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\hypertarget{chapter-53-manoeuvring}{%
\chapter{Manoeuvring}\label{chapter-53-manoeuvring}}



\epigraph{``War is a breed of conflict decided by the allocation of
resources. Through better apportionment a lesser nation can defeat a
greater, but never if decision-making is of equal standing on both
sides.''}{Extract from ``The Modern Legion'', a treatise by Marshal Ranker}



Come nightfall I held council. We'd ended the march two hours before
sunset when the scouts found grounds suitable for a camp, and the
legionaries had taken to building it with veteran expertise. The
Fifteenth's two thousand under Hune had raised palisades in the centre,
with the camps of the other three legions forming a triad of spokes
coming from it. Wide avenues were made for swift troop deployment,
watches set before the wooden walls were even finished and scouting
lines scattered around in case the enemy attempted to steal a march in
the dark. I'd hesitated about the camp, but decided not to gainsay
General Istrid when she suggested we should stop. Another two hours of
marching wouldn't gain us much ground, but proper fortifications would
make a real difference if the Diabolist's host tried a surprise
offensive. That I'd call a war council was to be expected, given that
the decision to march had been made that very morning and was a major
departure from our previous operational plan. I'd spent the daylight in
conference with mages and Thief, trying to get a better picture of the
opposition, and I was glad I had. I would not have enjoyed looking like
a reckless fool in front of these particular commanders, though there
might be some grain of truth to that.

More reckless than fool, I liked to think, but that was the kind of
judgement best passed on the dead.

I had three of the foremost Imperial officers in Callow facing me.
General Istrid Knightsbane, commander of the Sixth Legion.
\emph{Ironsides}, their cognomen was. To orcs, perhaps the only one of
their own that could top the reputation of Istrid's legion was Grem
One-Eye's, for they'd earned that title breaking a charge of Callowan
knights. General Orim -- the Grim, his men fondly called him -- led the
Fifth Legion, cognomen \emph{Exterminatus}. They'd earned that name
during the Praesi civil war, executing near five thousand Praesi
prisoners to ensure they wouldn't be slowed on the march. The third and
last was General Sacker, commander of the Ninth Legion. Cognomen
\emph{Regicides}. Her goblins had been the ones to kill the Shining
Prince when he'd ascended to the throne of Callow halfway through the
Fields of Streges. The red paint on her throat was kept by all her men
as well, a reminder they'd slit open the throat of royalty without
flinching. Hune and myself were green, compared to that assembly. The
Fifteenth had been founded only two years ago, and though it had a score
of victories under its belt most of my men were still just a few months
out of the training camps. The fights I'd put them through so far had
hardened them, but it would be years before they had the wealth of
experience of the three legions now with me.

I cleared my throat when all were seated, and one of Hune's aides
provided scrolls to the three generals. Sacker seemed amused at the
formality, Orim indifferent and I bit back a sigh when I saw Istrid was
reading through hers too quickly for it to be anything but a glance.

``We've confirmed two things about the enemy,'' I said. ``The first is
that they number between twenty and twenty-five thousand, with two
thousand at most being living.''

``Always the way, with undead armies,'' Istrid grunted. ``They keep
enough necromancers to have a leash and a few elite troops but nothing
more. If they mix the forces too much they'll start needing a supply
train, and dispensing with those is one of the major advantages of
raising the dead.''

``I've had intelligence that Diabolist had no more than six thousand
living in he entire forces as of five months ago,'' I said. ``If we
manage to wipe that two thousand, it'll cripple her army before we move
on Liesse.''

``I don't like the numbers,'' General Orim bluntly said. ``If we were
dealing with bones or shamblers we could handle two to one, but these
`wights' are supposed to be upper grade.''

``We let this go unchallenged and they'll wipe the Ankou levies, Orim,''
General Sacker spoke, her voice a dry whisper. ``Then raise them still
fresh. No coincidence, that number of mages. If we do nothing they gain
another eight thousand foot, already armed and armoured.''

``Setting that aside, allowing a third of our Callowan reinforcements to
be killed before the battle even begins will have stark effect on
morale,'' I flatly reminded them.

Considering I'd ordered those city guards to march in the first place I
balked at the idea of letting them get attacked without reinforcing for
personal reasons as well, but there was no point in speaking of that to
these three. All of them had been part of the Conquest, I doubted they
had many qualms about spending Callowan lives.

``It was foolish of their commander to circle by the south,'' Hune said,
the stone we'd dragged inside for her to sit on pushing into the ground.
``They should have gone north and joined with the Southpool levies.''

Even half-crouched, her head touched the ceiling of the tent.

``That one rests on my shoulders,'' I said. ``I ordered them to muster
as swiftly as possible, which is why the Southpool men were already on
the move. Their commander took what she saw as the least risk-prone
route, however incorrect her judgement.''

``Can't expect too much of civilians in armour,'' Istrid said, which was
not excuse but perhaps lessening of blame.

Disinclined to let the conversation linger here, I moved it along with
all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

``Second thing we've confirmed: the enemy commander is Lord Fasili
Miremebe,'' I told them. ``Formerly heir to Aksum. If someone can be
considered the Diabolist's right hand, it's him.''

``That crazy old witch Abreha disinherited him?'' General Sacker
croaked. ``Breaking with the Truebloods in full then. Bold, for her. She
usually hedges her bets.''

``Don't you spoil this campaign with talk about bloody politics,''
General Istrid grunted. ``I take it gating to their back isn't an
option? I doubt we'd be treading the plains if it was.''

It was my first instinct to keep them in the dark about my exact
capacities, but I forced myself to ignore it. Paranoia had a place, but
war councils wasn't it.

``I've never been in the region before,'' I said. ``In those cases I
need Hierophant at my side to chart a path through Arcadia. In theory I
could try, but there's no telling how long we'd be in there or exactly
where we'd come out.''

``I can still be used to retreat, at least,'' General Orim growled.
``Being able to leave beyond pursuit is already major advantage.''

My brows rose. I'd never actually considered that. In part because I'd
never lost a pitched battle, but also because I did tend to think on the
offensive. General Sacker had been reading through the scroll carefully
while we talked, and only spoke again when she'd finished.

``The Mirembe boy has only middling military record,'' she said. ``One
internal purge at his great-aunt's behest, held the left wing when
Sahelian was manhandled during the Liesse Rebellion. Are we sure the
information is correct?''

``It was supplied by Her Dread Majesty,'' I said. ``I can't guarantee
it, but I am disinclined to doubt.''

I'd had my own people dig into Lord Fasili as well, of course. Aisha had
connections in Praes and had called on them, but they'd not unearthed
anything the Empress' spies had not and not everything they did. I had
been worth the effort anyway, if only to confirm part of what I'd been
given by the Tower. Blind trust had never been a virtue in my eyes, and
was much worse than that if offered to a villain.

``Tutored by Asmund of the Dark Teeth Clan and Lady Taslima Ubid,''
General Orim said, frowning at his scroll. ``I know one of these
names.''

General Istrid let out a noise of surprise.

``Asmund, the senior tribune from the Third?'' she said. ``Thought he
was dead.''

``Lost a hand and resigned his commission after they put him under the
Quartermaster,'' the other orc told her.

``Taslima was on the general staff of the Eleventh,'' Sacker croaked.
``Senior Mage.''

``There's a reason I had that on the final report,'' I said. ``Legate
Hune?''

``Fasili Mirembe has studied the Legions,'' the ogre stated bluntly.
``In depth, from officers that fought during the Conquest. He will be
prepared for our tactics.''

I inclined my head at the legate.

``I very much want him dead,'' I said, not bothering to phrase it
delicately. ``If we manage to off Diabolist's best general before the
battle proper, her forces will be shaken when we assault. She's only got
so much talent left to call on.''

``It'll be tricky catching up to them in time,'' General Istrid said.
``Their men don't get tired on the move, and it's not impossible for
them to march through the night.''

``Not often,'' General Orim said. ``They can't let their necromancers
get too tired or they'll lose hold of the undead.''

I cleared my throat.

``We don't have the sorcery to scry through their wards on hand,'' I
said. ``But I \emph{can} scry Hierophant, who most definitely can. From
our current positions, if the pace remains the same, we should meet with
the Ankou troops two days before they do. Our current guess at when
battle would take place is nine days, barring the unexpected.''

I watched rueful smiles bloom across the faces of the three greenskins
facing me.

``Unexpected. Heh,'' General Sacker whispered.

``Ah, to be young again,'' Istrid mused.

---

I'd told Thief, not too long ago, that Akua had been too straightforward
of late.

I learned how correct I'd been exactly one day too late, when I was
scried in panic by the Fifteenth's mage lines in the south. Liesse had
spewed out a second army in the middle of the night, while we were
encamped. After the ritual ended I remained alone for a long moment, and
considered how badly I might have just fucked up. When I'd gone to
collect the three legions before taking a fairy gate north I had tipped
my hand. Diabolist now had an estimate of how long it would take me to
ferry troops and she'd planned accordingly. As of now, the host under
Fasili had kept the same pace and my own was only two days away from
linking up with the Ankou troops. I closed my eyes and considered the
parts in movement. If we kept marching west, we lost two days. Keeping
in mind how long it would take me to pass through Arcadia if things went
well, if we did this then Akua's second host of twenty thousand would
very likely have time to attack the men coming down from Southpool. Four
to one against mages and undead? They'd be shattered within an hour of
the first sword being drawn. The rest of my forces were in southern
Callow, and if I left now to try to get them on the field up here would
be pointless. Both the Ankou troops and the Southpool ones would be
wiped by Akua's armies before I even finished gating back to the rest of
the Fifteenth.

I should have seen it coming, when I ordered the muster. Diabolist
wasn't an attacker by nature, not exactly. She was an opportunist. She'd
waited until she could get a read on how quickly I could move, then gone
to pluck the low-hanging fruits. The worst of it was that there was no
real way to warn either of the Callowan forces. They weren't Legions,
they didn't have mage lines for me to contact. The colder part of me
considered the decision to make even as the rest remained in shick. If
this was to be purely about numbers, I knew what call I had to make.
Southpool was sending five thousand men, Ankou eight thousand better
trained and better equipped. \emph{She didn't even need to do anything.
She just waited for me to blunder, and I did.} There were advantages to
being the swiftest player on the field, but costs as well. If you were
the first to move then your actions were out in the open. But I hadn't
thought it would matter. I'd believed, deep down, that Akua would remain
holed up in her lair and let me come to her. Because that was what
villains did, wasn't it? They raised the flying fortress and let the
heroes knock at the gate. And now people were going to die because I
hadn't been careful enough. I only realized I was crushing the goblet in
my hand when the wine wet my fingers. I called for my commanders as soon
as I was no longer frosting every surface in sight.

``We're losing one of those armies,'' General Istrid bluntly said.

There wasn't any hemming and hawing from the others. I could see in
their eyes that the five thousand from Southpool had been written off
before I was done speaking the sentence.

``Though her stratagem was a surprise, the deployments remain real,''
Hune noted.

I invited her to elaborate with a look.

``Fasili Mirembe is within reach,'' she said. ``So are his necromancers.
Their loss would still be a blow to her defences.''

``Five thousand levies for a third of her mages or more,'' General
Sacker croaked. ``It is an acceptable trade.''

``That's if we can decisively beat the boy,'' General Orim grunted. ``If
he retreats in good order after a cursory skirmish, we will have been
fully duped.''

``So we strike hard,'' General Istrid growled.

\emph{Or is that what Diabolist wants?} I thought. \emph{For us to
commit here, where she knows we're coming and has time to deploy every
manner of nasty trick?} The first time I'd ever seen Akua, when he'd
spied on her conversation with Black, she'd called herself a skilled
commander. I'd chalked that up to arrogance since, since she had no real
victories to her name, but the arrogance might just have been mine. I'd
never seen Akua Sahelian fighting an actual war before, had I? Before
the battles had always been just a tool for positioning, a way for her
to implement her plots. Now she'd bared her knife, and on our very first
round she'd been the one to draw blood. As ever when dealing with
Diabolist, the spiral of second-guessing and doubt was as dangerous as
her actual actions. Whether Fasili and the mages were bait or not did
not matter, in the end. Fighting him with the Ankou troops was still the
best decision I could make. It niggled at the back of my mind that
thinking about the best decision Juniper could make was exactly how I'd
predicted her actions, during our war games, but was that alone enough
to have me gate for the Southpool men instead? \emph{No}, I admitted. It
was almost presumptuous, to call joining up with Ankou reinforcements
the best move\emph{. All it is is the lesser mistake of the tow before
me.}

``We keep going,'' I said, and the words felt like ashes in my mouth.

I did not ask any gods for forgiveness. The ones that would grant it
were my foes, and the ones I worked for knew nothing of the word.

---

It was a close thing, and I only avoided disaster by leaning into my
instincts. Two hours before sunset, on the day before we joined the
Ankou troops, I passed down instructions not to make camp and to
continue marching after dark. Guided by magelights and goblins, our host
of fourteen thousand pressed on until midnight. The pace slowed in the
dark, but I was feeling an itch on the back of my neck. A sense of
danger not yet revealed. Three hours of rest were granted before we
resumed the march, and so narrowly avoided disaster. We found the Ankou
city guard out in the field shortly before Morning Bell. We found the
host of the dead as well, lines tirelessly advancing under the light of
the rising sun.

``And that's why when a Named tells you to keep marching, you fucking do
it,'' General Istrid said, and spat to the side. ``This would have been
a bad one, mark my words.''

We were both mounted again, the orc remaining at my side as our legions
spread out. My helmet kept under my arm, I gazed at the enemy host.

``They marched through the entire night,'' I said. ``Gods, if you hadn't
warned me they could\ldots{}''

``Their necromancers will be tired,'' the Knightsbane said. ``But our
legionaries are as well. We'll have to be real careful with that shield
wall, Squire. Formations are what lets us win this. If they break them
we'll be in deep shit. Your countrymen can't be relied on, not with dead
on the other side and numbers that high.''

``You underestimate them,'' I replied. ``This is Callow, general. We've
seen the dead walk before. We've turned them back, again and again.''

``From walls,'' the orc grunted. ``This is open field, and I don't see
no fucking knights. Just scared guards in cheap mail with spears they've
only ever drilled with.''

``That's why we spread Hune's men through them, to serve as a spine,'' I
said.

I'd put the legate in charge of that entire division of the host,
replacing the commander from Ankou. That ten thousand combined would
serve as our centre, with the Fifth serving as the right wing and the
Ninth as the left. Both legions had left a gap between themselves and
the Callowans, bait for Fasili to send his wights through in an attempt
to isolate our forces. Istrid's own Fourth we were keeping in reserve
behind the rest, with her wolf riders as an independent command.

``Twenty-three thousand on their side, twenty-two thousand on ours,''
the Knightsbane growled. ``We're in for a bloody day.''

``If we can wipe their casters they fall apart,'' I said.

Without the necromancers controlling them the wights would lack
organization. They'd still fight with the intelligence of living
soldiers, more or less, but without officers or orders. Numbers mattered
less when they belonged to a mob.

``They won't leave their mages unprotected,'' General Istrid said. ``I'm
guessing they'll go back to old Legions tactics from before the Reforms.
They'll keep five thousand back in a square around the casters and come
in a wave, then rely on sorcery to punch a hole and try to flip our
lines.''

``We don't have enough mages and sappers with the Fifteenth to break a
wave,'' I murmured. ``Hune'll keep the fireballs back until she has to
plug a gap to avoid exhausting her mage lines.''

``They'll have a ritual prepared,'' the orc laughed. ``Those wily old
Wasteland foxes always do. But I ain't worried, to tell you the truth.''

I glanced at her, raising an eyebrow. General Istrid's lips split into a
vicious grin, ivory fangs glinting in the morning sun.

``Whatever sorcery they're going to pull out, Squire, I doubt it's going
to be worse than \emph{you}.''