.VII.

Malphyra Bay, Raven’s Land

“Well, that’s a sight for sore eyes,” Ahlyn Symkyn said, watching the long line of Charisian galleons beat into Malphyra Bay.

“Yes, Sir,” the young man standing a respectful half pace behind him and to his right on the waterfront replied. It wasn’t the sort of automatic, polite agreement one might have expected out of a general officer’s youthful aide. Instead, it carried a certain note of heartfelt agreement, Symkyn thought.

“Feet tired, Bynzhamyn?” he inquired without taking his eyes from those tan and gray, weathered sails.

“Not so much my feet as another portion of my anatomy, Sir,” Captain Wytykair replied in a serious tone. “While I’m fully appreciative of the fact that I didn’t have to walk the whole way, I have to admit that the thought of sitting down for a while on something that doesn’t move under me has a certain appeal.”

“Ever been to sea before?”

“Well, no, Sir. Actually I haven’t.”

“I see. Well, in that case I hope you’ve brought along a supply of golden berry.”

The general didn’t have to glance at his aide to picture the golden-haired young man’s suddenly worried expression. Golden berry was a sovereign specific for nausea, motion sickness … and seasickness.

“Do you expect a very rough crossing, Sir?” Wytykair asked after a moment, and the general shaded his eyes with one hand, studying the galleons even more attentively.

“This time of year? Crossing the Passage of Storms and the Markovian Sea?” He shook his head, voice grim. “Half the lads’ll be puking their guts up by the time we’re five leagues from shore.”

“I see.”

Symkyn’s lips twitched at the youthful captain’s tone. He was very fond of young Wytykair, despite the fact that the captain was considerably better born than Symkyn himself. Like many of the old Royal Chisholmian Army’s senior officers, Symkyn had come up through the ranks, earning his general’s golden-sword collar insignia the hard way. In the course of a quarter century’s service, he’d dealt with more nobly bred young snots that he could count, and Wytykair was vastly different from any of them. But the youngster also didn’t have quite as much worldly experience as he might wish people to believe, and there were times.…

“I think they’ll be ready for us to begin boarding the men first thing in the morning,” he continued in a more serious tone. “I hope so, anyway. I hate to think of His Grace stuck in the middle of Siddarmark with only three brigades.”

“He’ll kick their arse, Sir,” Wytykair said, and this time the assurance in his voice was the product of the hard experience of two solid years worth of training and drill.

And the boy had a point, Symkyn told himself. No one else in the entire world understood the new weaponry the way the Imperial Charisian Army did. Not only had the Royal Chisholmian Army which had shaped it already been a professional, standing force with a pre-existing tradition of critical thinking, but it had profited significantly from General Green Valley’s experience.

There’d been a time when Symkyn would have pooh-poohed the possibility that a Marine might have anything to teach professional soldiers. Marines, after all, were basically brawlers—even Charisian Marines. Oh, for the purposes for which they’d been raised and required in naval service, Charisian Marines had been superb, beyond compare. But for a sustained campaign on land? For managing the logistics of an entire army? Organizing supply trains? Coordinating cavalry and infantry? Recognizing the reason for field formations and how to combine arbalest fire, pikes, and swords to lend one another their strengths and offset one another’s weaknesses? That wasn’t what Marines understood.

Kynt Clareyk had forced Symkyn to reconsider that view. He’d had a few lessons of his own still to learn, and he’d worked hard to master everything officers like Symkyn could teach him, without the least sign that he resented their tutorship. But he’d had far more to teach them, and his ability to conceptualize what the new firearms and artillery really represented had been nothing short of breathtaking. Under Duke Eastshare’s firm leadership and Baron Green Valley’s ability to describe the most radical concepts clearly and concisely, the Imperial Charisian Army had evolved a tactical doctrine such as the world had never imagined. And it was a doctrine that went right on growing and changing. That was something Green Valley and the other Charisian Marines who’d accompanied him had shared with the Chisholmian core of the army: the understanding that there was always a way even the best of doctrines could be improved upon.

The new breech-loading “Mahndrayns,” for example. Symkyn had yet to get his hands on one of them personally, but a few thousand had made their way to Chisholm before the Expeditionary Force set out through Raven’s Land. Even before the first of them had arrived, however, just from descriptions of them, Green Valley had recognized how radically a breech-loading capability was going to change even the tactics he’d formulated as recently as last year. And so the army had found yet another way to tweak itself, and that was why young Wytykair was right about what was going to happen to any mainlander army that ran into the ICA in anything like equal numbers.

But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Symkyn thought more grimly. We’re not going to be running into them in anything like “equal numbers” … not for a long time, at any rate. And they’ve got rifles and new-model artillery of their own. That’s going to make them a hell of a lot more dangerous, even if they haven’t figured things out as well as our Old Charisian wizard has.

“I’m sure the Duke can look after himself, Bynzhamyn,” the general said after a moment. “It never hurts to have somebody watching your back, though.”

“No, Sir. It doesn’t,” Wytykair agreed.

“And on that note,” Symkyn turned his back on the harbor and looked at his aide, “I’ve got some errands for you. First, find Colonel Khlunai. Tell him to get the rest of the staff busy. I want the first troops ready to go aboard ship as soon as there’s enough daylight for them to see where they’re putting their feet. And we’re going to have to get a hard count on the galleons available as horse and dragon transports, too. I doubt we’re going to be able to pack as many of them aboard as I’d like, but we can’t even start thinking about that till we know how much space we’ve got. So, after you’ve found Colonel Khlunai, go find the harbor master. Tell him—”