And much joy may they have of it, he thought venomously, watching the flash of matchlocks and slow-firing, old-style artillery on the parapets, listening to the sounds as his assaulting troops swarmed forward, going up the scaling ladders in scores of places simultaneously. Whole stretches of the wall were falling silent as his men swarmed over the defenders who’d manned them, and he smiled grimly.
I knew they couldn’t have the men to hold the wall against a general assault! Now that we’re over it, we’ll swamp the bastards, and Father Sulyvyn will see to it they answer for their heresy. And Sumyrs wouldn’t have cut and run in the first place if he’d thought there was anywhere else he could hold short of St. Alyk’s Abbey. He may have slowed us up long enough to save his own worthless arse—for now, at least—but he did it by handing over the key to Cliff Peak’s front door! Once Alyskberg goes down, we’ll march straight through and—
The night turned suddenly to day, and Sir Rainos Ahlverez staggered backwards, hands rising instinctively to cover his head despite his distance from the city, as the fortress’ main magazine erupted. More explosions rumbled, rolling along the walls, flashing and bellowing as if Shan-wei had stolen Langhorne’s own Rakurai, as the burning fuses reached the waiting charges. The sound was an echoing, deafening roar as the waves of overpressure beat on him like the fury of some unseen, storm-lashed sea, and he saw flaming chunks of wreckage—all too many of which, he knew, must be the bodies of his own assaulting infantry—arcing across the fire-sick night.
His jaw tightened as he realized what had happened, and then he swore savagely. He didn’t know whose hand had lit the fuse, and he never would, but the son of a whore had timed it with Kau-yung’s own cunning! And that rolling avalanche of smaller explosions told him it had been no hastily improvised act. The motherless bastards had planned it this way—planned it from the very beginning! They’d known they couldn’t hold, so they’d found a way to escape the Punishment and simultaneously cost him more men than they could ever have killed in a conventional defense!
He watched the blazing debris reach the top of its trajectory, come plunging back to earth, and knowing the heretics who’d set those explosions had just hastened their own journeys to hell failed to make him feel one bit better. He had the key to Cliff Peak, all right … and Langhorne only knew how many men he’d just paid to gain it.
* * *
“I assume this … request is necessary, Father?” Arthyn Zagyrsk said in a careful tone.
“I’m afraid so, Your Eminence.” Ignaz Aimaiyr, Zagyrsk noticed with a sense of bitter satisfaction, didn’t sound any happier than his archbishop. “The instruction”—he emphasized the noun very slightly, not that he seemed to want to—“carries Bishop Wylbyr’s personal signature.”
“I see.”
Zagyrsk remained where he was, hands folded behind him, gazing out his office window across Lake City’s roofs until he was confident he had his expression back under control. Aimaiyr was right, he thought; it wasn’t a request, it was an order. It took him a moment, but then he nodded, without turning back to face the intendant. It wasn’t Aimaiyr’s fault, yet just at that moment, he really didn’t want to look at anyone in a Schuelerite’s purple cassock.
“Very well, Father. Tell Father Avry I’ve approved the Inquisitor General’s ‘instructions.’”
He heard the quotation marks in his own voice and knew they were dangerous, but he couldn’t help it.
“Thank you, Your Eminence.”
Aimaiyr’s quiet voice was no happier than it had been, and Zagyrsk heard his office door close as the younger man silently departed without kissing his ring. Technically, that was a serious violation of Mother Church’s etiquette; at the moment, Zagyrsk was simply grateful the Schuelerite had been wise enough to spare them both.
And that Father Ignaz was too good a man to comment on those dangerous quotation marks.
He felt his shoulders sag now that he was alone, and he leaned forward, hanging his head and bracing himself on the windowsill with both hands as he tried not to feel like a coward.
I should have the courage to protest. At the very least to protest using my people for this, even if I dared not protest anything else, he thought wretchedly. I should. But … I don’t.
Not that it would have done any good. If he’d thought it might, if he’d believed it could, he might have protested anyway. But Wylbyr Edwyrds was the Grand Inquisitor’s own choice. No argument from a mere archbishop was going to lead Zhaspahr Clyntahn to rein him in—not when he was doing exactly what he’d been ordered to do.
And maybe they’re actually right to do it, the archbishop told himself. The Book of Schueler’s plain enough, and the Grand Inquisitor’s right when he points out that Schueler himself said misplaced mercy to the heretic only robs him of his opportunity to expiate his sin and return to God even on the lip of hell itself. But—
He thought about that “request” from Edwyrds, the order to find another thousand laborers to send forward to help construct the camps in which the accused were to be held until the Inquisition got around to sifting them and sending them to the Punishment as they deserved, and closed his eyes in pain. Bad enough that those camps were being built in such numbers; even worse that his people had to be a part of it.
At least he’d saved his own archbishopric from that poisonous stew of denunciation, condemnation, and savage, punitive bloodshed … for now, at any rate. He’d managed that much, if nothing more, and he tried not to think about the cold, biting tone of Clyntahn’s grudging agreement to exempt Tarikah from Edwyrds’ sphere of authority.
If I had protested what Edwyrds is doing in Hildermoss and New Northland, Clyntahn would have removed me by now, and he’d be doing exactly the same thing right here in Tarikah, Zagyrsk thought, and even the knowledge that it was nothing but the truth couldn’t make him feel one bit less unclean.
He looked out the window, but his eyes were unseeing, and his lips moved in silent prayer as he raised one hand to grip his pectoral scepter.
.XIII.
Siddar City, Republic of Siddarmark
“I can’t believe we actually did it,” Lieutenant Blahdysnberg said, shaking his head as HMS Delthak demonstrated yet another of her remarkable capabilities by backing smoothly away from Saint Angyloh’s Quay.
At least part of her new ship’s company seemed to find that smooth, gliding sternward motion as profoundly unnatural as many of the spectators did, but it was an undeniably useful ability.
“Neither can I,” Halcom Bahrns said absently, watching the water gap between his ship and quayside widen. He waited a moment longer, then looked at the petty officer standing by the big, brass-handled “engine room telegraph.”
“Ahead slow starboard,” he said.
“Ahead slow starboard, aye, Sir,” the petty officer replied, reaching for the right-hand handle. Bells jangled, and after a minute or two, Delthak began pivoting sharply.
Bahrns wished he’d had longer to experiment with handling her in confined quarters, but he wasn’t going to complain about the maneuverability her twin screws bestowed. Just as long as he didn’t get carried away and smash her into something, at any rate!
Despite the fact that her guns had been mounted and she had her full complement on board, she was far lighter than she’d been when she departed Old Charis with six times her normal fuel supply stuffed into every corner. She was also far more crowded, however, and far too many of “his” people were still learning their duties aboard her. Fortunately, Lieutenant Bairystyr’s stokers and oilers had been given ample time to learn their duties on the voyage to Siddarmark, and his gunners already knew their business, as well.
Which suggests you’re probably worrying about whether or not they know what to do to keep from worrying about what it is you’re supposed to be doing, he reflected.
“Stop engines,” he ordered.
“Stop engines, aye, Sir.”
Bells jangled again, and he glanced at the helmsman wa
iting another minute or two while the ship continued gliding astern, until he could see the barges lying to their buoys almost dead ahead.
“Rudder amidships.”
“Rudder amidships, aye, Sir.”
Delthak’s course straightened, and he looked at the telegraphsman again
“Slow ahead, both,” he said.
“Slow ahead, both, aye, Sir.”
* * *
“I’m with Blahdysnberg,” Cayleb Ahrmahk said quietly. “I never really believed they could do it, either.”
He stood beside Merlin on his favored balcony on the Siddarmarkian Embassy’s roof, watching through Owl’s sensors as the ironclads prepared to pick up their tows before leaving harbor. They would be towing a total of six canal barges when they left North Bay, and it had taken almost as long to prepare the barges as it had to prepare the ironclads themselves. They’d been “armored” with thick wooden bulwarks and sandbags, and two of the barges each ironclad would tow had been fitted with four fifty-seven-pounder carronades apiece. Nobody had felt that mounting cannon on barges loaded almost exclusively with gunpowder and coal would have been a very good idea, but the ones carrying the Marines and fledgling Siddarmarkian riflemen needed to be able to look after themselves.
“I can understand that,” Merlin replied. “But that was the easy part, you know.”
“Nothing about this inspiration of yours is going to be remotely ‘easy,’ Merlin.” Cayleb looked at him levelly. “The only thing it’s going to be is absolutely necessary … assuming Bahrns can pull it off.” The emperor shook his head. “I can hardly believe you came up with it even now.”
Merlin shrugged, his own eyes still distant as he watched Delthak and the other ships easing alongside their tows.
“At least the weather looks good for the run to Ranshair,” he said. “That’s something. But Wyrshym’s going to reach Guarnak tomorrow. Even if everything works perfectly, Bahrns isn’t going to be in time to keep him from hammering the Sylmahn Gap before Kynt can get there. It’s all going to be up to General Stohnar’s people.”
“That would’ve been the case even without this,” Cayleb replied, waving one hand in a gesture that took in the maneuvering ironclads he, unlike Merlin, could barely have seen with his own merely human eyes from where they stood. “You couldn’t have changed it any more than I could. And even if he manages to push all the way through and take Serabor, he may have to pull back if this works.”
“And he may not, too.” Merlin’s voice was flat. “He’s a determined man, Cayleb, and he knows exactly how critical Serabor is. If he gets his hands on it before we can stop him, he’s not going to let go even if he has to starve half the rest of his army to hold onto it.”
“Then Stohnar’s just going to have to hold.” Cayleb reached up to lay a hand on Merlin’s shoulder. “We’ve done everything we can, Merlin. As Maikel says, at some point we simply have to trust God to do His part, too.”
“Then I just hope He’s listening,” Merlin said softly. “I just hope He’s listening.”
JULY
YEAR OF GOD AWAITING 896
.I.
The Sylmahn Gap, Mountaincross Province, Republic of Siddarmark
“Get your head down, Sir!” Grovair Zhaksyn snapped.
Zhorj Styvynsyn flung himself flat as the shell whizzed overhead. It slammed into the trees behind him, crashing from trunk to trunk, then exploded in a whirlwind of iron shards, shrapnel balls, and shredded greenery.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Sir?!” the sergeant demanded harshly as Styvynsyn raised his dripping face once more.
“I don’t think they’re targeting individuals—even one as important as me—with cannon, Sergeant,” the major replied, spitting out a mouthful that was too thin to be called mud but too thick to call water.
“I wasn’t talking about the frigging cannon … Sir. I was talking about the rifles!”
As if to punctuate the sergeant’s acid rejoinder, a fresh fusillade of bullets slapped into the muddy earthwork like the hooves of a galloping horse. More sliced across the parapet—about where his superior’s head would have been if he hadn’t ducked—and more leaves came fluttering down as they severed branches and splintered limbs.
“Oh, you were talking about the rifles!” Styvynsyn said, and grinned tightly.
Zhaksyn shook his head, and the major crawled back up onto the earthwork’s firing step and raised his head much more cautiously than before.
Bullets whistled overhead like leaden sleet, and fresh white clouds of smoke blossomed, rolling up to meet the gray overcast pressing down from above as the cannon fired steadily. The people on the other ends of those rifles and artillery pieces were a far cry from the late, unlamented Major Cahrtair, he thought grimly.
The 37th Infantry had used its time well since it had mouse-trapped Cahrtair’s company. The spring floodwaters had abated, but the dams at the Serabor end of the Gap had been further improved. The inundation was even wider than it had been (and home to Shan-wei’s own plague of insects, he thought glumly), with only the roadbed of the high road and occasional raised hummocks of land standing above the sheet of water like islands. The 37th had worked hard to throw up earthworks in front of the belt of woods just south of the section of high road they’d blown up, and Colonel Wyllys had seen to it that they’d fortified fallback positions in the woods themselves. The front of the earthworks was covered with a fifty-yard-deep abatis of tangled tree limbs hacked away to clear killing zones in front of those fortified positions, and Styvynsyn was confident that if his regiment could only have been brought back up to strength, it could have held their position indefinitely against Pawal Baikyr’s rebellious militia.
Unfortunately, the 37th was down to little more than two-thirds strength … and it no longer faced Baikyr’s militia. The Army of God was quite a different proposition, and his mouth tightened in a thin, hard line as he studied the rafts Bishop Gorthyk Nybar’s men had brought with them.
It wouldn’t have occurred to Baikyr to try something like that … and it wouldn’t have done him much good if he had. But Nybar and his men were far better organized and disciplined than Baikyr’s rebels, they had far better weapons, and it was obvious they also had a far better idea of what to do with those weapons. Styvynsyn was grateful General Stohnar’s men had been thoroughly briefed on the new-model artillery before they came under fire from it, which had at least kept them from panicking when it happened, but they hadn’t managed to get any of their own dragged forward to the 37th’s entrenchments. They had barely a dozen pieces altogether, all heavy guns on naval carriages supplied by the Charisian Navy and barged forward from Siddar City, and they were too precious—and immobile—to risk in such an exposed, forward position.
That had been General Stohnar’s opinion, at any rate, and Styvynsyn wasn’t prepared to second-guess his commanding officer, yet at this moment he wished desperately that he had just one or two of those cannon, preferably with naval gunners, ready to hand. After all, they’d been designed to sink boats, hadn’t they?
Fresh artillery fire boomed from the closest of the “gun rafts” Bishop Gorthyk’s men had floated into position. Getting them into place must have been a royal pain in the arse, but the Temple Loyalists had managed it, Styvynsyn reflected, giving credit where it was due. At least the current had been in their favor, however; that had to have helped. And he found it bitterly ironic that it was only the defenders’ own inundations which had made it possible to get artillery that close without losing gunners in droves to his dug-in riflemen.
Each raft was big enough to carry four of the Army of God’s twelve-pounder field guns, protected by a stout, bullet-proof bulwark. They fired through what amounted to naval gunports, their crews shielded from the fire of Styvynsyn’s riflemen, and they were gradually creeping ever closer. The nearest raft was barely five hundred yards clear now, close enough to sweep his parapet with canister from its protected position while those farther back
tossed what the Charisians called “shrapnel shells” over the earthworks top. It was fortunate the timing on the Church’s fuses was so unreliable. Many—possibly even most—of the shells overshot their marks before exploding, but that didn’t keep 2nd Company from losing men in a steady trickle, and the enemy’s infantry had worked its way forward under cover of the bombardment, as well.
By now, Nybar’s riflemen had waded across the gap where Captain Klairynce’s explosion had sent Cahrtair’s infantry to discuss their rebellion personally with God. They’d carried their rifles and ammunition over their heads as they slogged through the waist-deep and chest-deep water, and they were using the lip of the breach in the high road for protection. Styvynsyn felt confident that, scattered as they were, a quick bayonet charge, covered by his own entrenched riflemen, could have driven them back … if not for the damned artillery. As soon as his men came out from behind their earthwork, the guns would slaughter them.
But if we don’t come out, we can’t keep the bastards from filling in the gap, he thought grimly, watching the engineers and working parties systematically filling in the hole he’d blown in the roadbed.
He knew what was going to happen once that gap was filled, and there wasn’t one damned thing he could do about it. Not as long as those Shan-wei-damned gun rafts were out there.
He dropped back down, sitting with his back to the parapet, and looked up at the lowering sky. Then he glanced in either direction along the firing step and tried not to show his pain as he saw the scattering of bodies sprawled down its length. The best earthwork in the world couldn’t provide perfect protection if you meant to shoot back at the enemy, but at least the 37th had four times the rifles they’d had the last time he’d fought here. The Gap’s defenders had been given priority on the production from the single Siddarmarkian foundry which had been producing them before the rebellion, and Colonel Wyllys had reequipped three of his four pike companies—including Styvynsyn’s—with them. That was going to give the bastards pause when they came up the high road into the 37th’s teeth, but he didn’t think it was going to be enough.