IronStar (43 page)

“May I suggest we return to
consider what we do about it, and about the O’dai,” said Armsmaster Opeth from
across the table. “And may I add my respectful opinion to Lord Tsano’s, that
Kirrah Warmaster cease blaming herself for our
extremely light
losses
this day! Thirty-one soldiers was a
very
small cost for destroying the
trebuchets, far smaller than we would have paid without you, and I estimate
something close to a thousand O’dai are dead or out of action.”

“You are most generous, Armsmaster.
I would be happier to receive your commendation, if
two thirds of our losses
were not due to my own blunders!
” Kirrah’s voice rose and twisted painfully
in her throat, her eyes stung and her hands gripped white-knuckled to the edge
of the beautifully polished table in front of her. “
Twenty
men! Twenty
families! Twenty
deathsongs
! All because I did not think to coordinate
better between the sappers and the maneuvers of our forces! None of those men
had the slightest idea the fuse was burning, or even what it meant!

“And the two lost at the very end!
Why could I not have smashed their damned trebuchet from the
ships!
Or
even the far shore! Whoever thought to bring field mortars around the lake to
opposite that fifth trebuchet,
that
is the one you should be thanking!”
Looks of baffled frustration were exchanged around the table at her outburst.

“Kirrah Warmaster.” The nearly-mild
voice from Major Doi’tam startled her. He waited, meeting her eyes until she
said:

“Yes,
Fira'tachk
.
”

“You asked me, once, whether your
honor would suffice for me to serve you. I had thought you weak and boastful,
but then I saw different, and I said yes. I was not wrong. Not one of us
recognized the Kruss wire as a weapon. Your quick action is all that saved our
entire company. No one, alive or dead, has any reason to blame you for today’s
work. Every new weapon costs lives to learn. Thanks to you, our enemies paid a
far higher cost than we did. We are all agreed on this, please hear us, or at
least hear our experience.”

“You, you surprise me,
Fira'tachk
.
You all surprise me. Because I can see that you are right.”
Maybe later, I
can
feel
it, too, just a little. Gods, this day hurts!
She took a
deep breath and returned to the job at hand.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I fear we
are now at balance with the O’dai. From our
steamships
, we can smash any
siege engines they bring within range of our walls or towers. But we cannot
engage them on open ground, without risking our entire force to their
nanowire
.
If I were their commander and saw us coming again, I would lay that wire down
on the ground in front of us, invisible. Two men springing up from ambush on
our flanks could slaughter half our army before we knew it. And if they have
just
two
spools of it, they could trap and cut down any force we put in
the field.

“In our favor, they cannot get it
close enough to our walls without being seen and killed by archers on the
towers. Which I am increasing to four hundred men, four shifts. If they stay
where they are, they are no great problem for us, and we can harass them as we
did the Wrth. They have chosen to camp where they thought it would be
convenient for their trebuchets, but their position looks to me to be very
difficult to defend from raids. I wonder whether their commander has chosen
wisely.”

Lord Tsano thought for a moment and
said: “I suspect they may be commanded by one Prince Paedako, a middle son of
the O’dai King Oka’sse. I have met the prince when he was a lad, and he was
just as arrogant, stubborn and careless then as whoever leads these. Also I
recall Prince Paedako is known to imagine himself a mighty warrior. Leading the
‘siege of Talam’ would be the kind of assignment he would seek, for personal
glory. Although I am surprised his father the King would give it to him. This
army is a large investment to risk on an untested commander.”

“It is good to know the name of
one’s enemy,” Kirrah replied. “It is likely the Kruss helped Oka’sse make this
mistake. It would suit them well, if both O’dai and we bleed together. Perhaps
we can tempt the O’dai into more mistakes.

“Now, what do we need to do
immediately? Yes, Irshe?”

“Warmaster, they will need to bring
supplies a long distance overland. They may even seek to replace their lost
trebuchets
.
We should think about how to raid their supply lines, many
doi’la
back
towards their country. A different place each time, so they cannot prepare for
us.”

“Good idea, Irshe-
ro’tachk
.
Ask Rash’koi
-sana'tachk
to see to it. And tell him I want Hu'dakai-
dakka'tachk
to be one of his raiders. In fact the more he has, who have seen the
nanowire
in action, the safer they will be from attack by it. And make sure each team
has at least one sapper. Also I think the Realm would be served by promoting
Hu’dakai to the rank of
ro’tachk
. He has shown quick thinking and
initiative several times in my view.” Irshe nodded at each point, making
careful mental notes. “Yes, Armsmaster?”

“I wonder, Warmaster. If the O’dai
are where you want them now, in convenient sight of the city walls, might it be
prudent to leave them untroubled? If we raid them, we may drive them off, but
we lose oversight of them. We can do that any time we wish, but we cannot order
them back to that nice festival-grounds they have chosen, bounded by water on three
sides.”
Some of these people could teach strategy at the Regnum War Academy.
Kirrah nodded with appreciation.

“Agreed, Opeth. No major raids for
now. But I still want them to lose a few men every day. Or every night. It
could be just a few silent bodkinpoints from small boats. It’s bad for morale.
Their
morale.

“Now, what is the best way to break
their siege? Will they parley now? Do we starve them out? Pick them to death a
few at a time? Invade their homeland?” Startled looks, as the assembled military
wisdom of Talam wondered whether to fear their terrible new Warmaster was
jesting, or fear that she was not. The meeting got down to serious planning.

“A man sees a neighbor robbed
and beaten by someone stronger, and wonders whether to get involved. Whatever
he decides, he is voting for his own future.” - Artemis Arondai, late 21
^st
century prophet and author, Terra.

In a stone cell deep under the old
palace, Xenomanipulator Second Class Lssghagk raised his muzzle to the sound of
his door being opened. His
outer
door.
Damn
that Regnum whelp,
she’d had him chained to the wall, naked, like prey. And with
two
iron
doors barring the way to the throat of his guards, and freedom. Like an air
lock, only one door could be opened at a time, and the Regnum female had made
it excruciatingly clear what would happen to his
other
foot if he
managed to kill a guard and
not
make it to freedom.

Which
slow-meat
was this
one? It was not mealtime… the food had been ample if not satisfying, but how he
longed to bury his muzzle in the belly of a living, thrashing prey. Ah yes, the
tall white one with the long black head fur. After many repetitions and much
boredom, one began to notice small differences in these look-alike creatures.
So ugly, so weak and slow.
He
should be the one on the outside of this
cage, visiting
them
for his mealtimes. What was it… no, this was a
female… what was
she
waiting for?

Oh, right. She was the ‘healer’ -
what an odd concept. Still, it did feel good, her hands moving over the aching,
growing bud of the new foot. When the Domination owned this planet, this
practice would bear looking at. Perhaps he would keep a few such in his own
household. And this was a smart one, she never approached within reach of his
chain, until he extended it to the limit himself and put his good ankle
willingly in the second shackle bolted to the stone floor. Only when he could
not move more than a toe’s breadth did she begin her work. Lssghagk leaned back
and allowed the pleasant sensations to begin washing over him.

Kirrah leaned back in her chair and
took a sip of fruit juice from the mug on her desk. The air was still and the
day promised to be hot. Through the open window on the palace’s second floor,
the sounds of small birds wafted. Two of the tiny green and gray musical avians
were fluttering in and out, boldly picking crumbs from a tray of leftover
breakfast pastries. The mid-morning sun spilled into her office and across the
piles of paper and the traditional inscribed wood tablets she had already
absorbed, and the tidier but larger stack of documents still awaiting her
attention.

The steamship fleet was coming
along nicely: eight vessels now commissioned and four more in various stages of
completion. The larger long-range mortars were still exploding occasionally but
disastrously when test-fired; there was obviously something she was not quite
remembering about the technology of iron castings. The flood control gate and
dam on the Upper Geera was nearing completion, but the surge of winter runoff
down it and the central tributary, the Geeratha, was already passing its crest.

And the damned O’dai encampment
still sat across the river, in a stubborn stalemate the last thirty-four days
had failed to break. Three attempted river crossings had been beaten back
easily, yet their nanowire was an intolerable threat to any counterattack other
than by artillery.
Stalemate. At least they weren’t interfering with
farming.
The latch on her door rattled gently.

“Enter”, she called, grateful for
any excuse to stop reading the previous day’s rather tedious scouting reports.
Her new semaphore towers were proving to be an immense help in getting timely
information from downriver. A wooden tower every five kilometers; two operators,
one to watch, one to pull levers that moved the three signaling arms into
various positions - either two-meter long paddles by day, or colored torches by
night. She was unreasonably proud of the two hundred millibaud throughput rate
a good signal team could achieve with her compact message codes. When the
system was extended all the way to the Sea of the Sun, she calculated a message
would cover the two-hundred-plus kilometer distance from the mouth of the Geera
to her desk in under twenty minutes. Already over thirty of the forty-two
towers were operational.
Which leaves the O’dai wondering how we get large
raiding parties to just the worst place for them, every time
, Kirrah smiled
to herself. Two more resupply caravans intercepted, and another unassembled
trebuchet destroyed en route, in the last four days alone.

It’s gotta be getting down to
short rations over there, lads! go home!
She looked up to see her page,
Janna’tha shu’Paddo, waiting respectfully just inside the door. A quick-witted,
tanned, slender youth: dark blond hair, hazel eyes, graduate of Slaetra’s
school. Apprenticing in Lord Tsano’s service. His assignment to Kirrah’s
expanding staff had proved a godsend in managing the growing sea of details.

“Yes, Janna’?”

“Warmaster, your visitors are here.
The delegation from Pavatta.”

“Thank you Janna’tha. Please ask
Irshe to join us. Delima Guildmaster knows she is part of this?”

“Both are already present,
Warmaster. The small meeting room at the end of the hall.”
All assistants
should be mindreaders,
Kirrah mused. As she stepped into the designated
room, six people rose from their places at the table: Irshe, Delima
shu'Maakael, and three men and an elderly woman she had never seen. Irshe spoke
first, bowing briefly to the largest of the foreigners, the big man with a full
salt-and-pepper beard and long gray hair:

“I show you
Kirrah shu’Roehl
sho’Draconis
, Warmaster of Talam, Royal Guest.” At his two-fingered gesture
towards her, Kirrah inclined her head the amount indicated by protocol and made
eye contact with the large Northerner.

Irshe continued: “Kirrah Warmaster,
I show you Setta, Baron of the City and District of Uttra, loyal subject of
Tannakoi King of Pavatta.”

Kirrah raised her hand and touched
palms with the man, thumbs locked and fingers wrapping around one another’s
wrists. “Setta doi’Uttra, greetings. I am pleased to meet an old friend of my
borrowed nation. May we prosper together.”

“Kirrah Warmaster, Uttra greets
you. We Northerners have been hearing such fine things about you! With respect,
I was expecting a woman three times your height, eyes glowing like coals, and
far less beautiful!” The man’s twinkling eyes abruptly became serious. “It is a
gift-to-the-heart to behold you. And this must be your famous armor! I am sure
Aneppa will serve you forever, if you would but allow him to examine it more
closely.”
The twinkle is back - and that explains the odd lustful look I’m
getting from the big blond guy
…

Setta clapped the shoulder of the
large younger man to his right, and said: “I show you Aneppa, loyal Horseleader
of Uttra, commander of the horse company we are loaning you. The first of four,
I might add.” Kirrah clasped hands with the cavalry commander and said:

“You are most generous with your
aid. We shall not forget our allies.”

“We could hardly stand by and watch
our friends to the south be annoyed by those O’dai sweat-rags, now could we?”
said Setta. “We saw them swallow Ale’appa across the Southern Sea, my pardon,
what you call ‘Sea of the Sun’, and already the price of salt
pudra
-fish
at my favorite fishmongers has nearly tripled. If our Talamae neighbors became
…
distracted
, by these pirates, where would we buy oil for our lamps next
winter?”