Hell's Foundations Quiver (77 page)

He knew Allayn Maigwair was skeptical of the numbers he was reporting in his front, and if the Captain General knew how his scouts' aggressiveness had suffered, it was hard to fault his skepticism. For that matter, Kaitswyrth was unhappily aware that all of his estimates were based on the flimsiest possible pieces of information. His own strength was almost 220,000 men, supported by over a thousand guns, yet whether anyone in Zion believed him or not, he knew—
knew
—there had to be at least twice that many, more probably three times as many, men and guns on the other side. And the roads were clear. The high roads were in only too good a condition, and even the secondary roads' mud was beginning to dry. It couldn't be long before—

He made himself draw a deep breath, backing away from the familiar paths worry and concern had worn through his brain, like a hamster racing around and around its exercise wheel. If it happened, it happened, he told himself, and Father Sedryk was right. They
were
God's warriors, and God would not suffer Himself to be defeated in the end, whatever transitory victories Shan-wei and her followers might win.

His jaw tightened with resolution, and he reached for the bedside bell to summon his servant. Dawn was still two hours away; there was plenty of time for breakfast before another round of inspections of frontline positions, and—

Thunder rumbled, and Kaitswyrth frowned. The sky had been clear when he'd turned in, and it was early in the year for a thunderstorm. Besides—

More thunder rumbled—a
lot
more—and a sudden cold stab of apprehension went through him. Surely that couldn't be…?

He dropped the bell and charged barefoot across the outer area of his command tent. He threw back the flaps and charged out onto the hilltop … and froze, staring southeast, as the entire rim of the world blazed with light.

*   *   *

Cahnyr Kaitswyrth had hugely overestimated the total numbers of the three armies aligned against him, yet his count on artillery had actually been low. Ruhsyl Thairis hadn't deployed three thousand guns against him; he'd deployed almost
five
thousand, thirteen hundred of them six-inch angle-guns. And that didn't even count the three-thousand-plus mortars assigned to his brigades and regiments.

No one in the history of Safehold had ever seen or imagined or
dreamed
of the huge, brilliant tongues of flame leaping from the muzzles of over a thousand heavy guns. They blazed against the blackness of the predawn dark, hurling their glowing skeins of shells in an endless cascade of lightning bolts, lacing the heavens with livid fire. The sky above them burned, set alight by the incandescent, smoke-spewing fury of their rage, and then those shells came plummeting down to explode upon the earth.

Illuminating rockets soared from the Charisian front lines, streaking across no-man's-land to burst in brilliance above the Army of Glacierheart's forward positions. Their glare stripped away the night, revealing the entrenchments to pitiless eyes, and signal lanterns glowed like blink lizards. Corrections for the fall of shot flickered to the rear … just as the heavy mortars dug in behind those same frontline positions added their own wrath to the fiery sledgehammer smashing down upon the Army of God with absolutely no advance warning.

Craters blasted themselves into the shuddering earth. Trees flew apart, adding their own lethal splinters to the tempest seething across the entrenchments and dugouts. Men who'd been mustering for breakfast screamed in agony as blast and shell fragments ripped through fragile flesh, and the men who'd planned that bombardment had paid special attention to the artillery emplacements marked on their maps. Those maps had been compiled and updated by their own observers and patrols and corroborated by
Seijin
Ahbraim's agents' reports, and an avalanche of destruction crashed over them.

From where he stood, Cahnyr Kaitswyrth could see only a tiny fragment of the chaos and the confusion and the death. But as he stood on that hilltop and stared at that blazing sky, as he saw the fountains of fire marching across his entrenchments and felt the earth itself trembling in terror underfoot, he knew he looked into the fiery maw of Shan-wei herself.

And it was coming for his army.

 

.XI.

The Temple, City of Zion, The Temple Lands

Rhobair Duchairn looked up from the paperwork he'd spread across his end of the conference table as Zhaspahr Clyntahn finally arrived. The Treasurer wiped the nib of his pen, recapped his ink bottle, then gathered up his notes and jogged them neatly together while Clyntahn strode to his own chair, dropped his briefcase heavily on the floor beside it, and flung himself into its embrace.

One of Duchairn's eyebrows rose ever so slightly as Wyllym Rayno followed Clyntahn into the conference chamber. It was unusual for Rayno to attend a meeting of the Group of Four, although he'd done it upon occasion in the past. And given the current situation, Duchairn supposed he really shouldn't have been surprised to see him here today.

Still
, he thought, studying the Archbishop of Chiang-wu's expressionless face,
the fact that he
is
here says interesting things about the probable state of Zhaspahr's mind
.

“I suppose we should go ahead and get started,” Zahmsyn Trynair said after a moment. The chancellor's once smooth voice had become increasingly tentative over the last couple of years, like the blade of a master swordsman who'd lost his surety and balance … and knew it. Now there was an actual quaver at its core, and his hands played nervously with his pectoral scepter.

“I agree,” Allayn Maigwair said crisply. Unlike Trynair or Clyntahn, the overwhelming emotion in Maigwair's voice was neither confusion nor fear; it was anger, and that same anger blazed in his eyes. “I'm sure I have another mountain of semaphore reports already waiting for me. I'd just as soon not let it get any taller before I get back.”

“Under the circumstances, I don't see a great deal you can do to improve the situation from here,” Clyntahn said a bit spitefully, and Maigwair turned a flat, level gaze upon him.

“I don't try to tell you how to run the Inquisition, Zhaspahr. Perhaps we might all be doing just a tiny bit better if you'd return the compliment and let
me
run the Army without constantly interfering.”

Clyntahn's head snapped up, his expression as astonished as if a cat-lizard had turned into a slash lizard and launched itself at his throat, and even Duchairn blinked in surprise.

“Yes, we're getting hammered … again,” the Captain General continued. “The heretics pounded the piss out of Kaitswyrth's main positions with a hell of a lot more guns—and heavier ones—than the Inquisition told us they had. They taught us another lesson in using them, and Kaitswyrth's falling back all across his front. He's trying to put a good face on it, and I think his men really are fighting hard, but there's no use pretending he isn't getting the crap kicked out of him. But from the sound of things, he's got a new line stabilizing—maybe—along some of the rivers west of his original position and the damned heretics seem to be—
seem
to be—finding it hard to drag their frigging guns forward to deal with that. I'm not happy about his flanks, and I've warned him to watch out for those Chihiro-damned Charisian dragoons, but he's a long way from dead, and he spent half the winter mining the locks in the Daivyn and the Charayn Canal all the way back into Westmarch. They're going to push him back; that's a given, since we can't get any of the Harchongians there in time to support his present positions, and I'm not going to spin any fairy tales about it. I don't know how much of his army will be intact by the time he's as far back as Lake Langhorne, and I'm not making any optimistic predictions about
that
, either. But I'll guarantee you those mines
will
be blown. Whatever else, Eastshare won't be barging any troops or supplies up the rivers and canals after him while he retreats!”

“And your point is?” Clyntahn's answering anger over the dig at the Inquisition's fresh intelligence failure was obvious. “Excuse me for pointing this out, but you're in the process of losing
another
fucking army, aren't you? Would it happen that any of your commanders have any intention of ever
winning
a goddamned battle?!”

The Grand Inquisitor seemed to have forgotten whose choice to command the Army of Glacierheart Cahnyr Kaitswyrth had originally been, Duchairn observed. For that matter, he seemed oblivious to his systematic efforts to block Maigwair's desire to replace Kaitswyrth after the previous summer's debacle. From the Captain General's expression,
his
memory was excellent, but he didn't rise to the bait, if that was what it was.

“The Army of the Sylmahn and the Army of Glacierheart were never the only forces we had in the field, Zhaspahr,” he said instead, icily. “There's Teagmahn and Symmyns, just for starters, plus Rainbow Waters' entire army. Even assuming Kaitswyrth's estimate of the numbers against him was accurate—which I damned well don't think it was—and taking the worst-case estimate for
everything
reported in New Northland and Mountaincross, plus everything Hanth has in the South March, the heretics—Charis and Siddarmark combined—have no more than six hundred to seven hundred thousand men in the field right this minute. The Harchongians have over a million, with another four hundred and fifty thousand plus following along behind them,
plus
the seven hundred thousand men we're raising right here in the Temple Lands and the new regiments Dohlar's raising while we're talking. Not only that, but we've got a hell of a lot more rifles and artillery—not to mention Brother Lynkyn's rockets—coming out of the foundries now, so we'll actually be able to
arm
all those new troops within three or four months.”

The Captain General shook his head, his eyes grim.

“They've hurt us, and it's going to get worse. But Kaitswyrth's not dead yet, we have an enormous defensive depth, we'll wreck the canals in their faces every mile of the way to slow them down, and the Harchongians are directly between them and the shortest route to Zion. No, Zhaspahr—this Jihad's far from lost, and I'd like to get back to work and keep it that way. Besides,” those grim eyes narrowed, “it seems to me you've got a few problems of your own right here in Zion. I'd think you'd want to get back to
them
, too.”

Duchairn drew a deep breath as Clyntahn flushed angrily, but Maigwair's gaze never wavered. The Treasurer wondered if Clyntahn was as startled as he'd been to see Maigwair take the offensive, especially with the reports of fresh disaster coming back from the Army of Glacierheart. From the sound of things, Kaitswyrth would be fortunate if his command survived, far less held its ground, and a catastrophe on that scale should have put Maigwair firmly on the
de
fensive. Even more surprising than Maigwair's bellicosity, though, was Clyntahn's failure to launch into a furious tirade in reply.

Of course, his own position's less than enviable at the moment
.
Allayn's right about that. And it's even worse after the way he's spent the last couple of years trying to conceal the ‘Fist of Kau-Yung's' activities. Well, he can't hide them anymore, can he?

The cratered ruins where the Second Church of the Holy Pasquale of the Faithful of Zion had once stood were far too big to conceal, especially since the apartments of so many bishops and archbishops overlooked them. A half-dozen of those bishops and archbishops had suffered cuts and lacerations as the explosion shattered their windows and sent knife-edged glass splinters flying. Closer to the actual site of the church, the damage was far worse. Ornamental trees and shrubbery had been shattered, their broken branches stripped naked by the blast, and at least thirty-five members of the Temple Guard and “several”—Clyntahn and Rayno still refused to issue an official number—agents inquisitor had been killed along with every single person in the church.

And the list of the dead made interesting reading, especially for anyone with an un-trusting turn of mind. Duchairn hadn't discussed it with Maigwair, but he knew the Captain General must have his own suspicions about how those particular vicars and archbishops, who just happened to represent over half the prelates involved in overseeing the Army of God's operations, happened to have gathered in that particular church on that particular day. The fact that the only vicar present who
hadn't
been associated with the Army of God had been one of Zhaspahr Clyntahn's closest allies had to lend those suspicions a certain pointed edge.

I wonder if Zhaspahr and Rayno think
Allayn's
the one who blew them up?
The thought gave Duchairn a certain mordant amusement.
Rather a case of the biter bit, wouldn't it be? And how delightful if Allayn
had
put it together
.

Only he hadn't. The entire Group of Four had been sitting in this very conference chamber when the massive explosion's thunder rolled through Zion. The sound had been clearly audible even here, and Duchairn had seen the Captain General's expression. Maigwair hadn't expected anything of the sort, and his reaction when the Inquisition grudgingly announced the names of the dead had been revealing. It was clear to Duchairn that he'd had nothing to do with their deaths … and equally clear he'd never expected Clyntahn to be able to reach so many of the men he'd worked with and relied upon for so long.

“I assure you my inquisitors are dealing with those … problems even as we sit here, Allayn.” Clyntahn's tone was icy when he finally spoke, but far removed from the savage, cutting edge it would normally have carried. “We
will
find out who did it, and how. And when we do, they'll answer for it, whoever they are.”