Whatever else might happen, the new-model Mighty Host was most unlikely to simply shatter. It was far more probable that it would conduct a tough, resilient fighting withdrawal along the routes Rainbow Waters’ commanders had already surveyed and marked on their maps. The kind of fighting withdrawal that would get a lot of Charisians and Siddarmarkians killed. Kynt Clareyk couldn’t help admiring a commander who could overcome the prejudices of his birth—and the inveterate, hard learned distrust of serfs who’d been abused for centuries by people from families just like his—sufficiently to create that kind of fighting force out of the functionally illiterate men who’d been conscripted for the Mighty Host, but he sure as hell didn’t need to like the consequences.
And that was why he was so happy Nahrmahn’s suggestion appeared to have worked out so well. By the time the Allied offensive actually kicked off, Gustyv Walkyr’s AOG divisions, supported by perhaps a hundred and fifty thousand Border State levees, would have sole responsibility for almost nine hundred miles of the Church’s front, from the southern end of the Great Tarikah Forest all the way to the northern end of the Black Wyvern Mountains. His men would be “corseted” on either side by Harchongians, but they represented an undeniable soft spot in the Church’s defenses. One the Allies thoroughly intended to exploit, and he felt a powerful surge of eagerness to be about it. He fully expected the upcoming campaign to be the bloodiest—from the Charisian side, at least—they’d yet fought. But he also expected it to be decisive, despite the worst Taychau Daiyang could do, and if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be because he and his fellows hadn’t planned for every contingency they could think of.
The canals were thawing, the ICN’s ironclads—including the original Delthaks—would soon be free to operate along the rivers and canals in the armies’ rear, and the first steam-powered canal barges would be available as soon as the ice melted. Hsing-wu’s Passage would be navigable within another three or four five-days, as well, and the Navy was waiting impatiently. Both its galleons and another half dozen City-class ironclads were ready to push into the Passage the instant they possibly could with orders to take, burn, or destroy any attempt to move seaborne supplies. And when there weren’t any of those supplies to interdict, they could amuse themselves raiding the Temple coastal shipping cowering under the threadbare protection of the protective batteries in the larger bays and inlets along the Passage’s flanks.
Like Eastshare, he was thoroughly unhappy about the new rockets Lynkyn Fultyn had devised to supplement the Church’s artillery. For that matter, he was less than enthralled by the proliferation of field guns, angle-guns, and first-generation mortars appearing in the Mighty Host of God and the Archangels’ artillery parks now that the Church’s foundries were producing good quality steel in quantity. Still, his own artillery was stronger—in absolute terms, certainly and probably even relatively in comparison to the Temple’s—than the year before, and the small arms situation was highly satisfactory. Virtually all of his Charisian infantry had been equipped with the M96 magazine-fed rifle, and over half of the Republic’s infantry had been reequipped with Trapdoor Mahndrayns, a third of which had been converted right here in Siddarmark. Sandarah Lywys Composition D-filled shells were actually a little ahead of schedule, although he still wouldn’t have them in time for the campaign’s opening moves, and almost a third of his infantry’s rifle ammunition was now smokeless, which would probably come as a nasty surprise to the Temple.
The Republic’s manufactories had recovered almost completely from the dislocations of the Sword of Schueler, and their production was climbing nicely, as well. Siddarmark-built versions of Charisian-designed weapons—and even innovations which owed nothing at all to Charis—were beginning to make their way onto the battlefield in ever increasing numbers. Green Valley was delighted by the increase in weapons production, but he was even more delighted—for a lot of reasons—that Siddarmark was clearly catching what Merlin called the “innovation bug.” And in this case, one of those reasons was Ahntahn Sykahrelli.
Sykahrelli, an artificer in a Midhold Province manufactory before the Sword of Schueler, had enlisted in the Republic of Siddarmark Army before the first Charisian Marine’s boot ever touched a Siddar City dock. Since then, he’d risen from the enlisted ranks to the rank of major and put his technical background to good use as an artillerist. He’d seen a lot of action in the process. He’d been only a sergeant in the Sylmahn Gap Campaign, but he’d also assumed acting command of his battery after every one of its officers had been killed or wounded, and that battery had been the lynchpin of the final gun line which had held the line at Serabor with its teeth and fingernails until Green Valley could move to Trumyn Stohnar’s relief. He’d commanded the remnants of no less than three batteries, with almost enough men to have fully crewed one, by the end of that bloody night, and he’d come out of it with a battlefield promotion to captain and the Cross of Courage, the Republic’s highest award for valor.
It wasn’t too surprising that a man with his experience had understood the implications immediately when he was briefed on the new Temple rockets. But he’d also been inspired, and—taking advantage of the better propellants and, especially, the Lywysite his Charisian allies could provide—he’d produced a man-portable rocket of his own. The initial version was actually light enough to have been shoulder-fired, if there’d been some way to protect its user from the back blast. Green Valley felt confident a solution to that problem would be found eventually—if Sykahrelli didn’t come up with one, no doubt the Delthak Works would be “inspired” to—but in the meantime, he’d up-sized it a bit and turned it into a crew-served weapon whose portability and devastating punch offered all sorts of possibilities. It would also be available in quantity, if not in the numbers Green Valley would have liked, and neither the Temple Boys nor the Harchongians were going to like that one little bit.
No, he thought, bringing his eyes back from the maps to his superior, they aren’t. They won’t like the Balloon Corps or some of our other surprises, either. And I don’t give a damn what the other side’s come up with. End of the day, our boys will kick their arses up one side and down the other. We may lose a lot of good men along the way, but this year, by God—this year—we end this frigging war.
“All right, Bryahn,” he told his aide. “Now that you’ve got us properly ensconced, cups in hand, august posteriors parked in our chairs, donut crumbs covering our tunics, why don’t you begin with a quick overview of our current deployment? After that, I think a detailed review of Rainbow Waters’ most recent adjustments at Ayaltyn and Sairmeet are probably in order.”
He cocked an inquiring eyebrow at Eastshare, and the duke nodded.
“That sounds like an excellent place to start,” he agreed. “But first, I understand your patrols have brought back some examples of a new footstool the Harchongians have deployed?”
“Yes, they have,” Green Valley confirmed rather less cheerfully. “It’s actually more of a foot stool crossed with a sweeper though.”
“A sweeper?” Eastshare cocked his head. “From the initial reports, I was thinking they were more like fountains,” he said, using the ICA’s term for the “bounding” mines Charis had fielded a couple of years earlier, and Green Valley scowled.
He’d hated the fountains even when Charis had held a monopoly on them, but they’d been too useful not to be utilized at a time when the ICA was so desperately outnumbered.