The Crimson Campaign

Tamas gazed through his looking glass at the city of Alvation. It was an unwalled city, spilling along the north side of a shallow river that flowed from the northeast and wound along the Northern Expanse. Most of the buildings were two or three stories, smoke rising from their chimneys, with stone-shingled roofs. It was a major intersection of the Great Northern Highway and the Charwood Pass — a Mountainwatch toll road that took trade up over the Charwood Pile and into Adro.

He guessed Alvation to number around a hundred thousand souls. Not as large a city as those in the south of Kez or on the coast of Deliv, but not a small one, by any means.

“No, not entirely,” Tamas answered.

Olem lay at Tamas’s side. Vlora on his left. Behind him, the rest of his powder mages made camp in an abandoned farmhouse while Tamas, Olem, and Vlora crouched in a dry irrigation ditch and observed the city from three miles out.

An abandoned farmhouse. This close to the city. Something was surely wrong here.

“I don’t see any sign of the Kez army,” Olem said.

“There.” Vlora pointed. “Do you see where the Charwood Pass first enters the city from the west? A little way east of that. Blue-and-silver uniforms. The Kez impostors.” Vlora was in a powder trance, like Tamas himself. They’d both be able to see farther and clearer than Olem.

Tamas searched until he found the spot she’d indicated. A group of some fifty soldiers moved through the stalls of an open market, pointing and shouting. They had several large carts and were filling them from the vendors’ stalls.

“Nikslaus is bleeding the city for all they’ve got,” Tamas said. “Sending his men out to collect a tax.”

Tamas traced the outside of the city with his looking glass, then to where the city met the Charwood Pass. He squinted to see into the long shadows cast by the late-day sun. Figures milled about. More soldiers. Tamas spotted barrels, carts, horses.

“I sense a lot of powder in the city,” Vlora said.

“There’s an army camped there.”

“More than usual.”

Tamas didn’t know what that could mean. Perhaps the Deliv had been stockpiling powder here in preparation for a war with Kez or Adro. “Interesting.”

Vlora said, “At the base of the mountain. Looks like their headquarters for besieging the Mountainwatch.”

“I see it,” Tamas said.

“Where the pit is the Deliv army?” Olem asked.

Tamas continued to examine the city. It was a question he’d asked himself a few times. “King Sulam might be gathering an army even now. Or Nikslaus took the city fast enough that word hasn’t yet reached Sulam.” It was a possibility he didn’t want to consider. The Deliv had a proud history of having a swift, efficient army — even if their current one was rather outdated. “Likely, Nikslaus plans on being over the mountains before Sulam responds. Then he can pin it on the Adran army and bring Deliv into the war.”

Olem said, “They’re occupying the city, sir. The people have to know that it’s Kez soldiers in disguise.” He chewed on his fingernails — he’d been doing that ever since smoking his last cigarette.

“I don’t know,” Tamas said. “Nikslaus isn’t an idiot. He’ll think of something.”

“Should we bring the army forward? Call for an attack?” Olem asked. “If we position at night, we may be able to blindside them.”

“If they don’t already know we’re here.” Tamas cursed quietly under his breath. “They’ve got Gavril, remember?” The city had no walls, which made it easier to take without artillery, but the Kez were entrenched. They had all the supplies, and knew the lay of the land. Urban warfare would be chaos.

“Sir,” Vlora said. “Look at the church steeple near the center of the city.”

Tamas scanned along until he found the church.

“Above the bell tower,” Vlora said.

Tamas took a sharp breath. Above the bell tower of an old stone Kresim church hung dozens of bodies. Men, women, white Kez, and black Deliv. Children. He felt his stomach turn, and for a moment Sabon’s dead face flashed before him.

“Bloody Nikslaus,” Tamas said.

“Should we go back, sir?”

“Back?”

“To the army. We’ll have to come up with something to take the Kez by surprise.”

Tamas examined the bell tower again, then the city as a whole. He ran his gaze along the tops of the buildings, considering angles of attack. He would have to get his men close to the city under cover of night, then cross the shallow river and catch as many of the Kez out in the open as they could.

The best he could hope for in that situation, even if the Deliv rose up and sided with Tamas, would be a weeks-long urban melee with the Kez. And he couldn’t afford that, not with thirty thousand Kez infantry still coming on from the south.

“Congratulations, Olem. You’ve just been promoted to colonel.”

“Sir?” Olem’s mouth hung open.

“I need someone to head back and give commands to the Seventh and Ninth, and they’re not going to take it from a captain.”

“But sir, the ranks?”

“I think we can skip ‘major’ and all that.”

“Thank you, sir, but I think — ”

Tamas held up a hand to forestall any protestations.