Disclaimer:

I don't own it.  I make no profit off of it.  I mean to offend no one's        sensibilities.  Please God don't sue.

Thank You: MOM: I love you

Tony-o: for courage & the right things to do

Miss Sharp: you put up with me for no reason I know

Stelmarta: more than words can say!

Albright

The attack was proceeding as planned.  The pirates were more than succeeding on the Evendim shoreline.  As a matter of fact, they may just well have gone all the way if he'd actually been serious about attacking there.  He made a mental note to remind himself about the vulnerability on that side of Valdemar.  A stroke from that half, when everyone was defending the capital in a last ditch battle would cripple the demon riders.

Life was good.  The black robes assured him that the shield was still holding, they would have no clue what was happening until it actually happened. Surprise, he mused was the greatest ally a general could have.

He rode foreword, to check the ranks of the shock troopers. They were the finest Karse had to offer.  The ranks held only the trained and seasoned, all were experienced with what the demon riders had to throw at them.  No one would give in fright.

"Soldiers!  This is your General!  It is a privilege to be commanding you and an honor to serve with you.  Your fathers, grandfathers, brothers, and sons have fought the demon riders for generations beyond counting.  This campaign victory will be ours!"

He paused to allow the cheering and whistling to die down.

"Thanks to the exceptional efforts of our priests we have an unbeatable shield.  Vikandis smiles down on us!"

Again the cheering frenzy.  Superstition was a powerful force, he mused.

"This time tomorrow we will be in Valdemar!"

He spurred his horse to a canter and surveyed the troops.  Rank after rank and row on row cheered and shouted at the sight of him.  This was a fine army.  Nearly ten thousand of Karse's finest; archers, ballista, crossbowmen, and heavy and light cavalry. No one could stop him.  They would take Valdemar this time.

Colonel Brandon

Enrich Brandon was a Colonel in the Valdemaran army.  He'd earned that position through years of hard work and sacrifice.  He was now in charge of the single most important border fort in Valdemar.  He'd been defending people from the Karsites for the better part of his life.  Never, in all his years of service, had he ever seen such an emergency.

Heralds and Companions were in and out, some no more than children, with little more than food and a few hours snatched to sleep.  People poured in from the surrounding countryside.  Preparations were in order.  Hoshi, the new Lord Marshal's Herald, joined him on the parapet.

"How goes it?"

He shrugged, "How do you expect it to go?"

"Better than if this had been a total surprise."

"If you look at it that way."  She nodded.

"Are you absolutely sure this is going to happen?"

"I have never been wrong."

"Never?"

"Yes"

"I wish you were."

"So do I.  I always do."

"It must not be a fun gift to have."

"No.  It is not."

"Is there anything else we should be doing?"

"Do you have the plows working?"

"Yes. For the fat lot of good it will do us."

"You don't think it will work?"

"I don't see how it could."

" Patience.  All will work as planned."

"How can you be so damn confident?"

"It's a gift."

The irony of that statement was so, …just so very ironic that he had to laugh.  It was more on the edge of hysterical tears, but people were like that.

"How do you bloody cope with this?  You're too damn calm."

"Don't mistake composure for ease, Colonel, I am as concerned as you are."

"Damned Heralds."

"Not quite yet"

Burnings

They kept running: Healer, Herald, and trainee.  There was always one more life that could be saved and one more battle to be fought.  Even when Karsites crashed through the border, even when they put the buildings to the torch, even when they died.

Back at Fort Drell, the army began to arrive.  Slowly, a trickle of soldiers came, their beasts pushed to foundering.  They watched from the parapet as the border sectors went to flames. Coolly, almost coldly, Hoshi carefully marked the progress of the army.  The Farseers also watched from the parapet.  Colonel Brandon watched the Farseers 'watch' the army.  Every few hours, one of them would break out of their trance, green with sickness from what they 'saw'.  The area beneath the parapet suddenly became a very unpopular place to stand.

Almost once a day the bell in the big tower started to ring.  This was no Haven; the bell had to be tolled by hand, but when that happened every Herald in residence suddenly had somewhere else they needed to be, often with tears in their eyes. Refugees crowded the Fort.  Hoshi had them sent further in-country. Hoshi was a machine; she had everything planned down to the smallest detail.  He never saw her fade, falter, or pale.  When Heralds appeared at the gate she knew, often without prompting, where they'd come from and where they needed to be.

The fires burned closer and closer, but never quite reached the perimeter.  Hoshi had them spread butter thin.  There were nearly fifty furlongs of Karseite borderland.  They had almost six hundred soldiers, with more on the way.  Every single one of the soldiers was spread out on the entire length of the border.  It was nowhere near the amount necessary to hold off an assault of ten thousand penguins, let alone Karse's best soldiers, but she had a plan.  It was outrageous, unthinkable, but just possible.  It was just barely possible, if all of it went precisely as planned.

Precision was key.  It was the absolute key.

Albright

This was outrageous it was positively unthinkable.  They knew, they knew this was going to happen. Somehow they knew it.  There was a traitor in his ranks.  That was the only explanation.  There was no way the demon riders could have possibly seen this coming.  The bloody black robes were annoying, but they knew their stuff.  The shield over the Karsites hadn't been dropped until the day before.  There was no way they could have possibly prepared this in a day.  No way.

"Filthy, dirty, rotten, traitors!"  He shouted over the din of battle.  These Valdemarans were not trained to fight: they were villagers.  Determined villagers, but villagers nonetheless.  His troops could deal with it.  They were being delayed, though, another five days and the Valdemaran army would be there to stop his advance.  The bloody, stupid demon riders, how the hell could they have known??

"Fight!  Fight you bastards!  These are villagers!  NO more!"

Albright was impressed by the villager's preparation.  They were not trained, not by a long shot, but they were inflicting casualties.  He knew the first rule of combat.  In order to defeat the enemy, you must first kill their will to fight.  His troops were experienced, but day-by-day the ranks were being thinned.  For even the most experienced fighter this would be devastating: you never knew who would be next.  His soldiers knew that, he knew that, and whoever was in charge on the other side of the lines knew that.

 This was not the old man Murdock.  He was too conservative for a total war scenario.  Someone else was in charge, someone who knew his stuff, someone, he mused, who wasn't afraid to send people to die.  That was not a Valdemaran tactic.  The bleeding whiteshirts cared too much about 'the common man' to send him out to die for his country. This was the tactic of an experienced soldier who'd seen the worst and prepared for it. Albright experienced a moment of absent-minded admiration for the Field Marshal who planned this counter-campaign.  It would be interesting to see what the bloody whiteshirt had planned: in a purely academic sense, of course.  No matter what admiration he had for this Valdemaran Field Marshal, Albright had a duty to Karse to destroy him utterly.  The fact that this Marshal was a brilliant tactician and competent soldier was merely icing on the cake. It made his job more difficult, but victory would be even sweeter if he actually had to work for it.