They cross, most of them. There are too many for the enemy to stop. The boats of the Dalavan Guard drive ashore on Lorkhin, running right up onto the firm ground of the island, and the Guard spill out onto pathways that, it can only be hoped, mages and explosives have already cleared of mines and traps.
Elsewhere, avoiding Lorkhin and its strongholds, the Marines storm across the danger zone. Unlike the Guard, they do not assault the enemy strongpoints—the giant, fortified buildings on their tall pontoons—but instead bypass them, swarming through the dark watery passages beneath the startled, entrenched enemy. Then, grouping in rear areas, the Marines seize communications links, break electricity and plasm connections, and assault the enemy from behind.
At the same time the Army attacks from the front. The Provisionals, when they created the no-man’s-land in front of their position, did so by gutting buildings and pontoons, turning them into barges filled with rubble, and by sinking others to create lanes of open water. Instead of building bridges and roads across the danger zone, as the enemy expected, Constantine has simply built new pontoons, each more than a stade long, colossal structures shielded from magework by bronze plates and mesh, with highways built not along the tops, but safely through the interior. Seagoing tugs, guarded by telepresent mages, shove these massive structures into position, and military engineers link them together to create long tunnels that stretch toward the enemy.
Aiah goggles at the sight as, on video, she sees these monuments being driven along watery lanes and into position. Shellfire plunges down, fountaining high in the water or hammering the armored roofs of the bridging pontoons. Occasionally a tug is hit and explodes in bright flame, or—listing—is forced back. But still the long bridges, link by link, drive toward an enemy stunned by bombardment, confused and cut off by attacks in their rear.
The first bridge to be completed, because it was unopposed, links government forces with Landro’s Escaliers, and government mercenaries roll to the attack in an attempt to expand their bridgehead. Other bridges are, with much greater difficulty, at length fixed in position. Crossings begin, against ferocious opposition.
“Yes, Triumvir.” Constantine presses a gold headset to one ear as he replies to Parq’s pleas. “We are doing our utmost to get the bridges across to Lorkhin.”
He winces, then holds the headphone some distance from his ear. Parq’s hysterical voice, released from the cup of Constantine’s ear, cries its distress to the room.
The Dalavan Guard have stalled on the Island, cohesion broken, the soldiers huddling in whatever cover they can find. Parq screams for Constantine to rescue them.
“We will reinforce,” Constantine reassures. “I guarantee it, Triumvir.”
Aiah suspects that the bridges trying to reach Lorkhin may be used more for retreat than for reinforcement.
The Provisional command seems disorganized and slow to respond, but their mercenary troops are all good soldiers, more experienced than the expanded Caraqui army, and the response of the individual units is professional enough. Government casualties mount. Storms of blistering fire are hurled against Landro’s Escaliers and the bridgehead. And then—in another part of the line entirely, near the border with Lanbola—a tentative breakthrough occurs. A clear pathway to the enemy rear opens. All enemy reserves are already committed against the Escaliers—there is nothing to stop government forces from slicing into enemy territory and cutting them off from all support—but somehow there is a breakdown on the bridge-tunnel, and reinforcements cannot be got across in any quantity.
“What… hideous… treachery…” Constantine’s eloquence deserts him as he watches the impediments multiply, one after another. Aiah watches him roar, pump fists into the air, pace manically back and forth. There is a mad desperation in his eyes; he is reliving, Aiah thinks, some nightmare from his past, from Cheloki, some other plan that failed. Engineers work frantically on the bridge. Officers are shouting words like “utmost” and “at all costs.”
“Done,” someone reports.
“Roll them!” Constantine cries, and communication techs bend over their boards to give the orders.
Constantine sags, fists planted on a table, head bent. The nightmare, for the moment, has been averted. Aiah feels an impulse to walk over and comfort him.
But he thinks of her first. His head comes up, and then he turns to Aiah, straightens, and walks over to her. “I would like your agreement at this point,” he says. “Karlo’s Brigade has been in reserve all day. I would like to send them across the bridge and have them finish this war once and for all.”
“Yes,” Aiah says. “Of course.” She rises, and blackness invades her vision. She sways from sheer weariness, reaches a hand toward her chair for support. “I want to go to them.”
Constantine’s hand closes firmly on her shoulder. “Do not, I beg you,” he says. “You will contribute nothing to their effort, and your presence will only distract them. After things have settled, perhaps, a visit would be in order.”
Her will is not strong enough to resist. “May I speak to General Ceison on the phone?”
“Of course. If he can be found.”
He can’t: apparently the brigade is already in motion. Aiah sits. Weariness swims through her mind.
“Miss?” Aiah looks up to find a smiling, white-jacketed steward looking down at her. “May I get you a sandwich? A salad? Coffee?”
Aiah wonders how many shifts it has been since she last ate.
“All three,” she decides.
The steward smiles. “Right away, miss.”
Aiah watches the video while she eats and forgets to taste the food. Some of the images are being fed in from the bridgehead, showing vehicles filled with soldiers rolling out of the bridge-tunnel into newly won territory. And then, directly in front of the camera, someone flashes into existence from out of nothing, popping right onto the roadway. He is small and slight, shaggy-haired, with strange tall ears, and he carries a long glittering blade. He looks about, bewildered, for a second, and then one of the armored vehicles rolls him down.
Aiah stares for a moment at the strange, fated apparition. A teleport gone wrong, she thinks; someone popped a twisted person right into the war, armed only with a big knife.
Other, more jittery, images come from the front itself. The door is no longer open—the enemy have used the delay to reorganize their defense—but a strong push should finish them.
And then artillery begins to rain down on the bridgehead. A storm of plasm fire unfolds. Aiah can sense the attack losing momentum.
No! she thinks. Not now.
Constantine stands transfixed below the video images, big hands flexing helplessly at his sides. The nightmare is enfolding him again.
The vehicles rolling into the bridgehead slow, come to a halt. The bridge-tunnel itself is being hit repeatedly. Aiah watches as the attack’s momentum fades.
And then she looks up as Sorya, in her green uniform, comes striding into the command center. She is grim-faced, and flanked by a pair of aides. Without giving Aiah a glance, Sorya walks to Constantine and speaks without hesitation.
“Most of that gunfire directed against the bridgehead,” she says, “is not from the Provisional forces—most of their stuff has been suppressed. The firing is from the Lanbolan army, their regular forces. They’re firing at us from over the border, trying to seal off our breakthrough.”
In the sudden silence, Aiah can see calculations flickering through Constantine. “The rest of their army?”
“Latest report says they’re on alert, but in their barracks. But the Lanbolan government has also released its plasm reserves to the Provisionals… They’re beaming staggering amounts across the border to the enemy mages. We’re going to have to expect much more powerful sorcery to be directed against us.”