David Weber - The Road to Hell

On the other hand, he was only a lowly commander of twenty-five. It was unlikely Thousand Toralk would appreciate his opinion if he wandered by headquarters to share it with him. Besides, whether or not the transports needed an “escort” this far from the front lines, Sky Sabre wasn’t going to complain about the opportunity to eat fresh bison, and the gods knew a well fed battle dragon was far less proddy than one with an empty belly. So, on balance, he supposed it was possible Thousand Toralk knew what he was doing, after all.

Which didn’t make the three-day flight from Traisum all the way back to Hell’s Gate any less boring. For that matter, why couldn’t he and Sky Sabre stop here in Thermyn, spend three or four days hunting, and then pick up a fresh transport flight on its way back to the front? It wasn’t as if-

The abrupt flash of a double crimson flare above Fifty Jerstan’s transport jerked his attention out of its familiar rut, and he frowned as a second pair of flares burst. He glanced to his left, where Helok Bersil, his regular wingman, flew on the far side of the lumbering transports, and saw Bersil’s head come up into the slipstream, craning around towards the flares. He seemed just as surprised as Hostyra.

What the hells did Jerstan think he was up to? He was the senior officer of the flight, as well as Hostyra’s superior in rank, but he was a transport pilot. A trash-hauler. Maybe he had delusions of grandeur, and maybe he thought this was a good time for some weird practice drill, but even he ought to know the double -crimson was never used in training exercises. It was a live-action signal, reserved for actual combat, not a toy for a transport pilot to flash around just because he was bored!

Then a third double-crimson flashed.

Hostyra muttered a curse and hit his helmet crystal rather harder than was necessary. He turned his head, staring at Jerstan, and Sky Sabre’s eyes focused on the fifty. Jerstan-and Grayscale-were staring back at him, and as soon as the fifty realized he had Hostyra’s attention, he pointed urgently to the southwest.

All right-all right, idiot! Hostyra thought grumpily. You’ve got my attention, so what’s this all abou -

His eyes widened. Dozens- scores -of bizarre vehicles ground across the prairie towards him. He’d never imagined anything like them! Some were enormous, towing huge trailers behind them; others were no bigger than a large freight wagon. But all of them came surging across the plains without any sign of the draft animals upon which the Sharonians relied. They were moving on their own, as surely and steadily as any slider, and if their speed was lower than a slider’s, it was obvious each of them was picking its own course across the rolling prairie. They were being individually steered, advancing with no indication of whatever bizarre force might be propelling them, and he swallowed as he saw the artillery pieces-the “field guns”-some of those vehicles towed.

They couldn’t possibly be here, yet there they were, and they were headed directly towards the Failcham portal, two hundred miles to the northeast.

Gerun Hostyra stared at the impossible sight for long, endless seconds, trying to digest it. He was only a commander of twenty-five, yet the danger of that enormous column-he and Sky Sabre could see even more of the weird vehicles rolling along behind the ones closest to hand-was abundantly clear. The picket on what had been the Sharonians’ Fort Brithik consisted of no more than a couple of platoons of infantry, and there had to be thousands of men in that oncoming horde. How in Shartahk’s name they could be here, coming from the AEF’s rear , was more than he could even begin to imagine, but he knew exactly what was going to happen when they reached the portal.

But they’re not they’re yet , he thought suddenly. And they’re not in one of their godsdamned forts with all their frigging artillery dug in to cover its approaches, either!

He dropped down, pressing even closer to Sky Sabre’s spine, and the big red banked hard left as his fingers stroked in the control grooves.

* * *

“ No, you idiot! ” Yoril Jerstan shouted, even though there was no way in the world Hostyra could have heard him. He groped for his flare projector, triggering off the yellow-yellow-green sequence that ordered Hostyra to break off, but the young twenty-five paid no attention. His dragon’s dive angle only steepened, increasing his airspeed, and Jerstan swore again.

He fired the break off sequence a second time, and banked Grayscale hard to the right, away from the oncoming Sharonians. The other transports followed him promptly, but Hostyra’s wingman hesitated. He held on in Sky Sabre’s wake for a handful of seconds before he slowly, grudgingly brought his own dragon around to follow the transports back towards Fort Brithik.

* * *

“Action left! Action left! ” Platoon-Captain Seljar chan Werkan shouted, and the drivers of the Steel Mules on which Copper Section’s two field guns had been mounted halted almost instantly.

Quickly as they responded, the gun crews were even quicker, stripping off the muzzle covers and breaking open the ammunition locker. By the time the Mules stopped moving, the slim muzzles of the 3.4” “Ternathian 37s” on their specially modified carriages were already swinging towards the black dots so far above them and rising sharply.

They’d practiced the evolution more times than chan Werkan could count during the long, weary march from Fort Salby and they moved with the smooth efficiency of all those endless drills. Unfortunately, this was the first time they’d had actual targets , and no one-least of all Seljar chan Werkan-knew how well all that training might be about to pay off.

The training and elevating wheels blurred, spinning under the gunners’ hands, while the barrels angled up to a preposterous seventy-five degrees.

“Load!” he shouted, and breechblocks clicked with crisp, metallic smoothness.

Fifty yards to chan Werkan’s right, Silver Section’s gun muzzles tracked the same targets.

* * *

Better stay away from those, Gerun , Hostyra thought as Sky Sabre’s eyes picked out the multi-barreled guns mounted atop some of the bigger vehicles. He hadn’t been at Fort Salby himself-he’d been with Thousand Carthos’ command-but he’d had the weapons-“pedestal guns,” he thought the Sharonians called them-described to him in detail.

Now his steady fingers guided Sky Sabre into a deeper left bank, bearing away from the “pedestal guns” towards the smaller, wagon-like vehicles on the Sharonian column’s flank. Some of them mounted some sort of “gun,” too, but whatever they were, each of them had only a single barrel. They couldn’t be as dangerous as the rapidly firing multiple-barrel weapons.

* * *

Most of the Arcanan dragons had broken off, and chan Werkan’s jaw tightened as they headed back towards the Failcham portal through which they must have come. So much for surprise, but it was too late to do the bastards any good. There were no horses in the lead echelons of 3rd Brigade’s column, it was only late morning, and it was clear, open going all the way to Fort Brithik. The Bisons and Mules could cover the remaining two hundred miles in less than fifteen hours, and unless there was already a godsdamned Arcanan Army on the portal, they were damned well screwed.

And in the meantime-

* * *

Three of the 4.3" shells detonated well below Sky Sabre, spraying their potentially lethal clouds of shrapnel harmlessly across the heavens.

The fourth detonated barely twenty yards from its target.