War of Dragons (34 page)

The entire journey will take just three days. One day to cross the Sandy Dragons' territory, another day to enter the Blue Dragons’ territory and get to a point halfway across—a point which is safe from the Blue Dragons—and then another day to get out of their territory and to your capital. Any questions?"

Arthur raised his hand and Noah nodded at him. "That's a long flight from the Blue Dragon territory to our capital. Can you really do that in one day?"

Noah nodded. "We'll have our full force back together then, so no one will carry you for any length of time, so we'll be able to fly at a high pace. We'll make the journey."

"How can you find a safe place in the middle of the Blue Dragon territory?" Seth asked. Crystal had been thinking the same thing.

Noah nodded again. "A good question. There is a place where the Blue Dragons don't spend any time. Remember, the land we are crossing used to be Green Dragon territory and the Blue Dragons have only had one generation since taking the place, so there are parts that we actually know better than them. We know a place that is safe from them."

Jenna raised her hand. "Go ahead, young lady," Noah said to her.

"What happens if something goes wrong? If the Blue Dragons realise that you're carrying us. Could you outfly them while carrying us?"

Noah smiled at her. "Carrying just one of you and taking it in turns between two dragons, the Blues won't have a chance to catch us." His face darkened. "But it's a good question. Out-flying individual dragons isn't a problem, but if we run into their army, there will be too many of them. I won't pretend that it will be easy to get past them. We don't know where their army is camped, but when we find out, it may alter our plans. If we run into large numbers, there will be a greater risk. Is that acceptable for you, young lady? If you're not happy, you're always welcome to stay in our land until your war is over. I won't try and persuade anyone who doesn't want to come to change their mind. In fact, Mark and I are agreed on this point. If there's any of you who doesn’t mind staying behind, we would rather that you did so."

Jenna glanced at the others, who stared back at her. She appeared a little undecided. "That's fine, thank you," Jenna replied, her voice quiet and unsteady. "I need to go home with my friends."

Noah nodded. "As you wish. Now, if no one has any further questions, I suggest that you relax for a while and then get some sleep. The next few days may be spent not moving that much, but they will be stressful times nonetheless. Try and relax while you can."

Noah whispered something to Mark and then stood up and bid them goodnight before walking over to speak to some of the other Golden Dragons.

"What now, Mark?" Arthur asked.

Mark shrugged and stood up. "Up to you, really, although I'd take Noah's advice. I'd suggest getting to know the rest of the group, since they'll be the only ones with us for the next three days. I'm guessing Jenna needs no encouragement—"

"Hey!" Jenna objected. The others laughed and she joined in, before standing up with Mark. "Come on, Mark. Introduce us to your friends…."

Chapter 19 - Consolidation

"Congratulations, men. That was a well-earned victory," General Zygar stated, "but the war has only just begun. Generals, I want your initial verbal reports now, after the three colonels have given me their updates. Colonel Perak, you're the logical person to start with; please, begin."

Perak nodded, pleased to be first. He stood up to address the generals and colonels that were gathered in Zygar's command room. The building had been the home of some rich Red Dragon, probably some sort of noble, and the room they were in had presumably been used for entertaining and was richly decorated. The oversized portraits and mirrors had been stripped from the wall opposite him and a large map now took their place, showing the Red Dragon kingdom in great detail, put together using information gathered by Perak's spy, Jerome. Perak picked up a long stick to point to the map.

"As you all know, I split my troops into three different operations, each led by a colonel and aligned to the three regions to be attacked. We conducted extensive research into the settlements within these regions, aided by my spies within their capital, and identified hundreds of targets within each region.

I divided these three regions into further sub-regions, based on the distribution and size of the settlements and instructed the colonels to assign division commanders to be responsible for coordinating the numerous missions within each sub-region. Missions varied in size, ranging from attacks on single houses with as few as two occupants up to villages of two hundred. None of these small missions would be deemed exciting or spectacular, but overlooking these settlements is the mistake that has doomed so many attacks to failure.

Thirty division commanders were assigned to these sub-regions and under my careful guidance, they diligently coordinated the planning of each. The largest of these sub-regions had over two hundred settlements and even the smallest had forty-two settlements, so this was no small task. Attacks on each settlement were carefully planned and assigned to individual squadron or flight leaders to lead with wing commanders responsible for monitoring groups of missions and reporting to the division commanders.

Although none of the settlements were more than a few hours flight from our border, it was essential that my troops remained undetected, which meant that flying was not an option. Each group was required to hike overnight to their destination and a few hours flying takes a long time on foot. They trained for months for this task, ensuring that they knew how to move silently and without leaving a trace. They performed this task perfectly. We planned for the groups that had the furthest to travel to leave well in advance, starting six days before the attack, and then each day another wave of troops would follow in their footsteps—or rather each night, as they crossed the border after dark each evening, departing from points all along the border. By this morning, every single group was in position, ready to attack every settlement between the three target major cities and our border and the Reds were completely unaware of our presence.

I had instructed my troops to retreat if discovered and despite the huge number of individual groups trying to enter the Red Dragons' territory, I was amazed to find that just one of the units was forced to retreat, having encountered a patrol. One other unit never reported in, so I suspect that they were discovered and killed, but having a mere two failures out of the entire operation exceeded my expectations and showed that the months of training and planning were well spent.

I instructed the division commanders to be cautious in their planning and to aim to minimise our losses. Each target was hit by an excessive force to guarantee victory in every instance. In their planning, the lowest ratio of my troops to enemy targets that I tolerated was two to one, with three to one being the average. As a result of this strict and cautious approach, the ratio of enemy casualties to our own was astonishingly high. A number of the squads had multiple missions; hit a small settlement at sunrise, then another shortly afterwards, so the ratio of troops to number of kills again is remarkable. Normally, when we assault a city, we'll lose ten of our own dragons to each one of theirs that we kill. In a larger attack, that will improve to five to one, and in a successful attack such as those today, we might get up to three to one. With my operation, those numbers are reversed. For every one of our dragons killed, over a hundred of theirs were killed. These are numbers that were previously unheard of.

Likewise, the number of prisoners we took was high in absolute terms, but quite frankly I was a little disappointed by the ratio of kills to prisoners taken. I am assured that this wasn’t a result of carelessness from my troops—at least not in most cases. I suspect that many of our potential prisoners were evacuated in advance of the attack and I think those youngsters who spotted our troops training cost us a lot of potential prisoners. Of course, the numbers taken still numbered in the tens of thousands…."

Perak paused for a moment to let that detail sink in, enjoying the sight of the astonished expressions around the room. He moved swiftly on. "After all the missions were complete, the prisoners were moved to several large camps to reduce the numbers required to guard over them. These prisoners are still at these temporary locations and I am minded to leave them there for some time. They will make tempting targets for the Red Dragons, which may prove useful in luring them from the relative safety of their remaining cities.

My conclusion at the end of this operation is that this was a very effective method for clearing all of the enemy in the areas surrounding their cities and that it is in no way to the detriment of the main attack, as my troops were able to join the attack after completing their missions. The troops clearly had enough training and were well prepared. I'll need more information before I can present a more detailed analysis, but this model should serve us well in our next campaign against the Brown Dragons. I haven't any final numbers yet, but they should be available soon. Any questions?"

"We didn't plan for any further missions, as you considered that you would have lost the element of surprise," Zygar commented. "Has anything changed in your mind, or has this operation ended?"

Perak shook his head. "Nothing has changed. We can't sneak in again; we are now at war. My troops will now resume their places back in their original command structures."

Zygar nodded almost imperceptibly. "Well, I can't disagree. Congratulations, Colonel; that was a masterful piece of work, and you set an excellent foundation for the rest of the campaign. That leads us to the next report from Colonel Kessick."

Kessick smiled smugly at Perak. "Thank you, General Zygar, and thank you, Colonel Perak, for your interesting update. I never thought I would find tales of tackling farmhouses and wood cutters so engaging. You certainly eliminated a potentially potent threat that we could have so easily overlooked."

"Yes, just get on with your report, Kessick," Zygar interrupted, not hiding his irritation.

"Of course, sir. Well, our brave troops set off at sunrise all along the border, heading towards the key cities in each of the target regions. They engaged the enemy directly and boldly, attacking them in the air over their cities and despite the enemy's home advantage and their size and strength, our troops prevailed in every case, sacrificing their lives to win the battle in the air in every arena, striking at the heart of the enemy and paving the way for Colonel Tarek's troops to do—well, whatever they do." Kessick smiled at everyone before sitting down.

Zygar raised his eyebrows. "Is that it, Kessick?"

Kessick looked a little confused. "You want more, sir?"

Zygar gave him a cold glare. "Yes, some details would be nice. Numbers lost, enemy killed, any thoughts on the effectiveness of your tactics?"

Kessick shook his head dismissively, appearing not to notice Zygar's irritation. "Too early to tell, sir. I expect those numbers will be available tomorrow."

"Nothing about the near failure in Obud or the disaster in Newcastle?" Zygar asked incredulously.

Kessick turned to the gathered generals. "I understand that the generals will be covering those details."

Zygar shook his head, his expression one of complete disbelief. "Colonel, unless you wish to return to the junior ranks, this will be the last time you present me with such a feeble update. Is that understood?"

Kessick looked shocked, and Perak did his best to hide his glee. "Very clear, sir, I understand."

"General Tarek, your update please," Zygar said, moving on.

Tarek nodded. "Of course, General. I personally managed to watch one of the attacks—on Obud—and have a detailed report from the southern attack, but unfortunately the wing commander I assigned to update me on the northern attack perished, as did his back up. I'm struggling a little to find details on that attack. However, the Obud attack went beautifully with every single target hit and destroyed. I couldn't have hoped for anything approaching the level of success that my dragons achieved. Of course, we hit the Stonehouses first, to destroy the Dragonstones and weaken the Reds, and we had groups ready to try again should the first wave miss any of their targets, but that was completely unnecessary. Every target was hit and destroyed and the Reds were unable to offer any resistance. My dragons then proceeded to destroy all of their defensive installations, paving the way for the ground troops to land.

In Black Rock, the attack was equally successful, destroying all of the Stonehouses, although I understand that two of them required two attempts. The rest of the bombing run was entirely successful, and the city's defensive structures were largely reduced to rubble. This clearly demonstrates that when the initial attack is successful and the skies are clear, my men are very capable of completing this task successfully. I look forwards to repeating this success in Furnace."

"As do we all," Zygar replied warmly. "Both you and Perak have successfully demonstrated how effective your innovative methods can be, and have rewarded the trust that I put in you. It is without question that today's success is down to the vision, determination and strategic brilliance that you have both brought to this campaign."

There was polite applause from all in the room, even Colonel Kessick. Zygar raised his hands to cut short the clapping.

"So, the northern attack is a little bit of a mystery. Perhaps the general in charge can enlighten us. General Pushak, you may begin."

General Pushak stood up to give his report, smiling smugly and stroking his short blue beard. He was the longest-serving general in the army—even longer than Zygar—and Perak had always found him to be arrogant and over-confident. It didn't help that Pushak had never been one of Perak's supporters. Pushak moved to stand next to the huge map of the Red Dragon Kingdom on the wall, brandishing a long dark stick to point to the map.

"Thank you, General Zygar for the privilege of sharing the story of my success. In addition to wiping out all traces of the Red Dragons between the capital of their Northern Principality, Newcastle, and our old border, I say old, as it has in effect moved; my forces have captured the strategic city and former national capital known as Oldcastle—"