The Kingmakers(6)
“So long as it bothers you,” Anhalt whispered, “then we know it bothers them as well. Hopefully now they'll be wary enough to buy us a day or two of peace.”
Colonel Mobius ran up, wide-eyed and exhilarated. “By God, that was a close shave!”
“Quite.” Anhalt patted out a glowing smolder on his coat, nonplussed. “As soon as it cools down out there, check the damage. Let's pray our miracle weapon hasn't cost as many on our side as theirs.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Find me when you've finished.”
“Yes, sir.” Mobius departed.
Anhalt started deeper into the underground bunker complex, with Greyfriar falling into step behind him. The dirt corridors were as crowded as a tenement in the worst neighborhoods of old Alexandria. He saw men huddled in every recess, breath misting, eating scarce rations from tins.
Greyfriar asked, “Still no word from Field Marshal Rotherford?”
“None.” Anhalt struggled to keep annoyance out of his tone.
Greyfriar was too polite to notice. “Perhaps the weather has proved difficult for him as well.”
Anhalt grunted. The war strategy that had been crafted for more than a year had to be hastily changed before operations even began. First, the American allies were no longer available due to the collapsed union between Empress Adele and Senator Clark. Second, intelligence from Greyfriar indicated that Cesare had brought the clans of Munich and Budapest together into an effective alliance. To draw off these powerful clans, the Equatorians split their army and sent five divisions to invade the Balkans, aimed at Budapest.
Meanwhile, General Anhalt's army landed in Marseilles in early fall. His opening gambit was to split his elements of the Grand Expeditionary Force to form a pincer attack on the dangerous clan at Lyon at the outlet of the Rhone Valley. Field Marshal Rotherford's overpowered column, nearly a corps in strength at over thirty thousand men, had departed Marseilles for St. Etienne in early October of last year, while Anhalt took his lighter Second Division, close to fifteen thousand men, up the Gap toward Grenoble. According to Greyfriar's scouting, the road to St. Etienne was open, and the city lightly defended. It was expected that St. Etienne could be secured easily, and Rotherford would then detach part of his force eastward with haste to join Anhalt for an attempt to take the more dangerous Grenoble. The goal was to create an operational cordon sanitaire, militarize the Rhone Valley, assault Lyon, and then stage further operations into central France.
However, nothing went quite as planned. The weather turned savage sooner than expected. Resupply from the coast was haphazard. Anhalt's frozen camp below Grenoble was cut off from land and air communication in December, and lay trapped for nearly a month as the vampires drew a net tighter. The few airships he'd had on the advance north were grounded or destroyed now. His men were freezing, sick, and dying, desperately low on food and ammunition. No reinforcements had come from Rotherford to the west.
Anhalt could only speculate what had happened to his brother officer. It was certainly possible that Rotherford's divisions had met with heavier resistance at St. Etienne than expected. He could still be engaged seizing his objective, or perhaps had even been thrown back toward the coast.
Though he didn't wish to, the Gurkha couldn't help but consider another reason why a relief column had failed to show. General Rotherford had been loud in his displeasure about Anhalt leapfrogging over more superior officers, such as Rotherford himself, to take command of the Imperial Army. He had made no secret of his opinion that Anhalt was an officer of limited command experience, as well as the author of the so-called Ptolemy Disaster last year when Princess Adele had been captured by the British vampire clan. Yet, General Anhalt had been declared sirdar, that grand old Egyptian rank, and given the greatest army Equatoria had ever mustered, only because he was the pet of Empress Adele.
Anhalt put aside his speculations and turned his attention back to Greyfriar, who was studying the men in their tight confines. The vampire seemed continually fascinated by humans. It was the damnedest thing.
A familiar face appeared in the chaos. The stern ebony visage of General Luteta Ngongo from Katanga stopped and saluted. “Sirdar.” He offered a polite nod to Greyfriar.
Anhalt returned the salute and led him into an alcove reserved for officers that had a simple stove. “You don't seem happy, Luteta.” It couldn't be the extreme cold, despite the general's knee-length kilt and light shirt. Ngongo was used to operating his Mountaineer regiment in the sleet-driven wastes of the Rwenzori Mountains of central Africa.
“I fear I have nothing good to report. My Mountaineers returned from our latest scouting expedition yesterday.” He held up a chart of the local Alps. All the tactical maps were based on old nineteenth-century documents, and were of limited use. “We could find no safe route to the west. The few passes that looked promising were either blocked or swarming with vampires. They are not suitable for retreat.”