Refuge: Book 5: Angels & Demons

by Doug Dandridge

  An hour later Taylor was sitting in a meeting. Gone were the temporary tents that had served when they had first arrived. Now his headquarters was housed in a very comfortable mountainside villa with great views of the lower valley and quarters for his entire staff with the local service buildings. Steaming pots of coffee sat on the long table in the large room that had been converted to a conference room. Pitchers of cream and bowls of sugar stood by each carafe. That was something Taylor loved about this world. All the food was fresh and delicious, without the additives almost everything on Earth came with. The environment itself seemed to hum with healthy energy. People who had come over with diseases such as diabetes and cancers had found that they cured themselves, when doctors on Earth had told them there was no cure, only long drawn out treatments.

  Coffee beans were not native to this area, though they might be found on some of the continents connected to the K'ellysius subcontinent that was their area of operations. Fertile beans had been brought along in the samples of plants of the University scientists. Fields had been established in the mountains of the Refuge valley, and very good coffee was now making its way to feed the addiction of the Earthborn. Hops had also been planted, and rye and barley, so earth-made spirits were now available as well.

  "How are we doing with recruitment?" he asked one of the earthborn officers, a colonel who was his chief of staff for procurement.

  "We've about scrapped the bottom of the barrel for earthborn humans, sir," said the man. "We've brought in about ninety percent of the men of military age, and the other ten percent are too important to our research and development efforts."

  "And the other peoples?"

  "They are giving us what they can," said the colonel. "We have no shortage of Dwarven axmen and Elfin archers, but we can only slot so many of them into a legion and still maintain the proper ratio. Cavalry is another matter. Most of the local humans are farmers, with little in the way of war experience, and it will take quite some time to train them up to the standards of our cavalry. We are still offering high bounties for mercenaries from the other kingdoms, and they are trickling in. Still, we have our quotas of light and medium cavalry filled, but are far too short in the heavy variety. It takes a lot of skill and training to become the equivalent of one of our medieval knights, after all."

  "And air power?" asked Taylor, not really satisfied with the answer. He was concerned with what he could bring to the air war. He didn't think the enemy could match them in the sky, not anymore, but he couldn't say for sure, and history had taught that enemies sometimes squirreled away their air assets until they could spring a surprise.

  "We've hit a roadblock as far as dragons are concerned, sir. It takes a hundred years for one to grow from hatchling to young adult, the smallest we can use for saddle-trained mounts. At least a hundred more before they become the more formidable full adult. We can't hurry the process, and we don't know of a source of ready to use adults. Every kingdom outside our area refuses to sell them to us, or even hire them out as mercenaries. They're just too valuable to their nations."

  "So we're stuck with using the big birds," said Taylor with a frown.

  "Afraid so, sir."

  The battle hawks were a valuable asset, and one which went from newly hatched to full grown in less than five years. They could carry a rider, including a magic using one, and drop rocks, but they did not have the breath weapons like the dragons, and as such weren't a powerful ground attack asset.

  "We are training up another six hundred of the birds, sir. They, and their riders, should be ready to deploy in another month."

  Which would give them a much more powerful air force than the enemy, which had had their hatcheries overrun or taken out in the general uprising that was sweeping their kingdom. Along with the giant owls the French and their Dark Elf allies were contributing. Still, he would have liked to have more of the silver and gold dragons with their powerful flame weapons. No help for it, thought the general, who was sure that future generations would ensure there were always enough of the huge creatures to fight and win any air war. That would be one legacy the Americans would leave, if nothing else.

  "What about our airships?" he asked, turning and looking at the master engineer, just flown back from the front by dragon.

  "The frames aren't the problem, general," said Grueber. "We can construct them out of some of the strong woods available here. In the future we may be able to build them out of aluminum, once we figure out how to make it. And the helium we've found coming out of the natural vents is a much better lifting gas here than on Earth. As I guess you heard from the way it lifted the baskets used for the fortress assaults."

  Taylor nodded. He had heard all of this before. The gravity of this world was less than on Earth, despite it being larger, something to do with a different gravitational constant. Helium had many times the lifting power. While the earth physicists and mages were working on a way to energize it to make it even better, they envisioned airships floating through the sky like battleships, capable of carrying a variety of weapons and large crews. Possibly even airborne soldiers, but not at this time. Right now the best they could hope for were bombers and light paratroop transports. But Taylor could already think of a myriad of ways they could use those.

  "The problem right now is the steam engines," said the inventor. "We can get them to work for a short period, and then, for some inexplicable reason, they stop functioning. At least on the ground. As you know, they work well in the water, and we’re hoping the same will hold true for the air. We’re hoping."

  Taylor grunted. He had heard about that problem, and wished that he hadn't. They would keep working on them, but when they would solve the problem of ground based steam engines was anyone's guess.

  "How are our logistics?" asked Taylor, looking at the next man on his staff, Brigadier General James Harris, the army chief of logistics and a former intelligence officer. "Can we make it to the city on what we are carrying?"

  "If we can gather some supplies on the way," said the officer, nodding his head as he reached for the carafe of coffee. "That's supposed to be rich farmland, so we shouldn't have any trouble getting what we need."

  "Make sure the farmers and merchants get paid for what we take," cautioned Taylor, looking into the eyes of the man he didn't completely trust. He was a very good officer, and a very capable logician, but he sometimes failed to do as he was ordered unless he was watched closely. "We are not a conquering army. I don't want the people to see us in the same light as the despot we came to depose."

  "Yes, sir."

  "And what happens if the enemy takes away the supplies that we need?" asked another officer, the current intelligence officer, Colonel Thelma Hausser, formerly an analyst for a German division.

  "I don't see how that can happen," said Harris, a confused expression on his face.

  "Oh, come on, Harris," said Taylor, losing patience with the man. "What the hell do you think the Russians did to our German friends in the second world war. It's called scorched earth, and I wouldn't put it past that evil bastard of an Emperor to grab what he could remove to his capital, then burn the rest. And be damned to the survival of his people."

  "Well," said Harris, putting his coffee cup down and scratching his head. "If he does that, we'll just have to haul in more supplies. We can bring most of it in by river to the bridge and offload it to wagons there. It might cost us another month to get to the capital city, but we'll still get there."

  Taylor was really wishing that they had the steam powered cargo ships launched. The warships were in the water, but it would be another month until any of the freighter versions were ready. The freighter steamships could carry much greater cargoes due to their larger holds, not needed displacement for guns and armor. Railroads would be a dream, though he doubted they could run a rail that far in less than a year, even if they had the kind of rails they needed on hand.

  "I want you to prepare for the worst," he told the headstrong general. "Don't wai
t. Start gathering all of the wagons you can get your hands on and loading them with food for the horses and men. And start them on their way to the front."

  "They're going to need protection on the way," said the frowning officer. "Even though it’s through territory we liberated, they still have some partisans loyal to the Emperor."

  "Then we'll get you some cavalry units. I believe we have a few around here that can be detailed for escort duties."

  Taylor stood up from the table, signaling that the meeting was over. He wanted to take out the Ellala empire as soon as possible. Quick and decisive offensive action was in his blood, but if he had to go slow to keep his army intact and healthy, that was what he would do.

  * * *

  The Emperor Ellandra Mashara sat at the head of another table in another large room over a thousand kilometers away from the human general. One wall was open and leading a large balcony that was fifty meters long by twenty wide. It offered a view of the city, with its two hundred meter towers looking out over the sparkling river Allasos. The river swarmed with boats, most of them small cargo sloops that were carrying the production of the Empire into the city to prepare it for a siege.

  "They are over the bridge," said the current commanding general of the Imperial army.

  "Which means they only have one more river to cross," growled the Emperor, turning a cold stare at the officer that elicited a shiver from that man.

  "We should be able to stop that crossing," stammered the elder Ellala, who must have been contemplating the end of his long life.

  "We haven't been able to stop them crossing the last half dozen rivers," screamed the Emperor, slamming both hands on the table hard enough to make the cups and saucers jump.

  "They are getting farther and farther from their source of supply, your Majesty," said another Ellala, Count Gerrasa Mashara, Chief of the Secret Police. "They are supplementing their supplies by foraging off the land. But unlike us they don't take enough to threaten the existence of the people whose lands they invade, and they pay for their supplies, in gold."

  "And so they turn the people against us," said the commanding general.

  "Then they are no longer our people, and their welfare no longer our concern," said Mashara with a slight smile on his face.

  "And what does that mean?" asked the Emperor, wishing the man would get to the point.

  "It means that we should destroy the crops the enemy might use for their army, the forage for their horses." The count looked around the table, making eye contact with everyone present. "The people that might plant new crops that the damnable humans might use. And then, if we hit some of their supply columns, we can starve them out while they're besieging us. Force them to leave our territory, while we rebuild our forces."

  "That is some of the richest farmland in the Empire," said Baron Thelissa, the minister of the Exchequer.

  "And land of no use to us while the enemy occupies it," said the commanding general, smiling as he saw a way out of his dilemma. "I suggest we send mages out into that countryside, along with all the dragons we can spare, and torch anything the enemy might be able to use. And we need to act quickly, before they advance too far and are able to stop us."

  "Let it be so," agreed the Emperor. "And put every farmer to the sword. Especially those not of our race."

  There were some shocked faces at the table, though also many nodding heads. And Count Mashara looked like he was hardly able to contain his glee.

  Chapter Thirteen

  "Make sure those outbuildings are set to the torch," yelled Marsalla Linsiri, the young cavalry commander, sitting his horse and looking down at the burning village. He felt a tearing in his heart as he watched a mage send a fireball into a field of ripening wheat. The stalks turned into ash across a circle forty meters in diameter, and the flames spread out from there over the highly flammable field of grain.

  The Ellala had grown up in this region of the Empire, a land of numerous farming villages that fed the capital city. Simple people with simple comforts, folk who didn't really care about what went on in the halls of power, so long as they could make a living and be left alone. Now he had been ordered to take his cavalry troop out to destroy this region and kill everyone in it. He hated to do it, but orders were orders, and disobedience meant death, or possibly something much worse. He knew most of his men didn't like it any more than he did, but the same punishment hung over their heads.

  "We caught some of the halflings trying to flee into the woods," said a sergeant, riding up with a trio of heads hanging from his saddle.

  The commander shook his head. He had never been a religious man, since he didn't respect the gods of his rulers, and worship of the gods of life was forbidden for the military. He paid lip service to chaos, since those deities weren't quite as evil as the gods of death, but even they were not palatable to his morality.

  What morality? he thought, again shaking his head. He had no morality if he was doing this thing, and he could see his future burning in some forgotten hell. The Gods wouldn’t care that he had done it out of fear for his life, only that he had done it.

  In an hour it was done, and not a crop stood unburned. What they could gather was in the wagons they had brought. The livestock had been gathered and were being driven down the road. Rations for the capital city, to keep alive the defenders of the murderous bastard that ruled them all.

  "On to the next one?" asked one of his lieutenants, not looking happy with the idea. In fact, his face looked downright horrified.

  Most of the men looked just as sick, but he doubted any of them would disobey orders either. None wanted a death that would consign their souls to a very long period of torment before their rebirth. But these actions might send them there anyway, without a long period of penance and prayer. And serving the Emperor, they would never get that chance.

  "Wait here," he ordered the lower ranking officer. "I'm going to ride to the squadron commander and ask him a question before we proceed."

  The lieutenant looked relieved, though it was only a temporary reprieve.

  The captain rode off, heading for the woods as if he was taking a shortcut. As soon as he hit the woods he turned away from the path that would take him to the squadron commander. He wasn't sure how the enemy would greet him, but he knew he couldn't do this anymore.

  * * *

  Colonel Antwoine McGurk felt sick to his stomach as he looked over the village. His three squadrons had already ridden past, leaving him with his security platoon and staff. They had started coming on the ruined villages early in the morning, after seeing the glow of fires in the distance the night before. It was now early afternoon, and they had penetrated over thirty kilometers into enemy territory. And everywhere they looked it had been the same.

  Every building in the village, the pub, the mayor's house, all the dwellings, had been burned to the ground. The farmhouses in sight for kilometers in each direction were also nothing but mostly burned timbers. But the worst were the people. Some had died in the burning buildings, leaving charred bodies among the timbers, some in the process of crawling outside when the flames got to them. Others lay in the dirt streets between the ruined buildings, killed by sword, lance or arrows. A few, better dressed than most of those killed in the streets, hung from trees. The headman and his family, thought McGurk. But the worst were the children, small bodies, from infants to what would be considered school aged on earth. This had been a village of Ellala, so there weren't any of the small adult bodies of halflings.

  Some livestock was also lying dead in the streets or fields, probably the animals the enemy didn't find worthwhile to herd away. The very young and the very old. Many of the trees had also been cut down, those that produced fruits or nuts, anything that might have been of benefit to the invading force.

  Bastards, thought the officer. What they were doing made sense, in a horrid kind of way. Scorched earth, just like the Russians had done during the second great war of the twentieth century. But even the Russians
hadn't slaughtered the peasants who had planted the crops. Some had died of starvation, but they had not been killed by the retreating Soviets. Most had fled the invading Germans, and continued working for the Soviets in new lands.

  "Lieutenant," yelled out McGurk, waving over the young mage who was his communications officer, able to send messages much farther than the colonel's limited mindspeak. "Get this to command right away."

  It looked like they were not going to be getting any supplies from this region, which would slow down the campaign. While at the same time they needed to liberate these people as fast as possible.

  McGurk looked up to see a couple of troopers riding his way from the woods near the edge of the fields. They had another mounted man with them, wearing the chain and leather of the Empire’s light cavalry.

  “This Ellala wanted to surrender sir,” said the sergeant who was senior of the pair, speaking English.

  The private with him looked at the Ellala with rage in his eyes, his hand tightly gripping his sword hilt. It looked as if the man was exerting all the control he had to not strike down the elf, and from the sights the colonel had seen that morning, he couldn’t blame him.

  “Do you have a name?” asked McGurk in accented Ellala.

  “I am Commander Marsalla Linsiri of the Empire’s Fifth Cavalry. And I wish to quit my side and come over to yours.” The Ellala seemed to have trouble making eye contact, somewhat unusual for his people.

  “Were you responsible for this?” asked McGurk through clenched teeth, his own hand gripping his sword’s hilt.

  The Ellala looked down, a tear rolling down one cheek.

  “Answer me, damn you.”

  “I am already damned,” said the elf, looking up, both eyes red. “I didn’t destroy this village, but men under my command did. And I have destroyed many others.”

  Antwoine stared at the Ellala, wondering if he should just go ahead and hang this one from a tree, right next to the headman and his family. He couldn’t understand how anyone could kill his own people, even on the orders of the madman that ruled them, even to save their own lives. He calmed for a moment as he thought. He had never been put in that position, and had no clue how he would react. He hoped differently, but he would never know until he was in the same shoes as this man.