“They have to be impassable for at least twelve hours, more if possible. That’ll bottleneck the enemy long enough, hopefully.”

The elder Renfrew brother looked east. “We don’t have enough men for that, Sir Ruffin. If there’s a sortie in any strength from the city to capture the engines, we’ll be up Shit Creek, not the Umatilla River!”

The Grand Constable’s right-hand man nodded. “I’ll send a couple of conroi of men-at-arms and infantry to help you hold. Most of the fighting is down around the John Day Highway and south of the old Highway 84 and 30, that’s where it looks like the battle line is shaping up. The enemy is anchoring their right on the city and trying to swing up north. We’ll have to rock them back on their heels there, that’s where we’ve got most of our lancers and the Mackenzie longbowmen, but this position has to be secured or they can use their reserves to flank us out too soon. As soon as I can spring the men I’ll send them to you.”

“What forces specifically, Sir Ruffin?” the Viscount asked a little more formally.

Ruffin chewed his lip and shook his head. “How good are you at kicking butt? The only one I think we can detach is going to be from House Stavarov’s contingent from County Chehalis; Sir Constantine and his menie, you know.”

“Piotr’s brat? He’d better not mess with me. But he won’t.”

“His reputation isn’t long on discipline.”

The heir to Odell snorted. “To hell with discipline, Sir Ruffin. He likes to fight. He’s a complete loss at knightly courtesy and social graces, in fact his vocabulary is limited to variations on drink and fuck and kill, but give him a chance to charge screaming at the head of his men-at-arms and he’s happy as a drunken pig in a grape-vat. That maneuver is the limit of his military knowledge but he does it well. And he’ll take my orders.”

Guelf glanced curiously over at the iron expression on Viscount Chenoweth’s face, but decided not to ask. Sir Ruffin nodded and picked up the yard square map. Guelf hurried to help him shake it gently and roll it up. Map paper was horribly difficult to press evenly and cost the earth. Only the Albany presses of Corvallis made this grade of paper. He tapped it very carefully and slid it into the carry tube for Ruffin.

The Viscount took off his helmet with a single pungent word as Ruffin mounted and left in a spurt of pebbles and dust, the pennants of his escort flapping as the lance heads glittered in the sunlight. He scrubbed his short, light-brown hair and growled.

“Thank you so very much for this gift of a helmet full of horse turds, Sir Ruffin! Guelf, get your men; take out those bridges. I don’t need to teach you how to suck eggs. What the hell happened to the Dúnedain? That op was tricky, but they’ve pulled off harder. Beelzebub’s arse with piles the size of plums, I wish I knew the details!”