The Plains of Pluto
Copyright© 2025 by Lumpy
Chapter 1
Eastern Germania
The autumn wind bit through the fabric of Ky’s cloak as he entered the large command tent, which offered little additional protection against the cold of the oncoming Germanic winter, even with the stove burning in the corner.
Not that it actually bothered him. The nanites streaming through his body were able to adjust his internal and even skin temperature to some degree, insulating him from the outside weather. He couldn’t withstand long sojourns buck naked in freezing snow, but bundled up in thick furs, he would be fine.
He’d grown soft over the five-year sojourn between active wars, living in either palaces or at least comfortable longhouses. This would be his first winter back in the field, and he would have to adjust to it.
The other men gathered in the tent looked equally as grim, although they more than likely had things on their minds other than the weather outside.
“I appreciate everyone making their way here. I know our attention has been scattered the last several months, with so many crises happening simultaneously, but as we enter this new phase of the war, I wanted to get as many of our commanders and members of the alliance together as we could to discuss what the next year has in store for us.”
“I’d prefer to hear about how we can turn the rout we have been under for the last six months into an advance,” Bernia, the chieftain of the Anarti tribe and a member of the Germanic Alliance’s ruling council, said.
“The retreat has already ended, hence the beginning of a new phase,” Ky said. “The last battles cost them dearly, and we have halted them cold along the current front. The same is true of the large fleet they were sailing for Britannia. We received notice that our fleet has managed to engage and sink them, which is what has given us this moment of pause, as the Easterners pull back to lick their wounds.”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a pause,” Bomilcar said. “They continue to push both north and south, presumably looking for a place where our trenches end and they can get in behind us.”
“Which is why we continue expanding,” Ky replied. “Between the new trench lines being dug to the north and our river boats holding the rivers, they will find there is no way into Germania except over our trench lines. Which we have already shown them is a fatal proposition, with things as they stand now.”
“But how long can things hold as they are now?” Ehtrius, the leader of the Ilergetes tribe and one of the Hispania Confederation’s leaders, asked.
“I think for a while,” Ky said. “Most of the line is not trench to trench, but trenches pushed behind the Wisla River, with them on the other side. There are only a few places where they are across. It’s also where, for now, they are concentrating and where we are concentrating. How that will change really depends on our friends in Greece. Losing the Macedonians, the Thracians, and Thessalonians to the Easterners was a blow, and means that our lines will have to cut across Greece as well. The region does not lend itself well to large trench fortifications, which will make that area much more fluid and harder to control. Thankfully, it is also harder for large troop formations to move through that area.”
“That will hurt us as well, won’t it?” Lucilla asked.
“Partially. We’ve already started putting in rail lines. As of yet, we have not seen the Easterners use rail transport, at least not close enough that we’ve been able to see it. I’m not saying we should count on that, considering how quickly they seem to have copied our other advancements, but for the time being, it could be an advantage.”
“There could be other problems that might keep us from holding our lines,” Bomilcar said. “We are starting to see shortages of ammunition and powder. The constant defensive actions have caused us to deplete our stores a lot faster than we expected, especially since it’s been along a front crossing the length of the whole continent. We’ve lost nearly two thousand men in the past month holding these positions. The continuous nature of trench warfare means we can’t rotate units out for rest as we should.”
“I know, and I have sent word to Devnum and the factories we are starting to set up in Gaul and Germania to see about increasing production. I’m hoping the large number of nitrate beds every member of the alliance has been requested to build should decrease that shortage soon.”
Ky was not sure of that, however. The numbers that Sophus had projected, even with those new beds, were grim, to say the least.
“As for manpower,” Ky continued. “That is one of the purposes of this meeting. I know that not every tribal leader could be here for this, but I’m hoping you will each take our request back to your councils. We have already begun passing laws allowing some levels of conscription in Britannia, and I suggest you do the same in your regions. Our need for manpower is quickly outstripping our ability to do it on a voluntary basis.”
“Which is easy for people who have lived their lives in cities, living comfortably for so long,” Aliverko, the chieftain of the Anglii, interjected. “My warriors complain to me of endless days in mud-filled ditches, watching their brothers fall to unseen enemies. This is not how free men fight!”
Of all the chieftains from either the Germanic Alliance or the Gallic Confederacy, Ky found Aliverko the most frustrating. The man was, at times, one of their biggest supporters, but he was also hopelessly stuck in the past. If given the choice between facing a single opponent a hundred yards away with a rifle or a knife, the man would choose a knife every time and give the other man the rifle.
“You’ve been to the hospital, Aliverko,” Ky said. “I know you have. You’ve seen the injuries men who meet modern weapons fall to. You were here when we stopped the final push by the Easterners, stacking their dead in front of our trenches higher than a man could see over. I’m sure each of those men died bravely, but they still died. Is that the end you want to see for your warriors?”
Aliverko’s expression remained stoic, but Ky could see him picturing the carnage that resulted from the Easterners facing trenches with barbed wire and fused artillery shells. It had been gruesome.
“The world is changing,” Ky continued. “Soon, we’ll be deploying weapons that will make even our current rifles seem primitive. Imagine your best warriors, charging across that field with axes and swords, when artillery shells begin falling. Each shell carries the power of fifty powder charges, exploding in a storm of metal fragments. There would be no glory in such a death, only waste.”
“The Consul speaks the truth,” Bomilcar added. “I’ve led men into combat my entire life and have spent more time on a battlefield than under a roof. I understand your men’s frustrations, but they need to know that the tactics we use are to limit our losses while causing the greatest losses to the enemy. We’ve lost men, yes, but our casualties are nothing compared to theirs. For every Britannian or Germanic warrior who falls in those trenches, we claim ten of the enemy.”
“We must adapt or perish. The TianYou Empire has already begun to learn this lesson, their latest attacks show signs of tactical evolution. They’re developing their own trench networks, attempting to mirror our defensive strategies. So we will continue to change the way we fight, to stay a step ahead of them.”
“At least it is nearing winter. We can use the down months to retrain the men and hopefully work some of their old ways of thinking out of them, in addition to getting more men ready for the front line,” Bomilcar said.
“That’s outdated thinking. The nature of trench warfare has eliminated the concept of seasonal campaigns. The fighting will continue regardless of weather, and I expect the TianYou to use winter for targeted strikes against our weaker positions.”
That came as unwelcome news, especially to the seasoned commanders, nearly all of whom had come up through the ranks during the days of phalanx and shield walls, where armies provisioned off the land as they moved, and mostly held steady or even returned home during the winter months to keep from starving.
“There’s also the situation in Greece, that you mentioned earlier, which will complicate your decision a little more. As you said, the lines there will be hard to adapt, and our allies here are still making the adjustment to the modern way of fighting,” Modius said, gesturing to the representatives from Illyria, Epirus, and Corinth who had accompanied him up from Corinth. “But that isn’t our only concern. While we have gotten a positive response from the Pannonians, who should soon be joining our effort, so far, Athens, Argos, and Sparta remain undecided. Should they join with the other polities who have joined the Easterners, the south and heart of Greece will be lost to us.”
“While I would, of course, prefer those three – and I’m assuming their associated junior states – I’m more concerned with what our line must look like with the defecting states. If they had stayed with us, and if the Greeks’ mission to Dacia is successful, we would have the single break between the Wisla and the Dnjester to give us a line north and south across the continent, allowing us to focus our men on the break where the two rivers do not touch, instead of stretching for a month’s travel southwest through the lands of Pannonia and Illyria to the borders of Italy. Now, they can bypass our holds on the rivers and bring men straight across from Anatolia, creating a bulge in our lines the size of the Balkans. It would almost be easier just to hold the line from Dacia to Illyria and be done with it.”
“And abandon those who would join you?” the representative from Corinth asked angrily.
His anger was understandable; being near the bottom of Greece near the Aegean, such a disbursement of men would mean abandoning his entire state to the Easterners.
“I said it would be easier, not that that is what we plan to do. You have joined the Western Alliance, and so we will defend you as we would any other part of the alliance. I just meant to say it makes our situation much more difficult. It also highlights where a lot of the fight will be. Considering their troop concentration, and the time it will take for them to move men through the rugged terrain of the area, I think the Easterners will, for now, concentrate their presence on the area between the Wisla and the Dniester, but once they have gotten enough resources into Greece, I can all but guarantee that is where the fighting will shift.”
“So we prepare for that,” Lucilla said.