by David Weber
"Gadrial's packing her belongings, too," Shaylar said abruptly. "Look there."
She nodded toward the tent beside Halathyn's, where the slim, not-Uromathian woman was visible through the open flap. She was, indeed, packing, but nobody else was.
"Whatever's going on, they're not evacuating the whole camp," Jathmar muttered. "They must intend to stand their ground at this portal."
"Will Grafin order out a search party?" Shaylar wondered.
"I don't know. That's a military question which means it's also a political one. On the other hand, Darcel won't rest until he locates us—or our bodies. And Darcel can be mighty persuasive."
He smiled crookedly at Shaylar, but his smile disappeared as she shook her head.
"He won't find any bodies, Jath," she said, her voice hollow, and Jathmar felt something prickle along his scalp at her expression.
"What do you mean? Surely they buried the dead!"
"No." She shook her head. "No, they burned them. Cremation, I guess I should call it. All of them. Theirs and ours with—" She swallowed convulsively. "I don't know what it was. It burned fast, and hot. It consumed . . . everything."
"Those sick, sadistic—" Jathmar began savagely, but she shook her head again, harder.
"No, it wasn't like that!" Her distress was obvious, but she felt carefully for the right words. "They treated our people just like theirs, Jathmar. It was . . . it was like some kind of funeral rite. They couldn't carry the bodies out. And there weren't enough of them left to bury all the dead. So they did the best they could, and they gave our people just as much respect as their own."
Jathmar stared at her, and she managed a tremulous smile. But then her eyes closed once more, and she leaned her forehead against him.
"I know that's what they were doing, what they intended. I read it off Jasak. But seeing it . . ."
She began to weep yet again, and he held her tight, whispering to her, begging her not to cry.
"No. I need to," she said through her tears. "Barris told me that, after Falsan died in my arms. He told me to go ahead and cry. It was the psychic death shock, he said, and he was right. And then I watched him. Just watched him burn to ashes . . . "
"Oh, love," he whispered into her hair, rocking her gently, eyes burning.
He started to say something more, then stopped himself and closed his eyes. He hadn't been there when Falsan died, but he knew Barris had given Shaylar the right advice. Now, hard as it was, Jathmar had to let her do the same thing when all he really wanted to do was comfort her until she stopped weeping.
He concentrated on just hugging her, and deliberately sought something else to distract him from his desperate worry over her and his fury at the people who had driven her to this.
He opened his eyes once more and looked up at Gadrial once again. The other woman was almost finished packing, it seemed, and he found himself wondering just who Gadrial was. It was obvious that it was her intervention which had brought the incandescent confrontation between Jasak and Thalmayr to a screeching halt. And, ended it in Jasak's favor, unless Jathmar was very mistaken. The tall, menacing Thalmayr had backed down from her like a rabbit suddenly confronted by a cougar. And she and Halathyn appeared to be the only civilians in the entire camp. So just who were they? And how important was Gadrial?
The confrontation continued to rage in Halathyn's tent. Gadrial stood beside a packed duffel bag, her head cocked to one side, her body language tense and unhappy as she listened to it. Then she obviously came to a decision.
"Oh, my," Shaylar murmured in his ear. She'd almost stopped crying, and she managed a damp smile as she and Jathmar watched Gadrial march toward Halathyn's tent. The other woman's mouth was set in a thin, hard line, and her almond-shaped eyes flashed.
"I don't think I'd like that lady mad at me," Shaylar added, and Jathmar produced a smile of his own.
"I always knew you were a smart woman, love," he replied
Gadrial disappeared into the tent. A moment later her voice joined the fray, pleading at first, then increasingly sharp with anger. It went on for quite a while until, finally, she let out an inarticulate howl and stormed back out again.
A part of Jathmar wanted to be glad. Surely any discord in the enemy's camp had to be a good thing from Sharona's perspective! But then he saw Gadrial's face. Her lovely, honey-toned skin was ashy white, her lips trembled, and tears sparkled on her eyelashes.
Shaylar saw it, too, and rose swiftly, taking Jathmar by surprise.
"Gadrial?" Shaylar lifted a hand toward her, part in question, part in sympathy, and Gadrial's face crumpled. She looked back at Shaylar for a moment, then shook her head and turned away, retreating back into her own tent and letting the flap fall. Shaylar bit her lower lip, then sank back down beside Jathmar.
"I hate that," she whispered wretchedly. "I can't stand seeing her that distressed, especially after the way she's tried to comfort me."
"It's not our affair," Jathmar said gently. Anger sparked in her eyes, but he laid a fingertip across her lips and shook his head.
"It isn't," he said again, gently but firmly. "There's nothing we can do, because there's nothing they'll let us do."
"You're right." A sigh shuddered its way loose from her. "That doesn't make it any easier, though."
"Not for you," he acknowledged. "Me, now, I'm just a bit less forgiving than you are. I think I could stand quite a bit of distress on these people's part!"
"But not on Gadrial's," Shaylar replied.
"Well, no," he admitted, not entirely willingly. "Not on Gadrial's."
She smiled and touched the side of his face, then both of them looked up as Halathyn's tent flap opened again and Jasak emerged. Actually, "emerge" was too pale a way to describe his explosive eruption, or the eloquent gesture he made at the sky. Then he stalked away, heading toward another tent on the opposite side of the encampment.
Halathyn's tent flap stirred again, and the long, frail black man appeared. He called out something, and lifted one hand in a conciliatory gesture, but Jasak refused to listen or even glance back, and the storm in his eyes as he raged past their campfire frightened Jathmar.
Protector or not, Jasak Olderhan obviously wasn't a man any sane individual wanted pissed off at him, Jathmar thought. But he'd already concluded that, watching Jasak and Thalmayr. It wasn't fear of Jasak's temper that tightened Jathmar's arm around Shaylar; it was the iron discipline which held that temper in check. Angry men were dangerous—men who could control and use their anger, instead of being used by it, were deadly.
Jasak was one of the the latter, Jathmar decided, and filed that information carefully away. There were precious few weapons available to them, but knowledge was one, and nothing he learned about these people was a waste of effort. So he watched Jasak stalk into his own tent. Watched Halathyn lower his hand, sigh, and shake his head regretfully. Watched the old man reenter his tent without trying to heal the breach again. And Jathmar watched as Jasak, too, began to throw things into a heavy canvas duffel bag.
So both of their . . . champions would be going with them, wherever they were going. That was interesting, and at least a little reassuring. As for those who stayed behind . . .
Jathmar's eyes narrowed once more, filled with bitter emotion. He could only hope that Company-Captain Halifu and Darcel Kinlafia avenged them—with interest. That shocked him, in a way, even now, but it was true.
Jathmar Nargra-Kolmayr had never expected to be brought face-to-face with the sort of carnage which had destroyed his survey team. Yet he had, and he'd discovered that he wanted his dead avenged. He wanted the people who'd killed them repaid in full and ample measure. Part of him was shocked by that, but all the shock in the multiverse couldn't change that fact.
Deep inside, another wounded part of him—a part which might one day heal, however impossible that seemed at the moment—mourned the passing of the man he'd been. The man who would have been horrified by the prospect of yet more slaughter, whoever it was v
isited upon. But for now, hatred was stronger than horror in his heart, and that was precisely how he wanted it.
Chapter Fifteen
Acting Platoon-Captain Hulmok Arthag mistrusted the shadows in this thick, towering forest. Then again, Hulmok Arthag mistrusted most things in life, including people. Not without reason; Arpathians learned the meaning of prejudice the instant they set foot outside Arpathia.
The other races of Sharona made Arpathians the butt of jokes and viewed them—some tolerantly, some nastily—as barbarians. But no one made jokes about Hulmok Arthag, and if he was considered an unlettered barbarian, no one said sowithin his earshot.
He'd also learned, growing up on the endless Arpathian plains, that no sane man put his faith in the vagaries of wind, weather, fire, or even grass. Wind could bring death by tornado, weather by the freezing howl of blizzards that quick-froze everything caught in them, or the slower death of dought. Fire could blaze out of control, driven by wind to consume everything in its path. Grass could wither and fail, leaving no fodder for the herds, and when the herds failed, eventually there would be no one left to bury or burn the dead.
What Arthag did trust were his own strong hands, his own determination, and the hearts of those under his command. Not their minds, for no man's—or woman's—mind could be guaranteed, let alone trusted. But a heart could be measured, if one looked into its depths with the sort of Talent that laid its innermost secrets bare, and Hulmok Arthag had that Talent. He didn't misuse it, as some might have, but when it came to assessing the men under his command, he used it ruthlessly, indeed, and he'd come up with many ways to get rid of any man who failed to meet his own rigorous standards.
"Platoon-Captain."
Arthag looked up. It was Mikal Grigthir, the trooper he'd sent forward as an advance scout. Grigthir trotted his horse up to the small campfire where Arthgag sat, waiting with the rest of the halted column for his report, reined in, and saluted sharply.
"Good to see you in one piece," Arthag growled, returning the salute.
"Thank you, Sir." Grigthir had been with Arthag for less than six months, only since the Arpathian had been brevetted to his present acting rank and given command of Second Platoon, Argent Company, of the Ninety-Second Independent Cavalry Battalion. But he was an experienced man, an old hand out here on the frontier, and Arthag had complete faith in his judgment.
"What did you find?" the petty-captain continued.
"I found their final camp, Sir. It's been pillaged. Most of their gear was abandoned, but there's not a weapon left in the whole stockade. Not even a single cartridge case."
"They took the donkeys, then?" Arthag asked with a frown.
"No, Sir. I found them wandering loose around the camp. But the attack didn't take place anywhere near the stockade. Voice Kinlafia was right—our people got out in time and started hiking back toward the portal. They got further than we'd thought, too. I found plenty of sign to mark their trail, both their own and their pursuers'. I'd estimate that they were followed by at least fifty men on foot."
"Fifty." Arthag swore, although it wasn't really that much of surprise. "You say you found their back trail," he continued after a moment. "Did you find where they were attacked, too?"
"Yes, Sir." Grigthir swallowed. "I did."
"And?" Arthag asked sharply, noticing the tough, experienced cavalry trooper's expression.
"It's . . . unnatural, Sir."
Grigthir was pale, visibly shaken, and Arthag drew a deep breath. He looked around at the thirty-odd men of his cavalry platoon, then nodded sharply to himself.
"All right, Mikal," he said. "Show me."
The forest was eerie as the platoon moved out once more in column, following Grigthir. The woods were too silent and far too deep for Arthag's liking. He'd grown accustomed to soldiering in any terrain, but he was a son of the plains, born to a line of plainsmen that reached back into dimmest antiquity. His ancient forebears had halted the eastward Ternathian advance in its tracks. Able to live off the land, fade into the velvet night, and strike supply trains and columns on the march at will, the Arpathian Septs had destroyed so many Ternathian armies that the Emperor had finally stopped sending them.
But the Septs had learned from the violent conflict, as well, and where Ternathian armies had failed, merchants and diplomats had succeeded. The Septs had ceased raiding their unwanted neighbors, learning to trade with them, instead. That had led to greater prosperity than they had ever before known, yet no septman or septwoman had ever adopted Ternathian ways. Sons and daughters of the plains felt smothered and suffocated by walls and ceilings of wood or stone.
And this son of the plains felt closed in and vulnerable in a place like this forest, where he could see no further than a few dozen yards but hidden enemy eyes could watch his men, waiting to strike from ambush whenever and wherever they chose. Grigthir had estimated fifty men in the force which had pursued and attacked the Chalgyn Consortium survey party, but where there were fifty, there might be a hundred, or five hundred, or more. Not a comforting thought for a man with less than forty troopers under his command.
As he rode long, he couldn't help wondering if Sharona's first contact with other humans would have ended in violence if both sides had glimpsed one another at a distance on a windswept plain, rather than stumbling unexpectedly across one another's paths in this unholy tangle of trees?
He snorted under his breath. Questions like that were a waste of time. However it had happened, Sharona had met its first inter-universal neighbors in blood under these trees, and that was all that mattered. It was his job to find any possible survivors—and take prisoners of his own for questioning, if he could—not to ponder the imponderables of life.
So Arthag guided his horse with knees and feet alone, leaving his hands free for weapons. He carried his rifle with the safety off, the barrel laid carefully along his horse's neck to avoid tangling the muzzle in vegetation, while he watched his mount's ears carefully.
The Portal Authority had adopted the Ternathian Model 10 rifle for its cavalry, as well as its infantry. Arthag wasn't positive he agreed with the idea, but he had to admit that if they were going to issue a compromise weapon to cavalry and infantry alike, the Model 10 was about as good as it was going to get. The Ternathian Bureau of Weapons had designed the Model 10 for use by infantry, Marines, and cavalry from the outset. It was a bolt-action, chambered in .40 caliber, with a twelve-round box magazine. Its semi-bullpup design gave it a twenty-six-inch barrel, but with an overall length that was short enough to be convenient in close quarters—like small boats, or on horseback.
It was a precision instrument in trained hands, and Arthag's hands were definitely trained.
So was his horse. Bright Wind was no army nag. His exalted pedigree was as long and as fine as any Ternathian prince's, and his schooling in the art of war had begun the day he'd begun nursing at his dam's teats.
Hulmok Arthag's people were nomads, and Arthag was the son of a Sept chieftain—a younger son, true, with no hope of inheriting his father's Sept Staff, but that had never been his dream, anyway. There were always some men—and women—who felt the call to wander more strongly than their brothers and sisters, and Arthag had always been one of them. In times past, men like him had led the Septs to new lands, new pastures and trade routes. In the shrunken, modern world, hemmed in by others' borders, those who felt the ancient call did what Arthag had chosen to do and sought new pastures beyond the portals. And when Arthag had left the Sept, he'd asked only one gift of his father: Bright Wind.
Under the Portal Authority's accords, any trooper had the right to bring his own horse with him, if he chose and if the horse in question met the Authority's minimum standards. Less than a third of them took advantage of that offer, but Arthag had never met an Arpathian who hadn't, and his own mount was the envy of many a general officer. All of which explained why Arthag watched the stallion's reactions so carefully. Bright Wind could be taken by surprise, of course, but his sense
s were far keener than Arthag's, and both horse and rider had learned to trust them implcitly.
They were perhaps an hour or an hour and a half's ride from the abandoned stockade when Bright Wind suddenly laid back his ears and halted. Arthag felt the shudder that caught the stallion's muscles a single heartbeat before they turned to iron. And then a slight shift in the wind brought the scent to him, as well. Smoke: a complex, unnatural stink that mingled foully with the ordinary scent of wood smoke and less ordinary smell of burnt flesh. Bright Wind's golden flanks had darkened with sweat, but the stallion wasn't afraid. Nostrils distended, ears pinned flat, he was ready for battle.
"What in Harmana's holy name is that stench?" Junior-Armsman Soral Hilovar muttered softly. The Ricathian Tracer wore an expression of horror, and something inside Arthag quivered. He didn't share Hilovar's Talent, but he didn't need to—not with that stench blowing on the wind.