Hell Hath No Fury

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Mayrkos Harshu's face was completely expressionless as the imagery from Commander of Fifty Fahrlo's recon crystal played back before him. Klayrman Toralk wished his face could be equally disciplined, but that was more than he could manage.

Graholis! What the hells did Myr run into? And what the fuck did he think he was doing with that second attack?!

The imagery concluded with Deathclaw circling overhead while his two wounded wingmates came in for quick, clumsy landings. Toralk didn't have the dragon-healers' reports yet, but he'd be surprised if the more badly wounded of the two survived. And whether the beast lived or not, both of the injured dragons were going to be out of action for a long time.

Which means I have exactly three battle dragons left-all of them blacks, he thought grimly.

"Thank you," Harshu said almost absently to the Gifted technician. The man had done extraordinarily well to get the imagery transferred so quickly, but he didn't look very happy, despite the two thousand's well deserved thanks.

Probably because he isn't a total idiot, Toralk thought.

The technician departed, and Harshu and Toralk looked at one another across the map table.

"It would appear," Harshu said with a thin, humorless smile, "that it's fortunate I'd already decided to halt the offensive here in Traisum."

Toralk winced.

"Sir," he began, "I'd apologize for this … this debacle, if there were any way to excuse it. I-"

"That's enough, Klayrman," Harshu interrupted. The Air Force officer closed his mouth, and the Expeditionary Force's CO shook his head. "I saw your and Five Hundred Myr's attack plan. I was fully aware of the Intelligence appreciations upon which it was based, and I approved it. Whatever blame there may be, it belongs to me as much as it does to you."

Toralk started to disagree with his superior's assessment, then made himself stop and shook his own head.

"That's very understanding of you, Sir," he said instead. "But whoever's to blame, we've got a major problem here."

My, Klayrman, a corner of his brain mocked, what a massive gift for understatement you do have.

"For all practical purposes," he continued, "my battle dragon strength has just been wiped out. The blacks I have left are the least effective for this sort of attack. And, to be honest, despite all the smoke and explosions our pilots have reported, I doubt very much that they succeeded in neutralizing the fort's defensive fire."

"Probably not," Harshu agreed. The two thousand gazed down at the map of the terrain around Fort Salby, rubbing his chin gently.

"All right," he said finally. "There's no point standing here beating ourselves up over our losses. What matters are our remaining resources for prosecuting the attack."

Toralk looked at him, then cleared his throat respectfully.

"Sir," he said diffidently, "as I understand our basic operational planning, the object was to secure a forward chokepoint we could hold against counterattack. That's what made this portal so attractive. But if we failed to secure that sort of chokepoint, our object became to conduct a mobile defensive withdrawal, slowing the enemy to the greatest possible extent while the Commandery found reinforcements for us."

"And you're thinking that if we take heavy losses-additional heavy losses-against Salby, we won't have anything left to conduct that mobile defense with." Harshu's voice sounded remarkably calm, and Toralk nodded.

"That's exactly what I'm thinking, Sir."

"Well, I'm not certain you're wrong," Harshu said frankly. "On the other hand, now that I've seen Fifty Fahrlo's recon images, I'm more convinced than ever that securing Fort Salby itself would be extremely valuable. The ground-level approach to the portal is even more constricted from the up-chain side than I'd thought it was, and thanks to the portal itself, there's no way-no practical way-they could flank us out of position. It would be a straight up fighting withdrawal to the portal, with our transport dragons giving us the ability to pull our men out at the very last-minute."

"I can't disagree with that, Sir. But at the same time, the cliff face, alone, is going to be a major terrain obstacle for anyone without aerial capability. Frankly, if I were a Sharonian, I'd figure it was a pretty solid cork all by itself. We don't need to control the approaches, as well."

"I'm not as positive about that." Harshu shook his head. "I've been thinking about what they did to Hundred Thalmayr at the swamp portal. They used man and pack animal-portable weapons for that attack; for this one, they'd have their 'railroad' available to bring in really heavy weapons. And remember the sheer size of some of the machinery the overflight picked up. I've been trying to imagine what one of their artillery pieces might look like built on that scale and, to be honest, the thought scares the crap out of me.

"Whether they've got any that big or not, it's obvious that they have some which are at least a lot bigger and heavier than anything we've encountered so far. Obviously, we haven't seen those in action yet … which means I don't have any sort of measuring stick to evaluate how far through a portal they could shoot. I'd prefer to have some extra depth, enough room to at least get a good, solid feel for their capabilities, before we make a determined stand defending the cliffs. For that matter, simply deploying in well fortified defensive positions in this kind of terrain would force them to slow down, move cautiously. We wouldn't have that advantage anywhere else-or, at least, not to this extent-if they ever did get past the cliffs.

"Finally, as you yourself just pointed out, our whole object, when you come right down to it, is to buy time for the Commandery to get a real field army in here. Not only that, it's clear we're going to have to recall Carthos-or, at least, Hundred Helika's strike-to reinforce your surviving battle dragon strength, and we're going to have to buy time for that, as well. Well, if that's the case, then let's start buying it as far forward as we can."

"But, Sir-"

"It can be argued either way, Klayrman," Harshu said. "Unfortunately, we don't have time to debate it properly-not with their reinforcements as close as they probably are by now. That means I've got to make the decision right now, and, to be frank, with so much of our battle dragon combat strength written off, our ability to mount a mobile defense has just been pretty damned seriously compromised, even assuming we get Helika up here to reinforce you. Which leaves us with an interesting dilemma. Do we risk even more losses in a possibly unsuccessful attempt to secure a chokepoint we can hold without dragons, or do we avoid the losses but accept that slowing these people in the open field is going to be a lot harder without those same dragons?"

Toralk frowned as he realized he hadn't really considered that aspect of their suddenly unenviable strategic position. He'd been too focused on their disastrous losses and what it had done to their combat power right here, right now, to think that far ahead.

"We've still got the transports, Sir," he pointed out after a moment. "Some of them-some of the tactical transports, the transport-battle dragon crosses-have breath weapon capability. Not anything I'd like to take up against another dragon, you understand, but enough to make them effective against ground targets not covered by the kind of firepower they've got concentrated here. And whether or not we decided we could commit them as improvised stand-ins for the battle dragons, they'd still give us operational mobility that has to be enormously better than theirs."

"Agreed."

Harshu's eyes were hooded, his lips pursed in a thoughtful, silent whistle as he folded his hands behind him and stepped out of his tent into the morning sunlight.

Toralk followed him, gazing out across the dragonhead. If a man hadn't known about the nature of the losses the Expeditionary Force had just suffered, he might have been excused for wondering what all the doom and gloom were about. After all, their personnel losses amounted to only fifteen men out of a total force of over ten thousand. For that matter, they'd lost only fifteen-possibly sixteen-dragons out of a total dragon strength of well over two hundred. On the surface, their combat power should barely have been scratched.

"I agree with your point about the transports, Klayrman," Harshu reiterated after several moments. "But we still don't know exactly how powerful this reinforcement of theirs is going to be. Given what they just did to us, my estimate of what's likely to happen when they're allowed to attack us just got a lot more pessimistic. That leaves me even more strongly inclined to continue the attack."

"Sir-"

"I know what you're going to say, and you may be right," Harshu interrupted Toralk's nascent argument.

"But we've still got a major force advantage, we haven't committed the gryphons or our cavalry, and these people still haven't seen our combat engineers at work. Under the circumstances, I'm inclined to risk additional casualties, considering the possible payoff if the attack succeeds. Be honest, Klayrman.

We both know we've gotten off incredibly light to this point. I know we've just taken a truly heavy hit to your battle dragons, but I don't think we can justify simply turning around and retreating from a potential prize like this one when the rest of our force is still completely intact. We haven't been hauling all this cavalry and all this infantry around just so we could decide not to use it!"

Toralk nodded without speaking. After all, he couldn't argue with anything Harshu had just said.

"What I won't risk are the transports," the two thousand continued firmly. "You're right about the mobility advantage we'll retain as long we keep them intact. I'd prefer to keep the light cavalry intact, too. This is going to be a job for the dragoons and the heavy horse, I think."

And if you lose the heavy cav, you lose less of your tactical mobility down the road, Toralk added silently. Of course, you lose more of your total firepower, but still … .

He considered the situation, his mind turning to the problem of how best to employ the aerial assets he could still muster. And, as he did, he discovered that he actually felt at least a flicker of optimism. The discovery astonished him, and he shook his head again, this time in rueful admiration.

Left to himself, he was almost certain, he would have called off the attack. Even now, he was far from convinced that continuing the attack was the proper decision. But there was really only one way to find out, and the two thousand had the intestinal fortitude to do just that.

He's right about the defensive advantages of this particular chokepoint, too … if we manage to pull it off after all, Toralk thought.

"All right, Sir," he said. "Let me go get with my staff for a few minutes and I'll be able to tell you what we've got to try again with."

"-then tell Master-Armsman chan Garath to get some more men on that fire," Regiment-Captain chan Skrithik said, pointing at the flames and thick, dense smoke pouring from the southeastern tower. The interior of the structure was burning now, although there wasn't actually that much in it that was flammable. He wasn't that concerned over the possibility that the fire might spread, but the gap all those roaring flames and dense smoke left in their defenses worried him quite a lot, considering that their limited infantry and field artillery strength was all concentrated west of the fort.

"Yes, Sir!" The runner saluted sharply and disappeared into the smoke and confusion. Chan Skrithik watched him go, then turned back to Janaki.

The Crown Prince had scarcely moved. Even during the aerial assault on the fort itself, he'd stood there, motionless, gray eyes unfocused on anything of the physical world about him. Not even the falcon on his shoulder had stirred, despite all the sound, fury and confusion swirling about them. The peregrine had been as still as a bird carved from stone, as if its human companion's total, focused concentration had reached out and enveloped it, as well.

Chan Skrithik felt awed by the realization that he was seeing something very few people had ever witnessed: the legendary Talent of the Caliraths in action. Yet there was more than just awe inside the regiment-captain. There was desperate worry, concern for the safety of the young man who would one day wear the Winged Crown.

For all his years of service, all his hard-won experience and competence, Rof chan Skrithik's military service had been peacetime service, and he'd never seen anything like the last hour of chaos and destruction. In less than ten minutes, those diving monstrosities had killed more men than chan Skrithik had seen die in his entire previous military career, and they'd been his men. In the process, he'd discovered that it was something no man could truly prepare himself for ahead of time. The sense that he had somehow failed his men by not keeping them alive, that he would have lost fewer of them if only he'd been smarter, better, rolled around somewhere in the depths of his soul. His intellect knew better, knew no Sharonian had ever even imagined the possibility of facing this sort of attack, that no one could have prepared better. But this was a subject where intellect and emotions were scarcely even on speaking terms, and he knew it was going to take him a long, long time to resolve those feelings … assuming he ever could resolve them.

That, however, was something the future was going to have to take care of in its own good time. For the present, more pressing worries and responsibilities pushed that concern out of the forefront of his mind.

And one of those worries was the way Crown Prince Janaki had insisted upon standing in this exposed position high atop the fortress wall.

He stepped towards the prince, reaching out one hand to urge him to at least climb down from the gun platform, but someone else's hand touched his own shoulder first.

The regiment-captain twitched in surprise. Then he turned his head, and Chief-Armsman Lorash chan Braikal shook his head with a small, sad smile.

"No, Sir," the Marine said softly. "Begging your pardon, but it wouldn't do any good."

"Chief," chan Skrithik told Janaki's senior noncom quietly, "I can't just leave him up here. Not after seeing all of this!" He jerked his head at the smoke, the fires, the corpsmen and their volunteer civilian assistants carrying broken and savagely burned bodies to Company-Captain Krilar's infirmary. "We've got to get him under cover."

"No, Sir." Chan Braikal's voice was respectful, but he shook his head again.

If he'd thought about it, chan Skrithik might have been surprised. No Ternathian officer with more brains than a rock ever doubted that while officers might command, it was the tough, experienced core of longservice noncoms who actually ran the Empire's military. Yet it was unusual, to say the very least, for one of those noncoms to argue with a full regiment-captain at a time like this … or about something like this.

As if any of us had ever experienced "something" like this in the first place!

The thought flickered somewhere down inside, and chan Skrithik cocked his head questioningly.

"That's not how Glimpses work, Sir." Chan Braikal's expression, chan Skrithik realized, was just as worried as his own, and the chief-armsman's voice was rough-edged. "I got a sort of crash course about his family's Talent before he took over the Platoon," the noncom continued. "What he's doing now-it's called 'fugue state,' Sir. And for it to work, he has to be at what they call the 'nexus.'"thinspace""

""thinspace"'Nexus,'"thinspace"" chan Skrithik repeated carefully.

"Yes, Sir." Chan Braikal took off his helmet and tucked it under his left arm so that he could run the fingers of his right hand through his short, sweat-soaked hair in a gesture which shouted the depth of his worry more eloquently than any words. "The nexus is the place where whatever it is that makes his Talent work … flows together most strongly."

It seemed to the regiment-captain that chan Braikal was trying to find the exact words to express something that didn't really lend itself well to explanations.

"Sir," the chief-armsman said earnestly, "I never expected to see this. Gods! I never wanted to see it, because they told me that if I did, the shit would be neck-deep and rising fast, begging your pardon. But the thing is, for him to go into fugue state at all, he has to be in exactly the right place. No one else can tell where that 'right place' is. Triad-he couldn't've told you ahead of time, most likely. And that place could change, even in the middle of a Glimpse. But until it does, it's where he has to stay, and you won't be able to move him."

"I've never heard anything like that, Chief." It could have sounded accusatory, but it didn't. "According to all the legends-"

"Sir," chan Braikal grinned crookedly, "if you were a Calirath, would you want your enemies to know you'd be stuck in one place at a time like this?" Chan Skrithik shook his head, and the chief-armsman shrugged. "That's probably the main reason the stories never mention it. On the other hand, His Highness says that someone with a really strong Talent actually can move around in fugue state. Some of those with the very strongest Talents have actually been able to fight in fuge state, for that matter. He says his Talent isn't that strong, though. That's why he's just sort of … frozen like this."

Chan Skrithik heard the desperate unhappiness in the Marine's voice. Chan Braikal didn't want his Crown Prince-and a young man to whom he was obviously and deeply devoted-standing on this wall any more than Rof chan Skrithik did.

"I see, Chief." Chan Skrithik laid a hand on chan Braikal's shoulder. "I wish he'd explained that to me earlier."

"With all due respect, Sir, I think he probably figured that if he had, you'd've kicked us out before the bastards attacked."

"Maybe I would have," chan Skrithik admitted, and chan Braikal shrugged again.

"Maybe I wish you had, too, Sir. Gods know I wanted to argue with him about it. But he told me he has to be here, and somehow, when he says that, you just can't …"

Chan Braikal's voice trailed off and he shook his head in a helpless, bemused gesture chan Skrithik understood perfectly. He hadn't been prepared for the sheer force of Janaki's presence, either. Nor was he any more confident than chan Braikal of his ability to argue with the crown prince's decisions, and so he only smiled sadly and squeezed the chief-armsman's shoulder.

"Well, in that case, Chief, we'll just have to see to it that we keep him in one piece, won't we?"

"All right, Sir," Klayrman Toralk said. "Here's what we've got left."

He copied the files in his own crystal to Two Thousand Harshu's and waited while Harshu's quick, fierce eyes darted over the information. The two thousand digested it with his customary speed, then looked back up at Toralk.

"I remember your saying the gryphon-handlers were worried about their control spells."

"Yes, Sir. And they still are-worried, I mean. But they still don't have anything concrete to point to, either. I didn't want to use them before because, on the basis of our previous experience, neither Five Hundred Myr nor I thought we'd need them. Obviously, we were wrong."

"So was I," Harshu reminded him. The two thousand's tone was slightly absent as he looked back over Toralk's hastily recorded notes.

"Are you sure about bringing Urlan's transports in this close?" he asked after a moment.

"According to the maps, both of the designated LZs should be dead ground from their observed positions."

"Agreed. But don't forget that their artillery isn't like ours, Klayrman. They don't necessarily need direct lines of sight to their targets."

"Yes, Sir. I tried to allow for that by placing them far enough from their main position to be out of their range."

"I understand. Unfortunately, we've already encountered at least one weapon-those big, rotating things on the walls-that we'd never seen before. I'm not inclined to assume they don't have other, longerranged weapons we also haven't met up with before."

"Well," Toralk brought up his own copy of the information and paged through to a map generated from the Sharonian charts captured at Fort Ghartoun. "We could put them here or here, instead," he said, using his stylus to drop a pair of crosshairs onto the map. "Both spots are further from the fort, so Urlan's cavalry would have further to go, but there's a steep, solid mountain slope between both of them and the fort. From what we've seen tinkering around with those captured 'mortars' of theirs, I don't think even their weapons could drop something in that close on a reverse slope that steep."

"Um." Harshu frowned, contemplating the map. Then he nodded, although he still didn't look precisely enthralled.

"The other alternative, Sir, is to make it an infantry assault," Toralk pointed out. "If we throw the gryphons straight into their faces, and the tactical transports come in close behind them, we'd have the transports' breath weapons, such as they are, for support and the Sharonians would probably be too busy with the gryphons to knock many of them down."

"Tempting," Harshu acknowledged. "Very tempting, in some ways. But our men are going to need heavy weapons support if they're going to have a chance against Sharonian weapons at close range. And as you pointed out, we may need those transports' breath weapons later on, especially if this attack doesn't succeed. Besides, if we can take Salby, infantry is going to be more useful than cavalry afterward for defending the sort of terrain between the fort and the portal."

He gazed down at the map for several more minutes, rubbing his chin, then paused.

"You know," he said slowly, "if we timed it properly, we might still be able to use the transports after all." Toralk's eyes narrowed, and his superior looked up at him with a smile. "If you were a Sharonian, Klayrman, and you'd never seen anything like a dragon or an augmented horse or a unicorn, which of the three would monopolize your attention if you saw all of them coming at you at once?"