Midst Toil And Tribulation – Snippet 23
Despite which, he was one of their best scouts, almost as good a tracker as Fyrmahn himself and more patient than most of the others.
“I don’t like it, Zhan,” Mharak Lohgyn muttered, his voice almost lost in the moan of the wind. “The bastards have to know we’ll be coming for them.”
“You’ve got that right.” Fyrmahn’s cracked and blistered lips drew up in a snarl, and the icy fire in his eyes mirrored the black murder in his heart.
Mahkhom and his heretic-loving cutthroats had stolen the food Fyrmahn’s own family needed to survive the last bitter five-days of winter. Yes, and they’d massacred that food’s entire escort in the process. Not one of the guards had survived, and it was obvious at least seven or eight of them had been taken alive by their enemies only to have their throats cut like animals. What else could anyone expect out of heretics? And what else could anyone expect out of Mahkhoms?
We should’ve killed the lot of them a generation ago! Cowards — cowards and backstabbers, every one of them!
The glare in his eyes turned bleak with bitter satisfaction as he remembered the way Mahkhom’s woman had begged his men to spare her children’s lives even as they ripped away her clothing and dragged her into the barn. The bitch hadn’t even known they were already dead. If only he could have been there to see Mahkhom’s face when he came home to Fyrmahn’s handiwork!
Nits may make lice
, he thought coldly, but not when somebody burns them out first. Father Failyx’s right about that!
“They may’ve decided we can’t come after them,” he said after a moment. “Schueler knows they killed enough of us when they stole the food in the first place! If they don’t know about Father Failyx and his men, they may figure they hurt us too badly for us to do anything but crawl off into a hole and die for them.”
Lohgyn’s jaw tightened, and Fyrmahn cursed himself. Lohgyn’s brother Styvyn had been one of the murdered guards, and Father Failyx had said the words over the pitiful, emaciated body of his youngest daughter just before they set out for this attack.
“Sorry, Mahrak,” he said gruffly, reaching out to touch his cousin’s shoulder. Lohgyn didn’t respond in words, but Fyrmahn could almost hear the creak of the other man’s jaw muscles. After two or three heartbeats, Lohgyn gave a curt, jerky nod.
“You may be right,” he said, ignoring both the apology and the pain that evoked it. “But it makes me nervous. No offense, Samyl, but somebody should’ve spotted you.”
Ghadwyn only shrugged again. There might have been a little spark down in his eyes at the implication that anyone could have seen him coming, but whatever his other faults, the man was a realist. There were bastards on the other side who were just as skilled at the tracker’s trade as he was . . . and who knew the penalty for a moment’s carelessness as well as he did, too.
“If they’d seen him, he wouldn’t be standing here now,” Fyrmahn pointed out. “He’d be lying out there somewhere with an arbalest bolt in his chest or a knife in his back.” He bared his teeth in an ugly grimace. “You think any of those bastards would pass up the chance to do for one of us?”
Lohgyn frowned. Fyrmahn had a point, and Wahlys Mahkhom’s men had proven how good they were when it came to killing any of the Faithful who entered their sights. They were no more likely to pass up the opportunity to kill one of Fyrmahn’s men than Fyrmahn’s men were to let one of them live. Yet even so . . . .
“I just can’t help wondering if they’re trying to be sneaky,” he said finally. “What if they saw Samyl just fine? What if they just want us to think they’ve pulled back to Valley Mount?”
“Set a trap for us, you mean?”
“Something like that.” Lohgyn nodded. “If they’re sitting up there in the hills with those damned arbalests, waiting for us, they might just have chosen not to take a shot at Samyl until they could get more of us out in the open.”
It was Fyrmahn’s turn to nod, however grudgingly.
“Might be you’ve got a point. But unless you’re suggesting we just turn tail and crawl back to camp empty-handed, we’ve got it to do if we’re going to find out.”
Lohgyn’s eyes flickered again at the words “empty-handed.” He seemed about to say something sharp, but then he drew a deep breath and shrugged instead.
Fyrmahn turned and glowered up the steeply climbing trail, thinking hard. There was another way to the ruins which had once been Brahdwyn’s Folly without using the Trace, but Khankyln’s Trail was long and roundabout. It would take them at least three days — more probably four, given the weather conditions and the effect of so many five-days of bad food (and too little of it) upon their stamina — to go that way. If the reports that Mahkhom was retreating to the protection of the larger town of Valley Mount, taking the stolen food with him, were accurate, he’d be three quarters of the way there, even allowing for the anchor of his surviving women and children, before Fyrmahn’s band could hope to overtake them. Besides, Khanklyn’s Trail was too narrow and tortuous for them to get sleds through. If they were fortunate enough to catch Mahkhom and recover the food, all they’d be able to take back with them would be what they could backpack out. And their lowland allies couldn’t possibly get through it with them, either.
But if Lohgyn’s fears were justified, if it was a trap . . . .
Well, Father Failyx is right about that, too
, he told himself grimly. Sometimes serving God means taking a few chances, and at least any man who dies doing God’s will can be sure of where his soul’s spending eternity.
“All right,” he said. “Mahrak, Lieutenant Tailyr’s about a thousand yards back down the Trace. Send one of your boys down to get him.”
Lohgyn waved to one of his men, who disappeared quickly around one of the twisty trail’s bends, and Fyrmahn turned back to his two cousins.
“This is why Father Failyx sent Tailyr along in the first place,” he said grimly, “so here’s how we’re going to do this.”
* * * * * * * * * *
“Seems you were right, Sir,” Sailys Trahskhat said, peering through the Charisian manufactured folding spyglass as he lay in the snow at Raimahn’s side. They’d climbed the knife-backed ridge from the burned out town’s limited shelter when the first sentry reports came in. “That’s Fyrmahn down there, sure as I’m lying here.”
The younger man nodded. He’d never seen Zhan Fyrmahn before today, but the man had been described to him often enough. That tangled, bright red beard and the patch over his left eye could belong to no one else, and he felt a bright tingle of eagerness dance down his nerves.
Gently, Byrk
. Remember what Grandfather always said.
“I think you’re right,” he said out loud, a bit surprised by how calm he sounded. “But my grandfather hunted a pirate or two in his day, you know. And he always told me the worst thing that could happen to somebody who’d set an ambush was to find out the other fellow had known it was an ambush all along.”
“See your point,” Trahskhat replied after a moment, lowering the glass and looking down with his unaided eyes at the black dots on the trail so far below them. “And they aren’t pushing forward the way we’d like, are they?”
“Not as quickly as we’d like, anyway,” Raimahn agreed. “That” — he gestured with his chin at what had to be between sixty and seventy men inching their way up the trail — “looks like an advanced guard. And one that’s better organized than anything Wahlys and his lads’ve seen out of Fyrmahn before. It’s showing better tactics, too, sending out a patrol to clear trail for the rest of it, and that other bunch back there isn’t moving at all. I don’t think it’s going to, either — not until Fyrmahn gets word back from the leaders that the coast is clear. In fact, I think those might be some of those reinforcements we’ve been hearing rumors about. They’re acting a lot more disciplined, anyway. Almost as good as our own boys.”
“Um.” Trahskhat grimaced and rested his chin on his folded forearms. “Not so good, then, is it, Sir?”
“Could be worse.” Raimahn shrugged. “They could’ve decided to send everybody around the long way, instead.”
“There’s that,” Trahskhat acknowledged. “And at least it doesn’t look like the powder’s going to be a complete waste, anyway.”
“No, it isn’t. I wish we had Fyrmahn farther up the trail, but we never expected to get all of them. Besides, we need someone to take our message back to our good friend Father Failyx, don’t we?”
“Aye, that we do, Sir.” Trahskhat’s voice was as grimly satisfied as his eyes. “That we do.”
Well I would hate to be that messenger, after all it would suck to be the one man to survive the ambush and then get killed by your own side for bearing bad news!
It looks like Fyrmahn has not encountered rifles from the Reformists. If the troops with them had flintlocks, I would think his people would also have them – but that is speculation. I would also guess that his reinforcements are less than the 2 companies that the Reformists have, maybe a platoon or two.
This may well turn into a battle, rather than an ambush. Hard to say at this point. And letting the CoGA forces close to smooth bore range, whether they have rifles or not, seems risky.
The old ‘kill-most-and-leave-one-to-draw-out-our-friendly-neihborhood-inquisitor-trick’. Excellent! Since most of the inquisition are deluded this should be easy.
Hmm preorder’s in apparently. Guess these snippets will finish about the time I get my hands on some paper?
Interesting the warped logic of Fyrmahn. It’s okay to rape and kill women and children but to kill ‘animals’ after they’re captured alive is morally wrong. I suppose it’s just a simple example of the traditional you’re always wrong and I’m always justified.
I like the new website look here.
I wonder if the reference to powder indicates they have set charges to start an avalanche?
Mike, I’m assuming so they’re planning to set off an avalanche. But setting off an avalanche is one of those things that’s a lot easier and more predicatable in fiction than in real life.
In real life they throw fairly heavy charges of high explosive out of helicopters toward spots that look ready to go, sometimes there’s a small avalanch, sometimes there’s a big one, sometimes the charge goes boom and nothing much else happens and sometimes there’s an avalanche and it doesn’t go where you expect, which is part of why they do this from the air nowadays and did it with mortars in the past.
Meanwhile in fiction a few pounds of powder buried somewhere near snow sets it off and it goes where you wanted it too. Yeah, right, if the snow is that predicatably unstable then it probably went when you were trying to place the charges and took the emplacement team with it.
Then there’s fuzing. Time fuzes are inapporpriate for this, so you either have someone THERE to set it off (that’s clever, does he get to try to run away over the unstable snow while the fuze burns down or is he just the one and only guaranteed fatality), or, more likely, you’ve run a very long fast burning fuze to the guy in charge of setting it off. A very long fuze laid on the top of snow, in sunlight, a very long black fuze covered with Hygroscopic powder laid on snow and ice. Is it just me or is there something wrong with this plan? Having someone at the top of the mountain toss a pebble and hoping you get lucky might have better odds.
With flintlocks you COULD leave a gunlock up there with a long wire and pull the wire, that’s at least a plausible way to set the charge off. But it still leaves the problem that there’s no good reason the charge should work.
Really, I’d love it if David had them planning an avalanche and it didn’t work or hit the wrong spot, because that’s probably far more likely than having it work. And it’s the sort of thing that would happen in real life if you tried this but that somehow never seems to happen in fiction because “clever” ideas by the good guys in fiction almost always work.
There are also precision emplacements with radio fuzes, and previous use of bazookas/RPGs as well as the mortars.
And as bazookas/rifle grenades/rockets are canon for the equivalently-period 163x-universe; they might also be present for Safehold EoC-supported forces. IIRC indirect fire weapons (mortars) already are canon on Safehold.
/Rob
They don’t have mortars yet. Those are in development, but haven’t been issued to troops.
I did a little research on quickmatch, and it is in a sleeve to contain and speed up the combustion. Wax the outside of the sleeve, and it will probably be watertight, and so unaffected by snow or ice.
They release the snow dragons at the right time.
Even a poorly time, small avalanche should split the forces.
But I am not sure they have the gunpowder to spare for an avalanche.
This may just be the time-honored technique of sniping from above your enemies who are confinded to a narrow path.
That could be a reference to avalanche charges, in which case they probably are using quickmatch to set it off. Alternatively, my guess is a series of improvised claymore mines, chained together by quickmatch. But anything that closes the pass is probably a good idea.
Or, that could just be a reference to shooting at them with rifles…
Ha! I SAID somebody should have taken a pot-shot at Ghadwyn! Bleek! Of course I was thinking of a musket shot, which would have made lots of noise even if it missed, not an arbalest bolt, which might have hummed by unnoticed – and the shooter would have to be a lot closer to Ghadwyn when he took the shot.
It appears to me that Lieutenant Tailyr is along for one of two reasons:
1. He’s a body double for Fyrmahn. If this is true, he’s got a bright read beard and wears the eye patch when he plays the role so the reformists will think that HE is Fyrmahn. Since he was specifically sent along by a priest (who may well be an inquisitor,) it’s quite possible Tailyr is a suicidal fanatic of the sort used in Operation Rakurai and that the Inquisition has told him that dying in Fyrmahn’s place would be a glorious martyrdom.
2. He’s the commander of the military reinforcements Fyrmahn has received – or just one of them if he’s a body double. It’s clear those reinforcements are with him, based on this quote: “Khanklyn’s Trail was too narrow and tortuous for them to get sleds through… And their lowland allies couldn’t possibly get through it with them, either.”
Since Lt. Tailyr was initially a thousand yards back, he was probably with the TL troops. Fyrmahn brought him up to the front group as he began to implement his plan. So the red-bearded man Byrk and Silas have just seen through the telescope may be Lt. Tailyr, not Fyrmahn, or Lt. Tailyr is commanding the TL troops Byrk is seeing, (the reinforcements he’d heard about,) or BOTH.
Drat, that means Fyrmahn may survive the ambush/avalanche. After getting a deeper look into what a soulless, hypocritical, sociopathic SOB this rabid dog is, I hoped he’d be put down as quickly as possible.
It appears the surprise that Byrk is worried about is that Fyrmahn has a substantial number of reinforcements with him – probably TL militia. (Formerly RSA troops.) After all, Lt. Tailyr is one of them.
If all Fyrmahn faced were knives and arbalests, he could overwhelm Byrk with sheer strength of numbers, especially if Fyrmahn has troops armed with muskets and pikes. The moment Byrk’s rifles fire, he’ll know he’s not facing Wahlys and will beat a hasty retreat.
It would be best to allow the advance guard to pass the (possible) avalanche zone, then bury as many of the reinforcements as possible. Unfortunately they don’t know those reinforcements are there – but Byrk seems patient enough to wait and see.
Ummm…Nimitz? Just so that we have this clear this time…WTF???!?!! Seriously. I mean, the one possibility that you have forgotten is that this “Lt. Tailyr” is actually Clyntahn, traveling incognito in both a red beard, eye patch and AoG uniform–but that’s just about it.
Well, maybe it’s just me. I’m going to go home and reread the passage, and see what you’re reading that I missed.
If it IS Clyntahn traveling in disguise, that shortens the “men who need killin” list by one!
Bleek!
Okay. So here is what I’m seeing. The “reinforcements”, at least a portion of them, have coem up and mingled with Fyrmahn’s men. Which is what the overall lot, including the “scouts” appear “almost as disciplined’ as as Byrk’s group. Perhaps indeed militia, rather than regualr AoG. However, I don’t think many more loiter out of sight–the problem seems to be whether all will be in the jaws of the trap when it springs. Of course, of the advance group is ahead of the trap, why, they have an awfully long road home, don’t they?
Now, as far as Fyrmahn, I am pretty sure that the only way that he manages to escape is he happens to have slipped off, claiming a bathroom break, and is, um, whispering sweet nothings into the ears of a passing mountain goat as the trap is sprung.
Okay, so I don’t really believe he’d be whispering anything SWEET. His own wife has probably never heard anything such, nor would she have even the slightest concept of The Big ‘O’. But I digress…
It seems to me that if they have set up avalanche charges, they have a bit more flexibility than if they set up kegs of gunpowder or claymore mines, because the latter are more likely to be seen by scouts. They will have to set off any charges before they are spotted, in which case they will be disarmed or avoided.
If they are sufficiently well hidden, then waiting for a large group, as opposed to individual scouts, seems best. I would guess that some of Fyrmahn’s people will be leading the scouts. I suppose he is sufficiently self-centered to let the “new guys” go first, and soak up casualties, before he joins the fight. They are not his clan, so they are expendable, right? Unfortunately, Fyrmahn is likely to survive. Assigning 4 or 5 snipers to target him after the powder goes off might work, although since this if fiction, we know he’ll survive and get away, although maybe he’ll be wounded.
The good news for Fyrmahn is that he may not have to stretch the available food over quite so many people. Grin
The increase in the consumption of gunpowder has me wondering where both sides are getting their saltpeter. I’ve read the method used in Foxfire V, although I’m not sure if it violates Pasquale’s injunctions. Other than that, and getting it from the bottom of compost bins, the only other way is by mining guano from birds, or mining of deposits of sodium nitrate. I doubt the writ would have included locations for it, although Shan-Wei probably knew any locations.
So, is the EoC mining “Chilean Saltpeter”? Is the CoGA? If not, and without the Haber-Bosch Process, they should start running out sooner or later.
OTOH, when is The EoC going to start working with nitric acid chemistry? Nobel invented dynamite, IIRC, and as as western movie and Clint Eastwood fan, I’ve always appreciated that.