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"Then I suppose I'd better go see how our preparations are coming."
Banchu climbed down from the freight car and headed off in search of his assistants.
Platoon-Captain Vuras was the senior officer of the double platoon Regiment-Captain chan Skrithik had sent down to reinforce the railhead's security. Unfortunately, even after Vuras' arrival, that left Banchu with less than a company of regular troops to look after the better part of two thousand workers.
The good news was that at least a third of his labor force had at least some military experience. The Trans-Temporal Express had always given veterans preference when it came to hiring practices, and its perso
Unfortunately, neither Banchu, chan Eris, nor Vuras had very much in the way of heavy weapons to support those rifles, aside from the pair of Yerthak pedestal guns and single section of light machine guns Vuras had brought with him. There were no mortars, no field guns, no howitzers ...
What they did have was ingenuity, lots of construction equipment, several hundred miles worth of stockpiled rails, and the mobile machine shops necessary to perform maintenance on millions of Ternathian marks worth of steam shovels, bulldozers, and tractors.
That thought carried Banchu over to the area where chan Eris and Platoon-Captain Harek chan Morak were overseeing the chief engineer's latest brainchild.
Sparks fountained from welding torches as sweating track layers and maintenance crews worked frantically on what had been standard freight cars up until a very few hours ago. Now the wooden sides of those freight cars were in the process of disappearing behind layers of steel rails. Banchu didn't know if a double layer of railroad iron would stand up to one of the "dragons" Petty-Captain chan Darma had described to Hersal Yoritam, Banchu's own assigned Voice. He doubted that anyone had any clear notion of exactly how powerful dragonfire or lightning might be. But his improvised armor ought to stand up to just about anything short of field artillery, and he'd been careful to leave enough loopholes to allow anyone inside the cars to bring at least a dozen Model 10s to bear in any direction.
"How's it coming, Foram?" he asked.
"Well as we could expect, I guess," chan Eris replied. "Mind you, I don't think we've got enough freight cars to put everyone into, even if we end up having time to stick rails on all of them."
"That's what I've always liked best about you, Foram—that sparkling Ternathian optimism of yours."
"What's to be optimistic about?" chan Eris responded sourly, although there was more than a hint of a gleam in his eyes.
"How about starting with the fact that we're all still alive, and we haven't seen any dragons diving on us?"
"Yet. We haven't seen any dragons diving on us yet," chan Eris said. "Of course, the day's still young, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is." Banchu thumped him on the shoulder, then cocked his head. "What about the locomotives?"
"I've got two of them just about ready. The cabs are protected at least as well as the freights, at any rate.
And young chan Morak's working on another pair right now. We've done the best we could about protecting the boilers, too, but that's a lot tougher."
"As far as I can make out, these people don't have anything like rifles or machine guns," Banchu told him. "I don't know that they're going to be able to punch through the boilers with anything they've got."
"Maybe not. But all they really have to do to strand us is tear up the track, you know," chan Eris pointed out.
"They can tear up track if they want to," Banchu said more grimly. "Unless they're a lot more experienced with railroads than I think they are, though, they probably don't realize how quickly our people can put the track back together again."
"Assuming we've got enough firepower to keep the bastards off our people while they put it back."
Chan Eris might have sounded as if he were objecting to what Banchu had just said, but he he wasn't, and he snorted when Banchu quirked an eyebrow at him.
"I don't know how many troops these people brought with them, Olvyr, but they'd better have a lot if they want to stop us and simultaneously take and hold Fort Salby—especially with Division-Captain chan Geraith as close as he is. I'm not too sure about these armored freight cars of yours. Mind you, I think they're a good idea—I just don't know how good an idea. But I do know that if the other side is stupid enough to spread its forces to thin, it's go
""thinspace"'Reamed,'"thinspace"" Banchu repeated. "Is that one of those technical military terms a civilian like me wouldn't be familiar with?"
"Probably."
Chan Eris squinted up at the crew working on the current freight car, then looked back at Banchu.
"I've got this part of it pretty much under control, Olvyr. Why don't you go worry about something else?
My 'Ternathian optimism' and I can handle this."
Banchu chuckled, shook his head, and headed off to see how much construction equipment they could load onto their available flat cars.
"What the—?"
Under-Armsman Verais lowered the field glasses for a moment, then shook his head and raised them once more.
"We've got three ... horsemen coming down the valley, Armsman," he a
"What?" Junior-Armsman Paras chan Barsak seemed to materialize out of the dusty earth at Verais'
elbow.
"There."
Verais passed over the field glasses and pointed at the roadway far below. Chan Barsak raised the binoculars to his own eyes, adjusting the focus, then grunted as the image sharpened.
Verais was right. Three men mounted on something horse-sized and vaguely horse-shaped were cantering along the roadway at a preposterous rate of speed. Afternoon sunlight glittered on what were apparently long, spiral horns sprouting from their "horses'"thinspace"" foreheads, and chan Barsak had never heard of a "horse" with what looked remarkably like a carnivore's tusks. Of course, the not-horses were just passing abreast of the shattered corpse of what was obviously a dragon, so he didn't suppose there was any reason they couldn't be equally preposterous.
His lips twitched at the thought, then his forehead creased in surprise.
"They're coming in under a parley ba
"Parley ba
"I didn't say it was a proper parley ba
Verais just scowled, and chan Barsak snorted, then shook his head and started calling for the Flicker assigned to his squad.
Rof chan Skrithik and Sunlord Markan stood side-by-side outside Markan's CP and watched the pair of Arcanan officers being escorted towards them. Both Arcanans were blindfolded, and their third companion had been held at the outer picket line where he could keep an eye on their peculiar horned horses ... and couldn't see anything about the defenders' positions. Frankly, chan Skrithik was just as happy not to have those u
Actually, he thought grimly, I'd just as soon not have these Arcanan fuckers any closer than they have to be, either.
He thought about the dead prince lying in Company-Captain Krilar's infirmary and the palm of his pistol hand itched.
The Arcanans were marched into the command post. Chan Skrithik and Markan watched them go by, then followed them silently into the sandbagged bunker. It was obvious from the Arcanans' body language that they weren't as calm as they would have liked to appear, yet chan Skrithik found himself feeling an unwilling respect for their sheer nerve. Riding in to parley with someone against whom you'd just launched a sneak attack while in the midst of negotiations in time of peace was not a task for the faint hearted.
The Arcanans were turned to face him and the blindfolds were removed. They blinked as their eyes adjusted to the dim light inside the command post, then one of them looked at chan Skrithik and Markan. His eyes narrowed as he saw the three gold rifles of chan Skrithik's rank insignia and the splinted forearm suspended in the sling tied around the regiment-captain's neck.
"May I crystal back?" the Arcanan said in heavily accented Ternathian, gesturing at the petty-captain who'd escorted him and his companion to the CP.
"You want one of your crystals returned to you?" chan Skrithik responded, and the Arcanan nodded vigorously.
"Can talk better with," he said.
Chan Skrithik frowned for a moment, then glanced at the petty-captain.
"You took one of their rocks off of them?"
"Yes, Sir. We didn't find anything that looked like a weapon—not even a knife—but after everything else, I figured, well ..."
The youngster shrugged, and chan Skrithik nodded.
"You did exactly the right thing, Son. On the other hand, I suppose if we actually want to hear what these ... people have to say, we should give it back to them."
The regiment-captain held out his hand for the crystal in question, then turned back to the more talkative Arcanan with it on his palm.
"Understand," he said grimly, holding the other man's eyes with his own and letting him see the hate and barely leashred rage, "if we think you're going to do anything with this hunk of rock except talk, I'll shoot you dead where you stand."