There’d been no survivors from any of the merchantmen or from HMS Thistle. The only “good” news from that perspective was that all of the wounded had been slaughtered out of hand rather than returned to Desnair for the Punishment. The captured cargoes, however, had provided Desinair with five thousand precious M96 rifles, almost a hundred three-inch mortars, and two entire batteries of four-inch rifled field guns . . . among other things. Charis was only lucky the damage hadn’t been still worse — and that the overwhelmed escorts had been able to protect the troopships. But Rock Point couldn’t count on that happening the next time around, and what had been a constant, niggling trickle of losses in other privateer attacks was growing steadily more serious.
Rock Point grimaced around his pipe stem, then struck a Shan-wei’s candle and lit it. He took time to be sure it was drawing properly, savoring the sweet taste of the smoke, before he waved out the candle and dropped it into an ashtray. Then he sighed heavily and admitted the disagreeable truth.
Even with the Navy straining every sinew, he simply didn’t have the escorts to put every merchantman into a convoy. Over a third of all Charisian merchantmen were still forced to sail independently, and while almost all of them were now armed, they were scarcely regular men-of-war. Nor did Rock Point have the ship strength to blockade such an enormous coastline in order to prevent the raiders from getting to sea to attack them. That was the reason Shain was in the Gulf of Jahras . . . and also the reason the high admiral wouldn’t be sending the first new Cities off to Claw Island, after all. No, he was going to have a better use — or a more pressing one, at least — for those ships considerably closer to home. Sharpfield was just going to have to make do until more of the Cities were available, and it was entirely likely the King Haraahlds would be ready by then, as well.
Sir Domnyk Staynair didn’t like it, but that was just the way it was. And however much he respected Thirsk’s capabilities, at least when Sharpfield did receive his reinforcements, there wasn’t going to be one damned thing Dohlar could do about it. And in the meantime . . . .
Zhaztro’s not going to like it, either, he reflected, drawing on his pipe. I imagine he’s going to squawk about it — respectfully, of course! — when I break the news to him, too. But he’ll get over it, especially when he considers the consolation prize. And — the high admiral smiled grimly — he’ll do one hell of a good job once he does.
.IV.
West of Allyntyn,
Northland Province,
Republic of Siddarmark
The cold was bone-numbing.
At least there wasn’t any wind, but even without the extra chill factor, the midday temperature had climbed no higher than twelve degrees on the Fahrenheit scale, and it was already falling steeply once more. After sunset it would drop to twenty degrees below zero — or lower — on the same scale, and the wind would be picking up once more as another arctic front began making its way through sometime after Langhorne’s Watch. Snow lay horse knee-high and powdery on level ground; where any obstacle had offered the opportunity, drifts with sharply sculpted edges rose as high as a man’s head or higher. The breath of the Raven’s Land caribou hauling the heavy sleds rose like smoke in the frigid air, and the sturdy High Hallows under the mounted men jetted white vapor like the fumes of an Old Earth dragon. The sky was a polished blue bowl, harder and colder than steel, without a hint of cloud. It was only a few hours past midday, but the sun was already well to the west, dipping towards the peaks of the Meirstrom Mointains and promising that the brief northern evening — and much longer winter night — were not far away.
It was one of the coldest, bleakest vistas imaginable, Kynt Clareyk, the Baron of Green Valley, thought approvingly. He had no doubt the men of 1st Corps sorely missed the snug barracks they’d enjoyed at Allyntyn, but that was fine with him. And with them, too, if the truth be known. They were as impatient to be about their assigned task as he was.
He glanced to the northeast, where a party of Siddarmarkian engineers swarmed about the fire-charred skeleton of a semaphore station. There was no way to tell whether it had been fired by Temple Loyalists during the Sword of Schueler’s initial onslaught or by Siddarmarkians loyal to their lord protector as they were driven from Northland by the rebellion, but whoever had set the blaze had done a less than thorough job of actually wrecking the station. Cables, pulleys, and the roof of the station crew’s barracks had been destroyed, yet the towering masts and the barracks’ stone walls remained, and the engineers would have it back in service by tomorrow afternoon. The stations were closer together across the bleak, rolling tableland of the Midhold Plateau because of how bad visibility became in the winter. Even with them restored to service, Green Valley’s communications with Allyntyn were likely to be sporadic, given that same limited visibility, but they ought to be good enough. His communications with the rest of the inner circle couldn’t care less about weather conditions, but since he’d left close to two thirds of the Army of Midhold behind at Allyntyn under General Dymytryoh Brohkamp, who commanded his 2nd Corps, it behooved him to maintain the closest contact with Brohkamp that he could.
There was a reason he’d stripped Brigadier Wylsynn Traigair’s 3rd Brigade, out of 1st Corps, transferred it temporarily to 2nd Corps, and left Brohkamp behind. Without Traigair, General Ahntahn Makrohry’s 1st Corps consisted only of two battalions of the 1st Scout Sniper Regiment, 3rd Mounted Brigade, and General Eystavyo Gardynyr’s 4th Division (Mountain). On the other hand, Makrohry himself had been raised amid the beautiful, bitter peaks of northern Chisholm’s Snow Crest Mountains, and all of his units had been exhaustively trained in winter warfare at Raylzberg, perched high in the westernmost spur of the Lonely Mountains above High Hallow’s Stonewater Lake. The Royal Chisholmian Army had made a point of acclimating all of its units to winter marches, but only about a third of the entire army had been trained in actual winter war fighting, which was a much more demanding regimen.
