Hell's Foundations Quiver: Chapter Eleven

Last updated: Saturday, July 18, 2015 17:37 EDT

.X.
Esthyr’s Abbey,
Northland Gap,
Northland Province,
Republic of Siddarmark.

It was warmer than it had been for the last couple of days. In fact, the temperature was barely ten degrees below freezing.

“Don’t see much sign of movement,” Corporal Paiair commented. He lay prone in the deep snow beside Sergeant Tahd Ekohls on a small but steep-sided hill, gazing down at the town of Esthyr’s Abbey in the early — for a northern East Haven winter — morning light. Their hill rose above a thin belt of second-growth woodlot, between it and the river that supplied the town’s water, which had somehow so far managed to avoid the woodsman’s ax. Probably because it was so far from the town and on the far side of the stream. The true object of their attention, however, was less the town than the bridge across that very same river.

“That’s because there isn’t any sign of movement.”

Sergeant Ekohls’ tone mingled satisfaction with sour disapproval of incompetence, and he raised his spyglass once more. A light dusting of frost, like an icy spider web, had been frozen along one edge of the objective lens, despite how careful he’d been not to expose it to the sort of temperature shifts that produced condensation in even the best sealed spyglasses. The new double-glasses were better about that, he understood, but he was used to the old style and he rested the barrel on his forearm for steadiness as he studied the spot where he would have located the picket that should have been guarding the bridge.

Be fair, Tahd, he reminded himself. Not like the entire damned river’s not frozen solid enough for draft dragons t’ walk across! Nobody really needs a bridge t’ get over it, and they bloody well won’t till spring. And the poor sodding Temple Boys’d freeze to death right fast if they did try t’ picket the thing. Still and all . . . .

He lowered the glass and looked at the lance corporal on Paiair’s far side.

“Go back and tell the Lieutenant there’s no picket on the bridge, and I don’t see anything stirring within two hundred yards of the far bank. Probably at least some poor bastards’re freezing their arses off playing sentry in the forward earthworks, but I can’t see ’em if they are. There’s smoke from a lot of chimneys in the town and at least a couple of dozen places right behind the earthworks — I’m betting it’s those dugouts the seijins told Baron Green Valley about — but right now it looks like they’re staying close to their fires.”

“Right,” Lance Corporal Fraid Tohmys, one of 3rd Platoon’s runners replied laconically.

The odds that anyone in the town might be looking their way at this particular moment, or that they might see anything at this distance even if they did, were miniscule, but Tohmys was a scout sniper. He pushed himself backwards through the snow, not rising to a crouch until he was certain his head and shoulders would be safely below the hill’s crest, then scooted down the far slope to the skis he’d left standing upright in a handy drift. He tugged them free, shoved his boots into the toe straps, and pulled back the spring-tensioned cables to lock them behind his heels. The efficiency of the Imperial Charisian Army’s cross-country skis had increased significantly with the widespread availability of the cable binding which had previously been available only to wealthy ski enthusiasts who could afford the hefty price tag. The Charisian steelmakers’ ability to produce strong, powerful springs, capable of standing up to hard use under sub-zero field conditions, and to produce them in quantity, had changed that, however, and the corporal moved rapidly off across the snow, heading back the way Paiair’s squad had come.

“All right, Zakryah,” Ekohls said, turning back to Paiair. “Let’s get somebody down into the riverbed. I want a couple of sets of eyes on the far bank.”

Baron Green Valley glanced at the caribou-drawn field kitchen as he trotted past it. Mounted on broad runners, the kitchen was fitted with a central island of cook stoves and framed with solid, boxlike wooden sides. For two thirds of each side, the upper half of the outer wall formed a long, hinged panel which could be raised using cables running through pulleys at the peak of the kitchen’s steep roof. In the horizontal position, those panels were about ten feet off the ground and offered at least some protection from rain or snow for someone standing under them. Counters built into the walls’ inner faces gave the cooks working space, and the stoves featured metal plates which could be used as cooking surfaces or lifted aside to create wells into which specially fitted kettles could be slotted so the kitchens could cook soup or stew — or keep it hot — even as they moved cross-country. The runners turned the kitchens into sleds with excellent cross-country agility in winter, but they could also be fitted with wheels for mobility that was almost as good in summer.

The kitchen’s design was one more example of the old Royal Chisholmian Army’s forethought and careful planning, although the new manufacturing techniques coming out of Charis made them much cheaper and easier to build in quantity. Now, as Green Valley watched, lines of men of Company A, 3rd Battalion, 13th Regiment, 7th Brigade, of General Eystavyo Gardynyr’s 4th Division (Mountain), passed smoothly along the field kitchen’s sides. The cooks — in shirtsleeves, despite the icy temperatures, thanks to the heat generated by their stoves — ladled steaming tea into the tin cups held out to them and hot soup, thick with beef and vegetables, into the matching tin bowls.

Every ICA soldier was issued his own nested mess kit, which contained a skillet with a folding handle, a saucepan, individual fitted covers for both (curved so that they could be used as plates or bowls), and a steel knife, spoon, and fork. The entire remarkably compact package was closed with a leather strap that could be hooked to the canvas bread bag in which a soldier carried his combat rations and which, in turn, attached to his canvas web gear when he stripped down to combat order.

Even before the new mess kits, the Chisholmian Army’s arrangements for feeding its men in the field had been better than anything available to the Army of God. As just one example, the huge iron kettles of the Church’s comissaries were heavier, more cumbersome, and required far more fuel than their lighter Charisian counterparts. They were inefficient at the best of times, and if the comissary troops fell behind during troop movements (or simply got lost for a few days), the AOG troopswere ill-equipped to cook their own rations. Nor did the Army of God have any equivalent of the mobile field kitchens which kept Green Valley’s troops fueled with hot, nourishing food despite the arctic conditions.

And which saw to it that the men were well fed before going into battle. That was a tradition the ICA shared with the Imperial Charisian Navy, but it was even more important than usual under current conditions. The human metabolism burned energy like a furnace in arctic conditions. Good nourishment could become literally the difference between life and death when the cold bit, and that didn’t even consider the morale factor inherent in being fed a hot, strengthening meal before plunging into the chaos of combat.

Green Valley looked away from the field kitchen, returning his attention to the SNARCs keeping watch over Saint Esthyr’s Abbey and the farming town to which it had given its name. The SNARCs gave him an even better perspective than Sergeant Ekohls enjoyed, and their reports were both a source of profound satisfaction and one more coal for the furnace of his anger against Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s “Sword of Schueler.”

Located on the east-west high road where it passed down the center of the Northland Gap, between the Meirstrom Mointains to the north and the Kalgarans to the south, Esthyr’s Abbey was the better part of three hundred and sixty miles from the nearest navigable river: the Kalgaran River, just south of the fork where it joined the Ice Ash. It was surrounded by a broad belt of farmland, which had been interspersed with occasional areas of woodlot, most of it second-growth terrestrial imports. More trees — mixed terrestrial and Safeholdian evergreens, mostly — had been planted as windbreaks around farmhouses and barns, along the edges of farm lanes, and as protection for pastureland and feedlots, and the fields themselves were separated by walls of the dry-laid stones centuries of plowing had brought to the surface.

It must have been a pleasant vista once upon a time, but “once upon a time” was long vanished.

While it had served as a natural center for farming, Esthry’s Abbey had never been as large as many another major regional town in Siddarmark because of its distance from water transport. Its pre-Sword of Schueler population, never more than three thousand, had plummeted to little more than a thousand as those loyal to the Republic were killed or driven into exile – many of them to die of cold and starvation on the roads. Not that the Temple Loyalists had had it all their own way. The recent cluster of graves in the town cemetery indicated just how hard the loyalists had fought before their defeat. Nonetheless, it had still been home to almost thirteen hundred people the previous spring, and the survivors had greeted the Army of God’s arrival enthusiastically. But then the Great Canal Raid devastated Bishop Militant Bahrnabai’s logistics. Neither of Halcom Bahrn’s ironclads had come within three hundred miles of Esthyr’s Abbey, yet the raid had still given the town its deathblow.

Now less than two hundred of its original inhabitants remained; the rest had left voluntarily or been forcibly evacuated at Bahrnabai Wyrshym’s orders the previous fall. The bishop militant hadn’t liked giving that order — or the other orders which had effectively abandoned all of the Republic east of the Kalgarans and Meirstroms — but he’d had no option.

First, the state of his supply lines had forced him to commandeer every available scrap of transport to feed his own starving, freezing troops. That bitter truth had compelled his orders to evacuate not just Esthyr’s Abbey but every other town between there and the Kalgaran River. There’d been nothing left to keep the civilians in those towns fed, and to give credit where it was due, the evacuees were both safer and better nourished in the refugee camps Rhobair Duchairn had established in the Temple Lands.

Second, it had been painfully clear the Army of God would require a heavy numerical superiority to defeat Green Valley’s troops. Wyrshym had reached that conclusion on the basis of his experience in the Sylmahn Gap, but his original estimate of how great a superiority he would require had still been too low. Duke Eastshare’s rout of the Army of Glacierheart and — even more — the cataclysmic destruction of the Army of Shiloh had made that brutally clear, and his original strategy had changed as a result.

His intention had been to reinforce the two divisions at Allyntyn with three more divisions before Green Valley moved in that direction. Unfortunately, when the Army of Midhold actually did move the previous fall, it had advanced even more rapidly than Wyrshym had anticipated. It had swept through central Midhold, driving out those loyal to Mother Church as it came, and its 3rd Mounted Brigade had closed in on Allyntyn before any reinforcements arrived.

In some ways, that had been just as well from Wyrshym’s perspective, since his disastrous logistics made it impossible for him to sustain a force large enough to face Green Valley east of the Northland Gap. As Brigadier Mohrtyn Braisyn’s mounted infantry advanced, they’d eliminated every cavalry regiment originally assigned to Bishop Qwentyn Preskyt, but before those regiments were destroyed, they’d managed to warn Preskyt 3rd Mounted was coming. He’d semaphored the news to Wyrshym, in turn, and the bishop militant had immediately realized that Preskyt’s unreinforced divisions could never hold Allyntyn. Bitter though the choice had been — and risky, in the face of Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s wrath — Wyrshym had ordered Allyntyn abandoned to the advancing Charisians.

The bishop militant’s decisiveness had deprived Green Valley of one of the prizes he’d sought, for Preskyt’s prompt obediance had whisked the bulk of his command efficiently out of the envelopment Green Valley had planned at Allyntyn. It had been a very near thing, however, and his rearguard regiment had been trapped and destroyed when the town was captured.

Wyrshym’s decision to abandon Allyntyn had transformed Esthyr’s Abbey into the Army of the Sylmahn’s most advanced position. Preskyt’s St. Fraidyr Division and Bishop Zhaksyn Mahkhal’s Port Harbor Division had dug in there, and Wyrshym had managed to replace the regiment lost in Allyntyn and find three more cavalry regiments — all understrength — to supply a little more mobility and reach.

The three divisions Wyrshym had originally earmarked for Allyntyn had been sent instead to the town of Fairkyn on the devastated Guarnak-Ice Ash Canal, and he’d scared up two more divisions to support them there, all under Bishop Gorthyk Nybar. Preskyt was instructed to keep Nybar fully informed of his situation but reported directly to Wyrshym at Guarnak. It was an awkward arrangement, yet Green Valley understood why it had been adopted, and he had to respect Wyrshym’s reasoning. The bishop militant had arranged to keep Nybar out of the chain of command between himself and Preskyt in order to protect Nybar from the Grand Inquisitor if things went poorly at Esthyr’s Abbey. Nybar would be fully informed about what was happening to Preskyt’s command but free of any direct responsibility for it . . . and free to make his own decisions without looking over his shoulder at his own inquisitors and intendants.

The Army of God had no equivalent of the Charisian concept of organizing armies into corps, yet that was essentially what Wyrshym had done, and Nybar’s command had been designated the Army of Fairkyn for administrative purposes. It wasn’t very large as armies went: five infantry divisions and eight cavalry regiments, supported by a single regiment of artillery. If all his units had been at full strength, he would have commanded thirteen thousand men, including all of his artillerists, supported by only twenty-four twelve-pounders; in fact, he actually deployed less than eleven thousand, and keeping even that small a force adequately supplied had been difficult, although his situation had improved dramatically over the last three or four five-days.

Bishop Qwentyn Preskyt’s, unfortunately, had not. Esthyr’s Abbey was twice as far from Guarnak, and even though he was down to only forty-five hundred men, little more than seventy-five percent of his paper strength, keeping them fed over a thousand-mile long winter supply line was still a nightmare.

Worse, from Wyrshym’s perspective, the entire Army of the Sylmahn, including all detachments, counted barely sixty thousand men, less than eighty percent of the Army of Midhold’s manpower, and its men had been more poorly armed even before the Canal Raid added starvation to the mix. True, its logistic situation had improved as Duchairn got the devastated canal net repaired with one temporary expedient after another. The entire line from East Wing Lake to Ayaltyn, a tiny town on the Hildermoss River south of Cat-Lizard Lake, was technically back in service, but Ayaltyn was still almost eight hundred miles from Wyrshym’s primary forward supply center at Guarnak and the canals had already been freezing by the time Duchairn’s engineers reached the town. By now they — and every river and lake north of Guarnak — were solid sheets of ice.

That had put an end to canal repairs until spring, but the ice did provide easier going for supply sleds, and Duchairn had gotten additional snow lizards and a handful of winter-hardy hill dragons forward to Wyrshym. The ragged state of his logistics prevented him from sustaining a bigger force at Esthyr’s Abbey, but he’d begun building up supplies at Fairkyn to support Nybar and the heavier forces he’d earmarked to support him if Green Valley got past Esthyr’s Abbey. As soon as winter released its grip and further improvements in his supply line allowed Vicar Rhobair to move up the promised reinforcements, he intended to massively reinforce Nybar. Indeed, he’d been promised a minimum of a hundred thousand fresh troops, many equipped with the new rifles and improved artillery the Church’s foundries were frenetically turning out, which would give him twice Green Valley’s strength and allow him to resume the offensive by early May.

In the meantime, Esthyr’s Abbey was a forlorn and lonely place. With its civilian inhabitants dead or fled, Preskyt could probably have housed twice his actual troop strength in its houses and public buildings or in the homes, barns, and other outbuildings of the surrounding farms, if only it had been possible to feed them. As it was, the last of the abandoned livestock had been slaughtered months ago and most of Esthyr’s Abbey’s woodlots had been felled for firewood. For that matter, working parties had systematically pulled down the buildings of a steadily growing number of those outlying farms for fuel, as well, and more than a few unoccupied structures in the town itself had gone the same way.

The lack of clothing suited to North Haven’s brutal winters was another problem for all Wyrshym’s men, not just Preskyt’s force, and no improvement in his transport capability was going to change that anytime soon. Everything left behind by Esthyr’s Abbey’s citizens had been combed through, looking for any additional warm clothing Prekyt’s shivering troops could find, but the most optimistic observer couldn’t have called them adequately clothed. They’d been driven increasingly to ground under the town’s roofs, especially with the blizzards which had swept through the Gap in the last two five-days. The current warming trend would bring the temperatures up into the mid-thirties in a few days, which would encourage quite a bit of snow melt. But another bitter wave of arctic cold would follow the “warm snap” within less than two days, and the defenders of Esthyr’s Abbey were going to find themselves far less well-suited to deal with it than they were now.

Green Valley smiled thinly at the thought and sent his sturdy High Hallow forging along the trampled slot where the scout snipers and most of Brigadier Zhorj Sutyls’ 8th Infantry Brigade had moved up towards their objectives.

It was hard to pick out details of his men’s deployment. Their snow smocks blended too well into the endless whiteness around them for that. It was actually easier to spot where they’d been than where they were, thanks to the tracks they’d left behind and the little islands where squads had parked their tent and baggage-laden sleds while they stripped down to combat gear. The weather was warm enough (although, to someone of Green Valley’s Old Charisian sensibilities, calling twenty-two degrees Fahrenheit “warm” came perilously close to blasphemy) that they’d been able to discard their heavy gauntlet-style mittens in favor of lighter gloves which would make handling weapons much easier, and each squad of the platoons moving forward into their jumpoff positions had left one man to keep an eye on its sled. Since the men had left their cumbersome caribou hide outer parkas behind when they stripped down for combat, making sure those sleds and their burdens were close to hand would become critically important once the short winter’s day slid over into twilight.

Other sleds were surrounded by a different set of acolytes. Those were the ones supporting the squat, menacing tubes of 1st Corps’ mortars. Along with the influx of M96s and Trapdoor Mahndrayns, Green Valley had taken receipt of the Delthak Works’ latest upgrade of the Army of Midhold’ lethality in the form of a new four and a half-inch mortar. Technically known as the “Model 97, 4.5” Mortar,” the new weapon’s standard explosive round had four thousand yards more range than the older M95 three-inch. The range increase for its rather heavier antipersonnel round was a little less than that, but its projectiles were three times as heavy as the M95’s, with a proportionate increase in bursting charge and shrapnel which gave its rounds more than twice the lethal radius. It was, in fact, considerably more effective against concealed or semi-concealed targets than the artillery’s four-inch muzzle-loading rifles, although the field pieces had a much deeper lethal zone against exposed enemies.

There weren’t as many of the M97s as Green Valley could have wished, but there’d been enough to form them into additional support platoons, and he’d assigned one of those platoons to each of 1st Corps’ regiments. At the moment, 7th Brigade had loaned its heavy mortars to 8th Brigade, and their gunners were opening crates of bombs and propellant charges while the lighter M95s continued to make their way closer to the town. Artillery support parties had already moved up close behind the deploying infantry, carrying their signal mirrors, signal rockets, and semaphore flags with them. Additional ASPs had been dropped off to serve as relays to the heavy mortars.

Green Valley reached the brigade command post and dismounted, passing his reins to Lieutenant Slokym as he slogged through the snow to where Brigadier Sutyls was deep in conversation with Colonel Ahlfryd Maiyrz, 16th Regiment’s CO.

“So Colonel Gairwyl’s regiment is swinging around the north side of town,” Sutyls was saying, tapping the map between them. “There’s more tree cover to get in the horses’ way on that side, but its almost all evergreens. That’s actually kept the ground clear of snow, which means the mounted infantry can move pretty well, even through the trees, and they should keep anyone in town from spotting them.”

The brigadier looked up as Green Valley arrived. He and Maiyrs began to come to attention, but the baron only shook his head and pointed at the map.

Sutyls nodded to acknowledge the unspoken command and bent back over the map, tracing positions with his forefinger as he continued speaking to Maiyrs.

“Colonel Hyndryks is moving up his First and Fourth Battalions down here,” the brigadier’ indicated an arc around the town’s southern approaches. Colonel Symohr Hyndryks commanded the 15th Infantry, the 15th’s sister regiment in 8th Brigade. “He’s using this line of hills for cover, and a company of Major Kharyn’s scout snipers have outposts in these abandoned farms along here.” The finger tapped again. “That should let Hyndryks move up to within a few hundred yards of their outer earthworks without anyone seeing him, and the rest of Kharyn’s scout snipers’ve moved round to the west side with Colonel Yarith and the Sixth Mounted. The going’s not as good around the southern flank, so Yarith’s not in position yet, but his people got an early start and he’s in heliograph contact with Colonel Hyndryks. Hyndryks’ll pass the word when Yairley’s cut the high road on the far side of town. At that point, the frigging Temple Boys are in the bag, with nowhere to go when your lads kick in their front door. Best current estimate is that Hyndryks and the Sixth ought to be in position in about another hour.”

Green Valley glanced up at the sky. They were still an hour and a half or so shy of local noon, but the days were short this far north. They’d have no more than another four hours — five, at the outside — before darkness closed in once again. On the other hand, a quick check through the SNARCs agreed — for the most part — with Sutyls’ time estimate. In fact, half of Colonel Symohr Hyndryks’ 15th Infantry Regiment was already in place, close behind Fumyro Kharyn’s scout snipers, making its final weapons checks while the other two battalions remained well back to form a reserve in the unlikely event that they were needed.

Sir Uhlstyn Yarith’s mounted infantry and its accompanying ski-mounted scout snipers were a bit behind Sutyls’ schedule, however. It had been a hard slog through deep snow, even for the Chisholmian bred High Hallows and the caribou-drawn sleds of their assigned support element, but they were past the worst of it now. There’d be more than enough daylight left when they reached their positions, and the support element had already reached its position and begun erecting the first of the tents for their intended post-battle bivouac.

“Major Mahkylhyn and Major Tahlyvyr have moved up to this bank of the stream, Sir,” Maiyrs told Sutyls, tracing his own line on the map. “I’ll have Major Hylmyn in place on Tahlyvyr’s left in thirty minutes, and then we’ll just see about kicking that door down for you.”

Sutyls grunted in satisfaction. Three of 16th Infantry’s battalions — Tohmys Mahkylhyn’s 1st Battalion, Brygham Tahlyvyr’s 2nd Battalion, and Samyl Hylmyn’s 4th Battalion — were tasked as the primary assault units, while Major Rahnyld Gahdarhd’s 3rd Battalion formed the regimental reserve and Colonel Hyndryks’ infantry and the two mounted regiments prevented any breakout to the west by the AOG garrison. In theory, Brigadier Ahdryn Krystyphyr’s entire 7th Brigade was available as a reserve or to exploit succes, but Green Valley had no expectation of requiring Krystyphyr’s men. Sutyl’s brigade was almost fully up to strength, with the better part of nine thousand men present, compared to the barely forty-five hundred of all arms of Qwentyn Preskyt’s understrength units, and trying to cram Krystyphyr’s men into the operation would only have cramped the attack. That wasn’t to say that 7th Brigade’s men and officers weren’t highly miffed at being told to sit this one out, but Green Valley had already promised Krystyphyr his brigade would be allowed to take the lead in the next stage of what the baron had dubbed “Operation Winter Vengeance.”

He smiled with cold appreciation of his troops’ determination to make that name fit, but the smile faded as he thought about the one thing none of his men or he would be able to accomplish. The nearest of the Inquisition’s concentration camps was located at Hyrdmyn on the New Northland Canal, still seven hundred hopeless straight-line miles from Esthyr’s Abbey. He probably had the logistical capability to reach Hyrdmyn, but he could neither have fed the camp’s inmates after he got there nor evacuated them across that enormous distance. Those inmates were dying in dreadful numbers as cold and hunger — not to mention hopelessness and the Inquisition’s brutalities — ate away at their fragile reserves of strength and endurance. Yet without a means to evacuate them, they would only have died still faster if he’d tried to mount a rescue operation.

Kynt Clareyk was no coward, but he could no longer bear to view the SNARC imagery of the camps. He’d left that heartbreaking task to Owl and to Nahrmahn Baytz, because he couldn’t – literally couldn’t — let his personal hatred and sense of helplessness compromise his ability to think about the tasks he could accomplish. He knew what was happening at Hyrdmyn, and in the camps at places like Gray Hill, Traymos, Lakeside, Sairmeet, Blufftyn, and Lake City, and the day of reckoning the Republic would demand of the Inquisition — the entire Church of God Awaiting — in the fullness of time would be terrible enough to fit the crime. For now, all he could do was try to speed that day.

“The scout snipers and the ASPs say the ice is more than thick enough to stand the recoil from the M95s,” Maiyrs continued, “so I’m going to deploy them on the stream. They’ll be closer to our lead units if we need to signal fire missions, and they ought to be able to get up the bank without even dismounting from the sleds to keep up close once we move off.”

“Good,” Sutyls said. “Good!”

Green Valley nodded in agreement. The lighter three-inchers packed less punch than the new M97, but they also weighed less than a third as much, which meant they — and their ammunition — found it easier to keep up close behind advancing infantry. And, perhaps more to the point, the M97s could handle their part of the operation just fine from their current locations.

“All right,” the brigadier said. “It sounds to me like we’re just about ready. Do you have anything you’d care to add, My Lord?”

He looked at Green Valley, who shook his head.

“It’s your brigade, Zhorj, and it’s all looking good to me. Besides, you know my motto. ‘If it isn’t broken —’”

He paused, and both of his subordinates grinned broadly at him.

“— ‘don’t fix it,’” they finished in unison.

“Exactly.” Green Valley smiled back at them, and it was a hungry, predatory smile. “On the other hand, I’m entirely in favor of your breaking something else.”

“. . . about the size of it, Sir,” Major Hahl concluded his report. Somehow, the major managed to look remarkably spruce and clean-shaven, despite his chapped face and hunger-sharpened cheekbones.

“Thank you, Lawrync,” Colonel Bahstyk Sahndyrs said, acknowledging yet another clearly and concisely delivered report on the state of his 4th Infantry Regiment. It was scarcely Hahl’s fault the report was so unpalatable, but that hadn’t made it any more palatable.

The colonel turned away from the map tacked to his wall and gazed out the window at the snow-covered, slovenly streets of Esthyr’s Abbey. The office in which he stood had been the dining room of one of the town’s more affluent farmers, and its windows looked past the glistening icicles, some thick as Sahndyrs’ wrist, which fringed the overhanging roof and across the aptly named Snow Dragon Square. Once upon a time, before the Sword, Snow Dragon had been one of Esthyr’s Abbey’s neatly maintained residential squares. Now its houses had been taken over to shelter Mother Church’s infantry, and those half-frozen soldiers had more pressing worries than keeping things neat and tidy.

The only good thing about Major Hahl’s report, Sahndyrs reflected, was that bad as things were, they were better than they had been. Only a drooling idiot could have argued the situation was good, yet the improvement was marked. He knew supplying Esthyr’s Abbey used up far more of Bishop Militant Bahrnabai precious snow lizards than the bishop militant would have preferred, and he sympathized with the Army of the Sylmahn’s commander. But that didn’t keep him from being grateful that at least nearly adequate supplies of food were finally reaching the town, and even more grateful for the fact that they’d received almost six hundred of the new St. Kylmahn rifles four five-days earlier than predicted. Of course, the rifles had been divided between St. Fraidyr and Bishop Zhaksyn’s Port Harbor Division, but there were some advantages to being the division’s senior colonel, and Bishop Qwentyn had seen fit to assign all of St. Fraidyr’s share to Sahndyrs’ regiment. The good news was that that had been enough to completely reequip Sahndyrs’ 4th Infantry; the bad news was that the only reason it had was that the regiment was at barely sixty percent strength.

From where he stood, looking across the square, the colonel could see the Church’s green and gold banner flying from the roof of the house which had been appropriated for Bishop Qwentyn’s quarters. Smoke plumed from both of the house’s chimneys, and as he watched, the door opened, and Father Vyncyt Zhakyby — St. Fraidyr Division’s intendant — stepped out of it. The Schuelerite upper-priest stood for a moment, clapping his gloved hands together against the day’s cold while he exchanged a few words with the shivering sentry on a steamy spurt of breath.

Sahndyrs had come to know the divisional intendant fairly well, and, to be honest, he didn’t much like him, because Father Vyncyt had a tendency to meddle in the management of the division’s regiments. Still, the Schuelerite possessed both a powerful faith and enormous energy, and however much he might interfere in purely military decisions, he was also prepared to share any privation the troops under his care had to endure. He’d restricted himself to the same austere diet and the same cobbled together grab bag of winter clothing, yet he’d sustained the pace of his visits, inspections, exhortations, and sermons at a level a peacetime priest would have found difficult to match. And unlike too many intendants and chaplains Sahndyrs could have named, he took time to actually talk to the men, to listen to their questions and concerns and explain things to them, not simply lecture them. Sahndyrs was prepared to overlook quite a lot of meddling as long as that was true.

He turned back from the window, and smiled at his executive officer.

“Yet another exciting day in Esthyr’s Abbey,” he said dryly, crossing to his desk and relishing the fire’s heat against his back as he seated himself. “Should I assume that with your customary efficiency you have that report about the men’s boots?”

“Yes, Sir.” The much younger Hahl inhaled deeply and rubbed a forefinger across his mustache. “I don’t think you’re going to like hearing it, though.”

“Lawrync, I haven’t liked hearing most of what I’ve heard since the frigging heretics blew up the canals. From your preface, however, I take it the Bishop Militant’s quartermasters don’t have any boots to send?”

Frostbite had become a deadly serious problem, inflicting more than half the division’s total casualties over the last two months, and it was worst of all for the men’s feet. Only a handful had been issued proper winter boots because there simply weren’t enough of them to go around. Most of the rest had wrapped what boots they did have in straw from the many abandoned barns and stables, bound in place with burlap or anything else they could find. Sahndyrs had been moving heaven and earth to get his freezing men better boots for more five-days than he liked to count, but it was like trying to empty Lake Pei with a bucket.

“They’ve found us a few pairs, Sir.” Hahl opened a folder and looked at the top sheet of notes inside it. “Unfortunately, I think the only reason they had them on hand was probably the fact that they’re too small to fit most of our men. According to Lieutenant Khaldwyl, we’ll be lucky if —”

“The heliograph’s just delivered a message from Colonel Hyndryks, Sir,” Lieutenant Saith Zohryla announced.

Brigadier Sutyls and Baron Green Valley both looked up quickly from the map and their quiet discussion of the terrain between Esthyr’s Abbey and St. Zhana, 1st Corps’ next objective.

“The Colonel says Colonel Yarith is in position,” Sutyls’ aide told them, and Sutyls expression lightened. As Green Valley had expected, it had taken Yarith longer to reach his position than the brigadier had estimated, and Sutyls had tried to hide his unhappiness as he felt the precious winter daylight slipping away. “Colonel Yarith also reports he encountered a Temple Boy outpost where there wasn’t supposed to be one,” Zohryla continued. “He believes his men killed or captured the entire picket.”

Sutyls’ lips tightened once more at the word “believes,” but Green Valley only nodded. The SNARCs, had already told him about the collision between Yarith’s men and the “outpost.” In fact, the half-strength AOG platoon had been sent to inventory the contents of half a dozen abandoned barns and silos on the west side of the town which had been earmarked as future firewood. There’d been no way anyone could have predicted it would be dispatched on its mission, even with SNARC reconnaissance, but Yarith’s scouts had spotted it in time and swept up its hapless infantry before any of them could fire a shot or escape to sound a warning.

Brigadier Sutyls wasn’t privy to the information the SNARCs had reported to his superior, and it was obvious he was none too pleased by the encounter’s potential to warn Preskyt’s men there were enemies about. On the other hand, it wasn’t like they weren’t about to find out anyway.

“Very well, Saith,” he said after a moment. “Pass the execute order to Colonel Maiyrs, please.”

“Yes, Sir!”

Lieutenant Zohryla touched his chest in salute and strode purposefully towards the signals party, beckoning for one of the runners. A moment later, the runner departed on his skis, moving fast, and Sutyls turned back to Green Valley.

“I know it’s more efficient this way, My Lord,” he said with a wry smile, “but sometimes I sort of miss the days when I’d’ve been standing on a hilltop with a spyglass and personally organizing this entire attack!”

“If you think it’s bad for a brigadier, you should try it as a corps commander,” Green Valley agreed with feeling. “But it it seems to’ve worked out pretty well so far.”

“Langhorne send it keeps on working that way, Sir.”

“I won’t complain if he does,” Green Valley said with complete sincerity, despite his feelings where Eric Langhorne were concerned. “Not one bit.”

“All right.”

Colonel Maiyrs refolded the note from Brigadier Sutyls and shoved it into his parka’s outer pocket, then put his gloves back on with slow deliberation. Once he had them adjusted properly, he turned to his own signal party.

“Fire the signal,” he said.

Lieutenant Byrtrym Azkhat was the commanding officer of the recently formed 23rd Heavy Support Platoon, which was currently assigned to the 16th Infantry’s 1st Battalion. Now he looked up at one of his noncoms’ shout and saw the signal rocket soar upward on its trail of smoke. The flash when it burst was pale in the daylight, but it was bright enough, especially when Azkhat had been waiting so impatiently to see it.

“ Now!” he snapped.

The new M97 mortars were big, ugly brutes with a barrel length of over five feet. Their explosive projectiles weighed thirty-three pounds, without propellant charge, and Azkhat’s gunners had cursed them with sweaty sincerity in training. There weren’t many of them, and Lieutenant Azkhat’s feelings had been mixed, to say the least, when his platoon had been ordered to turn in their three-inch mortars and reequip with them.

They had a range of four miles, however, and at the moment they were emplaced just over two miles from the center of Esthyr’s Abbey. There’d been ample time for Azkhat’s men to dismount the weapons from their sleds and prepare solid, properly leveled foundations on the eastern side of a long crest line, and the lieutenant and Sergeant Cahnyr Lynkyn, his senior squadron commander, had positioned the range and bearing stakes with finicky precision.

The crest of their concealing hill boasted a scattering of northern spine trees. The spear-shaped evergreens’ branches were covered with the sharp, unpleasant spines which gave them their name, but they were also sturdy, and Azkhat had sent Corporal Shawyn Portyr up the tallest of them. From there, he had an excellent view of the town and of the actual abbey beyond it, and he’d constructed a perch for himself and the map on which a gridded overlay had been superimposed. He’d long since located their initial targets’ positions from the map, and the rest of Azkhat’s organic artillery support party was prepared to pass his corrections to the mortars. The ASP’s position was also perfect — or nearly so — for receiving and passing on fire requests from other units.

The tubes themselves had been laid in on as close to the correct bearings and elevations as they could come without their own direct lines of sight. Now Sergeant Ymilahno Fahrya, the sergeant in charge of 3rd Squad, nodded sharply in response to Azkhat’s one-word command and chopped one hand at Corporal Mahthyw Khulpepur, the gun captain on 3rd Squad’s number one mortar.

“ Fire!” Khulpepur barked, and Private Rahdryk Nahkadahn who’d been waiting, eyes locked on Khulpepur, dropped the first bomb down the rifled tube. The M97 dispensed with the side caplock which had been a feature of the original M95. The ICA had discovered that the M95 had an unpleasant habit of “cooking off” when a freshly loaded propellant charge hit an ember left from the previous shot, so the Delthak Works had modified its design to combine loading and firing into a single, rapid motion. Now the priming cap fitted in the simple retaining clip at the end of the rod projecting from the bomb’s base hit the spike at the bottom of the tube. The impact detonated the cap, its flash ignited the powder-filled felt “doughnuts” fitted around the rod, and the mortar spat the bomb heavenward at over eight hundred feet per second.

“— so Ustys is checking with the other regiments.” Major Hahl shrugged ever so slightly. “It’s not likely we’re going to find many people with feet that small, but Ustys will probably turn up at least a few.” The major smiled suddenly, although there was more than a hint of grimace in the expression. “I’m sure he’ll drive a hard bargain for them!”

Colonel Sahndyrs chuckled in agreement. Technically, Lieutenant Ustys Khaldwyl was assigned to Rhobair Duchairn’s quartermaster’s corps, but Sahndyrs and Hahl had more or less kidnapped him and put him to work for 4th Regiment the better part of two months ago. He made a far better supply officer than they’d had previously, and while they knew they’d be forced to admit his whereabouts and give him up eventually, he’d been a gift from the archangels in the meantime. Not only did he know how to work the official logistics system, but he was also an inspired scrounger and Sahndyrs’ fellow colonels had begun muttering darkly about his depredations.

“I’m sure the Lieutenant will do us proud,” the colonel said. “And, with that out of the way, I suppose it’s time for lunch. Who are we messing with today?”

“Captain Myrgyn, Sir,” Hahl replied, and Sahndyrs nodded. He made it a point to eat at least one meal a day with each of his company commanders in turn. The practice kept him abreast of their commands’ readiness and morale, as well as the state of their rations.

“In that case, we should probably get started,” he sighed, climbing out of his chair with an air of resignation. It was cold outside, and Captain Ahnthyny Myrgyn’s 3rd Company wasn’t what one might have called conveniently close to his own HQ. “At least —”

Approximately three and a half seconds after Private Nahkadahn dropped it down the mortar’s muzzle, the thirty-three pound projectile came sizzling out of the clear winter’s sky with a warbling wail that ended in a clap of thunder.

Colonel Sahndyrs whipped back towards the window as something exploded like Langhorne’s own Rakurai. A column of flame-shot smoke erupted from a roof on the far side of Bishop Qwentyn’s headquarters, and Sahndyrs’ eyes went wide with consternation as he tried to understand what had just happened.

Shawyn Portyr peered through his double-glass, waiting . . . waiting . . . .

It was odd how slowly three and a half seconds could seem to drag at a time like this, a corner of his brain reflected, eyes glued to the green and gold flag which made such a handy reference point. The wait really wasn’t all that long, but it seemed far longer. There was always time to wonder if they’d gotten it right, how much it was going to miss by, whether or not —

The thunderbolt landed, and Portyr bared his teeth. The answers seemed to be yes, and not by much.

“Right fifty and down one hundred!” he called, never lowering his glasses, and heard the correction shouted back up in confirmation from his signalmen.

“Right fifty and down a hundred,” Sergeant Fahrya shouted, and Corporal Khulpepur’s crew traversed the weapon slightly, using the ranging stakes, while the corporal himself turned the knob which adjusted its elevation.

“Right fifty, down one hundred, and . . . set!” he called back in confirmation, and Fahrya nodded.

“Fire!”

Was that a shell? No. That’s ridiculous! How could it be —?

Doors were beginning to open around Snow Dragon Square. Even through the window glass, Colonel Sahndyrs could hear sentries shouting the alarm, and Bishop Qwentyn appeared suddenly on the steps of the house across from Sahndyrs. He must have been about to leave his headquarters for an inspection, Sahndyrs thought, because he already wore his heavy coat and gloves, and there hadn’t been time for him to don them in response to the explosion. But —

A second thunderbolt arrived from on high. It landed on the far side of the small, snow covered circle of ornamental trees and frozen flowerbeds at the center of the square, almost on top of one of the stone benches where the square’s residents were accustomed to sitting in warmer weather . . . and less than fifty feet from Bishop Qwentyn Preskyt.

The dining room window shattered on the wings of the explosion’s shockwave, icicles and diamond-shaped panes blowing in like glass ax blades. One of those blades opened Bahstyk Sahndyrs’ right cheek like a razor, but he hardly noticed. His ears were filled with thunder and Lawrync Hahl’s choked off cry of pain . . . and his mind was filled with the knowledge that he’d just become St. Fraidyr Division’s commanding officer.

“Yes!” Corporal Portyr shouted. He couldn’t actually see down into Snow Dragon Square, even from his perch, but he could see well enough to know the second round had landed inside it. He looked down at the private at the foot of his tree. “Perfect. Tell the Lieutenant that was perfect!”

Eleven more M97 mortars duplicated Corporal Khulpepur’s sight settings. Confirmations were called out. And then —

“ Fire!” Lieutenant Azhhat barked.

Kynt Clareyk stood with his head cocked, listening to the mortars’ deep-throated coughs. His eyes were half closed, his expression intent, but he wasn’t simply listening to the mortars, whatever his officers might think. No, he was watching through the SNARCs as their bombs came hurtling down all across Esthyr’s Abbey, and unlike Corporal Portyr, he could see down into the town’s squares and alleys.

He’d personally selected Snow Dragon Square as the target for Ahskhat’s heavy support platoon. Officially, he’d chosen it because it was close to the center of town and an easily identifiable target. Both of those reasons were true, but he’d also chosen it because he knew where Preskyt was headquartered. Chaos and confusion in the enemy’s ranks were two of the deadliest weapons in any soldier’s arsenal, and if he could decapitate the entire garrison . . . .

A dozen thirty-three-pound projectiles scorched across the sky, wrapping Snow Dragon Square in explosions, blasting roofs off of houses, setting fires. They were filled only with gunpowder, not the anti-personnel rounds’ flesh-shredding shrapnel charges, but they scourged the town with fire and blast, and the garrison’s troops — totally surprised, with no warning there was an enemy within a hundred miles — reacted with all the confusion he could have asked for.

The explosions shattered roofs and walls, and men who’d been huddled around fireplaces, or mending worn equipment, or asleep in their blankets under heaps of straw stumbled to their feet as the arctic cold swept in on the heels of destruction. Not just in Snow Dragon Square, either. More mortars had been positioned all around the town’s eastern and southern perimeters. Most were M95s, but their lighter bombs were perfectly adequate, and there were a great many more of them. They targeted the outermost houses and barns which had been turned into barracks, directed by the ASPs embedded with the scout snipers and the forward companies of the 8th Brigade. Roofs disintegrated, glass and shutters blew outward as bombs exploded inside houses, stored hay — more precious than gold in the heart of a North Haven winter — caught fire, and cries of shock and screams of pain were everywhere. Men staggered out of the sudden inferno into the bitter cold, many only half-clothed, and a third of the M95s were firing antipersonnel bombs fused for airburst that sent cyclones of shrapnel through their bleeding ranks.

Each support platoon had its predesignated targets, and the mortar crews worked their way inward from the edges of town, methodically shattering its buildings. Despite the carnage, the garrison’s officers and noncoms managed to restore some sort of discipline and order. Leather-lunged sergeants bellowed orders, sending men into their assigned positions in the entrenchments which had been hacked out of the icy ground. Other sergeants and officers — the ones with the quickest minds, the ones who realized that even if they survived the attack they’d still have to face the winter — sent some of their men back to fight fires and rescue whatever of winter clothing and supplies they could snatch from the flames.

On the eastern side, the infantry racing for the forward trenches — most from St. Manthyr’s Division’s 3rd Regiment — came suddenly under accurate, heavy rifle fire. Two of Major Dyasaiyl’s scout sniper companies had infiltrated to within thirty yards of the trenches under cover of the streambed and the eye-blurring effect of their white snow smocks. They’d lain patiently in the snow for hours, waiting without a sound, until the instant the first mortars fired. Then they came to their feet behind a hailstorm of hand grenades, bayonets fixed on their whitewashed M96 rifles.

The entrenchments were more rudimentary than anything the ICA would have tolerated. First, because it had been so difficult to hack them out of the frozen ground, but second — and more damingly — because no one had really expected to need them before spring. There would be plenty of time to deepen the trenches, build the shallow parapets higher, before the heretics could possibly advance this far. More effort had been expended on the dugouts threaded along the trenches, but that was mainly because they also served as snugger, better insulated barracks for the infantry companies assigned to man them. It certainly hadn’t been because anyone anticipated an actual attack, and the startled sentries, minds numbed as much by routine as by cold and hunger, never had a chance. They were swept away in the first rush, before most of them even realized they were under attack, and the infantry platoons sheltering in those dugouts for warmth had only a very little more warning. They were just beginning to pour out of them when the scout snipers arrived among them in a blizzard of bullets and bayonets. Men who normally would have stood their ground in the face of the most furious assault gave way, succumbing to a panic born of surprise, not cowardice. Dozens fell as the scout snipers’ fire swept over them, others went down, screaming, as bayonets drove into them, and even as they died, the dreadful rain of mortar bombs doubled and redoubled in fury behind them.

The defenders fell back. They more than “fell back;” they routed. Many threw away the weapons which might have hindered their flight. Others fled back into the dugouts from which they’d come, only to discover the horrific depth of their error when scout snipers tossed grenades in behind them and turned their protection into charnel houses. And while one platoon in each scout sniper company dealt with that problem, the other three spread out along the captured trenches. They found firing positions among the defenders’ bodies, and most of them removed the outer gloves from their right hands, retaining only the knitted glove liners, to improve their ability to manipulate bolt handles and triggers.

Each man had seventy rounds — one ten-round magazine already locked into his rifle’s magazine well and six additional charged magazines in the ammunition pouches affixed to his web gear — and all along the captured trench line, scout snipers unbuttoned their ammo pouches and made sure those extra magazines were ready to hand. Behind them, the four infantry companies of Major Sethry Ahdyms’ 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry, slogged forward to reinforce them. And behind 2nd Battalion, more support squads dashed forward from the stream bank dragging their sled-mounted weapons up to the far side of the entrenchments, where the parapet concealed them from the defenders, to provide the close fire support which was so fundamental a part of Charisian tactics.

By the time the first counterattacking companies of Colonel Sahndyr’s 4th Regiment emerged from the smoke, dust, and flying snow of the bombardment, the scout snipers were ready. For the first time in Safeholdian history, magazine-fed, bolt action rifles came into action on a field of battle, and the result was horrendous. The first savage volleys went home before the scout snipers’ targets realized what was happening, while they were still moving forward in column formation under their officers’ orders. They took a minute to grasp what was happening — to realize they were being killed by rifle bullets coming from in front of them rather than shrapnel and explosions from above — and they kept surging forward towards the illusory protection of the trenches they didn’t know had been occupied by their enemies.

At least a tenth of them were killed or wounded before they understood what was truly happening. Worse, casualties were disproportionately concentrated among their noncoms and junior officers. Despite that, the majority responded by going prone and spreading out to make themselves poorer targets, not by simply turning around and pelting back the way they’d come in terrified retreat. Many of them did begin working their way back, crawling on their bellies towards the inner of the town’s two lines of entrenchments, but 4th Regiment had been rearmed with St. Kylmahns. Two of its companies found cover in folds in the ground or behind sidewalks, planters, walls, trees — anything they could — and returned fire, trying desperately to cover their companions’ retreat.

Single-shot breech-loading weapons were far from equal to the Charisians’ M96s, but they were also far more effective than muzzleloaders would have been, and the scout snipers began taking casualties of their own, despite their protected positions. Still, they were taking many fewer casualties, even proportionately, and the mortars which had come up so close behind them began raining shrapnel on the defenders.

“Fall back! Fall back!”

No one would ever know who first shouted that command, but it was the right order to give. The decimated Church riflemen staggered toward the rear, moving in short dashes between inadequate bits of cover. They’d never been trained in the movement and fire tactics the ICA routinely employed, but sheer, dogged stubbornness prevented their retreat from turning into a rout, despite the confusion, chaos, and casualties. Men stopped to fire back again and again, effectively covering their fellows’ movement even if no one had ever trained them to do so. The loss rate was unambiguously in the scout snipers’ favor, but it was lower than it might have been. Almost half of 4th Regiment’s two hundred riflemen made it back to the second trench line alive.

They flung themselves into position, looking around, realizing how many comrades they’d already lost, hearing the explosions and carnage ripping the town apart around them, and their eyes were wild. There were few cowards among them, but the certainty of eventual defeat had sunk its fangs deep into their bones, and they could see it in one anothers’ faces.

“Reload!” a surviving lieutenant was shouting. “Keep your heads down, reload, and fix bayonets! This time it’ll be their turn to come out in the open!”

The men of the Fourth obeyed; there was nothing else they could do.

Five minutes passed, then ten. Fifteen.

Cold gnawed into inadequately clothed bodies. The moans, whimpers, and sobs of the wounded faded quickly in the icy temperatures. The thunderous mortar bombardment went on – punctuated by a handful of much larger explosions when plunging bombs found the garrison’s ammunition dumps — then tapered off. The crackling roar as flames consumed the shelter which spelled survival was like a dozen blast furnaces, and the shrieks of men trapped inside the inferno were the voices of souls condemned to Shan-wei’s own hell.

Twenty minutes. Thirty . . . then another Charisian signal rocket soared into the heavens and, all the more terrible for the nerve-twisting wait, a hurricane of antipersonnel bombs shrieked down upon them. Billowing smoke and blazing wreckage interfered with the Charisian ASPs vision, but they knew approximately where the second line of entrenchments had been dug, and each bomb was an airburst, fused to disperse its shrapnel over a circle fifty yards in diameter. The only overhead protection was in the dugouts spaced along the trenches at regular intervals, and many of the defenders retreated into them . . . which was exactly what their enemies had wanted.

The Imperial Charisian Army’s signals capability was better than that of any other Safeholdian army, yet it remained almost entirely dependent upon visual signals. Whistles and bugles could be used to augment runners — and the new flare pistols just coming into service — at relatively short range. But audible signals were all too easily drowned out in the background roar of battle and runners could too easily become lost. Although Charisian supporting fire could be coordinated and controlled with a sophistication no one else could match, signals were more likely to go astray than to reach their intended recipients once smoke began to obscure the battlefield. Initial fire missions could be preplanned, but “on call” fire was much more difficult and far more dangerous, given the high possibility of friendly fire incidents.

No one was better aware of that than Kynt Clareyk, who’d spent months developing the ICA’s artillery doctrine. He’d stressed the need for concentration of fire, for exercising the tightest possible control yet recognizing that truly “tight” control would be impossible, and the artillerists had come up with several approaches to the problem. As much as possible, they released the mortars to specific rifle companies or even platoons, ready to put fire where it was requested by the units they were tasked to support but never firing in anyone else’s support. That might mean they spent a lot of time standing idle, but it also decreased the chance of dropping rounds on friendly troops they hadn’t known were there.

They’d also allowed for fire support at the battalion or regimental level, however, and devised standardized fire missions, like the one Major Sethry Ahdyms’ 2nd Battalion had just called for. And for those sorts of missions, all of the units’ mortars could be concentrated, with control temporarily reverting from the forward companies to higher authority. It could be difficult to get the word out when such a mission was required, and it relied more heavily on signal rockets than on runners, semaphores, and mirrors. It was also accepted that some of the support platoons who hadn’t gotten the word would be unable to contribute to the mission, but it could be done.

Fire hammered down on the defenders, designed not simply to kill them but to pin them, drive them to earth — or down into the dugouts — in self-preservation. And as the mortars flailed them, the companies detailed to lead the Charisian assault moved out of the original trench line. They stayed low, close to the ground, easing forward while the supporting fire kept the defenders’ down.

It was a timed fire concentration. There was too much chance a ceasefire signal from the assault troops might be missed by some or all of the gunners supporting them, so the mortars fired steadily for fifteen minutes. It was the infantry’s responsibility to be in position, waiting and ready when the fire mission ended as abruptly as a slammed door exactly fifteen minutes after it had begun.

The way 2nd Battalon was.

The handful of dazed, all too often wounded Church riflemen in the threshed and shattered trenches didn’t understand why the fire had stopped. They didn’t even realize for a second or two that it had.

But then a bugle blared, and suddenly white-smocked infantrymen were on their feet, erupting from the fogbanks of smoke like Shan-wei’s own demons behind a thicket of bayonets and the high, piercing howl the ICA had adopted from the Royal Charisian Marines.

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