Now Arsham found himself upon that throne he’d never sought, after all, with his mother restored to a place of honor in Navahk, and that could never have happened without Navahk’s defeat. More, he sat upon the throne of a Navahk more prosperous than it had ever dreamed of being, as a member of the Council of Princes Bahnak of Hurgrum had created as what was effectively the Royal Council of the Northern Confederation. He was far too intelligent to believe for a moment that he could ever have risen to such a position under other circumstances. Besides, unlike his father, Arsham’s word meant something, and he’d sworn fealty to Bahnak and the great charter Bahnak had drawn up for the Confederation. Whether it rankled or not, that was the end of the matter as far as his loyalty was concerned; if anyone could be confident of that, a champion of Tomanak was that anyone.
Sir Trianal Bowmaster sat to Hurthang’s left. Trianal was the only person at that table younger than Vaijon, yet he sat back comfortably, his expression and his body language equally relaxed among the presence of those who had once been his sworn enemies. He still hadn’t overcome quite all the attitudes his conservative mother had instilled in him as a child, but Tellian had been stretching his heir’s thought processes for the better part of ten years now, and it was starting to show. The thought amused Vaijon, particularly given the way his own thought processes had required a little “stretching” once upon a time. And how much more…vigorously that stretching had been achieved, for that matter.
Sir Yarran Battlecrow sat at Trianal’s elbow. A grizzled, competent warrior who was now well into middle age (or possibly even a little further than that, although Vaijon wasn’t going to be foolish enough to suggest anything of the sort where he might hear of it), Yarran had been “loaned” to the expedition at Trianal’s request by Sir Festian Wrathson, Lord Warden of Glanharrow. The commander of Lord Festian’s scouts, Sir Yarran would perform the same function for Trianal, and the comfortable, confident relationship between him and his youthful overlord was easy to see.
Gorsandahknarthas zoi’Felahkandarnas sat beside Sir Yarran, in a chair which was considerably higher than that of anyone else seated around the table. Gorsan wasn’t there as a member of the war council per se, but as the supervisor of the entire Derm Canal project, his interest in the summer campaign was obvious, and he had a better grasp than anyone else present of how well-and how readily-their troops could be kept in supply. The tall (for an Axeman, at any rate), black-haired human in well-worn mail seated beside Gorsan, on the other hand, was a member of the war council in good standing. Rianthus of Sindor was normally the commander of Kilthandahknarthas’ personal security force, but this summer the ex-major in the Royal and Imperial Mounted Infantry had been detailed to command the relatively small force of Dwarvenhame infantry which would provide close security for the dwarvish combat engineers who’d been attached to the field force.
And then, finally, between Rianthus and Vaijon, there was the fellow who most definitely was not a member of the council of war, although no one was likely to mention that to him. Exactly how Tellian-or, for that matter, King Markhos-expected even a champion of Tomanak to keep Prince Yurokhas out of the inevitable fighting was more than Vaijon was prepared to guess. He intended to do his best, but it wasn’t going to be a simple little task like, oh, slaying a demon or two.
His lips twitched at the thought, and he gave himself a mental shake as all those other eyes looked back at him.
“I thought we might begin,” he said, “by considering our logistics for the summer.”
Yurgazh looked a little wary in the wake of that comment, but he wasn’t entirely alone in that. In fact, his weren’t even the wariest eyes present. Pre-Confederation Bloody Sword concepts of military logistics had been rudimentary, at best, yet Vaijon had come to the conclusion that they’d still been better developed than those of the their neighbors atop the Wind Plain. Sothoii who’d served with Axeman armies, like Sir Kelthys Lancebearer, another of Tellian’s cousins, tended to have a sounder appreciation than their fellows for the importance of forethought and organization when it came to supplying troops in the field, but even they were inclined to leave such matters up to their Axeman allies. For the most part, however, Sothoii armies were far more likely to improvise as they went along, with occasionally disastrous consequences. Fortunately, that was beginning to change-for this lot of Sothoii, at any rate-in the wake of the last couple of years’ campaigns. They’d discovered that keeping their troops well fed, well armed, and well supplied with fodder was a significant force multiplier, but they still had the look of someone expected to converse in a foreign language (and dreading it).
I wonder if they think there’s going to be a quiz after the meeting? Vaijon thought sardonically, reflecting on how Sir Charrow, his own mentor in Belhadan would have done just that to him. Then he scolded himself. Of course Sir Charrow would have! He was, after all, a knight of the Order of Tomanak, and the Order believed in training its members thoroughly, which meant he’d been given the opportunity for a much sounder grounding in such matters than any of these officers-with the possible exception of Rianthus-ever could have gotten in the normal order of things.
And you even paid attention to those lessons, didn’t, you Vaijon? he reflected.
“Gorsan?” he invited out loud, and the engineer shrugged.
“I’m sure Rianthus actually has a better appreciation of the nuts and bolts than I do,” the dwarf said, “but I can say the canal head is almost thirty leagues further east than it was at this point last year. That’s going to shorten how far we’ll have to haul supplies by wagon between Derm and the Hangnysti by ninety miles or so, and Prince Bahnak spent the winter building more barges here at Hurgrum. We’ll have almost twice the cargo capacity we had last year once we do get those supplies to the Hangnysti to barge them down to you. And that other project we discussed a few months ago”-he looked around the table-“is looking a lot more practical than I really thought it would.”
Several of the others stirred slightly, eyebrows rising in expressions which ran the gamut from satisfaction to skepticism. Prince Yurokhas’ expression was firmly at the skeptical end of the spectrum, and Vaijon hid a smile as he saw it. For all the prince’s enthusiasm for the Derm Canal, he continued to cherish strong reservations about the practicality of Bahzell’s latest brainstorm. Not that Vaijon was even tempted to fault Yurokhas for his doubts, for the prince had never visited Dwarvenhame as Bahzell (and Vaijon, for that matter) had. As such, he had no real concept of the sheer tonnage of high-quality steel, not simply iron, Dwarvenhame’s water-powered blast furnaces and “convertors” could produce. Nor had he ever seen heavy wagonloads of ore, coal, limestone, coke, or manufactured goods moving along ribbons of steel rails. Given the far more limited-and vastly more expensive-quantities of iron Baron Yeraghor’s East Riding foundries and smithies produced, it was no wonder Yurokhas continued to consider the notion that anyone could possibly produce enough steel to lay a track of rails literally dozens of miles long across the terrain between the canal head and the Hangnysti more than a little ridiculous. And even assuming that was possible, no one accustomed to the Kingdom’s atrocious roads could be expected to grasp how much more efficient draft animals became when they hauled their loads along smooth steel rails instead of lurching laboriously from one mudhole to the next.