out his own orders.
He, of course, could not fight. He wore a blade, the one he'd taken from the prison at Crete Sulace, but hadn't swung it in months. Command was fine, but watching his men advance, he dearly wished to be in the middle of it, a cavalry officer on a clever touched mount, leading the charge.
They took Claret after two hours, but there were casualties. Scouts reported Unseelie reinforcements approaching by the hundreds.
Mauritane's strategy depended on the taking of Elenth on the fourth day of the campaign. If the city could be taken and supply lines fortified, they might stand a chance of repelling the direct onslaught of the main Unseelie force, which was even now coming at a forced march from the border crossing at Selafae, where a half-regiment of Mauritane's Fifth Battalion waited, both as a lure and a hedge, in case Mab decided to try for Sylvan anyway.
Soon there would be Mab's battle fliers, hurling balls of flame and arrows down from above. There would be a flag city bearing down on them, its civilian population offloaded to other cities. The ground war was only the beginning.
The problem with the flying cities, the reason Mab was cautious with them, was that it was not impossible to bring them down, as Mauritane and his friends had proven prior to the Battle of Sylvan. He'd done it by infiltrating the city and slaughtering the strange hybrid creatures that manned the Chambers of Elements and Motion, which provided the force that kept the cities aloft. But Mauritane had developed missiles of Elements that could be fired at the underbellies of these cities. He knew the location of the Chambers of Elements and Motion in most of the flag cities now, thanks to Paet and the Shadows. If a city appeared, he might be able to down it with a single shot.
They pushed forward. They fought. Men and women fell. Too many of them. At this rate it wasn't certain they would even reach Elenth, let alone take it.
The second day they mostly marched, meeting only a few lost companies of Unseelie who'd gotten separated from their battalions in the confusion. These were taken down with relative ease, but even in these skirmishes Mauritane lost soldiers.
There was another battle at Downvalley, a day's march south of Elenth. Again Mauritane took the day, but at a substantial cost. Reports from his generals across the front reported similar losses.
Had he stretched his force too wide? Had he underestimated the flexibility of the Unseelie?
And there was still no word from Silverdun. According to Paet's latest report, they'd vanished in a flash of Folding three days earlier and hadn't been heard from since. No one wanted to say it, but it seemed certain that they wouldn't be coming back. If Hy Pezho had new Einswrath weapons, there would be no stopping him. And nothing Mauritane was doing would matter at all.
On the fourth day they reached Elenth, only to find it guarded by the entire Eagle Regiment of the Unseelie Army, with five battalions. And three battalions of Annwni.
Mauritane had only six battalions, and had already taken heavy casualties.
This was going to be difficult. This was going to be a serious battle. Time to invoke a bit of Fae propriety.
Mauritane rode out under a flag of parley and met with the Unseelie commanding general. They bowed deeply and made all the appropriate noises to one another, and agreed that they would join battle at dawn. All very civilized.
When Mauritane rode back, his troops were already setting up camp on the southern slope of the valley. Mauritane's aide, Colonel Nyet, found him and took him aside, scowling.
'Someone to see you,' said Nyet, pointing.
Baron Glennet had arrived with a delegation from Corpus, including Lord Everess. But Glennet was the ranking nobleman here, and it was clearly his show. This was a time-honored ritual on the eve of a great battle; a ranking member of the nobility could secure the right from the queen to lead the charge. It was a pure formality, of course. Glennet would review the troops, make a grandiose speech, and offer homilies and platitudes. The troops would love it, and Glennet would have his ego boosted. On the morning of the actual battle, he would graciously yield command of the army back to Mauritane, and then go home to his cozy bed and be saluted by the court for his bravery. In the official history, Baron Glennet would be reported as the commander of the assault on Elenth, not Mauritane. This was nothing new, and most commanders accepted it as a matter of course.
Mauritane greeted Glennet and Everess with full propriety. His propriety with Glennet was exactly as sincere as it had been with the Unseelie general minutes earlier. The difference was that Mauritane had actually respected the general. Their meeting was done in full view of Glennet's staff and Mauritane's officers. As a commoner and a military man, Mauritane was required to take the lower bow, which probably pleased Glennet no end.
Mauritane knelt and presented Glennet with his sword. 'I offer you command of my troops, and defer to Your Lordship in all things.'
Glennet raised the blade high above his head and the men cheered.
