by Bob Blink
“Now, what’s all this nonsense about dragons you were starting to tell me when the others arrived?” Morin asked Asari when the rest of the people had left, leaving only the two of them and Jolan.
Asari gave him one of his widest grins, and hurried back into the other room, returning with the book of maps he’d brought out of Trailways so long ago.
“We found this by accident last night when we were looking for portals,” Asari said, pointing at something with his finger.
Morin looked at the map and for a moment was confused. “This isn’t Ale’ald,” he said. “This looks like the Lost Territories.”
“It is,” Asari agreed. “We started paging through the book and wondering about the missing pages, then I spotted this.”
Morin looked more closely where Asari was pointing. He saw a small circle surrounded by a slightly larger one with three small dots equally spaced around the circumference. It meant nothing to him.
“So?” he asked.
“It’s a symbol we have come across a couple of times. Jolan’s relative Utar, who became trapped on Earth, had a note in his log that this was the symbol the Dragons often used. He said that he’d learned that on some of the older maps it was used to locate the Dragon’s Nest, the place where they had their colony. Asari is convinced we have found the home of the long lost dragons.”
“From a small mark in a book?” Morin asked. “That a bit of a reach, lad.”
“It’s them, I know it,” Asari countered. “Something happened to me the minute I saw it. Jolan has had hunches before. Now I know what it’s like. I’m absolutely certain that’s where they are.”
“It doesn’t matter much,” Morin said finally. “How would you get there? There’s no way to the Lost Territories through the mountains, even if we weren’t at war.”
“We’d have to go by ship,” Asari said. “We could sail to the southern end of the Settled Lands, and then hike in from there”
“Asari has always enjoyed a bit of an ocean sail,” Jolan said with a bit of a smile.
“It’d take months, “ Morin said, “and who knows what dangers. The Lost Territories are said ta be filled with strange creatures, many very dangerous. Why would you want to even try?”
“Because its important,” Asari insisted.
“Important? Why?”
“I don’t know. I just know that it is,” Asari responded lamely.
Morin was about to say something when Tishe appeared at the doorway. She looked like she had something important on her mind.
“Tishe?” Jolan said, concerned that whatever was on the girl’s mind might have something to do with Shyar. He hoped she hadn’t been caught slipping out of her cell.
“Cheurt is planning a sneak attack,” she said looking at Jolan. “He wants to slip in a couple of regiments through southern Seret, up by the mountains. It would be a rugged trip, but there is a way they could get through by Jom. Shyar indicates he has already sent the orders to start the troops on their way. I think he wants to bring them into central Seret while the battles are being fought and come at our troops from the rear.”
“Have you told Wylan?”
“No. I wanted to see you first. I didn’t know how this might affect your plans for getting Shyar.”
Chapter 149
“I don’t think so,” Wylan said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
They had gone directly to find him, and Tishe had explained what she had learned from Shyar a short time earlier. Now they were looking at Wylan’s maps of the area, and Jolan was starting to see what he meant.
“While we have drawn down the troops we have in the area, we still have enough to watch it closely. They couldn’t expect to get very many through before we realized what was happening. The path is difficult, and maintaining any kind of supply line through there would be virtually impossible.”
“What if they came by the main trail towards Honlt, rather than trying to slip through the mountains near the border?” Jolan asked.
“That would be the more supportable route, which is why we have it quite heavily patrolled. Their problem coming that way is the narrowness of the path at many points. The invading troops would have to bunch up, and we’d be able to set up a number of very effective ambushes. Several key choke points are already set up against just such an attempt.”
“So if you were to be attacked from that direction, you wouldn’t be completely surprised?” Jolan asked.
Wylan nodded. “That’s how they went into Kimlelm in the beginning, but they can’t expect to surprise us that way.”
“What if an attack were staged there as a distraction?”
“Distraction?”
“An initial group engages your people. All of a sudden your focus is there, an area where you’ve always half expected some kind of probe. While you are focused on repelling the attacking forces there, Ale’ald slips their troops into Seret through the mountains as Shyar seems to be suggesting?”
“Still doesn’t work. Before long we’d know of the people slipping in. They can’t expect to take out all of the people watching. There are simply too many. They’d have to expect us to come after them, and look, they have a couple of week’s march along the river to get down to where we are currently fighting. We have troops all along the river. They would be engaged in running battles all of the time.”
Jolan knew they were missing something. Shyar wasn’t one to get something like this wrong. Unfortunately, the means by which they were communicating was very imprecise, so they could easily be looking at her intended message all wrong.
“What if,” Wylan said suddenly, looking at the maps again. “What if they have no intention of augmenting the forces down near the bridges? What if they have an entirely different objective?”
He pointed to the map and explained his thinking.
“Let’s use your scenario for a moment. An attack begins on the main trail out of the mountains, on the road to Honlt. Seret focuses on repelling the invader, assuming they are attempting the same trick they pulled in Kimlelm. Meanwhile, troops start slipping into Seret by the mountain route over near the river. Suppose that instead of heading north along the river, they slip inland and form a rear action against the troops defending Honlt from the “invasion” that has already started. Ten or twelve thousand troops coming in from the rear could probably overwhelm the defenders. Now, Ale’ald would have a clear path to send the bulk of their people and all the supplies they need down the main trail.”
“They’d still have a long way to go to support their people.”
“They wouldn’t go that way. I suspect they’d turn west. A couple of days would put them in Jidan where they could assault the Seret side of the tunnel. They might be making a bid to capture or destroy the tunnel, which would be a major blow to our effort. We rely on that tunnel for most of the shipments from Angon these days.”
“So Shyar may have learned something? We were just interpreting it wrong.”
Nodding to himself as he continued to look at the map, Wylan said, “It makes good sense. This might be something they have had in the planning stages for some time, or it might be something that just occurred to them. If it’s the former, they might be far more ready than we expect or may be able to fully react to. Suppose we hadn’t been able to stop their gliders and they were still advancing. A move like this would have caught us completely unprepared. Even if we managed to eventually push them out, the damage would have already been done.”
“You mean the tunnel?” Asari asked.
“That and more. They might have succeeded in surprising our defending forces charged with guarding the way in from Trailways. Had they managed that, it would have been possible to bring a major force into Seret. Capturing the Seret side of the tunnel would have been one of their goals. Just imagine a couple of their wizards turned loose with the intent to destroy it. It’s hard to imagine how long before we’d be able to transport anything through it again, even if we were able to push them ou
t.”
“You think they might be coming then?” Jolan asked.
“Probably sooner than we can bring enough men for a proper defense, at least unless we use one of the portals. I was hoping we wouldn’t start to make a habit of that.”
“Can you narrow the routes they are likely to take?”
“There are only two choices, and one of them would be so difficult it isn’t really likely. I’d never attempt to move more than a handful of men that way.”
“Perhaps an advance group to try and take out anyone watching.”
“Maybe. It would be easy enough to have those present watching. Being warned would probably eliminate much of the danger to them. The main force would almost certainly come through the Cairen Meadows.”
“Why so?”
“It’s still a bit rugged, but the last open area near the meadows is a large area where a force could be gathered in relative secrecy. It’s still a couple of miles through the forest to the flatlands, so the invaders would be well hidden unless someone was actually watching for them.”
“Seems like a place you’d be watching,” Jolan said.
“It is, but they could slip a few people in to deal with our watchers. Even if they missed some, if they moved quick enough, they would be right behind those reporting to the main force, and could still have the advantage of a surprise attack.”
“Can you show me on a map?”
Wylan shuffled through a series of maps, and finally laid one out that showed more detail of the area they had been discussing. “See, here’s the meadow. They could come through here, or maybe here on the backside, and then be out onto the plain in short order.”
Wylan grinned. “One good thing about this location,” he said. “We have a portal less than a half mile away.”
“You personally know the area?”
“Spent a lot of time there as a boy. There’s a really nice lake and one of the portals sitting off to one side. We could use it to bring in the troops if we elect to go that way.”
Jolan had been looking at the maps. “You could move reinforcements from Ekine and Jidan. That would beef up the forces around Honlt, and knowing what was coming they wouldn’t be surprised.”
“True, but how is that an advantage over the ambush potential of having troops in place when they arrive?”
“A battle like that is gong to be costly for both sides. I have a couple of ideas that might work out well here.”
Jolan explained how Gene had been telling him about the local version of a Claymore that he’d developed. They had hundreds of them waiting for deployment. If a portal was that close, they could ship them through in quantity and have the men already nearby put them in place. It’d take a bit of training to make sure they knew what they were doing, but the device was really very simple, and deadly. He’d have to arrange a demonstration later in the day so Wylan would know exactly what he was talking about.
“The enemy would come into the meadows from the back side. We could place the Claymores around the edges of the meadows for the forward half, perhaps two-thirds, of the perimeter. Once they triggered the first couple, there would be general panic, but everywhere they ran they’d encounter more of them”
“What’s to stop them simply running back the way they came in?”
“Me,” Jolan said very serious. What he was planning wouldn’t sit well with some. It would be a direct use of the power against common soldiers, but in his mind the time for being civilized was past. Men were going to die and, if given the choice, Jolan wanted to ensure they wouldn’t be those from Seret or Angon.
“You once wanted the bomb I used in the park as a weapon. We tried it along the river. Here’s a chance to position some of the oil, probably near the back side of the meadow. Luzoke and I could create the bomb and trigger it when the force panics and tries to flee. I doubt there’d be many survivors.”
“Maybe a few wizards,” Wylan said. “I like the idea. Can we get more specific so we know if this has a chance of actually working?”
“Let’s also look at the Trailways route,” Jolan said. “I think lining that with Claymores would be a good idea as well.”
* * * *
Three days later the forest around Cairen Meadows was a very dangerous place. Wylan had been completely impressed by the Claymores, only commenting about the mindset of the person back on Earth who had come up with such a device. He’d had more people available than Jolan had suspected, so they’d made excellent time getting the area laced with the deadly devices. He’d been sure that someone was going to trigger one accidentally, but that hadn’t happened.
Jolan and Luzoke had found the ideal places for their placement. The area around the meadow was mostly granite and there were a couple of flats on opposite sides of the meadows where they could set up. The increased elevation allowed them to select a spot for the oil supply that they could see easily, but which was virtually invisible at the lower level of the meadow itself. The rock structure also offered an excellent place to slip behind and anchor shields before setting the whole mess off. Getting the oil in place wasn’t that difficult because magic allowed them to move heavy inanimate loads, and it had only taken a half dozen trips.
While Jolan and Wylan’s troops had been preparing the ambush, several scouts had been sent into the hills to watch for signs of the force Shyar had indicated would be coming. Jolan was starting to wonder if all this was for naught, when they returned indicating a force of twelve to fifteen thousand men was headed their way. One of the scouts had gotten close enough to overhear some conversations, and learned that the group had been sitting idle waiting for the order to proceed. The group that was coming from Trailways had some unexpected difficulty, but the scout hadn’t been able to determine exactly what had happened. Apparently, several of Ale’ald’s key people running the small town had been killed in the past week.
Chapter 150
They were good, you had to give them credit. If Jolan hadn’t known they were coming, he might have missed the first of the men to suddenly appear at the edge of the clearing and slip into the open. They were all on foot, each carrying a substantial pack in addition to a rifle. He noticed two men without rifles and wondered if they might be wizards. So many of those with magical abilities thumbed their noses at other weapons. Jolan thought they were being stupid. Sometimes the more mundane weapon made the difference. In addition to his staff and the two rings, Jolan carried the small pistol in a side holster. It wouldn’t have much range, even though he was now far more accomplished with a handgun than he’d been in the past, but it carried copper jacketed bullets that might come in handy along the way.
The Ale’ald soldiers that made their way out into the open expanse of the meadow were obviously well trained. He could see how the men subconsciously formed up into groups rather than straggle across the ground after what had to have been a very long and tiring trek. He continued to watch, knowing Luzoke was doing the same a quarter of a mile farther up the meadow. They would wait until the first line of men approached the other end before starting to create the fuel-air mixture. Then it would be ready when they panicked. The four snipers were back in the rocks, down out of harm’s way for the moment and protected by the shields of one of their team mages. They wouldn’t come out until after the blast. Anyone that survived was most likely a wizard, and they’d take down however many they could find. This was meant to be a black day for Ale’ald.
The men kept coming for a long time. Realizing what he had planned for these men made Jolan feel odd. If there were another option, he might have considered it, but he’d already gone over this with Wylan, who agreed entirely.
“It might be the fight that breaks their back,” Wylan had said the other day just before Jolan headed off to begin preparations. “They are already having trouble in the midlands, and this might be all it takes to make them back off.”
Jolan wasn’t as sure, but he knew he couldn’t allow these men to get through where they could attack the
defending forces. They would find a surprise if they did. The defenders were ready in the event this ambush didn’t go as expected. The Ale’ald troops were operating on the assumption the scouts they’d seen ride off at their approach would be hurrying word back to those same defenders. They were also assuming that they’d be so close behind the scouts that the army wouldn’t have time to prepare for a battle on two fronts. They couldn’t know that the battle plan had already been written for just such an eventuality, with the forces significantly enhanced by men from nearby locations.
While Jolan was musing, the men coming out of the woods started to thin. The last group was leading horses heavily laden with supplies. There would be no wagons. It would have been impossible to get them through the rough terrain these men had crossed in the last week. It was a minor miracle they’d managed to get horses through some of the spots.
Jolan slowly raised the binoculars. The front of the long band of soldiers was approaching the far end of the meadow. It wouldn’t be much longer before someone would trip the first of the Claymores. Grimly, he started creating the violent mixture that would result in the fuel-air bomb.
* * * *
Elar was a wizard of the sixth order, and was in charge of this group of elite fighting men. He and four other wizards traveled with the twelve thousand soldiers, and would hopefully be able to destroy much of the force that had blocked Ale’ald’s entrance into Seret from the mountains.