The Cerberus Rebellion (A Griffins & Gunpowder Novel) (29 page)

Eadric leaned back in his chair and smiled a vicious smile. He had the chance to bring this war to a swift end and he wasn’t going to let it slip through his hands. Magnus had made a mistake in revealing his presence on the field of battle and Eadric had every intention of making the rebel leader account for that mistake personally.

“It is late in the day,” Eadric announced. “Pass the order for the divisions to rest for the night, but to be ready to advance at first light.”

“Of course,” Alden stood, bowed and hurried from the pavilion to pass the word.

“Do you think this may be a ruse?” William asked when he was once again alone—or as alone as one could be with the towering Kendall Shield present—with his king. “There’s no way of knowing if the man that claims to be Lord Jarmann was really the duke at all.”

“You’re right,” Eadric allowed, “but the chance to end this rebellion is too great not to risk that chance. Reports are already flowing in from the West that the rebels there are launching raids against our interior and have won several key battles. We need to crush the Kerberosi and return to the west with the rest of our forces.”

Chapter 22 - Magnus

The horizon was just beginning to lighten. Magnus stood outside of his tent sipping a cup of piping hot coffee when he heard the first thundering
boom
of cannon fire. He had expected Eadric to wait until the sun was above the horizon before beginning his assault, but then he had expected a great many things to have gone differently than they had. Had things gone as planned, he would have been the one threatening the interior of Ansgar rather than fighting back an invasion into his own lands.

If there was one thing that House Jarmann had learned in its one hundred years of subjugation, it was that things changed and not always for the better. Magnus was the culmination of a century of learning how to take a bad situation and turn it for the better, and he intended to make that change with his current predicament.

“
Hold the artillery fire until they are within range,” Magnus ordered.

“
Yes, Your Grace,” Captain Rolden Mathison said. In the dark of the morning, the signal flags would be less than useless to convey messages, but the signalmen could be used to run messages.

The Ansgari forces would not be within his cannons’ reach until they started across the battlefield. Even the fifteen-pound cannons, perched on the hilltops behind the castle walls, couldn’t reach the Ansgari battle lines. The same, however, was true for the Ansgari artillery batteries—so what was Eadric up to with early morning cannon fire?

The answer came with the explosion of the first volley: the shells detonated far overhead and flares sprouted from the detonations. The early morning sky lit as if it were midday and Magnus could see the first movement on the other side of the field.

Interesting,
Magnus thought as he watched the Ansgari infantry begin their slow advance.

His artillerymen had sighted out the distance at which their guns would have the range to harass the advancing infantry and memorized the landmarks. Without the benefit of sunlight, those landmarks would be nearly impossible to see. The Ansgari flares would provide them the lighting necessary to target their attacks.

“
I want one shot from a fifteen-pounder as soon as the artillerymen believe that they have the range. There’s no reason to expend our ammunition before we’re able to make it count,” Magnus ordered. He balled his right hand into a fist and pressed it into his left palm; each knuckle popped in turn.

The Ansgari infantry advanced cautiously and the loyalist artillery continued to fire volley after volley of flares into the sky. Magnus winced when the first of his fifteen-pound cannons boomed in answer. The explosive shell fell well short of the approaching infantry line and detonated, sending dirt and shrapnel into the air.

“
Fifteen-pound battery estimates five minutes until the enemy infantry is within range,” Captain Mathison reported.

“
Tell them to wait three minutes, then fire another round,” Magnus said. He expanded his looking glass and swept it across the enemy lines.

The Ansgari cavalry was mounted but was still well behind the Ansgari trenches. All three of the forward Ansgari divisions had begun their slow march across the field, and the light from the flares glittered on tens of thousands of bayonets. The Ansgari reserves had flowed into the empty trenches and Magnus could see their commanders pacing before them.

The Kerberosi infantry remained silent. If the Ansgari reserves remained behind, the numbers would be even when the advancing forces marched into the volleys of the Kerberosi soldiers. Magnus’ cavalry was mounted but had remained behind the center of his line; he wanted to use them to counter the Ansgari cavalry when they finally made their move.

“
Closer,” Magnus whispered as he watched the measured, deliberate advance of the Ansgari divisions.

Sooner than he expected, a fifteen-pound cannon boomed. The shell flew through the air for several long seconds before it landed in the center of the battlefield and detonated. The explosion was closer than Magnus had thought for only three minutes.

“
They marched faster than expected,” Alger suggested.

“
Indeed.” Magnus nodded. “Another shot in one minute.”

“
Yes, Your Grace,” Captain Mathison said.

Closer,
Magnus thought to himself.
Just a little closer
.

The Ansgari cannons continued their steady rhythm of fire, and exploding flares showered the battlefield with sharp, twisting light. The infantry were still less than a quarter of the way across the battlefield but their pace would increase once they started taking fire from the Kerberosi cannons. He had given his commanders very specific instructions on how to handle the Ansgari charge and his soldiers had the discipline to maintain order.

Magnus’ generals, and the soldiers from Beldane and Steimor, had converted a rabble of untrained farmers and peasants into a respectable fighting force. They drilled every day to ensure that their form was as close to perfect as could be expected, and the officers had learned how to command their troops. Magnus hoped that it would be enough to counter the significant imbalance of force that had played itself out on the fields before him.

Another lone cannon fired from behind the walls of Kval Keep; Magnus silently counted the seconds as the shell flew over the battlefield. When the shell detonated, it was ahead of the Ansgari lines, but close enough that shrapnel cut into the front ranks of the advancing infantry.

“
All fifteen-pounders, fire at will,” Magnus said. “And have one of our ten-pound guns begin finding the range.”

All at once, eighteen cannons thundered and fired their projectiles at the advancing enemies with jets of fire and smoke. Even in the pre-dawn darkness, Magnus could see the clouds forming around the keep and across the battlefield behind the enemy lines.

The eighteen rounds fell to the ground amongst the Ansgari infantry. Explosions cut gaps in the enemy front lines and forced the infantry to hurry their pace to clear the lower elevations of Magnus’ artillery batteries. Cheers went up from the signal teams and from the artillerymen as the smoke settled from the first barrage, but the commanders brought their troops back under control and the second volley was loaded.

The Ansgari infantry continued to march, albeit at a faster pace, toward the entrenched Kerberosi troops. The ten-pound cannons joined their larger brethren, but still the Ansgari soldiers advanced. They passed through small groves of trees and climbed across a dried stream that might have served as an excellent trench if either side had been able to keep the opposing artillery silent.

Almost there
, Magnus thought as the center division of Ansgari loyalists passed a small farm house in the middle of the battlefield.

The first gunfire erupted in the still-dark morning as the Ansgari marched into the teeth of two regiments of skirmishers. The trained accuracy of the hunters and marksmen of the skirmisher regiments was augmented by the increased accuracy of the Black Mountain Long Rifle Model 1241 and the Sinclair looking glass.

Orders had been passed to first target the officers, commissioned and non-commissioned alike, in order to sow confusion and chaos throughout the Ansgari army. Magnus noted the position of the line of skirmishers with each volley and frowned as the center began to fall back toward the trenches faster than the rest of the line.

“
Focus the artillery on the center,” Magnus ordered. It was imperative that the enemy line’s advance was held in check until he could spring his trap.

More artillery shells fell on the center of the Ansgari line. Explosions marked the detonation of the shells and the advance of the loyalist center finally slowed to match the rest of the line. Magnus swept his looking glass from one end to the other, glanced at his trenches and the waiting soldiers there, and then closed his eyes for a brief moment.

The sun was beginning to creep over the horizon and had cast a golden glow on the battlefield. The sun beat down on the approaching Ansgari forces, hopefully blinding them against what was to come.

“
Captain Mathison, signal the cavalry charge,” Magnus said.

The signalmen had taken their positions when the sun had finally slipped over the horizon. Now they worked their flags vigorously. When the orders finally reached the waiting cavalry below, a blast on a trumpet sounded and the horses surged forward.

As his cavalry passed between the trenches and into the open field, Magnus focused his looking glass on the Ansgari cavalry. He couldn’t make out the officers on the other side of the field, but the cavalry had not immediately responded, with the sun in their eyes. Good.

The center Ansgari division saw what was coming, however, and the soldiers stopped to form solid lines. One line of soldiers knelt, the second line stood behind them. The cavalry spurred their horses to a gallop and charged headlong into the first Ansgari volley. Many of the cavalry fell, but many more continued on, merging with the Ansgari forces before a second volley could be mustered.

Now bring out your reserves,
Magnus pleaded silently.

If Eadric responded to the loss of his center division in the same way that he had at Gregory, one of the loyalist reserve units would be sent forward to reinforce and replace their fallen compatriots.

A corner of Magnus’ mind wondered what would happen if Eadric had learned from his experience at Gregory and used the flanking divisions to reinforce the center instead. It would leave two full divisions of reserves at his camp and his cavalry would end up trapped in close combat with more soldiers than they had expected.

“
Enemy outer flanks are shifting, Your Grace,” Captain Mathison reported. “It looks as if they are preparing to fend off a flanking attack.”

“
Interesting,” Magnus noted as he used his looking glass to confirm the signal officer’s report.

“
Enemy reserves are moving!” another scout shouted. “A full division into the center!”

The enemy reserves ran to fill the center of their line before the Kerberosi cavalry had a chance to break the line completely and attack the rear of the outer divisions, or worse, charge the Ansgari trenches. Likewise, the Ansgari cavalry had also started to move: they swept ahead of the charging reserves to meet their counterparts in the open field.

“
Signal cavalry retreat,” Magnus ordered as he watched the advancing reserves carefully. A brief moment of fear rushed through his mind, but he brushed it aside. “Signal the second attack!”

A fifteen-pound cannon boomed. Seconds later, an orange and red flare exploded over the Kerberosi lines. Trumpets sounded across the open field and Magnus watched with a smile as the three brigades of the Hilldale home guard and two divisions under Lord Carsten’s command crested a low ridge to the north of the Ansgari camp and charged on King Eadric’s suddenly weakened defenses.

Chapter 23 - Eadric

The town of Trygg had been a self-sustaining farming village before the war had swept through. A small battle had been fought in and around the village by regiments of skirmishers, ravaging the small town. Even the holdfast had not survived the pillaging. Now, it was a desolate wasteland of half-burnt buildings and foraged fields.

The room Eadric had taken for his war room was partially blackened from a fire that had been set by an overzealous soldier. It was almost as small as Eadric’s sitting room at the top of Founder’s Keep, albeit far less lavish. A simple round table surrounded by six chairs took up the majority of the space, and small bookshelves had been tucked into every other available space.

The holdfast would have to serve as Eadric’s command post until a more suitable keep or castle could be taken. After the chaos at the Battle of Kval Keep, Eadric’s generals and guards had insisted that he leave the commanding of battles to less valuable nobility and keep himself out of harm’s way.

The intense fighting in the trenches and camp of the Ansgari army had been enough leverage for Eadric to agree to stay well behind the front lines. That battle had raged for a full day and more than once Kendall had begged his king to flee the battle for safety. He had lost more troops in the battle than he had expected.