Midst Toil And Tribulation – Snippet 21
.III.
Brahdwyn’s Folly,
Green Cove Trace,
Glacierheart Province,
Republic of Siddarmark
“Damn it’s cold!”
Sailys Trahskhat cupped his hands and breathed into them as if he actually thought he could warm them through his thick gloves. Byrk Raimahn looked at him quizzically across the fire, and Trahskhat grimaced.
“Sorry about that, Sir. Guess it was pretty obvious without my saying, wasn’t it?”
“I believe you could probably say that, yes,” Raimahn agreed.
They were three days into the month of April and, technically, the season had tipped over from winter into spring ten days ago, but “spring” was a purely notional concept in northern Siddarmark, and especially among the high peaks of the Gray Wall Mountains, at the best of times. This winter had been particularly harsh, and the locals assured them they still had at least three or four more five-days of cold and ice before the thaw set in. He believed them. It was hard not to, given that at the moment the “spring” temperature was well below zero on the Fahrenheit scale Eric Langhorne had reinstituted here on Safehold.
That would have been more than cold enough for a couple of Charisian boys, even without the cutting wind; with the wind, it was as close an approximation to hell as he ever hoped to see. He remembered how cold he’d thought Siddar City was in the winter, and found himself longing for that balmy climate as that Glacierheart wind sang hungrily about him. He shivered, despite his thick, putatively warm parka and lifted the battered tin teapot out of its nest of embers. He poured himself a cup, cradling it in his own gloved palms, holding it so the steam could provide at least a momentary illusion of warmth to his face and cheeks. Then he sipped, and tried not to grimace. Calling such an anemic brew “tea” was a gross libel, but at least it was hot, and that was something he told himself as it glowed its way down his throat into his hollow-feeling belly.
He wouldn’t feel so frozen if he didn’t also feel so constantly hungry. Unfortunately, even with the food Archbishop Zhasyn had brought with them, there was nowhere near enough to go around. Half of the relief expedition’s draft animals had already been slaughtered for the precious protein they represented, and it was unlikely the others were going to survive more than another couple of five-days.
If that long
, he told himself grimly with another sip of the hot water masquerading as tea. Welcome to “spring,” Byrk. I wonder how many of the ones who’ve made it this far are going to starve before the snow melts?
He and Sailys were a long, long way from home, and he turned away from the fire to contemplate the Gray Walls’ frozen, merciless beauty. There were mountains in Charis as well, of course. Some of them even had snow on their summits year-round, despite the climate. But Charisian mountains also had green, furry flanks, with trees that tended to stay that way year round and snow that stayed decently on the highest peaks, where it belonged. These mountains were far less civilized, with steep, sheer sides carved out of vertical faces of stone and earth, thrusting raw, rocky heads above the tree line to look down on narrow valleys lashed by snow and wind. Beautiful, yes, and indomitable, but without the sense of warmth and life Charisian mountains radiated. Not in winter, at least. People had lived here in Glacierheart for centuries before anyone really tried to explore Charis’ mountains, yet these valleys, precipices, and peaks had a primal, un-subdued ferocity that laughed at the notion humanity might ever tame them. He felt . . . out of place among them, and he knew Sailys felt the same.
He gazed out over the long, narrow valley known as the Green Cove Trace and hoped none of his sentries were going to lose fingers or toes — or noses — to frostbite this time. Or, for that matter, that none of them had become as numbed in mind and alertness as they no doubt felt in body. None of them had the opportunity for a fire like this one, not where the smoke might be seen, and he tried not to feel guilty about that.
The Trace faded into the blueness of mountain morning shadows as it snaked its way north towards Hildermoss Province, and if their information was as accurate as usual, there were men headed down that valley at this very moment. Men who were just as grim of purpose — and just as filled with hate — as Byrk Raimahn’s men.
He lowered his gaze to the charred ruins of Brahdwyn’s Folly and understood that hatred entirely too well. The blackened timbers and cracked foundations of what had once been a prosperous, if not overly large, mountain town thrust up out of the snow drifts, like tombstones for all the people who’d died here. Died in the original attack and fire, or died of starvation and privation afterward. The actual graves were hidden beneath the snow, overflowing the modest, rocky cemetery surrounding the equally charred ruins of the town’s church. Brahdwyn’s Folly’s priest and a dozen members of his congregation had been locked inside that church before it was fired, and as he looked out across the wreckage, Raimahn wondered how that barbarity had become so routine that it seemed almost inevitable.
“You reckon they’re still coming, Sir?” Trahskhat asked after a moment, and Raimahn shrugged. He still wasn’t certain how he’d become the commander of a double-strength company of riflemen, but there wasn’t much question about how the solid, reliable Trahskhat had become his second in command.
Trakskhat’s loyalty to the Church of God Awaiting, his faith in the vicarate as the Archangels’ stewards on earth, had carried him into exile in a foreign land where he and his family were insulted and harassed on a daily basis by bigots who hated all Charisians, regardless of their faith. It also had reduced the star third baseman of the Tellesberg Krakens to the harsh labor, meager salary, and penury of a longshoreman on Siddar City’s waterfront, and he’d accepted that — accepted all of it — because the faith which had made him a Temple Loyalist had required it of him. Because he’d been unable to accept the schism splintering God’s Church, despite the tolerance and legal protection the Crown and Church of Charis had guaranteed to the Empire’s Temple Loyalists. His stubborn integrity and his belief in God had left him no other choice but to turn his back upon his native land and live in exile from all he and his family had ever known.
Until the “Sword of Scheuler.” Until he’d seen the rapes, the murders, the atrocities committed in Siddar City by mobs harangued, armed, and all too often led by men in the vestments of Mother Church’s Inquisition. His own family had been swept up in that carnage, his children threatened with murder, his wife with rape, as well. He’d fought back, then, and as the mob closed in on their fleeing families, he and Raimahn had resigned themselves to death in the frail hope that by standing to die in the streets of Siddarmark’s burning capital they might buy the people they loved the time to reach safety. And the two of them — and their families — had been saved from that mob only by the arrival of armed Charisians led by a Siddarmark-born Reformist.
A lot of attitudes had gotten . . . clarified that day, including those of Byrk Raimahn and his grandfather. That was why Claitahn and Sahmantha Raimahn had taken Sailys’ family under their protection in Siddar City and promised to get them safely back to Charis as soon as they could find room aboard ship for all of them. It was also why Sailys’ Trahskhat was no longer a Temple Loyalist, and for someone with his integrity, the outcome of that change had been inevitable.
“No reason to think they’re not coming, Sailys,” Raimahn replied after another sip of so-called tea, and shrugged. “The information we fed Fyrmahn should’ve been convincing, and he’s a determined son-of-a-bitch. Don’t forget the Trace is the only real way through the Gray Walls east of Hanymar. If they’re coming through from Hildermoss, this is where they have to do it. Then there’s Father Gharth’s report that he’s been reinforced. The Father’s sources could be wrong, but I don’t think they are, and if he has been reinforced, he has more mouths to feed.” The young man smiled bleakly. “I’m pretty sure that last raid of Wahlys’ will’ve pissed him off enough — and hurt him enough — to send him straight at a prize like this one. If he’s smart enough to see the hook he could still pass it up, but given his track record?” He shook his head. “I don’t see him doing that, Sailys. I really don’t.”
Brahdwyn’s Folly, good name, I guess it’s soon to be Gharth’s Folly?
Reading this it says that Sailys Trahskhat was the “star third baseman of the Tellesberg Krakens.” However, in How Firm a Foundation on page 200, first sentence of the middle paragraph, it clearly says he’d “once been the Tellesberg Krakens’ starting first baseman.”
Both positions are equally important, but for consistency I think Mr. Weber should stick with Trahskhat play first.
@1: No, no, no. Gharth is one of the good guys, remember. Fyrmahn’s folly is what we want it to be.
The Hektor/Irys scenes are nice. I look forward to the Battle for Siddarmark. But the great question of this book will be: what does dragon taste like? Do not think we have forgotten the passing reference snippets ago.
They made a serious mistake showing the Charisian temple loyalists that their loyalty means nothing to mother church. Once the ex-pats x-temple loyalists get back to Charis and tell their stories to their counterparts in tellisburg the fight for hearts and minds will be over. No middle ground. Pity is that until siddermark was attacked, people still believed there could be some sort of dialog over reform. The temple just cut that off that option. Now they have just opened a whole new land based front that will bring a whole new level of death and carnage the likes of which the group of 4 cannot fathom. The Charisian problem is going to be having enough ammunition to stem the tide poised to sweep over them from harchong.
I noted the first time we saw Cahnyr & co. headed for Glacierheart that it looked like the SoS had changed Byrk’s mind. It’s nice to see the mental process that went into that – and how intensely he’s “converted” to the reformist cause, as have his grandparents. I said at the time “Amazing how being targeted by the thugs of the SoS will focus a man’s faith…” And here we have examples of how Clyntahn took two men who were solid TLs, one almost fanatically so, and turned them into rabid reformists.
Let us all wish Clyntahn a long and “interesting” life, because he is by FAR his own worst enemy – and he’s making enemies out of his stoutest supporters!
Somehow I doubt there are a dozen Charisian expatriates in all Siddarmark who survived the SoS and are still TLs. When the survivors arrive in Charis, as has been noted, the TLs there are in for a serious shock. Since the CoGA has declared jihad against the entire EoC, those TLs would be raped and murdered along with everyone else, so I don’t understand why they haven’t realized this already. If the survivors of the SoS can’t convince them, then some people simply refuse to admit reality.
Someone ought to start a TL “Peace movement” to get these idiots murdered by the AoG to prove that the Go4 doesn’t CARE which side Siddarmarkans are on, they’ll kill them indiscriminately.
At last, we’re about to see some action! Plus we find ourselves at a location that appears on the new map!
http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/entry/Safehold/338/1
if you want to look.
The narrow valley known as the Green Cove Trace is the ONLY invasion route from Hildermoss into Glacierheart. To the east the next route through the mountains is from Mountaincross through the Sylmahn Gap, which Stohnar and soon the ICM will have stopped up like a bottle. Hundreds of miles to the west, Glacierheart can be invaded from Westmarch through Hanymar, which looks like a fairly wide valley between mountain ranges, and south of that Glacierheart is wide open to invasion from Cliff Peak province – but THAT held for Stohnar.
So initially Glacierheart is going to have some desperate battles to slow the AoG and quite possibly the Dohlarans, – and although it’s a long shot, the Desnarians as well. Then the ICA will arrive, cut off the invader’s supply routes, and reinforcements will pour into Glacierheart as the ICA arms the RSA (Republic of Siddarmark Army) with their obsolete flintlock rifles, and the odds suddenly won’t be so one-sided.
The battle we’re about to see in the next couple of snippets isn’t going to be much more than a firefight, as we have only 200 of Madam Pahrsahn’s riflemen against a TL militia who will be armed with pikes and smoothbore matchlocks if I guess right. The reformists have the range, the high ground, and have set up an ambush. This looks to be ugly for the TLs, but then no plan survives contact with the enemy.
Considering the animals that were pulling their sleds, I wonder what snow lizard tastes like – chicken? Bleek!
@4 Frank: IMO it might not make as big an impression on the TLs in the EoC as you seem to think. For one: most of the TLs remaining in the EoC (even in Corisande) are primarily die-hards with a leavening of pure fanatics (the source of the assassin/bomber/terrorist types that Clyntahn is making such good use of); as most of the moderates have already gotten behind the neccessity of reforming CoGA if not behind the schism-born CoC. For two: the information will be considered second-hand at best (and from those ex-TLs who have abandoned the One True Church in their cowardice); just more disinformation like the torture of that Corisandian priest and the assassinations of Hector and his son, and of Nahrmann, and the assassination attempts on Nahrman’s family as well as on Irys and Daiyvan being the work of the glorious Inquisition at the direct orders of the Holy Vicar Clyntahn!! Some eyes might be opened (but IMO most TLs left in the EoC will be like a toddler with his eyes scrunched shut, hands over his ears, kicking their feet, and loudly-reciting/screaming nonsense syllables at the top of their lungs) but I think the majority have minds already made up. And in Siddarmark it will be more in the way of an increased polarization between CoGA and those who oppose Clyntahn, the-Inqusition, and the CoGA (which includes but is not limited to the EoC, the CoC, and Siddarmarkian supporters of Stohnar and the Republic). In the other non-EoC realms it will probablly be considered disinformation/CoC-propaganda (especially after being spun by CoGA sources).
I’d really like to see this ambush go well; especially as I get the impression that the ambushees in mind were the persons responsible for killing those they had not already massacred by burning them alive inside their church!!!!
/Rob
@3 – Anonymouse – chicken
I’m still waiting to see a scene reminiscent of the Disney version of Mulan, where a large enemy force in a pass region faces explosives placed high on a snow-covered mountainside. I would probably wait to use that until an overwhelming enemy force was approaching. It would work only once, but Master Abrhams could plant the charges and use anything from fast match to a signal relayed by Snarks to set if off.
@4 what do we know of dragons? They appear to be mammals (‘as useless as tits on a boar dragon…’)have a great speed (some of them) and load carrying capacity, come in various types including carnivorous, are skittish (I recall them being unsteady under fire). Do they have six legs? (sorry Nimitz)Sounds like a cross between a musk ox, a polar bear and a wolf! But definately not something tasting of chicken.
@10, @4 I am surprised that they are edible. It somehow reminds me of Carl Sagan’s comment regarding humans mating with ETs: we could sooner mate with a petunia. If even certain Earth flora and fauna are poisonous, surely something from a completely different evolution would be at least inedible. Or have the nutritional value of dirt.
Blech!
@11: Maybe something was done about it during the terraforming process. After all, it would be stupid to have so many potential food sources being poisonous. I know we can’t do it with our current technology, but the Terran Federation was a lot more advanced than us. Exactly how advanced was genetic manipulation at the end of the war against the Gbaba?
@4, @10, @11, @12 While the discussion of what dragon tastes like and whether they can be eaten by humans is indeed quite interesting, Cahnyr’s expedition to Glacierheart used only dogs and snow lizards as draft animals. No dragons I’m afraid. (But please correct me if I’m wrong.)
I doubt dog tastes like chicken – omnivores generally don’t, but it’s not something I’m anxious to try – ever! ;)
Snow lizards are most likely carnivores, the joke about them eating snow notwithstanding. So they probably don’t taste like chicken either.
My guess – snow lizards probably taste like dog! Bleek!
@13: More like “Blech!”
@14 Ah, but Nimitz is a carnivore. According to the text, he has refined taste (only Mac could cook rabbit just right for him), but still a carnivore.
Oh, but that doesn’t say if Nimitz13 is a carnivore. My mistake. :^) <<<
@15. Yes, but does Nimitz13 taste like chicken?
@16 – I don’t want to know, and if you know, I really really do not want to know how you know.
@2. Don/’t be silly. Obviously he was one of those third basemen who switched to first because he wasn’t a good enough fielder, but was a slugger. ;)
@16, @17 Now you gents are starting to worry me. Need I point out there should be no tasting of fellow forum members, whether they taste like chicken or not! lol
@15 @16 Don’t be silly, I obviously taste like treecat.
Of course GETTING a sample of treecat to taste could be quite hazardous to your health!
Bleek!
Tastes like celery…
@19 Are you sure there are no Chocolate Easter Bunnies or Chocolate Mousse that are forum members?
Other than that, I’m good. :^)
— Bob G
@22. Chocolate treecats?
@21 Great answer, wish I’d thought of it myself.
For the daring among you, treecat probably tastes a lot like hexapuma. ;)
Now go get a sample of each to compare! To remain topical, you’re limited to Safehold weapons before the massive bribe that slipped gunpowder through the Proscriptions.
Bleek!
@24. A massive bribe will take care of that….
One of the biggest biological mistakes many writers (and fans) make is assuming that Earth’s biological families have anything to do with alien life. There will be no such thing as “mammals” on any alien planet.
There may or may not be creatures who have developed some way of directly feeding their offspring. We have seen several types of creatures develop such methods here on Earth. But they still won’t be mammals any more than bees are mammals (even though they produce a liquid food for their offspring).
A synapsid might be close (scaled mammal ancestor)- its already established that they are edible – therefore use the same proteins with no nasty surprises (like melamine) in the mix.