14 June 3961
A month after the attack on Condelor, Bartolica proved that it could still roar. With coordination and precision that defied belief, the Bartolican carbineers stationed in Dorak for protection against Yarronese “outlaws” suddenly turned against the local estates and towns. The Dorakians had chosen not to believe the Yarronese claims of Bartolican atrocities until then, but the proof was soon lying dead in their streets and buildings while smoke rose into the sky.
A week later came Stanbury’s massive ground attack on northern Yarron via Dorak. This met with greater success than the debacle at Cosdora. The massive Bartolican attack was directed at Sheridan, and by now the Bartolicans were also using improvised trains to move fifteen and sometimes twenty unpowered rail trucks crammed with carbineers. The shocked Dorakians watched from the fields and forests. Dorakian gunwings and sailwings ascended occasionally, but flew southeast without trying to engage the Bartolican trains or garrisons. In Condelor the invasion was decreed to be an alliance with Dorak.
Stanbury’s victories were not satisfying in terms of propaganda. The Yarronese retreated in good order, important bridges were destroyed, towns, fields, and forests were burned, and the trackwork of the tramways was ripped up. Traps and tripwire bombs were left everywhere, and not a pint of compression spirit was left by the retreating Yarronese. Worse, the Yarronese timed their confrontations and battles to be just after a Call had swept past, so that having Callwalker agents was no help for the Bartolicans. When Calls were due, the Yarronese would always be well dug in, and behind heavily booby-trapped defenses. Yarronese sailwing patrols were always particularly frequent during Calls, and anything that moved was cut down with reaction-gun fire from above or hit with flaybombs.
In spite of the attrition against the Bartolican advance through Dorak, the advance continued. If slow, it was relentless. The Yarronese did not have the numbers or equipment to fight an enemy whose farms and artisan shops were virtually undamaged, and the Bartolicans were sure of themselves. By the end of spring the cart-cannon fire from the front could be heard in Sheridan, and all tramway links had been long severed.
21 June 3961: Sheridan
Airlord Sartov stayed in Sheridan until the first shells began landing on the wingfield. The city had already been stripped of everything useful, and what remained was ready to be burned or riddled with traps. The last meeting of the Council of Governors was held on June 21st, although only three of Yarron’s five governors were there to attend the Airlord.
“I’ll open by saying that your gunwings are out on the wingfield being warmed up by volunteers,” Sartov began. “Good luck in your flights to Wind River.”
“And what of the volunteers?” asked Governor Bennett of the South.
“I have an extended regal on hand. It can lift the three extra men, so they go to Wind River with me after sunset.”
“With respect, Lordship, I request permission to remain,” said Governor Springwright of the Northeast.
Looking haggard and unsympathetic, Sartov glanced up from his maps and notes. “Explain, sair.”
“I do not want to run away and lead a few thousand exiles in Wind River. The people whom I govern and lead are here, and I want to stay here and lead them.”
“If caught, you will be taken back to Bartolica for a public hanging just as soon as they can arrange a tram,” replied Sartov.
“Only if I am caught, Lordship. I have fought behind the lines before, I’ll not be caught.”
“Granted,” said Sartov without emotion. “One of the ground crew can take your gunwing to Wind River.”
“Lordship, thank you. Thank you on behalf of everyone in the Northeast.”
“Governor Enzor of the Northwest, are you ready to become my new host?” asked Sartov.
“As ready as ever, Lordship. My province may be poor, but it’s still under your rule.”
“Then there is nothing more for us to say. Gentlemen, my order to Governor Springwright is ‘Collapse and orderly dispersal for armed harassment.’ Governors Bennett and Enzor, you shall proceed to Wind River as soon as we rise. This meeting is at an end.”
“Lordship, could we not stay and escort your regal to Wind River?” asked Bennett.
“Not unless you can see in the dark. There’s an overcast forecast for tonight.”
“Then fly out with us now, before dusk,” said Enzor.
“No, I have reasons for staying until after dark. Stunningly important reasons.”
The compression engines of Airlord Sartov’s regal did not chug into life until Mirrorsun was the only illumination in the sky. The predicted forecast had been wrong, but the predicted forecast had been made deliberately wrong on Sartov’s order. Sartov was the last to climb aboard the regal.
“We are not beaten, we are just moving the battlefield somewhere else,” he said to Governor Springwright as they stood together on the wingfield. “Good fortune go with the resistance attrition, sair.”
“Give them hellfire, Lordship. Go in safety.”
Sartov swung up into the regal’s hatch and the door was fastened from inside. The compression engines gunned and the oversize regal began moving away along the wingfield. A stray incoming shell exploded in the Air Guild Hospitality House, starting a fire, but now the Bartolicans were just destroying facilities that they would soon be taking over. The compression engines roared up to full power, and the regal ascended into the mild spring night.
The regal was well tuned, and droned steadily through the light winds as it headed southwest to Wind River. The journey was only 170 miles, and was all over Yarronese-held territory. The Bartolican patrols seldom operated by night, and tried to avoid the aggressive and deadly Yarronese gunwings of the northern area.
Only a few minutes into the journey Sartov went aft to the rear gunner.
“Should be a quiet trip, Lordship,” said the gunner. “Anyone trying to target us by Mirrorsun’s light will need a big hand from lady fortune.”
“Or these,” said Sartov, holding a pair of oddly shaped goggles up to his face in the gloom.
“What are they?”
“Put them on and find out.”
The gunner exclaimed in surprise at the way the landscape below lit up before his eyes as he peered through the goggles.
“It’s like daylight!” he cried, scanning the Bighorn Mountains that were by now below them. “I see a river, and peaks, and, and—”
“And at some time soon you may well see an enemy gunwing out there. Its flyer will almost certainly be wearing a pair of goggles just like these, and to him this regal will stand out in the night sky like a tomcat’s testicles.”
“Hell’s gunsmoke!” said the gunner, aghast. “I’m glad we all got these.”
“Not all, Gunner Melstar. You are wearing the only such goggles in Yarronese hands. Be diligent, our lives may depend upon it.”
In spite of his warning, the next hour went very quietly. They cleared the Bighorn Mountains, crossed the tramway from Lovell to Bonneville, and then flew above the tramway as it too ran southwest for two dozen miles. A sprinkle of lights marked Winchester, where the tramway turned south again, but the regal continued southwest over the edge of the Absaroka Range.
Sartov rode in the cockpit with the warden who was his wingcaptain, scanning the dusky highlands below in Mirrorsun’s dim light.
“Less than an hour to go,” reported the wingcaptain. “No Bartolican could ever catch us here.”
“None of that!” said Sartov. “Bartolicans are the least of my concerns at the moment.”
At that instant there was a whistle from the communications pipe to the rear gunner. Sartov held it up.
“Airlord Sartov”
“Lordship, there’s something way, way behind and high. It’s after us. A wing, for sure, but I can’t tell which type at this distance.”
“Closing slowly or fast?” asked Sartov.
“Slowly, so far.”
“Good, I’ll be with you soon. K
eep watching it.” Sartov unstrapped and turned to the wingcaptain. “A sailwing of unknown design follows us, and I think that its flyer has night-eyes.”
“Lordship, how can you be sure?”
“Because I gave night-eyes to our own rear gunner.”
“We might outrun a sailwing, Lordship.”
“Do not try; do nothing to alarm him.”
“Alarm him?” the wingcaptain exclaimed. “He is stalking us!”
Another twenty miles rolled below as the regal lumbered along at 95 mph. The sailwing continued to close, but at a steeper angle of descent. He was trading height for speed and was catching up.
“I see him better,” reported the gunner to Sartov. “A very wide but very thin wing, that one.”
Sartov took back the goggles for a moment and looked out at the approaching aircraft.
“Assume a wingspan of about seventy feet,” said Sartov as he handed back the goggles. “Use that for your deflection offset.”
“Seventy feet? Are the Bartolicans so very advanced already?”
“That is not a Bartolican. Do as I say and assume seventy feet. Set your rangestaff to one hundred fifty yards, and as soon as he is within that range, spray him. Hit the cockpit first, then the left engine.”
“Lordship, I can’t see any engine, just the spin of two props.”
“The engine will be thin, so just aim at the center of the airscrew. I want the flyer dead and one engine disabled. Understood?”
“Understood, Lordship.”
Another minute went by, and then the gunner began to call out distances.
“One hundred seventy, one sixty-five, gap slowly closing … one sixty … one fifty-five.”
“Is it one fifty as yet?”
“No, it’s one fifty-five, drifting back a little to one sixty if—”
“Fire!”
The two aircraft opened fire together, but the regal had a heavier than standard pair of reaction guns in the rear. There was a violet flash within the cockpit of the pursuer. Sartov called for reduced speed over the pipe as shots tore through the regal’s fabric all around him.
“The cockpit, keep aiming for the cockpit!” he barked, then cursed as a shot passed through his arm and lodged in his thigh.
The regal’s reaction guns flayed sparkling fragments from the cockpit; then the sailwing began to go into a dive.
“Stay with him!” shouted Sartov to the wingcaptain through the communications pipe. “I’m coming forward with the goggles.”
Sartov crawled through the regal holding his arm and trailing blood from his thigh, crying out or cursing at every move. A guildsman was already scrambling over with bandages as Sartov gave the goggles to the wingcaptain. The regal followed the stricken sailwing down. The mountains loomed all around, but the sailwing flew on a steady, descending line.
“The man is probably dead,” said the wingcaptain.
“Either that or he wants us to think as much and back away,” said Sartov. “Keep close, but don’t hit when he does.”
It was another ten miles before the sailwing crashed. It raised a cloud of dust and leaves, but there was no explosion or fire. Sartov ordered the warden to circle the wreck.
“Can you land?” asked Sartov.
“Lordship, this thing can slow to almost a brisk walking pace before it stalls, but those are hills down there. We need somewhere flat to land.”
The Airlord of Yarron thought quickly, then piped for the rear gunner.
“Prepare to bail out,” he ordered. “Take survival rations, assault kit, and a dozen flares.”
“A dozen, Lordship?”
“A dozen, gunner. We shall drop lighted flares as you descend. Guard that wreck until you see this regal return in the morning. Set off your flares then, and light a fire. Now get ready.”
“He could use these goggles,” said the warden.
“No, you need them to note where we are and find our way back. I want that wreck, Wingcaptain.”
As the sun rose the following day the regal was back over the site, which turned out to be just five miles from the tramway to Wind River. Six men parachuted down, including the heavily bandaged and splinted Airlord Sartov. Two days later the wreckage of the strange aircraft was dismantled, and over the following week another hundred men arrived on foot. The pieces were carried out wrapped in tentcloth. Sartov was carried out too, on a stretcher and running a fever. The secrecy was so great that rumors even began to spread that Sartov had been killed.
On June 29th Sartov inspected the pieces from a wicker wheelchair in a huge tent at Gannett wingfield. The guildmaster in charge was trembling with loss of sleep, yet bright-eyed with fascination. His name was Jeb Feydamor.
“Not a fragment of wood is within it, nor of cloth.”
“What does it teach us?” asked Sartov.
“Nothing, yet everything. The design is competent, but nothing special. The construction and materials are beyond belief, though. They are all so light, strong, and flexible, and the engines are … well …”
“Yes?”
“They may be powered by electrical essence. How could the Bartolicans have developed such an engine?”
“The Bartolicans did not.”
“Then who was flying it?”
“A very unusual man, sair. Only your finest guildsmen are to work on this thing. Study it, then repair it as best you can.”
“What? I mean all deference, Lordship, but electrical essence has been the study of none but historical theorists for nearly two thousand years.”
“Then find one. Find two! Bring them here—in chains if needs be—but one way or another I want that thing’s secrets. Have the tent guarded day and night. Any found inside other than those working directly on the, the Callwalker sailwing are to be shot on sight.”
3 July 3961: Condelor
With the news of the Fall of Northern Yarron a public holiday was declared in Bartolica. An “Alliance of Consensus” was imposed upon Dorak, and the mortified dominion was easily brought under the control of the occupying Bartolican carbineers. For all the setbacks of the previous two months, Bartolica now controlled the entire northern half of Mounthaven. Stanbury even called for a truce with the middle dominions of Cosdora and Senner, and offered generous reparations for what was described as an accidental attack on Vernal. With Yarron further reduced in area and looking as if it might really fall, the two dominions did not relish the idea of facing Bartolica alone. It was not until Sartov flew to Cosdora and conferred with the Airlord that the shaky alliance against Bartolica was shored up.
As a result of the attack on his regal, Sartov now flew everywhere in an armed trainer gunwing with two seats. He was still able to work, even if the space was cramped. Early in July he flew across from Wind River to Vernal, right across the edge of the Red Desert and the tramway linking eastern Yarron with Bartolica. There was little to be seen from such a height, yet the hatchings on his maps showed it to be occupied and that was all that mattered.
He was met at Vernal’s wingfield by Thedser, the Cosdoran Airlord, who said that he was gratified to see him alive.
“The Airlord of Senner sends his apologies,” Thedser explained. “His people are lacking in unity at the best of times, and some of his regional chiefs want to go over to the Bartolicans to gain advantage in their tribal disputes.”
“That is like factions of chickens enlisting the aid of a dirkfang cat against their peers.”
“They were his words, almost precisely,” said Thedser. “I am anxious to hear what you propose next for our little alliance, but, ah, first I would like to go somewhere more comfortable and private.”
Thedser was glancing at Sartov’s flyer as they walked.
“This man has the very highest of security clearances,” Sartov assured him.
“Airlord Sartov, what I want to discuss is only for the ears of a head of state.”
“Airlord Thedser, this man is a head of state. May I introduce Airlord Maybaron of Dorak, the
leader of the Dorakian resistance?”
It proved to be a fruitful meeting. It was agreed that Bartolica’s greatest strength was that it could act like a single entity, concentrating all of its resources at precisely the right place and time. A widespread campaign of resistance would not win any battles, but it would prevent Stanbury from concentrating his resources and winning any battles for himself. They also agreed on a massive campaign against Callwalker infiltrators.
“But how do we break their coordination?” asked Thesder. “We don’t even know how they achieve it.”
“I do,” replied Sartov.
Two Airlords and the Sennerese Archwarden stared back at him.
“Well?” asked Thesder.
“For now, trust me,” replied Sartov.
After the meeting Sartov was resting in his rooms when one of his guards rapped at the door.
“I want no more visitors,” Sartov called, sitting on the edge of his bed with one boot already off.
“The man insists on seeing you, Lordship. He says he is a guildsman.”
“Tell him to make an appointment for the morning. I have a quarter hour free at noon.”
The guard went away, but was soon back.
“Airlord Sartov, he says it concerns repairs to your most precious sailwing.”
Sartov froze, his trousers at his knees.
“Tell him I’m on my way. We can talk in the garden of fountains.”
The garden of fountains was designed especially for people to talk with no fear of being overheard. Sartov’s visitor was tall and angular, and might have been in his late twenties. With his voice masked by the gurgling and tinkling of water, he introduced himself as Sair Kalward.
“Say your words,” said Sartov as they paced slowly amid the lamplit columns of splashing water.
“Earlier this month one of your wings shot down an extremely advanced sailwing which had no markings on it. No markings at all.”
“Departures from the forms of air chivalry are common enough in this war,” replied Sartov. “What of it?”
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