13 Day War (30 page)

“It had nothing to do with you,” replied Colonel Kerk. “You gained Somma on your team because you have the upcountry prong of the attack. General Somma is deathly afraid of water.”

“Is that why he is always patrolling deep in the Bloodwood?” questioned General Franz. “Are you sure of this?”

“Positive,” declared the colonel. “I am friends with a colonel in the 16
^th
Corps. He overheard Queen Samir complaining about Somma’s fear of water. She joked about sending Somma out to patrol the Isle of Despair.”

“A fitting punishment for an officer who holds such irrational fears,” spat the general. “You are a fine officer, Kerk. Stay loyal to me. I think you will be happy with the rewards for your loyalty.”

“Speaking of ill winds,” Colonel Kerk said softly as he nodded towards the rear of the column. “You are about to have a visitor.”

General Franz surreptitiously glanced towards the rear of the column. He saw General Somma and Colonel Rotti riding towards him. Without a word to Colonel Kerk, General Franz veered away from the column and rode towards the edge of the Chi River. Colonel Kerk moved out of the column and halted at the side of the road. General Somma rode towards General Franz, but Colonel Rotti halted alongside Colonel Kerk.

“What is going on?” Colonel Rotti asked as the colonels stared towards the river.

Colonel Kerk did not answer right away. He watched as General Somma cautiously approached General Franz. The Baroukan colonel smiled as he watched General Franz guide his horse down the slope of the bank and into the river. The Baroukan general turned and waved to General Somma.

“Come on down, Somma. I wanted to ask you something.”

The Spinoan general halted his horse on the riverbank, a safe distance from the river’s edge. “I will wait until you are done bathing.”

“Don’t be stubborn, Somma,” teased General Franz. “Get down here.”

“He won’t go down there,” Colonel Rotti said softly.

“I know,” grinned Colonel Kerk.

“You know?” gasped Colonel Rotti. “Does General Franz know? Is that the point of this game?”

“Calm down,” soothed Colonel Kerk. “Franz is only having fun with him.”

“It might be fun for you and General Franz,” frowned the Spinoan colonel, “but he is terrorizing General Somma. The general questioned me at length about the size of the Chi River after our journey here last fall. I assured him that it was a large river but that the trail kept well away from it. I can now see that my recollections were faulty.”

“There is nothing wrong with your memory,” replied Colonel Kerk. “The river is much wider than it was in the fall. It must be the spring runoff swelling the river.”

“It is more than that,” Colonel Rotti frowned as he nodded southward. “Coming over the last rise I saw a huge lake downstream. I am sure there was nothing like it last fall. That lake is the very reason General Somma and I rode forward. He wanted to see if he could talk General Franz into altering our route more inland.”

“You should know better than to even suggest such a thing,” replied Colonel Kerk. “This is the only decent road in the area, and we will be dependent on the supply caches to feed the armies. Even if General Franz was wiling to try a different route, he cannot. It’s simply not possible.”

“I didn’t suggest it,” sighed Colonel Rotti, “but Somma will probably say that I did. The truth is, he is petrified. He even avoids the Blood River back home and that is nothing like this one. I do not look forward to spending the next week in his company, and Franz’s humor will not help the situation any.”

With a sudden pang of guilt, Colonel Kerk nodded sympathetically. “Let me see if I can distract Franz long enough to get him out of the river.”

* * * *

General Fortella stood in a barn outside of Mya as the soldiers of the 2
^nd
Corps of the Empire of Barouk raced through the portal. The soldiers suddenly stopped coming through the portal and the general eagerly watched the door. He smiled as his large black stallion was guided through the portal and led towards him. Almost immediately the race of soldiers through the portal resumed. General Fortella mounted his horse and rode out of the barn. Once outside in the morning sunshine, he paused to glance around and get his bearings. He had memorized the maps of Alcea and the sketches drawn by Tauman’s men, and he knew exactly where he was.

The Baroukan general spurred his horse to action and galloped across the fields to where Colonel Tamora was forming the army. The general did not interrupt as the colonel issued commands. He sat observing his men until the colonel was done. Colonel Tamora sensed the general behind him and turned when he was done.

“Any problems?” asked the general.

“None,” reported the colonel. “We should have a report back soon regarding the first day’s cache. Once we have that confirmation, the entire army will move past the rendezvous point. I am heading there now. Will you ride with me, or should I assemble a separate protection detail for you?”

“Let us ride together,” answered General Fortella. “I am anxious to see this Targa that we have been hearing so much about.”

A squad of soldiers formed around the two officers, and the group rode off to the east. Twenty minutes later they came to a group of cavalry standing in the middle of the Mya-Tagaret Road. The cavalry patches were a mixture of the Baroukan 2
^nd
Corps and the Aertan 24
^th
Corps. General Fortella spotted General Whitman and he rode towards the Aertan general.

“Any trouble?” asked General Fortella.

“None, Force Leader,” answered General Whitman. “If there is an enemy army in the area, they are remaining unseen.”

“There is no enemy army between us and Tagaret, Whitman,” stated General Fortella. “The only thing between us and our objective is eight long days of marching, and we will begin that momentarily. I sent a messenger to you early this morning with details of our formation, but I will go through them again now just to be sure we are clear on everything.”

“I received the message and understand it, General,” stated General Whitman.

General Fortella ignored Whitman and continued, “My cavalry will be the forward scouts and vanguard. The 24
^th
Corps cavalry will be our rear guard. Inside those extremes, the 2
^nd
Corps infantry will precede the 24
^th
infantry. Both black-cloak contingents will ride together in between our two armies. Their presence has an adverse effect on the soldiers and placing them between the two armies will be the least disruptive place for them. The 2
^nd
Corps will be responsible for erecting the camps. The 24
^th
Corps will be responsible for disassembly, policing the grounds, and foraging should it become necessary. Do you have any problems with these instructions?”

“None whatsoever, General,” replied the Aertan.

“Good,” General Fortella smiled tautly. “Then we shall get along just fine, Whitman. The 2
^nd
Corps will be setting the pace, and we will not slow down for stragglers. Make sure that the 24
^th
Corps doesn’t linger too far behind. You wouldn’t want to be left isolated in enemy territory.”

General Whitman swallowed hard as General Fortella turned his horse and started ordering his cavalry to move out.

Two unicorns glided low over the Sordoan forest until they came to the coastal ridge between Pontek and Trekum. With powerful strokes of their massive wings, the unicorns rose up the western slope of the ridge and glided to a landing on the long, narrow crest. Tedi and Natia glanced around to get their bearings as scores of dwarves dropped their hammers and picked up their axes.

“Get back to your posts,” growled a surly dwarf. “If you don’t recognize Knights of Alcea when you see them, you need to report to a healer and have your eyes checked.”

Natia stifled a giggle as the surly dwarf approached the Knights of Alcea.

“You’re a mean one now, aren’t you, Kroto?” greeted Tedi.

“It’s the only tone some of these miners understand,” laughed the dwarven magician. “If I wasn’t here watching over them, they would probably be splitting open a keg of ale.”

Natia glanced around in amazement. For as far as she could see in each direction, dwarves lined the crest of the ridge. Near each dwarf were two types of metal spikes in the ground. The larger type was very wide, and it tapered off as it got closer to the ground. Those spikes had been driven into the rock very close to the far edge of the crest. The smaller type looked like a large chisel except it had a hole bored through the top. The smaller spikes were sunk into the rock farther away from the edge of the crest and each one of them had a large coil of rope alongside it. One end of the rope had been passed through the hole in the chisel and tied in a knot. Kroto smiled when he saw what Natia was looking at, his large mouth splitting his broad face with a toothy grin.

“I think you’ll be needing to talk to Prince Darok,” said Kroto. “You’ve no doubt come to watch the show. Follow me.”

Tedi and Natia dismounted and followed the dwarf mage. For several minutes they marched past the waiting dwarves, and Natia shook her head in amazement. Natia tried to count the number of dwarves that they passed, but she lost count when Kroto quickened his step.

“I’m sorry to point and run,” apologized Kroto, “but I need to get back to my station. The call may come at any moment. Prince Darok is just ahead. Keep going.”

“What is going on here?” Natia asked Tedi.

“I am not entirely sure,” admitted Tedi, “but Alex said we should see it. I gather it is some scheme that Alex and Prince Darok hatched up last fall.”

The Knights of Alcea continued onward until they came to a cluster of dwarves. Prince Darok was in the center of them, so the Knights of Alcea waited patiently for the gathering to break up. The wait was not long. Prince Darok clapped his hands with an air of finality, and the group of dwarves scattered, some of them racing past Tedi and Natia. The dwarven Knight of Alcea spotted Tedi and Natia and waved them to him with a sense of urgency. The gypsies ran to his side.

“So, you’ve come to see what evil lurks in the minds of dwarven sappers, eh?” chuckled Prince Darok. “You are just in time then.”

“What is going on?” asked Natia.

Prince Darok grinned broadly. “Take a wee peek over the edge, lass, but don’t be obvious about it. We don’t want to be tipping our hand just yet.”

Tedi and Natia both moved closer to the edge and peered down. Natia gasped. Several hundred paces below her, a huge Federation army marched along a thin strip of road at the base of the cliff. Beyond the thin strip of road was the Sordoan Sea. The army stretched as far to the left as she could see, and a fair distance to the right as well. Tedi pulled Natia back from the edge, and they returned to Prince Darok.

“General Gattas?” asked Tedi.

“And General Montero,” nodded Prince Darok. “Below is the 6
^th
Corps and the 15
^th
Corps in their entirety.” The dwarven prince turned slightly and pointed to his right. “If you can see that very last dwarf standing on the crest over there, he is waiting for the tail end of the army to pass him. When it does, he will give a signal to me. At the appropriate time, I will give the signal to attack.”

Natia looked again at the coils of rope next to each dwarf and frowned. “There are twenty-thousand men down there, Prince Darok. How many dwarves are up here?”

“Two-thousand,” answered the prince. “It’s hardly a fair fight.”

“I’ll say,” frowned Natia. “That’s ten-to-one odds. Are you sure this is wise?”

“It’s ten-to-one in our favor, lass,” laughed Prince Darok. “Lord Zachary did say that each dwarf was worth one-hundred men, didn’t he?”

“That was to scare the Spinoans,” scowled Natia. “You can’t possibly believe the lies he told the enemy.”

“Ah, lass,” Prince Darok sighed with mock offense, “your words slay me. And here I thought King Arik thought highly of the dwarves.”

Tedi started laughing, and Natia whirled to face him, anger building at his levity. Before she could verbally lash out at her husband, she felt Prince Darok’s large hand on her shoulder. The dwarven prince was also laughing.

“I apologize, Natia,” chuckled Prince Darok. “I shouldn’t be having fun with you on such a serious occasion. We have no intention of merely jumping off the crest to fight the Federation. Let me explain.”

Natia turned to stare at the dwarf, her face clouded with confusion.

“Down below,” Prince Darok began, “the Federation army stretches out for over two leagues. They are indeed a formidable foe if my men met them on the battlefield, but that is not how the battle will go this day. I have had my sappers working on this ridge for almost half a year now. The entire face of the cliff has been undercut. When the signal is given, two-thousand dwarves will raise two-thousand hammers over their heads and bring them down on two-thousand metal wedges. When they do that, the face of this cliff will shear off and drop on the road below.”

“Won’t they have time to flee?” asked Tedi.

“No,” answered the dwarven Knight of Alcea. “We have undermined the cliff for a length of three leagues. The length of their column in only a little over two leagues. Even if one of their riders bolted at the first sound of a hammer, he could not ride fast enough to escape the mountain falling on him. Nor could they save themselves by leaping into the sea. The height of this cliff is several hundred paces and a lot of that will land in the sea. There is no escape from this trap. There is only death for twenty-thousand invaders.”

One of the dwarves caught Prince Darok’s attention and the prince turned to see the end dwarf signaling him. He signaled back and then returned to his conversation.

“But the ropes?” questioned Natia. “What are they for then if not to rappel down and fight the enemy?”

“The ropes were used to undercut the face,” explained the dwarf. “They have been left in place in case something goes wrong. As certain as I am that the sappers have done an excellent job, nothing is perfect. If there are pockets of Federation troops that survive, we will go down and finish them off.”