“I do not know what to think,” sighed General Tauman. “None of this makes sense, but I know where this portal comes out, and I cannot imagine a flood of such significance to cause what is happening here. Portal eighteen comes out in a barn near Barouk that is well above sea level. If we can open that door, one of you can go through and travel to Pontek to find out what is wrong with this portal.”
Chapter 36
Day Eleven
General Bledsoe and General Kozinski bent over the map in the large command tent of Team Miram. The Spinoan general sighed and shook his head.
“There is little alternative to our route,” General Kozinski said, his voice showing his weariness. “We have been looking at these maps since we made camp and dawn is only hours away. Nothing is going to change the fact that we have to proceed along the Coastal Highway. There is no other option.”
“There are always options,” retorted General Bledsoe. “Retreat to Miram is one of them, although I am not proposing such a thing. We could also fortify this position and dare the Alceans to attack us, or we could leave the road and proceed overland to meet up with Team Mya.”
“I am not sure that we could meet up with Fortella before he attacks Tagaret,” frowned General Kozinski. “Our armies would be slowed going overland, and Team Mya’s approach is perpendicular to our own. We would be fortunate to meet up with them on the morning of the thirteenth day, which would buy us nothing in the end. Your thought about fortifying our current position intrigues me, though. How can we do that and still arrive in Tagaret on time?”
“I cannot believe that we are facing the full strength of the Alcean army,” explained the Baroukan general, “but this works just as well if we are. If we halt and fortify, that leaves our enemy two choices. They can either show themselves and attack us, or leave the area to intercept Fortella or Pryblick. If they decide to attack us, we will not only have numerical superiority, but we will also have our fortifications. We could conceivably destroy the Alcean army right here.”
“And if they decide not to attack?” asked General Kozinski.
“They will retreat to intercept one of the other teams. That would leave us the option of breaking camp and starting a forced march towards Tagaret to make up for lost time.”
“We would have to know what the enemy is doing for that to work,” countered General Kozinski. “With the loss of our black-cloaks, we no longer have the ability to spy on the enemy. If we guess wrong, we either end up missing the war or engaging the enemy in the middle of a forced march. How do you propose to spy on them without the mages?”
General Bledsoe sighed and nodded. “That is the problem. They have obviously been fairly successful spying on us. That mage attack yesterday was timed perfectly. It was the only time of the entire day when they could have possibly gotten close to the black-cloaks. Whoever is leading our opposition, he is clever. I will give him credit for that.”
“How bad were our losses?” asked General Kozinski. “Have you been informed yet?”
General Bledsoe nodded. “Besides the black-cloaks, we lost around fifty men, but we also have three-hundred badly wounded, and no mages to heal them. Unless we fortify and stay put, we will have to leave them behind.”
General Kozinski grimaced. “And they did that with only four mages?”
“That is what has been reported. There was also a dragon, but it caused no damage. It did cause a great deal of panic, and that troubles me. Did the Alcean mages attack when the dragon caused a convenient distraction, or was the dragon causing a distraction so that the Alcean mages could attack?”
General Kozinski gasped. “Could the Alceans actually control a dragon? Is that what you are saying?”
“It makes no sense, I admit, but I am not a big believer in coincidences, and that was a rather large coincidence. There is a lot to be said for knowing your enemy, and we do not know ours. That is a flaw that I intend to take up with Grand General Kyrga when we return to Despair. His demand for secrecy has hurt us a great deal already, and this war is far from over. The Federation must never make such a mistake again.”
“There will be time for dealing with that later,” General Kozinski said dismissively, “and I would like to get some sleep before morning. What is wrong with continuing along the road to Tagaret the way we have been?”
“I do not like doing what the enemy expects,” answered General Bledsoe, “but you are correct in assuming that that option remains on the table. If we do continue onward, I would expect an ambush today or tomorrow.”
“How many men can they have out there?” frowned the Spinoan general. “They are only supposed to have ten-thousand men in all of Targa.”
“The black-cloaks reported seeing at least one-thousand men yesterday,” answered the Baroukan general, “but they reported that the enemy was trying to remain hidden.” General Bledsoe sighed wearily. “The truth is, we don’t have any idea what we are up against. Let’s get some sleep. I will make the decision in the morning.”
* * * *
Dawn was still two hours away, but the Lanoirian army camp was starting to stir as soldiers rose and prepared for another day of forced march.
“These men will be worthless when we finally face General Kolling’s armies,” complained General Za-hong. “We must find a way to transport them.”
“The boats will not be back from transporting the prisoners in time to ferry the men,” replied Bin-lu. “There is nothing we can do.”
“There is something we can do,” offered Rut-ki. We can slow down Kolling’s armies more than we are. That will give our own men some time to refresh before battle.”
“How do you plan to do that?” frowned Bin-lu. “Elandros is already doing all that he can. He only has one-hundred elves.”
“We have the five-thousand men from Chi already on their way towards General Kolling,” answered Rut-ki. “I can use them to stall the Federation march towards Ongchi.”
“That might work,” Bin-lu replied optimistically.
“And it might not,” warned General Za-hong as he glanced around the tent to make sure that no one was listening. “I would not be caught saying this in front of the men, but our Lanoirian soldiers are not well-trained warriors. While we might now equal the size of the Federation armies that we are up against, I would not expect our men to hold their own against a well-seasoned enemy such as the Federation. We need another one of your traps, Bin-lu.”
“I have no more tricks,” frowned Bin-lu. “Perhaps we had best head to Ongchi and prepare to defend the city walls.”
“I thought we had decided to avoid a long siege of Ongchi?” retorted Rut-ki. “If we allow General Kolling to lock our army inside the city walls, he will have control over the rest of the country. We will not be able to stop him from raiding and destroying anything he wants. We need to either force Kolling to surrender or destroy his army. Let me take our captive generals to meet with Kolling. Even if he doesn’t agree to surrender, the meeting will slow his armies down for another couple of hours, maybe even half a day.”
“I see no harm in that,” nodded General Za-hong, “but I doubt that he will surrender.”
“Then Colonel Wu-sang and I will use his five-thousand men from Chi to attack the rear of the Federation column,” replied Rut-ki. “They should be getting close to the Federation armies by now. That will buy more time for you to get the rest of our army in place.”
“This might work,” Bin-lu said optimistically. “We may not have enough boats to transport the entire army, but we can transport some of them. What if we used boats just to move portions of our army a couple of hours closer to Ongchi? If we could run the boats day and night, we might shave half a day off our march, and Rut-ki can buy us another half day between her negotiations and harassing. That will allow us to position our forces between Kolling and Ongchi, and we will still have the ability to fall back inside the city walls if things do not go well.”