.VIII.

Fort Darymahn and Sandfish Bay, The South March, Republic of Siddarmark

“Shit!”

Private Paitryk Zohannsyn, recently of the militia of the Republic of Siddarmark and currently in the service of Mother Church, pressed his cheek even more firmly against the inner slope of the earthwork. He tried very hard, but it was impossible to get any closer to it. His buttons and belt buckle were in the way.

Fresh thunder rumbled in a long, slow crescendo out on the Taigyn River estuary’s dark water, flashing in boiling light and smoke above the river’s surface, and glowing streaks drew lines across the night, reflecting in the mirror-like water as they flashed towards the entrenchments around Fort Darymahn. They arced high, then descended with a terrifying, warbling whistle before they exploded.

Some of the incoming shells hit the ground and rolled and bounced, sputtering and spitting flame, trailing the stink of brimstone, before they erupted in bursts of Shan-wei’s own fury. They shattered into what seemed like thousands of jagged-edged fragments that went scything out in all directions. Most of those fragments thudded into the earth or went whining off the fort’s stonework, but some of them didn’t, and Zohannsyn heard fresh screams as they found targets. Other shells seemed to drive into the earth, burying themselves deep before they exploded like hellish volcanoes. And other streaks of light—the ones that didn’t hit the ground—were worse. Far worse. Their fragments scattered over a much wider area, slicing down from directly overhead where earthworks and walls offered no protection. And some of them seemed to rain down much smaller, much more numerous projectiles—as if some fiend had packed them with musket balls as well as gunpowder.

“Keep your heads down!” Corporal Stahnyzlahs Maigwair was shouting, his normally powerful voice sounding frail and a little shrill to ears stunned by the bombardment. “Keep your heads down!”

“It’s Shan-wei!” another voice screamed. “They’ve brought Shan-wei herself to take our souls!”

“Stow that!” Maigwair snapped. “It’s not Shan-wei, Parkair! And even if it were, what we’d need now is prayers, not panic!”

Sure it is, Zohannsyn thought, digging his fingers into the earthen slope. He was as religious and as dutiful a son of Mother Church as the next man, or he wouldn’t have been here, but somehow he didn’t think prayers were going to do a lot of good at the moment. If they were, those bastards wouldn’t be here in the first place.

Another slow, methodical broadside rumbled out of the night. This time there were at least twice as many guns in it, and the streaks of light came in a flatter trajectory, without the high, looping flight of the ones before them. Zohannsyn heard them slamming into the face of the earthwork like some giant’s angry fists. For a moment, nothing else happened, and then the earth itself quivered and twitched as, one by one, those flaming projectiles exploded. He wondered fearfully how many of them it would take to tear the thick wall of earth apart? To let the following thunderbolts right in among the frail men sheltering behind them?

Another plunging rain of fire whistled and wailed down out of the heavens, exploding viciously on the ground or in midair, and he heard fresh screams.

Please, Langhorne! he prayed. Help us! We’re your champions—don’t let the heretics just massacre us this way!

His only answer was another bellowing broadside.

*   *   *

“How are they doing this?!” General Erayk Tympyltyn demanded, looking around the ashen faces gathered in the fort’s great keep.

So far, that massive structure’s five-foot-thick walls of solid stone seemed to be resisting the heretics’ bombardment. Half the fort’s buildings were heavily on fire, however, and none of the eyes looking back at him seemed confident the keep’s immunity would last much longer. He saw their fear—he could almost smell it—and he knew they could see exactly the same thing when they looked at him.

“It’s Shan-wei’s doing,” one of his officers said flatly. “They’re heretics, demon-worshipers! Why shouldn’t she help them?!”

“Don’t be any stupider than you have to!” Colonel Ahdymsyn, Tympyltyn’s second in command snapped, glaring at the speaker. “This is the same weapon they used at Iythria last year—that’s all! And you know as well as I do what the Grand Inquisitor had to say about that!”

“He only said Mother Church could duplicate the effect,” Major Kolyn Hamptyn responded stubbornly. “That Mother Church could figure out a way to make ammunition that would do the same thing—not that they did it the same way!”

“That’s enough, both of you!” Tympyltyn barked.

Like himself, both of them had been militia officers prior to the Rising. None of the regular officers in Fort Darymahn’s garrison who might have come over to Mother Church had survived, and Tympyltyn—only a colonel the year before—had found himself in command. His current rank was purely self-bestowed, although he had hopes it would be confirmed once Mother Church’s regular forces relieved the fort, and he’d promoted Hamptyn from captain to major, as well. At the moment, he found himself wondering if that had been such a good idea after all.

Tympyltyn was as devout as a man could be, as his willingness to stand up for God and the archangels demonstrated, but Hamptyn’s devotion sometimes substituted for thought. Ahdymsyn, on the other hand, seemed less devout and more … pragmatic than Tympyltyn could have preferred, and he and the major had come into conflict more than once before this. At the moment, however, the colonel’s explanation was far more helpful than Hamptyn’s.

“Whether it’s Shan-wei doing this for them, or whether it’s exactly the same kind of ammunition Mother Church’s working on, what matters is that they’re bombarding us,” Tympyltyn grated, glaring around the table. “At this moment, that’s the only thing I’m interested in! Is that understood?”

Heads nodded, and he allowed his expression to relent slightly.

“How bad is it, really?” he asked, the question punctuated by fresh peals of thunder while the midair explosions stabbed light through the arrow slits like lightning.

“We’re losing a lot of men,” Ahdymsyn replied, his tone flat. “We didn’t provide them with enough overhead cover, and some of it’s not heavy enough, anyway.”

Tympyltyn jerked a nod at the colonel. Executive officer or not, he didn’t much care for Tahlyvyr Ahdymsyn. But it was Ahdymsyn who’d suggested on the basis of reports about Iythria that it might be a good idea to bury Fort Darymahn’s magazines under an additional layer of earth and stone. He’d also overseen the construction of shelters to offer whatever protection they could from exploding cannonballs that might come plunging out of the sky.

Tympyltyn himself had never so much as seen a cannon fired before he’d led the assault that stormed Fort Darymahn and slaughtered the mutiny-depleted garrison. He’d seen them fired in practice since then, but the guns on the fort’s walls were the old-fashioned, massive, wheelless version, not the new-model weapons about which they’d all heard such tall tales. He’d thought Ahdymsyn was panicking unduly, but he hadn’t argued. If nothing else, it had given the men something to do to help take their minds off of the short rations all of them had been on.

“A lot of barracks and storehouses are on fire, and I know their fire’s dismounted at least some of our parapet guns, Sir,” Ahdymsyn continued, remembering to add the military honorific this time. “I don’t know how many—not yet. I think—”

He paused as a fresh cascade of explosions drowned his voice.

“I think they’re actually doing more damage to personnel than to the fort itself,” he continued after the thunder eased. “Enough of this is going to flatten everything inside the fort—except for the keep itself and the walls, I think—but it’ll take them a long time to manage that, and I don’t think their fire’s really having that much effect on the entrenchments. Dirt does a pretty good job of absorbing explosions. Unfortunately, at the rate they’re killing our men, that may not matter in the long run. Sir.”

Tympyltyn glared at him, less for the afterthought of that “sir” than for the bitter taste of his conclusion, but nothing he’d seen or heard suggested Ahdymsyn was wrong.

“Whether it’s Shan-wei or not, Sir,” Hamptyn said, “they wouldn’t be here just to bombard us. We’re a hundred and fifty miles inland, and the semaphore stations told us how many galleons they’ve brought up the river with them. They’re going to pound us until there’s nothing left but rubble, or else until they kill enough of us they can send their Shan-wei-damned Marines ashore to kill the rest of us by hand.” The major looked around the table. “They’re trying to open the river, Sir. That has to be what this is about.”

Much as Tympyltyn sometimes disliked Hamptyn, he couldn’t argue with the major’s conclusions. If the heretics could reopen the Taigyn River between Tabbard Reach and the Branath Mountains and retake Fort Tairys, they’d be able to use the river and the Branath Canal to move troops more rapidly between Glacierheart and the Gulf of Mathyas than the servants of Mother Church could possibly move overland. And the troops they were likely to be moving were the Godless, heretical Charisians with their demonically inspired weapons.

“You’re right,” he said, and drew a deep breath. “Send a runner, Colonel Ahdymsyn. We can’t wait for daylight, and our semaphore tower may not be here by morning. Get the message out that we’re under attack and the heretics are moving up the Taigyn in strength.”

*   *   *

“Think they’re getting the message, Sir?!”

Lieutenant Allayn Trumyn had to lean close to his captain’s ear to make himself heard over the thunder of the guns. HMS Volcano’s rifled angle-guns were reloading at the moment, but her sister ships Thunderer and Whirlwind were perfectly happy to fill the intervals of silence. And the four regular, smoothbore-armed galleons hammering the hulking fortifications fired far more rapidly than any of the bombardment ships. Their flatter fire and lighter, smoothbore shells had to be less effective than the angle-guns’ far heavier, plunging projectiles, but it certainly looked impressive as the scores of thirty-pounder shells exploded all across the face of the earth works the Temple Loyalist rebels had thrown up to screen the approaches to the fort.

“Oh, I imagine so.” Captain Zhorj Byrk had succeeded to Volcano’s command after Ahldahs Rahzwail’s promotion to flag rank. “It’s more spectacular than Iythria was, anyway,” he continued, watching the flames and smoke spiral up above the battered fortifications. “I’m a little surprised we found that much to burn, actually. Must be more wooden buildings than I thought. Looks like they figured out it’d be a good idea to protect their magazines better, though.” He shrugged. “Pity, that.”

“I bet they’re crapping themselves, though, Sir!” Trumyn shook his head. “I damned well would be!”

“That’s the idea, Allayn,” Byrk said. “That’s the idea.”

*   *   *

“Well,” Hauwerd Breygart said, “if things are going according to plan, that bastard Tympyltyn’s probably crapping himself about now.”

“Oh, I think we can take that pretty much as a given,” Sir Paitryk Hywyt replied.

The admiral stood beside the Earl of Hanth on the quarterdeck of HMS King Tymythy, and the night was very quiet. The only sounds were those of wind, wave, and sailing ships moving steadily through the darkness.

“I hope one of Byrk’s shells lands right on the bastard’s head,” Hanth said much more grimly.

In his previous career in the service of King Haarahld, Hauwerd Breygart had seldom hated any enemy personally. That wasn’t the case in this war—not with the stories coming out of the occupied provinces. And Erayk Tympyltyn’s men had distinguished themselves even among their fellow religious fanatics.

“It would be nice. I’ll settle for him sending the message, though.”

“So will I … but that doesn’t mean I don’t really wish it could come from his successor in command.”

Hywyt turned his head and smiled thinly at the Marine general in the light of the binnacle. The admiral appreciated a sneaky mind when he encountered one, and the supply galleons anchored safely out into the Taigyn estuary beyond the bombardment ships, certainly looked like troop transports. And to help underscore that appearance, Hanth had sent along barges and fishing boats gathered up all around Eralth Bay to suggest they’d be ferrying Marines ashore—or upriver—shortly. Actually, however, the only land forces Hanth had anywhere close to Fort Darymahn where the few hundred cavalry he’d been able to scrape up among the local Siddarmarkian forces and put ashore on a nicely deserted piece of Shreve Bay’s coastline a five-day and a half earlier. If all had gone according to plan, that cavalry had crossed the Taigyn River several days ago and was currently waiting near one of the towers in the chain connecting Fort Darymahn to the main semaphore network. They’d wait until Tympyltyn’s frantic report that he was about to be assaulted had time to get out to Fort Tairys, and then, sometime around midmorning, they’d burn the semaphore station in question. If possible, they’d burn a couple of more before they rode back to Shreve Bay for extraction.

The message should concentrate Temple Loyalist attention on Fort Darymahn and the line of the Taigys for at least the next several days. Which was the entire point, since in about another two hours, Hywyt’s flagship and the transports carrying seventy-five hundred Charisian Marines and armed seamen would pass through the sixteen-mile-wide channel into Thesmar Bay in complete darkness. The uninhabited marshes stretching for miles on either side of the channel would probably have precluded anyone’s noticing them, anyway, but there was no point taking chances. And with just a little luck, nobody on the other side would realize General Fyguera in Thesmar was about to receive a very potent reinforcement.

Besides, Hywyt thought with a slow smile, they’re going to be too busy looking east, towards Fort Darymahn, to be thinking about us. Which could be just a little unfortunate for them.

*   *   *

“God, that’s a sight for sore eyes.”

General Kydryc Fyguera’s voice was deep, befitting his bull-necked and bull-shouldered physique’s massive chest, but there was something else in it, Earl Hanth thought. Not quite a quaver, but something.

The two of them stood on a bastion of the entrenchments Fyguera had thrown up around the city of Thesmar’s landward side. Actually, calling Thesmar a city might have been a bit of an overstatement, but it certainly deserved the designation in South March terms. It had been a sleepy, provincial town before the Sword of Schueler, with relatively little commerce outside harvest season, when the produce shipped down the Seridahn and St. Alyk rivers to Thesmar Bay brought it to frenetic life.

Of course, that hadn’t happened this harvest season. And even if there’d been a harvest to ship, the Sword’s planners had devoted special attention to Thesmar as part of their efforts to cripple the food transportation system. The fighting had been especially ugly here, but Fyguera had somehow managed to hold four entire regiments of regulars together. Their discipline and training had been crucial in helping the loyal inhabitants of Thesmar and the surrounding portion of the South March Lands resist the tidal wave of rebels and mutineers.

In the end, the inhabitants of most of the small towns strung along the Seridahn and the St. Alyk between Thesmar and Cliff Peak had still refugeed out. Many had gone no farther than Thesmar, where the extra mouths had stretched rations even thinner, despite the normally abundant productivity of South March farms. Others had been lifted out by sea, carried as far as Eralth and then sent overland to what they hoped would be places of refuge in eastern Siddarmark. But Fyguera had held the critical posts between Thesmar, Fort Sheldyn, and Cliff Peak, imposing a barrier against any efforts to supply the Temple Loyalists east of the St. Alyk’s by water out of Dohlar.

Until recently.

Now Fyguera turned from watching the column of Marines (and somewhat less orderly column of seamen) marching up the high road towards Cheryk. The first of the naval thirty-pounders on improvised land carriages creaked past, drawn by one of the draft dragons Hanth had brought from Eralth, along with the fodder to keep them fed, and the Siddarmarkian general watched them go by, then looked Hanth in the eye.

“If the reports about the number of Dohlarans headed this way are accurate, General Hanth,” he said flatly, “they would’ve punched us out of Thesmar in a five-day. Especially since we have exactly eight old-style artillery pieces, and they’re big bastards, designed to cover the waterfront, not deal with infantry. If you hadn’t turned up.…”

He let his voice trail off, and Hanth nodded.

“I can’t guarantee we can hold the city even with my people, General,” he said, “but I’m willing to bet my artillery can kick their artillery’s arse.” He grinned suddenly. “I wouldn’t normally pick sailors for a fight on land, to be honest. I’ve spent some time working with these boys, and I think they’ll do well, but the sad truth is that they’re not Marines and they’re not soldiers. But what they are are the best damned gunners in the world, and I am willing to guarantee you the Dohlarans haven’t brought along any thirty-pounders. We’ll get a dozen or so of those dug into your entrenchments here before we do anything else.”

“Good.” Fyguera’s satisfaction was clear, but then he glanced back at the marching column for a moment.

“I’m not sure the idea of marching out to meet the bastards is the best strategy, though, My Lord,” he said, and that whatever-it-was in his voice was stronger. “There have to be at least thirty or forty thousand of them already up to the line of the Seridahn, and the last report I had says their second wave’s lead regiments have to be almost to Evyrtyn. That’s another fifty-five thousand, and you’ve got less than eight. Even if I stripped the entire garrison out of Thesmar and sent it with you, you wouldn’t have more than twelve. And like you say, two-thirds of yours are sailors.”

“True,” Hanth looked unobtrusively past Fyguera to where Colonel Rahskho Gyllmyn, Fyguera’s second-in-command, stood at the Siddarmarkian’s shoulder, “but these sailors have rifles and they’ve been taught to shoot by Marines.” He smiled thinly. “I wouldn’t like to say it where it might go to their heads, but I’ll put them up against anything Dohlar’s got. Besides,” something cold and bleak replaced his smile, “a lot of these men served under Gwylym Manthyr. They’re looking for a little payback.”

“But—” Fyguera began, then stopped himself. “You’re senior, according to the Lord Protector,” he said, “and you know your men’s capabilities better than I do. Just … be careful, My Lord. You say your men are looking for payback? Well, so are most of mine after last winter. But I’ve discovered that’s not enough if there’s too many of the bastards on the other side.”

He held Hanth’s eye for a moment, then inhaled deeply and gave himself a shake.

“I understand your Commander Parkyr’s looking for the best places to put the guns you’re leaving behind. I have a few ideas on that topic myself,” his lips quirked in a smile that looked only slightly forced, “so I think I’ll just go have a word with him. If you have any needs, Rahskho will see to them for you. I hope you’ll at least have time for dinner before you head out? We’ve been on short rations for quite a while, and my cooks are looking forward to the supplies you’ve brought along. I did hear one of them asking what a ‘yam’ is, though, so I can’t promise what kind of results we’re going to get!”

“I look forward to it, General,” Hanth said, and Fyguera nodded and headed back into the city.

Hanth watched him go in silence, then turned and cocked an eyebrow at Rahskho Gyllmyn. The colonel—a militia officer, but one who looked tough, competent, and smart—looked back at him in matching silence for several seconds. Finally, he shrugged ever so slightly.

“I can’t say I disagree with the General entirely, General. About the numbers, I mean. But that’s not really all he’s thinking about.”

“I had that impression,” Hanth replied in a carefully neutral tone.

“Don’t get me wrong, General Hanth! That man’s been a giant when it came to holding this town. Drove us all like the wrath of God, too, while he was about it. Never rested, didn’t eat until everyone else had, and he was up before dawn every day. Not a man in this garrison wouldn’t die in his tracks for General Fyguera, and that’s a fact.”

“Colonel, nobody could’ve done what General Fyguera’s accomplished here without being something extraordinary. Trust me, I realize that. But even extraordinary people have limits.”

“Aye, they do,” Gyllmyn acknowledged after a moment. He looked away, watching the marching Marines and seamen. “I’ll not say he’s reached his, because I don’t think he has. But the strain’s showing. Three months ago, he’d’ve been trying to figure out how he could squeeze at least a few men out of the garrison to go with you. Now—?”

The colonel shrugged, and Hanth reached out to lay one hand on his forearm.

“Colonel Gyllmyn,” he said quietly, “you don’t have to defend him to me. You don’t have to think for a moment I don’t deeply respect what he—and you—have accomplished here in Thesmar. And you don’t have to think I’m worried over how much fire he has in his belly, either. The truth is, Thesmar’s his responsibility, and he’s entirely right to worry about its security first and foremost. And, to be honest, given the kind of battle I’m planning to fight, trying to figure out how to coordinate Siddarmarkian and Charisian tactics on the fly wouldn’t be a very good idea.” He smiled briefly. “But as for the rest of that, if what I just saw is all the ‘strain’ he’s showing, then that man is made out of steel, and he’ll do for me.”

Gyllmyn regarded him for a moment, and then he smiled back, slowly.

“Aye, he is that,” he said. “And I’ll tell you this, General. Don’t you worry about your rear while you’re out there. Thesmar’ll still be here when you come back, because ‘that man’ will hold it in the teeth of Shan-wei herself.”