“The enemy occupied everything south of the Columbia last year, nearly as far as the boundaries of County Odell, after that cluster-fuck at Pendleton—which doesn’t seem to care we now have their precious Bossman prisoner. And Bend fell a bit later, along with the rest of the Central Oregon Rancher’s Association territories. Then the enemy spent months trying to force the passes of the High Cascades into the Willamette, and got nothing but bloody noses from the Mackenzies, Bearkillers and Corvallans. Then they died by the thousands in the winter blizzards because they didn’t pull back in time.”

A set of shark grins, or in a few cases winces; this time they were trying to imagine light horsemen riding into the teeth of those singing clouds of bodkin-pointed death the Mackenzie longbows could produce. Or caught cold and foodless in the huge snowfalls that stretched from October to May at those elevations, with the raiding parties of the Clan slipping through the forests around them like the wolves of Hecate they called themselves.

“Meanwhile the forces that the CORA left behind are waging a cavalry guerilla all over the range country and the foothills east of the Cascades, every inch of which they know, with their families safe in the Willamette and the forts for supplies and refuge. So now it’s our turn. We have strong castles at all the crossings of the Columbia from the Wallula Gap to the Gorge, so they can’t try to cross in strength to the north bank—incidentally, my lords, does anyone want to complain again about the way the Lady Regent forced everyone to spend money and sweat on fortifications and stockpiles the last fifteen years? No? Good.”

Her knife-point moved again, through the rolling lands between the Blue Mountains and the Snake River.

“They have only one option; out of the Palouse and down old Highway 12 from Lewiston to Walla Walla, then to the Wallula Gap and west north of the river.”

“How are they going to get past the river at the Gap?” Tucannon asked. “The castles there are very strong. Not much point in sweeping down Highway 12 and then sitting and watching the fish jump and trying to catch round shot and bolts with your teeth.”

“Invest the castles and then use barges and pontoons to cross the river,” she said. “Unless they can take the bridges up near Kennewick. We have castles covering those, but we couldn’t build enough to cover all possible water crossings.”

The fighting-men looked at each other; a few smiles flickered into being.

Good. They’re starting to see the enemy’s problems, not just ours.

“Well, good luck supporting a hundred thousand men on the other side of the Columbia that way,” de Grimmond said.

Tiphaine nodded. “That’s why we can’t fight the decisive battle here in the Eastermark—”

“Why not?” a baron whose estates were near Dayton said.