War Maid's Choice-ARC (30 page)

That was actually, he realized, a very good question. Even Axeman roads often left a bit to be desired, especially in winter weather or heavy rain. Dwarvenhame freight wagons were far better sprung and more efficient than anyone else’s, yet according to Kilthan’s experts, a draft team could pull twice or even as much as three times the load in one of the “rail carts” than the same team could manage in even a dwarven wagon. That was why they used them to move the massive loads their foundries required, after all. So if Dwarvenhame truly did begin extending “rail ways”—or would they end up calling them “rail roads,” instead, Vaijon wondered?—alongside the existing Axeman high roads, what effect was that going to have on the Empire’s internal economy?

“According to my latest messages from Silver Cavern, the first shipments of rails should be arriving at the canal head in a few more days,” Gorsan continued, “We’ve already surveyed the route, and I’ve had work gangs grading the worst stretches for the last couple of weeks.” He grimaced. “I can’t say I’m happy about having to divert work crews from the canal, but Prince Bahnak’s promised us additional manpower to make up for it, and I expect we can have the tracks down by, oh, the end of next month or the middle of the month after. Once we do, and coupled with the extra river barges, we’ll be able to keep your forces supplied a lot more easily, without the bottlenecks we had last year. And”—this time his grimace segued into a grin—“it’ll be a lot less expensive than it was last year, too!”

“Well, Uncle Tellian will certainly be in favor of both of those,” Trianal remarked with an answering smile. Then his expression became more thoughtful. “On the other hand, I can’t help wondering. If this ‘rail way is going to be as efficient as it sounds like it is, are we wasting unnecessary effort building the canal in the first place?”

“Oh, no, Milord!” Gorsan shook his head emphatically. “Draft teams can pull much heavier loads along rails, that’s true, but there’s really no comparison between how much freight we can can haul overland and how much we can manage using barges. A single barge can carry as much as three or four hundred tons of cargo at a time, and that’s a lot more than you could put into any rail cart! This is going to allow us to move larger quantities of supplies much more rapidly for your army, and it may well help a lot—on a smaller scale, at least—in places where even canals simply aren’t practical, but it’s nowhere close to being a substitute for
this
canal. Not with the amounts of freight we’re talking about moving once everything is finished and running properly.”

“I see.” Trianal nodded.

His voice was both satisfied and courteous, yet Vaijon’s mental ears pricked as something about the younger man’s tone registered. Then, as he glanced at the expressions of the others seated around the table, he felt an ungrudging sense of respect.

He didn’t ask that for
himself.
He asked it for the
others,
to make sure no one else was going to start questioning exactly why we’re about to go out and get altogether too many of our people hurt or even killed this summer. I wonder if that was Tellian’s idea or he came up with it on his own? A year ago I’d’ve bet it was Tellian’s, but now...

“And the new arbalests?” he inquired out loud, turning his attention to Rianthus after giving Trianal the very slightest of approving nods.

“They should be arriving along with the first shipment of rails,” Rianthus answered. “And Kilthan tells me they’re considering a version for merely human archers, as well,” he added with a wry smile.

A chorus of chuckles greeted that remark, and they were actually louder from the Sothōii side of the table than from the hradani side, Vaijon noted. That was good, although he rather doubted the Sothōii in general were going to be quite as cheerful about the new weapons as “his” Sothōii were. Given how much of the Sothōii cavalry’s invincibility depended upon the deadly accuracy and speed of their mounted archers, it would have been unreasonable to expect them to happily greet the notion of infantry missile troops whose weapons were not only longer ranged and harder hitting than their own bows but fired far more rapidly than anyone else’s crossbows—even
medium
crossbows, far less arbalests—possibly could, to boot.

The very idea was going to deeply offend the more hidebound of the Sothōii traditionalists (and right offhand, Vaijon couldn’t think of anyone who could possibly be more hidebound than a Sothōii traditionalist), and the thought that those weapons were going to be in the hands of
hradani
was only going to make it worse. Of course, if they’d been paying attention for the last, oh, twenty years or so, they would have realized Prince Bahnak’s Horse Stealers were already fielding heavy crossbowmen with preposterous rates of fire. But the new arbalests Silver Cavern had designed expressly for Bahnak (and for which they had charged him a pretty copper, Vaijon knew) had heavier pulls than even a Horse Stealer’s arm could span with a simple goat’s foot. Their built-in, integral cocking levers were geared and cammed to provide their users with a heavy mechanical advantage, which allowed for a pull many times as powerful as any bow’s could possibly be. Not to mention the fact that once spanned, an arbalest could be held that way far longer than any archer could hold a fully drawn bow, which gave the crossbowman time to aim carefully. Indeed, one of Kilthan’s artisans had actually figured out how to fit them with sights for even greater accuracy.

They were big enough (and heavy enough) to constitute two-man weapons for anyone but a hradani, and they still couldn’t match a horse archer’s rate of fire. A trained Sothōii could fire as many as fifteen aimed shafts in a minute, whereas even a Horse Stealer with one of the new arbalests could manage no more than six. But hradani crossbowmen were
foot
archers, and trained marksmen firing from their own feet were always going to be more accurate than even the most highly skilled mounted archer firing from the back of a moving horse.

On the other hand, human crossbowmen aren’t going to be able to handle the weight of pull
our
lads can, even with the new design
, Vaijon thought cheerfully.
There
is
a limit to how much mechanical advantage you can give any cocking lever if you’re going to span the thing with a single pull! I doubt any of Trianal’s fellows are going to complain about having that kind of fire support against the ghouls, though
.

“Actually,” Rianthus continued with a sly smile, “one of Kilthan’s bright young engineers claims to have come up with a still better idea. He thinks he may be able to design an arbalest that can be loaded with more than one quarrel at a time.”

“Of course he can!” Trianal snorted. “No doubt they’ll be able to fire five or six with each shot!”

“Oh, no!” Rianthus looked at him with becoming solemnity. “That would be
wasteful
, Milord! What they’re talking about is just an arrangement that would automatically put another quarrel onto the string every time the arbalest is spanned without the archer having to individually load it.”

“Ah, that’s
much
better!”

Trianal rolled his eyes, and Sir Yarran smiled under his mustache and shook his head. Vaijon chuckled as well, although given what he’d seen out of the dwarves, he was less confident than the Sothōii that Rianthus was simply pulling their legs.

“Even without the new, magical, multishot arbalest,” he said dryly, “I think the ghouls are going to be exceedingly unhappy when they run into several hundred quarrels at a time.”

“That they will, Sir Vaijon,” Sir Yarran said with undisguised satisfaction. Unlike the other Sothōii sitting around the table, he’d personally experienced Horse Stealer arbalests from the receiving end, and he hadn’t enjoyed it a bit. The others lacked that particular target’s-eye insight, but he and Trianal had both seen it from the firing side in the previous campaigns into the Ghoul Moor. “And I hope no one will take this wrongly, but it occurs to me that there’s no one in this whole wide world I’d sooner see unhappy.”

“Oh, I don’t think anyone’s going to argue with you about that, Sir Yarran,” Yurgazh said. He and Yarran had met for the first time less than a week earlier, yet it was obvious they were kindred spirits in many ways. Now, as he smiled nastily at the Sothōii scout, much of his earlier stiffness vanished. “Myself, I was born and raised in Tralth.” His smile remained, but his eyes turned much grimmer. “We had more experience than I like to remember with ghouls—aye, and trolls, come to that—spilling across our frontier.” He shook his head. “There’s more than a few Bloody Swords who think burning the entire Ghoul Moor to the ground is a wonderful idea, canal routes or no canal routes!”

“I think we can all agree with that, General,” Prince Yurokhas said. Yurgazh looked at him, and the prince shrugged. “We may have the river between us and the Ghoul Moor proper, but we’ve lost more horses and cattle—and children—to them than any of
us
like to remember, either.” He shook his head, his expression as grim as Yurgazh’s eyes. “I don’t think there’s a single Sothōii, however...ambivalent he may be about your Confederation, who won’t lift a mug in Hurgrum’s direction the day the last ghoul’s head goes up on a pike somewhere.”

“Aye?” Prince Arsham’s deep voice was rough edged, even a little rasping, from too many orders on too many battlefields. He gazed at the brother of the Sothōii king for several thoughtful seconds, then smiled slowly. “Good,” he said. “To speak honestly, Your Highness, there are times I’m less confident than Prince Bahnak about how all of this is likely to work out in the end, but it’s good to know there’s at least
one
thing we can all agree to.”

“There are those on top of the Wind Plain who undoubtedly cherish even more doubts than you do, Your Highness.” There wasn’t a trace of irony in Yurokhas’ voice as he returned the honorific to Arsham. “And that doesn’t even consider the ones who’re actively opposed to everything your people and Baron Tellian are trying to accomplish here.”

He looked around the council table at the faces which had suddenly smoothed of all expression at the waters they’d unexpectedly drifted into, and he smiled grimly.

“There are limits to what even a king can do in the face of entrenched hatred...and stupidity,” he said. “I’m sure you and Prince Bahnak have discovered the same thing from your side. But that doesn’t keep it from
being
stupidity, and there comes a time when it
must
be changed. That’s my view, at any rate. And”—he met Arsham’s gaze levelly—“my brother’s, as well.”

Arsham’s eyes flickered and his ears folded back ever so slightly. That was all he allowed to show, but Vaijon drew a deep, unobtrusive breath and felt others around the table doing the same. However candidly and openly Yurokhas might have discussed the canal project and even the entire future of human-hradani relations with Tellian and Bahzell, he’d been careful to avoid anything which might have been construed as an unconditional statement of support in King Markhos’ name. There’d never been any doubt about where Yurokhas’ own sympathies lay, but everyone had always understood why the
King
couldn’t be that open...assuming, of course, that he’d ever truly been as supportive as his younger brother. But now—

I wonder if he was actually authorized to say that?
Vaijon wondered.
But surely he wouldn’t have said it
without
Markhos’ approval! I know a lot of people dimiss him as impulsive or even reckless, but I also know that reputation’s a mask, a façade he’s built just as carefully as Bahzell’s built that “country bumpkin” disguise of
his
.
Even so, though
...

He looked at Yurokhas, one eyebrow arched, and the prince looked back at him and then nodded, ever so slightly.

Tomanāk, that
was
an official statement
.
To a very select group, perhaps, but that was Markhos himself speaking to Arsham—and to Bahnak, for that matter! I wonder if delivering that was the real reason the King let him come along as an “observer” in the first place?

“Well,” the champion heard his voice say into the silence which had greeted Yurokhas’ comment, “speaking as someone who’s had a little experience with stupidity of his own, I can say of my own knowledge that it
is
possible to...reshape it once someone finds the appropriate hammer. Of course, it takes a heavier hammer for some of us than for others.”

Another rumble of amusement—this one more than a little relieved sounding—greeted his wry tone, and he smiled.

“In the meantime, unfortunately,” he continued, “according to both Prince Bahnak’s and Kilthan’s sources, somebody seems to have found a big enough hammer to get through to the River Brigands and the Purple Lords.” He grimaced. “At this point, we don’t know exactly what they’re likely to do about it, but I think we can take it for granted that anything they
can
do, they
will
do. In a lot of ways, we probably need to be more concerned about the Brigands than the Purple Lords, simply because they’re so much closer. At the same time, though, however Arthnar may feel about the canal in general, I can’t see him actively trying to interfere with
our
operations, given the Brigands’ own history with the ghouls.”

Heads nodded, and he shrugged.

“We’ll be keeping an eye on him, of course, and on the Purple Lords, but I don’t expect either of them to have much short term effect on us here. So, having said that, let’s take a look at where we are and where we want to be by the end of the summer. Hurthang?”

The Horse Stealer nodded and rose. He walked around to the large easel set up at the foot of the table and flipped back the cover to show the large-scale map of the Ghoul Moor it had concealed.

“As you can see,” Vaijon said, “we’ve marked last year’s gains in green. We lost a little ground over the winter down in the southwest, farthest from the river, and we need to regain that first.”

Hurthang drew his dagger and used it as a pointer, indicating the area in question, and Vaijon gave everyone a moment to absorb the lines on the map. Then he continued.