Demir snorted. “I’ve met Idrian. Every woman and some of the men in the Foreign Legion should have a thing for him.”
“Hah! She’s right, you know. You have to be ready to move quick. You can’t just blind Kerite and not act.”
“Come now,” Demir replied with more confidence than he felt. “Have you met me?”
“So what are we going to do?”
Demir looked out the window, where he could see down into the fort’s central courtyard. A lone scout approached at a gallop, crossing the moat, waving at the guards. She reached the courtyard and leapt from her horse. He could hear her shouting to a nearby soldier for directions to the commanding officer.
“I suspect,” he said over his shoulder to Tadeas, “that we’re about to find out. Before I can act, I need to know where Kerite is going. She can do a million little things at this point, but she only really has seven realistic options for her next big maneuver. The three most likely are that she attacks Harbortown to try and destroy our route to the sea; that she comes straight here to crush Fort Bryce before we can regroup; or that she turns sharply south and attacks Fort Alameda in order to capture the river.
“Kerite is incredibly good,” Demir continued, “but she can be predicted. When I was a teenager I wore out copies of every one of her unauthorized biographies. I memorized every move she made on a dozen campaigns – not because I thought I’d ever fight her, but to emulate her style. She does not stop, she does not slow down. Her momentum is part of her mastery of the battlefield.”
Tadeas laughed. “That’s why you risked pissing off Jorfax, isn’t it? If you blind Kerite, you either destroy her momentum by forcing her to regroup, or you force her to continue her plans without proper intelligence.”
“Exactly.”
“That’s dangerous, Demir. What happens if she catches us in an open battle without our own glassdancers?”
“Then we’re damned,” Demir responded, “but we would be anyway, so what’s the difference?”
Their conversation was interrupted by a desperate knock on the door, and then the scout that had just arrived pushed her way in without bothering to wait for permission. Her face and uniform were dusty from the road, black hair slick with sweat. She snapped a tired salute. “Sir, just got back from the Grent camp in the Copper Hills.”
“They’re gone?” Demir guessed.
“Yes, sir. The camp is abandoned.”
“Which direction did they go?”
“Southeast, sir.”
Demir searched Wessen’s office until he could find the standard officer’s maps, then rummaged through those until he was able to produce one that covered the environs of the capital. His mind had already abandoned the other six predictions and he was now focusing on Kerite’s new target: Fort Alameda and mastery of the Tien River. He gestured for the scout to wait and then showed the map to Tadeas.
“Kerite is going here,” he told his uncle, pointing at a spot where a small tributary of the Tien emptied into the main river. It was right at the border between Ossa and Grent, and the point of land between the two rivers was dominated by another massive star fort. “She’ll be reinforced by riverboat from the duke’s forces still in the city, and she’ll throw all her strength at Fort Alameda. Once that falls, she’ll be able to work her way up the river, capturing Glasstown and then moving directly into the Assembly District.”
Tadeas looked suddenly very tired. “We’ll move everyone to the fort side of the tributary here and contest her crossing?” he asked. “The Ironhorns might be able to get there first and blow the bridges if we leave immediately.”
It was the obvious countermove, but Demir had his doubts. River crossings had never particularly bothered Kerite. Her troops were too organized and well-trained to get themselves slaughtered doing something stupid. Same with the Grent, whose soldiers would have spent their whole careers training on the delta.
No, Kerite would pincer-attack the fortress, hitting it from landing craft, a northern flanking, bridges, and of course her superior artillery. Demir stuck his hand in his pocket and ran his fingers over the godglass there. The sorcery of each piece resonated softly against his fingertips until he found his witglass. He pulled his fingers back with instinctive fear.
Slowly, he forced himself to find the witglass again. He couldn’t put it in his ear. That would be too powerful; too overwhelming. But maybe … He pinched it between his fingers hard, feeling the sorcerous vibrations through his skin. A pain immediately began behind his left ear and crawled forward through his mind like it had done every time he tried to use witglass in the last nine years.
He kept his grip firm, forcing himself to think through the mind-numbing headache. Despite the pain, his thoughts were moving faster, reacting to the sorcery with something more than just pain. He did not let himself dwell on it, instead turning his thoughts to Kerite’s upcoming attack on Fort Alameda. Still clutching the witglass between two fingers, he pulled down all of Wessen’s maps and tore through them until he found a closer look at the fort. He studied it for several minutes, mind racing, head pounding from the effort of such advanced thought. Finally, he let go of the witglass. It was only when he heard the gasp that escaped his own lips that he realized just how much it had hurt.
He didn’t know Fort Alameda, but he did know that tributary Kerite would have to cross to make an approach. He knew the land north of it, and most importantly, he knew the topography. “Tadeas,” he said, “find a well-rested platoon of infantry for me. There’s a Magna warehouse on this side of Glasstown. I need them to march double over there and confiscate a thousand pieces of sightglass.”
“You’re going to start your command by confiscating godglass from the Magna? That’s an … interesting choice.”
“Supi won’t be the last Inner Assembly member I piss off over the next few days. Give the Ironhorns two hours’ rest. We’ll let Jorfax’s glassdancers get ahead of us to eliminate those scouts, and then we’re taking as many barrels of powder as we can get our hands on and heading south.”
Tadeas gazed back at him doubtfully. “You said the Ironhorns.”
“Yes.”
“And everyone else, right?”
“I’ll bring the fresh cavalry,” Demir told him, “but no, I want the rest of the army to have a day to recuperate.”
“You want to take three battalions – a thousand cavalry and five hundred combat engineers – to oppose thirty thousand enemy soldiers?”
“We’re not going to oppose anything,” Demir replied. The plan was mostly formed in his head, daring, dangerous, and perhaps stupid. He could round out the remaining details on the march. “We’re going to attack her.”
37
Thessa spent the morning prepping her workshop to produce resonance-enhancing omniglass, then the early afternoon in meetings at a corner table in the Hyacinth restaurant. It was a process that felt familiar – not much different from sitting at a café near the Grent Glassworks, processing through all the administration that Kastora didn’t have time for, except that instead of buying a cup of tea for local merchants as she reviewed their accounts, she was meeting with Demir’s craftsmen.
She had technical drawings for each of them; straightforward pages that she explained in detail, each one outlined with everything she needed from that particular craftsman and nothing more. She ordered a double compartment for the phoenix channel from the tinsmith. From the blacksmith, an internal iron frame to hold the weight. The carpenter would create the external frame, as well as cut thick sheets of cork to her specifications. The mason would provide rolls of asbestos.