John Dalmas - The Lion Returns

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.

"Incidentally, the dwarves are said not to have pikemen; a remarkable and serious lack. If the result is what I expect, this will be an extremely important victory for us. We will have wiped out an army which has enormous prestige in Vismearc.

"As support, I have ordered Prince Chithqosz and his circle to accompany Trumpko's force. The dwarven trade embassy at Colroi seemed quite unaffected by our use of monsters and panic storms, but they may be susceptible to concealment screens. We will see."

Again he looked them over. "If any of you have questions or suggestions, now is the time to voice them. Before we discuss longer term prospects, and I assign further tasks."

That autumn, during the Tigers' preparations for the expedition, the Cloister's teams of textile and garment makers had given their full efforts to preparing "rakutik uniforms." The actual rakutik uniforms they had as models were woolen, and presumably worn in winter. But the jackets were inadequate for living and fighting in the field in winter, and no one knew what their heavy field coats looked like, or even if they had any.

Macurdy had told the Sisters in charge to do the best they could. With his guidance, they created a winter coat design of their own-knee-length and fleece-lined, with large side pockets for gauntleted winter gloves. The exterior design and color resembled those of the autumn jackets.

They exercised the same creativity in producing winter caps-fleece-lined with ear flaps. The Tigers would wear fleece-lined versions of their own boots, and new, fur-lined mittens.

It wasn't as if they were going to stand inspection by the voitik crown prince, Macurdy thought.

Production took time, and he wanted his Tigers in action. So when they'd left the Cloister, only four companies of the 1st Cohort-what Macurdy called a "short cohort"-had been dressed as rakutur. The fifth company, still wearing Tiger uniforms, had been reassigned to the 2nd Cohort.

When they reached the confluence of the Pomatik River's Middle and North Forks, Macurdy sent the 2nd Cohort, six companies strong, west to the confluence of the Merrawin, with now full Colonel Horgent commanding.

Through the great ravens, he'd learned that the Asmehri scouts, and the Kullvordi and Kormehri, had reached ylvin lines. The Ozian Heroes would soon follow. He ordered them all to remain with the ylvin army, west of the Deep River, till people from Cyncaidh's raiders could brief them on their tactics and experiences. Finn Greatsword had cajoled a second company of Asmehri out of the wofhemst. Both companies were providing roadblocking teams, half using axes, the rest protecting them.

The 2nd Tiger Cohort arrived at the town of West Fork on the same day as the lead unit of dwarves. The river was thickly ice-covered now. Rather than cross where the dwarves planned to, Horgent led his force another few hours upstream, and crossed there by night. No snow had fallen since the river had frozen, so they left no conspicuous tracks on the ice.