Authors: David Weber,Linda Evans
"Yes, Sir," Nourm grated.
"I don't believe I heard you, Sword."
"Yes, Sir!"
"That's better. Now, I believe this man needs medical attention."
"Yes, Sir."
Nourm's anger was obvious, but it was equally clear to Sarma that the sword was at least trying to control it, so he let it pass. Which didn't prevent him from keeping an eagle eye on the noncom as Nourm helped the wounded Sharonian back to his feet. He wasn't especially gentle about it, but he wasn't brutal, either, and for the moment, Sarma was willing to settle for what he could get.
He watched the sword half-dragging the prisoner towards the Healers and sighed.
Sarma knew his own attitude towards the Sharonians was atypical. Which was … unfortunate, since it was supposed to be the entire expeditionary force's attitude. Two Thousand Harshu's general orders had made it abundantly clear that the observation of the Accords was the official policy of the Union of Arcana in the present conflict. Unfortunately, unless Sarma was very much mistaken, it wasn't going to matter a great deal what general orders said.
It was Acting Commander of Five Hundred Neshok's fault, he thought bitterly. Sarma's platoon had been in the first wave of reinforcements to reach Fort Rycharn. That meant he'd had the opportunity to talk directly to Five Hundred Klian's men before the rest of Harshu's troopers and dragons had assembled.
Perhaps more to the point, one of his uncles had served with Five Hundred Klian when they were both mere squires, and the five hundred had invited his old friend's nephew to join his own officers for dinner one night.
Which meant he'd heard Five Hundred Klian's version of what had happened when the Sharonians punched out the Andaran Scouts at this very portal.
Somehow, the five hundred's version was quite different from the official briefings Five Hundred Neshok and his staff had delivered. According to Five Hundred Klian, who'd spoken directly to the only Arcanan eyewitnesses, Magister Halathyn vos Dulainah had been killed accidentally by an Arcanan infantry-dragon after he'd been pulled out of his tent by a Sharonian cavalryman. But according to Neshok's briefers, although they'd been scrupulously careful to warn everyone they were still seeking confirmation, Magister Halathyn had been dragged out of the tent and shot dead by the Sharonians. And, those same briefers had said gravely, there were additional unconfirmed reports that the Sharonians had systematically executed all of the Scouts' wounded, as well, rather than providing medical care.
Nothing could have been better calculated to fill Arcanan soldiers with fury. Magister Halathyn had been quite possibly the most beloved single man in all the Arcanan-explored multiverse-outside his own native Mythal, at least-and the idea that he'd been murdered out of hand by the Sharonians had fanned the rage of men like Sword Nourm to an incandescent pitch. Adding the possibility that the Sharonians had murdered their own prisoners only made it worse … assuming that anything could have.
Sarma shook his head. He'd never seen troops in such an ugly mood. They were out for blood vengeance on the "Sharonian butchers," and the fifty felt a cold, icy shudder of fear when he considered where that might lead everyone.
But it's not too late, he told himself. Surely, it's not too late. Two Thousand Harshu can still turn this around, if he'll just make Neshok stick to the facts.
Only … the two thousand hadn't done that yet. Whether he agreed with what Neshok was doing or not was almost beside the point. Even the officers who might have questioned Neshok's briefings, or pointed out to their men that even the Intelligence briefers had stressed that the reports were unconfirmed, were going to take their lead from Harshu's apparent attitude. And until Harshu specifically addressed the issue, they were going to ignore his general orders' official position.
And when they do, what happens to the Union Army? Sarma asked himself almost despairingly. What happens when we wake up and realize what we've done? And what happens if the way we treat our prisoners leads them to really start shooting our people out of hand when they're captured?
Jaralt Sarma didn't know the answers to those questions … but he was afraid that was going to change.
Commander of One Thousand Klayrman Toralk was not a happy man.
In one sense, the operation had gone exactly as planned. They'd obviously taken the portal defenders completely by surprise, which meant Narshu must have succeeded in neutralizing the Voice at Fallen Timbers. And the force here at the portal had been almost totally eliminated. At the moment, they had exactly twelve prisoners, half of them wounded, and it didn't look as if there were going to be very many more.
But the attack had cost him. Graholis, but it had cost him! Bad enough to have had two of his reds killed outright, but he had three more which had suffered significant injuries. The odds were probably about even that they'd still lose Berhala's Skyfire, even with the Healers, and one of the other wounded reds was hurt almost as badly. That was a much higher loss rate than he'd anticipated, and it suggested that these Sharonians' "rifles" were going to be dangerously effective against his ground attack dragons.
Yet as bad as that was, there was worse. He had no idea what the Sharonians called the things they'd screwed onto the ends of their rifles, but one of them had gone straight into Nairdag Yorhan's Windslasher's open mouth. The explosion had killed the yellow, and Yorhan's neck had snapped like a twig when his dragon went in at two hundred miles an hour.
It was obvious to Toralk that the yellows had been his most effective weapon, and at least they'd demonstrated a relative immunity to rifle fire. Graycloud and Skykill both had wing damage, but punctured membranes were something the dragon-healers could repair quickly. Both of them had dozens of scarred and gouged belly scales, as well, but none of the fire they'd taken there had managed to penetrate, and he expected the healers to have both yellows back in the air within another half-hour, maximum.
Which made the fact that he'd lost a third of them even more painful. If taking a single portal had cost this much, then-
The sound of a sudden explosion snapped his head up, and his mouth tightened as he heard the fresh screams.
That bastard Neshok, the thousand thought viciously. Why the hells didn't he warn us about this crap, if he's so frgging good?
Even as the thought flashed through his brain, he knew it wasn't really fair. The truth was that most of the information Neshok had provided had proven amazingly accurate, but Toralk wasn't really in a mood to be fair to the arrogant Intelligence officer. Not when he'd already lost so many battle dragons. And not when one of the things Neshok hadn't warned him about had already cost Arcana at least twenty men.
He didn't know what the Sharonians called the devilish devices they'd buried around their defensive positions. He didn't even know-yet-how they worked, for that matter. But their effectiveness had already been made amply clear, and he expected them to have a significantly dampening effect on the ground troops' confidence.
Maybe not, he thought. I may be being overly pessimistic. It's not that much different from a combat trap spell, after all.
He watched the corpsmen making their quick yet cautious way towards the newest casualties and knew that there was, indeed, at least one very significant difference. The devices killing his men as they exploded were completely undetectable by any of the Army's trap-sweeping spells. They simply didn't register, since they didn't rely on any arcane technology at all, and that was the reason for the hesitancy he could already see in the gas-masked troops advancing cautiously through the Sharonian positions.
"Sir," one of his staffers said quietly. Toralk glanced at him, and the young man twitched one hand unobtrusively back over the swamp. Toralk followed the gesture with his eyes, and his lips tightened slightly as he saw Two Thousand Harshu's command dragon slicing down towards a landing.
He nodded his thanks to the young fifty and turned to walk back towards the safe zone on the swamp side of the portal where they were sure there were none of the whatever-the-hells-were-blowing-peopleup to greet his superior officer.
The dragon landed in a spray of water and muck, and Harshu vaulted down from its back. He landed with a substantial splash, but he seemed completely unaware of it as he started for the shore, grinning fiercely around the stem of the pipe clenched between his teeth.
Somehow, Toralk wasn't surprised. The two thousand had always struck him as someone who was enamored of flamboyance for flamboyance's own sake. Someone who was constantly aware that he was
"on stage" and played shamelessly to his audience. Over the past few weeks, though, Toralk had come to the conclusion that he'd been wronging Harshu, at least a little. The two thousand was constantly on stage, and constantly aware of it, but it was a sort of military theater which was part and parcel of his command style. And, somewhat to Toralk's surprise, it actually worked. Even with relatively senior officers-like one Thousand Klayrman Toralk, who damned well ought to know better.
Commander of One Thousand Tayrgal Carthos followed the two thousand down into the mud. The heavily-built, redhaired Carthos was Harshu's senior infantry commander, Toralk's counterpart amongst the expeditionary force's ground pounders. He was also older than either Harshu or Toralk, with streaks of startling white painting themselves into his thick, spade-shaped beard to bracket the corners of his mouth, and his expression seemed to hover on the precipice of a perpetual frown. Now he and Harshu waded through the thigh-deep swamp to the solid hillock upon which the portal stood, then stepped through onto the firmer ground on the other side.
"Sir!" Toralk saluted briskly, and Harshu touched his own fist to his left shoulder in response.
"Before you say anything, Klayrman," the two thousand said around his pipe, "you and your people did well-very well. I know we've lost more dragons than we'd anticipated. Well," he grimaced, "that's not totally unexpected, is it? We knew going in that the first battle would be a learning experience."
"Yes, Sir. But I still-"
"Don't kick yourself over it." Harshu's voice was just a bit harsher, and he shook his head. "I said you did well, and you did. I was watching over the scrying spell. I know exactly what happened, and I know Hundred Geyrsof made the right call. I don't know just what they used to knock that one yellow down, but whatever it was, it was short ranged. And whatever else happened, we've got the portal."
"Yes, Sir," Toralk acknowledged, then showed his own teeth in what very few people would have mistaken for a smile. "On the other hand, these people seem to have left us a few rather nasty little surprises." He shook his head. "I know I'm just an Air Force puke, but it looks to me like these trap-spell equivalents, or whatever they are, are going to be a major pain in the arse."
"At least until we get a handle on finding them, at any rate," Harshu agreed, gazing past Toralk to where his infantry pointmen continued to pick their way gingerly and cautiously forward.
"I don't suppose we can blame the men for being a little hesitant," Carthos put in,"even if it is putting us behind schedule."
Toralk nodded. The cavalry was already supposed to have been moving ahead, sweeping towards Fallen Timbers to relieve Narshu. The infernal devices the Sharonians had left behind, however, had put a significant kink into their timetable.
"I agree," he said. Under the Union of Arcana's joint forces doctrine, he and Carthos were currently in a sort of gray zone. Air-mobile operations technically came under Air Force control, but only until the ground forces were landed. At that point, control reverted to the senior Army officer present.
Technically, that was Two Thousand Harshu as the expeditionary force's commanding officer, but Carthos was the designated tactical officer in command for the ground component. Which meant that Toralk was in a rather delicate position if he said anything that sounded like Air Force criticism of Army personnel.
"Part of it may be that we've … over impressed our junior officers with the need to conserve manpower," he observed.
"Maybe," Harshu said. "But it's a hells of a lot more likely that the fact that they can't detect the bloody things is giving them the willies!"
The two thousand stood for a moment, clearly thinking hard, then shrugged.
"Narshu obviously pulled off his primary mission," he said. "If he hadn't, these people would have been a lot readier for us. So, he most likely has control at Fallen Timbers. We still need to get someone up there to link up with him and confirm that he and Master Skirvon have the situation in hand, but it's more critical that we take the Class Eight and take out their portal fort. And any 'Voices' they have stationed there."
"Yes, Sir."
"All right, then." The two thousand turned to Carthos. "We'll leave one of your light cav companies and your engineer battalion here. As soon as the engineers manage to clear enough of these booby traps of theirs, we'll put the cavalry through and send it up the trail to Fallen Timbers. In the meantime," he glanced back at Toralk, "we'll push ahead to the Class Eight with the dragons and the rest of the airmobile forces. We can't be positive they didn't have patrols or fatigue parties out somewhere, but if we close the Class Eight behind them, they aren't going anywhere, anyway."
"Yes, Sir," Toralk said, and Carthos nodded.
"Understood, Two Thousand," he said.
There wasn't much else he could have said, under the circumstances, but Toralk listened carefully to how he said. If this entire operation was going to succeed, it would be solely because of the mobility and reach his dragons afforded. Which meant it wouldn't happen if interservice rivalry got in the way. He wouldn't say that Carthos sounded happy about the reminder that the Air Force had to be the senior service for this particular mission, but he didn't detect any overt resentment in the other thousand's tone or expression.
"Then let's get your dragons back in the air as soon as you can, Thousand," Harshu said, and slapped Toralk on the shoulder. "And remember this, Klayrman. The lessons you've learned here this morning may have been painful, but they still give you the advantage, because whoever's in command of that portal fort hasn't had any lessons at all yet. Now go change that."