Against the Empire: The Dominion and Michian (54 page)

“Would you like to have my name tattooed on your other shoulder?” Bethany asked him sweetly every night.

The cry of ‘harbor in sight’ was a relief to Alec as he stood near the front mast and watched the crew guide the ship towards its destination. An hour later, with the sun still a hand’s breadth above the horizon, the ship pulled up to one of Natha’s docks. All the ingenairii disembarked from the ship rapidly, and stood at the head of the quay awaiting Alec’s instructions.

As Alec led them out of the dock yards, he resisted the temp-tation to visit the yard factor, Gretchen, who had treated him poorly on his last visit here. He was distracted instead by the appearance of a large body of men and horses outside the gate, who were led by the chamberlain of the palace, Faldor.

Alec and Faldor shook hands heartily. “We received a pigeon that another Oyster Bay invasion was coming, so the Prince sent me to the docks to handle a difficult situation,” Faldor said cheerfully.

“Bethany, this is Faldor, the chamberlain to the Prince.” Alec introduced, remembering that the two hadn’t met when Bethany had previously been part of a campaign in Bondell. “And Faldor, this is my betrothed,” he finished.

“Betrothed? Betrothed! We have to tell the prince! He’ll want to meet the future wife on the warrior who saved his nation,” Faldor said.

That evening, the prince threw an impromptu ball for the ingenairii arrivals and the members of his own nobility, and the next morning, Alec and Rander and the Warrior ingenairii joined the Prince to discuss the war.

“We received word of the invasion just more than a fortnight ago,” Faldor reported. “We’ve been preparing our own forces, such as we have, to head down as reinforcements.

“What word have you heard?” Rubicon asked.

“Our messenger came from the southern wilderness by way of South Harbor, where there is a small military outpost. The cavalry we had sent out to the wilderness left here about six weeks ago, and apparently had a first encounter with this invasion force a month ago that was modestly successful. But they also reported that they were so outnumbered they were starting to evacuate and fall back.”

“That was a month ago?” Alec asked.

“Yes, and they’ve been in retreat ever since. They have hardly any forces left, even with the South Harbor outpost being sent to reinforce them,” the Prince told them.

“The invaders are from the Michian empire, and they were so impressed with your forces’ defense that they executed four of their generals to motivate their troops,” Alec told the Prince, remembering the bodies he had seen hanging at the imperial palace.

“Is there some obvious place they can make a stand? A bridge over a river or a road up a mountain that can be a place to hold the invaders back?” Nathaniel asked.

“Near South Harbor there is an ancient bridge that spans a wide, deep river,” Faldor said.

“How quickly can we get to South Harbor?” Nathaniel responded.

“You’ll have to sail,” Faldor said. “It’s four days down the coast.”

The ingenairii looked at each other. “We should set sail today, and direct all our ships to go directly there,” Nathaniel said. The others nodded their heads in agreement.

“Your highness, with your permission, we’ll begin to rely on South Harbor as our port for sending troops to fight the Michian invaders,” Alec said.

“By all means, Alec,” the Prince said. “Your good works have twice been a Godsend to my nation. The third time will be the last, we pray.”

“Have you heard any word from Goldenfields?” Alec asked.

“No, not a word,” Faldor answered.

“Send a pigeon with a request for urgent help,” Alec told him. “I’ve sent messengers as well, but it is imperative that we get some forces here as quickly as possible if we’re going to protect that bridge. And ask for extra horses, all that they can bring.” He tried to guess what date among his time travels for John Mark he had sent Armilla, Kinsey and Delle on their way back to Goldenfields to also request the mobilization of forces to aid Bondell, but was unable to calculate whether notice had been received there or not.

They made further arrangements for coordination, then the ingenairii began to depart to return to their ship in the harbor, and by mid-afternoon, amidst much grumbling, the ship was returning to the water to continue south, with a few extra horses and a dozen of Bondell’s guards squeezed onto the decks as well, getting in the way of the crew as they manned the sails and worked their duties.

After three days of rapid sailing, aided again by ingenairii winds and currents, the
Witzig
arrived in South Harbor. The harbor was a small one, usually visited by the small trader ships that had the ability to navigate through the challenges of the barrier between lands, and their partners who moved the goods up the coast into the Dominion.

The arrival of the ingenairii and their forces created a stir in the small community, and the post commander there hurried to talk to Alec’s forces, informing them of the contents of the scanty reports he had received from the Bondell and Goldenfields forces that were out in the mountain. Rashrew and Imelda had managed to persuade the inhabitants of their distant village to evacuate, and had sent them far towards South Harbor. A report early that morning indicated that a second village had been evacuated about a week ago. The Michian invasion force had begun to move forward after a pause of several days, and had not moved with any great speed, though Bondell’s cavalry forces were too small to have much impact on the rate the invaders traveled. They were able to keep an eye on the invaders and prevent them from sending scouts out far in advance.

“How many horses can you provide for our use?” Alec asked.

“Of good quality? Perhaps eight or nine,” the commander replied.

Alec counted in his head. “I’m going to head to the front to meet Rashrew and Imelda. Going with me will be Bethany, because I’m not going to fight with her about us separating again,” he began.

“You got that right,” she muttered distinctly.

“Also going with be Rief and Rander, Nathaniel, Moriah and Rubicon, three light ingenairii, two fire ingenairii, and seven Bondell soldiers,” he finished, ticking them off on his fingers. “The soldiers will provide us with messengers we can send back or replacements if Rashrew wants to send any of his back. Have everyone else begin moving on foot in an orderly fashion, and have strong defenses built at both ends of the Ravinia Bridge,” he ordered, referring to the bridge they agreed was their best chance to truly stop the invasion.

“How fast do you think things will happen? What will happen next?” Rubicon asked.

“The invaders don’t have their supply lines available back to Michian any longer, so they are going to start thinking about their stomachs, and probably come at us faster,” Alec said. “Ships from Oyster Bay should start disembarking our soldiers here within a week or two. After that, I hope there will be a steady stream of forces from Stronghold, Oyster Bay, Goldenfields, and everywhere else in the Dominion coming in this direction.

“Within two months we should have enough forces available to fight them, if we can keep them bottled up in the mountains,” he told them. “If they can get to South Harbor before we’re ready for them, they’ll be able to resupply somewhat by sea, they’ll be able to forage along the coast, and they’ll be closer to spreading out across a wider front,” he fretted, thinking to himself that the two months that might be needed to gather his full army might be too late to save the Dominion from a wider war. “So we need to do everything we can to stop them early and drive them back.”

The meeting ended and people rushed to prepare for the beginning of the deployment of the ingenairii forces. Alec made Bethany the unofficial quartermaster in charge of purchasing fresh food from the local markets to supplement the supplies of their small advance group.

At noon, two dozen horses carrying Alec’s group and its supplies left the town on the dusty road east, and traveled at a steady pace that preserved the horses. Two hours after sunset they passed a crossroads and stopped in a pasture outside a small farming village where they set up camp for the night. “This crossroads leads north into Bondell through an interior valley. If the Michian forces get here, we won’t be able to keep them bottled up among the mountains,” a Bondell officer told Alec and his companions.

The next day they were back on the move shortly after sunrise. “This is going to be a rough trip for you isn’t it Alec?” Nathaniel asked, riding up beside him at mid-morning.

“It will be rough for all of us,” Alec replied somberly, not noticing the twinkle on his friend’s eye.

“Not as tough as you’ve got,” Nathaniel told him. “First you have Chelv on the ship for more than a week to regale us with stories about you, and next up we’ll have Imelda and Bethany exchanging stories about you!”

Alec felt his stomach flip at the realization that the two women got along well, and would take delight in jointly tormenting him. “I think I’d rather face another demon,” he muttered. “They’ll just stoke each other up to an insufferable level. Do you think it’s too late to send Bethany back?”

By late afternoon the following day they reached a sharp downward slope in the road, as it fell towards the bridge over the Ravinia River. The whole group stopped just to marvel at the construction of the lengthy single span that seemed stretched far beyond the limits of the stone that comprised it. “I wish we had a stone ingenaire to tell us something about that,” one of the fire ingenairii said.

Beneath the bridge there was empty air for seventy feet, under which rested the dark waters of the river, stretching two hundred yards wide between two sheer canyon walls. “Without this bridge, no one could get from the wilderness to the rest of Bondell. Once the invaders cross this they can get to those crossroads and spread out in multiple directions,” Nathaniel said. “This is the place to set up your last line of defenses.”

The group slowly rode forward and across the bridge. As soon as they reached the far side of the bridge, Alec’s left hand felt uncomfortable. He flexed the fingers in front of his face and looked at the gloved palm, wondering what could cause the sensation. Lost in his wool-gathering, it took several seconds for him to register the words that he overheard in the conversation of the Warrior ingenairii. “There will be little defense possible on this side of the river with the road sloping up above the defenders,” he heard Rubicon tell Moriah and Nathaniel. “It’ll be better to start defending the bridge, and fall back across it quickly.”

He tucked the analysis away as they rode up the incline in the red hues of sunset. “Let’s make camp here for the night,” he proposed abruptly as they reached a level section of road. The sun had not set completely, and his companions were surprised by the early end to their journey.

“Is everything alright, Alec?” Bethany asked.

“My hand feels strangely,” Alec told her, holding up his left hand. “It’s not serious, but I thought a little extra rest would do everyone some good.”

“How much longer until we find Imelda?” Bethany asked.

Alec looked at her suspiciously, wondering if she planned to tease him. He saw no signs of impending torment in her face.

“It depends on how fast she is retreating,” he answered. “Hopefully she and Rashrew are managing to keep the Michian forces creeping along at a slow pace. That means we’ll take longer to reach them, but they’ll have kept the invaders further from this,” he motioned towards the bridge.

At Nathaniel’s suggestion, the next morning they left two of the Bondell soldiers behind with directions to pass along to the forces that followed, giving directions on how to begin erecting defensive barricades, ditches and fortifications. They rode on for three more days, passing through scattered villages as they rode over rolling hills and along smaller rivers. Alec said nothing further about his hand, but he noted an increase in the discomfort and pressure he felt. Whenever he removed the glove to examine the hand he expected to see it swollen and bloody, but its outward appearances remained the same despite the feelings he suffered.