Yet for all its effectiveness as an anti-cavalry and standoff infantry weapon, the pike was long, heavy, and clumsy, and most infantry armed with it were relatively immobile. That was why most Safeholdian armies had evolved tactics which used a two or three-deep line of pikes, supported by cavalry on the wings and screened by light, missile-armed infantry. The pikes held the center or (at best) advanced very slowly and directly ahead—the only direction a line could advance without disordering the troops in it—under the protection of its own missile troops, who did their best to keep the other side’s missile troops from inflicting serious casualties upon it. Meanwhile, the cavalry sought first to disperse the other side’s mounted troops and then to use their greater mobility to sweep around the opposing pike line’s flank and take it from the rear, where its pikes offered no protection against them.
The introduction of the matchlock hadn’t changed things greatly, because the matchlock fired little if anymore rapidly than the arbalest, nor had anyone introduced the longbow here on Safehold, and things had remained remarkably static for centuries.
Until Siddarmark changed them, at any rate.
A Siddarmarkian pike regiment was an offensive formation: a solid square of just under two thousand ruthlessly drilled infantry, not a line, supported by four hundred arbalesters or matchlock-armed musketeers, and capable of advancing rapidly across a field of battle. A square could march in any direction, simply by changing its facing; it offered no flanks for the cavalry to attack; and it moved as a column, not a line. As a result, it had far more tactical mobility, and the sheer shock power of such a formation was disastrous for any line it struck.
It took endless hours on the drill ground and in field maneuvers for pikemen to acquire and maintain that fluid mobility, and the army had lightened their armor, reducing it to simple breastplates and helmets over tunics of buff leather to let them move even more quickly. That made a regiment’s individual soldiers more vulnerable to missile fire, yet the changes had proved amply worthwhile. A Siddarmarkian pike block could present a solid wall of pikes in every direction when it halted to defend itself, but it was its mobility which made it truly fearsome, and the Siddarmarkian army had evolved a sophisticated tactical doctrine to go with it. Deployed in a checkerboard pattern, the intervals between the pike blocks filled with their organic arbalesters musketeers during the approach to the melee, they were the next best thing to unstoppable as they came rumbling across the field.
But those formations required density, and that very density made them particularly vulnerable to massed missile fire. Against arbalests and matchlocks, that vulnerability was acceptable. Against a rifle-armed adversary—or exploding shells—the story was likely to be very different. Ironically, the armies which had never been able to match the Republic’s pike squares, who’d been forced to employ the pike line with its lower level of training and drill, were actually better placed to profit from the introduction of the flintlock and bayonet. Their linear formations were simply better adapted to massed musket fire, and with the addition of the bayonet, every man became his own pikeman, as well.
“My point,” Taisyn continued, “is that we can at least hope it’s going to take the other side a while to truly grasp the capabilities of their weapons. To be honest, I think we’re going to have to be … cautious about forming the pikes. The longer we can keep this an affair of ambushes and skirmishing and avoid head-on battle with the Army of God, the better. It will give us more time for Duke Eastshare to arrive, and for the extra Marines and rifles Their Majesties have promised to get here, for that matter. And the truth is, the other side’s still scared to death of facing your people. Your pikes’ve been beating the snot out of everyone else for so long it could hardly be any other way. The longer we can keep them from realizing how the new model weapons have changed things, the better.”
“I hope you won’t be offended if I point out that you’re basically reminding us our entire army’s just become obsolete, Brigadier,” Stohnar said a bit dryly, and Taisyn bobbed his head in acknowledgment.
“My Lord, three years ago—two years ago—the thought of facing one of your pike regiments would’ve scared me shi—ah, I mean spitless.” Taisyn glanced quickly and apologetically in Aivah’s direction. “You would’ve run over even Charisian Marines without rifles and bayonets like a hill dragon through a cornfield. Things’ve changed, but your pikes earned their reputation the hard way. I’m simply saying it’s time for us to capitalize on that reputation for as long and as strongly as we can. If the other side knows your regiments are waiting to run over them as soon as they come out into the open, they’re going to hesitant about doing that.”
“Until they’ve seen one of our pike regiments shot to pieces,” Parkair said grimly.
“We’ll just have to try to see to it that that doesn’t happen, My Lord. And it hasn’t happened so far in the Sylmahn Gap,” Taisyn pointed out.
“But so far that’s been a case of our facing rebels, not Temple regulars,” Gahdarhd observed, and Taisyn nodded.
The fighting in the Sylmahn Gap had been close, vicious, and prolonged. At least two small cities—Jairth and Serabor—had been reduced to depopulated ruins, and civilian casualties had been even higher than military ones. The rebels who’d seized control of western Mountaincross understood the importance of the Sylmahn Gap as well as anyone in Siddar City; indeed, their overriding drive to take and hold it was the reason they’d steadfastly refused appeals to send reinforcements to their fellows in Hildermoss. The Guarnak-Sylmahn Canal, which ran through the Gap, was Old Province’s major link to northwestern Siddarmark and to the Border States, which also meant it was the Temple’s most direct route to Siddar City.
The regular army units in western Mountaincross had disintegrated, died, or gone over to the rebels, and most of their unit organization had disappeared in the process. The provincial militia had remained closer to intact, however, and it had absorbed the majority of the regulars who’d joined the Temple Loyalists. The Sylmahn Gap was one of the very few places where pikeman had met pikeman over the bitter winter, and even though the regular army regiments Stohnar had dispatched from the capital were better disciplined and equipped than the majority of the militia units opposed to them, their losses had been heavy.
The tide of rebellious militia had pushed all the way down the Gap, far enough to repeatedly assault the city of Serabor at its extreme eastern end. Somehow Serabor’s defenders had held, fighting from its flaming ruins and eating God only knew what, even when a second wave of Temple Loyalists from Charlztyn had assailed it from the east as well. They’d held Serabor under actual siege, completely cut off from the outside world, until General Stohnar’s relief column reached it.
The attackers had been at the end of their own tether from starvation and winter weather when Stohnar’s relatively fresh regulars smashed into them, and the Charlztyn force had simply disintegrated. The militia from western Mountaincross had held together, but even its stubborn retreat had turned almost into a rout at times as the vengeful regulars drove it back north as far as Terykyr, a small mountain town about halfway up the Gap from Serabor. But then the militia had been reinforced, and it had been the rebels’ turn to hammer Stohnar’s men back. The regulars had given ground only slowly and sullenly, but they’d been thinned by their own casualties, and the Gap was too wide for them to put together a continuous front across it without major reinforcements of their own. Unfortunately, no one had those reinforcements to send. The few hundred rifles the pike regiments’ light companies had been issued had been invaluable in both the attack and the defense, and the flooding created by the spring thaw helped troops on the defensive far more than it helped those pressing the attack, yet Trumyn Stohnar’s position could only be called “precarious.”
And what was going to happen when the flooding eased and when, not if, the Army of God managed to reinforce the militia with riflemen was one of Greyghor Stohnar and Daryus Parkair’s worst nightmares.
<
br /> “So far, Trumyn’s rifles—and the weather—have been able to fend off the worst they could do to us there,” Stohnar said now. “And the reports out of Glacierheart say the same thing about the Gray Walls.” He glanced at Aivah, whose lips had tightened at the reference to Glacierheart. The news of how close Zhasyn Cahnyr had come to death had reached Siddar City barely three days ago, and she hadn’t taken it well. “We’ll just have to hope it stays that way until we can reinforce.”
“With all due respect, My Lord,” Maidyn said, “how likely is that? Madam Pahrsahn’s agents’ reports have been damnably reliable so far. I don’t see any reason to expect their reliability to change now.”
“Probably not,” Stohnar acknowledged. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything since you and I last spoke, Aivah?”
He raised his eyebrows, and she shook her head.
“My best guess from what they’re saying is that Maigwair’s troops are still at least two months away from crossing the border and reaching the disputed provinces. We might have a little longer than that if the weather stays bad in Tarikah and Westmarch, but I wouldn’t count on that. And when they do move, it’s going to be in strength, despite their supply difficulties.”
“And Rahnyld’s going to be invading the South March by the end of May, at the latest,” Maidyn observed grimly.
“About that,” Parkair agreed. “Most probably, he’s going to head into Shiloh when he does.” He tapped the map with his finger. “They’ve already got a pretty firm grip on the western part of the province. Once he links up with the rebels, the logical thing for him to do would be to swing north, punch up into Glacierheart, and clear the Gray Walls from behind.”
“And pincer Cliff Peak between him and whatever Maigwair sends south from Westmarch to meet him.” Stohnar’s voice was even grimmer than Maidyn’s had been, and he shook his head. “We can’t let him get away with that, Daryus.”
“Agreed. Of course, exactly how we go about stopping him’s another matter. Especially when that bastard Mahrys comes across Silkiah at us. If he and Rahnyld can forget how much they hate each other and join hands, we’re really going to be up against the slash lizard.”
“It seems to me,” Aivah said, “that we have to reinforce Glacierheart. I’ll admit I have personal reasons for feeling that way,” she met Stohnar and Parkair’s eyes levelly, “but that doesn’t change the reality. If we lose Glacierheart, we lose Cliff Peak as well. And if they can put together a solid arc from South March up through Glacierheart to Mountaincross, you’ll have that entire mountain barrier to fight your way across to kick them back out again.”
“Which is exactly why I agree we have to hold Glacierheart,” Stohnar said. “But Daryus is right. We can’t lose Glacierheart, but we can’t pull anyone out of the Sylmahn Gap at this point, either, Aivah.”
“If I may, My Lord?” Taisyn said, and all of them looked at him.
“If you have something to add, Brigadier, by all means do so!” Stohnar invited.
“My Lord, I have about thirty-five hundred Marines and rifle-armed seamen here in the capital. I realize we’ve been regarding that as a reserve force, but since we know His Majesty and Duke Eastshare are both moving to support us as rapidly as possible, I’m prepared to take them to Glacierheart to reinforce Archbishop Zhasyn. It’s not as much as I’d like, but we could probably ‘borrow’ some naval guns from the galleons in North Bay, and three thousand more rifles in the mountains.…”
He shrugged, and Parkair nodded.
“They’d have a major impact,” he agreed, and his eyes narrowed in calculations of his own. They stayed that way for several seconds before he looked back at the lord protector.
“We need to send at least some additional strength into the Sylmahn Gap, My Lord,” he said, “and we’ve got to send some additional support to hold the line against Midhold, as well. We won’t need as much there, though, judging from current reports. I think we could probably cut loose another … five thousand and send them up the Siddar along with Brigadier Taisyn. Call it a total of nine thousand men, and somewhere between a third and a quarter of our contribution would be arbalesters.”
“Will that be enough for Zhasyn—I mean, for Archbishop Zhasyn—to hold?” Aivah asked.
“Against what he’s facing now, certainly.” Taisyn’s response came quickly, without hesitation. “Against what Rahnyld and possibly Emperor Mahrys can send against him, though, no.” The Marine shook his head. “Not in a thousand years.”
“Then we’ll just have to plan on finding someone else to send him before Rahnyld and Mahrys get their thumbs out of their arses,” Stohnar said, his eyes on the map.
The lord protector’s tone was firm, but all of them heard the unspoken qualifier, and their eyes followed his back to the map, asking themselves the same question.
Not that any of them had any better idea than he did of where they might find the “someone else” they needed.
MAY
YEAR OF GOD 896
.I.
Lord Protector’s Palace and The Charisian Embassy, Siddar City, Republic of Siddarmark
The voice of the trumpets was as lost and tiny as the thud of the fortresses’ saluting guns under the roar of approval as the tall, brown-haired young man started down the gangway. That roar went up suddenly, as if an unseen hand had been waiting for his appearance to pull some metaphysical lever, and clouds of seabirds and wyverns were startled into the heavens by the unanticipated tempest of sound. They wheeled and gusted around the congested anchorage, darting in and out of thickets of masts, yards, and rigging in a flurry of wings, and the deep-throated cheer went on and on.
The crowd gathered on Siddar City’s waterfront pressed in on the cordon of Siddarmarkian pikemen charged with safeguarding the area around the foot of the gangway. It would have been madness to assume every citizen of the imperial capital was delighted to see Cayleb Ahrmahk, but shouts of disapproval were few and far between, and the reason wasn’t difficult to understand. The weather was warmer than it had been, yet many of those cheering, whistling faces were gaunt and thin. Even now a bite of chill lingered in the air, reminding everyone of the bitter winter barely past, and anchored beyond HMS Empress of Charis were the most recent Charisian merchant galleons to arrive here in North Bedard Bay. The people behind those welcoming shouts were only too well aware of how great a difference those galleons and their predecessors had made over the winter the Republic’s capital had just survived.
Lord Protector Greyghor met Cayleb as he stepped onto the pier’s solid stone. The lord protector began a deep bow of greeting to the younger man, but Cayleb stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. Neither could have heard himself speak, far less whatever the other might have said, but the emperor shook his head with a smile, and the cheers grew still louder. No one would have blamed Stohnar for bowing to the emperor, yet the Republic’s tradition had always been that its lord protector bowed to no secular ruler. Everyone understood the reasons why he’d begun to bow anyway—those Charisian-flagged galleons out in the bay were answer enough—but that only made them appreciate Cayleb’s response still more.
Instead of bowing, Stohnar inclined his head in a nod of greeting, which Cayleb returned, and then the lord protector stepped to one side, waving to indicate the carriages drawn up to await them. The emperor glanced at the tall, sapphire-eyed Imperial Guardsman at his shoulder, and the armsman inclined his own head in acknowledgment before he and a dozen other Guardsmen crossed to the carriages to examine them briefly but closely. The worst of Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s wave of”Rakurai” had spent themselves—and killed all too many innocents in the spending—yet the habits they had engendered remained. One of those Guardsmen crawled entirely underneath each carriage, assuring himself no explosives had somehow gotten past the Siddarmarkian army. Then the blue-eyed armsman returned to his emperor and touched his fist to his blackened breastplate in salute and Stohnar, Cayleb, and the rest of the emperor’s entourage climbed into
the carriages that rolled off towards Lord Protector’s Palace through streets lined with vigilant pikemen and the ongoing avalanche cheers.
* * *
“Well, that was an impressive greeting, My Lord,” Cayleb Ahrmahk said as he and Greyghor Stohnar walked side by side along the stone-flagged passageway.
“No more than you deserved, I think, Your Majesty. A lot of those people would’ve been dead, or the next thing to it, by now if not for you and Empress Sharleyan. I won’t embarrass either of us by thanking you again—particularly since your correspondence has made your own attitude on that so abundantly clear—but the people of this city are as aware of our debt to you as I am.”
“There are debts, and then there are debts, My Lord,” Cayleb said quietly. “Sharleyan and I would’ve had to do anything we could this winter, no matter what had caused a disaster such as the one you faced. But no one in Charis is blind to the fact that Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s madness here has quite a lot to do with his quarrel with us. If his war with us hadn’t reached the point it has, none of this”—he waved his hands, the gesture encompassing the entire city beyond the palace’s walls—“would’ve happened.”
“It might not have happened yet, Your Majesty. It would have eventually, though.” Stohnar’s expression was hard. “I lied to myself for years about that. I kept hoping something remotely like sanity where we were concerned might break out in Zion, but you might say my eyes have been opened over the last year or two. Given how not just Clyntahn but the entire vicarate has viewed the Republic for so long, something like this became inevitable the moment he took the Grand Inquisitor’s chair. We made the mistake of growing too large, too powerful … and too tolerant. I suppose”—he smiled thinly—“at least part of that tolerance might be Charis’ fault. We did, as Clyntahn put it before he ran completely mad, ‘climb further into bed’ with you than any of the other major mainland realms, so it’s possible the ‘Charisian contagion’ was partly to blame for our … dangerous attitudes. I think it would be wrong for you to take all the credit for our waywardness, though.” He shook his head. “We were quite capable of despising the Group of Four on our own. We simply didn’t have the gumption—or courage, perhaps—to do anything about it.”