“We are going to have to forage,” stated the colonel. “Colonel Pineta led some men south to search for any horses that might have headed that way. When he was in the vicinity of tonight’s camp, he thought to check the cache. It is gone.”
“Gone?” gasped General Barbone. “Why didn’t Colonel Pineta report that directly to me?”
“He is still searching for lost horses,” explained Colonel Verle. “I promised to carry the report here for him.”
“I was afraid of that,” sighed General Omirro.
“You were expecting this news?” scowled General Barbone. “How could you possibly suspect such a thing? The location of the cache was supposed to be secret.”
“Our enemies are not impotent,” retorted General Omirro. “In fact, they seem to be rather clever.”
“If you find them so clever,” snapped general Barbone, “perhaps you can enlighten me. Why don’t they just attack us if they know where we are?”
“They will,” replied General Omirro, “but not yet. They seek to slow us down first. They want the 10th Corps and the 22nd Corps to be tired, hungry, and in poor spirits. When things look like they can’t get any worse, they will attack.”
“Do you really expect the Sordoans to come full force against us?” asked General Barbone.
“I do not know,” admitted General Omirro. “I think that depends on whether they know about the other two prongs of the attack. If they are ignorant of those other armies, they will attack us with everything they have. That would prove to be a disastrous mistake for the Sordoans, but it will also mean great losses for our two armies. We need to be prepared for such an eventuality.”
“We could send men back to the portals,” suggested General Barbone. “We could have Tauman’s 1st Corps attack and hold Caldar and send supplies behind us. That will eliminate the need for foraging.”
“There are two problems with that plan, General,” sighed General Omirro. “Tauman is still holding Camp Destiny as a precaution against the Alceans sending troops to Zara. He will not allow his army to enter Alcea to seize Caldar.”
“And the other problem?” asked General Barbone.
“I do not expect the portals to be whole,” answered General Omirro. “If the enemy knows we are here, I suspect that they know how we got here. They will certainly have destroyed the portals to prevent reinforcements. Colonel, did you send men back to the portals as I requested?”
“I did,” replied Colonel Verle. “I have not yet heard back from them. They are already overdue, but I advised great caution with the portal in the city. I did not want to draw undo attention to the existence of the portals.”
“Wise.” General Omirro nodded. “Did you instruct the men to inform Tauman of what happened here?”
The colonel nodded as the tent flap opened. A captain entered the tent and saluted.
“The portals are gone,” reported the captain.
“Gone?” asked Colonel Verle. “Do you mean destroyed?”
“No, Colonel. I mean gone. The portals were removed. There is nothing left at either place except large holes in the walls.”
“Then we are stranded here?” questioned General Barbone. “How are we to return to Zara?”
“Without provisions.” General Omirro nodded. “As for returning to Zara, we have a war to win before that question requires an answer. We need to get this army moving now.”
* * * *
General Ross and General Haggerty rode to the side of the column and halted as they saw the rider heading towards them. The 5th Corps continued to march past them. The rider reined in his horse and stopped alongside the generals.
“Darcia doesn’t exist,” reported the captain.
“Doesn’t exist?” frowned General Haggerty. “Do you mean that the people have abandoned it?”
“No, General,” replied the captain. “I mean that the city is no city at all. It is fake. The buildings have no interiors. In fact, the farther one gets from the inn, the less complete the buildings are. Some of them are merely facades supported by rough beams, and the construction is recent.”
“What about the portals?” asked General Ross.
“Gone,” reported the captain. “They were ripped out of the surrounding walls and taken away.”
General Haggerty shook his head in confusion. “I cannot understand what is going on. Our supplies are missing, a farm is missing, and now we learn that the city is fake. I do not understand it.”
“I will not claim to understand it either,” commented General Ross, “but I do understand the implications. This place that we are in is not Cordonia, and wherever it is, we are stranded here.”
“How can it not be Cordonia?” asked General Haggerty. “Even your Colonel Nyack says that the land is known to him. It has to be Cordonia.”
“Does it?” frowned General Ross. “Why?”
General Haggerty’s mouth opened, but he could not find the words to express himself. General Ross sighed anxiously and continued.
“We marched our armies through magical portals, General. Now, I do not claim to understand magic any more than the next man, but if such devices are capable of taking us to Cordonia, why do you find it hard to believe that they could just as easily take us somewhere else?”
“How can you remain so calm?” scowled General Haggerty.
“Because hysteria solves nothing,” General Ross sighed. “The next thing we need to discover is where in the world are we? The snow attests to a northern clime, but we can’t even be sure which continent we are on. We need to proceed with extreme caution. We are expecting to face the six-thousand men of the Cordonian army, but that may not be the case. We might be facing an even greater army.”
“Could we merely be in a different part of Cordonia?” asked the captain.
“That is possible,” mused General Ross. “Ask Colonel Nyack if he has any star charts for Cordonia. Perhaps that will illuminate us.”
The captain saluted and rode forward in search of Colonel Nyack. The generals watched the young officer leave and then rejoined the column.
“How will we ever return to Zara?” General Haggerty asked softly.
“There are many questions to be answered,” General Ross responded. “We know that someone built the fake Darcia to trick us, and I suspect that they were Alceans. My first question is whether the other two prongs of Force Cordonia were similarly tricked, and if so, where are they in relation to us?”
Chapter 16
Day Five
Dawn was just breaking over the city of Tagaret, but some of the Knights of Alcea were already hard at work. Alex, Jenneva, Tedi, and Natia sat in the library in the Royal Palace of Tagaret. On the table before them sat a large map of Alcea, its corners held down by dirty plates left from the early morning meal.
“Natia and I can take the place of Wylan and Sheri in Sordoa,” stated Tedi, “but I don’t understand how we can be multiple places at the same time. There are armies arriving in both Gortha and Pontek this morning. We can’t possibly attack the mages in both armies at the same time. They are forty leagues apart.”
“Why is it imperative to kill the mages so early in the campaign?” asked Natia. “Surely, we can do one set of mages one night and another a different night.”
“The black-cloaks need to be the first attacked,” answered Jenneva. “If they are not, they will construct magical defensives and alarms. That will make it much more difficult to get at them.”
“They already have magical defenses,” Tedi pointed out. “This spell of fear thing scares me. How are we supposed to get around it?”
“I am not sure,” admitted Jenneva, “but that is a mild defense compared to what they are capable of. Imagine an enemy campsite that will awaken the moment an enemy penetrates the perimeter. If the mages construct such an alarm, we will never get near them.”
“Why don’t they have that now?” asked Natia.