* * *
Five Hundred Urlan looked for his bugler, but the man was down with half his head blown away, and without the bugle, there was no way for him to communicate orders to Charlie Company. It should have already been here, and Urlan wanted to curse its commander as a coward. But that would have been unfair, and he knew it. Orkal Kiliron was no coward, but he was aware how valuable the Gifted engineers in his towed pods were. Although the fire from the wall directly in front of Urlan had been largely silenced, more and more rifle and light machine-gun fire was ripping out from the flanks. The smoke and dust hanging in the air was obviously affecting its accuracy, but at least two more pods had gone down, taking their infantry and engineers with them. If he'd been Kiliron, he probably would have assumed the defenders weren't being successfully suppressed and started falling back, too.
The five hundred reached out and grabbed the nearest trooper who was still mounted. The man's head whipped around.
"Sir?" His surprise was obvious, and Urlan shook him.
"Get your ass back there! Find Hundred Kiliron and tell him we need those pods up here right fucking now!"
* * *
Chan Braikal hit the bottom of the breach. His boots slipped and slithered in the ankle-deep rubble, and he found himself face-to-face with an Arcanan cavalry trooper.
The Arcanan reared back in obvious surprise, then swung his hand around. There was something in it. Chan Braikal didn't have a clue what it was, but given the things these people had already done, he didn't intend to sit there and find out the hard way. The other man was still trying to bring whatever-it-was to bear when a fourteen-inch, tempered steel bayonet slammed forward above his protective cuirass and opened his throat.
Chan Braikal drove a combat boot into the dead man's breastplate, wrenched the blade free, and whirled to a second enemy.
* * *
More Sharonians hurled themselves forward. There was no unit organization to it. The breaching spell had buried at least sixty men inside the fort. Another forty or fifty had come down with the collapsing parapet. The platoons closest to it had taken the worst casualties, and some of those who weren't physically wounded were too stunned, too shaken, to respond coherently.
But others were like Lorash chan Braikal. They waited for no orders, didn't worry about where the rest of their platoon, or even the rest of their squad, might be. They drove forward to meet the charging Arcanans with rifles, pistols, shotguns, bayonets, rocks, or even their bare hands.
* * *
It was hand-to-hand in the breach.
Urlan could hardly believe the ferocity of the defense. The normal range advantage of the Sharonians' rifles was meaningless here. His troopers' infantry-dragons and daggerstones were far more lethal than firearms in such narrow confines . . . or would have been, if there'd been room to use them. But the Sharonians were charging straight into them, too close for them to use even daggerstones without killing themselves, as well as their enemies. Infantry-dragon gunners were being forced to discard their weapons and whip out sabers to defend themselves against lunatics with knives on the ends of their rifles. And unlike his men's daggerstones, the Sharonians with pistols didn't have to worry about back blast killing them.
They were actually pushing his men out of the breach when a sudden rush of infantry surged past him. He looked around and realized Kiliron had given up on getting the pods in across the top of the wall. He'd grounded them, instead—or some of them, at least—and sent the infantry in at ground level.
"Yes!" Urlan bellowed as the fresh weight of men and weapons hammered the Sharonians back. "Yes!"
* * *
Chan Braikal staggered backward.
The cavalrymen had been falling back at last, but now men in infantry boots and equipment harnesses were charging forward. The ragged, disordered knots of Sharonians resisted stubbornly, but the Arcanan infantry were much better at this sort of game than their cavalry compatriots. They came forward with intact unit organization, and this time they were able to maintain enough separation to actually use their spell-powered weapons.
Blasts of flame and lightning swept the gap, maiming and incinerating, and chan Braikal flung himself down as an infantryman swung a daggerstone in his direction. His last-minute dodge saved him from a direct hit, but the very fringe of the bolt crashed over him. It slammed him into the rubble and broken adobe, and he slithered down it, alive but unconscious.
* * *
Five Hundred Urlan watched the infantry flowing unstoppably into the gap and groped in his saddlebag for the flare stone. He raised it and triggered the single green flare to announce his men's success.
* * *
Fifty Fahrlo saw the brilliant green flare arc up from the far side of the beleaguered fort.
He'd expected to see it sooner, but later was definitely better than never in this case. He looked over his shoulder to make certain the transport dragon who'd been told off to play messenger was already headed back towards the portal with the good news, then turned his attention back to the task at hand.
Now that Urlan was into the fort, it was more important than ever to keep as much as possible of the Sharonians' attention focused on the aerial demonstration. Aside from an occasional rifle shot, absolutely nothing had been fired in his direction this time around, and he felt no particular eagerness to change that. But if he'd been the Sharonians, he'd be looking for anyone he could possibly throw at the attacking infantry. So it was time to encourage the ones outside the fort to stay put.
* * *
Windlord Garsal watched through narrowed eyes as the intricately weaving dance of dragons flowed closer.
You really don't know what our effective range is, do you? he thought coldly. Well, the PAAF's effective range, at any rate, he amended, for his own horse artillery was shorter ranged and lighter than the heavier field guns from Fort Salby. Not that it mattered who the guns technically belonged to. At the moment, they were his, and he let the range fall to nine thousand yards, then nodded to his Flicker.
"Now," he said softly.
* * *
Only one thing saved them, Fahrlo realized later, and that was the fact that the Sharonians' supply of artillery was obviously limited.
The hammering the battle dragons had taken in their direct attack upon the fort had imbued him with a healthy respect for the sheer destructiveness of Sharona's mechanical weapons. Nonetheless, he was unprepared for the puffs of smoke blossoming in midair. For an instant, he couldn't figure out what was happening—then he realized he'd just met another infernal Sharonian device.
Whatever they were firing at him were exploding into veritable clouds of smaller but still incredibly lethal projectiles. Each of those "puffs of smoke" spawned a cone-shaped pattern of death that carved its way into his formation.
Six transports went down in the first salvo, and three more were wounded. The other pilots reacted almost instantly in obedience to the orders they'd received before taking off for the operation. They wheeled, streaking back the way they'd come, and those innocuous looking puffballs of smoke followed them.
Five more transports crashed to the earth before they could get out of range, and Commander of Fifty Fahrlo swore with cold and bitter hatred as the Air Force found itself hammered yet again.
* * *
Five Hundred Urlan had no way to know what had just happened to the airborne diversion. Nor, to be completely honest, did he very much care as his assaulting column pushed forward.
He didn't want to think about the losses the Seventh Zydors had taken getting the infantry into position, but if it gave them the fort, it would be worth it. And it certainly looked as if—
The rifle bullet struck him behind the left ear and killed him instantly.
* * *
"Hit them!"
Had he stopped to think about it, Sunlord Markan might have felt just a bit ridiculous waving a sword in the middle of a modern battlefield to urge his men onward. Or perhaps not. There were swords in plent
y on the other side of that "modern" battlefield, after all, as well as crossbows and daggers. Of course, there were also dragons, fireball-throwers, and the gods alone knew what else to go with them.
None of which mattered at the moment as he brought an entire dismounted battalion of elite Uromathian cavalry crunching in on the Arcanans' flank.
The Arcanans fought to turn and face the new threat, but the Uromathians had come out of the smoke and dust like ghosts, and the section of wall which had shielded the attackers from Markan's fire earlier had also hidden his own reinforcements' approach from them. No one had noticed him at all . . . until his troopers swept out and around the wall and opened fire. Now they sent disciplined, rapid, aimed volleys crashing into their enemies, and the battered Arcanan cavalry had had enough.
Those who were still mounted turned and galloped towards the rear, and most of those who weren't mounted took to their heels after them. The infantry force driving forward into the breached wall outnumbered the Uromathians by better than two-to-one, but it didn't feel that way when it found itself suddenly flanked by a thundering wall of Sharonian rifles.
The Arcanans recoiled, and even as they did, a counterattack came pounding back through the gap. No longer disorganized knots of men swarming instinctively towards the enemy, but an ordered, disciplined attack by two companies of Portal Authority infantry with rifles, shotguns, and grenades.
It was too much. Those who could, turned to flee. Those who couldn't, threw down their weapons and raised empty hands in token of surrender.
'Chapter Thirty-One
Jukan Darshu, Sunlord Markan, climbed carefully down the loose, shifting slope of rubble which had spilled into Fort Salby from the breach in its eastern wall. It would have been easier to come in through the gate, but the gate was on the far side of the fort, and he was damned if he'd hike all the way back around just to use the front door.
He stepped off of the untidy ramp of wreckage and looked about him with a sense of disbelief. It didn't seem possible that so much carnage had been inflicted upon so many men—and so many . . . creatures—in so short a time.
The surrendered, unwounded Arcanans were still being shoved and pushed, none too gently in most cases, into a semblance of order, then searched while hard-eyed men with bayoneted shotguns watched them like hawks. Those searches were extraordinarily thorough, and no more pleasant than they had to be. It was plain the prisoners didn't care for the harshness of their treatment, but it was equally plain that they didn't have to be Empaths to sense the hatred radiating from their captors in waves and realize it was time to be very, very meek.
Markan felt his lips twitch in a slight, bitterly amused smile at the thought. It was the only thing remotely like amusement he'd felt in what seemed an eternity, and it vanished quickly as he picked his way around the sprawled, untidy carcasses of eagle-lions.
He wasn't the only man moving out there. At least a third of Fort Salby's garrison was down, and casualty parties were busy searching through the wreckage, concentrating on finding and collecting the wounded. There'd be time enough to collect the dead later.
An occasional pistol shot cracked as the search parties discovered an eagle-lion that wasn't quite dead yet, and Markan wondered what they were going to do with all the carcasses.
Hells, he thought with a snort, why worry about them? What are we going to do with all the dragon carcasses?
He reached the steps leading up to the gun platform where he'd left Crown Prince Janaki and Regiment-Captain chan Skrithik six hours and half a lifetime ago. The climb seemed much steeper, somehow, and he shook his head in weary bemusement as he started up them, rehearsing the apology he had to make when he got to the top. He hadn't attempted to hide his skepticism when Prince Janaki started describing his Glimpse, and now that he'd seen the reality, it was time—
Sunlord Markan's thoughts chopped off with brutal suddenness and he froze in mid-stride as he reached the head of the steps. He felt as if a sledgehammer had just hit him squarely in the pit of the stomach.
Crown Prince Janaki chan Calirath lay on the gun platform where he had died. His body had been moved to a stretcher, but no one had been able to move him further, for painfully evident reasons. The two medical orderlies who'd brought the stretcher to the gun platform were backed up against the parapet, and the deeply bleeding gouges down the side of one orderly's face had obviously come from the talons and beak of the imperial peregrine falcon perched protectively on the dead prince's chest, wings half-spread and eyes blazing with battle fury. The bird's head snapped around as Markan stepped the rest of the way onto the gun platform, and its beak opened in a warning hiss of rage.
No one seemed to know what to do. Markan certainly didn't, and the stupefying shock of Janaki's death seemed to have shut his brain down entirely.
Then someone stepped past him, and his head turned to see Regiment-Captain chan Skrithik.
The Ternathian looked terrible. His left arm hung in an improvised sling which had been jury-rigged out of someone's pistol belt. His forearm was crudely splinted, and his filthy uniform tunic was torn in half a dozen places and covered with dust. An ugly, scabbed cut across the center of a livid bruise disfigured his left cheek, and dried bloodstains—most of them, obviously, from other people's blood—were spattered across both trouser legs.
But it was his face, his eyes, that truly struck Markan. The shock, deeper even than Markan's own. The loss. The pain . . . and the guilt.
Unlike Markan or the intimidated stretcher bearers, chan Skrithik didn't even flinch as Taleena hissed at him. He only walked straight across to her, slowly, holding out his good hand. That razor-sharp beak, fit to snap off fingers like a hatchet, opened as her head cocked threateningly, but then something seemed to flicker in the bird's golden-rimmed eyes. A memory, perhaps, Markan thought, recalling half-believed stories about the imperial falcons' fabled intelligence. Taleena's head swiveled toward the dead eagle-lion sprawled in ungainly death at the foot of the gun platform. Then she looked back at chan Skrithik and made a soft, almost entreating sound.
Markan was an experienced falconer, but he'd never heard anything like that cry of avian heartbreak out of another bird. Chan Skrithik seemed to flinch, but he only held out his hand patiently until, finally, the bird just brushed it with that sharp, wickedly curved beak.
"I'm sorry, My Lady." Chan Skrithik spoke then, so quietly Markan could barely hear him. "I tried. Gods know, we both tried."
Taleena looked at him for one another long moment, and then, without warning, her wings snapped once as she leapt from Janaki's chest to chan Skrithik's good shoulder. The regiment-captain's uniform lacked the nonregulation, reinforced leather patches Janaki's tunics had boasted, but the pistol belt-sling gave his shoulder some protection, and the falcon's powerful talons were careful, gentle. She stood on his shoulder and bent to press her beak into his hair, and chan Skrithik reached up to touch her folded wings with equally careful gentleness.
The litter bearers started to move away from the parapet towards the fallen prince, but the regiment-captain shook his head. They stopped again, and chan Skrithik went to his knees beside the stretcher. He knelt there, staring down at the face of a young man who would never grow old, and his own face was wrung with barely unshed tears.
Janaki's dead face was almost relaxed, Markan thought. The gray eyes were open, staring sightlessly into a void no Talent could See across. A trickle of blood had flowed from the corner of his mouth and dried, but there was no pain in that face . . . and no fear.
The Uromathian noble moved closer, and chan Skrithik laid his one working hand on Janaki's still chest and looked up at him.
"Sunlord," he said, and his voice was rusty and broken sounding.
"Regiment-Captain," Markan responded quietly.
"Thank you." Chan Skrithik had to stop, clear his throat. "Thank you," he repeated huskily. "Without your men—"
"My men would have been too late, if not for yours," Markan interrupte
d.
Chan Skrithik looked up at him for several seconds without speaking. Only his hand moved, the fingers stroking gently at the dead prince's tunic as if to somehow tidy it. Finally, the regiment-captain nodded, then looked down at his hand. He regarded it for a heartbeat or two as if it were a stranger's. Then he looked back up at Markan, and there was a strange, lost look in his eyes.
"My Crown Prince is dead."
Tears welled in those eyes at last, and his voice wavered. They were only five words, yet Markhan heard a universe of pain deep within them and felt his own eyes burn. Then the sunlord blinked once, hard, and looked away. Looked beyond the gun platform at the smoke, the bodies, the downed dragons and gryphons. It was a scene of carnage such as no Sharonian had ever imagined, and yet in his mind's eye, Markan imagined another scene. One in which there were no dead dragons, no dead gryphons, no Arcanan prisoners marching sullenly into confinement . . . only a fort in flames and a garrison taken unawares and slaughtered.
He stared into that vision of what had never been. The vision, he realized, that Janaki chan Calirath had Seen in the Glimpses he'd tried to describe. The thought of his own cynical skepticism while Janaki had offered the warning which had saved them all filled him with shame, and he looked back down at chan Skrithik.
The tears had broken loose at last, cutting startlingly white tracks through the dust and grime and blood on the regiment-captain's face, and Markan went to his own knees beside Janaki's body across from him, with chan Skrithik's last words still ringing in his in ears.
"No, my friend," the Uromathian said quietly, and shook his head as he reached out to touch chan Skrithik's upper arm. "No. Our Crown Prince is dead."
* * *
"Still nothing?" Olvyr Banchu asked, as he climbed up the last few rungs of the ladder and stepped up onto the freight car roof beside Platoon-Captain Selan Vuras.
"Nothing." Vuras shook his head, gazing off to the north as if he thought he should somehow be able to see across the eight hundred miles between him and the Traisum portal.