by David Weber
Stop that! he told himself firmly. You’ve already had plenty of evidence that there are limits to what they can do. Don’t start giving them godlike powers at this stage!
“Is the site in good shape?” he asked out loud.
“Chan Hurmahl says it is, Sir.” Chan Quay straightened and propped his hands on his hips as he and his superior gazed down at the crooked blue line of the Stone Carve River.
Coyote Canyon was scarcely the equal of the enormous chasm of Vothan’s Canyon, a hundred miles farther south, but it was still a dauntingly impressive terrain obstacle. Fortunately, the Trans-Temporal Express had realized it would have to bridge Coyote if it meant to run a line across Thermyn to New Uromath. It had already done that in one other universe, and its engineers had chosen to use the same location in Thermyn. It wasn’t at the closest spot to Fort Ghartoun and the New Uromath portal, but TTE was intimately familiar with its terrain. The best news from chan Geraith’s perspective were the steep, rough ramps crews staged through Fort Ghartoun had already blasted down from the lip of the canyon. They’d been intended to get construction equipment down to river level when the time came to build the bridge pylons, and anywhere construction crews could go, his Bisons and Steel Mules could go…when they weren’t broken down, at any rate.
“Has Battalion-Captain chan Hurmahl been able to evaluate the water level?” he asked after a moment.
“He says the river’s a little higher than we’d hoped but not enough to make problems. He’s confident he can throw the bridge across within forty-eight to seventy-two hours once chan Grosvar catches up with Second Battalion and hands over the bridging material.”
Chan Geraith nodded again, stroking his mustache with a thoughtful index finger. The construction crews who’d blasted the gaps into Coyote Canyon’s walls had also surveyed the riverbed itself. The Trans-Temporal Express and Portal Authority had learned the hard way that terrain was never identical from universe to universe. It was usually very similar, enough so that routes could be picked from maps with a fair degree of certainty, but the gods clearly delighted in variations on a theme. Even without the often bizarre effects generated in proximity to portals, each universe enjoyed its own subtly different but always unique geological history. In this instance, the painstaking survey of the Stone Carve had allowed the fabrication of steel supports and a plate steel roadway that would allow chan Hurmahl’s men to throw a bridge capable of supporting Bisons and Steel Mules across the rocky riverbed. Chan Geraith didn’t like to contemplate the amount of labor involved, but in addition to his own battalion of highly trained engineers, chan Hurmahl could draft additional bone and brawn from chan Quay’s entire brigade. In theory, that gave him three thousand more strong backs, and when the rest of the division came up, he’d have the next best thing to ten thousand additional sets of hands available.
Of course, if it takes that long, there’s a really good chance of the Arcanans happening by overhead, isn’t there? the division-captain thought, then snorted harshly. There you go, looking for problems again!
March 26
The racket, the heat, and the humidity hit with the force of a hammer as Brigade-Captain chan Bykahlar climbed down from the rail car. It had been hot enough inside the car—the “air-conditioning” available for luxury rail traffic back home was a relatively recent development, and the Trans-Temporal Express didn’t send its most sophisticated rolling stock to the arse-end of nowhere—but at least the train’s steady motion had driven a cooling breeze through the cars’ open windows and wind scoops. Now that breeze had disappeared, and the steam bath of the Dalazan rain forest had to be experienced to be believed.
The racket, on the other hand, was purely man-made. No self-respecting jungle bird or animal would have been caught dead within ten miles of the railbed being driven through the primeval jungle. The sheer volume of noise produced by steam locomotives, steam bulldozers and graders, steamrollers, track cars delivering endless lengths of rail, sledgehammers, wrenches, steam drills, rivet guns, and the occasional roar of explosives from the advanced parties had sent any local wildlife packing in short order.
At the moment, the railhead was two hundred-plus miles farther north than it had been when 3rd Brigade embarked for its trans-Vandor crossing and it was being driven steadily farther even as he watched. The TTE’s track-laying crews, with well over three-quarters of a million miles of railroad construction on their logbooks, were the most experienced in human history. When they decided to drive a railhead, it advanced at a rate which had to be seen to be believed, and the current railhead was the site of yet another burgeoning supply dump. The same trains whose troop cars had moved chan Bykahlar’s regiments forward had hauled enormous loads of freight along with them. Now TTE’s steam-powered mobile cranes were transferring that freight to the existing mountain of supplies, where a fresh line of steam drays and Bisons with their enormous trailers waited to haul it yet farther down-chain towards 5th Corps advancing spearhead.
“This way, Sir!”
Chan Bykahlar turned his head at the sound of Battalion-Captain chan Klaisahn’s shout. The brigade’s chief of staff had located—or possibly stolen—a Steel Mule with a boxy superstructure built over its cargo bed. The brigade-captain recognized one of the mobile command posts Division-Captain chan Geraith had ordered fitted up, and he eyed it a bit sourly. Certainly it would be nice to have those walls’ protection once they hit the weather waiting for them in Nairsom, but chan Bykahlar was an officer of the old school. The proper means of transport for an Army officer was either his own two feet or the saddle of a Shikowr. He fully appreciated the theoretical advantages of moving companies, battalions—even entire divisions—at the speeds steam made possible, but he had his doubts about how restful the ride would be over the so-called “roads” which had been hacked out by the engineers.
He had no doubt at all about how restful the ride wouldn’t be once they started heading cross-country.
He pushed that thought aside as the Mule came to a halt. It was already liberally streaked with mud, and after watching a conventional steam dray slither off the pounded down track and bog almost instantly in the mud beyond it, he decided there was much to be said for its half-tracked suspension.
Chan Klaisahn hopped down from the running board and trotted over.
“I’ve got the maps and dispatch cases aboard, Sir,” he said, saluting crisply. “We can move out as soon as Gershyr’s transferred your personal gear. Regiment-Captain chan Ferdain’s already loading the Three Hundred Twelfth aboard its Bisons and Mules, and TTE’s mating the heavy equipment and artillery with the transport. Of course, we won’t dare move until Gershyr tells us he’s ready!”
He rolled his eyes, and chan Bykahlar chuckled. Senior-Armsman Gershyr chan Lorak had been his batman for five years, and he ruled the rest of the brigade with an iron will. It would have taken a hardier soul than any mere brigade-captain to deflect Gershyr from The Way Things Ought to Be where the care and feeding of one Desval chan Bykahlar was concerned.
“Actually, Sir, I doubt even Gershyr’s going to delay our departure today,” chan Klaisahn continued, and shrugged when chan Bykahlar raised a questioning eyebrow. “I don’t mean to suggest he’s suddenly decided to turn over a new leaf and become reasonable, Sir. It’s just that we won’t be ready to move out in less than at least six to ten hours, no matter what we do. Not only do we have all of our own baggage and heavy weapons to cross-load, but I understand Master Yanusa-Mahrdissa’s sending a fuel convoy along with us. It’s going to take a while to top off the kerosene drays from the tanker cars.”
“Sounds like a good idea to me,” chan Bykahlar agreed. “Gods know the last thing we need is to run short of fuel in the middle of the godsdamned Roanthan Plains in the middle of winter! But only kerosene? Not coal, too?”
“Not this trip, Sir. Rechair’s in the midst of a deep discussion with the freight master, and I expect he’ll emerge with more detail than I have now. From what I understa
nd, though, they’ve decided to hold the coal-fired Bisons farther back, where the bulk of their fuel requirements—and their funnel smoke—won’t be as big a problem.”
Chan Bykahlar nodded. Aside from its tendency to leak, it was actually easier to transport, and while he strongly suspected that several hundred Bisons and Steel Mules churning across the plain would produce enough dust to make their presence obvious, he was entirely in favor of not adding dense clouds of coal smoke to the mix.
Not that it’s likely to be much of a factor where we’re concerned, he reflected. It’s the poor bloody dragoons who have to worry about being spotted by the damned dragons. And if we are spotted, they’re the ones who’re going to draw the first dragon attacks, too, I imagine.
“All right,” he said, squelching across the mud to the step built into the Mule’s rear bumper, “I suppose I should survey my new domain while it’s still standing still.”
Chapter Forty-One
March 27
Division-Captain chan Geraith stood atop the canyon wall and peered down at the bustling anthill so far below through his field glasses.
In the eight days since crossing into Thermyn, he’d traveled over thirteen hundred miles, and every bone in his body knew it. The four hundred and sixty miles from Chindar to High Rock City hadn’t been all that terrible, except for the endless climb up to High Rock. The three hundred miles from there to Coyote Canyon had been far worse, however, given the terrain, although the Bisons and Steel Mules which had preceded the main column had at least pounded the worst of the ground flat. The weather hadn’t been all that bad—in fact, it hadn’t fallen below freezing for the last week and there’d been plenty of sun—but the lack of water and the dense, choking pall of dust had more than made up for that. Civilians who’d never tried to move a few thousand men and horses across an arid waste had no concept of just how much water they’d need. The engineers had damned the Sand Rock River where it flowed through High Rock City to create a reservoir, but even this early in the year the Sand Rock was scarcely the Dalazan River. It helped a lot, but he knew the quartermasters spent a lot of time worrying over breakdowns among the water tankers.
Fortunately, that problem was in a fair way to being alleviated here at Coyote Canyon itself, given the amount of water brawling its way along the Stone Carve. The engineers had set up a water collection and purification point five miles upstream from the bridging site, and through his glasses he could see several hundred men splashing around in the river itself. He suspected the water was a bit too cold for his own tastes, but he was glad to see them washing away the dust. No doubt at least some of them were also trying to soak up as much moisture as they could through the pores of their skin, he thought with a grin.
He moved his attention to the bridge itself. He couldn’t hear much from his present position except for the constant, sighing voice of the wind, but the bridge’s prefabricated steel spans swarmed with workmen. It was almost completed, and the bulldozer blade-fitted Bisons were improving the approach to it. More of them, as well as hundreds of men with shovels and picks, were working to improve the steep, rugged ramp up to the notch blasted out of the canyon’s farther wall.
Tomorrow, he thought. Yahnday at the latest. And that’s when the pressure really starts.
He lowered the glasses and turned to look back to the east. The sprawl of vehicles, orderly rows of tents, and industriously employed soldiers stretched as far as the eye could see, and the inevitable cluster of shirtless, sunburned mechanics swarmed over a half-dozen Bisons, shielded from the intense desert sun by overhead canvas flies. From the occasional curse riding the stiff breeze to his ears, he suspected that at least one of the recalcitrant vehicles was likely to find itself being cannibalized to get the others running again. He hated the thought of losing yet another of them, but his instructions to Therahk chan Kymo’s quartermasters had been uncompromising.
The next six or seven days would be critical. The indefatigable Company-Captain chan Mahsdyr and his Gold Company were once again far out ahead of 3rd Dragoons’ main body. In fact, he and his men were ensconced in the rugged country along the White Snake River east of Fort Ghartoun, keeping a cautious and surreptitious eye on its Arcanan garrison. As long as they stayed at least a few miles back, the rough terrain—made considerably rougher by the violence of the portal wind which must have come screaming through the New Uromath portal, probably for centuries, when it originally formed—offered an abundance of concealment for troops as experienced at keeping out of sight as imperial Ternathian dragoons. Chan Geraith knew that. And despite knowing that, his nerves tightened every time he thought of all of the ways in which they might betray their presence to any semi-alert Arcanan.
Fortunately, there seemed to be few of those in Fort Ghartoun. Nor had chan Mahsdyr’s Plotters or Distance Viewers seen any dragons permanently attached to the fort. For that matter, they hadn’t seen any of the eagle-lions the Arcanans appeared to use as unmanned reconnaissance vehicles, either. That undoubtedly explained how the thousands of Sharonians along the Stone Carve, barely four hundred miles from them, had so far eluded their attention. The fact that the shortest route between Fort Ghartoun and Fort Brithik at the Failcham portal lay well over two hundred and fifty miles north of their present position probably didn’t hurt; a dragon would have to detour pretty far out of its direct flight path to Failcham to spot them way down here. But even if there weren’t any dragons permanently stationed at Fort Ghartoun, plenty of them were certainly passing along that route to Failcham farther to the north, and the closer his main body got to Fort Ghartoun, the more likely one of those transiting dragons was to spot his column. He’d cheerfully have sacrificed his left hand for the sort of aerial reconnaissance capability the Arcanans enjoyed, but in its absence, the best he could do was to take the threat into consideration and try to plan around it.
And that was why the next few days were going to be critical.
According to chan Mahsdyr’s detailed reports, the entire garrison of Fort Ghartoun couldn’t amount to much more than half a battalion. There was perhaps a company of their unicorn-mounted light cavalry and what certainly looked from the Voice reports like no more than a couple of infantry companies. It was obvious, reading between the lines of the company-captain’s reports that chan Mahsdyr was confident Gold Company could have successfully seized the fort out of its own resources, and given how expeditiously they’d secured the entry portal from Nairsom, chan Geraith was prepared to believe he was right. He had no intention of finding out, however. When the time came, Battalion-Captain chan Yahndar’s entire battalion would storm the fort. Hopefully, 2nd Battalion’s attack would come as as much of a surprise to Fort Ghartoun as chan Mahsdyr’s assault had been for the Arcanan encampment on the Tyrahl River. Unfortunately, the Fort Ghartoun hummer cots were inside the fort’s sturdy walls. Not even a Talented sniper like Fozak chan Gyulair could hit a target on the other side of a solid, clay-reinforced timber palisade, and unfortunately, the engineers who’d chosen Fort Ghartoun’s site had picked one which offered no handy vantage points simultaneously high enough and close enough to target the fort’s interior over its walls.
Chan Yahndar had devised a plan to deal with that, and chan Geraith had approved it because it offered an excellent chance of success. Without the ability to specifically and directly target the hummer cots, however, no one could guarantee that the fort’s garrison—chan Geraith hesitated to use the noun “defenders” to describe a body of troops which appeared to spend so much time sitting on its collective arse—couldn’t get off a message. That was unfortunate, because it was less than three hundred miles from Fort Ghartoun to Hell’s Gate across New Uromath, and even with the Bisons and Steel Mules, 3rd Dragoons would need at least three days—more probably four—to cover that distance. In fact, it might well take five, given the forests on the New Uromath side of the portal, and he had no idea how close the nearest Arcanan reaction force might be.
At least he coul
d count on the Arcanans’ lack of Voices. Fast as their hummers were, they were far slower than a Voice message, so it would take them a lot longer than it would have taken a Sharonian commander to begin responding to any message from Fort Ghartoun. Unfortunately, once they did respond they had those never-to-be-sufficiently-damned dragons. They could move troops far, far faster than he could, so it would be a race between his powerful, concentrated ground force and a dragonborne Arcanan force which would probably be far more scattered initially than his own. And that being the case, he needed his main body as close to Fort Ghartoun as he could get it before he attacked it.
It would be an interesting challenge in a training exercise, he reflected, but it’s a pain in the arse when I have to do it for real. How close can I get to Fort Ghartoun before one of those transiting dragon riders glances down and happens to notice several hundred vehicles churning towards it? The direct route to Failcham may be north of us, but the closer we get to Ghartoun, the more likely it is that someone’s going to spot us and our damned dust clouds.
He’d decided that a hundred miles was the absolute maximum he could rely upon in that regard. He’d already spotted Plotters and Distance Viewers along his route to Fort Ghartoun, tied together by Flickers and Voices to warn him of any dragon which might chance close enough to detect them, but once he got within a hundred miles, he was going to assume detection by the Arcanans was effectively inevitable.
At least according to chan Malthyn the idiots garrisoning the fort aren’t doing a dawn stand-to, he reminded himself, then grimaced.
It probably really wasn’t entirely fair to think of the garrison as “idiots,” this far in what they “knew” was their own army’s rear. As far as they knew, the nearest possible threat was thousands upon thousands of miles away. Still, he liked to think a Ternathian CO would have been taking more precautions than the Arcanans appeared to be.