* * *
As it happened, Rock Coast’s time estimate had been almost perfect, and the big schooner rounded up into the wind as she hove-to with a smooth professionalism that drew a nod of approval from him. It was nine thousand miles to Desnair. Having a crew skilled enough to get them there struck him as a very good idea.
The fishing boat ran up into the schooner’s lee and took in its single baggy sail.
“Hello there!” Mahrtynsyn called through his cupped hands, standing at the fishing boat’s rail. “We’re glad to see—”
His voice broke off as nine blunt carronades snouted out of the schooner’s gunports. At the same instant, the Desnairian colors plummeted from the masthead and another flag—this one a terrifyingly familiar black-quartered silver-and-blue checkerboard—shot upwards in their place. A dozen riflemen in the uniform of the Imperial Charisian Navy appeared at the quarter deck rail, and a wiry young man in a lieutenant’s uniform raised a speaking trumpet.
“I think you might consider surrendering, Your Grace!” he called.
Rock Coast stared at him in horrified recognition, and the lieutenant shrugged. He was barely thirty yards away, and the movement was easy to see.
“I’m afraid your schooner ran afoul of the Navy some five-days ago, Father Sedryk,” he said. “Her secret orders made interesting reading, and once the Duke’s little rebellion failed, it wasn’t difficult to guess who would be traveling with you. Earl White Crag and Baron Stoneheart decided it would be rude to leave the two of you stranded, and I just happened to have delivered Baron Sarmouth and Earl Sharpfield’s latest dispatches to Port Royal, so they sent me to provide you with transportation. Unfortunately, I can’t take you to Desnair right now.” The Duke of Darcos smiled coldly. “I’m afraid we have an errand in Cherayth, first.”
* * *
“Excuse me, Sir.”
The Earl of Hanth looked up from the ribeye steak, fork paused in midair, and his expression was not happy. Too many of his meals got interrupted for one reason or another, and he’d missed lunch completely. He’d been looking forward to supper ever since, and his steak was done exactly the way he liked it, with a cool red center, and smothered in sautéed mushrooms. He was … less than eager for some last-minute detail to interfere with it while it—and the baked potato steaming gently beside it—got cold.
“Yes?” he said just a bit repressively, and Major Karmaikel grimaced.
“I regret interrupting you, My Lord, but there’s someone here to see you, and I’m pretty certain you wouldn’t want me to keep him waiting.”
“Who the hell could be so frigging important I can’t even finish this first?” Hanth demanded waving the bite of steak on his fork irately. “Couldn’t you have … I don’t know, delayed whoever it is for fifteen whole minutes?”
“Yes, My Lord. And if I had, you’d have taken my head off.”
“I find that rather difficult to believe,” Hanth sighed. “But you don’t usually do things that are totally insane.” He contemplated the morsel of steak mournfully, then drew a deep breath. “At least give me long enough to chew and swallow one bite,” he said, and popped the steak into his mouth.
“Of course, My Lord,” Karmaikel murmured with a hint of a smile.
The tall, broad-shouldered major withdrew, and Hanth chewed slowly—it was just as delicious as he’d expected, of course—then swallowed. He’d just lifted his beer stein to take a sip when the door opened again.
“I apologize for interrupting your supper, My Lord,” the brown-haired, bearded man in the uniform of a Royal Dohlaran Army colonel said. “My name is Mohrtynsyn, Ahskar Mohrtynsyn. I have the honor to be General Sir Lynyrd Iglaisys’ chief of staff, and he’s sent me to request a cease-fire while my King’s ministers—and Earl Thirsk—negotiate with Admiral Sarmouth in Gorath.”
.V.
Earl Rainbow Waters’
Pavilion Cherayk,
220 Miles North of Selyk;
and
Lake City,
Tarikah Province,
Republic of Siddarmark.
“Your Eminences.”
Earl Rainbow Waters stood in welcome as Gustyv Walkyr and Ahlbair Saintahvo followed Captain of Horse Wind Song into the compartment at the heart of his headquarters pavilion. Walkyr gave him a weary but genuine smile and the earl returned it; Saintahvo held out his ring hand imperiously.
Rainbow Waters bent to kiss the ring with scrupulous courtesy, but his face was expressionless as he straightened, with no hint of the smile he’d bestowed upon the archbishop militant. Nor did Walkyr extend his ring to demand the same obeisance, and Saintahvo’s mouth tightened.
“I thank you for meeting me,” the earl continued after a moment.
“You’ve traveled rather farther than we have, My Lord,” Walkyr pointed out. “And from all reports, you’re being pressed as heavily north of the forest as we are here.”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Rainbow Waters conceded. “But our front is in no immediate danger of an outright rupture, Earl Crystal Lake and my other band commanders understand both their orders and my intentions, and I’m in touch with them by semaphore and messenger wyvern. Still, it’s true that events there are the reason I felt it was essential we meet personally to discuss the situation.”
“The ‘situation’ here is about as bad as it could be,” Walkyr said bluntly. He nodded to Major Mastyrsyn, who raised his eyebrows in a polite request to the earl. Rainbow Waters waved at the lacquered table at the center of the sizable compartment, and Mastyrsyn unrolled the map he’d carried under his arm.
“As you can see, My Lord,” Walkyr said, indicating the newest positions marked on that map, “Eastshare’s pushed us all the way back to Selyk in the center. Unfortunately, he’s also gotten around us with a spearhead and cut the road behind Bishop Militant Lainyl at Mercyr. We attempted a relieving attack, but it failed.” Archbishop Saintahvo stood behind the archbishop militant and scowled at his back as Walkyr shook his head, his eyes shadowed. “My boys tried hard, My Lord—they truly did—but with those damned balloons and the heretics’ mounted infantry.…”
“Your Eminence, I fully appreciate the tenacity with which your men have fought,” Rainbow Waters said quietly, oblivious to Saintahvo’s expression. “None of us anticipated the weight of attack that would fall upon you—especially not now that Symkyn’s brought so much of his army up past Marylys to join Eastshare’s assault. By our best estimate, you’re now faced with almost three hundred thousand men.”
“Which is barely half the strength—indeed, less than half the strength—of the Army of the Center,” Saintahvo pointed out unpleasantly. Walkyr flushed, but Rainbow Waters simply looked at the intendant.
“That’s true, Your Eminence,” he said after a moment. “But Eastshare and Symkyn are far more mobile than our own forces and, as such, have the advantage of the initiative. And in addition to their mobility and artillery’s superior range and rate of fire, they now have the advantage of those balloons no one warned us might be coming.”
It was Saintahvo’s turn to flush at the reminder of the Inquisition’s failure to uncover yet another devastating Charisian surprise.
“The enemy,” the earl continued calmly, “always possesses the ability to choose his time and place to attack. Archbishop Militant Gustyv has over six hundred miles of front to defend, and unlike him, the heretics can see precisely where their enemy’s forces are deployed and in what strength. He cannot—no one could—prevent the heretics from massing a decisive local superiority at their chosen point of attack under those circumstances.”