by David Weber
Jathmar eased his slung rifle off his shoulder, holding the pistol one-handed while he clicked the safety off the long gun. There was no sign of danger in his immediate vicinity, but Jathmar wasn't taking any chances. He holstered the revolver and worked the lever on the rifle, chambering a round in one easy, fluid motion.
The metallic sound of the action was profoundly reassuring. The Sherthan Model 70 had been designed as a short, handy saddle gun, but it was still a powerful weapon. Chambered for a .48 caliber, three hundred-grain round based on the old Ternathian Army Model 9's. Its muzzle velocity was lower then the military weapon's, due to its shorter barrel, but with the new "smokeless powder," it still pushed the heavy, hollow-pointed round at over nineteen hundred feet per second, producing a muzzle energy of over two thousand foot-pounds. That gave the weapon a nasty kick, but it was also sufficient to blow a hole right through a man and lethal enough to deal with anything short of one of the huge grizzlies.
At the moment, Jathmar found that thought comforting. Very comforting.
Some survey crewmen routinely carried their rifles pre-chambered, so a bullet was available to fire instantly if a man needed to shoot in a hurry. Jathmar had more shooting experience than most scouts, however. He could load, lock, and fire a rifle or handgun in a fraction of a second, in total darkness or blinding rain, and under normal circumstances a round carried in the chamber was an accident waiting to happen.
This, however, was not a normal circumstance.
So he loaded the chamber, then moved forward cautiously, Model 70 in both hands (and trigger finger outside the trigger guard), senses alert for the slightest hint of danger. The emotional link with Shaylar had shifted. Horror had faded away into a sense of desperate urgency that threatened to swamp his hard-won calm. He literally could not imagine what was happening at their base camp, but he commanded himself once again not to panic and moved forward at a steady pace.
He forced himself to move more slowly than he would have preferred, repeating to himself the Authority mantra that coolheadedness was both a survey scout's first line of defense and his most effective weapon. Yet the urgency in the bond tugged at him, urged him forward as it grew stronger. It felt almost as though Shaylar was shouting "Hurry!"
Which, given the strength of her Talent and their marriage bond, might be exactly what she was doing.
Despite his determination to move with caution, Jathmar found himself speeding up. He couldn't help it. The forest was utterly normal, yet Shaylar's emotions were a goad, driving him faster with every passing minute.
He was never sure when he'd broken into a run, but he realized he was, in fact, running when he slid down a leaf-slick gully, thrashing through the underbrush, and found himself hurtling up the other side.
He paused at the top, panting, cursing his carelessness, and listened again. Still he heard nothing. Not a solitary, damned thing out of the ordinary. He checked his watch and tried to calculate how far he'd come. Half a mile, maybe. Jathmar grimaced, then set out again, opting for a compromise between the utter silence of caution and the pell-mell dash of panic.
Pushing through the dense underbrush along the stream was heavy work. The luxuriant growth's widespread, tangling limbs and brambles caught at his rugged clothing and slowed him down. He slogged through it, cursing its hindrance, then paused with another curse—this one directed at himself.
He was a Mapper, damn it. He was following the stream out of sheer habit, because it was the way he'd come on his way out. But the sense of direction which came with his Talent told him the precise bearing to the base camp, and he changed course, angling sharply away from the creek. The open forest floor away from the streambed's understory was vastly easier—and quicker—going, and his ability to See the terrain in front of him let him pick the best, fastest way through it.
I should've thought of this sooner, he told himself savagely. Guess I'm not quite as calm as I'd like to think I am.
There was no point in kicking himself over it, and he settled down to the steady lope the better going permitted.
It took Jathmar another thirty agonizing minutes to reach the campsite, where he found a rude surprise.
It was empty.
He stood in a screen of thick shrubs at the edge of the clearing, too uneasy to just step out into the open without taking a careful look first. The brushwork palisade stood silent in the glorious autumn sunlight, a circle of protection lacking only its gate. He could see the tents inside it, still pitched where they'd been this morning. The donkeys were still there, too, looking bewildered and lonely. But there wasn't a single person in sight, and not a single man-made sound anywhere in the clearing.
An icy fingertip touched Jathmar's heart. Deadly cold, unreasoning, it robbed him of breath for several shuddering, superstitious moments. Then his gaze, wandering in shock from one edge of the camp to the other, caught on something totally unexpected. His eyes jerked to a halt, fixed with sudden white-faced horror on something that shouldn't have been there.
It was a cairn.
Someone had piled rocks across something sickeningly man-sized and human-shaped. It lay at the top of the stream bank, in the shadow of the abandoned brush wall, and for a truly agonizing moment, Jathmar feared the worst. But then reason reasserted itself. He could still feel Shaylar through the marriage bond, closer than before. She was alive, not buried under that pile of cold stone. He shuddered and forced himself to push that terrifying image away, forced his mind to begin functioning once more.
He frowned. He'd heard a distant rifle shot, quite some time ago. Had someone accidentally shot one of their teammates? It was hard to credit. Every member of this crew, including Shaylar, knew weapons-handling inside and out. You didn't shoot at a target you couldn't see. You didn't point the muzzle at anything—like someone else on your team—that you didn't want a bullet to go through. You didn't carry your gun with a round chambered.
So who the hell was dead? And how? They hadn't even been felling timber, so there were no fallen trees to have crushed anyone.
He pondered for a moment longer, then moved cautiously into the open with the rifle butt snugged into the pocket of his shoulder, muzzle down, so no one could knock the barrel aside or rip it out of his hands. His finger was no longer outside the trigger guard. Instead, it rested on the trigger itself, ready to fire in an instant as Jathmar stepped through the unfinished gate.
Nothing stirred but the wind. The tent flaps, left open as though abandoned in a great rush, whiffled in the breeze that wandered in over the tops of the interwoven branches. Jathmar walked a quick perimeter recon inside the palisade, making sure no one was hiding out of sight in one of the tents. He felt like a fool, hunting for brigands who couldn't possibly be there. And he was right. No one was there. The camp was deserted.
He went back to chan Hagrahyl's tent. The expedition's leader had obviously raked hastily through his possessions, and Jathmar frowned again. What in the names of all the infinite number of Uromathian gods could have rattled chan Hagrahyl badly enough to simply abandon camp and run for the portal? That was an unheard of decision for any expeditionary leader. Teams only broke and ran from certifiable disasters: volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, forest fires. Even when facing brigands, running was inherently more risky than standing one's ground in a prepared camp. Their team was large enough, and well enough armed, to have dealt with any typical band of border brigands. But the ex-soldier had run for the portal. Run so fast he'd left Jathmar behind.
Jathmar was so rattled by the implications that he found himself wondering why he was so convinced his team was, in fact, running.
Because, idiot, his common sense muttered in some exasperation, you're married to a Voice who's trying her damnedest to warn you to follow as fast as your big, flat feet will carry you.
A swift check of his own tent confirmed his suspicions. Shaylar had packed in the same haste evident from chan Hagrahyl's tent. She'd abandoned clothing, food supplies, cooking utensils—ever
ything but her camp ax, guns, and charts. Or that was what he thought, until he suddenly spotted his own backpack leaning against his sleeping bag.
She'd pinned a note inside the flap, written in obvious haste.
Someone's murdered Falsan. We don't know who or how many there are or where they came from. Ghartoun says we can't wait for you. Head for the portal—and be careful, beloved.
That was all . . . and it was more than enough.
The shock burst between his ears like an artillery shell. Falsan had been murdered? His shoulder blades twitched as a chill crawled its way down his spine. He'd felt foolish, looking for someone in the abandoned camp, but his instincts had been correct. There was someone out here besides themselves. Someone who'd already killed once. Someone unknown.
"Dear gods above . . ." he whispered.
An unknown human contact?
No wonder chan Hagrahyl had bolted for the portal. They were in over their heads, way over, and Jathmar didn't hesitate a second longer. He paused only to swiftly check the contents of his pack, nodding approval at Shaylar's selections—rations for two days, pistol and rifle ammunition, and his camp ax. Every one of their charts and notebooks was missing, undoubtedly in her pack.
Jathmar slung the pack onto his back, abandoning the rest of their meager possessions, then filled his canteen at the stream and headed out at a hard jog. Falsan's killers might well be mere minutes behind him—it had been a long time since he'd heard that rifle shot—which made speed more important than caution.
He made no particular effort to cover his tracks. Any experienced tracker would have no trouble following their trail, regardless of anything he might do. The footprints, broken branches, and bruised leaves left behind by eighteen people in a hurry would be as easy to follow as a Ternathian imperial highway. The more quickly he left the vicinity, the safer he'd be, and if it came to a fight, his two guns might make the difference between survival and something else.
He refused to think about a pitched battle between Falsan's killers and their survey crew, with Shaylar caught in the middle of it. The very thought robbed him of breath he needed for running, and Jathmar was grateful—profoundly so—that Falsan's route this morning had been nearly a hundred and twenty degrees off the bearing directly back to the portal. Whoever had killed him would have to locate their camp first, before following their tracks back to the portal. If they ran fast enough, there was a chance they could reach the Company-Captain Halifu's fort and its contingent of soldiers in time.
He found himself cursing silently in time with his strides. Eighty years! Sharonian expeditions had spent eighty years exploring the multiverse, and not once had they found a trace of other humans. Why now? Why them?
He stamped on the anger. He knew it was merely a smokescreen, a way to diverge his mind from his own terror, and he couldn't afford to let either emotion distract him. Nor was there any point in railing at the multiverse for putting Shaylar in danger. He'd done that, fighting to get her included on the field teams.
Well, he told himself grimly, you got her into this, so you'll just have to get her out again.
The whisper of her presence through their marriage bond seemed to chide him for blaming himself. They'd both fought to put her out here, not just him. Jathmar grimaced, knowing she was right, and tried to stop kicking himself. But he couldn't help it. So he tried to at least seethe at himself more quietly as he followed the trail the others had left. He scanned for pitfalls ahead, where he might twist or even break an ankle if he put his foot wrong, and listened intently for any hint of pursuit.
The one thing he couldn't do, and wished bitterly that he could—was to See what was behind him. Or, rather, who. Unfortunately, Jathmar could See only the land itself, not animals or people moving across it. It wasn't like looking with his eyes. He didn't See the land as a faithful image of reality. He Saw contours, shapes, protrusions and depressions, dense places and less dense ones, that he had learned to recognize as streambeds, mineral deposits, soil types, and all the other features which made up the bones of the world. He would have given a great deal to be able to scan the terrain behind him for the people who'd murdered Falsan, but what they needed for that was a Plotter, or a Distance Viewer.
What they had was one outclassed and nervous Mapper.
He ignored the crawling itch between his shoulder blades, told his spine to stop anticipating a blow from concealment, and concentrated on moving as rapidly as possible.
The trail—of course—led uphill all the way. Jathmar was in excellent physical condition—anyone who spent as much time hiking as a survey crewman had to be in good shape—but he hadn't pushed himself this hard in a long time. His thighs and calves were feeling the strain, and his breathing was heavier than he would have liked it to be. His Model 70 grew heavier with every stride, but he gritted his teeth and kept going. He'd been running for the better part of fifteen minutes when he heard a low voice from behind a screen of wild spirea bushes just ahead.
"Jathmar!"
He slid to an instant halt, breathing hard and turning his head to follow the sound.
"Ghartoun?" he panted, and the stocky ex-soldier rose from a cautious crouch.
"Any sign of pursuit?" he asked, his voice urgent but quiet, and relief jellied Jathmar's knees. He shook his head, stiffening both weary legs in grim resolution.
"Not yet. The camp hadn't been disturbed when I got there. And I haven't heard anything behind me."
"That's something, at least," chan Hagrahyl muttered. "You made good time catching up to us. Let's hope to hell Falsan's killer doesn't to the same. All right, we're moving out."
Jathmar pushed through the spirea behind chan Hagrahyl, and Shaylar flung himself into his arms, holding on tightly. She wasn't quite trembling, but he felt the distress tightening her muscles, and spikes of emotion ripped through their bond.
"I was so scared," she whispered against his chest. "Thank all the gods you made it back to us!"
"Shhh." He lifted her chin and kissed her gently, then frowned as he glanced at her bulging pack. "That's too heavy for you."
"Yes, but I didn't dare leave any of this behind, in case . . . "
She swallowed hard, and he brushed a fingertip across her lips.
"Never say it, love. It didn't happen. Here." He slid off his pack, opened hers, and redistributed the weight. "That ought to help."
She gave a sigh of relief when he helped her shrug the straps back across her shoulders.
"Oh, that's lovely. Thanks."
"Don't mention it, M'lady," he said with a courtly bow, and her smile wavered only slightly as she squeezed his hand.
She headed out behind the others, and Jathmar followed, carefully placing himself between her and whatever might be coming up behind them. They moved at a rapid pace, not quite jogging, but the difference was so tiny as to hardly matter. The trail wasn't a friendly one. It still drove inexorably uphill, and it was littered with underbrush, deadfalls, and deep gullies that hindered their progress. It hadn't seemed like such rough country coming through in the other direction, he thought bitterly, then gave himself another mental shake.
Be fair, he told himself. It isn't that rough—you're just scared too death and trying to get through it five times as fast!
chan Hagrahyl kept them moving for two hours without stopping. Shaylar strode grimly forward, outwardly holding her own, but Jathmar could feel her aching weariness and the need for rest that she managed to keep hidden from the others. He'd never been so proud of her, nor so frightened for her, but he wasn't surprised when chan Hagrahyl finally called a halt and she cast pride to the winds and simply sank to the ground, panting.
The stocky Ternathian who'd once been an imperial officer cast uneasy glances at the forest behind. Probing glances that tried to see into the shadows behind far too much underbrush, far too many trees. Barris Kassel and the other ex-soldiers spread themselves into a defensive ring without a word, silently standing guard while everyone gulped a few
swallows of water and caught their breath. Shaylar had her breathing under control again, but he could feel the aching weariness in her.
She can't keep going hour after hour at this pace, Jathmar thought despairingly. Not all the way to the portal.
He wasn't sure the rest of them could keep up this wicked pace, for that matter. Jathmar already felt the strain, and Braiheri Futhai was at least as badly winded as Shaylar. Jathmar tried to keep his worries quiet, tried to keep Shaylar from catching them, but he didn't succeed. When she lifted her head, meeting his gaze levelly, he tried to smile, and her answering smile's courage, and the strength of her love, nearly broke his heart.
Being here with you is worth it, worth the risk and the danger, her smile told him, and he smiled back, aware that he'd never loved her more.
Far too soon, chan Hagrahyl gave the soft-voiced order to move out again.
Chapter Six
"That's not a campsite, Sir. It's the next best thing to a godsdamned fortress," Chief Sword Threbuch breathed in Sir Jasak Olderhan's ear, and Jasak nodded grimly. It was an exageration . . . but not much of one.