Hell's Foundations Quiver (81 page)

General Trumyn Stohnar rode slowly along the street, surrounded by his staff, his aides, and what seemed to be at least half a company of Siddarmarkian dragoons. With so many bodyguards, he felt free to examine the damage as they threaded their way deeper into the city of Guarnak.

There was a lot of it to examine.

The Guarnak canalfront had been devastated by the Charisian Navy's Great Canal Raid. Most of the warehouse district had burned during and after the ironclads' bombardment, and the replacement structures the Army of the Sylmahn had hurriedly thrown up to protect its supplies over the winter had a raw, slapdash, temporary look to them. At least a quarter of
them
had burned in the most recent fighting, anyway. Other parts of the city—near the canalfront—had suffered significant damage from overshooting Charisian shells or Army of God artillery fire which had bounced off Halcom Bahrns' armor and ricocheted into the streets.

That was nothing compared to what had happened to what had once been Mountaincross Province's largest city over the last few five-days, however.

The troops Bahrnabai Wyrshym had tried to get out had covered no more than a hundred miles, less than half the distance to Jylmyn, before they'd been run to earth by the Army of Hildermoss' Cavalry Corps: five regiments of dragoons armed with rifled carbines under General Fraidareck Shyrbyrt. That could have turned extraordinarily ugly, Stohnar conceded, since Shyrbyrt had been born in Westmarch Province and his family had a tradition of Army service and fierce loyalty to the Republic. They'd also been virtually wiped out over the past year and a half—first by the rebellious Temple Loyalists, then by the advancing Army of God, and finally by Wylbyr Edwyrds' Inquisition. Fortunately, Shyrbyrt was a professional and a decent man who clearly intended to do his best to go on being both of those things, despite the volcanic fury banked up inside him. There was little chance he'd shy away from any atrocities for which the Republic's enemies gave him a reasonable pretext, however, and Colonel Clairdon Mahkswail had come perilously close to doing just that.

Shyrbyrt commanded just over twelve thousand troopers, whereas there'd been closer to twenty-five thousand in Mahkswail's column. On that basis, the colonel had rejected Shyrbyrt's first summons to surrender—possibly out of fear of Zhaspahr Clyntahn, possibly in an attempt to protect the inquisitors Wyrshym had attached to his column in an effort to get them out of Guarnak, or possibly for some other reason. Unfortunately for him, while there might have been little better than half as many men in the Cavalry Corps, there'd also been two hundred and forty mortars, and Shyrbyrt had seen no reason to lose any of his troopers to AOG rifles when he could stand out of range and kill them all with mortar bombs. He'd made that point to Mahkswail with cold, savage precision … and then informed the colonel that four of his cousins had been massacred by the Army of God when Cahnyr Kaitswyrth overran General Charlz Stahntyn's fifteen-thousand-man force south of Aivahnstyn the previous summer.

Mahkswail had taken one look at Shyrbyrt's icy eyes and understood exactly what the Siddarmarkian was saying. And so he'd surrendered, although at least half the inquisitors in his column had committed suicide before the Siddarmarkians got their hands on them.

I can live with that,
Stohnar thought coldly.
Stupid of them—unless they figured we'd give them to the Punishment the way they damned well deserve, whatever we might say before we got our hands on them. I doubt hanging or beheading hurts any more than some of the ways they did themselves in. I can hope not, anyway
.

Personally, after what he'd seen last year in the Sylmahn Gap, there were times he wished his cousin hadn't agreed with Cayleb and Sharleyan of Charis about limiting reprisals and counter-atrocities. He was perfectly prepared to assume the Inquisition and the Temple Loyalists had applied Langhorne's Golden Rule to their enemies as the
Writ
enjoined and were prepared to have the same done unto them. It was hard, sometimes, to remind himself that he'd have decades to live with whatever he did or ordered done.

His thoughts had carried him even deeper into battered, broken Guarnak. Shattered walls, smashed buildings, burned-out ruins, and listless, weary plumes of smoke stretched out in every direction. The street down which he and his bodyguards rode was half choked with rubble, and he could see at least twenty or thirty bodies at any given moment. Wyrshym and his rearguard had stood their ground and fought hard. In fact, he could still hear the crackle of rifle fire, the thud of mortars, and the thump of grenades from the northern end of the city, where the last of Wyrshym's command—penned up in a steadily contracting pocket—continued to fight back. It was all but over, though. The Army of the Sylmahn was down to no more than six or seven thousand wretched, starving men, as hungry and as short on ammunition—and hope—as the defenders of Serabor had been fifteen months ago, before Stohnar marched to their relief. Only there was no one to relieve Guarnak.

According to Lieutenant Sahlavahn, there was an intact—or mostly so—townhouse somewhere ahead which had been earmarked for Stohnar's HQ. It was hard to believe
anything
in this sea of wreckage could possibly be considered “intact,” but young Sahlavahn was a truthful sort whose judgment was usually sound. Stohnar was prepared to take his word for it, at least until personal experience proved otherwise. In the meantime—

A rider came cantering down the street—recklessly fast, considering the state of that street—and the dragoons of his bodyguard closed in around the general protectively. They relaxed at least slightly as they realized the oncoming horseman wore the uniform of the 1st Siddarmarkian Scout Regiment.

The youthful lieutenant slowed to a trot when he saw the general's party, then drew rein as he reached Stohnar and touched his breastplate in salute.

“Colonel Tymythy extends his respects, General,” he said.

“Thank you, Lieutenant—?”

“Kahlyns, Sir. Abernethy Kahlyns,” the lieutenant replied, and Stohnar's ears pricked as he recognized the accent of Siddar City's Charisian quarter. Young Kahlyns was obviously Siddarmarkian-born, but from the sounds of that accent, at least one of his parents had been born in Old Charis.

“May I ask why—besides to extend his respects, of course—Colonel Tymythy's sent you my way, Lieutenant Kahlyns?”

“Yes, Sir!” Kahlyns straightened in the saddle, his eyes bright and fierce. “The Colonel instructed me to tell you, Sir, that we've received an envoy under a flag of truce. He says Bishop Militant Bahrnabai requests a cease-fire to discuss the terms of his surrender.”

 

.II.

Shingle Shoal, Hahskyn Bay, Shwei Province, South Harchong Empire

“At least the wind should be better next time, Sir.” Lieutenant Kylmahn tried to sound purely professional, not hopeful. “Captain Kahrltyn seems confident he can tow us off if it continues to back.”

Sir Ahbaht Bruhstair nodded, although he was rather less confident than Captain Zoshua Kahrltyn had sounded when he'd come onboard
Thunderer
to discuss the situation.

Like
Thunderer
, Kahrltyn's HMS
Firestorm
mounted only thirty guns, yet she was also the largest unit of Bruhstair's squadron after
Thunderer
herself. A member of the ICN's second (and last) class of unarmored bombardment ships, she was armed with a longer, harder-hitting version of the navy's six-inch muzzle-loading rifles and her sail plan was at least as powerful as a
Rottweiler
-class ironclad's. That made it considerably
more
powerful than
Thunderer
's was at the moment, actually, given her jury-rigged repairs. If any ship of the squadron was likely to be able to tow
Thunderer
off the mudbank upon which she'd stranded herself, it was
Firestorm
, and Kylmahn was correct about the current wind. It had backed steadily around from the easterly which had driven them onto the shoal. By now, it was coming from the north-northeast; if it continued backing at the same rate, it would be out of the northwest or possibly even directly out of the west by the time the tide was full once more.

That, unfortunately, wouldn't happen for another eleven hours.

Bruhstair folded his hands behind him and walked to the nearest gunport to gaze out across the gentle waves. They were a little steeper and a lighter color where they swept across the mudbank, yet even there they were little more than a foot and a half in height. They were almost listless looking, as if they were wilting under the mid-morning sun's heat, which was pretty much par for the course, now that he thought about it.

He tried to shake off the pessimism creeping into his bones, but the truth was that the “flood tide” wouldn't be all that much of a tide even when it was next full. Hahskyn Bay was a large body of water, yet it was far smaller than Shwei Bay or South Shwei Bay, and its only connection with the open sea was indirect, to say the very least. Unlike Chisholm or Old Charis, it experienced only two tides per day, not four, and they were far feebler, as well. In Cherry Blossom Sound off Chisholm's east coast, the range between high tide and low tide was just under nine feet, and in the Sea of Charis it was almost six; in Hahskyn Bay, there was a bare two-foot difference between high water and low. That didn't prevent a nasty tidal set from pouring through the Kaudzhu Narrows when the ebb tide added its force to the current already flowing out of Hahskyn Bay to South Shwei Bay, but it meant the flood tide wasn't going to provide the sort of lift which would float
Thunderer
effortlessly out of the mud into which she'd driven herself. On the other hand, it would be the only chance he got in the next twenty-six hours.

He looked up at the sun and grimaced as he made himself face an unpleasant truth. It wouldn't be the only chance he got in the next twenty-six hours; it was all too likely to be the only chance he got, period. If he couldn't get
Thunderer
off the shoal on the upcoming high tide, such as it was and what there might be of it, the Dohlaran screw-galleys would almost certainly arrive before the next one. And that meant.…

He sighed, shook his head, and turned to face his first lieutenant.

“We'll have to lighten her more,” he said unhappily. “Call all hands, Master Kylmahn. We'll jettison the first six guns in each broadside and bring the next three aft.”

Kylmahn's face tightened. He hesitated briefly, as if tempted to argue, but then he squared his shoulders and nodded.

“Aye, Sir,” he said and reached for his speaking trumpet.

Ahbaht left him to it, moving a bit farther to one side to get out of the way and deliberately continuing to look out across the cheerfully sparkling waters. Not that he found the view particularly enthralling. It was, however, one way to keep his people from seeing his expression as they set about obeying him.

He'd hated giving that order as much as Kylmahn had hated hearing it, but there was really no choice. In fact, he should have given it before the first attempt to work his way off the mud. Knowing that made him no happier about sacrificing forty percent of
Thunderer
's firepower, though. He'd hoped he'd be able to claw his way clear with the kedge anchors, and for a while, it had seemed he might.
Thunderer
's boats had laid out four anchors from her own capstans, and three of his other galleons had laid out kedges of their own and passed towing hawsers to the ironclad. As the tide had reached its highest point, all four ships had manned their capstans simultaneously, their crews heaving at the capstan bars with every scrap of muscle and sinew they possessed in an effort to drag Bruhstair's ship bodily out of the mud.

It hadn't been enough, and he berated himself silently for hoping it might have been instead of accepting that it wouldn't. He'd pumped water overside, jettisoned provisions and every extra spar left over after repairing the damage aloft, and lowered every boat to reduce weight. But he'd tried desperately to hang on to the guns, and he shouldn't have.

Thunderer
had run just over a third of her length up onto the gently rising mudbank before crunching to a stop. There were barely three feet of water under her sternpost at low tide; even at high tide there would be no more than five and a half, and the suction between the mud and the ship's hull was enormous. Breaking that suction's grip clearly called for more draconian measures, and each of
Thunderer
's six-inch guns weighed almost four tons. With their carriages added, they weighed over five tons apiece, and jettisoning twelve of them and moving six more aft would concentrate the full weight of her artillery in the
after
third of her length. Altogether, it would reduce the weight bearing down upon the ironclad's forward section by about ninety-five tons and
increase
the weight aft of the point at which she'd taken the ground by thirty-two tons. That should turn the ship's length into a lever, prying upward against the shoal's suction at the same time
Firestorm
, having passed a tow to her flagship, gradually set every scrap of canvas she had. With
Thunderer
backing her own sails at the same moment, the two galleons would exert far more force than the merely mortal flesh-and-blood leaning against the capstan bars had been able to produce, even in a light breeze like the current wind. Of course, that assumed the wind did continue to back and
didn't
drop still further.

Once they had her afloat once more, they could redistribute her remaining guns to adjust her trim, but first—

“Deck, there!
Sojourn
's repeating a signal from
Restless!
”