By Heresies Distressed (43 page)

What I ought to do is tell them to take it up with Cayleb
, he thought bitingly.
Unfortunately, that's not a very practical response
.

“I realize the situation is bad,” he said instead, addressing the entire delegation crowded into his office. “Unhappily, all I can tell you at this time is that it's likely to get still worse before it gets any better.”

“But—!” the complainer began, waving both hands in the air.

“I'm sure all of you are well aware of the danger the entire League faces,” Tartarian continued, overriding the other man ruthlessly. “At this time, all of our available warships are tied down defending major ports. I'm afraid it's simply impossible to free any of them up to protect our shipping.”
Assuming even for an instant that they could somehow fight their way out of harbor against the Charisian Navy
, he added to himself. “As I've already told you, Earl Anvil Rock has agreed to assign every available man to coast defense. What
can
be done
is
being done, and I assure you all that we will continue to search for additional measures we can implement. But in all honesty, our resources are so heavily committed to resisting the invasion that I very much doubt we'll be able to make much difference against these shipping and coastal raids. I'm sorry, but that's simply the way it is, and I'm not going to sit here and lie to you by making promises I can't keep.”

The loudmouth with the waving hands had opened his mouth again while Tartarian was talking. Now he closed it with a snap and looked around him at his fellow “delegates.” Most of them looked as angry and unhappy as he did, but several of them were also shaking their heads at him, and Tartarian felt a trickle of relief. What he'd just told them obviously wasn't what they wanted to hear, but there was no way any reasonable man could have disputed a single thing he'd said.

Fortunately, there were enough reasonable men in the delegation to get them back out of Tartarian's office without his actually having to order the loudmouth taken out and shot.

Not
, the earl reflected, standing as his “visitors” filed back out the door,
that it wouldn't have been much more satisfying to just go ahead and have him shot. Surely the Prince wouldn't begrudge me
one
little execution after all of the crap I've diverted from the Palace!

The thought restored some needed balance to his day, and he snorted in harsh amusement. Maybe he owed that big-mouthed idiot some thanks after all. It wasn't likely that he was going to find anything else to amuse him today.

He glanced at the clock ticking away on his wall and grimaced. If he left now, he'd just be in time for this afternoon's meeting of Prince Hektor's senior advisers.

Which
, he thought,
is probably going to be even less amusing than
this
meeting was
.

“My Prince, I don't want to sound like I sympathize overmuch with the pain-in-the-arse bleaters who have been besieging Taryl's office, but they do have a point,” Sir Lyndahr Raimynd said almost apologetically.

Prince Hektor gave him a moderately ugly glance, but the treasurer didn't flinch. First, because what he'd said was true, and second, because he knew Hektor's ire wasn't actually directed at
him
.

“I'm not saying I plan on shedding any tears over their personal losses, My Prince,” he said. “I'm only trying to point out two things. First, we're suffering not simply property and financial losses, but also the loss of capabilities we may need badly later. And, second, the perception that the Charisians can operate with impunity along the coast of the capital duchy itself is beginning to have a serious impact on your subjects' morale. I can see definite signs of that among the members of the merchant and manufactory associations, and I'm sure it's affecting all of our people to at least some extent.”

“I can't disagree with anything Lyndahr's just said, My Prince,” Tartarian said, before Hektor could speak. “The problem is that I don't see anything we
can
do about it. Cayleb's scouts have located every warship we have. He has his damned schooners patrolling off of every port where they've found one of my galleons, and every one of those schooners has a squadron or so of
Charisian
galleons waiting, just out of sight from shore, to be summoned if any of my captains tries to put to sea.”

“Could we possibly transfer some additional strength from the Dark Hills?” Raimynd asked anxiously, looking back and forth between Hektor and Earl Anvil Rock.

“I don't see how—” Anvil Rock began, but Hektor cut him off.

“No,” he said firmly, almost harshly. Then he shook his head, like a horse irritated by a fly, and smiled a little crookedly at Raimynd. “I'm not trying to bite your head off, Lyndahr. To be honest, I'd
like
to bite someone's head off, if only to relieve my frustration. But I don't intend to start with the man who manages my finances and who's only trying to tell me the truth.”

Raimynd returned his prince's smile and bobbed his head in acknowledgment of the semi-apology, and Hektor continued.

“At the moment, Koryn's position at Talbor Pass is the only thing keeping Cayleb's entire army out of Manchyr. I rather suspect that what he could do with forty or fifty thousand Marines, especially since all of them seem to have those Shan-wei-damned rifles, would dwarf what we're seeing now. Not to mention costing me the capital, which would also have a somewhat negative effect on morale.”

“I understand that, My Prince,” Raimynd said. “At the same time, though, I'm worried about the possibility Taryl raised at the very beginning. What if Cayleb decides to use his transports to swing his entire army around behind Sir Koryn without ever attacking his position at Talbor?”

“He might still do that,” Anvil Rock said.

The earl looked older than he had a month or two before. The shocking totality of his son's defeat at Haryl's Crossing—and the news that Sir Charlz Doyal had been seriously wounded and captured by the Charisians—had shaken him badly. As he and Hektor had pored over Gahrvai's reports, they'd realized that what had happened was certainly not his fault. Or, for that matter, anyone else's. The fact that he'd gotten even four thousand of his infantry, and virtually all of his cavalry, out of the Charisian trap was remarkable, under the circumstances . . . and also explained what had happened to Doyal and virtually all of his artillerists. But what had happened at Haryl's Crossing was a grim warning that any future battle in anything remotely like open terrain would be an expensive proposition.

And it hadn't done the confidence and morale of his troops one bit of good, either.

“He might still do it,” Anvil Rock repeated. “In fact, I half expect him to. At the moment, according to our own scouts, he's short of the troop lift he'd need to reembark his entire army. It sounds as if he had too much shipping for Dairos and sent the rest of his transports back to Chisholm or Zebediah to ride out the storm season. That's probably what's stopping him for now. He doesn't want to send
half
of his army out to the end of a limb Koryn might manage to saw off behind him. And he's also still very short of cavalry. It doesn't look like he has more than four or five thousand horse, total, which means that once he gets inland,
we
have the mobility advantage.”

“Do you think he'll move to his right? Use one of the more northern passes, instead?” Tartarian asked, and Anvil Rock shook his head.

“I doubt it, for a couple of reasons. First, as I just said, he's very short on cavalry. If he starts pulling troops away from Talbor and sending them north, Koryn has Windshare's cavalry scouts hovering off Cayleb's flanks, watching for exactly something like that. If he heads inland with an infantry army, Windshare will definitely be able to get a force into position to block any of the other passes before he reaches them. Cavalry alone isn't going to stop Charisian Marines with rifles, of course. But Windshare's troopers will at least slow them down, and Koryn's infantry can march just as quickly as Charisians can. Not only that, but there are defensive positions in most of those passes which are almost as good as the ground at Talbor. Not quite, but almost. So he's not going to gain any significant tactical advantage by moving north, and doing that would also take him further away from his own base of operations and from the coast, where he can best utilize his seapower advantage effectively.”

“Which he isn't going to want to do,” Tartarian said, nodding in understanding and agreement.

“Exactly.” Anvil Rock grimaced. “I'm not proposing any sort of boundless optimism here, but I'm beginning to think Cayleb may plan on staying put in Dairwyn until he decides he can risk the weather and bring his transports back to Dairos. At that point, of course, I'm afraid he
is
going to look for ways to break his army loose in Koryn's rear by hitting us here, closer to the capital.”

“He won't take on Manchyr's batteries,” Hektor said confidently. “And by the time he could get here, the earthworks you and your men are throwing up to cover the landward side of the city are going to be almost as tough.”

“Agreed.” Anvil Rock nodded, but his expression remained unhappy. “I'm not really concerned about the capital's immediate security, My Prince. He can have all of the rifles he wants, but as long as our men keep their heads down behind a good, solid earthwork, he won't be able to get at them without coming into musket range. And as nasty as his field artillery is, it doesn't have the range or the weight to stand up to the heavy guns we're mounting in the fortifications. He'd need siege artillery for that, and we've seen no sign of such heavy guns yet. Of course, he can always land dozens of heavy guns from his fleet, but he's going to want to have a secure anchorage somewhere close to Manchyr before he does that. He's certainly not going to want to drag naval guns and carriages any further overland than he absolutely has to!

“But if he manages to pen up a substantial portion of our troop strength as a garrison here in the capital, that frees his own forces to maneuver against other cities, or inflict damage on our manufactories and farms that would make anything we've seen out of his landing parties so far seem like no more than a minor annoyance. If he puts the capital under siege, our situation is going to be about as grim as it gets.”

“If he manages that, then I may have to go ahead and sue for terms.” Hektor looked like a man sucking on sour persimmon figs.

“My Prince—” Earl Coris began, his own expression concerned, but Hektor shook his head.

“Don't say it, Phylyp. And don't think you're worrying about anything
I
haven't worried about. Still, that fat little bugger Nahrmahn seems to have made out remarkably well, doesn't he?”

Hektor's expression turned more sour than ever. Anything less like a cat-lizard than the rotund Prince of Emerald would be difficult to imagine, but the little bastard had most definitely landed on his feet. Hektor didn't know which irritated him more. The fact that Nahrmahn had so promptly and effortlessly deserted to the other side—and done so damnably
well
out of it!—or the fact that he himself had obviously been underestimating the Emeraldian for years.

“With all due respect, My Prince—” Coris said.

“Oh, I know how much Cayleb hates me. To be honest, I can't say I blame him; in his shoes I'd probably feel the same. No, let's be fair. If I were in his shoes, I
would
hate my guts. After all, I've been trying to break Charis for years now, and it was my Navy which managed to kill his father at Darcos Sound. On the other hand, Haarald died in open battle, and
I'm
not the one who tried to have Cayleb himself assassinated and conspired with his cousin to usurp his father's throne. Oh, and let's not forget that a successful usurpation would have required his father's murder, as well. And probably his younger brother's, too.”

“No,” Coris acknowledged in the voice of a man edging delicately into dangerous waters. “Still, My Prince, don't forget that Cayleb is a married man now. And however he might feel about you, I don't believe there's much question about how
Sharleyan
feels.”

“Believe me, that's not a point I'm likely to forget.” Hektor showed his teeth in what definitely was
not
a smile. “If it weren't for that unfortunate little fact, I might already have tried opening negotiations with him. Still, if he has the choice between making at least minimal concessions to me or seeing several thousand more people killed—and this time, quite a few of them would be
his
men, not just ours—he may decide to turn reasonable. Whatever else he may be, and leaving aside our own propaganda on that point, he's not
really
a bloodthirsty monster, you know. An extraordinarily dangerous—and pissed-off—young man, I'll grant you, but not a monster.”