"Finally, as you yourself just pointed out, our whole object, when you come right down to it, is to buy time for the Commandery to get a real field army in here. Not only that, it's clear we're going to have to recall Carthos—or, at least, Hundred Helika's strike—to reinforce your surviving battle dragon strength, and we're going to have to buy time for that, as well. Well, if that's the case, then let's start buying it as far forward as we can."
"But, Sir—"
"It can be argued either way, Klayrman," Harshu said. "Unfortunately, we don't have time to debate it properly—not with their reinforcements as close as they probably are by now. That means I've got to make the decision right now, and, to be frank, with so much of our battle dragon combat strength written off, our ability to mount a mobile defense has just been pretty damned seriously compromised, even assuming we get Helika up here to reinforce you. Which leaves us with an interesting dilemma. Do we risk even more losses in a possibly unsuccessful attempt to secure a chokepoint we can hold without dragons, or do we avoid the losses but accept that slowing these people in the open field is going to be a lot harder without those same dragons?"
Toralk frowned as he realized he hadn't really considered that aspect of their suddenly unenviable strategic position. He'd been too focused on their disastrous losses and what it had done to their combat power right here, right now, to think that far ahead.
"We've still got the transports, Sir," he pointed out after a moment. "Some of them—some of the tactical transports, the transport-battle dragon crosses—have breath weapon capability. Not anything I'd like to take up against another dragon, you understand, but enough to make them effective against ground targets not covered by the kind of firepower they've got concentrated here. And whether or not we decided we could commit them as improvised stand-ins for the battle dragons, they'd still give us operational mobility that has to be enormously better than theirs."
"Agreed."
Harshu's eyes were hooded, his lips pursed in a thoughtful, silent whistle as he folded his hands behind him and stepped out of his tent into the morning sunlight.
Toralk followed him, gazing out across the dragonhead. If a man hadn't known about the nature of the losses the Expeditionary Force had just suffered, he might have been excused for wondering what all the doom and gloom were about. After all, their personnel losses amounted to only fifteen men out of a total force of over ten thousand. For that matter, they'd lost only fifteen—possibly sixteen—dragons out of a total dragon strength of well over two hundred. On the surface, their combat power should barely have been scratched.
"I agree with your point about the transports, Klayrman," Harshu reiterated after several moments. "But we still don't know exactly how powerful this reinforcement of theirs is going to be. Given what they just did to us, my estimate of what's likely to happen when they're allowed to attack us just got a lot more pessimistic. That leaves me even more strongly inclined to continue the attack."
"Sir—"
"I know what you're going to say, and you may be right," Harshu interrupted Toralk's nascent argument.
"But we've still got a major force advantage, we haven't committed the gryphons or our cavalry, and these people still haven't seen our combat engineers at work. Under the circumstances, I'm inclined to risk additional casualties, considering the possible payoff if the attack succeeds. Be honest, Klayrman.
We both know we've gotten off incredibly light to this point. I know we've just taken a truly heavy hit to your battle dragons, but I don't think we can justify simply turning around and retreating from a potential prize like this one when the rest of our force is still completely intact. We haven't been hauling all this cavalry and all this infantry around just so we could decide not to use it!"
Toralk nodded without speaking. After all, he couldn't argue with anything Harshu had just said.
"What I won't risk are the transports," the two thousand continued firmly. "You're right about the mobility advantage we'll retain as long we keep them intact. I'd prefer to keep the light cavalry intact, too. This is going to be a job for the dragoons and the heavy horse, I think."
And if you lose the heavy cav, you lose less of your tactical mobility down the road, Toralk added silently. Of course, you lose more of your total firepower, but still ... .
He considered the situation, his mind turning to the problem of how best to employ the aerial assets he could still muster. And, as he did, he discovered that he actually felt at least a flicker of optimism. The discovery astonished him, and he shook his head again, this time in rueful admiration.
Left to himself, he was almost certain, he would have called off the attack. Even now, he was far from convinced that continuing the attack was the proper decision. But there was really only one way to find out, and the two thousand had the intestinal fortitude to do just that.
He's right about the defensive advantages of this particular chokepoint, too ... if we manage to pull it off after all, Toralk thought.
"All right, Sir," he said. "Let me go get with my staff for a few minutes and I'll be able to tell you what we've got to try again with."
"—then tell Master-Armsman chan Garath to get some more men on that fire," Regiment-Captain chan Skrithik said, pointing at the flames and thick, dense smoke pouring from the southeastern tower. The interior of the structure was burning now, although there wasn't actually that much in it that was flammable. He wasn't that concerned over the possibility that the fire might spread, but the gap all those roaring flames and dense smoke left in their defenses worried him quite a lot, considering that their limited infantry and field artillery strength was all concentrated west of the fort.
"Yes, Sir!" The runner saluted sharply and disappeared into the smoke and confusion. Chan Skrithik watched him go, then turned back to Janaki.
The Crown Prince had scarcely moved. Even during the aerial assault on the fort itself, he'd stood there, motionless, gray eyes unfocused on anything of the physical world about him. Not even the falcon on his shoulder had stirred, despite all the sound, fury and confusion swirling about them. The peregrine had been as still as a bird carved from stone, as if its human companion's total, focused concentration had reached out and enveloped it, as well.
Chan Skrithik felt awed by the realization that he was seeing something very few people had ever witnessed: the legendary Talent of the Caliraths in action. Yet there was more than just awe inside the regiment-captain. There was desperate worry, concern for the safety of the young man who would one day wear the Winged Crown.
For all his years of service, all his hard-won experience and competence, Rof chan Skrithik's military service had been peacetime service, and he'd never seen anything like the last hour of chaos and destruction. In less than ten minutes, those diving monstrosities had killed more men than chan Skrithik had seen die in his entire previous military career, and they'd been his men. In the process, he'd discovered that it was something no man could truly prepare himself for ahead of time. The sense that he had somehow failed his men by not keeping them alive, that he would have lost fewer of them if only he'd been smarter, better, rolled around somewhere in the depths of his soul. His intellect knew better, knew no Sharonian had ever even imagined the possibility of facing this sort of attack, that no one could have prepared better. But this was a subject where intellect and emotions were scarcely even on speaking terms, and he knew it was going to take him a long, long time to resolve those feelings ... assuming he ever could resolve them.
That, however, was something the future was going to have to take care of in its own good time. For the present, more pressing worries and responsibilities pushed that concern out of the forefront of his mind.
And one of those worries was the way Crown Prince Janaki had insisted upon standing in this exposed position high atop the fortress wall.
He stepped towards the prince, reaching out one hand to urge him to at least climb down from the gun platform, but someone else's hand touched his own shoulder first.
The regiment-captain twitched in surprise. Then he turned his head, and Chief-Armsman Lorash chan Braikal shook his head with a small, sad smile.