Chapter 31
The sounds now coming from behind the walls of Franness were those of gunfire-and velipads squealing with pain and fright, and men shouting in anger. The kind of bitter rage that comes from betrayal, not the simple fury of battle.
We've underestimated Prelotta all along, Raj Whitehall admitted. What a brilliant bastard. The number of barbarian warlords who can understand the difference between a defeat and a partial victory-which is all he can hope for now-are as rare as hens' teeth. Even rarer are the ones who can calculate it beforehand. Which he obviously did.
For a moment, Adrian was distracted by an idle question. What are 'hens'? But the meaning of the expression was obvious from the context, and he was doing his level best to keep his thoughts concentrated. That was hard enough, under the circumstances. yes. that is why he built those new fortifications. i was wrong.
That admission of error, coming from Center, almost amused Adrian enough to break through the bleak shell which had surrounded him for days. Center had stated-with his customary 'stochastic certainty'-that the purpose of the new outer wall which Prelotta had built on the northern side of Franness had been… nothing, really. Just the ignorance of a barbarian chief, fumbling with the concept of siege warfare for the first time. One wall good, two walls better. 'Probability 68 %, ± 17.'
The real purpose of the wall was now obvious. Adrian didn't know whether to bless Prelotta or curse him.
Inside that new outer wall-but kept out of the city proper-were the thousands of Southron cavalrymen, mostly Grayhills, who had been driven by Demansk's relentless campaign this spring to seek shelter from the storm. The only real shelter, of course, being the major walled city in the south under Southron control.
Franness, still the 'new provincial capital' of the Reedbottoms-and with Prelotta himself, according to all spy reports, still resident. Along with most of the ten thousand men he had brought north with him the year before.
Thousands of Reedbottom warriors, trained and equipped to fight with the new guns. Well-equipped, in fact. In the months since he had taken the city, according to the spies, Prelotta had built up a significant arms industry around his initial core of blacksmiths. Whatever the other Vanberts of Franness might think of their new barbarian overlord, the metalworkers and apothecaries were quite pleased with him. They were more prosperous than ever.
But now, the Reedbottoms would be fighting from behind the very solid inner walls of the city. Prelotta had been smart enough to understand that the laager tactic which had worked so well against Tomsien would be suicide against Demansk. The Reedbottom chief, both Adrian and Demansk were positive, had his own corps of spies. They would have described to him, by now, how murderous the field guns which Trae had built over the winter in Chalice were proving to be against anyone who came against the Paramount.
Demansk had already crushed the only significant noblemen's revolt against him, just a few weeks earlier, using those guns. He would have crushed them anyway, using his three brigades of well-paid and disciplined Confederate regulars against the ragged 'brigade' which the noblemen had manage to assemble in opposition. But he hadn't bothered. He'd simply had Adrian fire several volleys from the field guns, before the rebels could come within three hundred yards. At that range, against massed infantry, the skittering iron balls had wreaked havoc. A final volley of canister had ended the affair entirely.
The Southron cavalrymen whom Demansk had been hammering since then were not as susceptible to the weapons, of course. But they could not stand against them, either. And so, week after week, Demansk had harried the barbarians and driven them steadily out of the Confederate lands they had been ravaging again this spring.
According to Demansk's spies, the other tribal chiefs had pleaded-demanded, in the case of Esmond, who had been elected the new chief of the Grayhills-that Prelotta lead his men out of Franness and set up the laager again. But Prelotta, no fool, had understood perfectly well that the same wooden walls which had shrugged off javelins would be a death trap facing cannonballs. So, stubbornly, he had remained within the walls of his new capital-while inviting the other tribes to join him there in a certain-to-be-victorious defensive battle against the oncoming Vanberts.
Join him they had, even the Grayhills under Esmond. But Prelotta had never allowed them beyond the first wall. Claiming, according to the spies, that the city was too crowded and rife with disease already to accommodate ten thousand more warriors. So, for a week now, Esmond and his six thousand Grayhills and the thousands of men from the other tribes had been trapped within Franness' 'outer pocket.'
A large pocket, true. Prelotta had not stinted on the work, using his own warriors as well as dragooned civilian labor to build an outer wall which extended four hundred yards beyond the city itself and stretched for almost two miles, across its entire northern length and curving a good way down the western side.
It was a crude wall, of course, nothing else had been possible in the months available. But, to barbarians, it must have looked impressive.
Now…
A dozen volleys from Adrian's four big siege guns had reduced a whole stretch of it to rubble. Rubble which would pose little difficulty to Demansk's brigades of infantrymen, when they stormed across it, but would be a death trap for cavalry. On those broken mounds of stone-even in the cramped space of the outer pocket-Southron tactics would be useless. Not even arrogant and cocksure Grayhills were foolish enough to think they could stand against Vanbert regulars in a toe-to-toe slugging match in a box.
Once they realized that, the Grayhills and other tribesmen had begun shrieking for Prelotta to allow them behind the much more substantial walls of the inner city. He had ignored their pleas, and now-when the pleas had turned to demands and men began trying to scale the wall-was answering them with gunfire.
Trapped. Barbarian cavalrymen had no more chance of scaling the inner wall of Franness-not against thousands of Reedbottoms firing down on them with their stubby guns-than they had of facing Demansk's infantry inside the outer pocket.
In short, Prelotta's foresight and ruthlessness had produced a situation where, by nightfall, the preeminence of the Reedbottoms over the Grayhills would be established for the first time. And, in all likelihood, for generations to come. Precious few Grayhills warriors would return from what, at its onset, they had expected to be one of the great plundering raids of memory.
All that, of course, assumed that Prelotta himself would survive the aftermath. But…
He's gambling there too. Gambling on Demansk-and gambling on you, most of all. Which are not bad odds, when you think about it.
Adrian shook his head. He would have time later to deal with that question. At the moment…
The sally ports in the outer wall were swinging open. Those of them, that is, which Adrian's siege guns hadn't already splintered.
All the sally ports that Adrian could see, all down the wall.
Esmond's doing all that's left to him. A great massed cavalry attack. Hit Demansk's brigades as hard as possible, hoping to clear the way for a retreat back to the south. If he can escape this immediate encirclement, he'll at least manage to get his men out of here. It's a good move-best he's got, anyway-by a brave and resourceful commander. And I salute him for it.
Then, quietly: I'm sorry, lad. But it's time.
Adrian took a deep breath and nodded. If the officers standing around him waiting for orders thought there was anything odd about a man nodding to himself, they gave no sign of it. By now, they were accustomed to Adrian and his often peculiar mannerisms and temporary distractions.
They weren't even bothered by it. Adrian Gellert was almost as eccentric as his father-in-law's new wife, true enough. And so what? Demansk was Paramount, after all. And while his son-in-law was perhaps a bit crazed, what did it matter? The gods knew he was capable enough with his guns. Besides, he was an Emerald anyway. They're all a bit crazed.
Time. Oh, brother, I am sorry for it. I wish No point in that. The father-in-law had sacrificed the son; Adrian would have to do the same with the brother. So it was.
The shell came back around him, tight, solid, cold.
