Hell Hath No Fury (30 page)

"That's going to make problems enough all by itself. But once we get past that, there's this Fort Salby in Traisum. I think you'll find the information on the portal itself fascinating reading. Then, once we get past that, there's the fort and a substantial settlement around it. In addition, it appears that there are quite a few farming and ranching villages and homesteads stretched out along the route from Fort Salby to the next universe. With that many people mucking about, it's highly unlikely that we're going to be able to continue to … neutralize this Voicenet of theirs. There's too much chance of missing a Voice hiding in the underbrush, as it were. That means we're going to lose the advantage of surprise, which is going to make any real advance beyond Fort Salby problematical, at best.

"But that's all right, actually. As you know, we captured their maps intact here at Ghartoun, and a couple of my bright young staff officers have worked out an adaptation of the standard recon image-intepreting software. We still can't read most of their documents, but they're loading the captured maps into their PCs and then using the interpreting software to compare them to our maps and look for terrain feature matches. Once they find one, the software automatically orients the Sharonian maps to ours and scales them accurately, using ours as a base. We may not know how to read any of the names on their maps, but we're able to make some detailed appreciations of the terrain on them now. Which means we know what the rest of this portal chain looks like, although I could wish we knew more about the rest of their explored chains. At any rate, the maps all confirmed what the prisoners had already said. The Traisum portal is definitely going to be the chokepoint we've been looking for. For a lot of reasons."

"Really, Sir?"

"Oh, yes." Harshu smiled thinly. "As I say, I think you'll be impressed. The portal itself would be a nightmare for anyone without dragon capability, and the approaches to the portal in Traisum itself are almost as bad. The only ground access to the portal is by way of a valley which is dominated by this Fort Salby. That's one reason I want Salby so badly. I want to be able to control that valley, keep them penned up in it where we can pound them hard, bleed any effort just to reach the portal. Given their lack of any aerial capability, we should always be able to break off and fall back through the portal if they start pushing us too hard."

"Excuse me, Sir, but if the portal is as defensible as you seem to be suggesting, why should we move beyond it?"

"There seems to be substantial agreement among our current prisoners that the reinforcements their swamp portal commander was anticipating will probably be no more than a week or so out from Fort Salby by the time we can reach the portal. If I were their commander, and if I didn't have transports, then I'd probably think long and hard before even contemplating fighting my way through the portal from Traisum to Karys. On the other hand, we still haven't seen these people's heavy weapons, and we don't have any way of predicting the actual combat power of this reinforcement they're expecting. They may think they can force the portal. They might even be right.

"By taking Salby and controlling the approach valley, we'll be able to start hitting them early. Hopefully, we'll have a chance to get a feel for how their combat capabilities differ from those we've already encountered. I want that feel before it comes down to a toe-to-toe fight for the actual portal. If, on the other hand, their basic combat power is as outclassed as our more optimistic junior officers prefer to assume, they may never get past us to the portal in the first place. At any rate, from the topography on these maps, it looks like whoever selected the site for Fort Salby had an excellent eye for terrain.

They've definitely put the plug into this valley at its most defensible point, which means it's the logical anchor for us to hang our own defensive positions on.

"In any case, I'm assuming that once we hit the fort itself, word of our presence is going to get out. We won't be able to keep it from spreading up-chain from Traisum, no matter what we do. And I'm not planning on advancing any further than Traisum, anyway."

The two thousand shrugged.

"In light of all that, the intelligence value of anything more Neshok could extract from his prisoners has got to be of strictly limited utility. And, quite frankly, I'm delighted that that's the way it is." For just a moment, a haunted, almost haggard, expression flickered across Harshu's face. Then he met Toralk's eyes levelly. "I can't justify continuing to allow him to do the things he's been doing unless he's in a position to provide me with genuinely critical information, and that's not going to be the case any longer."

"I can't pretend I'm not … very relieved to hear that, Sir," Toralk told him after a moment.

"I know you are, Klayrman." Harshu reached across the floating map table in his command tent and patted the Air Force officer's forearm gently. "I know you are."

There was silence for a moment. Then Harshu inhaled sharply and handed Toralk his copy of the current intelligence summary.

"When you look this over, I think you'll see why this Fort Salby's going to be tough," he said much more briskly. "I'll be interested to see if you come to the same conclusions I did about the most effective approach. I don't want to prejudice your thinking, but as you look through the summary, I'd like you to consider-"

"My gods, Sir! I thought you were dead!"

"As you can see, Silky, we Arpathians are even tougher then you knew." Namir Velvelig's eyes were darker and bleaker than Company-Captain Silkash had ever before seen them, yet his voice held a ghost of genuine amusement.

"No one's that tough," Silkash said flatly. "Remember, I'm the one who triaged you in the first place."

"You did?" Velvelig cocked his head to one side. "Odd. I don't recall it."

"I imagine that's because you were unconscious, almost out of blood, and had serious cranial injuries, not to mention a badly shattered hip and what I'm almost certain was at least one spinal fracture,"

Silkash told him. The surgeon's face twisted with bitter memory. "I black-tagged you."

"I see."

Velvelig reached out and squeezed his friend's shoulder. He understood now why Silkash looked the way he did. A black tag indicated that there was no point trying to save the patient. That it was time to let him go and concentrate on saving those who might live, instead.

"I don't think your judgment was in error, if that's what's bothering you, Silky," the regiment-captain said after a moment. Silkash looked skeptical, and Velvelig snorted. "Look, don't forget that these people can work magic. Magic, Silky. And apparently it's not limited solely to better ways to kill people, either. You wouldn't believe what I saw their healers doing before they decided I was fit enough to go to jail with the rest of you."

"If they could fix everything that was wrong with you, they really are wizards," Silkash said. Then he grimaced.

"What?"

"I was just thinking. If they could fix you up, as badly hurt as you were, and do it this quickly, no wonder an idiot like Thalmayr didn't understand what we were doing! I'll bet you they don't use surgery at all."

"I don't know about that." Velvelig shook his head. "I saw them doing some surgery, but I'd say they only do it for relatively minor injuries. I'm guessing there's some kind of limit on how much healing they can do at any one time with these spells of theirs, so they probably handle the little stuff the hard way and save the 'magic' for really serious problems. But I think you're probably right about Thalmayr … since I saw him walking out of their medical tent unassisted."

He and Silkash looked at one another, and Velvelig saw the mirror of his own response to the sight of a magically-literally-restored Hadrign Thalmayr walking around Fort Ghartoun. Of course, it was probably even more complex for Silkash than it was for Velvelig. After all, Silkash was a Healer. His oath, as well as his natural personality, required him to want to see any of his patients fully recovered.

However stupid, frustrating, detestable, and just plain infuriating the patient in question might be.

"Well, that's certainly interesting," Silkash said after a moment.

"That's one way to put it. On the other hand, I'm considerably less interested in Thalmayr than I am in what else has been going on."

"I don't know everything that's happened," Silkash replied slowly, and Velvelig's spine stiffened at the bleakness which suddenly infused the surgeon's voice. "What I do know hasn't been good, though."

"In that case," Velvelig said, in a tone whose evenness might have deceived anyone who didn't know Arpathians, "I suppose you'd better tell me about it."

"I'm worried about the horses, Dad," Syrail Targal said.

"So am I," his father said, patting him on the shoulder. "They'll just have to look after themselves for a while, though. Just like we will."

Syrail nodded, and his father ruffled his hair the way he'd done when Syrail was much younger. The youngster managed a smile, and Kersai gave him a gentle nudge in the direction of the carefully hidden tent.

"Go help your mother with supper," he said quietly.

"Yes, sir." Syrail nodded again and headed obediently towards the assigned chore.

His father watched him go, doing his best to hide the depth of his own concern. It had been just over twelve hours since the fall of Fort Ghartoun, and given the strength of the Voice talent Syrail had been showing for the last several months, there wouldn't have been a lot of point trying to deceive the boy into thinking his parents weren't frightened. But no father wanted to add to his child's fears. Especially, Kersai thought, his expression turning hard and bleak, when that child had already Seen what Syrail had Seen in Folsar chan Tergis' last moments of life.

A part of the worried father was furious at the Fort Ghartoun Voice for inflicting that sort of trauma on his son. And an ignoble part of him was even angrier at chan Tergis for having bragged about Syrail's remarkable Talent to other members of the fort's garrison. If the Voice had just kept his big mouth shut, then Kersai Targal wouldn't be hiding in the early-winter woods praying that the cold-blooded butchers who shot Voices out of hand wouldn't catch up with his son!

But most of him knew it was totally irrational to be angry with chan Tergis. There had been no possible way for the Voice to anticipate what had happened, to even guess that his pride in his protegee might prove dangerous to Syrail. And if his final Voice message to Syrail had been traumatic, it had also been the only thing that had warned Kersai and Raysith to flee.

The man warned us with literally the last seconds of his life. Told Syrail to run and hide when he knew he was about to be murdered, Kersai thought. Gods-while he was being murdered! How could anyone be angry with someone who did that?

He knew all of that intellectually; it was just his emotions which couldn't quite catch up with the knowledge. Which was stupid … which, in turn, was one reason he was as irritated with himself as he was. He could actually understand that, although there wasn't anything he could do about it. Not yet. Not when his son might very well already be under sentence of death by the same barbarian butchers who had massacred the Chalgyn Consortium crew and now, apparently, launched a vicious, unprovoked attack on all Sharonians even while they were officially "negotiating for peace."

He grimaced, gazing up at the sky, wondering if one of those eagle-lions Syrail had tried to describe to him might already be circling high overhead, spying on them. He'd hidden his encampment as carefully as he could, and he'd used his surveys of the surrounding terrain to pick a spot which offered at least three separate avenues of escape. But if these bastards could literally fly … .

He grimaced again and reached into his coat pocket to squeeze the bronze falcon he'd taken out of Syrail's dresser drawer. Then he turned and made his own way towards the tent.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Senior Sword Barcan Kalcyr pulled out his navigation unit and glowered at it as his unicorn picked its way through the unforgiving terrain.

The hammering these mountains had taken when this universe's portal formed was more extreme than most. It must have been exciting as hell, but Kalcyr was delighted he hadn't been here to see it. The way it had battered the mountainsides, stripping away trees and soil, leaving naked stone cliffs which rose like ramparts and piling up the wind-driven equivalent of silt behind any sheltering windbreak, had made a complete farce out of the normal maps for this particular piece of terrain. And the fact that the tree cover had been given time to fill back in after the carnage finally tapered off only made things even worse. Or that was the way it seemed to Barcan Kalcyr, at least.

Remember to thank Hundred Worka for this when we get back to base, he told himself.

The navigation unit took a moment to think about his demands. It usually did when it had to coordinate itself with the take from a gryphon-borne recon crystal. The spellware that translated the airborne reconnaissance data for a ground-based unit's navigation requirements always seemed to have a glitch or two running around in it. After a few moments, though, the display settled itself, and he snorted with a certain degree of sour amusement.

So, there you are. Or there you were, at least, he thought at the red icon glowing in the the display's depths.

He wished-not for the first time-that there were some way to send the recon crystal's imagery direct from a gryphon to a ground unit while the gryphon was still in the air. Unfortunately, no one had ever come up with one. The gryphon still had to return to base, the crystal had to be extracted from its harness, and then whatever had been recorded had to be downloaded to the units which actually needed it, which meant it was always at least a little out of date by the time it got to the sharp end.

Still, it's one hell of a lot better than anything these Sharonians have, he reminded himself, and his mouth tightened.

He hadn't much cared for anything about the Sharonians even before the invasion actually kicked off.

Just listening to the intelligence briefings had told him what sort of barbarians they were, and then there was Magister Halathyn's cold-blooded murder. That was one crime no one was ever going to forgive, and Kalcyr's attitude towards Sharona hadn't gotten one bit better when they found the seared and burned bodies of Fifty Narshu and his men. He knew Narshu had to have gotten at least a few of the other side, but there'd been no sign of any Sharonian bodies.

Left our men to fry in their own fat while they took their own with them. Kalcyr felt a familiar stir of rage and clamped his jaws tight. It had taken them quite some time to identify Uthik Dastiri's half-consumed body. When they did, though, it was obvious he'd been shot right between the eyes at very close range.

Which strongly suggested that the Sharonians had continued their practice of shooting their prisoners out of hand.

Kalcyr's teeth grated, and he forced himself to make his jaw muscles relax. It wasn't easy. It especially wasn't easy when he found himself wondering what the Sharonians had done-or, perhaps, were even now continuing to do-to Rithmar Skirvon and the two missing members of his military escort.

Well, they made the rules, Senior Sword Kalcyr told himself grimly. Now they can just take the consequences.

"All right," he told the rest of the half-troop of cavalry Hundred Worka had assigned to him. "According to this," he waved the navigation unit at them, "we're getting damned close. In fact, I think they're probably up there, under that overhang."

Kersai Targal swallowed a curse.

He'd hoped to escape discovery entirely, but it didn't look like things were going to work out that way.

One of those godsdamned eagle-lions Syrail was talking about, I'll bet, he thought bleakly.

It wasn't a happy thought, and watching the speed and nimbleness of the weird-looking, horned horses under the Arcanans searching for them didn't make it any happier. The way those things covered ground made it obvious that Raysith, Syrail, and he could never hope to stay away from them on foot. Not when they had airborne spies to tell them exactly where their prey had gone.

Kersai looked down at the rifle in his hands. He was tempted-so tempted-to use it, but there were at least fourteen or fifteen of them. He probably could have picked off several of them, but he'd never get all of them, and if he started the shooting, there could be only one possible outcome.

"Syrail," he said quietly.

"Yes, sir?"

"Take the rifle. Then I want you and your mother to go hide up at the top of the ravine."

"But-"

"Don't argue, Syrail. There's no time for it." Kersai turned his head and looked at his son, there in the windy, sun-dappled afternoon, and wished there were time. Wished he didn't have to be brusque with the boy he loved so much on this, of all days.

"You have to go now, son," he said more gently. "I need you up there looking after your mother. Now, go. Take care of her, understand?"

"Yes, Dad." Syrail's voice was low, wavering around the edges despite his effort to keep it steady, and Kersai put an arm around him and hugged him tightly.

"I love you, Syrail. I love you very much."

The boy looked back at him, mouth working, unable to speak at all this time, and Kersai gave him one last squeeze.

"Now go," he said softly, and Syrail obeyed him.

Kersai watched him go, then looked back down at the horsemen-if that was the right term for someone mounted on such preposterous creatures-advancing steadily towards his position. He needed a little more time for Syrail and Raysith to reach the next hiding spot he'd picked out for them. Besides, he wasn't in any great hurry for what he knew he needed to do.

He lay there, stretched out on the rock, savoring the caress of the surprisingly warm sun on his shoulders, and waited.

Kalcyr and his mounted troopers had almost reached the coordinates from the recon gryphon's overflight when a man stood up in front of them.

Kalcyr reined in his unicorn so abruptly the beast snorted and tossed its head in protest, and his eyes flitted about. The single Sharonian standing in front of him wore civilian clothes, and Kalcyr didn't see any sign of a revolver or a rifle. That didn't mean much, though. There could have been half a dozen more of them hidden away in the rocks and trees, every one of them with one of those accursed rifles waiting to blow him and his men out of their saddles.

The Sharonian-a youngish, redhaired fellow-kept his hands in plain sight and just stood there, watching Kalcyr. His expression was remarkably calm, but Kalcyr could see the tension hovering in his tight shoulders, in the way he held himself absolutely motionless.

Good, the senior sword thought harshly. Go ahead and sweat, you bastard!

Finally, the Sharonian spoke. It was only so much gibberish, and Kalcyr reached into a cargo pocket and extracted the PC loaded with Five Hundred Neshok's translation spellware.

"What?" he barked. "What did you say?"

Folsar chan Tergis had kept Syrail informed on all of the nonclassified details of the Fallen Timbers negotiations, and Syrail had shared those reports with his parents. So Kersai had at least heard about the Arcanans' magical translating rocks. Even so, actually seeing and hearing one came as more of a surprise than he'd expected. Still, it wasn't as if it had come at him completely cold, and he drew a deep breath.

"I asked you what you want," he repeated in the steadiest voice he could manage.

"What do you think we want?" the man who seemed to be in charge shot back. He sounded angry, and Kersai hoped that was only a trick of the translating magic.

"I don't know," he said as reasonably as he could. "You're obviously soldiers. I'm not. And, as you can see, I'm not even armed."

He opened his coat carefully, aware of the dozen or so crossbows aimed straight at him. He held it open, letting them see that the garment had concealed no shoulder holster or other hidden weapon.

"So, you're not a soldier, hey?" the mounted man said with a scornful expression.

"No, of course not," Kersai replied.

"So, if you're not a soldier, why are you hiding out here?"

"Why?" This time Kersai let a little incredulity into his tone. "You've invaded us. As far as I can see, it only makes sense to stay out of your way."

Kalcyr had to admit the other man had a point. In fact, he had a better point then he knew.

One of the troopers behind him stirred uneasily. Kalcyr sensed the motion and turned his head to give the offender a savage glare, and the man froze.

Lily-livered bastard, Kalcyr thought. Probably one of those pricks who stays up at night moaning over the Kerellian Accords. These bastards started the massacring, and Five Hundred Neshok's right about taking chances with these 'Talents' of theirs.

"So, 'civilian,'"thinspace"" he said. "What's your name?"

Kersai looked up at the cavalry commander. The Arcanan wasn't looking back at him; instead, his attention appeared to be focused on the crystal in his hand, and Kersai's eyes narrowed as he remembered what Syrail had told him about chan Tergis' last transmission. About the crystal which had flashed blue like some sort of inanimate Sifter.

"Syrail," he said quietly-and truthfully. "Syrail Targal."

Kalcyr grunted in satisfaction as the verifier spell in the PC blinked with blue confirmation. The Sharonian looked older than he'd expected, but then again, the man who'd given the name to Five Hundred Neshok probably hadn't been in the best possible condition when he'd done so. Besides, nobody at the fort, except for the military Voice assigned to it, had ever actually met this Syrail, as far as anyone knew.

"Stand where you are," he commanded, then nodded to two of his men.

"Take a look," he said.

The selected troopers climbed down, passing their reins to one of their fellows, and advanced on the Sharonian. The PC had translated Kalcyr's order to them into Sharonian, as well, and the civilian obviously knew what was coming. He made no effort to resist, although Kalcyr's men were no gentler than they had to be. They were, however, thorough, and one of them grimaced, then waved a small, bronze falcon-shaped badge triumphantly.

Kalcyr reached down and took it, letting it lie in his palm. Then he looked back at the man from whom it had been taken.

"So, you're a Voice."

Kersai kept his mouth shut.

It wasn't easy. His heart raced, and he could feel the air fluttering in and out of his lungs. He knew now what was coming, and he felt the sweat beading on his brow.

A part of him wanted desperately to answer the Arcanan's question's truthfully. Another part wanted even more desperately to lie. But the truth would probably have been useless … and the lie would probably have been detected.

He clenched his fists at his side, standing between the two men who had searched him and who still held his elbows. There was a reason he'd brought that badge along. He'd hoped it would never be needed, that this moment would never come. But the moment had come, and he found himself clinging to his love for his son and his wife as he gazed silently up at the hard-faced, hard-eyed Arcanan.

"So, the gryphon's got your tongue, has it, 'civilian'?" Kalcyr demanded. The Sharonian only looked back up at him, and the senior sword felt a cold, hard sense of satisfaction. The man's very silence was proof he was exactly what Kalcyr had been sent out here to find. Not that denying the truth would have done him any good in the face of the verifier spells Five Hundred Neshok had loaded to Kalcyr's crystal.

"Not so talkative now, I see," he said, sliding the PC back into his pocket now that it was no longer needed. Still the Sharonian only looked at him, and Kalcyr shrugged.

The senior sword wasn't going to shed any tears over what needed to be done. For that matter, he wasn't going to pretend he didn't take an intense, personal satisfaction out of it. But unlike the Sharonians who'd murdered their Arcanan prisoners, Kalcyr saw no need for brutality.

He looked at the two men flanking their prisoner and nodded.

Quick and clean, he thought approvingly as the blood fountained from the Voice's slashed throat. Quick and clean.

He looked down at the crumpled body, which seemed smaller, the way dead men almost always did, then looked up at the sky, remembering another day, other bodies.

"Leave him. Mount up," he said flatly, and the dismounted troopers hesitated only for a moment before they obeyed. Kalcyr gave the corpse one more look, then reined his unicorn's head around and started back the way they'd come, leaving the body for the buzzards.

If it was good enough for Fifty Narshu and his men, it's good enough for that bastard, he thought, and never looked back even once.

"Overall, I like your attack plan, Klayrman," Two Thousand Harshu said. "The only thing I wonder about is whether it wouldn't be better to go ahead and commit the gryphons first. They were certainly effective enough at Fort Ghartoun."

"Yes, they were, Sir," Toralk agreed. "But we also lost over a dozen of them."

"Practically all to that one damned lunatic with the-the what-do-you-call-it? The shotgun," Harshu pointed out.

"True." Toralk nodded. "Still, it did cost us ten percent of our total gryphon strength. I'd like to conserve that, especially if we end up needing it for Fort Salby."

Harshu cocked his head, then frowned slightly while the command tent's canvas flapped gently in the brisk early afternoon breeze.

"That's a logical argument, Klayrman. Why do I think it's not the only one?"

"There is one other thing," Toralk admitted slowly, reminding himself once again that there was a keenly intelligent, highly observant brain behind those intense eyes. "I wouldn't call it a 'logical argument,'

exactly, but it is causing me a little concern."

"Well? What is it?"

"It's just that some of the gryphon-handlers are reporting that the compulsion spells don't seem to be working with one hundred percent effectiveness."