Wizard's Blood [Part Two] (58 page)

The war effort was progressing as well as could be expected. Jolan was for the most part staying out of the details and hadn’t actively participated in any actions lately, which made Vaen a lot happier. For the moment it was a professional’s war, and Jolan knew he was out of his depth. Wylan and Samm were pushing hard against the forces still in Seret, while Kavel and his teams were constantly running missions behind the lines. The damage they were able to inflict was limited, but very focused and was starting to show results.

Against Jolan’s recommendation, Wylan had used the portals to move a large contingent of Angon troops into Seret to aid in the retaking of Belth. Almost ten thousand men had been moved through a portal located on the eastern edge of Cobalo to one located twenty miles west of Belth. The men had been told that the mages had come up with a means of rapidly relocating them, but experience had shown that non-mages tended to react poorly, most going insane, to the transition if they went through it with their eyes open. They needed to be blocked from the visions that would be seen during the transition, and so must be blindfolded. Each man was given a full head sack, and they were marched five abreast from a location out of sight of the Cobalo portal, each man holding onto the belt of the man in front, through the portal, and out of sight of the portal on the far side. The story was somewhat believable to the troops when they found themselves suddenly in Seret, their location familiar to many individuals in the division. It took most of a morning to transfer all of the men and, while it worked, Jolan felt the story a bit weak and had made his feelings known that they were taking a high risk with the security of the system. In the end, it wasn’t his decision to make, and the Queen made the decision to go ahead.

This morning Wylan had reported that he fully expected the invading forces in central Seret would be expelled within the week, and those in Belth no more than a week later. Plans were being drawn up on how the war would proceed after Seret was once again free, with both the Queens of Angon and Seret indicating support for a continued push to drive Ale’ald back out of Kimlelm as well.

The current situation left Jolan with time to start considering how to go into Ale’ald after Shyar. She had been there long enough and, while she was apparently free to move around, he considered the risks unacceptable. He knew Shyar was planning her own escape, but any plan she made would not consider the possibilities offered by the portals. Through Tishe he’d managed to suggest she not take any immediate action unless something forced her to do so, and that he would be coming soon by means he couldn’t explain. Jolan wasn’t sure how much of this had actually been communicated to Shyar, but she apparently got the main points, and seemed to be somehow aware that he could move great distances quickly.

For the past couple of days Jolan, Asari, and Rifod had been poring over maps and lists of portals, trying to identify possible entry points into the country. Part of the problem was how poorly they understood the location of many places within the country. Even the location of the Academy itself was uncertain. With a great deal of guessing and careful searching, they had identified twenty possible portals that should be within ten to fifteen miles of the place. Being certain was going to take some scouting, which meant people would have to go into Ale’ald in advance of the mission to recover Shyar.

That had led to many hours of discussion regarding the composition of the team. Jolan wanted Luzoke because of his power, and fortunately his friend had already planned on going. Asari was coming as well. Long ago Jolan and Asari had made a pact to go after Cheurt, and there was no way he could be left behind now that a mission was actually being considered. A more difficult choice had been Ronoron. He wanted to come as well. He made the case that it was highly likely that wards would be encountered, and who better than he could deal with them. The fact that Shyar had moved about freely without encountering any wards didn’t discourage him at all. Feeling he was making a mistake, Jolan agreed to his coming along. Ronoron had been left out too often of late, and Shyar had been his friend also.

The remaining members of the team would be three of Kavel’s mages who were specialists on Ale’ald, or at least as close to specialists as they had. Each of the wizards captured had been carefully interrogated. They were building up a picture of the current conditions in the country and how they would need to act once there to remain undetected. The men would be responsible for supplying each of them appropriate clothing, the mages disguised as wizards and the others as military. Morin had been brought into the talks as well, since he’d made a few trips into Ale’ald some years back and knew a bit about the culture and attitudes.

“
As privileged members of the society, don’t expect to pay full fare,” he’d told them. “Always demand a discount. At least twenty-five percent. It could be more now, with the war on. And, ya don’t ever leave a tip, for anything. That’d get ya turned in quicker’n spit.”

“
The locals would turn you in even though they don’t like the wizards?” Asari asked.

Morin nodded. “They’d be afraid not to. If you were to get caught and it was learned where you’d been, they would be in a lot of trouble. Safer for them to follow the law. You’re no one to them, why should they risk their families for you?”

“
Staying in one of the taverns wouldn’t be reason for suspicion?”

“
Never was before, and I’ll bet things are so crowded now that it’s commonplace. Take a look around when you get there the first time and see what it looks like. It’ll be pretty obvious if that kind of thing has changed. I would expect it’s even more common. The commoners would have little reason to be traveling now.”

This seemed to confirm what the mages had learned during interrogations of a number of captured wizards, and they’d nodded their agreement. The plan was converging on the need for two, perhaps three, runs into Ale’ald. The first would be a scouting mission to see where the various portals let them out. A bit of peeking through the viewing function had been very uninformative, so someone was going to have to physically go there. If they were lucky, they would find one near the small town that was supposed to be located about five miles from the castle. If they could check this out, and then make their way toward the castle to see what they needed to be prepared for the day Shyar was to escape, then the single advance trip would be enough. It was more likely that once they had determined which portal to use, they’d have to make another trip dedicated to checking out the best escape route. Kavel’s men had further interests and wanted to scout the area against possible future attacks, but had agreed to hold back their more ambitious plans until Shyar was safely away.

“
Now, what’s all this nonsense about dragons you were starting to tell me when the others arrived?” Morin asked Asari when the rest of the people had left, leaving only the two of them and Jolan.

Asari gave him one of his widest grins, and hurried back into the other room, returning with the book of maps he’d brought out of Trailways so long ago.

“
We found this by accident last night when we were looking for portals,” Asari said, pointing at something with his finger.

Morin looked at the map and for a moment was confused. “This isn’t Ale’ald,” he said. “This looks like the Lost Territories.”

“
It is,” Asari agreed. “We started paging through the book and wondering about the missing pages, then I spotted this.”

Morin looked more closely where Asari was pointing. He saw a small circle surrounded by a slightly larger one with three small dots equally spaced around the circumference. It meant nothing to him.

“
So?” he asked.

“
It’s a symbol we have come across a couple of times. Jolan’s relative Utar, who became trapped on Earth, had a note in his log that this was the symbol the Dragons often used. He said that he’d learned that on some of the older maps it was used to locate the Dragon’s Nest, the place where they had their colony. Asari is convinced we have found the home of the long lost dragons.”

“
From a small mark in a book?” Morin asked. “That a bit of a reach, lad.”

“
It’s them, I know it,” Asari countered. “Something happened to me the minute I saw it. Jolan has had hunches before. Now I know what it’s like. I’m absolutely certain that’s where they are.”

“
It doesn’t matter much,” Morin said finally. “How would you get there? There’s no way to the Lost Territories through the mountains, even if we weren’t at war.”

“
We’d have to go by ship,” Asari said. “We could sail to the southern end of the Settled Lands, and then hike in from there”

“
Asari has always enjoyed a bit of an ocean sail,” Jolan said with a bit of a smile.

“
It’d take months, “ Morin said, “and who knows what dangers. The Lost Territories are said ta be filled with strange creatures, many very dangerous. Why would you want to even try?”

“
Because its important,” Asari insisted.

“
Important? Why?”

“
I don’t know. I just know that it is,” Asari responded lamely.

Morin was about to say something when Tishe appeared at the doorway. She looked like she had something important on her mind.

“
Tishe?” Jolan said, concerned that whatever was on the girl’s mind might have something to do with Shyar. He hoped she hadn’t been caught slipping out of her cell.

“
Cheurt is planning a sneak attack,” she said looking at Jolan. “He wants to slip in a couple of regiments through southern Seret, up by the mountains. It would be a rugged trip, but there is a way they could get through by Jom. Shyar indicates he has already sent the orders to start the troops on their way. I think he wants to bring them into central Seret while the battles are being fought and come at our troops from the rear.”

“
Have you told Wylan?”

“
No. I wanted to see you first. I didn’t know how this might affect your plans for getting Shyar.”

“
I don’t think so,” Wylan said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

They had gone directly to find him, and Tishe had explained what she had learned from Shyar a short time earlier. Now they were looking at Wylan’s maps of the area, and Jolan was starting to see what he meant.

“
While we have drawn down the troops we have in the area, we still have enough to watch it closely. They couldn’t expect to get very many through before we realized what was happening. The path is difficult, and maintaining any kind of supply line through there would be virtually impossible.”

“
What if they came by the main trail towards Honlt, rather than trying to slip through the mountains near the border?” Jolan asked.

“
That would be the more supportable route, which is why we have it quite heavily patrolled. Their problem coming that way is the narrowness of the path at many points. The invading troops would have to bunch up, and we’d be able to set up a number of very effective ambushes. Several key choke points are already set up against just such an attempt.”

“
So if you were to be attacked from that direction, you wouldn’t be completely surprised?” Jolan asked.

Wylan nodded. “That’s how they went into Kimlelm in the beginning, but they can’t expect to surprise us that way.”

“
What if an attack were staged there as a distraction?”

“
Distraction?”

“
An initial group engages your people. All of a sudden your focus is there, an area where you’ve always half expected some kind of probe. While you are focused on repelling the attacking forces there, Ale’ald slips their troops into Seret through the mountains as Shyar seems to be suggesting?”

“
Still doesn’t work. Before long we’d know of the people slipping in. They can’t expect to take out all of the people watching. There are simply too many. They’d have to expect us to come after them, and look, they have a couple of week’s march along the river to get down to where we are currently fighting. We have troops all along the river. They would be engaged in running battles all of the time.”

Jolan knew they were missing something. Shyar wasn’t one to get something like this wrong. Unfortunately, the means by which they were communicating was very imprecise, so they could easily be looking at her intended message all wrong.

“
What if,” Wylan said suddenly, looking at the maps again. “What if they have no intention of augmenting the forces down near the bridges? What if they have an entirely different objective?”

He pointed to the map and explained his thinking.

“
Let’s use your scenario for a moment. An attack begins on the main trail out of the mountains, on the road to Honlt. Seret focuses on repelling the invader, assuming they are attempting the same trick they pulled in Kimlelm. Meanwhile, troops start slipping into Seret by the mountain route over near the river. Suppose that instead of heading north along the river, they slip inland and form a rear action against the troops defending Honlt from the “invasion” that has already started. Ten or twelve thousand troops coming in from the rear could probably overwhelm the defenders. Now, Ale’ald would have a clear path to send the bulk of their people and all the supplies they need down the main trail.”

“
They’d still have a long way to go to support their people.”

“
They wouldn’t go that way. I suspect they’d turn west. A couple of days would put them in Jidan where they could assault the Seret side of the tunnel. They might be making a bid to capture or destroy the tunnel, which would be a major blow to our effort. We rely on that tunnel for most of the shipments from Angon these days.”