The Road to Hell

Chapter Two

November 30

It was hot in Fort Salby.

Of course, it was always hot in Fort Salby for someone born on Yanohan Bay on the west coast of the green and misty island from which the Ternathian Empire took its name. Back home, they stood on the very lip of winter-not the icy, snowy winters of the 3rd Dragoon Division’s winters at Fort Emperor Erthain in Karmalia, perhaps, but winter-and theoretically it was almost winter here, as well. To be fair, temperatures at this time of the year were usually quite moderate for the Kingdom of Shurkhal; unfortunately, today wasn’t part of that “usually.” The temperature hovered in the upper nineties during the day and had been almost eighty even at night for the last freakishly hot two weeks. Fortunately, it was also nearly winter in Arpathia, which meant the stiff, unending breeze blowing through the portal looming above the fort carried a cooler edge between universes, especially at night. Unfortunately, during the day, the local weather seemed rather confused about the season.

Still, Division-Captain Arlos chan Geraith reflected bleakly as he swiped yet again at the film of sweat on his forehead, at least the humidity was blessedly low. And hot as it might be today, it was cooler than it had been last week…in far too many ways.

The division-captain lacked even a trace of Talent, which meant he’d been unable to directly experience any of the Voice reports and images of the Arcanan attack on Fort Salby, but he had a keen imagination and there was more than enough physical evidence of what had happened. The carcasses of flying creatures which could only be described as dragons from the most fearsome fairy tales had littered the landscape. The Trans-Temporal Express’s work crews had used steam shovels and bulldozers to bury them, but the damned things were so enormous-estimates ran to over forty tons, and he believed them-that the work crews had been forced to cut (and blast) them into smaller pieces they could handle. Then there’d been the bodies of the “eagle-lions” strewn across the fort’s burned and blasted parade ground, the enormous horses-like no horse chan Geraith had ever seen before-which had been killed in the assault on the fort’s eastern wall, and the charred ruin of a solid brick and adobe tower which had been pulverized by one of the plummeting dragons.

And there were the row upon row of graves, including, he thought with a pang which had become familiar without becoming one bit less agonizing, the imperial crown prince who’d stayed to fight beside the fort’s defenders, knowing he would die, to warn them of what was coming.

It was Arlos chan Geraith’s duty to see that none of those men had died in vain. Janaki chan Calirath had entrusted him with that responsibility, and he intended to meet it.

“According to Lisar here,” he said, looking up from the map and nodding in the direction of Company-Captain Lisar chan Korthal, his staff Voice, “your heavy artillery should to be arriving by mid-week, Braykhan.”

“Yes, Sir,” Regiment-Captain Braykhan chan Sayro replied with a small grimace. “I wish we were in a better position to make use of it.”

“Patience, Braykhan. Patience!” Chan Geraith smiled grimly at his staff artillerist. “Your ‘cannon-cockers’ will have their chance. I promise.”

Chan Sayro nodded, and chan Geraith turned his attention to Regiment-Captain Therahk chan Kymo, his staff quartermaster. Chan Kymo was considerably taller and fifteen years younger than his division-captain, with a pronounced Delkrathian accent and the dark hair and eyes common to the majority of the Narhathan Peninsula’s people. He was also good at his job, which was handy, given that the 3rd Dragoons were at the far end of a thirty thousand-mile supply chain.

“Lisar also tells me Brigade-Captain chan Khartan will be arriving along with Braykhan’s guns,” the division-captain said.

“Yes, Sir. I already had that information,” chan Kymo acknowledged. “Exactly where I’m going to park them all’s going to be something of a puzzle, though, I’m afraid.”

Chan Geraith snorted. Shodan chan Khartan commanded the 3rd Dragoons’ 2nd Brigade, which would add better than three thousand men to his current troop strength when it arrived. An infantry brigade was almost twice that size, but an infantry division had only two brigades, whereas a dragoon division had three, for a nominal total of just over ten thousand men, not counting the inevitable attachments. True, no unit was ever fully up to the numbers in its official table of organization. That was certainly true in the Third Dragoons’ case, at least! But moving even a slightly understrength division was a mammoth task, and a staggering total of locomotives and rolling stock would be required to move chan Geraith’s entire command down the Trans-Temporal Express’ rail line from Sharona.

“I realize space is more than a little tight,” he told chan Kymo with massive understatement. “That would be true under any circumstances, and having Engineer Banchu’s work trains parked all over the sidings doesn’t help.”

“We were lucky to have the sidings to park them on, Sir,” chan Kymo pointed out, and chan Geraith nodded.

The Traisum Cut’s narrow slot had been blasted through the heart of a three thousand-foot sheer cliff to connect the universes of Traisum and Karys, which had cost well over four billion Ternathian falcons and taken more thousands of man-hours-and tons of explosives-than the division-captain cared to think about. In the process, Fort Salby and Salbyton, the town spreading out beyond the fort, had been heavily built up as thousands of construction workers and hundreds of thousands of tons of supplies and machinery had been shipped in for the task. TTE had since removed the temporary housing which had been thrown up for those workers, but the miles upon miles of rail sidings remained.

Under other circumstances, those sidings would have provided ample space in which to park the train which had delivered chan Geraith’s First Brigade to Fort Salby. Under the circumstances which actually obtained, however, space was once again at a premium. Gahlreen Taymish, TTE’s First Director, had sent his senior engineer, Olvyr Banchu, forward to push the railhead across Karys as rapidly as possible as soon as word of the Chalgyn Consortium’s survey team’s disastrous first contact with the Arcanans reached Sharona. Banchu had been with his work crews when the Arcanan invasion bypassed them on its way to Fort Salby, but the Arcanan commander had been more than willing to exchange Banchu and his civilian workers-over two thousand of them-and the bulk of their heavy equipment for the prisoners Regiment-Captain chan Skrithik’s men had taken during their successful defense of the fort. Chan Geraith very much doubted Two Thousand Harshu had any clear idea of just how valuable all that equipment and all those trained workers were going to prove, and he was delighted to get them back. Yet happy as he was, the massive work trains Banchu had brought back from Karys had already packed much of the sidings’ available room solid.

And they’d go right on using up that parking space…unless someone found them something else to do.

“I think we’ll be able to do a little something about the congestion,” the division-captain said now. “First, of course, we don’t have much choice but to send our own train back. We’re lucky TTE had already allocated so much heavy lift capability to Traisum, but Director Tyamish didn’t know we were going to need to supply a major military deployment this far from home. He’s building up for it as quickly as he can, but it’s not as if he can just turn off the tap on TTE’s other needs, especially if he’s going to build up the nodal infrastructure the Army needs out here. It’s going to be two months-at least-before we can get enough rolling stock this side of the Salym water gap to meet our requirement anything near what I’d call adequately. Until we do, we’re going to have to make the best use we can of what we have, which means getting the men unloaded and under canvas as quickly as we can.”

“That will help, Sir,” chan Kymo agreed, “but we’re still going to be putting fifty pounds of manure into a twenty-pound bag, if you’ll pardon my saying so.”

“Nonsense!” chan Geraith said bracingly. “It can’t possibly be much worse than trying to put fifty pounds of manure into a forty-pound bag! And unless I miss my guess, we should be able to clear out a little more space, as well.”

His staff looked at him, and Regiment-Captain Merkan chan Isail, his chief of staff, raised one eyebrow silently. It wasn’t much of a change in expression, but chan Isail had been with chan Geraith a long time-certainly long enough for the division-captain to recognize a silently shouted question when he saw one.

“I’m seriously considering pushing an advance down the Kelsayr Chain,” he said. Chan Isail’s other eyebrow rose, and chan Geraith snorted again.

“I’m fully aware of the potential problems, Merkan.” The division-captain’s tone was almost as dry as the hot, motionless air outside his headquarters car. “All of them combined, however, can’t hold a candle to the problem of getting through the Cut against active resistance, and this entire portal’s so damned small-and the approach terrain’s so godsdamned bad-that the only option we’d have would be to bash straight down the Cut. Even with Braykhan’s heavy guns in support, that’d be a frigging nightmare.”

“That’s true, Sir,” chan Isail agreed after a moment. “But given these people’s ability to move troops and supplies by air, they’ll have an enormous mobility advantage whichever way we finally go at them. That’s going to be especially true in unimproved terrain without any road net or rail lines, and they’ve obviously been coming up the Kelsayr Chain as well as this one.”

Chan Geraith nodded, his eyes dark. Traisum was one of the half-dozen or so “triples” the Portal Authority had explored-universes which possessed three portals rather than the customary two. The Chernoth portal, linking Traisum and Kelsayr, and the Salbyton Portal, linking Traisum and Karys, had been discovered within a year of each other. Unfortunately, Chernoth lay in the heart of New Ternath on the far side of the Vandor Ocean, which had made getting to it just a tad difficult. By the same token, however, the Salbyton portal (only there hadn’t been a Salbyton then, of course) had been one of the most inaccessible ones ever discovered, lying as it did in the heart of the Narshathan Mountains. Given their sheer distance from home and all the manifold difficulties inherent in their development, the PA and TTE had given both of them relatively low priority, at least initially.

When the Powers That Be finally got around to them, the outlay in infrastructure had been enormous. Since the journey between Vankaiyar, the Ricathian city closest to the portal linking Traisum and Salym, and New Ternath included a water gap of over six thousand miles-practically the entire length of the Mbisi and the width of the Vandor-TTE had built a shipyard from the ground up at Renaiyrton, on the same site as the Ricathian Mbisian seaport of Nymara. The yard-established simultaneously with the enormous railhead at Salbyton-had gone up fairly quickly. It was a bare-bones operation, with a work force of only a few thousand, but that was quite enough to assemble the prefabricated ships required to transport its work crews and heavy equipment across the Vandor. Once that was accomplished, exploration of Kelsayr had gone on apace, and the portal from that universe to Lashai had been discovered within another several months.

In the meantime, work had begun on the Traisum Cut, which had soaked up well over three quarters of the TTE’s freight capacity down the line from Salym. The line through Kelsayr had been given a lower priority than work on the Cut, but the railhead had moved steadily, if slowly, forward toward Lashai. It had been anticipated that construction priority would shift back to the Kelsayr Chain once the Cut was completed, and that was exactly what had happened…until the Chalgyn Consortium’s push forward through the newly opened Failcham had reordered everything. Chalgyn had surveyed portals in Failcham, Thermyn (yet another triple), New Uromathia, and Nairsom before they hit Hell’s Gate, and the Portal Authority had been astounded to discover that Nairsom connected directly to Resym in the Kelsayr Chain.

It was the first time anyone had ever encountered two universe chains which intersected one another. No one had expected it, for obvious reasons, and Kelsayr and Karys had been considered completely separate chains. No one was certain exactly how to designate them now-chan Geraith suspected one of them would end up being dubbed a “loop” or something of the sort-but the unique configuration made for some interesting logistic considerations.

If the TTE had expected the two chains would merge, it might well have simply abandoned the hugely expensive Traisum Cut entirely. The route from Fort Salby to Hell’s Gate, the original point of contact with the Arcanans, along the Kelsayr Chain was better than four times as long as the one along the Karys Chain, but over ten thousand miles of it lay in Traisum, and at least it wouldn’t have required the removal of so many tons of drilled and blasted rock. For that matter, the cost to cross Kelsayr, even allowing for the Renaiyrton shipyard, had been little more than two billion falcons.

As it was, since TTE and the PAAF had both operated on the reasonable assumption that the two chains would never link back up, Kelsayr and Lashai were both more heavily inhabited and had better road and rail development than anything down-chain from Traisum in the Karys Chain. The route from Lashai to Thermyn, on the other hand, was almost totally unimproved. There were trails, and the future route of the TTE’s roadbed had been surveyed all the way to Nairsom, but as chan Isail had just pointed out, there was nothing remotely like an adequate road net to support the advance of thousands of men with all of their weapons and supplies beyond Lashai. And while it was still a bit difficult for a Sharonian to wrap his mind around all the advantages the Arcanans’ “dragons” bestowed upon them, one thing was abundantly clear: they could project force much farther-and much more rapidly-than Sharona could, even through totally undeveloped terrain.

And the total, ominous silence of the Voices beyond Resym was grim evidence that Sharona’s enemies had been advancing along both axes.

“You’re right.” The division-captain acknowledged chan Isail’s point. “But let’s think about the other side’s situation for a moment. Chimo and I have been giving that some thought, so I’ll let him lay it out for you. Chimo?”

Battalion-Captain Chimo chan Gayrahn was the Third Dragoons’ planning and operations officer, which meant-despite his relatively junior rank-that he was also in charge of chan Geraith’s intelligence assessments. The red-haired, green-eyed Bernithian was substantially younger than the rest of the division-captain’s staff officers, but he had the confidence of competence and his expression was calm as all of the others turned to look at him.

“Of course, Division-Captain,” he said and laid a folder on the map table in front of him. It was quite a fat folder.

“These are the notes I’ve been working on for Division-Captain chan Geraith,” he continued, looking around the other officers’ faces. “They’re based on interviews with Regiment-Captain chan Skrithik, Sunlord Markan, and Fort Salby’s other surviving officers and noncoms. And my assessment based on them, which I’ve already shared with the Division-Captain, is that Regiment-Captain chan Skrithik and his men hurt the Arcanans even more badly than we’d assumed.”

He flipped the folder open and extracted half a dozen sheaves of thin, tightly typed paper, stapled at the corner, and passed them around the table.

“Obviously,” he continued once each of them had a copy, “most of this has to be highly speculative, but at the Division-Captain’s instructions, I’ve tried to speculate as intelligently as possible. Fortunately, I had Master-Armsman chan Vornos available to help speculate and, ah…restrain any excessive enthusiasm.”

Most of the others smiled, and Brigade-Captain Renyl chan Quay, First Brigade’s CO, chuckled out loud. Master-Armsman Caryl chan Vornos was close to twice chan Gayrahn’s age, and thirty-odd years ago, Junior-Armsman chan Vornos had taken Under-Captain chan Quay under his wing. He’d been polishing officers in the Imperial Ternathian Army ever since, and it was obvious from chan Gayrahn’s tone that chan Vornos regarded the battalion-captain as yet another work in progress.

“What became apparent as we looked at the combat reports and our interviews,” chan Gayrahn went on more soberly, “is that Regiment-Captain chan Skrithik and his men severely mauled the enemy’s ‘dragons.’ Obviously, the ones killed in the attack, even if we combine the ones picked off in Prince Janaki’s ambush with the ones shot out of the sky here at the fort, represent only a relatively small percentage of the total number of dragons the Regiment-Captain’s men observed. But it seems to have been a significant percentage, judging by their unwillingness to risk additional losses. I think it’s worth noting that in their final attack on the fort, they used their…airborne capabilities only as a feint. They sent in the actual assault on the ground, and once that was broken, they declined to risk their remaining dragons in range of our weapons. I realize Windlord Garsal took several more down with his artillery, but that’s almost certainly because they’d underestimated his guns’ range. Everything from the way they approached, to the timing, and-of course-to Prince Janaki’s Glimpse indicates they never intended to expose the creatures to our fire.”

“I agree about their sensitivity to additional losses, Chimo,” Regiment-Captain Urko chan Miera, chan Geraith’s staff cartographer, said after a moment. “On the other hand, they may just’ve decided they weren’t going to be able to take the fort whatever they did and declined to lose more of the beasties in a losing cause.”

“That’s certainly possible, Sir,” chan Gayrahn agreed. “However, the dragons which actually attacked all seem to have been rather smaller than the ones they appear to use for transport purposes.” He grimaced as chan Miera’s eyebrows arched. “I know ‘smaller’ is a purely relative term when we’re talking about creatures that weigh forty tons or more, but Chief-Armsman chan Forcal, Fort Salby’s senior Distance Viewer, Saw them quite clearly. He confirms the size differential, and there’s general agreement that the ones who attacked the fort were all either red or black in coloration. The red ones were the ones who breathed or spat or whatever fire, and the black ones produced the lightning bolts. Chan Forcal and the other Distance Viewers who Saw the remaining dragons during the final attack all agree they Saw less than half a dozen reds and blacks in the diversionary attack. It looks very much like they didn’t have many of the…‘battle dragons,’ let’s call them, to begin with, and they had one hell of a lot less after they tangled with Fort Salby’s machine guns and pedestal guns.”

“There’s another point to consider, too,” chan Geraith put in. The staffers looked at him, and the division-captain shrugged. “Trying to retake Karys, we could only get at them by fighting our way down the Cut on the ground; their godsdamned dragons can literally fly out of the portal any time they want to. Once Lyskar here”-he nodded at Lyskar chan Serahlyk, his chief combat engineer-“finishes digging in the portal defenses, that’ll change. And once Braykhan’s guns get here, we’ll be able to think about pushing them farther back on the approaches, but for now they’ve got damned close to completely free passage. That means they have an open road to attack our line of communication, but they aren’t doing it. Why not? They have to realize we can’t have pedestal guns and heavy Faraikas everywhere, so why aren’t they trying to circle wide around the fort and the fixed defenses to get at the rail line or our fatigue parties?” He looked around the map table. “Any commander with a scrap of initiative would be probing our rear area defenses, if nothing else, and does anyone in this compartment want argue that someone who managed to advance over four thousand miles in twelve days doesn’t have at least a trace of initiative? The fact that this ‘Two Thousand Harshu’ of theirs isn’t doing exactly that suggests to me that he has to be extraordinarily sensitive to additional losses for some reason. And according to young chan Hopyr he appears to have plenty of men, which seems to add point to the theory that it’s his logistics, not manpower, that’s the problem.”

Platoon-Captain Rynai chan Hopyr was the Distance Viewer who’d gone forward with the escort sent to shepherd Olvyr Banchu and his engineers back to Fort Salby. His was a powerful Talent, and he’d used it to good effect scouting the Arcanans’ positions and troop strength. He’d tallied in excess of a hundred and fifty of their dragons and at least six thousand men, twice the 3rd Dragoons’ current strength in Traisum. There was no way to tell what might have lain outside his range, but chan Geraith was certain the Arcanan commander had strength chan Hopyr hadn’t Seen. Not that what he had Seen hadn’t been quite bad enough.

“That’s essentially my own conclusion, Sir,” chan Gayrahn said. “Well, mine and Master-Armsman chan Vornos’. All indications are that Harshu is a determined, ruthless commander-more than ruthless enough to accept casualties and losses as the price of accomplishing his mission. Yet he hasn’t even tried to attack the rail line behind us.”

“Perhaps he simply doesn’t realize how important it is,” chan Isail suggested, and chan Geraith nodded. One of the things he most valued about chan Isail was the chief of staff’s hardheaded pragmatism. Chan Geraith’s own tendency was to think in the most aggressive terms possible. Aggressively enough, in fact, that he sometimes found himself badly in need of chan Isail’s willingness to challenge (or at least critically examine) his underlying assumptions.

“I think it’s entirely possible-even probable-that he doesn’t have a clear grasp of how much we can move, or how quickly we can move it, on rails,” the division-captain conceded now. “In fact, I don’t see how it could be any other way. They had to be as ignorant of our capabilities as we were of theirs when they set out to attack us, and Harshu wouldn’t have been so quick to let Banchu and the work crews go if he’d realized how badly he could hurt us by just hanging on to them.”

“You’re probably right about that, Sir,” chan Kymo said thoughtfully. “I’ve been trying to get some sort of mental picture of how our transport capabilities stack up against theirs, now that we know about these dragon things of theirs.” The quartermaster shrugged. “I can’t be positive they don’t have something like our railroads, obviously, but I agree with you that Harshu would never have let Banchu’s people go so readily-at the very least, he would’ve insisted that all their equipment be left behind or destroyed-if he’d had any real grasp of their importance. In fact, I’m beginning to think it’s important we not let ourselves be so dazzled by how quickly they can move that we overestimate how much they can move.

“Assume a sixty-ton dragon can carry its own weight. Frankly, that seems unlikely as hell for any flying beast, but given how ‘unlikely’ dragons are in the first place, I’m not going to say they can’t. But that’s still only sixty tons per dragon, whereas we can load a hundred and ten tons into a standard freight car, and the heavy-lift cars can carry almost twice that much. We hauled over ten thousand tons all the way from Sharona in a single train. Assuming their dragons really could haul sixty tons apiece, they’d still need over a hundred and seventy of them to match that total…and we currently have two more trains that size following us down the same line, with more loading up right behind them. If Harshu had any concept of what that means, he’d be moving heaven and all the Arpathian hells combined to stop us from doing it.”

“Point taken,” chan Isail said after a moment.

“I think Therahk may have an even better point then he realizes,” chan Geraith said. His subordinates looked at him, and he smiled thinly. “We have to remember both sides are dealing with opponents with completely unknown capabilities. I know I just said that, but it bears repeating because it’s something we have to keep in mind. At the moment, Harshu undoubtedly calculates-correctly, by the way-that he has every tactical advantage there is in our current standoff. He can’t know how good our heavy artillery is, and I think it’s obvious that until he hit chan Skrithik here at Fort Salby, none of our people had an opportunity to use their weapons and doctrine effectively against him. He’d’ve been one hell of a lot more cautious about how he went after Salby if they had. But he’s got a better feeling for our capabilities by now, and he’s probably licking his chops thinking about what he can do to any assault we might launch down the Cut, right into his teeth. If nothing else, those damned dragons of his mean he could put explosive charges into the sides of the Cut anywhere he wanted to. We’ve already seen what their equivalent of dynamite can do to a fort’s wall, so there’s no reason to assume they couldn’t do the same things to the Cut’s walls, now is there?”

He looked around their expressions. Most of them looked as if they’d really like to disagree with him; none of them did.

“One thing we have to remember, though,” he continued after a moment, “is that they have had the opportunity to observe our capabilities on their advance from Hell’s Gate. By now, for example, they must realize our draft animals are nowhere near as big or as powerful as theirs are, judging by those cavalry horses of theirs.”

Chan Isail nodded sourly. The “horses” the Arcanans had used in their final assault on Fort Salby were bigger than the largest Chinthai draft horse he’d ever seen, yet according to all of the witnesses, they’d charged the fort’s eastern wall cross-country at a speed few Sharonian thoroughbreds could have matched on a racetrack. Obviously, the Arcanans’ magic-or whatever the hells they called it-had been at work there, as well.

“I think we also have to assume that they’ve captured accurate maps of both the Karys and Kelsayr Chains,” chan Geraith pointed out. “If they have, they probably realize just how unimproved both chains are beyond Karys and Lashai, not to mention the water gap here in Traisum. Where Kelsayr’s concerned, they’ll probably assume-logically-that six thousand miles of ocean and another forty-six hundred miles overland must constitute a pretty severe bottleneck here in Traisum, and they’ll evaluate our mobility beyond the railheads on the basis of piss-poor roads and trails, wagons, and pack animals. By the same token, even if Therahk’s completely correct about Harshu’s not realizing how much we can transport by rail, I’ll guarantee you he does realize we can move one hell of a lot more in a freight car than we could in a six-horse wagon down a dirt trail. So if I were him, and if I could move my entire army four thousand miles in less than two weeks, I wouldn’t be especially worried by the possibility of being flanked on a seventeen thousand-mile march by an enemy restricted to horse-drawn transport. Even if he knows about the shipyard at Renaiyrton and the rail line through Kelsayr and Lashai, he’ll figure he has plenty of defensive depth on that front.”

He paused as if to see if any of his staffers wanted to disagree with him. No one did, and he shrugged.

“So what I’d do,” he said, “is send word however quickly I could to whoever I’d had advancing up the Kelsayr Chain to turn himself around, backtrack to Thermyn, and then move up to support me in Karys as quickly as he could. I’m sure Harshu committed dragons to support the other advance, as well, so by recalling them, he should be able to regenerate at least a little of the dragon strength chan Skrithik and Prince Janaki cost him here. That would strengthen him against any attack we were foolish enough to launch down the Cut, and it might also give him enough strength to actually try cutting or at least damaging the rail line between here and Salym with deep strike raids into our rear. I think he’s expecting to be reinforced-probably pretty damned heavily-as soon as his superiors can get additional men and dragons forward to him. At that point, if I were him, I’d be thinking in terms of using the additional dragons to send a major force through our portal here to drop in somewhere several hundred miles in our rear to cut the rail line and hold it. If I could manage that, then eventually I’d be able to starve out Salbyton and any field force protecting the Cut, and if I could interdict movement from Salym into Traisum. I’d have both the Kelsayr and Karys Chains without having to deal with the water gap between Chernoth and Renaiyrton. I don’t care how ‘magical’ their damned dragons are, they can’t be up to a six thousand-mile flight without stopping, or they’d’ve been one hells of a lot farther up-chain than they are before we even knew they were coming!”

He paused, as if for comments, but once again none of his staffers said anything, and he shrugged.

“Everything makes the advance through Karys the shortest line of advance once he can get past the Cut, and the Cut won’t be anywhere near the terrain obstacle for them that it is for us. A serious obstacle, but not an insurmountable one like crossing the Vandor without ships. Because of that, and because it’s our only present point of contact, he almost has to be calling in his secondary advance to strengthen his position in Karys until those reinforcements he’s expecting arrive. He’ll probably leave pickets along the Kelsayr Chain to cover his back, but I very much doubt he’ll seriously expect anyone to attack them.”

Chan Isail was looking at him very intently indeed now, and the division-captain smiled again, more thinly even than before.

“My mother always used to tell me a little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” he said. “And she used to say it’s not what you don’t know is so that hurts you; it’s what you think you know that isn’t so. At the moment, Harshu knows a lot more about us than we know about him, but no Arcanan’s ever so much as heard of a Bison. I realize seventeen thousand miles is a long way, but we’ve got over thirty-five hundred miles of rail line clear across Kelsayr and Lashai and TTE’s already laying track in Resym. For that matter, its advanced work crews are cutting and grading roadbed over a hundred miles down-chain from the current railhead. Since we haven’t lost Voice contact with them yet but we have lost contact with the portal forts in Nairsom and on Lake Wernisk in Resym, I’m inclined to think that’s as far up-chain as they’ve gotten. What it means from our current perspective is that it’s only about seven thousand miles cross-country from the railhead to Hell’s Gate as opposed to four thousand miles going via Karys. For that matter, it’s barely three thousand miles to Thermyn, and at least until Harshu is heavily reinforced, the Cut works both ways as a defensive feature. For that matter,” the division-captain’s already thin smile became a razor, “he may just find it costing him more than he expects to get his dragons through the portal here even after he’s reinforced.”

“That’s true, Sir,” chan Isail said. “But the weather’s going to be a royal pain in the arse in Kelsayr, and Thermyn and Naisom aren’t exactly going to be picnics this time of year, either.”

“At least winter in Serinach will be a change from Salbyton!” chan Geraith retorted, and more than one of his staff officers chuckled again. Serinach, the northernmost state of the Republic of Rendisphar back in Sharona, consisted of most of the vast Serinach Peninsula where New Ternath reached towards the Serinach Strait which separated it from the easternmost tip of Farnalia. For all its stupendous size, Serinach was only lightly inhabited…which had quite a lot to do with Serinach winters.

“The good news,” chan Geraith continued, “is that we can move everything by ship and rail all the way from Traisum to Resym, and the construction crews in Resym shifted into high gear the instant TTE heard about Fallen Timbers. Master Banchu’s ready to start moving his crews and their heavy equipment to Resym, as well, and once they get there, they’ll be laying double-tracked line in three shifts. On that basis, they’ll be putting in the next best thing to twenty-five miles of track a day, and Therahk estimates that we’ll need another couple of months to bring up the rest of the division and prep it for the move. That means they’ll have laid another eleven hundred miles across Resym by the time we get there.”

He paused, and chan Isail nodded slowly.

“You’re right that the weather in Thermyn and Naisom will be more of a problem,” chan Geraith conceded, “but the worst leg from that perspective’s going to be in Naisom, and that’s less than six hundred miles. On the basis of our exercises at Fort Emperor Erthain, the Bisons should be able to maintain an average speed of around fifteen miles an hour across the kind of terrain between Kelsayr and Thermyn even in winter. Allowing for the present length of rail, mounted scouts could cover the total distance from Vankaiyar here in Traisum to Fort Ghartoun in about sixteen and a half weeks. Allowing for rail length by the time we could get the Bisons to the railhead, the rest of the division could cover the same distance in about nine weeks, and I guarantee you that’s one hells of a lot sooner than anyone on the other side’s going to be expecting us!”

His staffers were staring at him now. They were silent for a very long moment, then chan Isail cleared his throat.

“Sir, the Bisons have never been tested on that kind of extended advance.”

“True enough.” Chan Geraith nodded. “But they have done the thousand-mile torture test-in winter, through the mountains-and did it damned well, too. And that was before we adopted the new rubber-backed track blocks. I know those were only trials, with the best mechanics we had on the spot to put faults right, but that’s still impressive as hell.

“I know it is, Sir. But this is a lot longer trip over a lot of different sorts of terrain. However good they may be, there’d be bound to be a lot of breakdowns before we ever got to Thermyn.”

“Agreed. On the other hand, we’ll have to leave a big enough force here at Salbyton to hold the Cut from our side and to make enough noise to keep Harshu looking this way instead of over his shoulder.” Chan Geraith shrugged. “We don’t want him to see the Bisons if he decides to risk a few dragons to fly reconnaissance, anyway, so whoever we leave behind couldn’t make much use of them here at the Cut. That being the case, we strip the brigade that stands in place and use its Bisons to supplement the flank column’s organic transports. And the Army’s shipping additional Bisons and Steel Mules forward after us as quickly as it can procure them, along with every steam dray it can get its hands on. Our engineers will improve the roads as we go, so anything coming down the route behind us should be able to move much faster than our main column. Banchu’s crews will go right on laying track behind us-and extending the kerosene pipeline, too. They ought to make another six or seven hundred miles good between the time we leave the railhead and the time we reach Thermyn, which will effectively shorten the distance any new Bisons or drays will have to cover. And TTE’s already surveyed their entire roadbed. We know where the worst terrain’s located, and they can push advanced crews ahead of the track layers to begin tackling them. The worst will be getting through the Dalazan Rain Forest in Resym…but that’s also where the TTE crews can start improvising bridges and improvising fords out of local materials soonest.”

“And those pickets they may’ve left behind, Sir?” the chief of staff asked.

“I’ll grant you they may have all sorts of ‘magic powers,’ Merkan,” chan Geraith said. “And given the way they’ve managed to shut down the Voice network as they advanced, they must’ve gotten at least some knowledge of our Talents. But we’re the Third Dragoons. If there’s anyone this side of Arpathia who’s as good as we are at scouting an enemy position without being spotted, I’ve never met them. We send a battalion or so down the chain on horseback with enough Voices to maintain constant communication with us. We’ll need to get them off as quickly as we can, because it’ll take them so much longer to cross the unimproved universes, but there’s not a portal in the chain that isn’t at least twenty-five miles across. Ask the PAAF how easy it is to ‘picket’ a portal that size even with a fort right in the middle of it! We send along a full recon section, complete with a Mapper, a half-dozen Plotters to keep an eye on the sky for dragons, and a good Distance Viewer or two to make it harder than hell for the Arcanans to see them coming even if they’re mounting standing patrols of dragons around the portals. And we make sure they’ve got an extra weapons company with mortars and heavy machine guns. They’ll have a hell of a lot better chance of spotting a picket on one of those portals than the picket will of spotting them when no one on the other side’s going to believe there could possibly be Ternathian dragoons anywhere near them.”

“And if they do spot a picket, Sir?” chan Isail asked quietly.

“That’s why we’ll be sending the mortars and the machine guns, Merkan, because if there are any pickets out there, it’ll be our turn to shut down their warning network the same way they shut down the Voice network.” No one could possibly have mistaken Arlos chan Geraith’s expression for a smile this time.

“Exactly the way they shut down our Voices,” he said very, very softly.