The Road to Hell (Hell's Gate Book 3)

by David Weber

  Chan Bykahlar nodded. Aside from its tendency to leak, kerosene was actually far easier—not to mention one hells of a lot cleaner—to transport, and while he strongly suspected that several hundred Bisons and Steel Mules churning across the plain would produce enough dust to make their presence obvious, he was entirely in favor of not adding dense clouds of coal smoke to the mix.

  Not that it’s likely to be much of a factor where we’re concerned, he reflected. It’s the poor bloody dragoons who have to worry about being spotted by the damned dragons. And if we are spotted, they’re the ones who’re going to draw the first dragon attacks, too, I imagine.

  “All right,” he said, squelching across the mud to the step built into the Mule’s rear bumper, “I suppose I should survey my new domain while it’s still standing still.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Vandiyahr 8, 5054 AE

  [March 27, 1929 CE]

  Division-Captain chan Geraith stood atop the canyon wall and peered down at the bustling anthill so far below through his field glasses.

  At the moment, he was seven hundred and eighty miles northwest of Chindar, but that was in the sort of straight line possible to one of the Arcanan dragons. To get there, the 3rd Dragoons, had been forced to cover the better part of thirteen hundred miles in the eight days since crossing into Thermyn, and every bone in his body knew it. The five hundred and ninety miles from Chindar to High Rock City hadn’t been all that terrible…except for the extra hundred and ten miles (and endless climb up to High Rock) the terrain had imposed. Covering the remaining six hundred miles—which would have been only three hundred, for the godsdamned Acanans, of course—from there to Coyote Canyon had been far worse, however. But at least the Bisons and Steel Mules which had preceded the main column had pounded the worst of the ground flat, and the weather hadn’t been all that bad. In fact, the temperature hadn’t fallen below freezing for the last week and there’d been plenty of sun, but lack of water and the dense, choking pall of dust had more than made up for that. Civilians who’d never tried to move a few thousand men and horses across an arid waste had no concept of just how much water they’d need. The engineers had dammed the Sand Rock River where it flowed through High Rock City to create a reservoir, but even this early in the year the Sand Rock was scarcely the Dalazan River. It helped a lot, but he knew the quartermasters spent a lot of time worrying over breakdowns among the water tankers.

  Fortunately, that problem was in a fair way to being alleviated here at Coyote Canyon itself, given the amount of water brawling its way along the Stone Carve. The engineers had set up a water collection and purification point five miles upstream from the bridging site, and through his glasses he could see several hundred men splashing around in the river itself. He suspected the water was a bit too cold for his own tastes, but he was glad to see them washing away the dust. No doubt at least some of them were also trying to soak up as much moisture as they could through the pores of their skin, he thought with a grin.

  He moved his attention to the bridge itself. He couldn’t hear much from his present position except for the constant, sighing voice of the wind, but the bridge’s prefabricated steel spans swarmed with workmen. It was almost completed, and the bulldozer blade-fitted Bisons were improving the approach to it. More of them, as well as hundreds of men with shovels and picks, were working to improve the steep, rugged ramp up to the notch blasted out of the canyon’s farther wall.

  Tomorrow, he thought. Yahnday at the latest. And that’s when the race really starts.

  He lowered the glasses and turned to look back to the east. The sprawl of vehicles, orderly rows of tents, and industriously employed soldiers stretched as far as the eye could see, and the inevitable cluster of shirtless, sunburned mechanics swarmed over a half-dozen Bisons, shielded from the desert sun by overhead canvas flies. From the occasional curse riding the stiff breeze to his ears, at least one of the recalcitrant vehicles was likely to find itself cannibalized to get the others running again. He hated the thought of losing yet another of them, but his instructions to Therahk chan Kymo’s quartermasters had been uncompromising.

  The next six or seven days were critical. The indefatigable Company-Captain chan Mahsdyr and his Gold Company were once again far out ahead of 3rd Dragoons’ main body. In fact, he and his men were ensconced in the rugged country along the White Snake River east of Fort Ghartoun, keeping a cautious and surreptitious eye on its Arcanan garrison. As long as they stayed at least a few miles back, the rough terrain—made considerably rougher by the violence of the portal wind which must have come screaming through the Failcham portal, probably for centuries, when it originally formed—offered an abundance of concealment for troops as experienced at keeping out of sight as Ternathian dragoons. Chan Geraith knew that. And despite knowing that, his nerves tightened every time he thought of all of the ways in which they might betray their presence to any semi-alert Arcanan.

  Fortunately, there seemed to be few of those in Fort Ghartoun. Nor had chan Mahsdyr’s Plotters or Distance Viewers seen any dragons attached to the fort. For that matter, they hadn’t seen any of the eagle-lions the Arcanans appeared to use as unmanned reconnaissance vehicles, either. That undoubtedly explained how the thousands of Sharonians along the Stone Carve, barely four hundred miles from them, had so far eluded their attention. Unfortunately, Fort Brithik, at the New Uromath portal, lay almost directly east of Fort Ghartoun while he and his dragoons were approaching from the southeast.

  The good news was that dragon traffic seemed to be far lighter than he’d feared it would be. Every pound of supplies for the Arcanans in Karys had to transit the Thermyn-Failcham portal, and he’d expected dozens, if not hundreds, of dragons to be moving up and down the Karys Chain. Yet Chan Mahsdyr and his Plotters had seen only a handful of them pass through Fort Ghartoun, which argued that Harshu’s logistic situation was worse than chan Geraith had ever allowed himself to hope.

  Unless, of course, he reminded himself conscientiously, the godsdamned Arcanans turn out to have their own magical equivalent of the Bison or the Mule and we just haven’t seen the damned thing yet!

  Under the circumstances, that seemed less than likely, however. Surely if the Arcanans did have an alternate means of transporting supplies, chan Mahsdyr would have seen some sign of it, given the voracious appetite of a force the size of Harshu’s. The logistics needs of an Arcanan Army couldn’t be that different from a Sharonian one!

  And if they don’t have something like that and chan Mahsdyr’s seen—what? Only four?—freight dragons while he’s had the fort under observation, maybe Harshu’s supply chain’s really as fucked over as it looks. And wouldn’t that be sweet?

  Unfortunately, while the flight path across Thermyn still lay comfortably over two hundred miles north of his current position, it also formed the long sides of an isosceles triangle with his march from this point to Fort Ghartoun. That meant the distance between the two would drop sharply once the 3rd Dragoons resumed their advance…and vastly increase the chance of one of those dragons straying far enough south to see it coming. He’d cheerfully have sacrificed his left hand for the sort of aerial reconnaissance capability the Arcanans enjoyed, but in its absence, the best he could do was to take the threat into consideration and try to plan around it.

  And that was why the next several days were going to be critical.

  According to chan Mahsdyr’s reports, the entire garrison of Fort Ghartoun couldn’t amount to much more than half a battalion. There was perhaps a company of their unicorn-mounted light cavalry and what looked from the Voice reports like no more than a couple of infantry companies. It was obvious, reading between the lines of the company-captain’s reports, that chan Mahsdyr was confident Gold Company could have successfully seized the fort out of its own resources, and given how expeditiously they’d secured the entry portal from Nairsom, chan Geraith was confident he was right. He had no intention of finding out, however. When the time came, Battalion-Captain chan Ya
hndar’s entire battalion would storm the fort. Hopefully, 2nd Battalion’s attack would come as as much of a surprise to Fort Ghartoun as chan Mahsdyr’s assault had been for the Arcanan encampment on the Tyrahl River. Unfortunately, the Fort Ghartoun hummer cots were inside the fort’s sturdy walls. Not even a Talented sniper like Fozak chan Guylair could hit a target on the other side of a solid, clay-reinforced timber palisade, and the engineers who’d chosen Fort Ghartoun’s site had picked one which offered no handy vantage points simultaneously high enough and close enough to target the fort’s interior over its walls.

  Chan Yahndar had devised a plan to deal with that, and chan Geraith had approved it because it offered an excellent chance of success. Without the ability to specifically and directly target the hummer cots, however, no one could guarantee that the fort’s garrison—chan Geraith hesitated to use the noun “defenders” to describe a body of troops which appeared to spend so much time sitting on its collective arse—couldn’t get off a message. That was unfortunate, for several reasons.

  It would be…awkward if the garrison got off a message to Harshu, but Harshu was in Karys, over twenty-five hundred miles from Ghartoun. Even with dragons, it would take him time—and lots of it—to do anything about the force which had suddenly severed his supply chain.

  Unfortunately, it was also well over a thousand miles from Ghartoun to Fort Brithik on the New Uromath portal as a bird—or a dragon—might fly it, and more like fifteen hundred for the Bisons and Mules. Crossing that distance would have required the better part of three weeks of hard slogging even with the tracked vehicles and even assuming he’d been able to haul forward enough fuel for the trip…which he couldn’t. But Brithik’s recapture was essential to his plans. As the barest possible minimum, he needed to shut down that portal to protect the Thermyn/Failcham portal and his own supply line from Chindar to Fort Ghartoun. If the Arcanans managed to break loose a couple hundred of their dragons here in Thermyn, it would be child’s play for them to find a place to sever that supply line, at which point the 3rd Dragoons would find themselves even more disastrously cut off than Harshu in Karys.

  But settling for shutting down the Thermyn/New Uromath portal was definitely his second choice. That portal was fourteen miles across. Dominating that much space with fire would be a…problematical task even for the Third Dragoons, especially assuming the Arcanans had the rudimentary sanity to push their dragons through it in the dark. He had no doubt he could hugely constrict the Arcanans’ use of the portal, given his Distance Viewers, organic artillery, and machine guns, yet that wasn’t remotely the same thing as shutting it down.

  But if he could hit Brithik before the Arcanans knew he was coming, the remaining distance to Hell’s Gate was only another two hundred and fifty miles. Through heavy tree cover and constricted terrain, yes, but only two hundred and fifty miles. By his worst-case estimate, based on painstaking analysis of the detailed terrain maps Balkar chan Tesh had sent home before his death, the Bisons and Mules could cover that distance in no more than six days. And if they did cover those miles and got to the swamp portal chan Tesh had seized immediately after Fallen Timbers before the Arcanans could muster a force to stop them.…

  That would be an entirely different seine of fish. Given the miserable, marshy terrain on the far side of that portal and its smaller size, he was fully confident of his ability to hold it indefinitely. Certainly until he could be relieved by the infantry following in his division’s wake. The truth was that the swamp portal was the real strategic prize of his entire advance, and the dearth of traffic moving up-chain towards Karys meant his chances of taking it might well be greater than he’d originally assumed.

  The problem, of course, was that the same force couldn’t hit two objectives, twelve hundred air-miles apart, simultaneously.

  That was why Brigade-Captain Losahl chan Sharys’ 3rd Brigade hadn’t followed 1st and 2nd Brigade west to Coyote Canyon. No, 3rd Brigade had headed north-northeast from Chindar, directly toward Fort Brithik. Despite the fact that chan Sharys’ brigade had been the last to move forward, it also had a far shorter distance to travel—Fort Brithik lay only eight hundred miles from Chindar—through much easier going.

  At the moment, chan Sharys was less than two hundred miles from his objective. Given the terrain he faced, he should be able to cover that distance in little more than fourteen hours—call it thirty-six, given the hours of daylight he’d have to work with—and he’d be coming in at almost a right angle to the east-west flight path between New Uromath and Failcham, which meant a much lower threat of someone simply happening across him. And once he had Fort Brithink, assuming he got Brithik.…

  Of course, chan Geraith had no idea how big an Arcanan reaction force might be ready to hand at Hell’s Gate. Logic said that if they had the troop strength to maintain a sizable force this far to the rear they would have powerfully reinforced Harshu. Everything they’d seen so far seemed to support his original analysis, that Harshu represented everything the Arcanans had had available. But it was also possible—unlikely, but clearly possible—that they had far greater troop strength available in Hell’s Gate and simply lacked the transport to move it to Karys. In either case, chan Sharys needed to hit Hell’s Gate with as little warning as possible.

  At least less traffic means fewer godsdamned eyes to see him—or us—on the approach march, the division-captain told himself.

  And at least he could count on the Arcanans’ lack of Voices. Fast as their hummers were, they were far slower than a Voice message, so it would take any Arcanan reaction force—or Harshu—a lot longer than it would have taken a Sharonian commander to respond to any message from Fort Ghartoun. Unfortunately, once they did respond they had those never-to-be-sufficiently-damned dragons, so it would be a race between his powerful, concentrated ground force and a dragonborne Arcanan force which would probably be far more scattered initially than his own.

  It would be an interesting challenge in a training exercise, he reflected, but it’s a pain in the arse when I have to do it for real. How close can I get to Fort Ghartoun before one of those transiting dragon riders glances down and happens to notice several hundred vehicles churning towards it? And how close to Brithik can chan Sharys get before they spot him? The closer we get to the portal, the more likely it is that somebody flying across Thermyn’s going to spot us and our damned dust clouds. And chan Sharys’ terrain south of Fort Birthik’s a hell of a lot more open than our approach terrain is.

  He’d decided that fifty miles was absolutely as close as he could hope to approach without being detected. He’d already spotted Plotters and Distance Viewers along his route to Fort Ghartoun, tied together by Flickers and Voices to warn him of any dragon which might chance close enough to detect them, and chan Sharys had Distance Viewers out seventy-five miles in advance of his own column. But once either force got within fifty miles of its objective…

  At least according to chan Malthyn the idiots garrisoning Ghartoun aren’t doing a dawn stand-to. And if they aren’t, it’s likely the Fort Brithik garrison’s being just as stupid, he told himself, then grimaced.

  It probably really wasn’t entirely fair to think of the Arcanan garrison troopers as “idiots” this far in their own army’s rear. As far as they knew, the nearest possible threat was thousands upon thousands of miles away. Still, he liked to think Ternathian COs would have taken more precautions than the Arcanans appeared to be taking.

  And whether they’re really idiots or not, the fact that they’re sleeping in instead of manning the firing steps is going to cost them when the time comes, he reflected more grimly.

  His smile would not have looked out of place on a hungry lion, and he raised his glasses once more, gazing down at the bridge and willing the engineers to work even faster.

  Solyrkain 14, 206 YU

  Vandiyahr 18, 5054 AE

  [April 6, 1929 CE]

  Commander of One Hundred Verchyk Gorsatan contemplated the day’s paperwork with sour dis
gust. It wasn’t that he objected to paperwork per se; as an officer who’d come up through logistics, he was really more of an administrator than a warrior, anyway, and he knew it. In fact, he was very good at paperwork, and as a general rule, he took a quiet pride in the fact that it was men like him whose ability to manage supply chains, troop movements, and transportation resources—and generally massage the system—who made possible advances like the one Two Thousand Harshu had driven so brilliantly forward until that unfortunate business at Fort Salby.

  Which, although he had no intention of pointing it out, had clearly been the fault of the warriors, not the despised bureaucrats who kept them fed.

  No, the reason Gorsatan objected to the reports floating in his crystal’s depths this morning was that warrior or not, he recognized the shit storm certain to descend upon him at some point in the thankfully indeterminate future. What made it even more revolting was the fact that none of it would be his fault, despite the fact that he was the one who’d be holding the can when that storm made its inevitable landfall.

  The only good news, he reflected, was that even more of it would descend upon Hadrign Thalmayr, who deeply deserved every single thing that was going to happen to him. That had become abundantly clear to Gorsatan since his arrival as Thalmayr’s replacement at Fort Ghartoun. Fifty Varkan and Fifty Yankaro, the senior officers of the fort’s rather tattered garrison, had done their best to gloss over Thalmayr’s excesses. Their very silence on the subject of prisoner misconduct, torture, and violations of the Kerellian Accords spoke volumes, however. Gorsatan was well aware he wasn’t regarded as one of the Union of Arcana Army’s sharpest blades, and he suspected he’d drawn Fort Ghartoun at least in part on the theory that he wouldn’t poke into matters which predated his own assumption of command. For that matter, he didn’t want to stick his nose into things which were none of his affair, and he especially didn’t want to turn over any rocks that might reveal scorpions ready to sting his hand…or Two Thousand Harshu.