by David Weber
Yet as the size and power of the impending assault grew steadily and the reinforcements promised by Nith mul Gurthak equally steadily failed to materialize, Toralk had come to doubt the strategic wisdom of holding their position here. The sheer weight of the attack, whenever the Sharonians decided to unleash it, promised to be enormous, and if they did manage to carry the Cut, the AEF was likely to find itself in serious trouble, even with its maneuver advantages. The steady, annoying trickle of operational losses among Toralk’s transports had only increased his uneasiness, since each dragon in the dragon healers’ hands or sent to the rear to recuperate was one less dragon for troop movements if the Sharonians ever once broke free in Karys.
Yet as uneasy as Toralk had become, that very lack of transports had only underscored the importance of keeping the cork in the Traisum Cut. There, at least, the Sharonians were restricted to a single narrow avenue of attack through an all but impossible terrain obstacle. It was the only place the AEF could hold an attacking army as powerful as the one building up on the Fort Salby side of the portal. The only other option would have been to fall back, let the Sharonians in, and then operate as aggressively as possible against the enemy’s ground-bound supply columns. That would have been a purely delaying strategy, one which conceded the initiative entirely to the enemy, and the ugly truth was that there wasn’t a single spot between Traisum and Hell’s Gate itself that offered the defensive strength of the Traisum Cut.
“Do we have any better estimate of the enemy’s strength in Failcham, Sir?” Thousand Gahnyr asked. The AEF’s infantry commander’ was tight-faced and he couldn’t quite to keep an anxious edge out of his tone.
“Not really, Sir,” Five Hundred Mahrkrai answered for Harshu. The chief of staff met Gahnyr’s eyes levelly. “Our best estimate is still that this is a single Sharonian cavalry brigade with additional artillery attached. And, of course, those vehicles of theirs. I think we can take it for granted that there’s one hells of a lot more coming on behind them, though. The fact that they never let a single one of those big vehicles of theirs anywhere in range of our recon gryphons suggests they’ve been planning this all along. This isn’t some panicky, last-ditch ploy, so we can be damned sure they sent along a force they think is strong enough to look after itself in the face of anything we could throw at it.”
“Herak’s right,” Harshu said. “It’s obvious—now—” his smile was knife-thin and cold as a Lokan winter “that they’ve planned all along to mousetrap us here in Karys, and that means using a force strong enough to hold the portal against us.”
“In that case, Sir,” Gahnyr asked quietly, “what do we do?”
“A good question.” Harshu nodded. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a good answer for it, only a choice of bad answers. Not only are the Sharonians between us and home, but the speed of their communications is a hells of a lot faster than ours. Fort Brithik sent a hummer to Governor mul Gurthak at the same time they sent one to us, but it won’t reach him in Erthos until tomorrow. I’m sure as soon as it does he’ll pull out all the stops to get our reinforcements forward.”
His tone, Toralk reflected, indicated something less than rousing confidence in mul Gurthak’s doing anything of the sort.
“That’s not going to help us in the next couple of weeks, though,” the two thousand continued. “I’m afraid we have to assume the Sharonians’ arrival on the Karys portal indicates they’re about ready to pull the trigger on their counteroffensive from Traisum, too. I’m still confident we can hurt them badly if they come down the Cut into the teeth of our defenses, though, and they may not realize just how bloody we can make it for them. So the question is whether or not the force behind us is powerful enough to press an offensive into our rear. If it’s intended only as a blocking force—if it was meant to panic us into falling back without a battle or simply to hold the portal once their frontal attack drove us out of our positions—it’s unlikely to get too frisky any time in the immediate future. If that’s the case, we still have some time to work with, although getting supplies forward just got a lot more complicated.”
Now that, Toralk thought, was a generous understatement. Getting heavily laden transports past Sharonian artillery would be about as “complicated” as operations came.
“In the meantime, though, we need to plan for a rapid withdrawal,” Harshu went on unflinchingly. “I know it goes against the grain to give up all the ground between here and Thermyn, but I’m afraid we’re unlikely to have much choice. We do still have the advantage in tactical mobility. It took them four months to reach the Karys portal; we could’ve made the same movement in two weeks, assuming we could’ve gotten across the damned ocean in the first place. Not only that, we have to assume they moved as quickly as they could from the moment Fifty Jerstan sighted them to the moment they hit Fort Brithik, and that tells us that moving cross-country those vehicles of theirs can’t have a speed much greater than, say, twenty miles an hour. If we pull back from here, we’ll have to fight our way through the portal into Failcham, and that’s going to be ugly. The transports will have to make at least three trips to ferry all our people through the portal, and we’ll take losses every time they do it, but at least we won’t have to fight a rearguard all the way across Karys. Once we break contact here, we’ll have the speed to stay in front of any pursuit they could drive down the Cut even if we hadn’t seeded its walls with demolition spells to close it behind us.
“I’ve already sent hummers to Governor mul Gurthak telling him that if we’re forced to retreat from Karys I hope to fight a mobile campaign against any Sharonian forces in Failcham and Thermyn until a fresh offensive from Hell’s Gate can reach us. In the meantime—”
He paused, his eyes narrowing, as someone rapped very lightly on the office door and his eyes narrowed. Then the door opened and a message clerk stepped through it hesitantly.
“Yes?” The one-word question was sharper than usual, clearly irritated by the interruption, and the clerk came to attention and saluted.
“I’m sorry, Sir,” he said quickly, “but I thought you’d want to see this message as soon as possible.”
Harshu’s face smoothed into non-expression as the clerk’s tone registered and he held out his hand to accept the message crystal. He gazed down into it for two or three heartbeats, then his jaw tightened and he nodded to the clerk.
“You were right, Javelin,” he said. “Dismissed.”
The clerk disappeared, and the two thousand looked bleakly at his senior subordinates.
“It would appear our options are even more limited than I’d thought,” he said. “That was a hummer message from Five Hundred Klian in Mahritha. Apparently the brigade sitting on the Failcham-Karys portal wasn’t operating alone. Another brigade—or possibly an even stronger force—rolled over the Hell’s Gate picket two days before the hummer from Fort Brithik could reach them. Twelve hours later, they hit the Hell’s Gate-Mahritha portal in overwhelming force. The Thousand commanding the portal garrison had less than four hours’ warning before the attack rolled in, and according to Five Hundred Klian, he was probably outnumbered by at least three to one.”
Icy stillness hovered about him, and his nostrils flared.
“It would seem, Gentlemen,” the words came slow and measured, “that the Sharonians now control every portal between us and Mahritha.”
Chapter Forty-Four
April 27
“Specialist vos Hoven,” Commander of Twenty-Thousand Sogbourne said, peering intently at the prisoner in the witness box, “you were present, were you not, at the confrontation which has been dubbed ‘The Battle of Toppled Timber’ in the popular journals?”
“Yes, Sir, I was there.” The prisoner’s manner was very humble, very un-shakira-like. Helfron Dithrake mistrusted it—and vos Hoven—more every time the man spoke. He supposed it was possible for the close relative of two line-lords and a clan-lord to learn humility after spending several months in the brig. But he was more inclined to bel
ieve such a man would have spent his time brooding on the wrongs done to him and his exalted pedigree…unless a caste superior had shown him the error of his ways, so to speak.
Given the other Olderhan mess involving that yellow dragon and the deaths surrounding it, Helfron Dithrake was inclined to believe someone had either coached vos Hoven or had put the fear of eternity into him so effectively to permanently break his pride. Whether it had ensured his honesty remained to be seen.
“I understand you were transferred into Hundred Olderhan’s company at the same time as Fifty Garlath?”
“Yes, Sir, I was.”
“I understand, as well, that you’d served under Fifty Garlath for some time?”
“Yes, Sir. Several months, Sir.”
“What is your evaluation of Fifty Garlath’s ability as a commander?”
Bok vos Hoven pursed his lips and appeared to give the question serious consideration. “Well, Sir, I’d have to say Fifty Garlath wasn’t nearly as able a commander as Hundred Olderhan.”
“Really? What prompts that evaluation?”
“Well, Sir, under Hundred Olderhan’s direction, the Fifty was a lot more efficient than he’d ever been. And he followed book procedure a lot more closely. We certainly got things done a faster than we ever had, before.”
“I see. In your estimation, then, Garlath was a better officer under Hundred Olderhan’s direction than he was under his previous Commander of One Hundred?”
“Yes, Sir. Absolutely, Sir.”
“Very good. Now, then, how would you evaluate Fifty Garlath’s efficiency the morning your platoon trailed the Sharonians to their camp?”
“Well, Sir, I know this much. The Hundred kept the Fifty on a very short leash. He quoted book regulations repeatedly, in a very abrupt manner.”
“Then the Hundred’s temper was fraying?”
“Yes, Sir, I’d say that, Sir.”
“Due to?” Sogbourne invited speculation, curious to see how vos Hoven would respond.
“We were all under stress, Sir, wondering what had killed poor Osmuna, wondering what other terror weapons these people—or creatures—might possess, how far ahead of us they were, how many of them there might be. It was nerve wracking, Sir, for all of us, and the Hundred seemed affected more than the rest of us.”
“Are you saying,” Sogbourne asked in a curious tone that masked his intense disgust, “that the Hundred was overwhelmed by fear?”
“It certainly looked that way to me.”
“Why?”
Bok vos Hoven blinked. “Well, Sir, he was jumpy as a frog in a pond full of crocodrakes, for one thing.”
“Jumpy as a frog?” Ten Thousand Rinthrak echoed. “In what way?”
“He kept watching the trees, nervous-like. Kept barking at the Fifty to stay on point, to stop dawdling. I was worried we were going to run up their backsides before he was satisfied.”
“The general idea, when trailing an escaped killer,” Rinthrak said in a severe voice, “is to catch him.”
“Well, yes, Sir. That’s true. But there’s hasty prudence and there’s hasty folly, Sir, and I can tell you I wasn’t too happy about the way he was rushing us ahead, like that, with barely a moment’s pause to consider any nasty surprises they might’ve laid in our path.”
Sogbourne frowned. Given the charges this man faced and the source of those charges, he’d expected vos Hoven to characterize Jasak Olderhan’s actions in the worst possible light, and so far those expectations hadn’t been disappointed. Unfortunately, there was a serious dearth of eyewitnesses to question, let alone question closely about nuances like vos Hoven was trying to impart. Or, perhaps, insinuate.
He made a brief notation in his PC to question the few witnesses they did have on this subject, but even there, he anticipated trouble. While Bok vos Hoven could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered an impartial witness, neither could the other three witnesses available to him.
Trooper Sendahli could have been impartial immediately after Toppled Timber, but he was only in Portalis to be interviewed because of his status as a victim of Lance vos Hoven in a case against the shakira soldier that hinged heavily on Hundred Olderhan’s testimony. It was a mess.
Battalion Chief Sword Threbuch was almost even more of a mess, from a legal perspective. Sogbourne had no personal qualms at all about Threbuch’s honesty, but his ties to the Olderhan family went back decades. He’d served under Hundred Olderhan’s father, earning high commendations and an income for life for saving the life of the current Duke of Garth Showma. Threbuch was ordinarily an honest and impartial witness, with an unimpeachable record for scrupulous honesty and meticulous accuracy.
However…
The situation wasn’t much better with Magister Kelbryan. Just for starters, she wasn’t a soldier. In fact she wasn’t remotely close to a soldier! Not only was she a civilian, she was a Ransaran who didn’t understand military protocols, regulations, and duties or even the standard operating procedures of a platoon—let alone the emergency procedures necessary to deal with a serious crisis. Had she been Andaran, trained to understand military realities, he would have been more inclined to trust her assessment of the Hundred’s performance.
But the gods had seen fit to give him a Ransaran, and Ransarans were notorious for their total lack of understanding of all matters military. Ransaran scholars, in particular, were noted for their appalling lack of military savvy and their inordinate pride in that lack, as though willful ignorance was a virtue. Amongst Ransaran academicians, it was.
So Sogbourne patiently took vos Hoven through the entire chase Olderhan had conducted through that distant forest, on the trail of unknown killers with weapons that struck horror into the very souls of the men doing that trailing, and tried to sift truth from skillful, vindictive manipulation of fact. Either vos Hoven was a great deal smarter than his personnel scores indicated or he’d received some highly skilled coaching from someone, because he managed to paint an ever blacker, damning picture of a rattled commander jumping at shadows, without quite crossing the line into outright fabrication and triggering the courtroom’s verifying spellware.
When they reached the fateful moment of arrival at the wind-toppled pile of twisted timber, Sogbourne asked vos Hoven to describe exactly what had transpired.
“Well, Sir, as nearly as I can recall, Hundred Olderhan ordered Fifty Garlath’s squad to search the clearing for concealed enemy personnel. Fifty Garlath had already lodged a strong protest over the advisability of pursuit, given the potential for a large number of the enemy to overwhelm our platoon. The Hundred told him that falling back to wait for reinforcements was out of the question. Magister Gadrial actually accused Fifty Garlath of cowardice, which was a dirty lie. The Fifty was only concerned for the safety of his men, and it turned out he was right to be. We were overwhelmed by enemy firepower and damn near lost the entire platoon as a result of the Hundred’s hasty actions.”
The lie-detection light might have flickered just slightly, but Sogbourne couldn’t be sure. Anger or hatred could be used to partially beat the truth spells if the speaker had enough boiling emotion to convince himself of a false reality, and vos Hoven had more than enough rage towards Jasak Olderhan to attempt it. For that matter, he probably had enough to achieve it completely spontaneously!
Sogbourne narrowed his eyes, but decided against pursuing the line of questioning that pile of dragon manure warranted. Not yet. Instead, he said, “The Hundred ordered the clearing searched. What was Fifty Garlath’s response?”
“Why, he complied, of course. It was plain suicide, sending men into the open, like that, but the Fifty did his duty, did it bravely, I’ll tell you!”
This time lie-detection light behind the witness did flash. But before Sogbourne could react, vos Hoven continued his embroidered-for-effect tirade.
“The Fifty obeyed the Hundred’s orders and he died for it, Sir! I know what you’re thinking of me, standing here in chains, but I’m telling
you plainly, the Hundred sent the Fifty out there to die. Hundred Olderhan conceived a hatred of the Fifty almost from the moment he arrived in the Hundred’s company. I’m convinced the Hundred deliberately sent Fifty Garlath out to be killed, to rid himself of the problem his own prejudice had created!”
The light behind vos Hoven flashed again.
“Really?” Sogbourne murmured. “That’s an interesting theory, Specialist vos Hoven. Perhaps you’d care to explain to this Court why you’ve lied twice in the past ninety seconds?”
Vos Hoven’s face went totally blank, then collapsed into a sick expression as he realized what he’d done in his zeal to convict his nemesis. He started to jerk around to look at the lie-detection light behind him, then controlled that instinctive reaction and got himself turned around again, facing the officers of the court. Before he could say anything further, Commander of Five Hundred Anshair Kolthar, vos Hoven’s assigned defense counsel, was on his feet.
“Sir, counsel for the defense respectfully requests that all mention of the lie-detection alarm be stricken from the record.”
“On what grounds?” Sogbourne asked coldly.
“On the grounds that a lie-detection spell cannot be used to penalize a witness expressing opinion, rather than fact. Specialist vos Hoven was expressing his personal opinion that Hundred Olderhan bore a grudge against Fifty Garlath, a grudge moreover that was strong enough to send an inferior officer into harm’s way to rid him of a troublesome problem. While that opinion may be unpleasant to the majority of listeners, it’s still merely an opinion and cannot be used to the detriment of the witness expressing it. Again, counsel for the defense requests that all mention of the lie-detection spell’s alarm be stricken from the record.”