\hypertarget{chapter-28-gambits}{%
\chapter{Gambits}\label{chapter-28-gambits}}



\epigraph{``I've yet to encounter a situation that couldn't be improved by a
copious amount of lies and body doubles.''}{Dread Emperor Traitorous}



Well, it'd taken two years and some change but I was finally on the
right side of a cavalry charge. And all it had cost me to get there was
a \emph{lot} of murdering, and that one spot of high treason.

The thoughts were flippant, but the sight before me killed the urge to
continue in that vein. Three thousand knights of Callow were breaking
through the western flank of the fae, taking death with them wherever
they went as they carried the banner I'd named on a spur. I'd read about
the chivalric orders, the men and women who had once been the pride of
the Kingdom, and I thought I'd understood the kind of weight they could
bring to bear. I'd been very, very wrong about that. Two thousand fae
died in the blink of an eye, pierced by lances and trampled by
destriers. It wasn't that the knights were gifted with eldritch power,
not like the Watch. They were mortals through and through, though
trained in war since they could walk. Neither were they like the
paladins of the Order of the White Hand, sworn to fight Evil and made
able to call on lesser miracles for it. Or so the old books said,
anyway. The Order had been long buried by the time I was born, Black
destroying it in an exceedingly thorough manner so that no hero would
ever rise from their scattered ranks. No lost daughter of the White Hand
would ever claim an old birth right and bring rebellion to Callow.

No, they were just Callowans. I watched a gout of flame splash against
the breastplate of a long-haired woman and leave it untouched. Just
Callowans, but no babes in the woods for it. The knights of Callow had
not been forged by the old wars with the Principate, though enough of
those were fought. No, they were the answer of the Kingdom to the
sorceries of the Wasteland. There was a reason a Warlock could not
simply wave his hand and burn a thousand of them to ashes. \emph{Clad in
steel and prayer}, the old song went. Hymns from the House of Light were
carved into their armaments, mere grooves in steel until sorcery touched
them. Then they glimmered, and magic slid like droplets off a duck's
back. It was not immunity: they could still be harmed through the
protection, often had been, but it was telling that when Black had
thought to break them he had turned to orcs and pikes instead of
whatever madness Warlock could have unleashed. In front of goblin steel,
the armaments of the knights were armour like any other. There was a
lesson in there. The chivalric orders had been founded to check a
threat, and when the nature of that threat changed they were caught
flatfooted and destroyed.

Today, though? I'd found them an enemy that could not, \emph{would} not
change.

``Captain Firasah,'' I said, and the mage at my side stiffened. ``Word
from the other side?''

``She has gone through, ma'am,'' the one-eyed Taghreb replied.

Firasah had been one of the mage officer who'd tried to scry the Summer
forces when the Fifteenth had still been in Summerholm. She was one of
the lucky ones -- she'd excised her eye before the burns from the
backlash could spread across half her face. Not all the mages had been
so fortunate. She'd hesitated when I'd told her we would be scrying
Winter while on the march, but as I'd thought my title shielded the
mages from the frozen fury that had poured through the connection. It
had done little to soothe the Prince of Nightfall's temper, when I'd
found him, but the bait of Summer crippled I had dangled had been too
tempting for him to resist. The lateness of the arrangement had limited
what forces he could bring, though, more than I would have wished.
Another ten thousand fae would have made it all much easier. He'd taken
another royal with him along for the ride: the Princess of Silent
Depths. They'd asked for prizes and to know my plans.

Naturally, I'd lied.

``Good,'' I replied quietly, closing my eyes.

I'd begun this battle thinking I was aware of every string being pulled.
Winter was out for blood and plunder, unquenchable hunger in their
bellies. Kegan and Ranker wanted to leave Arcadia as soon as possible,
convinced this fight could only be measured in shades of defeat. And
Summer? Summer wanted to crush me. To turn the quibbling mortals who'd
dared step foot in their domain to ashes. I'd understood that before the
other two commanders in my army, because I had an advantage they didn't.
I still remembered that hard-bitten hatred I'd felt after crossing the
gate, when I'd gazed upon the moonlit field. It didn't matter, whether
or not it made tactical sense for the Princess of High Noon to withdraw
from Creation to assail us. She \emph{had} to. It was in her nature. I
was of Winter, and Summer could never shy from a challenge as brazen as
the one I'd issued. This battle had always been a certainty. It was a
matter, then, of stacking the odds in my favour. I needed a story, or at
least an engagement that had the shape of one. A larger Summer force
blundering into a trap had served that purpose, leaving me only with the
need to, well, make an actual trap.

So I'd spared the Count of Olden Oak, though through his actions he had
earned an ugly death at my hands one day. Because a fae of count rank
could \emph{open gates}. Not gates like mine, sadly, but their ability
to sort of step through the boundary protecting Creation could be
extended to a group. Like half of Robber's cohort, along with enough
mages to keep the Count of Olden Oak suppressed by layered wards. Iron
knives had to be taken to him to convince him of making the gate, sadly,
since the flame of Summer inside him made Speaking ineffective. Robber
had been able to take care of it. He'd gleefully informed me that the
College had an entire week of classes dedicated to the subject, along
with the question of `how much torture is too much torture'. The answer
was apparently more complicated than I'd assumed. The goblin's assertion
that it was an old cadet favourite along with the class about why `vast
and terrible powers' were not a valid reason to lack a supply train, I
chose not to think too much about.

When back in Creation, his orders were to scry Juniper in a hurry.
Depending on where the Fifteenth was relative to where he emerged with
the Count, there could be two options. The first was that the legion
would be too far too join up in time for the battle, in which case he
was to simply call for the knights to ride in haste ahead of the
infantry. The other was to bring all he could across and smash the fae
flank according to the directions I have him. I'd confirmed, before the
beginning of the fight, that the second situation had come to unfold. On
the other side of the portal that had just opened the entire Fifteenth
was arrayed, and by now they would have begun to cross. So would
Apprentice and Archer: the person who'd been on the other side of the
scrying I'd arranged the moment I opened the gate was Masego, Captain
Firasah was certain of it. Good. Then I could proceed according to what
I'd meant this fight to be instead of a lesser scenario. Wiping out
Summer in full here would be too much to hope for, I was aware. We were
too deep in their territory for that. But if I played my cards right, I
might just get what I needed to fight this war on my terms.

The thing was, when I'd left Marchford I'd been thinking of taking a
force through Arcadia as a risky gamble that would allow me to steal a
march on the Diabolist. After all, everybody knew fae were stronger in
Arcadia. Able to use more of their power. The assumption of every
commander in this war had been that I would try to fight them in
Creation, where the grounds were more to my advantage. But were they
really? The thought had been in the back of my mind since Laure. I could
concentrate the Legions and the army of Daoine in the south and try to
smash the Summer Court there, but that would be \emph{costly}. We'd lose
thousands in that fight, and thousands more would be too wounded to be
of any use when I put down Akua. If I got Winter involved, that meant
letting rapacious fae loose in Callow under the command of an entity I'd
have a hard time handling, much less killing if it came to that. And
even if I won, then what? Maybe we chewed half their number before they
retreated having cost us twice that much, and then they would just pop
out from somewhere else. The Fifteenth and whoever else I dragged with
me were perhaps the most mobile force on Calernia at the moment, but the
fae had the same advantage and they were better at using it.

So if I didn't want them to waltz past my army and burn Callow from the
Waning Woods to the Silver Lake, I needed to dictate where they had to
go. The way Juniper had done to me in our first war games, giving me her
flag so she could be certain where I'd be instead of waiting out the
days to a draw. The first place and moment I knew they'd be for sure?
Here. Today. I had to bleed them hard here, because Arcadia was the only
place where I could make their numbers meaningless. As long as I had the
story on my side today, I could butcher them in droves in a way I simply
couldn't in Creation without losing thousands myself. I couldn't end
them here, that was true. There would be a second battle, and to be able
to dictate when and where that one happened I was going to have to get a
little\ldots{} reckless. This was the only chance I'd get, which meant
we were returning to the old standard of all or nothing. I'd never lost
that bet before, and I didn't intend on starting today.

Most everything had been going the way I wanted it to, which was why I'd
been less than surprised when Ranger had shown up. There was no doubt it
was her: I knew that cloak for my Name dreams. I'd swiftly given orders
to not provoke her in the slightest -- as I understood it she refrained
from killing Praesi for sport more out of courtesy for Black than any
real fondness, and that might go out the window the moment someone
irritated her. I'd thought she might be here for the Prince of
Nightfall, to collect a second eye for her jewellery, but she'd not
stirred when he'd come out. And she'd made no move against Princess
Sulia, which had been my other guess. That was\ldots{} not good. Were it
someone else I would have presumed she was waiting for the fae to tire
themselves out against each other before sweeping in, but that went
against my understanding of Ranger. If she was here for a fight, she'd
wanted whoever she was fighting at their peak. The longer she refrained
from getting involved the more nervous I got, but what the Hells could I
do about it? I was pretty sure I could take Archer, if I needed to, but
the other Named had been pretty frank about the kind of margin her
teacher outclassed her by.

That had pretty blatant implications about how that fight would go if I
picked it, which I \emph{really} didn't want to.

I opened my eyes and watched the battle. I still had cards to play, more
than the opposition probably thought, but if I wanted to make this a win
I'd have pick the right moment. To the east, Summer and Winter clashed.
The centre of Winter's line was made up of a chunk of five thousand of
my old buddies the deadwood soldiers, and they were chewing up the
Summer regulars real bad. The flanks, though, were made up of the same
rabbled that had assaulted Marchford -- and they were taking a bloody
beating. The tricks that had worked on my legionaries left other fae
indifferent, and unlike the Summer fae those twits didn't fight in a
proper battle line. \emph{Warriors against soldiers}, I thought. My
`allies' had to take out their heavies early when the left flank
wavered, a thousand Riders of the Host on their murderous unicorns
charging out of the woods to slam into the enemy and take off the
pressure. The winged knights of Summer took flight, though, and with
matching numbers on both sides there was only one way that scarp would
go. The battle in the sky above them wasn't going beautifully either.

Princess Sulia and her easily offended patsy had lit up their wings and
flown above to scrap with the Prince of Nightfall and the Princess of
Silent Depths, and watching that go down made me want to wince. The
Winter prince opened with filling the sky with a howling blizzard, which
the Princess of High Noon promptly screamed out of existence. Just
screamed. Not even fire or anything. That must have been embarrassing.
Watching the Summer royalty fight was giving me a notion of what it must
have been like watching Apprentice and I go all out. Sulia kept the
Winter royals busy up close and personal while the Prince of Deep
Drought lashed out with sorcery. The Princess of Silent Depths slowed
them down some when she called on some kind of power whose weight could
be felt even from where I stood, bringing down crushing pressure that
dented the ground under them -- pulping fae from both sides in the
process -- and nearly knocked the Summer pair out of the sky. Didn't
last long, though, and Princess Sulia retaliated by hacking her arm off
and smashing the Prince of Nightfall's nose with it. I would have
admired her style, if I wasn't next in line on her kill list.

It was unfolding like a lesson on why Winter got whipped whenever it
came to a battle, and though they were holding for now -- Silent Depths
made herself a brand new arm out of ice and promptly tried to strangle
the prince on the other side with it -- that hourglass was going to run
out eventually. Couldn't let that happen, much as I would have liked for
the Prince of Nightfall to become an object lesson about why trying to
use me was a bad idea. I still had a use for them.

The east was going more smoothly. Regulars of the Fifteenth were
establishing a beachhead as they continued crossing, though it would
take a while before there were enough to be effective. Apprentice had
told me months ago he'd be able to turn fae into portal-makers of my own
calibre, given a prisoner of sufficient rank, but I couldn't help but
notice the portal he'd finagled was noticeably smaller than mine. I
suspected there was another lecture about the ins and outs of turning
fae into fodder for runic arrays on the horizon, and I wasn't looking
forward to it. As for the knights of Callow, well, they'd carved their
way through what must have been four thousand fae before withdrawing in
good order. They would have taken more if the fae in front of them had
not taken to the air instead of docilely allowing themselves to be run
down. Now the Summer soldiers were attempting volleys, but even their
tricky little fire arrows weren't swift enough to catch up to good
cavalry on the move. The knights rode out of range, losing only score of
men to the fire: heavy plate armour was nothing to sneer at, and without
the fire sorcery those arrows were little different from mundane ones.

They formed up again and began wheeling around to take the fae in the
back, to my delight. A few thousand Summer regulars had hastily formed a
line where they'd been charging before, only to find themselves facing
nothing. It took the edge off the mass attacking the walls of my camp as
well, and on that side Afolabi's legionaries were teaching the fae how
the Twelfth had earned its name. I might not like the man, but when it
came to war he knew his business. I could already see a threat forming,
though for now the advantage was ours. The fae who'd been readying
themselves to weather another cavalry charge had nothing but a few
hundred legionaries of the Fifteenth in front of them, and if they took
it into their head to take that gate there wasn't much Juniper could do
about it from her side. I'd have to give them something else to worry
about.

``Captain,'' I said. ``Get the message across: they're to meet me on the
field. They just need to find the loudest screaming.''

``Ma'am,'' Firasah saluted.

I rolled my shoulders under the plate. Shame I couldn't have prayers
carved into it like the knights, but considering I'd kind of sold my
soul to the Gods Below odds were all I'd get from that was charred skin.
Well, maybe not sold. It'd been a little too casual for that, wasn't
like I'd had a scribe make the transaction official. Pawned felt more
accurate. I sent a runner to Nauk and watched as all around the central
avenue of the camp barricades were set aside. Hakram came to me side not
long after, fresh from the fighting on the outer palisades. His axe was
slick with red and his pauldron cut straight through. His good mood was
evident.

``Sortie?'' he asked.

``About that time,'' I agreed, tying my hair in a ponytail.

I shut the claps of my helmet and slid on my gauntlets, flexing the
armoured fingers carefully. Good. They might not be much help against a
proper fae blade, but they did ensure that whenever I punched something
it broke.

``Duchess Kegan sends word that she'll have regulars and the Watch
follow,'' Adjutant said. ``Since those winged knights aren't coming from
us.''

``Numbers?''

``Nine thousand total,'' the tall orc said. ``Marshal Ranker is of the
opinion that pulling off more will weaken the walls too much.''

When it came to sieges, at least, I was inclined to follow the old
goblin's lead. She'd been the one to mastermind the taking of Summerholm
and Laure, during the Conquest.

``They're pulled as close and thick as we'll get them,'' I noted.

``She said the same thing,'' Adjutant grinned, like the ugly green cat
who'd caught the bluejay. ``First blooming before we begin our
countercharge.''

``You know, I'm sure there's a lot of things Summer is ready for,'' I
mused. ``Magic, flying fortresses, Named. Goblin engineering, though? I
doubt it's one of them.''

Nauk's two thousand formed into an avenue-wide battering ram, heavies at
the front, and the Deoraithe readied behind them. I took the front, with
Hakram at my side and the remains of the Gallowborne clustered around
me. Behind us, near the centre of the camp, the sound of gears and
pulleys releasing filled the air. A dozen ballista bolts tipped with
cold iron screamed through air, followed a heartbeat later by trebuchet
stones. The Gallowborne opened the gates wide for me, and in front of us
I saw scores of fae bleeding on the ground even as the ranks ahead were
punctured with rocks the size of horses. Ranker had been kind enough to
soften the opposition for us, and would continue pounding at the flanks
as we drove forward. Gods was I glad the fae disdained machinery.

``FIFTEENTH,'' I called out, unsheathing my sword. ``\emph{FORWARD}.''

All the Hells broke loose, but for once we were the damned.
