What caught the general’s eyes immediately were the other frames sloping down to the river. Three of them, all occupied by hulls made of steel, nearing completion as swarms of dwarves worked the metal. They hammered it into place, and then welded it together through their own magical techniques. One hull was still partially open, and Taylor looked inside to see the steam engine that would propel the vessel.
He looked to the side, where large cannon were lined up, waiting their turn to go into the ships.
“We’ll be starting on the cargo ships as soon as we’re finished with these boys,” said the engineer. “You think three will be enough””
“Oh, I think so. There won’t be anything on the water to challenge one of these ironclads, much less three of them. And how much cargo can these carry, once they have crew, weapons and rations aboard?”
“Not a lot. Maybe a couple of hundred tons.”
Taylor whistled. A wagon could carry about eight tons, with a train of mules or oxen. They didn’t have that many mules, that animal not being known here before they came. Donkeys were rare here, but they had gotten enough to start a breeding program. They had to keep enough of the smaller equines breeding to keep their population growing as well. One of these ships could carry as much of twenty-five wagons. The three could carry seventy-five wagons worth.
“And how much capacity will the cargo ships carry?”
“A thousand tons or more, I would think. A little slower than these warships, but still much faster than a wagon. Now, if only we could figure out how to build a railroad.”
Taylor was thinking. They were planning on building three cargo vessels after the warships were finished. Then they would be able to carry over six thousand tons of supplies in a trip. As much as seven hundred and fifty wagons, and they would still have the wagons. Of course, it would take wagons to move the supplies from the valley to this river. It would have been nice if there had been a waterway from valley to river, but they had to work with what they had. The river cutting through the valley flowed into the Grand Lakes, but it was too shallow in spots for anything but flatboats. Someday they could dig a canal through it, but at this time they didn’t have the excess manpower.
“Great job, Earnst,” said Taylor, patting the man on the back. “You’re worth a brigade to us.”
“I only do what I can to help. And I have ideas for airships in the future, general. Could you imagine that? Great vessels plying the air, moving even more?”
Taylor really wasn’t sure if that was possible, but if this man felt it could be done, he wouldn’t have bet against him. He looked over at the dragon field, where Major Stuart waited for him. He wasn’t looking forward to the flight back.
Chapter Seven
"Are you sure this is going to work?" asked the Warpriest Garios na Gonron, staring at the hundreds of people that were building as many camp fires along an empty stretch of the river, just back from the banks at the edge of the woods.
"Nothing is a sure thing in war," replied Delgado, smiling as he looked at the people who were preparing the deception. Further up the bank, on the other side of the bridge, men were setting up picket lines of horses. Some of those horses were cavalry mounts, but most were every nag and plow horse they could gather from the region. They would present the appearance of being the mounts of a large cavalry force. Most of the real war horses were with the other force, or were riding and screening the army.
Up on the ridge another regiment of the first brigade of the second legion marched down the road on the gentle slope, calling out their cadence as they walked in step, their banners in the front. I bet those boys are getting a might tired, thought the general. This was their fourth trip around the circle, walking down the hill, into one of the camps, then through the woods and back up a covered path, until they could form up into a regimental grouping again to march back down. It gave the impression that they had an army many times its size. Following them this time would be a cavalry unit made up of infantry riding substandard mounts.
"I think this idea is genius," said Colonel James Drake, once a physicist on Earth and now, due to his schizophrenia, one of the master mages of the alliance. "I commend you for it, General."
"It wasn't my idea," said Delgado, shaking his head. "A genius of the nineteenth century came up with this ruse, and it worked very well for him in a number of situations."
"Forrest," spat Colonel Antwoine McGurk, once the leader of an armored cavalry squadron, now a heavy horse regiment leader. "Damned racist bastard."
"Yes," agreed Delgado. "And a slaver."
McGurk nodded, appearing satisfied at the general's response.
"And so were Julius Caesar, and Alexander the Great, and Genghis Khan."
"But Forrest murdered helpless captives."
"As did Caesar, Alexander, Genghis, Napoleon, and too many others to mention. Look, Colonel. I know what you're trying to say, and I'm calling bullshit. The man may have been an asshole, but he was also a natural born military genius. I would be a fool to not read about him and his tactics."
"I read about him too," said McGurk, grimacing. "And yeah, me and mine use some of his tactics ourselves."
"I would use the tactics of the fucking devil if I thought it would win a victory with minimal casualties," said Delgado.
"I don't think it good to call on the evil ones of your religion, General," said Garios, making a holy sign in the air.
"You know we people of Earth are an irreverent lot," said Delgado after a short laugh.
"And it doesn't hurt, on your world," said the mountain dwarf. "This is not your world, and calling on the evil ones can bring disaster."
Delgado knew the man was correct, but he doubted that the Christian devil would ever manifest on this world.
The sun was starting to go down over the hills on the other side of the river. The fires were all being lit, and men would be tending them through the night, even if no one was sitting around those blazes.
"We will see if this works," said the general, looking back at the fortress on this side of the river, a high wall surrounding a large keep, thousands of soldiers behind those ramparts ready to repel all attackers. He was thinking that if he still had the weapons on Earth, he could blast through the walls in less than a day, despite their dwarven fused stone. Unfortunately, even though they still had some of those weapons, they no longer worked. The physical laws of the planet were such that things like internal combustion engines and explosives were impossibilities. They had worked for a while, because the belief of the transplants had overridden those laws in a limited area. But only for a while.
"What do you think, Colonel?" asked Delgado, looking over at Cliff Jackson, the siege-master of the army. "Can your machines do anything to those walls?"
"We'll give it a try," said the former command sergeant major, who had multiple higher degrees in military history. "I would like it better if we could mine the walls, but that's not going to happen."
Delgado nodded. The ground the fortresses were built on was sandy soil with a high water table. While easy to dig through, any tunnels would be flooded almost instantaneously. So mining the walls was out, and the keep was said to be anchored in the bedrock deep under the soil.
"When the sun comes up we'll start the bombardment," said the siege-master.
And then, hopefully, they'll pull their reserves to this side of the bridge, thought the general.
* * *
"Welcome, my Lord," said the Ellala officer. "My Lady."
"Are we ready to move, Colonel?" asked Kurt, returning the slight bow of the officer.
"Whenever my Lord and Lady are ready," replied the gracious elf.
[We need to keep this operation on schedule] sent Jackie to Kurt on their private telepathic channel. [Not as it pleases my lord and lady.]
[Correct,] replied Kurt, looking back as another twenty of the large war canoes beached on the shore and disgorged a dozen men each, all armed and armored for a fortress assault.
"Where are the others?" asked Jackie.
"They are in the woods, at the command post," said the officer, gesturing, then turning and leading the way.
Everyone ran from the river to the woods. It was important that they not be spotted. There were more than thirty cavalry patrols out, watching for enemy patrols, ready to intercept them before they reached this area. Cavalry had been operating on this side of the river for over a week, making it less suspicious that the enemy would run into them now. But cavalry could not take the fortress unless the gates were open, which was not likely to happen unless friendly infantry first took them.
Troops were talking quietly among themselves as the immortals walked by. There were no fires, and the soldiers, mostly elves of the various species, along with a large number of dwarves, were eating the cold rations that had been brought along. The soldiers were well disciplined, having adopted the practices of the human armies that were now leading the way.
The tent was set up in a small clearing, the sky overhead mostly covered by the branches of the great trees. The colonel held open the first flap, making sure everyone was in the small light lock before opening the next and motioning for everyone to move into the lighted room revealed. Dozens of people were in the room, standing around the map table or seated in chairs along the side walls. A trio of magical glow globes floated in the air over the table, bathing the tent in a warm light.
"All hail Kurt," shouted out one of the Ellala elves standing by the table. Everyone jumped to their feet, with the exception of a couple of humans and an elf with coal-black skin along one of the walls.
"At ease," he shouted, looking over as a giant of a man, accompanied by a shorter bear of a man and a tall and beautiful woman, walked toward him with his hand out.
"Paul," said Kurt, a smile growing on his face. "Good to see you, you big bastard."
Paul Mason-Smythe, ex-major of the Sherwood Foresters of the British Army of the Rhine, smiled back and took the hand of the only man near his own size in the tent. "Took you long enough to get back. I thought we were going to have to take out the undead bastard by ourselves."
"I wouldn't have missed it for anything," said Kurt as Paul turned to Jackie.
"And you're as beautiful as ever, Colonel."
"Why, thank you, Brigadier," said Jackie, putting a smaller hand into the great one of the British immortal. "And I must say, Izabella, you are just as beautiful as ever."
The Polish immortal, the second eldest among them, smiled back.
"And you look just as ugly as ever, Gregor," said Kurt to the other man, whose shoulders were actually broader than Paul's were, though he gave up about twelve centimeters in height.
"And you are just as witty as ever, Kurt," said the man in Russian accented German. “I can understand why my people wanted yours out of my country.”
The five immortals stood there for a moment, basking in the presence of the others of their kind. Kurt and Izabella had both gone through periods on Earth of hiding their ages and changing identities, something the younger immortals hadn't had to deal with, and never would on this world, where they were accepted as they were.
"May I introduce Colonel Jacques le Clerque," said Paul, gesturing at the short man with the aquiline nose who had wandered over, another male of similar appearance with him, as well as one of the coal-black elves. "And this is Yenagles, a noble of the dark elf kingdom closest to the Ellala capital."
Kurt shook hands with the Frenchman, saying some words of greeting in fluent French. He glanced over at the dark elf, who had crossed his hands over his chest and bowed. This wasn't the first of the dark elves he had seen, but he was sure he would run into many more from this point on. They had a large underground kingdom near to the lands of the Ellala, and had sheltered the French when they had first arrived. On Earth they were mythological creatures, and thought to be the heart of evil. Reality was something different, and just like the other races of the fair folk, they had their demons and their paragons of virtue.
"I'm happy to meet you, Yenagles. And hope that our people will work well together now and into the future."
"We have brought many soldiers with us to aid you in the river crossing," said the handsome elf in heavily accented French, "and our human companions have brought some as well."
Kurt nodded, trying hard to understand the elf. French was a difficult language to pronounce. He had only become fluent in the language with much practice over many years.
"We have come with six thousand warriors," said le Clerque in almost flawless German. "Four thousand of Yenagles people, and two thousand of our best light infantry. Would that we could have brought more, but the evil Ellala bastards still press us at the entrances to the caves that Yenagles' people inhabit. We are holding, and fortunately your battles have caused them to pull much of their forces from the field against us. But we still find ourselves fighting hard."
"I understand," said Kurt, knowing of what the man spoke. The Ellala emperor wanted to get his hands on as many Earth humans as possible, lusting after their life energy despite the risk of running into the counterforce that many of the people from the other dimension seemed to carry with them. "Let's repair to the map and make our last moment plans."
The map was a close in view of the bridge with its fortresses displayed in detail. Each fort had an outer wall twenty meters high, with multiple towers ten meters higher. The barracks for the troops and the supply warehouses were mostly within this wall, separated from the next ring by twenty meters of open ground. A thirty-meter-high wall enclosed the next area of the fort, with forty meter tall towers. Finally there was a fifty meter tower, the keep, forty meters in width with walls over five meters thick. The metal valves of the tower closed off the road which proceeded over the bridge. It was the same on both sides of the river. They estimated that four thousand soldiers, mostly Ellala, resided in both forts.
"We had thought of doing an airdrop on the bridge," Kurt explained as he picked up a pointer and tapped the roadway between the two keeps. "They've seen it before, and we would only find ourselves trapped between the forts. So, we have decided to go with an assault on both forts. The army across the river will start the offensive, firing catapults and bolts of magic, a demonstration we hope will draw some of the forces from the fort on this side to reinforce them. At that time we will assault the fort on our side, going over the walls, while a select group will be landed on the outer towers to occupy the forces on the top of the wall."
"And who will be providing that force?" asked le Clerque, one of the few people present who didn't know the plan.
"Why, we will," said Jackie with a smile.
"You," blurted out the Frenchman in surprise.
"No one I would rather have by my side," said Kurt, clapping the woman on the shoulder.
"You don't want to piss her off," said Paul, looking down on the man. "Hell, I wouldn't want to piss her off, and I'm not afraid of anything on this world."
"And we will be accompanied by a battalion of commandos," continued Kurt, looking over at a medium sized man wearing the armor of a priest ready for combat. "Mages and priests. I think we can take the wall and get the gate open, but we will need reinforcement as soon as possible."
"And then what?" asked the dark elf.
"Ah, and then we pull another surprise on them."
* * *
The dragon¸ one of twelve in the squadron. screeched its displeasure at the people below as it turned in the sky. The Empire still had a dragon force, a very small one compared to wh
at they had started out with, while the alliances air power had grown. The alliance still had all the dragons from Lianardas, already a strong force before the start of the war. But they had also gotten many more of the large raptors that served as light fighters into the air. There were also over a hundred of the giant owls used by the dark elves, supreme at night due to their heightened senses.
A fireball came flying up from the castle, a bright and tiny dot that expanded as it rose, but from the distance decreasing and the ball expanding. It roared in the air, targeting the lowest dragon, which started wheeling in the sky in evasive maneuvers, trying to get out of the way. The fireball flew past, barely missing the left wing of the gold, flying on into the sky and exploding fifty meters further up.
Major Jessica Stuart looked down, her eyes narrowing as more bright dots appeared. I wish I had my helicopter right now, thought the former warrant officer/pilot. With the weapons of Earth she would have been able to send missiles into the castle well out of range of the enemy wizards. The dragon looked back at her, frustration on its own face. Jessica smiled back. Her helicopter had not had a personality, not like her current mount. And she loved that personality.
[I could probably dodge most of those going in if you want to attack,] sent Gallandralla through mindspeak. The dragon was anxious to attack their enemies, and silence the wizards who threatened her rider.
Jessica simply shook her head. She didn’t want to hazard herself if the situation wasn’t right. Even more, she didn’t want to hazard the beautiful gold that had become her best friend.
[The time will come for that, but we must wait until the group commander gives us the word.]
The disappointment came over the link. She knew the dragon realized what discipline was, and why it was needed. She had been a trained war mount long before Jessica had bonded to her. Gallandralla knew the pain of losing a rider to which she had bonded. Acceptance followed the disappointment. They would wait until the attack force went in, when their own attack would do the most good for the least risk.
Refuge: Book 5: Angels & Demons Page 8