No, Haarahld, he corrected himself. In these beautiful, absolutely gorgeous rain-soaked woods! Langhorne, I love a good rainstorm!
His lips twitched, but at the moment it was absolutely true. And—the nascent smile disappeared—he’d had entirely too much experience with Dohlaran defenders who knew he was coming. Surprise was a beautiful thing, which was why he was perfectly prepared to rely on runners and planned timetables until the moment came. Yes, he’d prefer to positively confirm everyone was in position with the addictive, convenient, far more visible signal rockets the Imperial Charisian Army had introduced to mainland warfare. But there’d be rockets and flares enough when the moment came, and if anyone screwed up and fired one of those off prematurely, where the wrong someone could see it, surprise would go out the damned window. And if that happened …
“I think the Colonel will get the word to us when he wants us to attack, Adym,” he said out loud. “Should be pretty clear, really.”
“Aye, Sir, that it will,” Pynhyrst agreed in tones of grim satisfaction. “Can’t come a minute too soon, either.”
“That it can’t,” Hytchkahk agreed.
The Royal Dohlaran Army might not be the Army of God, but it still owed the Republic of Siddarmark—and especially the Alyksberg Volunteers—an enormous debt, and Haarahld Hytchkahk looked forward to collecting the next installment.
* * *
“Runner from Major Ahtwatyr, Sir. All of the assault teams have reported in.”
“Anything from the engineers?” Colonel Sedryk Maiyrs, CO, 3rd Alyksberg Volunteers, asked.
“No, Sir.” His aide shook his head vigorously.
“Good!”
Maiyrs nodded in sharp satisfaction. Charisian combat engineers had a tendency to be where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there, and they damned well told someone if they weren’t. It would never have done for Maiyrs to admit that he was almost as unhappy as Sergeant Pynhyrst about relying on timing and runners rather than more reliable signals, but he was confident the engineers would have informed him if they were running behind schedule.
He stood a moment longer, running over his mental checklist one last time. Then he drew a deep breath and turned to the youthful signalman at his elbow. Unlike Captain Hytchkahk, Maiyrs had all the signal rockets a man could want, and he was specifically authorized to use them when he was satisfied everyone was ready.
“Light the fuse,” he said.
* * *
“There’s the signal, Sir!”
In addition to a last name which had forced him to endure an enormous number of so-called witticisms over the last several months, Private Zhames Dohlar possessed extraordinarily sharp eyes. That was why he was 1st Platoon’s signalman. Not that particularly acute vision had been required to spot the signal rocket’s brilliant green burst; it lit the clouds’ underbelly like a fuming eye, touching the heavy rain with an eerie emerald glow.
“So I see,” Lieutenant Zhaksyn, 1st Platoon’s CO, replied in a tone whose mildness fooled no one.
Grygory Zhaksyn was a native Old Charisian who’d been a schoolteacher before his sister, her Siddarmarkian husband, and all three of their children were massacred by the Sword of Schueler. He’d embraced a new career, then, and he’d been a natural fit for the artillery. He’d commanded 1st Platoon for the past seven months, and if his men hadn’t known at first quite what to make of his careful grammar and enormous trunk of books, they damned well did now. Dohlar smiled coldly at what he heard hidden in the depths of that calm response, and then Zhaksyn turned to Tymythy Hustyngs, 1st Platoon’s senior noncom.
“I believe we can begin, Sergeant,” he remarked.
“Yes, Sir!” Hustyngs slapped his chest in salute and wheeled to the twelve M97 mortars dug into their carefully leveled firing pits.
“Fire!” he barked.
* * *
Captain Wyllys Rynshaw watched the rocket burst, then the mortars behind him coughed up enormous tongues of lurid fire, and he hoped like hell his crews had laid them in properly.
Surprise is great, he thought grimly, but getting the artillery on target’s even greater. Damn but I wish General Sumyrs had let me try at least a few ranging shots!
* * *
General Clyftyn Sumyrs watched the single signal rocket burst, vivid against the clouds. An instant later, lightning flickered along the horizon as the Charisian mortars opened fire.
“I hope we didn’t get too clever for our own good,” he said quietly, standing in the rain beside Captain Wylsynn. “By which, of course, I mean I hope I didn’t get too clever for our own good, of course.”
“Only one way to find out, Sir,” the scout sniper replied. “To be honest, I think the bombardment’s going to be less useful in the end than the illuminating rounds, but I could be wrong. And—” he bared his teeth “—I doubt like hell that it’s going to hurt anything. On our side, anyway.”
* * *
Although Earl Hanth had received two complete batteries of mobile 6-inch heavy angle-guns, improved field guns remained a hope for the future. In the meantime, he had a campaign to fight while he waited, and he and Lywys Sympsyn had invested quite a bit of thought in ways to make the best possible use of the artillery—and especially the mortars—they had.
Captain Rynshaw’s 2nd Support Company was the fruit of that thought. Sympsyn had combined two-thirds of the Army of Thesmar’s total support platoons into support companies, each three platoons strong, that could be moved around and concentrated into “grand batteries” where they were needed. They had to get a lot closer to their targets than the angles did, but they were also one hell of a lot more mobile. That meant Rynshaw “owned” thirty-six mortars—in his case, all M97 4-inch weapons—and all of them had been carefully dug in and prepared for the night’s fire mission. The only thing they hadn’t been able to do was actually range the weapons in.
Be lucky to put half the rounds within five hundred yards of the target, Rynshaw thought grumpily.
In fact, however, he was grossly unfair to his gunners.
* * *
“Stand to! Stand to!”
Captain Zhames Tyrnyr rolled out of his blankets as the urgent shout jerked him awake. He shot to his feet, as close to fully upright as the confines of his small tent permitted, automatically reaching for his boots even before his eyes were fully open.
“Stand to!”
He recognized Company Sergeant Wylsynn Stahdmaiyr’s voice. Then the bugle started sounding, and he hoped like hell Stahdmaiyr was jumping at a false alarm. If the company sergeant was, it would be the first time Tyrnyr could remember, however, and he sat on the edge of his cot while he stamped his right foot into its boot.
He’d just reached for the left boot when confirmation that Stahdmaiyr still hadn’t jumped at a false alarm arrived.
The first Charisian star shells exploded overhead with soft, almost innocuous popping sounds, and Tyrnyr swore vilely as the sodden canvas of his tent glowed under their furious incandescence.
Five seconds later, the first shrapnel bombs detonated.
* * *
“Short!” Corporal Aizak Ohkailee shouted from his tree-branch perch thirty feet above the trail.
“You sure you’re spotting First Platoon’s fire?” Sergeant Yorak shouted back.
“Langhorne, Sarge!” Ohkailee shook his head. “Course I’m not! Got a red star shell at the right time, though.”
“Well, I figure we’ll find out if you know your arse from your elbow. How short?”
“Call it two hundred yards!”