Golden Tree lowered his hand from his aching eyes and picked up the common pottery mug on the corner of his improvised replacement desk. He grimaced as he sipped and reminded himself—again—not to ask the cooks what they were using for “tea” these days. He was quite sure he wouldn’t have liked the answer to that question any more than he’d liked the answers he’d already gotten to a whole host of questions.
He sipped more “tea” and scowled down at the report he’d been reading. Or trying to read, at any rate. Captain of Foot Hiyang’s handwriting was atrocious. Then again, four years ago Zynghau Hiyang had been a small shopkeeper in the imperial capital. He’d never expected to be a soldier, much less an officer, and far less an officer battling heresy, apostasy, and demon-worship. He had his rough edges, did Captain of Foot Hiyang, and no one would ever accuse him of brilliance. But when his regimental commander had been killed, he’d taken over the regiment and fought it with more gallantry and determination than Golden Tree had seen out of any of his other commanders, and that was a very high bar, given how magnificently his entire command had fought.
Yet there was nothing left of Hiyang’s regiment. Not anymore. That was how the captain of foot had come to be available when Golden Tree’s staff died under the shell he’d somehow avoided. And now, glaring down at Hiyang’s latest casualty report, Golden Tree faced the truth.
He’d entered the Sairmeet position with two almost full strength bands of infantry, over forty thousand men—closer to fifty, when his artillery and engineers were added in. They’d settled into a well laid out set of defensive works under the loom of the massive northern spine trees of the unconsecrated forest and been grateful for the evergreens’ deep, cool green shade. It had been like living at the bottom of one of the ornamental koi ponds back home.
Now those trees were broken stumps. Now the branches which had shielded them from the sun—and from the heretic balloons—were gone, or stripped bare and ugly by heretic shells. Now the well laid out entrenchments were churned and broken, their perimeter littered with decaying bodies, too many of them Harchongese and too few of them Charisian or Siddarmarkian. And now the ammunition and supply dumps which hadn’t been destroyed outright by the heretic artillery were empty.
As of sunset tonight, by Hiyang’s best estimate, he had twenty-three thousand effectives left, and the captain of foot estimated the artillerists had barely a dozen rounds per piece. His riflemen were down to their last forty rounds per man, and hand-bombs were in even shorter supply. He had rations for two more five-days … if he fed the men one meal a day. His healers were out of Fleming moss, reduced to boiling whatever rags they could find for bandages—when they could find fuel and the heretics’ harassing infantry angle shells let them—and they’d exhausted all their painkillers … and the alcohol and Pasquale’s Cleanser to keep their surgical instruments clean of corruption.
He’d hung on desperately, hoping for the supply column Earl Rainbow Waters had promised to fight through to Sairmeet … if he could. The Mighty Host’s commander was a man of his word, and Golden Tree had known that if mortal men could get those supplies through, then the Mighty Host would do it.
But it hadn’t.
Face it, Zhwozhyou, he told himself. Your men are done. It’s not that they won’t fight any longer; it’s that they can’t. Not without food and medical supplies. Not without shells and hand-bombs. Langhorne! Not without bullets! And if the heretics have pushed the Host back from Gleesyn, there’s no point in your getting more of these men killed holding Sairmeet. They may be peasants, they may be serfs, but even serfs’ lives have to count for something.
He shivered at the thought of what Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s Inquisition might demand of his and his officers’ families, but he knew what he had to do.
* * *
Earl Rainbow Waters rose as his nephew ushered Gustyv Walkyr and Ahlbair Saintahvo into his office. He kissed Saintahvo’s proffered ring, then waved an invitation at the chairs awaiting his guests. They settled into them, and the ugly rumble of artillery formed a backdrop of distant thunder. The Charisian gunners couldn’t possibly see their targets in the darkness, even from their accursed balloons, but they didn’t seem to care, and their profligate expenditure of ammunition in what amounted only to harassing fire was its own message. It said their supply lines were capable of delivering everything they needed, and that their manufactories—and the treasuries behind them—were capable of producing everything they needed.
Neither of which was true of Mother Church any longer.
“I thank you for coming,” the earl said quietly as Wind Song poured wine into the waiting porcelain cups and then silently withdrew, leaving his uncle with his guests. “I realize both of you are sufficiently busy without my dragging you away from your headquarters in the middle of the night.”
“It’s not like we had that far to come, My Lord,” Walkyr observed with what might a trace of genuine humor, and Rainbow Waters’ lips twitched.
The Army of the Center had fought hard since his meeting with Walkyr and Saintahvo at Cheryk. Its inexperience and lack of artillery had shown, but its survivors had gained experience far more rapidly than they’d undoubtedly desired, and they’d inflicted severe casualties on the heretics when a brigade from the Army of Westmarch moved too precipitously against St. Vyrdyn and been caught in column by AOG rocket launchers.
The Charisians had probably lost in excess of two or three thousand men in that single disaster, and the Army of the Center’s gunners had been jubilant. But then the Charisian angle-guns had been brought up once more and the balloons the advancing column had outrun had caught up with the front. The Army of Westmarch had resumed its methodical advance, and Army of the Center had been driven back once again.
By now, Walkyr’s army had been driven clear back to Rainbow Waters’ Ferey River Line. It had lost contact with St. Vyrdyn—which the heretics had entered yesterday, if Rainbow Waters’ latest intelligence was correct—but its right flank continued to cling to the edge of the Tairohn Hills sixty or seventy miles north of the city. The garrison at Glydahr continued to hold out, but the heretics had punched two mounted brigades between St. Vyrdyn and Glydahr and taken Four Point, cutting the high road between Gyldar and the Holy Langhorne Canal. It was only a matter of time before the isolated Sardahnan capital fell … a point the Army of the Daivyn’s heavy artillery was making clear as it steadily and mercilessly obliterated the city’s outworks. It would be interesting to see how long the intendants and inquisitors in Glydahr could … inspire Archbishop Militant Klymynt Gahsbahr’s men to resist.
In the meantime, the portion of Walkyr’s army still under his direct command—perhaps a hundred and sixty thousand men, all told—had become the Mighty Host’s reserve behind the southern end of the Ferey River line, and the archbishop militant had moved his own headquarters to Chyzwail to facilitate conferences just like this one.
No, Rainbow Waters reminded himself. Conferences, yes. But like this one? I think not.
“May I ask why you needed to see us, My Lord?” Saintahvo asked, leaning forward and ignoring the wine glass at his elbow. “I assume it’s to share still more bad news,” he added caustically.