Stohnar laughed in acknowledgment, but then Cayleb grimaced.
“He got hurt worse than we could wish, but you’re still right. I hate losing even one man we don’t have to, but in cold-blooded terms, the elimination of Raisahndo’s squadron was worth every drop of blood it cost. And neither he nor Earl Sharpfield like to let the grass grow under their feet.”
“I have to admit I spent a rather pleasant evening last night—with a good bottle of Chisholmian whiskey, as a matter of fact—contemplating what his activities have to be doing to Silken Hills’ logistics,” Daryus Parkair, the Republic of Siddarmark’s seneschal, said with a wicked smile as he bent to press a kiss of greeting on the back of Aivah’s hand. “Especially after the way they’re weakening themselves along the Sardahn Front, thanks to Aivah’s devious little notion.”
He bestowed another kiss on the back of her hand and beamed at her, and she smiled in gracious acknowledgment of the compliment. Someone from a cave hidden in the Mountains of Light made a rude sound in her earplug, but she ignored it. Someone had to be the public face of the strategy, and they couldn’t exactly credit a prince who’d been dead for several years.
“It’s been obvious from all our reports that they’d on shipping in an awful lot of the support he’ll need covering the Snakes and protecting Tymkyn Gap,” Parkair continued in a tone of profound satisfaction. “This means Teagmahn—and Walkyr, now that he’s reached Glydahr—will have to share their part of the overland supply route with him. So he’s going to be short of the material support he’d anticipated, and Walkyr won’t be able to build up as rapidly or as strongly as he’d hoped, either. We’ve always been a land power, and I don’t think I ever fully appreciated how valuable seaborne logistics could be. Which is probably because no one’s ever fought a war on this scale before. But you Charisians have shown me a thing or three, and I think the lesson Baron Sarmouth’s just taught the Temple Boys is a lot more painful than my lessons’ve been.”
“Fair’s fair,” Cayleb said. “We Old Charisians never had an army to speak of, but even Sharleyan’s Chisholmians had a lot to learn about mainland logistics—especially canals—from you people.”
“That’s probably true,” Parkair conceded. “With both sides trashing canals as they retreat, though, that seaborne side of things is even more important. And when the ice melts in the Passage and your slash hounds get loose again in those waters, those Temple bastards—all those Temple bastards—will find themselves between the proverbial rock and a hard place.”
“Yes, they are,” Cayleb acknowledged with an answering smile. But then, as Merlin pulled out one of the heavy chairs at the conference table and seated Aivah in it, that smile faded a bit around the edges.
“They are, but that simplifies the strategic equation for them, as well as for us. The only way we can come at them is from the front, and they know it.” He grimaced. “The decision to move Silken Hills south helps from our perspective, but those damned fortifications of his are still going to be there. Walkyr may not be as well-equipped to defend them as the Mighty Host would have been, but his men will be a lot more effective—and kill a lot more of our men—fighting from them than any of us is going to like.
“I have to admit, I’d almost prefer to let Walkyr get himself thoroughly settled while we very quietly pulled troops back to the Passage coast on Baron Green Valley’s right. If we did that and combined them, the Army of the Hildermoss, and some of the new drafts from Chisholm, we could put together a tidy little amphibious force to drop on the Temple Lands coast the same way we got around behind the Corisandians in Manchyr. They couldn’t pull enough men to stop us back from the Host without uncovering the Holy Langhorne, and now that they’re basically sending every man the Army of God has forward to cover Rainbow Waters’ right flank they wouldn’t have a reserve that could stand up to us any more than General Gahrvai did in Corisande.”
“That would be sweet, wouldn’t it?” Parkair murmured, a speculative light gleaming in his eyes, but Cayleb shook his head.
“First of all, we can’t count on their sending everything forward to Walkyr. As you just pointed out, what’s happening in the Gulf of Dohlar’s going to force them into some fairly fundamental logistic reconsiderations, and they may decide it’s more important to move artillery and ammunition than manpower. More importantly, though, the Mountains of Light are just a bit more of a barrier than the Dark Hills were, and unless we could simultaneously cut the Holy Langhorne behind then—which would mean we’d still have to punch through their front somewhere—we couldn’t starve the Host out the way we could General Gharvi’s army. If we couldn’t finish them off in the field before winter—or at least link up with Green Valley through the Mountains of Light so our people didn’t starve over the winter—we’d have to pull them back out, and that would be a copper-plated bitch.”
“I agree it would be a decisive stroke, if we could pull it off,” Stohnar said soberly, sinking into his own chair. “But you’re right. Too much could go wrong. Sometimes it’s better to stick with the frontal approach, even if you know it’s going to be costly, if you’re confident it will still work. And barring the sort of miracle those bastards in Zion sure as hell don’t deserve, this will work, Cayleb.”
“I think it will, too,” Cayleb acknowledged, taking his chair at the other end of the table, with Merlin at his shoulder.
“That doesn’t mean it’s not going to be bloody as hell, though,” the emperor continued more bleakly. “It would help a lot if Rainbow Waters was as incompetent as Kaitswyrth.”
“Although I realize Duke Harless would tend to disprove what I’m about to say,” Parkair said dryly, “no one has any right to expect two opponents as toweringly incompetent as Kaitswyrth in a single generation, far less the same war.”
“I’m afraid that’s true,” Samyl Gohdard, the Republic’s keeper of the seal, agreed sourly.
“Then let’s be grateful for the ones we’ve been given,” Aivah suggested.
“And the fact that we have been given more than one of them would seem to further underscore whose side God is truly on,” Archbishop Dahnyld Fardhym put in. “Of course, I’m probably a little biased on that subject.”
A mutter of laughter ran around the table, and Stohnar grinned.
“I think we all find ourselves in agreement on that point, Dahnyld,” he told the archbishop.
“Absolutely,” Cayleb said firmly. “And, sort of on that head, there’s another bit of news I’d like to deliver before we get into discussing our most recent status reports from Duke Eastshare, Baron Green Valley, and General Stohnar.”
“More evidence God’s on our side?” Stohnar leaned back and crossed his legs. “That sort of thing is always welcome, Cayleb!”
“Well, this is actually more Aivah and Merlin’s news than mine.” The emperor waved one hand in an airy gesture. “More of that devious, underhanded, sweaty spy stuff Daryus has just been talking about, you understand.”
“Only too well, Your Majesty,” Henrai Maidyn, the Republic’s chancellor of the exchequer and spymaster, said feelingly.
He remained astonished and perplexed—in a pleasant but nonetheless worrisome fashion—by the incredible efficacy of Charis’ seijin-backed spy networks. For the present, he was delighted by that efficacy, but even the closest of allies would need to keep an eye on their friends once the war against the Group of Four ended and the more usual game of thrones resumed. If the seijins continued to support Charisian intelligence efforts when that longed for day arrived.…