I hadn’t meant to shout, but could you blame me? That was twice the size of our army!
It was Péter Pál, the Atúr chieftain, and Count Palatine Vodedt who’d brought the information. The former had acquired it from a captured enemy knight, and the latter from the observational reports of his agents. Unfortunately, since that meant we’d gotten it from two distinct sources, odds were good that the intel was legitimate.
Arnoul de Nunvalle and Fabio, the Marquess Ramitead, chimed in with their surprise.
“The enemy was initially reported to have mobilized twenty thousand soldiers. To go from that to fifty?”
“We knew they were drafting the common folk, but to have conscripted thirty thousand?”
I understood exactly how the both of them felt. Those numbers weren’t normal.
Incidentally, I hadn’t included Péter Pál in our war councils to date because his status as a religious heathen might have offended my other lords. Now that we’d moved to the stage where we had to consider our battle formations, however, we couldn’t exactly leave out the commander with two thousand cavalrymen at his beck and call. Besides, he was proving himself useful in all sorts of ways, from reconnoitering enemy territory to raiding enemy supply lines. I doubted the nobles would object to his presence now.
“The Duchy of Raul produces a great many arms,” Count Palatine Vodedt said. “They will be able to outfit thirty thousand men with little issue. Their provisions stores, however, will be rather more strained.”
I agreed with his analysis. The Duchy of Raul had always been known for its relative wealth and the quality of its soldiers. It was more than safe to assume that they’d have a weapons and armor surplus. Enough food for fifty thousand men, though? That was a lot more suspect, especially since the duchy had had food issues from the get-go. They’d probably made efforts to procure supplies, sure, but things had to be tight.
“So they’re planning on a short, decisive battle,” I realized. In that case, the question was: How did they plan to use their thirty thousand civilian conscripts? “Hand us the map.”
I spread out the map of Chelán Hill and its surrounds, studying it. The crux of our strategy was to lure the main enemy force to the hill and annihilate it there. We assumed they would attempt to seize control of the highway, which was why we had laid a trap on the hill’s southern side.
But what was the enemy’s strategy? After considering the possibilities, four came to mind: two assuming they would try to avoid fighting at the hill, and two assuming they would try to capture the hill.
If the enemy wanted to avoid fighting at Chelán, they would either attempt to take the city of Keighamer, which was our supply foothold, or go straight for the center of my power base—the imperial capital. If they could manage the latter, it would essentially mean the complete loss of my authority. But for either strategy to work, they’d need to dedicate enough troops to pin down our combined forces at Chelán, lest we strike them from behind. In other words, both options involved splitting their army in two.
If they attempted to capture Chelán Hill, there were yet again two ways they could go about it. The first was a brute force attack, in which they tried to overwhelm us. The second was a siege strategy, in which they tried to starve us out.
All up, though, the addition of thirty thousand civilian conscripts provided a big hint as to their intentions.
Even excluding our own civilian conscripts, our soldiers numbered fifteen thousand men. If they wanted to pin us down, then assuming they used professional soldiers alone, they’d have to dedicate twenty thousand minimum, at least by my estimates. In practical terms, they’d want to use a mix of professionals and conscripts, to prevent the latter—whose morale had to be in the pits after being forced along—from deserting at the earliest opportunity. Ballpark, that would mean a force of ten thousand professional soldiers and twenty thousand civilian conscripts necessary to keep us at Chelán Hill.
In other words, that meant the enemy would have ten thousand soldiers and ten thousand conscripts with which they had to take the imperial capital. While dealing with provisions issues and the Gotiroir closing in on their major cities back home. Was it possible? No, definitely not. Part of that was because the capital had Duke Warren defending it, but at the end of the day, it was simply too large. The enemy would be able to invade it, sure, but it would be impossible for them to take it entirely.
Keighamer, on the other hand? Poor, defenseless Keighamer? A twenty-thousand-strong army could take it with ease.
Now, in the event they attempted to capture Chelán Hill? Sieging it would be too big of a risk to take, now that they couldn’t confidently use Reydra as a supply foothold. It would be more realistic to fake a siege while sending another force to take Keighamer.
So, by process of elimination, that left the enemy two possible courses of action...
“They’ll either attempt to take Keighamer, or Chelán Hill,” I concluded. “Either way, they’ll aim for a short time frame.” Given the constraints they were under, the Raul army’s options were actually quite limited. And as it so happened, our strategy from the beginning had been to force a battle at Chelán Hill to prevent the enemy from marching on Keighamer. “Fundamentally, our strategy has not changed.”
“That of engaging in a conclusive battle on the hill’s southern side?” Viscount Cédolin confirmed.
We’d erected our defenses on Byner Hill in every direction but a section of its southern face. It was the only point of entry and egress, meaning we could dispatch sorties from it, and the enemy would almost certainly choose it for their point of attack. It was also, notably, trapped.
“We wish for you to deploy your armies on the hill’s southern side to prevent our civilian conscripts from deserting,” I announced.
“So we are assuming the enemy will not attempt a siege?”
I nodded at the viscount. “Yes. We have no intention of containing all of our forces within the hills’ defenses.”
If the enemy went for Keighamer, we’d need troops deployed outside of our fortifications to cut them off. And if the enemy went for the hill directly, it would be the southern side that we’d need to defend.
“However, the south is no longer the only side we need to defend. Mifeux Hill.” I pointed at one of the three hills on the map. From the corner of my eye, I saw Fabio’s gaze drop. Perhaps he felt responsible. “If the enemy positions cannons here, we will lose the battle.”
It was safe to assume that the Raul army would not have carvers, which were siege weaponry and bulky enough to slow down a march. We’d compensated by transporting ours ahead of time, but the enemy was moving too fast to have any in tow. Naturally, they could be brought in with reinforcements if the battle dragged on, but given the enemy’s provisions situation, chances of that were low enough to be left for later consideration.
The issue was that the Raul army made use of field guns known as pot cannons, which were bombards like carvers and flocks, but with smaller bores and payloads. They couldn’t punch through a castle wall, but outstripped their larger brethren in terms of cooldown time, accuracy, and ease of transport. The last point was especially relevant, as their ability to be pulled along by horsepower meant they could accompany a marching army at pace.
Pot cannons were defined by their primary use—that is, as an anti-infantry weapon. After all, when a stone projectile the size of a human head clipped a human body at speed, there was only going to be one outcome.
Of course, we’d known the Raul army would have pot cannons going into this; it was part of why we’d erected dirt walls and dug trenches as part of our defenses. If they fired at us from the low ground, our fortifications would be able to hold out, as while carvers would have blown through them entirely, we’d designed them with pots in mind. Additionally, the enemy would not have an infinite supply of ammunition, and we would be deploying our forces in a manner that would allow us to counterattack if the opportunity presented itself.
The problem was that there was no way we could complete the work on Mifeux Hill in time.
“There are vantage points around the summit of Mifeux Hill that sit higher than Byner Hill’s northern ridgeline,” I pointed out. “Making it a perfect shooting gallery for enemy cannons. Small-bore the pots might be, but they’ll still decimate our militia from above, sending them into a panic. In short, the moment we allow the enemy to establish their cannons here, we’ve lost.”
We could endure the enemy pots if they fired them from the low ground, but not the opposite. There was no time to prepare any countermeasures either. The fact that we’d specifically constructed our encampment to prevent our civilian conscripts from escaping also made it a kill zone for enemy cannon fire, just like a bear-in-the-hole castle in shogi.
“Ginaugh Hill is of a similar elevation to Mifeux, correct?” asked Baron Bocuse, the Ethaiq commander. Despite being the lowest in peerage of all present, he spoke with confidence as he stroked his mustache. “Then myself and my men shall hold Ginaugh to the last breath. I cannot say that a unilateral holdout suits my temperament, but if necessary...”
Frankly, that was still too uncertain for my liking. Next to provide their opinions were Arnoul de Nunvalle and Deputy General Joel de Bourgault-Ducoudray.