"But to do that you have to actually hit them," Toralk pointed out. "And to do that, the dragons have to be able to see them."
Myr started to open his mouth again, but Toralk shook his head.
"I understand what you're saying, Cerlohs. But look at it this way. As far as we can tell, they still haven't gotten any messages out. And because of the captured maps we can finally actually read reliably, we haven't even had to send in a recon flight, so they can't know we're coming."
For a moment, Myr looked as if he might argue that point, but then he grimaced and shook his head.
Although no gryphons had been sent through into Traisum, a very high altitude gryphon had overflown the Sharonians' "railhead," barely three hundred miles up-chain from the ruins of what had been Fort Mosanik. The image interpreters were still trying to make sense out of the take from the recon crystal, still trying to figure out what some of the huge, complicated, awkward-looking machinery was for, but the fact that all those workers were still out there, still working, was the clearest possible proof the Arcanans' presence at Fort Mosanik remained undetected.
"Since they don't know we're coming, anyway, and since these people won't know any more about dragons or gryphons than any of the people we've already hit, you're still going to have what amounts to complete tactical surprise," Toralk continued. "Maybe they'll have a few seconds, even a few minutes, to see you coming, but even if they do, how much good is it going to do them? As far as they know, they're still at peace, so they're going to be maintaining a peacetime routine. It'll take time for them to get from that mindset into putting up any sort of effective resistance. Do you really think they're going to manage to do that, to break their heavy weapons out of storage, and get them into action, before you can get in at least two or three passes with your yellows?"
Myr shook his head, and Toralk snorted.
"I don't think so, either. But for those passes to be effective, you've got to have the light for targeting. If you don't, if you miss on the first pass, then you're likely to have to come back through much heavier fire, and even their rifles may get lucky."
"All right, Sir." Myr smiled crookedly. "You've made your point. For that matter, it was my people who came up with the timing in the first place! Just put it down to opening-night jitters, I suppose."
"Don't think you're the only one feeling them," Toralk said dryly. "Frankly, I'll be happier when we're able to settle in on the defensive instead of advancing further and further into the unknown this way. I know no thrusting, offense-minded Air Force officer is supposed to admit that, especially where a ground-pounder might overhear him. But you know what? I'm feeling sort of lonely all the way out here at the end of our advance."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Company-Captain Silkash tried to conceal his anxiety as the pair of hard-faced Arcanan guards marched him across Fort Ghartoun's parade ground. The surgeon's eyes flitted around busily, taking in everything he could see, and the mind behind those eyes was equally busy.
The Arcanans had decided to use the stables as an improvised holding area for the bulk of their prisoners. Despite the heavy casualties the eagle-lions had inflicted, there were well over four hundred of those prisoners, and finding a place to put them all obviously hadn't been easy. Silkash wouldn't normally have considered a stable a very secure prison, but the Arcanans had come prepared. The surgeon still had no idea how this "magic" of theirs worked, but the gleaming web which had been stretched across every opening in the stable buildings looked depressingly effective. It was clearly visible even in full daylight, and the Arcanans had completely ringed the stable with the glittering tubes of their fireball-throwers as a pointed warning to any Sharonians who might have entertained notions about somehow finding a way through its close-meshed glow.
The officers, on the other hand, had been kept separate from the enlisted and the noncoms. Which, Silkash reflected wryly, had given them an unanticipated opportunity to experience Fort Ghartoun's hospitality from the same perspective as their recent "guests," although they were packed considerably tighter in the cells than their Arcanan POWs had been Of course, his eyes darkened, there had been a few other differences between their own experiences and those of their Arcanan POWs.
Anger smoldered like slow lava down inside the medical officer. There'd been no opportunity for anyone to make any formal reports to him or to Regiment-Captain Velvelig, but there'd been at least some contact with some of the non-officer prisoners. They'd heard what had happened to chan Tergis, and the Voice wasn't the only Sharonian who'd been killed in cold blood after surrendering. To have his men treated that way, especially after Velvelig had been so insistent upon treating his prisoners with respect and dignity, had filled the Arpathian with a white-hot rage. Despite the regiment-captain's self-control, Silkash had literally felt the heat of that anger radiating from the other man.
And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the brutality had ended. It hadn't tapered off, it had simply stopped, like a locomotive when the steam was turned off. Silkash hoped that indicated that the savagery had never been authorized and had stopped as soon as higher authority learned about it, but he wasn't quite prepared to conclude that that was what had actually happened.
In the meantime, the main body of the invaders had clearly moved on. Which, he thought glumly, probably meant they'd already attacked Fort Mosanik by this time. It still seemed impossible, but if they'd managed to get from Hell's Gate to Fort Ghartoun as quickly as they had ... .
His thoughts shifted focus abruptly as his guards pushed him up the steps to the veranda of the office block. They weren't particularly gentle about it, and the manacles holding his hands behind him made him awkward. He thought about registering some sort of protest, then decided that might not be the very smartest thing he could do.
They thrust him into the building, and he found himself being marched down the short hallway to what had been Velvelig's office. They opened the door and shoved him through it, and Silkash's lips tightened involuntarily as he saw Hadrign Thalmayr sitting behind Velvelig's desk.
The two guards withdrew, leaving Silkash standing in front of the desk. Thalmayr pointedly ignored him, keeping his attention on one of the omnipresent crystals these people seemed to take with them everywhere. This particular crystal was filled with floating words and letters in the Arcanan alphabet, and Silkash wondered what Thalmayr was studying so intently in order to emphasize his prisoner's total lack of importance.
Probably a laundry list, the surgeon told himself sourly. He's not smart enough for it to be anything more complicated than that!
He knew the sarcasm was nothing more than a defensive mechanism, the only shield against the uncertainty and fear simmering deep inside him he could come up with under the circumstances. To his surprise, it was rather comforting, anyway.
He stood there for several minutes. Then the door opened again, and Silkash's belly muscles tightened as Platoon-Captain Tobis Makree was shoved through it. This time, the guards didn't withdraw again, either. Instead, they stood back against the wall behind the prisoners, and Silkash's heart sank as he noted the heavy truncheons at their sides.
Thalmayr let the two Sharonians wait for at least another five minutes before he finally looked up from his crystal. Then he leaned back in Velvelig's chair, and his smile was thin and ugly.
"Well, well," he said after a moment. Or, at least, that was what the crystal on his desk said as it translated for him. Somehow, Silkash thought sinkingly, the fact that he was finally able and willing to communicate with them wasn't particularly reassuring.
"So, here we are," he continued after a heartbeat or two. "I've been looking forward to this morning. Do you know why?"
Neither Sharonian answered, and Thalmayr's smile grew even thinner. Then he nodded briefly to the guards, and Silkash cried out involuntarily as a heavy truncheon smashed into his kidneys from behind and the pain hammered him to his knees.
"I asked you a question," Thalmayr said. "Do know why I've been looking forward to this morning?"
Silkash looked up at him through a haze of sudden agony, then grunted as a heavy boot slammed into his ribs. He went down, trying to curl into a protective knot, and the boot crunched into him again. And again.