The Road to Hell - eARC Read Online Free Page B

happened. The carcasses of flying creatures which could only be described as dragons from the most fearsome fairy tales had littered the landscape. The Trans-Temporal Express’s work crews had used steam shovels and bulldozers to bury them, but the damned things were so enormous—estimates ran to over forty tons, and he believed them—that the work crews had been forced to cut (and blast) them into smaller pieces they could handle. Then there’d been the bodies of the “eagle-lions” strewn across the fort’s burned and blasted parade ground, the enormous horses—like no horse chan Geraith had ever seen before—which had been killed in the assault on the fort’s eastern wall, and the charred ruin of a solid brick and adobe tower which had been pulverized by one of the plummeting dragons.
    And there were the row upon row of graves, including, he thought with a pang which had become familiar without becoming one bit less agonizing, the imperial crown prince who’d stayed to fight beside the fort’s defenders, knowing he would die, to warn them of what was coming.
    It was Arlos chan Geraith’s duty to see that none of those men had died in vain. Janaki chan Calirath had entrusted him with that responsibility, and he intended to meet it.
    “According to Lisar here,” he said, looking up from the map and nodding in the direction of Company-Captain Lisar chan Korthal, his staff Voice, “your heavy artillery should to be arriving by mid-week, Braykhan.”
    “Yes, Sir,” Regiment-Captain Braykhan chan Sayro replied with a small grimace. “I wish we were in a better position to make use of it.”
    “Patience, Braykhan. Patience!” Chan Geraith smiled grimly at his staff artillerist. “Your ‘cannon-cockers’ will have their chance. I promise.”
    Chan Sayro nodded, and chan Geraith turned his attention to Regiment-Captain Therahk chan Kymo, his staff quartermaster. Chan Kymo was considerably taller and fifteen years younger than his division-captain, with a pronounced Delkrathian accent and the dark hair and eyes common to the majority of the Narhathan Peninsula’s people. He was also good at his job, which was handy, given that the 3rd Dragoons were at the far end of a thirty thousand-mile supply chain.
    “Lisar also tells me Brigade-Captain chan Khartan will be arriving along with Braykhan’s guns,” the division-captain said.
    “Yes, Sir. I already had that information,” chan Kymo acknowledged. “Exactly where I’m going to park them all’s going to be something of a puzzle, though, I’m afraid.”
    Chan Geraith snorted. Shodan chan Khartan commanded the 3rd Dragoons’ 2nd Brigade, which would add better than three thousand men to his current troop strength when it arrived. An infantry brigade was almost twice that size, but an infantry division had only two brigades, whereas a dragoon division had three, for a nominal total of just over ten thousand men, not counting the inevitable attachments. True, no unit was ever fully up to the numbers in its official table of organization. That was certainly true in the Third Dragoons’ case, at least! But moving even a slightly understrength division was a mammoth task, and a staggering total of locomotives and rolling stock would be required to move chan Geraith’s entire command down the Trans-Temporal Express’ rail line from Sharona.
    “I realize space is more than a little tight,” he told chan Kymo with massive understatement. “That would be true under any circumstances, and having Engineer Banchu’s work trains parked all over the sidings doesn’t help.”
    “We were lucky to have the sidings to park them on, Sir,” chan Kymo pointed out, and chan Geraith nodded.
    The Traisum Cut’s narrow slot had been blasted through the heart of a three thousand-foot sheer cliff to connect the universes of Traisum and Karys, which had cost well over four billion Ternathian falcons and taken more thousands of man-hours—and tons of explosives—than