Hell's Gate-ARC

by David Weber

  She would much rather think about the contents of the bowl. When he handed it to her, after making sure she was able to grip it, she discovered a surprisingly thick stew, with what looked and smelled like wild carrots—thin and pale golden in the firelight—chunks of what might have been rabbit, and other things she couldn't readily identify. She took a tentative taste, unsure how her uneasy stomach would react to food, and was instantly transported to a state of near-ecstasy.

  She actually moaned aloud, wondering how any camp cook could create something this magnificent under such primitive conditions. Then she forgot everything else in this or any other universe and simply ate. Flavors rich and savory with spices she couldn't identify exploded across her tongue, and the hot food warmed her from the inside out. Some of the pounding in her head eased as her body responded to its first nourishment in hours, and she didn't even mind the savage ache in her bruised jaw when she chewed.

  By the time she'd ravened her way through the entire bowl, she felt almost human again. A battered and bedamned one, but human, nonetheless. When she lifted her head, she found the enemy commander watching her, his expression wavering between intense curiosity, pleasure at how much she'd obviously enjoyed the food, deep concern, and lingering guilt. She looked back at him for several seconds, and his name finally floated to the surface of her memory.

  "Jasak?" she asked tentatively, and his eyes lit with pleasure.

  "Jasak," he agreed, nodding. He touched his chest and added. "Olderhan. Jasak Olderhan."

  He waited expectantly, and Shaylar considered the intricacies of Shurkhali married names. Better to opt for simplicity, she decided.

  "Shaylar Nargra," she said, and he repeated her name carefully, then glanced at Jathmar. His stretcher floated less than a yard from hers, close enough to the fire to keep him warm, and someone had laid a lightweight cover over him, so that the blistered skin and scorched clothing wasn't visible. He was still unconscious though, which terrified her, and her eyes burned.

  "Jathmar Nargra," she said through a suddenly constricted throat, and an expression of profound contrition washed across Jasak Olderhan's face.

  He said something, then gestured helplessly, unable to convey what he obviously wanted to tell her. His frustration with the insurmountable language barrier was obvious, and he took her hand, trying to reassure her.

  Shaylar stiffened in shock. The rest or the food, or possibly the combination of both, had restored at least a bit of her Talent. She remained Voiceless, yet his emotions were so powerful, so strong and uncontrolled, that they rolled through her like thunder anyway. It was all she could do not to jerk her hand away from that sudden, roiling tide, but she didn't dare antagonize him, and she could learn more—much more—when he touched her. If he became aware he was transmitting information, he would almost certainly stop doing it, and she couldn't risk that. The understanding she might glean was the tiniest of weapons, but it was also the only one she had.

  He was speaking in low, earnest tones, and she fought the blackness and pain in her head, soaking in as much information as she could. He was trying to help them. There was a sense of waiting for something or someone, with a feeling of great importance and urgency behind the need to wait. Someone was coming, she realized with a sense of shock. Someone who could help.

  It shouldn't have surprised her, she realized a moment later. This universe didn't strike her as the home of these people. Contact with Jasak Olderhan reinforced that impression, but if they were as much strangers to this universe as Shaylar's survey crew had been, who was coming? More soldiers, undoubtedly—Jasak must have sent a message to another group of his people. But how many more soldiers? And from where?

  Shaylar had no idea how his message had gone out. Did these people have a Voice with them? Or had Olderhan been forced to send a messenger on foot? In either case, they needed medical help urgently, given the seriousness of Jathmar's injuries and how many wounded Olderhan had. Yet he was waiting here, rather than pushing on. The help he expected must be close, then, however he'd summoned it. She didn't know whether to feel relieved that help for Jathmar might arrive soon, or alarmed by the threat another, probably larger, military force posed to Darcel Kinlafia and to Company-Captain Halifu's understrength force.

  Once more, she tried desperately to contact Darcel, but her Voice remained nothing but a black whirlpool of pain and disorienting vertigo. The effort to establish contact turned the whirlpool into a thundering maelstrom so intense, so jagged with anguish, she actually cried out.

  She jerked back, breaking contact with Olderhan to clutch at her temples and bending forward on the stretcher, hunched over with the torment in her head. And then she felt large, capable hands cradle her face. Fingers rubbed gently above her pounding temples, then moved down to her neck, where her muscles had knotted painfully. They massaged with surprising gentleness and skill, and she could sense Olderhan's genuine horror at the sudden onslaught of her pain, as well as his anxiousness to alleviate it.

  That helped, as well, but her strength abruptly faded away to nothing. One moment, she was sitting up with Olderhan's fingers rubbing her neck; the next, she lay draped bonelessly against a broad chest once more, cheek pillowed against his shoulder yet again. She hated her own weakness. Hated the injuries that left her reeling in confusion, helpless to do anything.

  She felt a tentative touch on her hair. The effort to use her Voice had scrambled her ability to sample his emotions once more, but he spoke to her, the words low and soothing, and it felt as if he were making vows of some sort. Promises to protect, or perhaps to defend; she couldn't grasp the nuances with no words or shared concepts, and with her Talent so crippled. Still, it was sufficiently reassuring to leave her limp against his shoulder, at least for the moment.

  She'd rested against him for quite some time. She was actually drifting back towards sleep once more, when they were abruptly interrupted. A strange sound penetrated her awareness—a rhythmic flapping, like someone shaking out the largest carpet ever woven. Then someone shouted, and Olderhan responded with what sounded and felt like intense relief. He eased her back down onto the stretcher and hurried to the edge of the broad stream their camp had been pitched beside.

  He stood there, peering out into the stream. But, no, she realized, that wasn't quite right. He was peering above the stream, with his head tipped back. He stared up at the stars, and the sound of shaken cloth was louder, much louder. Within moments, it had changed from rhythmic flapping to equally rhythmic thunder. A huge, black shadow swooped suddenly between Olderhan and the stars, then an overpressure of air blasted across the camp. The bonfires flared wildly as sparks, ash, and scattered autumn leaves flew before the whirlwind, and she jerked her gaze upward.

  Scales, like a crocodile's armored hide in glowing, iridescent colors like shoaling fish. Immense wings, so thin the firelight glowed through them. Bats' wings the size of the sails on a ninety-foot twin-masted schooner. Claws, a foot-long and razor-sharp, glittering bronze as they reached down to grasp boulders in the stream when it landed. A long, sinuous neck, like a serpent twenty feet long, still as thick as her own torso where it met the triangular, adder-shaped head. Spikes, immense spikes, jutting out over eyes of crimson flame, and an eagle's beak of metallic bronze, sparkling in the wildly flaring firelight.

  Its mouth opened, revealing rows of sickle-bladed teeth, and it was looking directly at her. Shaylar's wounded mind shrieked at her to run, even as she sensed an alien, inhuman presence behind those fiery eyes, malevolent and barely under control.

  The nightmare apparition hissed. The sound was an angry steam-engine shriek, and Shaylar flinched back, drew breath to scream—

  —and the man strapped to its neck spoke sharply. He emphasized his words with a jab from an implement that looked part-cattle prod and part-harpoon. It would have to be sharp, she realized through waves of unreasoning terror, to make itself—and its owner's displeasure—felt through hide that tough.

  Wings rattled
angrily, like agitated snakes, and the prod came down again, sharper and harder than before. The beast reared skyward and let out a shriek of rage that battered Shaylar's bleeding senses. She did scream, this time, and cowered down with both arms over her head—not to keep the creature's teeth off her neck, but to keep its fury out of her mind.

  She heard men's voices raised in angry shouts and what sounded like bafflement. Someone touched her shoulder, and she flinched, then realized it was Gadrial. The other woman seemed as baffled as the men—baffled, surprised, still half-asleep. But she also seemed determined to interpose her own body between Shaylar and the enraged beast in the streambed if that was what it took to protect her.

  Gadrial cradled Shaylar in a protective embrace, blinking in still-sleepy confusion and utterly perplexed. She'd never personally seen an angry dragon, but that was the only way to describe this one, and it was glaring unnervingly straight at her. Or, rather, she amended, at Shaylar. The injured young woman was trembling, and Gadrial spoke quietly, soothingly, stroking her hair while she felt the tremors rippling through that slender body. Fear had stiffened Shaylar's muscles so tightly the tremors were like an earthquake shaking solid stone.

  She's been through too much in too little time, Gadrial thought grimly. No wonder she's all but hysterical!

  Despite the distance to streambed's edge, Gadrial could hear Sir Jasak speaking with the dragon's pilot. They could probably hear him back at the base camp, she thought, and the pilot didn't look too happy at being on the receiving end of the . . . discussion. But then Jasak paused, hands on hips, head cocked, and the pilot shook his head.

  "I've never seen Windclaw react like that, Sir," Muthok Salmeer said. "Never! He's an old fellow, smart as a transport dragon gets, with plenty of lessons in good manners. He's no war dragon, to be hissing at everyone but his pilot. He's spent his entire life in Transport and Search and Rescue work. It beats hell out of me, Hundred, and that's no lie. It's like he took one look at the girl there, and went berserk."

  The squire's tone sounded as confused and upset as Jasak felt. It was obvious Salmeer was completely and totally perplexed, but the pilot had reacted quickly and decisively to his dragon's impossible-to-predict rage. That fact, coupled with his obvious concern, disarmed much of Jasak's initial fury.

  The hundred made himself step back mentally and draw a deep breath. He glanced back at his prisoner, who sat huddled against Gadrial. Shaylar looked up, her face ashen as she risked a glance at Windclaw, then instantly pressed her face back against the magister, and he frowned as he got past his immediate reaction and started considering the implications of the dragon's behavior.

  "That's . . . interesting, Muthok," he said after a moment, turning back to the pilot. "Damned interesting."

  "You don't have any idea who they are, Sir?" Salmeer asked. "You could've knocked me down with a puff of air when that hummer message arrived, and that's a fact."

  "No, we don't know who they are. But I intend to find out, and we won't do that if we lose them. The girl's hurt—I don't know how badly—but the man's critical. He won't last the night if we don't get him to a true healer, and some of my own men are almost as bad."

  "Then it's a good thing I brought you one, Sir," Salmeer said with a smile. He gestured to the passengers still strapped to the saddles on the Windclaw's back, and Jasak's eyes followed the gesture. The dragon's reaction to Shaylar had kept him from paying much attention to Windclaw's other riders, but now his face lit with delight as he recognized Sword Morikan.

  "Naf!"

  "Good to see you on your feet, Sir," the healer replied. "And Muthok brought more than just me. I've got Vormak and two good herbalists riding the evacuation deck, and Traith and two more herbalists are waiting back at the base camp. Muthok needed to lighten Windclaw, and I figured it would be better to avoid doing any surgery we don't absolutely have to do out here. It's a hell of a lot warmer on that side of the portal, and we'll have tents to work in, as well."

  "Good man!" Jasak said, nodding hard. "Good work, both of you."

  "Least we could do, Sir," Salmeer said. "On the other hand, this isn't exactly what I'd call a proper landing ground you've got out here, if you'll pardon my saying so. We can probably take out most of your critically wounded now, but getting airborne before we run into the trees is going to be tricky, and Windclaw's already flown a long way today. He's going to need at least several hours rest after we get back to camp, so we'll have to come back for the others tomorrow." His eyes glinted. "Next time you decide to fight a battle, Sir, try to pick a spot easier to get dragons into, eh?"

  "I'll bear that in mind," Jasak replied, with a smile he hoped didn't look forced. Then he smiled more naturally. "And I'm more grateful than you'll ever know to you for reaching us this quickly."

  Jasak angled his head up to watch as Morikan, the surgeon, and the herbalists started to dismount. They hauled their gear down Windclaw's shoulder, then stepped across from his foreleg to the stream bank, where several of First Platoon's troopers waited to help them with their baggage.

  Firelight caught the dragon's iridescent scales and set him aglow when he rustled his wing pinions or took a breath. He still looked agitated, and the sound of his breathing, the deep rush of air through cavernous lungs which no one could ever forget, once he'd heard it, was faster than usual. It was also higher pitched, almost whistling.

  It's the sound a fighting dragon makes just before battle, Jasak realized with a sudden, shocking flash of insight. Humanity hadn't pitted dragons against one another in almost two centuries, and no one living had ever heard that pre-battle steam-kettle sound. Not in earnest, at any rate. But it had been too frequently described in the history books and the aerial training volumes—even in those silly romances his younger sister mooned over—for him to mistake what he was hearing now.

  Which didn't make any more sense than all the other impossible things which had already happened this day.

  Jasak stared up at the furious transport beast, towering over him, and wondered a little wildly what had set off Windclaw's battle stress. Salmeer had been right about one thing, though; he was sure of that. Shaylar Nargra was the source of the dragon's anger. Yet what in all the myriad universes about that terrified, injured girl could cause a dragon to react so violently to her mere presence?

  The question simmered in the back of his brain. Intuition and logic alike argued that it was an important one, but he had more immediately urgent problems at the moment.

  "Can you keep him under control well enough to put her on his back?" he asked Salmeer, twitching his head at Shaylar. "Her and the others?"

  The pilot had been gazing at Shaylar, as well, obviously asking himself the same questions which had occurred to Jasak. Now he refocused his attention on the hundred, and his jaw muscles bunched.

  "Oh, yeah, Sir. I'll keep him in line, all right. He might get around some greenhorn handler, but he won't try any tricks with me. If I might make a suggestion, though, Hundred?"

  "Suggest away," Jasak said with a sharp nod. "You know your beast—and your job—better than I ever will."

  Salmeer's eyes narrowed, as if Jasak's tone had surprised him. Then he twitched his own head in Shaylar's direction.

  "Put her up last," he said. "He won't try anything that would endanger his passengers once he's got wounded aboard. He's a smart old beast, Windclaw is, Sir, and he knows his duty. He's responsible for the safe transport of wounded men, and he knows it. Not like a man would, you understand, but he's smarter than any dog you'll ever own, and dogs are smart enough to look out for those under their care."

  "Yes, they are. It's a good suggestion, Muthok, and one I appreciate. Deeply."

  Salmeer ducked his head in an abbreviated nod of acknowledgment, then gave Jasak a grim little smile.

  "I've answered the call of more than a few commanders of one hundred, Sir, and I'll tell you plain—you're the first who's ever given a good godsdamn about the opinions of a transport pilot."

/>   Jasak frowned, his gaze locking with Salmeer's, and his nostrils flared.

  "I can't say that fact makes me very happy, Muthok. But thank you for the information. It won't be wasted."

  Salmeer blinked. Then his eyes narrowed as he remembered whose son he was speaking to. Jasak saw the memory in the pilot's eye and felt a flicker of harsh inner amusement.

  No, Muthok, he thought. It won't be wasted, I assure you.

  The Duke of Garth Showma, who also happened to be Commander of Five Thousand Thankhar Olderhan (retired), would light quite a few fires under certain officers when that piece of intelligence hit his desk. Officers too haughty—or stupid—to consider the insights of specialists with experience far superior to their own were officers who got their men killed when things went to hell.

  Rather like I managed to do this afternoon, he thought, and felt his face tighten for an instant.

  Salmeer met Jasak's gaze for a moment longer, almost as if he could hear the younger man's thoughts, then gave him a sharp salute.

  "You take care of the wounded then, Sir. I'll start prepping the platform cocoons."