasquale has us dig latrines, and it’s bad enough when we have to take a leak inside here. Besides, I’ve always found the sound of bullets a little distracting when I’m communing with nature.”

“Got a point,” the private said, and climbed out of the improvised bunker.

Baozhi watched him go, then peered out into the dimness. It was too dark still to see the bodies which had bobbed uneasily in the ford yesterday, and he wondered if the heretics had recovered their dead overnight. He hadn’t taken any pleasure out of killing them, but a man did what he had to do, and he was sure their friends would be back to try to return the compliment.

Hell of a way for people to spend their time, he thought, shaking his head. Hell of a way.

* * *

The eastern sky glowed its salmon and rose way towards sunrise, and stomachs tightened on both sides of the river. The St. Bahzlyr Band had held the Army of Tarikah’s advance for four solid days, and Baron Green Valley’s men—especially the men of the 21st Brigade—were tired of that. The 21st was one of the Army of Tarikah’s assault formations, especially trained in and equipped for the new assault trooper tactics, and they took their failure yesterday—and the painful loss of friends—as a personal failure. They were confident they could have carried through and taken their objectives anyway, but their casualties would have been brutal, and their lives—and training—were too valuable to waste when it could be avoided. Sometimes it couldn’t be, but the Imperial Charisian Army regarded the lives of its soldiers as its most precious resource. Which was why the 97th Combat Engineer Battalion had been sent up to lend them a helping hand.

* * *

“Are you sure about this, Corporal?” Lieutenant Mahkdahnyld asked.

“Yes, Sir,” Corporal Meekyn replied. “If we can see it, we’ll take it out for you.”

Mahkdahnyld looked at the corporal’s contraptions a bit dubiously. He’d heard about them, but he’d never actually seen one of them used. His inclination had been to call for plenty of smoke from his support squad—there was a lot less breeze today, so the smoke ought to be more effective—and put his men across under its cover. He was confident he could get them across the ford more or less intact this time—as long as no one called the mortars in on them—but then they’d face the tangled remnants of the abatis the Harchongians had built along the western shore. They’d have to clear those under fire, smoke or no smoke, and that damned bunker at the right end of the Harchongese line would be rolling the damned grenades down on them the whole time. So if Meekyn and his team really could take out the bunkers, especially the one on the right …

“’Bout enough light, I think, Sir,” Meekyn observed. “Point them out to us?”

Mahkdahnyld peered through his double-glass, scanning the western side of the river as the last of the mist began to lift. After a moment, he lowered the double-glass and pointed.

“All right, the one on the left is at about twenty degrees,” he said. “See what’s left of that clump of talon branch? It’s about fifteen yards this side of that. Got it?”

Meekyn gazed across the river. The range wasn’t great enough to need a double-glass once someone had pointed the target out, and he nodded.

“Got it,” he said.

“Okay, the next one’s about thirty, forty yards to the right of that. If you follow the trench line, you should be able to pick it up.”

“Beside that communication trench running up the slope?”

“Right. Okay, now the third one—the one that’s been such a bitch—is harder to see, but if you look another sixty yards or so to the right and up near the crest line.…”

* * *

“Any sign of the heretics yet, Corp?”

“Not yet,” Baozhi replied.

He stood peering out the firing slit, wishing he had a spyglass … and that the sun wasn’t so much in his eyes. He was a little surprised the heretics hadn’t tried to take advantage of that, time their crossing for when he couldn’t make out details because of the sun glare. But they probably didn’t realize how bad it was from up here, so—

His thoughts paused, and his brow furrowed. What the hell was that?

* * *

“All right, Lieutenant,” Corporal Meekyn said. “Ready whenever you are.”

“Fine.” Lieutenant Mahkdahnyld looked first to his left, then to his right. His platoon crouched or lay prone behind downed trees or in muddy shell holes. Farther behind them, hopefully still invisible from the far side of the river, all three of 2nd Company’s other platoons waited to follow them across.

Assuming they got across this time, of course.

He looked back at the weapons Meekyn’s squad had positioned. They certainly looked outlandish enough. Each consisted of a tripod—like a shortened surveyor’s tripod, only much, much heavier—with a long piece of six-inch pipe on it. The “pipe” was fitted with a laddered peep sight, adjustable for range, and mounted in a sturdy pivot with outsized wing nuts to lock it in elevation and deflection once it was properly aligned. A length of quick match trailed from the rear of each pipe to meet a single, heavier fuse that ran back to the wooden box at the corporal’s knee where Meekyn crouched beside him.

The noncom’s squad had set up six of them, two targeted on each of the dug-in positions Mahkdahnyld had pointed out. Now the lieutenant nodded.

“Anytime, Corporal.”

“In that case.… Fire in the hole!”

Meekyn yanked the ring on the wooden box. The friction fuse ignited the lengths of quick match and the glaring eyes of combustion flashed along them.

* * *

Despite the sunlight in his eyes, Corporal Baozhi saw the bright flare of the fuses clearly against the riverbank’s shadowed dimness. He didn’t realize what he was seeing, though. Then the fuses reached their destinations, and Jwaohyn Baozhi realized—briefly—what those tripods were.

The rockets designed by Major Sykahrelli streaked out of the launch tubes in a belch of flame that was awesome to behold. That back blast was the problem Sykahrelli had been unable to overcome in his quest for a shoulder-launched weapon. But it was no problem fired from a remote platform, so he’d designed a somewhat heavier version of his original model.

The six rockets roared across the Taigyn River like fiery comets, and Baozhi dropped to the floor of his improvised bunker.

“Down! Down!” he shouted, and the men of his squad were veterans. They didn’t ask why; they simply flung themselves down.

Three seconds later, the rockets reached their targets. One of them, aimed at the bunker on the southern end of the line, wandered off course and missed its mark by at least thirty yards. The other five flew straight and level, accelerating the entire way, drawing fiery lines across the river. Then they impacted, and each of them carried a twelve-pound charge of Lywysite. That was the equivalent of thirty pounds of black powder, twelve percent more than the charge in an 8-inch high explosive shell, and the walls of the bunkers—and of Baozhi’s improvised position—were far, far thinner than their roofs.

All three strongpoints disintegrated in a rolling peal of thunder, and Mahkdahnyld raised his flare pistol. The crimson flare was pale in the brightening light, but it was visible to the support squads waiting for the signal. The mortars began coughing a moment later and smoke rounds thumped down on the farther bank, between the river’s edge and the surviving trench lines. Heavy angle-gun shells rumbled across the sky, as well, impacting on confirmed—and suspected—artillery and mortar positions farther back from the western bank, and Mahkdahnyld smacked the engineering corporal on the shoulder.

“Outstanding!” he said with a huge grin, reaching for his whistle as the far side of the river disappeared beyond the rolling banks of smoke. “Drop by once we pull back from the line, Corporal! I know forty or fifty people who’re going to buy you lots of beer!”

* * *

“I hate those accursed things, Sir!” Lord of Foot Shyaing Pauzhyn snarled as another salvo of heretic shells—the big ones this time, from the super-heavy angle-guns no one had seen coming—rumbled overhead and crunched down on the 23rd Division’s rear area. He wasn’t talking about the shells, however, and Lord of Horse Myngzho Hyntai knew it. He was talking about the other thing no one had seen coming—the Shan-wei-damned balloon floating serenely in the cloudless sky and directing those shells with such fiendish accuracy.

“Unfortunately,” Hyntai said, “there seems to be little we can do about them—yet, at least. I understand the gunners are trying to construct carriages which will let us elevate Fultyn Rifles high enough to engage them.”

He put as much optimism into his tone as he could. That wasn’t a great deal, although the look Pauzhyn gave him suggested he’d still sounded rather more optimistic than the lord of foot, who commanded his 95th Brigade felt the statement deserved.

Well, it was hard to blame young Shyaing, Hyntai admitted. Although, he supposed that at thirty-seven, Pauzhyn might have resented the adjective “young.” From Hyntai’s seventy-two-year-old perspective, however, it was certainly apt, even if Pauzhyn was much less young than he’d been a month or two ago.

Another salvo of heavy shells growled their way across the heavens. The sound they made was like nothing anyone had ever heard before. At least it was less terrifying than the shrieking, howling, tumult of a mass rocket launch, but the thunder as those massive projectiles struck got into a man’s bone and blood. Each of them was its own private volcano, erupting in fire and death, and only the deepest bunker could hope to resist a direct hit.

The good news was that for all their fury, all the carnage they could wreak, accomplishing the sort of pinpoint accuracy to produce direct hits upon demand was beyond even the heretics’ artillerists. So far, at least. Hyntai didn’t like adding that qualifier, and he’d been careful not to say anything of the sort in front of his subordinates, but the heretics had a most unpleasant habit of sprinting ahead just whenever it seemed Mother Church’s defenders might be closing the gap between their relative capabilities. The balloons which taunted the Mighty Host from their inviolable height were an excellent case in point.

“I know you’re anxious to get back to your command, Shyaing,” the lord of horse continued, “so I won’t keep you long.” He showed his teeth in a brief, humorless smile. “I was always taught that bad news is best delivered briefly.”

“Bad news, Sir?” Pauzhyn sounded wary but scarcely surprised. There’d been very little good news since the heretics’ offensive began.

“I fear we’ve been ordered to retreat,” the division commander said much more heavily.

“Retreat?” Pauzhyn repeated sharply.

“Yes.” Hyntai tapped the map on the boulder between them. “To here.”

Pauzhyn peered down at the map and his mouth tightened. In the five-day and a half since the heretics had forced the line of the Tairyn, 95th Brigade had been pushed back another twenty-five miles. It was actually rather remarkable they hadn’t been pushed even farther, he thought, given the paucity of prepared positions in their immediate rear. Hastily dug trenches and lines of lizardholes tended to come apart quickly when the heretic artillery got to work.

On the other hand, there was something to be said for hastily constructed fieldworks, too. The heretics’ new assault tactics turned bunkers into deathtraps once they’d broken into the trench line. Sometimes they paid a stiff price to do that, but once they had—once they were in among the bunkers, close enough to find targets for those accursed, rapid-fire shotguns, throw their damnable satchel charges, or use their horrific flamethrowers—very few defenders got out alive.

His brigade had been reduced from a beginning strength of forty-six hundred to barely two thousand, despite the influx of almost a thousand replacements, and the 23rd’s total casualties mirrored his own. Then there was what had happened to Baron Morning Star’s brigade. But the men were still stubbornly full of fight, he thought.

“Sir, I realize there are prepared positions waiting for us there,” he said after a moment, “but the new line will increase our total frontage by almost a quarter. And our backs will be directly against the Sairmeet-Lake City High Road. If they push us back any farther, reach the high road.…”

His voice trailed off, and Hyntai nodded in unhappy agreement.

“You’re right, of course. On the other hand, we’re actually being pulled back behind the line to rest and refit. Three other bands—St. Tyshu, St. Ahgnista, and St. Jyrohm—are already holding the fortifications. We’re going into reserve, at least for the moment.”

Relief showed in Pauzhyn’s eyes, but the worry remained to keep it company.

“I know the Host’s front line will be very close to the high road,” Hyntai said soberly, “but we have no choice. Sanjhys fell three days ago, and the heretics’ balloons are already directing artillery on the approaches to Vekhair. This is for your private information, not to be shared with any of your officers, but Earl Rainbow Waters has ordered Vekhair’s evacuation.” Pauzhyn stiffened, but Hyntai continued steadily. “It’s to be carried out very quietly, by night, with the transport flotilla lifting the men out and ferrying them to Lake City.”

“And their heavy weapons, Sir?”

“And their heavy weapons will have to be abandoned,” Hyntai acknowledged gravely. “The flotilla has barely sufficient lift for the men; artillery and rocket launchers will have to be left behind … along with a rearguard to prevent the heretics from breaking through once they realize what’s happening. The Earl has no choice but to save what he can, though. The heretic general on their right flank—General Klymynt—is already pushing mounted infantry around to cut the road along the north shore of the lake. With those damnable balloons spying on him, Lord of Horse Mountain Flower would be trapped against the lake before he made fifty miles if he attempted to break out overland. If he had more depth—or perhaps I should say more width—he might be able to evade the heretics despite the balloons, although, to be honest, I doubt there’d be much chance even then. He has too many infantry and too few dragoons to win a footrace against them. The good news is that the locks between Sanjhys and Vekhair have been destroyed, so at least Klymynt can’t simply continue across the lakes with his ironclads!”

Pauzhyn nodded with the air of a man trying hard to find something positive in what he’d just heard, and Hyntai laid a hand on his shoulder.

“I know it’s far harder to gird yourself for battle when all you see before you is an endless retreat, Shyaing, but you and your officers and men have made me proud—very proud. And unlike last year, or the year before, the heretics are being forced to fight for every foot, even with those spying for them.” He jerked his head at the balloon. “All we can do is continue the fight, and it’s already July. The campaigning season won’t last beyond September—early October at the latest—this far north. If we can hold them to this slow an advance, then we should be able to stand along the line of the Ferey River this winter.”

“And next summer, Sir?” Pauzhyn asked very, very softly.

“And next summer will be in God’s hands,” Hyntai replied even more softly.