“I’m certain,” Trianal said, and raised an eyebrow at Vaijon, who nodded firmly in agreement. The Sothoii looked back at the hradani. “It might not have been the very best plan in all the world, and they obviously didn’t have enough scouts out to watch their own backs while they concentrated on ambushing my men, but it was planned, all right. And so was the way they broke off. I lost thirty-seven men, dead or wounded. Yurgazh lost another eight, and even with his arbalests, we accounted for less than two hundred ghouls.” He shook his head. “That’s not an exchange rate we can sustain, and it’s a lot worse rate than we’ve ever had before. Worse, there must’ve been a good three or four hundred of them still on their feet when they ran for it. How often have we seen that many of them simply take to their heels when they’ve got an enemy in reach?”
Bahzell nodded slowly, cradling his tankard between his hands on the tabletop while he considered what Trianal had said.
“And not a one of their young did you see?” he asked after a moment.
“No, and that was another strange thing,” Vaijon replied. He looked more worried than Bahzell was accustomed to seeing him, and his blue eyes were distinctly unhappy. “I’ll admit it…bothers me when their young come at us, but it bothers me even more when we take one of their villages and their are no young-or females-in it. That’s another reason I’m sure Trianal’s right about their having planned the entire ‘battle.’ They had to have sent their young and their females away ahead of time, which means a couple of things I don’t like to think about.”
“Ah?” Bahzell’s tilted ears invited him to continue, and Vaijon shrugged.
“First, they’re trying to protect their young, and they’ve never worried about that before. Everyone knows ghouls don’t care about that-Tomanak, they eat their own young! But this time, they’d sent them away, which can only mean they were deliberately protecting them from us.
“Second, they knew we were coming far enough in advance to send them off before we ever got there. How? We were over twenty miles away before we made our night approach march, and we’d been moving the other direction for two days. We’d even bivouaced ‘for the night,’ in case any stray ghouls were wandering around in our neighborhood, before we turned the men out for the attack. So either they spotted us on the way in and managed to organize the removal of all their females and their young-and you know how hard it is for even a ghoul to catch one of their young, Bahzell, much less round up all of them! — on the fly, or else they decided to evacuate their ‘noncombatants’ ahead of time simply because we were in the vicinity. I don’t know which would be more unnatural coming out of a ghoul: the ability to respond that quickly and flexibly, or the forethought to evacuate just as a precaution!”
“Vaijon is right,” Trianal put in, and his expression was even more frankly worried than Vaijon’s had been. “And that’s part and parcel of the way they broke off, too.” He shook his head. “I think it’s obvious they let themselves get too focused on my prong of the attack-probably because of our horses-and didn’t realize Yurgazh was there until he hit them, but when they did realize he was there, they immediately turned and ran.”
“So they’re fighting smarter,” Arsham murmured, and Trianal nodded.
“Fighting smarter and in greater numbers than they ought to be,” Vaijon expanded. “There shouldn’t have been that many males in a village that small, and they didn’t have anywhere near enough food animals to support them there for very long. If I didn’t know it was impossible-and given what’s been happening lately, I don’t know it’s impossible-I’d say some sort of ghoul…warlord, for want of a better term, is managing to impose some kind of discipline on them. It’s as if they’d deliberately pulled all of the ‘noncombatants’ out of the area and transferred in more fighting strength, instead.”
“Now, that’s a thought I’m not so very happy to hear,” Bahzell murmured.
“Nor I,” his father agreed, frowning as he scratched the tip of one ear thoughtfully. “And no more will Kilthan or Baron Tellian, come to that.”
“They’d have to be able to mass in substantially greater numbers before they could hope to actually defeat us in battle,” Vaijon said. “Their tactics are getting better, but ‘better’ is a purely relative term when you’re starting from what we normally see out of ghouls. I’m not saying they won’t continue to improve, and they’ve already moved well beyond their usual scream-and-leap approach. But until they get a lot better than anything they’d shown us yet, they’d still need a crushing numerical advantage before they could realistically threaten a field force the size of ours.
“Unfortunately, they can hurt us a lot worse than we’d anticipated, whether they can actually beat us or not…and we don’t know what kind of numbers they’ll eventually be able to assemble. Given what we saw in this instance, I’m inclined to think whatever ghoul military genius is managing to coordinate them may well be able to concentrate even more of them next time. And even if he can’t, as Trianal says, we can’t sustain that kind of exchange rate over the entire summer’s campaign.”
“No, and if it should happen as how there truly is a ‘military genius’ on the other side, I’m thinking he’s not so very likely to be letting us cordon off the Hangnysti from the rest of the Ghoul Moor,” Bahnak observed sourly.
“I think it’s certainly going to be harder to clear the riverbank and keep it that way, at any rate,” Trianal said grimly.
“Yurgazh’s report makes it clear he’s of the same opinion, Sir Trianal,” Arsham said.
“Well, then.” Bahnak’s chair creaked as he leaned back and tipped it up on its back legs while he surveyed the others. “I’m thinking we’d best not let it come to that.”
“And would it happen you’ve a notion as to how we might accomplish that, Da?” Bahzell inquired, and his father snorted harshly.
“It’s in my mind we’d best nip in there quick and hard,” he said. “It’s a rare strange ‘military genius’ as is able to exercise his genius if it should so happen someone’s been and disconnected his head from his neck. So I’m thinking it’s time and past time as we saw to that little thing.”
“I could agree with that, Your Highness,” Arsham said dryly.
“Good.”
Bahnak let his chair’s front legs come back to the floor and leaned forward over the table, folding his arms on its top.
“Trianal, your uncle’s after being stuck fast in Sothofalas, and well I know it. Would it happen as how you could be calling out more of his armsmen of your own authority and get his approval after?”
“Within limits.” Despite his youth, there was no hesitation in Trianal’s response. “I can call up the Riding’s first levy, as long as I don’t keep them in the field for more than sixty days. Any longer than that, or calling for the general levy, would require the Crown’s authorization, which we might or might not get, given the balance on the Great Council.” He smiled fleetingly. “And, of course, I’d better be able to give Uncle Tellian a very good reason for why I did it when he asks!”
“And the first levy would be giving you, what?”
“If I call up all of it?” Trianal shrugged. “About another eight thousand men.”
Bahnak nodded, his eyes distant for a moment as if he were doing sums in his head. Then he turned to Arsham.
“It’s checking with Gurlahn I’ll have to be, but it’s in my mind as we could put that many more-or it might be even ten thousand more-of our own into the field without pulling too many hands out of the fields or off the canal.”
Arsham looked a bit dubious, but he didn’t challenge Bahnak’s numbers. Gurlahn Karathson, Bahnak’s only living brother, had been Hurgrum’s chief of staff for over thirty years. If Bahnak was being overly optimistic, Gurlahn would lose no time in bringing him back to reality.
Bahnak’s ears flicked in amusement, as if he’d read Arsham’s mind.
“It might be as we won’t be coming up with quite so many as all that,” he continued, “but I’m thinking as how another sixteen thousand men might just come as a bit of a nasty surprise to yon ‘military genius.’”
“Hit them with a bigger offensive than they’ve seen out of us yet?” Vaijon murmured. “Enough bigger to punch through anything they could pull together to stop us?”
“I’ll not be going so far as all that,” Bahnak said grimly. “We’ve too little idea of exactly what’s been after changing. But, aye, it’s in my mind to cut a broader swath than we’d first intended. I know we’d planned on taking the rest of the summer to be clearing the river line, and I’ll not pretend I won’t begrudge the kormaks to pay for so many more men. But I’ll not be frittering away anyone’s men at this nasty rate if it should happen there’s a way to avoid it, and I’m thinking this is most likely the best way to do that. It’s go in hard and fast, we will, and take the ground of our choosing, and if it should so happen our ‘military genius’ is minded to be doing anything about it, then it’s fighting on our terms he’ll find himself.”
