by David Weber
Now Salmeer whistled sharply, and the dragon made a wide circle, building speed as he flew. Starlight and moonlight burnished his wings with a metallic shimmer, glittering as they touched the elaborate wing patterns that represented Windclaw's pedigree, as well as his current unit assignment, They swept around toward the opening between universes, gaining speed and more altitude with every wing stroke. By the time he actually reached the portal, Windclaw was moving at very nearly his top velocity and climbing steeply to clear the trees on its far side.
They flashed through the portal, with the inevitable pop of equalizing air pressure in one's inner ear; then they were climbing through clear, cold night air. Windclaw straightened the angle of his climb and leveled out, cruising through a crystalline night sky ablaze with stars and a wondrous moon which wasn't the same one they'd left behind.
Salmeer tapped his personal crystal with the spell-powered stylus that allowed him to plug in Hundred Olderhan's grid coordinates, even though Salmeer himself had no Gift at all, and the crystal obediently displayed a standard navigational grid, with the familiar compass points in a sphere around the circle that represented Windclaw. A blinking green arrow pointed the direction to fly, giving Salmeer a beautifully clear, easy-to-read three-dimensional display to follow. When they reached the target zone, a steady red circle would appear, directly at the grid coordinates Hundred Olderhan had sent.
But before that red circle appeared, they had a good, swift bit of flying to do … not to mention the minor matter of figuring out how to thread the needle and land a dragon Windclaw's size, in the middle of the night, along the banks of a frigging stream, of all godsdamned things!
Squire Muthok Salmeer shook his head, not quite able to believe even now that he'd agreed to this. Then he set himself to ignore the biting chill and concentrated instead on the warmth of the extra layer of clothes under his flying jacket and a truly spectacular sky awash with brilliant stars.
Shaylar awoke to darkness, confusion, and the scent of woodsmoke. For long moments, she lay completely still, trying to figure out where she was. She remembered the attack, the frightful cremation of the dead, the strange device they'd used to lift Jathmar and their other wounded on floating stretchers. She even remembered walking beside Jathmar, holding his hand as they evacuated the contact area. But she couldn't figure out where she was now, which suggested a prolonged period of unconsciousness. That made sense, although very little else did. Her head still throbbed with a fierce rhythm, and she still couldn't hear Jathmar, but she felt more rested, which was a mercy.
Unfortunately, she was also beginning to feel the bruises and contusions where that last fireball had blasted her into the fallen tree. Her face was painfully scraped along one cheek and jaw, and the deep abrasions stung like fire. Bruises left that whole side of her face swollen, and they were probably a lurid shade of purple-black by now. She reached up to touch the damage, only to abort the movement when her entire shoulder locked up. A white-hot lance of fire shot straight up the side of her neck, and she hissed aloud in pain.
Someone spoke practically into her ear, and she gasped in surprise, skittered sideways?
?and promptly rolled off the edge of whatever she'd been lying on. She bit off a scream, but the fall to the ground was only about ten inches. Which was still more than enough to knock the wind out of her and jar her painfully, especially with her previous injuries.
Whoever had spoken leaned over her almost before she landed, making worried sounds that quickly turned soothing. Gentle hands straightened her bent limbs and tested her pulse, and Shaylar whimpered, cursing the pain that exploded through her with every movement.
Her eyes opened, and she looked up.
She couldn't remember his name, but she knew his face: the enemy commander. He was speaking softly to her, his gaze worried and intense. She hissed aloud and flinched back when he touched the bruises along her jaw with a gentle finger, and his face drained white at the pain sound. What was obviously a stuttering apology broke from him, and she wanted to reassure him. But the unending pain and fear and the silence in her mind left her weak, and far too susceptible to new shocks. She was horrified to discover that all she could do was lie on the cold ground and weep large, silent tears that stung her eyes and clogged her nose.
He bit his lip, then very carefully lifted her. Even through her misery, she was astonished by his strength. She knew she wasn't a large woman, but he lifted her as easily as if she'd been a child, and he held her as if she'd been one, too. A part of her was bitterly ashamed of her weakness, but as he held her close, she rested the undamaged side of her face against his broad shoulder.
He'd been wounded himself, her muzzy memory told her, yet there was no evidence of any discomfort on his part as he held her. He didn't rock her, didn't croon any lullabies, didn't even speak. He simply held her, and despite everything, despite even the fact that he was the commander of the men who'd massacred her entire survey team, there was something immensely comforting about the way he did it.
Perhaps, a small, lucid corner of her brain thought, her Talent was still working, at least a little. That was the only explanation she could think of for why she should feel so safe, so … protected in the arms of these murderers' commanding officer.
She was never clear afterward on how long he held her, but, finally, her tears slowed, then stopped. He held her a moment longer, then very carefully placed her back onto one of the eerie, floating stretchers. When she began to shiver, he produced something like a sleeping bag, which he tucked around her. Then he moved her entire stretcher with a single touch, guiding it closer to a bonfire that warmed her deliciously within moments.
The shivers eased away, leaving her limp and exhausted, but she didn't go back to sleep. Her mind was strangely alert, yet wrapped in fog. It was a disquieting sensation, but she found it easier to cope if she just relaxed and let herself drift, rather than struggling to make everything come clear. Thinking clearly was obviously important, perhaps even critical, in her current predicament, but she couldn't see any sense in struggling to do something physically impossible at the moment.
So she lay still on her strange, floating bed, and wondered in a distant, abstracted sort of way, how these people made their stretchers float. There was no logical explanation for it, any more than there were logical explanations for the other mysteries she'd already witnessed: glassy tubes that threw fireballs with no visible source of flame. Seemingly identical tubes that hurled lightning, instead of fire. The odd little cubes that had somehow packed enough explosive force to immolate an entire human body?yet did so without any actual explosion, just a sudden and inexplicable burst of flame.
Sorcery, the back of her wounded brain whispered, and Shaylar was so befuddled, so lost in this unending bad dream, that she didn't even quibble with her own choice of words. Whatever these people used for technology, it looked, sounded, and even smelled like magic. At least, it did to her admittedly addled senses.
As she drifted there in the darkness, she gradually became aware of something else. The scent of food tickled her nostrils, and despite the pounding in her head and the lingering bite of nausea in her throat, sudden, ravening hunger surged to life. The last food she'd eaten had been a hastily bolted lunch, just before Falsan staggered into camp and died in her arms. She had no idea how long ago that had been, or what time it was now, but the stars were brilliant overhead, and the moon was high, nearly straight overhead. It had obviously been up for hours.
It was the middle of the night, then, which left her puzzled by the smell of something cooking over a fire. Most people tramping about in the wilderness did their cooking early in the evening, at or shortly after sundown. But then the commander returned to her, with a bowl and spoon. He smiled and said something that sounded reassuring, and helped her sit up. Her stretcher continued to float, rock steady despite the fact that it was only canvas and ought to have shifted as she moved. Its motionlessness was yet another strangeness she couldn't under
stand … and didn't want to think about yet.
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.
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.