John Ringo - Against the Tide

“Not much to be happy about, Lieutenant,” the general said, nervously. “Why are they here ? Why are they using standard siege techniques instead of swarming us?”

“That… is a good question, sir,” Pedersen said, frowning. “Waiting for something?”

“The rest of the fleet to arrive?” the general asked. “First Legion?”

“Possibly,” Bue said, musingly. “And, possibly, they don’t have all the troops in the world , sir. They may have to conserve them. We’re not the only group they are fighting.”

“I’m more worried about some sort of a trap,” the general said. “They haven’t done a number of things I would expect. No attempts at porting into the town. Port in here, set up a port on this side and we have trouble. No dragons. Just standard siege works. I don’t trust it.”

“Doctor Ghorbani,” Conner said, brightly, stepping in the small tent she had been assigned. “Come with me, won’t you?”

“You’ve got that ‘I know something bad that you don’t and I want to gloat’ look on your face, Conner,” Rachel said, frowning but getting up from her camp-bed.

“You know me so well,” Conner said, dryly.

“Hey, Roc,” Rachel said, looking up at the elf-thing. “ Adelas tomall .”

“Do not speak to Roc,” Conner said, sharply, waving at her and muttering a word.

A wave of pain so strong it, for a moment, made her knees sag, washed over Rachel. Then it was gone.

“Okay, okay,” she gasped. “I get the point. No talking to the elf-thing. Damn. He was the only person in this camp that had a brain.”

“Come with me,” Conner said, striding down the line of tents. “So, here we are, peacefully carrying out siege operations against a town we don’t particularly need.”

“So I noticed,” Rachel said. “And soaking up casualties doing it.”

“Doesn’t it seem silly?” Conner said, getting back some of his sunny disposition.

“Yes,” Rachel replied. “It does.”

“Well, I hope it’s not too obvious,” Conner said as they came to a tent. A Changed was exiting, a new one from the looks of it, and hissed at them for a moment until it noticed Conner’s robes. Then it backed away, fawningly.

“So you’re making more Changed?” Rachel asked, her stomach dropping.

“I hope that anyone observing thinks that,” Conner replied, sweeping back the door of the tent. “But, no, we’re not. Behold.”

Within was a large frame made of some sort of silvery metal and a portal. He gestured her into the tent and then waved for her to follow through the portal.

When she reached the far side her stomach dropped. The portal was set up in the door of a castle in a large valley. And the floor of the valley was covered in tents. Changed were everywhere, most of them in semiorderly groups.

“There are eleven of these portals,” Conner said, smiling. “Each of them with a force of about seven to ten thousand Changed on the far side. They have been drilling on entering the portals and the gates of the camp are… large for a reason. Your father thinks we don’t know that he is on the way with archers. With Blood Lords. With another full legion. But we do, oh we do,” Conner said, quietly smiling. “And a little bird has whispered in the right ear that we have you as well. In the camp. Alive. Unharmed. Mostly.”

“My father will… not come for me,” Rachel said, bleakly.

“Oh, I think he will,” Conner replied. “Besides, he has to defeat us, doesn’t he? Your father always leads from the center of his main force. First Legion has assembled to the northeast of us and will come down from there, deploying near the head of the peninsula. The bowmen are at least a day further away but they will land near Wilamon and march overland, fast, arriving just in the nick of time and deploying to the north. Dragons will attack from sunward. Did I mention the anti-dragon ballistas? Edmund will feint that he only has one cohort to draw us out. We’ll ‘take the bait.’ Then he’ll attack us with the main force of the legion while the bowmen press us from the flank. We’ll retreat, run, back to the fort. They will pursue. And when they do…”

“You bastard,” Rachel said, imagining it in her mind’s eye. Her father often said that one of the main mistakes that was made again and again in military history was failure to adequately follow up a broken enemy. He drove routs as hard as he possibly could.

“And when he comes, when they all come, we will have them trapped. And we’ll destroy the closest two legions and then, Miss Ghorbani, the war will be all but over.”

In the woods a shadow moved, ever so slightly, then settled again. A white head lifted to sniff the air, yowled faintly, then settled back to its vigil.

“Archers will debark here, at Wilamon,” Edmund’s chief of staff for land forces said. “They will march overland at a rapid pace and assemble on the reverse slope of this hill…”

Edmund nodded as the briefing went on. The archers were in for a hard night’s travel but, weather permitting, they’d arrive in enough time for a bite to eat before the main battle. If the enemy moved the way he anticipated, they would slay them. The group of Blood Lords Gunny had brought with him would do for close support if the orcs broke towards the archers. Between the Blood Lords and their stakes, the archers would be fine.

And he still hadn’t told anyone about Fell Deeds.

The battle should go about as well as any battle he’d ever planned. Things would go wrong, but nothing they couldn’t handle.

So, why was his stomach on fire?

“That is the outline of the ground phase. Questions?” the chief of staff asked.

“I have one,” Herzer said. He was in the briefing representing Joanna and the remaining dragon wings. “I know I’m the air guy for this one, but I’ve got an issue with the ground plan,” he said, looking at Edmund then the intelligence officer. “You say there’s only ten thousand in the camp. That’s what they landed with. Why haven’t they reinforced with portals?”

“We don’t know,” the intel officer admitted. “There have been teleports, but we can’t tell the difference between them and portals. The number of ports has been… high. But they have not reinforced by portal and, yes, that has us worried.”

“Duke Edmund?” Herzer said, widening his eyes.

“What would you have us do, Major Herrick?” Edmund asked, softly.

“Not what they expect,” Herzer replied. “These movements are the minimum that I would expect, given our logistics and movement constraints. But, going in cold like this, the word ‘corncob’ comes to mind. I also note that there is no indication of anti-dragon defenses. That seems… well nigh to impossible.”

“These are questions that we’re not going to take up at this time,” Edmund said, softly again. “Continue with the briefing. Major Herrick, I’ll see you afterwards.”

“You’ve got a concussion,” Rachel said, holding a candle up to reflect off the ocular mirror over her eye. The left pupil dilated normally as did the right. “You need three days, probably no more, of rest in a quiet tent. Is that going to be a problem?”

“No,” the officer growled, pulling on his shirt. “Not the way this damned siege is going.”

“Fine, we’re done,” Rachel said, backing up and rotating the mirror up.

“You should come by,” the New Destiny officer said, reaching out to touch her red hair. “You’d enjoy yourself.”

“I’d rather fuck a Changed,” Rachel replied, coldly. “Get out.”