Rain, it turned out. Rain mixed with dirt made mud, and mud was a soldier’s worst enemy.
He’d hoped the thunderstorm would pass on, giving them clear weather, but more gray clouds rolled in behind it. It rained all the next day, not the torrential downpour of the night before but a steady, solid curtain of water. Marcus ordered an early start, but it wasn’t long before the familiar problems started to trickle in. Thousands of marching feet churned even the stoutest road into mush. Wagons got stuck, guns foundered, and horses injured themselves. Traffic jams grew from these seeds and stretched on for miles.
Val’s Third Division had the lead, and the schedule called for them to reach Grenvol on the Daater by noon. In fact, Val’s outlying pickets made contact with Give-Em-Hell’s cavalry, holding the town, closer to two thirty, and he wasn’t actually crossing the bridge until after three. That took longer than expected, too—?whoever had written up the timetable hadn’t accounted for the bottleneck the narrow bridge presented. Marcus’ troops, who were next in line, had plenty of time to close up ranks before it was their turn to file over the churning water. A few civilians came out to cheer them on, but the rain seemed to have dampened everyone’s spirits.
The march went on until long after dark, but even with the lengthened hours they ended up well short of their planned campsite, still between the Daater and the small river Ixa. General Kurot was waiting when Marcus finally arrived at the camp himself, soaked through and spattered with mud after a day spent herding soldiers and finding crews to rescue bogged-?down equipment.
“General d’Ivoire,” Kurot said. He had a rain cape with a raised hood, keeping the damp from his uniform, though spray still fogged his spectacles.
“General Kurot,” Marcus said. “The last of my division is coming in now, sir.”
“We are still short of the Ixa,” Kurot said. That was the scheduled jumping-?off point for the move against Janus.
“I realize that, sir,” Marcus said, and gestured at the heavens. “We’ve been lucky to get this far in this mess.”
Kurot’s lips were pressed into a thin line. “Then it is your opinion that it is impossible to regain the original timetable?”
Is he joking? “Yes, sir,” Marcus said cautiously. It’s not my opinion; it’s a fucking fact.
“Very well.” Kurot let out a breath and closed his eyes, with the air of someone taking the high road. “We will allow one more day to get across the Ixa, and plan the attack for the morning of the day after tomorrow.”
“Understood, sir!” Marcus said.
“I will inform General Solwen.” Kurot inclined his head. “I expect better results tomorrow, General.”
The rain stopped around midnight. That was cheering, but it would be some time before the mud dried out, and the next day’s march suffered from most of the same problems. Despite Kurot’s admonition, Marcus was pleased with the way the Second Division handled the adversity. The veterans in the Girls’ Own and the other regiments didn’t complain when he rounded up teams to haul lines or lift guns. They just rolled up their sleeves and did it, and that attitude spread to the recruits. Several times Marcus responded to a call for help to find that a passing company had pitched in unprompted, unsnarling the line before he even needed to intervene.
“A little mud is nothing,” he heard one older woman telling a wide-?eyed young man, “when you’ve been to Murnsk and seen blizzards in July.”
Cavalry patrols returned regularly, reporting running skirmishes with their opposite numbers. They were unable to penetrate the enemy cordon, so Janus’ exact position was unknown, but the orientation of his cavalry screen told them that he was still somewhere around Alves. Meanwhile, Give-Em-Hell’s men worked hard to prevent anyone who got within sight of the Army of the Republic from getting away. That would be especially crucial in the morning, when Val’s division would split off for its diversionary march west.
That night, after shedding his mud-?spattered clothes, Marcus reread his orders for the next day and sent for Cyte. She turned up promptly, her boots flaking dried mud whenever she moved.
“Sorry, sir,” she said. “Haven’t had the chance to brush them.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He tapped the orders. “We’re leading the charge tomorrow. There’s a town called Satinvol with a bridge over the Pale. Kurot wants us to take it by nightfall.”
“Understood, sir.”
Marcus frowned. He didn’t like this next part, but however he twisted himself there didn’t seem to be a way out of it.
“If the enemy has dug into the town itself,” he said slowly, “in your opinion, which regiment would be best suited to handle the attack?”
“The Girls’ Own, sir,” Cyte said, without hesitation. “They have the most experience in loose-?order tactics. General Ihernglass generally deployed the entire regiment as skirmishers, with Sevran’s Second Regiment leading the close-?order assault.”
“That’s what I thought,” Marcus said. So tomorrow I’m going to order a bunch of young women to charge into musket-?fire. He clenched his jaw. I promised Abby I’d do what’s best without being... old-?fashioned about it. It still felt wrong. “All right. We’ll see where they make their stand, assuming they decide to put up a fight at all.”
He found himself desperately hoping they wouldn’t, that the clash between blue and blue could be delayed just a little bit longer. But he could read a map as well as Kurot could, and Satinvol was the closest upstream crossing to Alves. He’s not wrong. If we take it, we’ll be well and truly on Janus’ supply line. I just hope that’s not exactly where Janus wants us.
*
The next morning, the drummers woke the camp as soon as the first hints of light infiltrated the eastern sky. As the gray faded slowly to pale blue, the Second Division shook itself out, like a dog emerging from a pond. Tents were struck and left in piles for the baggage train to collect. The regiments formed up on the road to Satinvol. In the lead was Erdine’s cavalry, charged with scouting ahead and keeping the column from being surprised. Then came the Girls’ Own, two thousand young women in columns of companies for quick marching. They called cheerfully to one another in the predawn light, taunts and half-?eager, half-?anxious banter. Some soldiers responded that way to the prospect of combat, Marcus knew. He could see others staring at their shoes, as though intent on memorizing every detail, or murmuring prayers, or checking and rechecking their kit.