So numerous small patrols were sent out to interrupt, pursue, and kill the axmen. But the axmen had pickets posted, and horses at hand to flee on. Pursuers had been led into ambushes. Patrols had been waylaid on the road.
It seemed to the crown prince that the raiders were little bothered by his counterefforts. They adjusted simply and quickly, and whatever they did was troublesome.
Now all three east-west roads were being used again, with larger escorts. Hithik cavalry drew escort duty. Rakutik companies were assigned patrol and counterstrike duties.
But roadblocks were still made. And raids continued, causing losses of men, draft horses, wagons and supplies. And time.
Even so, hithik troops along the Deep River Line were undoubtedly more comfortable and better fed than the raiders. The raiders' horses in particular must be suffering from hunger. At any rate, on several occasions the raiders had waited by hay wagons till the last possible minute, to let their horses feed. And if they made off with nothing else, they took sacks of corn and other feed grain.
"Now," Kurqosz said, "Captain Gevlek has a raid to show us, from earlier this morning. I haven't seen it myself yet. Give him your attention."
They turned their awareness to that vast repository that was the voitik hive mind, and let the crown prince's deputy communicator focus the attention. A sequence of images began to run for them.
What they watched had been recorded by the eyes and ears of a supply train commander. It was a gray winter morning, and the train was proceeding slowly down a forest road. Occasional small snowflakes drifted reluctantly down, as if lost.
Abruptly a trumpet blared, snatching the commander's attention, sharpening his perceptions. The wagons halted at once. The commander was positioned somewhat back from the lead wagon; he'd decided it was the safest location. There were shouts from ahead, and within seconds, others from behind. With his mind, the commander called the system coordinator at headquarters, giving the situation and approximate location. That would alert road patrols, rakutur, that might be near enough to help.
The commander was on foot, of course, and his guard squad closed protectively around him. Damn it, he thought, I can't see this way! But he said nothing. As a voitu, he was a favored target. Often the raiders attacked the advance and rear guards to draw and engage the rest of the escort. Other raiders then emerged from the woods to kill the wagon horses. If they succeeded in killing and driving off the escort, they then looted some of the wagons, and set fire to the rest.
The shouting was much nearer now, some Hithmearcisc, some Vismearcisc. One of his guards, then another, fell from their horses. Both were to his right. With sudden decision, the commander gripped his trumpeter by a shoulder. "Stay!" he snapped, then broke between two mounted guards on his left and sprinted into the woods through old hard snow. He saw no one, and after fifty yards or so, stopped. Kneeling behind a large sugar maple, he looked back. The roadside undergrowth was too thick to see what was going on, but shouts and the clashing of sabers were mixed with the whinnying and screams of horses. These were not the noises of looting and burning he'd learned through the hive mind. Perhaps his escort would prevail. It was half again the size in recent use. He would, he decided, wait where he was till he knew.
Two minutes later the noise had changed to excited shouts in Hithmearcisc. Apparently the raiders had been driven off. A trumpet blew assembly. Rising, the commander trotted back to the road. The fighting was over. The mounted soldiers, riding back to their positions, seemed somewhat fewer. His trumpeter lay dead and trampled.
That, thought the commander, could have been me. To see better, he clambered onto a wagon whose horses were down. The driver lay back on one of the flour sacks he'd been hauling, a broadheaded arrow through his neck; the amount of blood was startling. Ahead and behind, the road was blocked by wagons. Many of their horses were down. He hissed an expletive. The sound horses would have to be unhitched, used to pull the dead and down animals out of the way, then assembled into new teams. Wagons without teams would have to be pulled from the road. Meanwhile the raiders…
The hive-mind recording stopped abruptly with a brief shocking pain exploding in the commander's neck, presumably from an arrow. Some ylf had stayed behind, concealed. To kill a voitu was worth more than killing a hundred hithar. It was worth dying for.
Lips thinned, Kurqosz withdrew his attention from the hive mind. And that, he told himself, was one of their less successful raids. "How was this allowed to happen?" he asked.
"I do not know," the communicator answered. "Two companies of cavalry had passed down this road half an hour earlier, with scouts out on both flanks. At that time there were no raiders within two hundred yards of the road."
How does the enemy know where to be? Can there be spies among my hithar? But even if there are, how could they communicate what they know? Kurqosz shook off what could only be another useless chain of unanswerable questions.
He looked around the table. "This column," he said, "was twice the size of any earlier column, with three companies of cavalry protecting it. Otherwise it would have been worse. We make adjustments, then they do. What we need to do is predict correctly how they will adjust, and take advantage of it. And make adjustments of our own that will bring predictable responses. Work on it!
"So far we have lost more than five hundred men dead or disabled, while finding eighty-six enemy dead and only twenty-seven wounded. They take their wounded with them whenever possible, and no doubt some of them die later. But the ratio of our losses to theirs is nonetheless unacceptable.
"Meanwhile, the construction of freight sleighs is proceeding. On snow they are much faster, and require fewer horses per ton of freight. But that is not a solution."
An officer raised a hand. "Yes, Neszkal?" Kurqosz said.
"One solution might be to attack across the Deep River, and drive the enemy all the way back into the Western Empire."
The crown prince stared long at him, but answered mildly. "The ylver troubling us," he said, "are already living and operating behind our lines. If we advance farther, we will simply provide them with more room to maneuver, while requiring much longer hauls to supply our forward positions. No, that is not a solution."
He examined the officer thoughtfully. "I hereby assign you to produce a new strategy and tactics. Discuss your thoughts with General Orovisz. I want your analysis by tomorrow midday, and it must be more intelligent than the suggestion you just made." The crown prince paused before adding: " Your analysis. Do not abdicate the responsibility to someone else."
Kurqosz's gaze held the officer for another moment before finishing. "And if I'm not satisfied, I will send you out with a supply train, for firsthand experience."
He looked around the table. "Now to go on to another matter. At breakfast I was informed that a force of dwarves, estimated at a brigade or more, was crossing the Pomatik River, as if to move up the Merrawin. Apparently they are not aware that we have powerful forces a few days north.
"Intelligence has interrogated knowledgeable captives, and one of the subjects explored has been the dwarves. They are considered dangerous fighters, and other nations prefer to trade with them, rather than fight them. At Colroi I decided to adopt the same policy. But unfortunately, our ignorance of Vismearc's political geography has made an enemy of them, and they have proven formidable.
"However, in the Merrawin Valley they do not have the advantageous terrain they had in the south. Also, they are on foot and short-legged, thus we have an immense advantage in mobility and freedom of maneuver. Just now they are in hilly terrain with considerable forest cover, but within two or three days they will reach country that is open and mostly flat. I have already ordered General Trumpko to send a battalion of cavalry and an infantry division, to engage and destroy them. The cavalry will arrive first, and harass them till the infantry arrives. Then decisive action will be taken.