The Road to Hell - eARC Read Online Free PDF Page B

miles of it lay in Traisum, and at least it wouldn’t have required the removal of so many tons of drilled and blasted rock. For that matter, the cost to cross Kelsayr, even allowing for the Renaiyrton shipyard, had been little more than two billion falcons.
    As it was, since TTE and the PAAF had both operated on the reasonable assumption that the two chains would never link back up, Kelsayr and Lashai were both more heavily inhabited and had better road and rail development than anything down-chain from Traisum in the Karys Chain. The route from Lashai to Thermyn, on the other hand, was almost totally unimproved. There were trails, and the future route of the TTE’s roadbed had been surveyed all the way to Nairsom, but as chan Isail had just pointed out, there was nothing remotely like an adequate road net to support the advance of thousands of men with all of their weapons and supplies beyond Lashai. And while it was still a bit difficult for a Sharonian to wrap his mind around all the advantages the Arcanans’ “dragons” bestowed upon them, one thing was abundantly clear: they could project force much farther—and much more rapidly—than Sharona could, even through totally undeveloped terrain.
    And the total, ominous silence of the Voices beyond Resym was grim evidence that Sharona’s enemies had been advancing along both axes.
    “You’re right.” The division-captain acknowledged chan Isail’s point. “But let’s think about the other side’s situation for a moment. Chimo and I have been giving that some thought, so I’ll let him lay it out for you. Chimo?”
    Battalion-Captain Chimo chan Gayrahn was the Third Dragoons’ planning and operations officer, which meant—despite his relatively junior rank—that he was also in charge of chan Geraith’s intelligence assessments. The red-haired, green-eyed Bernithian was substantially younger than the rest of the division-captain’s staff officers, but he had the confidence of competence and his expression was calm as all of the others turned to look at him.
    “Of course, Division-Captain,” he said and laid a folder on the map table in front of him. It was quite a fat folder.
    “These are the notes I’ve been working on for Division-Captain chan Geraith,” he continued, looking around the other officers’ faces. “They’re based on interviews with Regiment-Captain chan Skrithik, Sunlord Markan, and Fort Salby’s other surviving officers and noncoms. And my assessment based on them, which I’ve already shared with the Division-Captain, is that Regiment-Captain chan Skrithik and his men hurt the Arcanans even more badly than we’d assumed.”
    He flipped the folder open and extracted half a dozen sheaves of thin, tightly typed paper, stapled at the corner, and passed them around the table.
    “Obviously,” he continued once each of them had a copy, “most of this has to be highly speculative, but at the Division-Captain’s instructions, I’ve tried to speculate as intelligently as possible. Fortunately, I had Master-Armsman chan Vornos available to help speculate and, ah…restrain any excessive enthusiasm.”
    Most of the others smiled, and Brigade-Captain Renyl chan Quay, First Brigade’s CO, chuckled out loud. Master-Armsman Caryl chan Vornos was close to twice chan Gayrahn’s age, and thirty-odd years ago, Junior-Armsman chan Vornos had taken Under-Captain chan Quay under his wing. He’d been polishing officers in the Imperial Ternathian Army ever since, and it was obvious from chan Gayrahn’s tone that chan Vornos regarded the battalion-captain as yet another work in progress.
    “What became apparent as we looked at the combat reports and our interviews,” chan Gayrahn went on more soberly, “is that Regiment-Captain chan Skrithik and his men severely mauled the enemy’s ‘dragons.’ Obviously, the ones killed in the attack, even if we combine the ones picked off in Prince Janaki’s ambush with the ones shot out of the sky here