A Cat Of Silvery Hue (16 page)

Midsummer was three weeks gone when the vanguard of the Confederation forces passed the cairns marking the Morguhn-Vawn border and trotted southwest along the ascending grade of the traderoad, the force strung out for miles behind them—heavily armed noble cavalry,
kahtahfrahktoee
, Freefighters, rank upon rank of the various types of infantry, sappers and engineers with their dismantled engines and wagonloads of other equipment, “flesh tailors” or medical personnel and their wagons, then the seemingly endless baggage and supply train, followed by a strong mounted rearguard and flanked by scattered lancers, Freefighters and the Sanderz clansmen. The great cats had all been left in Morguhn, since their value in static warfare was practically nil and their dietary requirements—fresh meat, many pounds per day per cat—would have placed an added burden on an already harried supply service, but Milo had promised them all that when the time for the intaking of Vawnpolis came they would be speedily fetched.

That night’s camp was pitched among the hills of Vawn, centered about what had been the hall of
Vahrohnos
Hehrbuht Pehree, now looted and empty, but still habitable. In the high-ceilinged dining chamber were gathered the
arhkeethoheeks
, the ten
thoheeksee
, Milo, Aldora and the siegemaster of the Confederation, just down from Kehnooryos Atheenahs.

On the high table about which they stood or sat reposed a huge box of sand containing a representation of Vawnpolis and its immediate environs—the countryside reproduced from army maps and the city layout from the original plans, brought from the capital.

The siegemaster, one Ehdt Gahthwahlt, a Yorkburker veteran of twenty years of campaigning across the length and breadth of the Middle Kingdoms, ere he sold his sword to the High Lord and settled in the Confederation to instruct officers in the arts of siegecraft, had personally constructed the mockup. Scratching at his grizzled, balding head, he said self-deprecatingly, “Of course, noble gentlemen and lady, we were wise to draft but the most superficial plans and stratagems at this time, for, though I followed faithfully the rendering”—he used his pointer to indicate the ceramic miniatures of walls, gates and towers, and the minuscule citadel, from whose highest point jutted a tiny pennon bearing the Ehleen Cross, emblem of the rebels—”the place was founded more than fifty years ago, and cities have a way of changing.”

Thoheeks
Skaht raised his winecup. “I’ll drink to that, lord
strahteegos
. What you have before us could be my very own city of Skahtpolis—as it looks in the old plans and a few paintings. But the city I rule be vastly different.”

“Yes,” nodded Milo. “All the cities of border duchies were laid out from almost the same plan, the one originated by the famous
Strahteegos
Gabos and refined by others after his time. Even today, border cities are laid out in the same basic manner, allowing for differences in terrain and foemen.”

“At any rate, noble gentlemen and lady,” Gahthwahlt went on, “we may assume that some astute commander, at some time or other, has made compensation for the two most glaring weaknesses in the original defenses.” Again he made use of the pointer. “These two hillocks, either of which would provide perfect mounts for engines to bombard the city or to give deadly effective support to troops storming this low section of wall, have most certainly been either leveled or fortified; and this total absence of advance defenses for the four main gates has without doubt been remedied. Upon their return, our scouts will be able to enlighten us as regards these or other refinements.”

“I am reliably informed that, since deep wells were drilled some score of years agone, the stream, which formerly entered under this stretch of the north wall and exited near to the south gate, has been diverted to another bed bypassing the city, and the entry arches have been plugged. Nonetheless, lacking better alternatives, we might consider saps at either place or at both, since it has been my experience that subsurface wall additions or reinforcements be often of inferior materials.”

Bili and most of the other nobles sat rapt. It was not often that a country
thoheeks
was the recipient of instruction in land warfare from one of the High Lord’s picked professionals. But not
Thoheeks
Hwil of Blue Mountain. After a booming “Harumpf!” to gain attention, he said shortly, almost rudely, “Oh, aye, all this of saps and sieges and sorties is very well if we mean to be here come shearing time. But Sun and Wind, man, we’ve got some thirty thousand men behind our banners, and I doubt me there’s ten thousand fighting men in all of Vawn, unless”—he chuckled at such absurdity—”they’ve managed to pact with the Taishuhns or Frainyuhns or suchlike mountain tribes. So why can we not just ride over the boy-loving bastards, throw enough rock and shafts to keep them pinned down and just go over those damned walls?”

Gahthwahlt listened, scratching his scalp, his head cocked to one side. At Dailee’s final question, he nodded. “Ah, noble sir, but you forget the mathematics of the siege. One man behind fortifications, if decently armed and supplied, is the equal of three and one-half men on the attack. However, since Vawnpolis is not on a par with a true burk, its wall originally having been reared to counter nothing more dangerous than a few hundred or thousand barbarian irregulars, I did the calculations for a frontal assault early on.”

“My figures were these: maximum defensive force, not over twelve thousand effectives; maximum attacking force, twenty thousand infantry, dismounted nobles and Freefighters, plus a mounted contingent of six thousand nobles and
kahtahfrahktoee
to enter the city as one or more gates be won; a bombardment of pitchballs and stone and fireshafts on the night preceding the attack, with the heaviest concentration along the area of the diversionary assault; attacks scheduled for one hour after sunrise—which in my experience means that they should commence before noon, anyway—”

At this, Bili guffawed. His experience with planned assaults had been precisely the same.

“—with a great show of force and intent being massed within sight of the diversionary area, while, at the same time, a token force makes a deliberately weak effort at the primary area to feel out the terrain and defenses, and convince the defenders that this weak attack be the diversion and that the main assault will assuredly be delivered where our forces are clearly massing.”

“With the retreat of the token force, the diversionary attack will be launched, covered up to the walls by all the massed engines. When this assault be well underway, most of the engines will either be moved or, in the cases of the heavier ones, will redirect their fire to provide cover for the main assault, which will be delivered at a point lying at a right angle to that of the diversion.”

“Barring blunders or calamities, the wall facing the main force should be carried within an hour or less of the initial engagements and the cavalry should be in the streets soon thereafter. There will naturally be some street fighting but the wall towers and the Citadel should be the only additional obstacles to the completion of the intaking. However—”

Broadly beaming, the Dailee slapped both big hands on the tabletop and arose. “Now
that
, Sir Ehdt, is the kind of plan you should have mentioned at the start! My lord Milo, my lady Aldora, gentlemen, such a venture has Dailee’s endorsement. How say the rest of you?”

Bili shook his shaven poll. “With all due respect,
Thoheeks
Hwil, frontal assaults, even one so expertly planned as Sir Ehdt’s, are usually quite costly. I think, ere we move to adopt it, we should hear the projected butchers’ bill.”

The siegemaster smiled his thanks to the youngest
thoheeks
, then continued soberly. “
Thoheeks
Bili be correct, lady and gentlemen. My calculations indicate that a
minimum
of ten thousand casualties will be sustained, should we be so rash as to mount the aforementioned attack. This figure includes both killed and wounded, and the largest percentage will be of course amongst the dismounted nobles who lead the two wall assaults—possibly as high a figure as five out of every six.”

“And what duchy,” put in Milo, “can afford to lose so large a proportion of its nobility?”

“Certainly not mine,” nodded the Dailee grimly. “I withdraw my endorsement. And when next I open my impetuous mouth, I give all here leave to stuff a jackboot in it.”

The
arhkeethoheeks
laughed. “I doubt me there is enough jackboots in all the Confederation to stop that void, Hwilee! But let us hear Sir Ehdt’s other schemes, eh?”

The siegemaster flexed his pointer, rocking back and forth on heels and toes. “The least expensive method, in all save time, is simply to invest the objective and starve out the enemy; but it might well be shearing time or later ere we could do such.”

“Another method would depend principally on the rashness and gullibility of their leaders, as well as the acting abilities of our own troops. Under the proper circumstances, we could trick them into one or more sallies in force, thus wearing down their garrison. But I remember Major
Vahrohnos
Myros as a most cautious man, and I scarce think me he’d succumb to such a temptation.”

Milo remarked, “Oh, I don’t know, Ehdt—he showed some ruinous errors of judgment in the course of that abortive siege on Morguhn Hall. I said, in the beginning and all along, that I think the man is slowly losing his mind. Such is the principal weakness of geniuses—and I don’t think anyone who knew him well, in his short prime, can deny that he was once a military genius.”

“But,” asked Bili, “how do we know that he is even directing the defense? After all, according to the tale those captured priests tell, he deserted his ragtag army on the night of the sortie, fled back to Morguhnpolis with his bodyguard and that wretched sub-
kooreeos
. What men would entrust their lives a second time to such a craven?”

Aldora’s voice was soft, but grave. “Oh, no, Bili, Myros is no coward; he
can
be brave past the point of recklessness. But he is…well, erratic. And he seems to take a perverse pleasure in turning, for no discernible reason, on every ally, of sooner or later betraying every trust. But never, ever, make the mistake of underestimating the bastard’s personal courage, my love,
or
his abilities, for he is an astute strategist and a crafty tactician.”

“And,” Milo added, “of the few rebellious nobles in Vawnpolis, he has the only trained and experienced military mind. From the reports we received from our agents within Vawnpolis ere the city was sealed, it was certain that the director of the defense was no tyro at siegecraft. And I find it impossible to believe that the Morguhn nobleman,
Vahrohneeskos
Drehkos Daiviz, who was named as leader in all those reports, could truly have been responsible for such brilliant innovations. But this same Drehkos—”

“Your pardon, my lord Milo,” put in
Thoheeks
Djak Tahmzuhn, youngest after Bili of the high nobles, “but I recall hearing my late sire speak right often of a Daiviz of Morguhn with whom he soldiered in the Middle Kingdoms some twoscore years agone. If this be him—”

“But it is not the same man, cousin,” Bili answered him. “That man was his elder brother, Hari, the present
Komees
Daiviz of Morguhn, hereditary Lord of Horse County of my duchy. Drehkos, the rebel, has never been out of the Confederation, seldom even been beyond the borders of the archduchy, and always avoided military experience like the plague. So, as the High Lord said, it were virtually impossible to credit so provincial and untrained a man with all that has been laid at his doorstep.”

“On the other hand,” Milo took up, “it is highly likely that so devious a brain as Myros’ would strike upon the stratagem, since his precipitate flight from Morguhn Hall no doubt cost him the trust and loyalty of the other rebels, of using Drehkos Daiviz—whom we now know to have long been his satellite and his spy among the loyal Kindred of Morguhn—as his public face, the mouth through which his orders come. Therefore we all must proceed, must lay our plans, on the assumption that the commander opposing us is as one of us, that he well knows the strengths and weaknesses of Confederation forces and will conduct his own resources accordingly. However, as he knows us, we also know him, know of his frequently overcautious nature, of his occasional indecisiveness, of his penchant for turnabouts and betrayals, of his vanity and arrogance. Armed with such knowledge, we should be able to almost read the man’s actions long ere they’re performed and, with the services of a master strategist of the water of Sir Ehdt, as well as two such able tacticians as High Lady Aldora and
Thoheeks
Bili, when once we’re before those walls we should quickly gain the upper hand. This rebellion should be scotched by harvest time.”

In the camp of the Morguhn Freefighters, their numbers swelled both by the additions of the contingents of the Morguhn and Daiviz petty nobles and by Bili’s fresh recruitments, nearly two hundred warriors lazed about their cookfires, bragging, lying, swapping lewd tales, discussing women and weapons and horses and women and past battles and former patrons and women, dicing and doing necessary maintenance on their gear. Within a torchlit area, ten pairs of men clad in weighted brigandines and full-face helms stamped and shouted and swung blunted swords, under the watchful eyes of a scar-faced weapon master, whose hoarse bellows of instruction or reprimand rang even above the din of the mock combats. In a nearby area, more pairs practiced spearwork, while others took turns casting darts or dirks or light axes at man-sized logs or bundles of straw and a group of archers honed their skills on more difficult and tricky targets. As the men tired and went back to quaff watered wine at the firesides, their places and equipment were readily taken by onlookers. For these were all professionals, men whose lives and livings depended upon consummate ability to utilize a variety of weapons, and they would seldom pass up an opportunity to polish their dexterity.