David Weber - Hell Hath No Fury

"Yes," Janaki said. He turned those daunting eyes on the regiment-captain. "It's not going to be that easy. They can put them on the ground east of us and avoid most of our covering positions, and their cavalry is a lot faster than ours. And they've got something else. Something to cover them. I can't quite See it yet. And they're loading up other dragons with infantry. They'll be coming at us, too, and I think they're going to use those eagle-lions this time, as well."

Chan Skrithik's jaw tightened. He would have been totally confident of his entrenched infantry's ability to deal with any Sharonian cavalry attack. But as Janaki had just reminded him, he wasn't dealing with Sharonians … as their ability to avoid his entrenchments demonstrated.

"Can you See how they'll come at us, Your Highness?" he asked.

"Not yet," Janaki replied, and a hint of frustration shadowed his voice even through its detachment.

"There are still too many possibilities. They're coming together … focusing. But they aren't there yet."

"Can you See where they'll land their cavalry?" Chan Skrithik asked, opening his map case.

"Here or here." Janaki's forefinger stabbed the map, and chan Skrithik looked up at Senior-Armsman Isia.

"Message for Company-Captain Mesaion. Give him these coordinates." Chan Skrithik read them off from the map grid. "Tell the Company-Captain I want chan Forcal to Watch both of them. And I want the howitzers ready to engage."

"Yes, Sir."

The Flicker had been writing quickly while the regiment-captain spoke. Now he read back his shorthand notations. Chan Skrithik nodded approval, and Isia Flicked the message canister to Mesaion's Flicker.

The artillerist's acknowledgment appeared on the parapet beside chan Skrithik less than two minutes later.

Commander of Fifty Delthyr Fahrlo was still trying to come to grips with what had happened to the initial attack as he and Deathclaw led the line of transport dragons out of the portal's western aspect.

The maneuver wouldn't have been very practical without dragons. The nature of the portals between universes meant that any traveler from Karys found himself confronting the same sort of enormous cliffs no matter which way he passed through the portal, but the westernmost cliffs were quite a bit higher than those to the east. Wind erosion had softened and grooved the tops of those sheer cliffs until the pressures between the two sides of the portals had equalized, but the palisade of stone remained steeply and starkly unscalable.

Facing east into Traisum, from the opposite side of the portal, the cliffs were much shallower, and the wind screaming down the slopes beyond the cliffs edges had carved deep ravines. The Sharonian construction engineers had taken advantage of that when they cut their road and "railroad" routes. As far as Fahrlo could see, they hadn't had very much choice about that, but the Expeditionary Force did, and Two Thousand Harshu and Thousand Toralk had decided to take advantage of that fact.

Too bad they didn't take advantage of it before, Fahrlo couldn't help thinking bitterly, even though he knew it was unfair. Nobody could have predicted what had happened to his fellow battle dragon pilots and their mounts before they'd actually seen it. He knew that. But he also knew that somehow he, a mere commander of fifty, had become the senior battle dragon pilot of the entire First Provisional Talon.

Of course, I'm a "commander of fifty" with only three dragons to command.

He grimaced behind his helmet visor at the thought, then shook his head. He had other things to be concentrating on at the moment.

"The dragons are landing at the second location, Sir," Chief-Armsman chan Forcal told Company- Captain Mesaion.

"Too bad, Mesaion grunted, then turned to his own Flicker. "Inform Regiment-Captain chan Skrithik that the enemy is landing at the second location and that we can't bring it under fire."

"Yes, Sir."

"Damn it," chan Skrithik muttered as Isia read him Mesaion's terse dispatch.

He'd been afraid of that when Janaki indicated the landing areas on the map. The one in question would have been out of range for the mortars, anyway, although the howitzers had the reach. He doubted these Arcanan bastards had any way of knowing that, but they'd lucked out and chosen a landing site in the dead ground beyond a steep, intervening ridgeline.

"Tell Company-Captain Mesaion I want chan Forcal to keep them under observation. Let me know the instant they begin to move out."

"Yes, Sir."

"Five Hundred Urlan's in position, Sir," the hummer-handler announced.

"Good." Harshu turned to Toralk. "I suppose that means it's time, Klayrman."

"Yes, Sir. It is." Toralk nodded, then looked at the hummer handler. "Send Hundred Kormas the release order, Senior Sword."

"Yes, Sir!"

The hummer-handler opened the smaller cage in which he had set aside the hummer with the release order already recorded. Now he took the small, fiercely aggressive little creature in his hands, whispered something to it, and tossed it into the air. Its wings blurred into invisibility, and it turned like a questing hound, hovering in midair. Then, sudden as a snapping arbalest string, it flashed away.

Toralk watched it disappear and fought down an urge to inhale deeply and surreptitiously. He remained far from certain that continuing the attack was the right move, but that no longer really mattered. First, because it wasn't his decision; secondly, because everyone was committed now. Commander of One Hundred Surtel Kormas would release his gryphons five minutes after he received Toralk's dispatch, and the gryphons' onslaught would be the signal for the rest of the assault.

Graholis, I hope this works, the thousand thought fervently. Please let this work!

"Regiment-Captain!"

Rof chan Skrithik turned quickly back to Janaki. Something had changed in the prince's voice. The fort's commander couldn't quite identify what that change was, but whatever it was, it sent a fresher, deeper surge of anxiety through him.

"Yes, Your Highness?"

"It's starting." Janaki turned to look at him, and the distant focus in his eyes was deeper and darker than ever. "Listen to me," he said, and there was a stark edge of command in his voice. "I don't know how much time there'll be. It won't be enough, however much of it there is. So it's important. Listen to what I tell you."

"Of course, Your Highness." Chan Skrithik was puzzled. Of course anything Prince Janaki had to tell him was "important." Did Janaki think chan Skrithik would have allowed him to stand up here, Chief- Armsman chan Braikal or not, if it wasn't important?

"I can't tell yet," Janaki sounded far more frustrated. "I can't tell which is the real attack yet."

He wheeled back around, staring out across the parapet. Then his head tilted back. He looked up into the sky above the fort, his head swinging from side to side.

"Not yet," he told the bright, cloudless heavens in a strange tone which mingled command and entreaty in almost equal measure. "Not yet!"

For a moment, nothing else happened. Then his falcon launched from his shoulder with a high, fierce cry, and he sucked in a deep breath.

"They're coming!" His arm shot out and he pointed sharply to the northwest. "There!"

Fifty Fahrlo watched the strike gryphons go streaking past the transports and his escorting battle dragons. The gryphons were far smaller, tiny, compared to the dragons, but there were over a hundred of them, and he was delighted that they were at least a thousand feet higher than his own formation. Fahrlo had a lively respect for the men who worked as gryphon-handlers. He trusted their professionalism implicitly, yet he'd seen what gryphons could do, and he wanted no part of it. If the compulsion spells failed, or if those spells misidentified the gryphons' target, enough of them could swarm even a dragon out of the heavens.