by David Weber
She looked at all of the other wounded, then back at Gadrial, cursing the whirling unsteadiness of her own senses and thoughts. She couldn't imagine how the remaining fit soldiers could possibly transport all of their wounded fellows, and her heart sank as she realized Gadrial might be referring only to her and Jathmar. If their own portal to this universe was as close at hand as Darcel had thought, they might want to get their prisoners safely away for future interrogation, and that thought was terrifying.
But if they want prisoners to interrogate, they'll have to keep us alive until they can start asking questions, a little voice said somewhere deep inside her. And that means they'll have to get Jathmar proper healing as quickly as possible.
Her jaw clenched as the exquisite anguish of her plight gripped her like pincers. Every step, every inch, toward the south would take them further and further from any possibility of rescue. But those same steps might very well take Jathmar towards healing and survival.
Shaylar had known the risks when she signed up for this job, but she'd never dreamed how devastating it would be to face a moment like this, knowing her beloved needed medical care only their enemies could provide. Yet in the end, that was the only chance fate was likely to put into her trembling hands, and so she nodded, and felt as if she were somehow sealing their doom.
And either way, it's not as if I have very much choice, she thought grimly.
"I know you're frightened," Gadrial said gently to the other woman—Shaylar—and touched her arm. "But I swear Sir Jasak will do everything he can to save Jathmar for you."
Shaylar's mouth trembled again briefly at the sound of her companion's name. She reached down, touching Jathmar's forehead with heartbreaking gentleness, and Gadrial's own heart twisted as she recognized the grief and despair in the gesture.
Then she heard the sound of approaching footsteps, and she and Shaylar both looked up as Jasak went to one knee beside them. Weariness showed in the commander of one hundred's face and the set of his shoulders. It was obvious from the way he moved that the wound along his ribs, especially, was causing considerable pain, but the shadows in his eyes as he looked down at Jathmar and Shaylar had nothing to do with his wounds.
"How's it going?" he asked.
"I've got their names," Gadrial said. "And I think I just got her to understand and agree to walk with us to the swamp portal."
"Gods, I hope so." His voice was full of smoke and gravel. "She's suffered enough without us having to drag her every step of the way."
"They're your prisoners."
Gadrial tried to keep from speaking between clenched teeth, but it was hard. She wasn't at all happy in her own mind about taking Shaylar and Jathmar back as military prisoners. Surely they'd already done these people enough hurt! The thought of what Shaylar and Jathmar might face at the hands of government and military interrogators, on top of all they'd already suffered, was enough to stiffen her with rage.
It must have showed, despite her effort to control her voice, because Jasak gave her a quick, very sharp look. Then he nodded.
"Yes, they are," he said flatly. "And my responsibility."
Ah, yes—responsibility, Gadrial thought. That most Andaran of all traits. Noblesse oblige. The duty to codes of honor instilled into Andaran children—girls, as well as boys—from the cradle itself. She wanted to ask if that responsibility would protect these battered people from the military hierarchy that would want to peel their minds like apples. She had no idea what kind of magic might be brought to bear on the mind of the prisoner of war, and, frankly, she didn't want to find out. But if the Union of Arcana and its military decided that extracting information from Shaylar and Jathmar was vital to the security of the Union, there wouldn't be a single damned thing Gadrial could do about it.
So she did the only thing she could do. She introduced Sir Jasak Olderhan, son of the Duke of Garth Showma, to his prisoners.
Jasak saw the worry and anger in Gadrial as clearly as he saw the terror and exhaustion in Shaylar. The slender girl repeated his given name with a bruised weariness he recognized as post-battle trauma. He hated seeing it in Shaylar's eyes as much as he hated seeing the suspicion in Gadrial's, but he couldn't expect the magister to understand that. She was Ransaran, raised in a culture where the formality of military duty, of knowing one's obligations to a stratified social order, wasn't an ingrained part of everyone's basic childhood training. She didn't understand what Jasak's responsibility entailed. Not yet. But she would, he promised himself, and hoped that the worry and anger would fade from Gadrial's eyes as quickly as he hoped the terror and shock would fade from Shaylar's.
Yet neither of those things was going to happen quickly enough, and Gadrial's worry—and Shaylar's exhaustion—were probably both going to get worse before they got better. And that, too, would result from his responsibilities. His responsibility to push everyone, including this poor, brutalized young woman, ruthlessly, even brutally, in a relentless effort to get Jathmar the healing he so desperately needed.
He doubted either of the women would understand why that was so important to him. Important to Jasak Olderhan, not to Commander of One Hundred Olderhan. And there was no way in this universe, or any other, that he could hope to explain it to them in the time he had.
So he did what he could do to try to reassure both of them. He lifted Shaylar's hand and stroked it the way he would have stroked a frightened kitten.
"Don't be afraid," he said gently. "No one will hurt you again. No one. I know you don't understand, yet, but I swear that on my honor, Shaylar. And I'll do everything I can to help you understand it."
Her hand was limp, broken feeling, in his grip, and her dark eyes were glazed. He sighed and turned back to Gadrial.
"We'll strike camp as soon as you determine it's safe to move him." He nodded at Jathmar. "My baggage handlers survived, so at least we'll be able to lift the most critically wounded. But even so, it's not going to be a picnic stroll through the park getting them safely back to the portal and transport.
He glanced again at Jathmar, wondering if the wounded man's unconsciousness was a mercy or a bad sign.
"We'll rig a field litter for him," he said. "And one for her, as well, if she needs it."
"Get it ready, then," Gadrial said. "The sooner we move him, the faster we'll getting back. As long as his litter doesn't jostle him too much, he should be all right. I'll do what I can for him as well as your men."
"I appreciate that. Immensely." He smiled, the expression tight with worry and fatigue, yet genuine. "I'll get right on it, then."
It took only minutes to break out the collapsible field stretchers that were part of the baggage his platoons carried in the field. Jasak couldn't imagine what battle must have been like before the development of Gifts made it possible to move heavy loads with spells, rather than muscle power.
All four of his baggage handlers had survived, along with their equipment. The most critically wounded were placed on proper field litters, canvas slings mounted between poles to which the handlers attached standard spell storage boxes. They didn't have enough of the standard litters for the less critically hurt, but Sword Harnak threw together field expedient substitutes, using uniform tunics for slings and hastily cut branches for poles. They looked like hell, but they ought to do the job, and Jasak watched the baggage handlers attaching the sarkolis crystal storage boxes.
The storage devices were all pretty much the same size and shape. Only the markings varied, with a color coding that told the soldier at a glance whether it contained spells that powered infantry-dragons, spells that lifted baggage, or spells that illuminated a landing area to guide living dragons during night airlifts. As an added precaution, those which carried weapon-grade spells featured carefully contoured shapes which would fit only into the weapons they were intended to power, but that wasn't immediately apparent at first glance.
Jasak supervised preparations closely, speaking to wounded men in a low, reassuring voice. Gripping shoulders w
here a bracing moment of support was required to stiffen a man's weary spine. Making sure every bit of captured equipment was secured for analysis back home. He still didn't understand how the long, hollow tubes they'd found beside the dead—or the smaller versions several had carried, as well—had managed to wreak such havoc, but he intended to find out.
When it was time to shift the unconscious Jathmar onto one of the litters, Jasak abandoned the captured equipment to the handlers he'd detailed to haul it out and personally accompanied Lance Erdar Wilthy. Wilthy was the senior, most experienced of First Platoon's baggage handlers, and Jasak had assigned him specific responsibility for transporting Jathmar. The lance had been doing his job for years, but Jasak found himself hovering, unable to restrain himself from taking personal charge of the delicate operation of getting Jathmar onto the litter despite the fact that he knew Wilthy had far more experience than he.
Shaylar sat beside her husband, one hand resting gently on his scorched brown hair, when Jasak and Wilthy approached. Her unguarded expression was full of anguish, and Jasak crouched down beside her.
"Shaylar," he said gently. She looked up, and he pointed to the canvas sling Wilthy was unrolling on the ground beside Jathmar.
"We're going to put Jathmar on this stretcher," he continued, pantomiming the act of picking something up and setting it down again. "We won't hurt him. I promise."
Shaylar looked at him, and then at the litter. Since they would have to transport Jathmar face down, the litter had to be rigid, or the sling would bend his spine painfully in the wrong direction, not to mention the tension it would put on the burned skin of his back. Harnak's improvised stretchers would never have worked, Jasak thought, watching Wilthy slide crosswise slats into place, turning the canvas sling into a rigid platform.
When it was ready, Jasak pantomimed their intentions to Shaylar again, and she nodded.
"Easy, now," Jasak cautioned Wilthy. "I'll take his shoulders, Erdar. You take his feet. Gadrial, support his waist. We only need to lift him a couple of inches off the ground. On the count of three. One, two, three—"
They lifted him two inches and slid him smoothly onto the canvas. Shaylar hovered, holding Jathmar's head, biting her lips when he stirred with a sound of pain. Gadrial whispered over him, and he subsided again, lying quietly on the litter.
So far, so good, Jathmar thought.
"All right, attach the accumulator and let's lift him, Erdar."
"Yes, Sir," Wilthy said, and pulled out the box and attached it to receptacle on the litter.
Shaylar had been looking down at Jathmar's face, but she looked up again, attracted by the lance's movement. For just a moment, she showed no reaction, but then her eyes flew wide and she came to her feet with a bloodcurdling scream.
Jasak flinched in astonishment as she leapt past him, snatched the box off the litter, and hurled it violently away. Then she spun to face him—to face all of them, every surviving member of First Platoon. She was a single, tiny woman, smaller than Jasak's own twelve-year-old sister, but he could literally feel the savagery of her fury as her fingers curled into defensive claws. She was prepared to attack them all, he realized. To rip out the throat of any man who approached Jathmar with her bare teeth, and he recoiled from her desperate defiance, trying frantically to understand its cause.
"Oh, dear God!" Gadrial cried. "She thinks we're going to cremate him alive! They all look alike to her—the accumulator boxes!"
Comprehension exploded through Jathmar, and he swore with vicious self-loathing.
"Get that box, Wilthy!" he snapped. "Fasten it to something else—anything else. Show her what it does."
The white-faced trooper, his expression as shaken and horrified as Jasak's own, scrambled to retrieve the accumulator. He scrabbled it up out of the leaves where Shaylar had thrown it and fastened it to the nearest object he could find—a section of decaying log about three feet long and eighteen inches in diameter. The box was equipped with twenty small chambers, each with its own control button, and he pressed one of them, releasing the spell inside.
The log lifted from its leafy bed. It floated silently into the air and hovered there, effortlessly.
Shaylar watched, her eyes wide. Then she sagged to her knees, gasping as she panted for breath, and Gadrial knelt beside her.
"It's all right, Shaylar," she said gently, reassuringly. "It's all right. We're not going to hurt him. It'll just pick him up. See, it lifts the log."
She pointed, pantomiming moving the accumulator back to Jathmar's litter, then lifting Jathmar the same way. Shaylar trembled violently in the circle of Gadrial' left arm, and the magister glanced over her shoulder at Jasak.
"For the love of God, lift the other wounded men. She's half crazed with terror!"
"Get them airborne!" Jasak barked to the other handlers, who were watching with open mouths. "Damn it, get them airborne now!"
Wilthy's subordinates obeyed quickly, lifting all of the critically wounded. Shaylar watched them, her body taut, her eyes wide. But the wildness was fading from them, and she began to relax again, ever so slowly.
"It's all right," Gadrial told her again and again. "Let us help him, Shaylar. Let us help Jathmar. Please."
Jasak watched as Shaylar's obvious terror began to ease. The furious fear for Jathmar which had given her strength seemed to flow out of her. Her mouth went unsteady, and her eyes overflowed. Then she crumpled, and Gadrial caught her, held her close, rocked her like a frightened child, stroking her hair and soothing her.
A badly shaken Jasak turned back to Wilthy.
"Lift Jathmar's stretcher, Erdar. But move carefully, whatever you do. She's not strong enough to take many more shocks like that one."
"Yes, Sir. I'll be gentle as a butterfly, Sir."
Gadrial urged Shaylar to her feet as Wilthy slowly and carefully, pausing between each movement to let Shaylar see every step of the process, lifted Jathmar's litter until it floated just above waist level.
Shaylar watched, still panting, and Gadrial wiped the other woman's cheeks dry with the corner of her own shirt. Then the magister gave her a smile and squeezed her hand for just a moment, before moving it to rest on Jathmar's. Wilthy had tucked the injured man's arms down at his sides, which was an awkward placement, but better than leaving them hanging over the edges of the litter.
Shaylar curled her slender fingers carefully, delicately, around her husband's. Then she drew a deep breath. Her chin came up, and she met Jasak's gaze once again.
"All right, People." Jasak gave the order. "Move out."
Chapter Eleven
"What?" Company-Captain Balkar chan Tesh stared at Petty Captain Rokam Traygan in total disbelief. "You can't be serious!"
"I wish to all the Uromathian hells I wasn't, Sir," Traygan said harshly. The Ricathian Voice's face was the color of old ashes, and his hands shook visibly. He looked away from chan Tesh and swallowed hard.
"I—" He swallowed again. "I threw up twice receiving the message, Sir," he admitted. "It was . . . ugly."
chan Tesh stared at the petty-captain, then shook himself. He didn't know Traygan as well as he might have wished, hadn't even met the man before the Voice caught up with his column in Thermyn. But they'd traveled over a thousand miles together on horseback since then, from the rolling grasslands of what would have been central New Ternathia and across the continent's deserts and rocky western spine. The heavyset, powerfully muscled Voice hadn't struck chan Tesh as a weakling, yet he was obviously shaken—badly shaken—and chan Tesh was suddenly glad that he wasn't a Voice.
"Tell me," he said quietly, almost gently, and Traygan turned back to face him.
"Company-Captain Halifu didn't know exactly where we were," the Voice said, "and I've never worked with the Chalgyn Voice, Kinlafia. So instead of trying to contact us directly, he had Kinlafia pass the report straight up the chain with a request that Fort Mosanik relay to us. I got Kinlafia's entire transmission."
He swallowed again and sho
ok his head.
"I never imagined anything like it, Sir," he said, his voice a bit hoarse around the edges. "It was—It was like Hell come to life. Fireballs, explosions, lightning bolts, for the gods' sake! And Shaylar Nargra-Kolmayr and her husband caught right in the middle of it."
chan Tesh felt his own face turn pale. He was Ternathian, himself, not Harkalian, but Nargra-Kolmayr was virtually a Sharona-wide icon. The first woman to win the battle for a place on a temporal survey crew; one of the most powerful Voices Sharona had ever produced; daughter of one of Sharona's most renowned cetacean ambassadors; half of one of Sharona's storybook, larger than life romantic sagas. The fact that she was beautiful enough to be cast to play herself in any of the (inevitable) dramatizations of her own life had simply been icing on the cake.
"Was she hurt?" he asked urgently.
"Yes," Traygan half-groaned. "She was linked with Kinlafia, and somehow she held the link to the end. Held it even while whoever the bastards were slaughtered her crew—even her husband!—all around her. And then—"