Chapter 353 - 346 — The Price of the Assault

Kharos pushed the command-room door open hard enough to strike the wall.

He crossed to the map table and slapped the withdrawal order down beside Varekh’s hand.

"Why was the attack stopped again?"

Varekh looked up.

"Because the officers ahead of them kept reporting that the position was about to fall. It has been several hours, and the Alliance still holds it."

"Then send someone who can take it."

"The commander responsible for the attack is standing behind you."

Kharos turned.

The demon beside the door had one arm bound against his chest. Dried blood covered his collar, and a shallow groove crossed the horn above his right eye. A lesser officer stood a pace behind him, carrying the surviving companies’ reports.

"Explain."

"We lost the approaches to the tollhouse, my lord. Our infantry entered the connecting trench, but Alliance warriors drove them out."

"How many returned?"

"The records are still incomplete."

"Then what have you brought me?"

"The reports from the forward officers."

Kharos snatched the papers from the lesser demon and spread them across the table.

Nearly a quarter of a million troops had been committed across the wider front. Most were lesser demons armed with short swords, knives, clubs or whatever iron their clans had issued but still their numbers were meant to exhaust the defenders and force openings for the stronger formations behind them.

At the tollhouse, the advance had stopped.

Kharos pressed a finger against the marked crossing.

"You had enough infantry to bury this position. What stopped them?"

"The weapons on the wall."

"The Alliance has always had weapons."

"These were different."

The commander glanced toward Varekh before continuing.

"Individual shots at first like something bursting and then continuous fire from two shelters like popping beans. Entire groups fell before reaching the ditch."

"Two batteries?"

"Two firing positions, my lord. We could not see large cannon inside them."

Varekh drew a thin intelligence report from beneath the map weights.

"The weapons are probably the ones from the trials."

Kharos recognized the seal. Their spies had reported guarded deliveries between Alliance forges and selected troops being taken away for instruction. The descriptions had been vague: short, narrow metal tubes and weapons that supposedly required little magical ability to operate.

He looked back at the commander.

"Did you see them?"

"The smaller ones. Soldiers held them against their shoulders. There was a flash, and our troops began falling."

"How many soldiers?"

"A few dozen along the part of the parapet we could see."

Kharos stared at him.

"And the two shelters?"

"The firing came through narrow openings. I could not see the weapons themselves."

Kharos pushed the intelligence report toward Varekh.

"Your spies neglected the interesting part."

"They reported what they could discover."

"Then they need to discover more."

Varekh inclined his head toward the commander.

"Now you can begin with what happened after the first attack failed."

"We increased the bombardment."

"With?"

"The Hellfire and skull breaker siege engines."

Kharos knew both weapons well. Hellfire Engines hurled iron cages packed with burning stones. The cages broke on impact, scattering stones clinging with flame across streets, roofs and exposed troops.

The Skullbreakers were squat mortars with thick, roughly cast barrels. They threw circular steel rounds that cracked masonry and threw jagged iron through anything nearby. Uneven charges and inconsistent castings made their impact points wander even when the crews kept the same elevation.

Both could punish a defensive line. Neither guaranteed the destruction of a small, reinforced shelter.

"Did you hit the firing positions?" Kharos asked.

"We struck the wall. Part of the supply passage collapsed."

"That was not my question."

The lesser officer behind the commander raised his head.

"One room was destroyed by a Warhound, my lord. I saw the roof fall."

Kharos turned toward him.

"Did the weapon inside stop firing?"

"Yes. Later, explosive rounds came from another building. We could not tell whether the crew had escaped or another weapon had taken over."

"And the continuous fire?"

"It continued from the shelters."

The commander shifted his weight.

"Their ammunition should have failed. There were pauses. Each time the firing stopped, I ordered the next group forward."

"And each time it began again?"

The commander hesitated.

"Yes."

Kharos laid the report flat.

"You kept sending troops because you heard a weapon stop."

"The defenders had been firing for hours."

"Then they had been receiving ammunition for hours."

The lesser officer’s gaze moved toward the map.

"There were wagons behind the tollhouse. Carriers used the passage below the wall."

"The passage you collapsed?"

"They probably reopened it."

Kharos looked at the commander again.

"Did anyone report that to you?"

"Yes, my lord."

"And you still told us they were nearly exhausted."

The commander’s mouth tightened.

"Our troops reached the side trench. We were close to breaking through."

Varekh picked up the report covering the flank.

"Until their warriors counterattacked."

The lesser officer nodded.

"The smaller weapons turned on the junction and slowed the men following us. Then shield-bearers and swordsmen came through the yard. They stayed beside the buildings while the weapons in shelters kept firing across the slope."

Kharos studied the marked trench.

The Alliance had kept warriors fresh enough to recover lost ground. The new weapons had taken much of the infantry assault before the swordsmen needed to engage.

"Where were the Warhounds during this?"

The commander answered quickly.

"Three were lost near the crossing."

"How?"

"One was finished by an Alliance cannon. The others were struck by smaller explosive weapons. The reports describe broken tracks and damage through the side armor."

"Front penetrations?"

"None confirmed."

"Then the machines were still capable of taking the approach under fire."

"The infantry could not remain beside them. When they crossed the exposed ground—"

"Wait where were the other eleven?"

The commander stopped.

Kharos looked up from the map.

"Fourteen Warhounds were placed at your disposal. You have described three wrecks. Where are the others?"

"At the assembly ground."

"Damaged?"

"No, my lord."

"Without crews?"

"No."

Kharos stepped away from the table.

"Who ordered them held there?"

"I did."

The lesser officer went still.

Kharos stood directly in front of the commander.

"Why?"

"It was a repaired tollhouse and a short stretch of wall. I judged three sufficient. Once the infantry exhausted their wards, the position should have fallen. There was no reason to commit the entire armored detachment against a handful of defenders."

Kharos seized him by the throat.

The commander’s hand caught at his wrist. His boots scraped the floor as Kharos lifted him.

"You judged three sufficient ."

The words came quietly.

The demon tried to answer. Kharos tightened his grip and twisted his neck.

The crack carried across the room.

He released the body, which struck the floor beside the map table.

The lesser officer backed into the wall.

Kharos pointed at the dead commander.

"He left eleven working machines behind and spent hours sending infantry into the fire they were meant to suppress."

No one answered.

Varekh looked toward the guards.

"Throw him out."

They took the corpse by its arms and dragged it through the doorway. One boot caught briefly against the threshold.

Kharos turned to the remaining officer.

"Now you"

"YYes yes my lord"

"your name goes on the next report. You will distinguish what you saw from what you were told."

The demon bowed so quickly that the papers in his hands bent against his breastplate.

"Yes, my lord."

"Find the senior surviving commander. Have him gather the companies, restore their command groups and inspect all eleven Warhounds. I want their actual condition."

"Yes, my lord."

"And send the witnesses who saw those weapons to the intelligence officer."

The demon left as soon as Kharos dismissed him.

Varekh waited until the door closed.

"More Warhounds might have changed the result."

"They would have given us more than three chances to break the wall."

"They would still have faced those explosive weapons."

Kharos returned to the table.

"Then we find out how those weapons work before we let another fool decide how little support he needs."

Varekh placed a small tray beside the reports.

Three flattened pieces of metal rested on a stained cloth.

"Removed from survivors."

Kharos picked one up.

"No explosion nearby?"

"According to the surgeon found no lingering spell in the fragments."

"That tells us little."

"It tells us what struck them. We still need the weapon that fired it."

Kharos turned the metal between his fingers before dropping it onto the tray.

The individual weapons troubled him almost as much as the continuous fire. Soldiers who would once have waited behind a wall with swords were now killing across the approaches.

"How many can the Alliance produce?"

"We do not know."

"Make that the first question your spies answer."

"It is already among them."

Varekh called for the intelligence officer.

While they waited, another Hellfire Engine discharged beyond the tower. A dull red glow passed across the narrow window.

Kharos watched it fade.

"Did today’s losses at least serve the array?"

"The anchor attendants are comparing the readings."

"You usually sound more certain about the usefulness of dead soldiers."

"The fighting supplied power. Our engines fired, their artillery answered, and both sides raised wards. But I want to know whether they spent less magic holding that position than they would have before."

Kharos looked back at him.

"Because their infantry could do more of the killing."

"Yes."

"They still needed protection from the bombardment."

"And they may need considerably more of it next time."

Before Kharos could question that, the door opened.

The intelligence officer entered with a cloaked Veilshadow liaison. Both noticed the dark smear where the body had been dragged though neither mentioned it.

Varekh laid the trial report in front of them.

"The weapons described here have reached the battlefield. Your information is now insufficient."

The liaison read the first page.

"Do we have a captured specimen?"

"That is what you will obtain," Kharos said.

He indicated the tollhouse and the roads behind it.

"Watch the deliveries. Find where the weapons are stored and how they reach the crews. I want one intact, with its ammunition."

"From the forward position?"

"From wherever you can take it. Establish what is there before promising me a raid."

Varekh added, "An instructor would also be valuable. The reports said the alliance place them among the selected soldiers."

The liaison glanced toward the door.

"We will need witnesses."

"They are being gathered," Kharos said. "Question them separately. I have heard enough confident conclusions for one evening."

The two demons bowed and withdrew.

For a moment, Kharos remained beside the map, studying the ground beyond the tollhouse.

Then he pushed the Hellfire battery markers farther from the crossing.

"Our engines can burn those buildings all night and still leave men alive in the shelters beneath them."

Varekh opened a narrow dispatch case at the end of the table.

"Then you will be pleased to hear that we have something else coming."

Kharos looked toward him.

"What?"

"Do not worry. The Alliance are not the only ones receiving new weapons. Our delivery is already on its way."

Varekh handed him a dispatch bearing the marks of the Ash Cannon and Emberworks clans.

Beneath the transport orders lay a drawing of a cannon on a wheeled carriage. Kharos recognized the shape of its barrel before he finished reading.

"The Warhound’s gun."

"Adapted for use without the tank."

Kharos examined the drawing.

The cannon sat between two heavy wheels, with a braced trail extending behind it. Compared with the bulky Hellfire Engines, the arrangement looked almost bare.

"Hellmaw field guns," Varekh said. "The clans began the work after the Warhound cannon proved itself. A useful gun does not cease being useful because it has no armored hull around it."

"Can they place a shell where they aim?"

"The trial reports show a much tighter spread than the Skullbreakers. Enough to engage a wall section or an exposed firing position deliberately."

"And the faults?"

"The crews need firm ground. The early carriages shifted under repeated firing, and the first batches could not maintain the rate the smiths promised. The latest trials were accepted for field use."

"Accepted by the smiths?"

"By the crews too who had to stand beside them."

Kharos read the dispatch again.

A field gun would not carry its crew through incoming fire as a Warhound could. Its servants would need protection, and the Alliance would answer once they found the batteries.

But the clans would not need to provide an engine, tracks and an armored hull for every cannon they sent to Avarra.

"How far away?"

"The convoy has departed. Its next arrival report is maybe in about 10days."

"Guns alone?"

"Crews, ammunition and spare parts."

Kharos placed the drawing over the tollhouse position.

The two firing shelters were still marked beneath its edges.

"Keep the Hellfire Engines firing on the occupied districts," he said. "Have the forward observers prepare reports on the shelters and the Alliance batteries. I want the new crews to arrive knowing what they are expected to hit."

Varekh nodded.

"And the next assault?"

"After I have seen the guns fire."

Kharos tapped the dispatch once.

"Tell the convoy commander I expect the entire battery."

A faint smile touched Varekh’s face.

"I will make that clear."

"Do and varekh."

"Yes?"

"Those guns that fire continously, they sound much like the one we have on warhounds,its just our are much cruder."

"I also had the same idea when i first heard the report,will keep you informed."

With that kharos nodded and walked away.