The Road to Hell - eARC

by David Weber

  “Maybe I will,” Ulthar replied in that same, cold voice. “But if I do, you’ll go with me.”

  “Like hell I will! I’m not the one committing mutiny!”

  “No, you’re just the one violating the Kerellian Accords and the Articles of War.”

  Thalmayr’s angry eyes widened in surprise and contempt. There might have been a momentary flicker of concern, as well, but it vanished quickly, replaced by a fresh surge of confidence.

  “You’re dreaming,” he scoffed. “If you think anyone’s going to listen to a gutless bastard like you—”

  “Oh, I don’t know if anyone’s going to listen to me out here in the boonies,” Ulthar told him with an icy smile. “But that doesn’t matter. I’ve already sent a full report to Duke Garth Showma. I don’t know what the hells is going on in the Expeditionary Force, but how d’you think he’s going to react to the shit you’ve been pulling here in Fort Ghartoun?”

  “You’re lying out your arse,” Thalmayr shot back, but a shadow of uncertainty and what might have been fear burned under the words.

  “It wasn’t that hard to sneak past that arse-kisser Wentys.” Ulthar’s smile turned even thinner. “Believe me, Sir, it’s in the pipeline where nobody can stop it, and I’ve named people, places, and times. The Duke wouldn’t stand for something like this out of anyone, and especially not when the sick son-of-a-bitch pulling it belongs to the Second Andarans. He’ll insist the Regiment hold the court-martial internally, and guess what kind of sentence the Scouts’ll hand down to a worthless piece of dragon shit who got three quarters of his own company killed and then deliberately tortured prisoners of war?”

  Thalmayr stared at him for a moment, then wrenched his eyes away and glared at Sarma.

  “Are you really stupid enough to go along with this idiot, Sarma?” he demanded.

  “Damned straight I am,” Sarma replied flatly. “Now, with all due respect, Sir, get your arse out of that bed. We’ve got a different set of quarters in mind for you—one with bars. I’d suggest you get your uniform on, but we really won’t mind dragging you over there bare-arsed if that’s what you’d prefer.”

  “Like hell you will!”

  Thalmayr’s hand darted under his pillow, then reemerged with one of the Sharonian revolvers. His thumb brought the hammer back, and the muzzle swept towards Sarma.

  The Sharonian weapon came as a complete surprise, but Thalmayr was something less than expert in its use and Jaralt Sarma was a stocky, boulder of a man, with very strong arms and shoulders. He also had very good reflexes, and his sword hissed before Thalmayr could get his weapon aimed. There was the sound of a cleaver hitting meat, the beginning of a scream of pain, and then the ear-smashing roar of the revolver.

  * * *

  “What the hells was that?!”

  Commander of Fifty Brys Varkan wheeled away from the hapless trooper whose improperly stowed personal gear had just been dumped across his bunk by Falstan Makraik, 1st Platoon’s platoon sword. The platoon had grown a bit lax in Makraik’s opinion, and he’d suggested to his fifty that it might be an appropriate time for a surprise inspection. Varkan had agreed the sword had a point, and since 1st Platoon was due to relieve that officious, pain-in-the-arse Sarma’s platoon in about two hours, this had seemed like a good time for the aforesaid surprise inspection.

  Now he and Makraik stared at one another, his question hanging between them.

  “Sounded like one of those Sharonian guns, Sir,” the sword said after a heartbeat. There was more than a hint of uncertainty in his reply, but Varkan’s face tightened.

  “That’s exactly what it sounded like!” he snapped. “Turn the men to, Sword!”

  “Yes, Sir!” Makraik turned on his heel, glaring at the assembled platoon. “You heard the Fifty! Move!” he barked.

  Varkan left that up to his sword. His own hand darted into his pocket for his PC. He jerked it back out, activated it, and input a command.

  An instant later, the alarm began to sound.

  Chapter Ten

  December 16

  Velvelig stiffened as the broad shouldered Arcanan stepped closer to the bars. The man was careful to stay out of arm’s reach from them, but he was doing something with one of the Arcanans’ bits of crystal. Velvelig himself had had very little opportunity to see any of the crystals in use, and his impassive countenance hid a sharp sense of interest and curiosity as he watched the small, quartz-like rock glow brightly. The Arcanan looked down into it for just a moment and touched it two or three times with a small stylus or rod—a magic wand, perhaps?—of the same water-clear rock. Then he looked back up as the crystal dimmed once more.

  “Regiment-Captain Velvelig,” he said, and the words were perfectly clear, with what sounded preposterously like a Shurkhalian accent to Velvelig’s ear. They also obviously had nothing at all to do with the movement of his mouth. They were coming out of the crystal, Velvelig realized, and wondered why he wasn’t hearing what the other man was actually saying, as well.

  “Yes,” he said flat-voiced, and the Arcanan seemed to wince slightly before the hard, unyielding anger in his tone. His level green eyes never left Velvelig’s, however, and he braced to attention and touched his chest in what the regiment-captain recognized as an Arcanan salute.

  “Sir,” he—or, rather, the piece of rock in his hand—said, “Commander of Fifty Ulthar extends his compliments and asks you to forgive him for how long it’s taken to do anything about the shameful way you and your men have been treated. Hundred Thalmayr’s actions have dishonored the entire Union of Arcana Army, and the Fifty’s instructed me to tell you that he and Commander of Fifty Sarma are in the process of attempting to do something about that now.”

  Velvelig’s eyes narrowed. The change was so slight that anyone except another Arpathian might have been excused for failing to recognize it, but to one of his countrymen, it would have been as good as shouting his incredulity. He recognized the name “Ulthar,” and his brain raced as it ran back over the handful of visits the wiry, red-haired ex-prisoner had paid to the brig since he and his senior surviving subordinates had been confined in it. He’d seen what could only have been anger, even fury, in the other man’s eyes. At the time, he’d assumed it was directed at the Sharonians, an echo of Hadrign Thalmayr’s; now he suddenly found himself wondering if perhaps he’d misinterpreted the reasons for those emotions.

  “And who is Commander of Fifty Sarma?” he asked in that same, flat voice.

  “Fifty Sarma has Third Platoon of Able Company,” Harnak replied. “Along with the half-squad Fifty Ulthar’s got, that’s less than a quarter of the total garrison.” The Arcanan grimaced in something that looked like shame. “I’m afraid that’s why it’s taken so long to do anything about your situation, Sir.”

  This time, even a New Farnalian would have recognized the astonishment and speculation in Velvelig’s eyes. Preposterous though it might be, it sounded as if Harnak was suggesting that Ulthar and whoever the hells Sarma was were mutinying against Thalmayr. The regiment-captain glanced at the assigned guards, whose invisible bonds had been attached to the brig’s sturdy walls in some way, then back at Harnak.

  “And what might Commander of Fifty Ulthar and Commander of Fifty Sarma have in mind to do about our ‘situation’ now?”

  “As a matter of—”

  The sudden, strident clangor of an enormous bell interrupted whatever Harnak had been about to say.

  * * *

  “Shit!” Jaralt Sarma snapped.

  His left hand went to the bleeding gash Hadrign Thalmayr’s revolver bullet had torn through the outside of his left thigh. Fortunately, it was little more than a shallow furrow. The commander of one hundred had fared less well. The revolver thudded to the floor, still gripped in his right hand, and he screamed again, clutching the bleeding stump of his right wrist with his remaining hand as he fell back flat upon the suddenly blood-soaked bed. Sarma glared at him, then slammed the flat of his sword blade against the side of
the hundred’s head.

  Thalmayr collapsed, and Therman Ulthar jerked his utility crystal back out of his pocket. The UC’s spellware menu was on the general side, but it did contain a coagulating spell intended to both stop the bleeding, even from arterial wounds, and prevent infection. It was going to require the healing Gift to do more than that for Thalmayr, but at least he wouldn’t bleed to death in the meantime.

  He’d barely activated the spell before the strident clangor of an alarm spell pounded over the fort.

  “Oh, wonderful!” he snarled as he shoved Sarma roughly, turning him to apply the same first aid spell to his leg.

  * * *

  “Oh, dragon shit!” Javelin Traymahr Sahnger growled.

  Fifty Sarma had assigned his 3rd Squad to secure the stables while Hynkar Vahsk’s squad did the same thing for the armory, Sword Harnak secured the brig, and Sword Nourm and Tolomaeo Briahk’s squad secured the barracks occupied by the two platoons commanded by Fifty Brys Varkan and Fifty Dernys Yankaro. Nourm and Briahk had drawn the assignment for both barracks because there’d been only enough “special weapons” to equip a single squad…sparingly. Fifty Sarma and Fifty Ulthar had skimmed enough stun bolts off the top to give each of Sahnger’s men one of them, but all the rest had been reserved for 2nd Squad’s takedown of the barracks. That plan, however, had been predicated upon achieving surprise. Sahnger had no idea what somebody had been doing up and about to sound an alarm spell at this hour, but the fact that someone had suggested Nourm and Briahk might just have their hands full trying to secure their assigned objectives against someone who outnumbered them six-to-one.

  He and 3rd Squad had carried out their own assignment with no fuss or bother, and this was where they were supposed to stay under the plan Fifty Sarma and Fifty Ulthar had worked out. According to Fifty Sarma, Commander of Fifty Sahrimahn Cothar, whose cavalry troop had been left behind to support Hundred Thalmayr, was no happier about the hundred’s brutality than they were, even though Cothar hadn’t heard the truth about the portal attack which had killed Magister Halathyn. In theory, that should mean his cavalry troopers were less likely to come boiling in here looking for their mounts than they might have been otherwise. Sahnger couldn’t count on that, but it was at least possible, and if Varkan and Yankaro’s men figured out what was happening quickly enough, there wasn’t any question that Nourm and Briahk were damned sure going to need help.…

  “Maysak, you and Volmar stay here and keep an eye on those unicorns.” He jerked his thumb over his right shoulder at the stalled, restless cavalry mounts. “The rest of you, on me!”

  Shield Maysak Uthsamo nodded sharply, and he and Lewak Volmar peeled off as the rest of Sahnger’s squad followed their javelin out of the stable and headed for the nearer barracks at a run.

  * * *

  “I think that’s part of your answer, Sir,” Evarl Harnak said to Velvelig through the translating spellware while the bell continued to sound.

  “What’s part of the answer?” the Sharonian demanded, and Harnak scowled.

  “I don’t have time to explain everything, Sir,” he said. “What matters right now is that the way Hundred Thalmayr’s been treating you is against the Kerellian Accords. That means it’s illegal under our military law. Fifty Ulthar and Fifty Sarma planned to place him under arrest and send word to higher authority, but the people they could count on to back them are outnumbered four or five-to-one, so they were trying to do it as quietly as they could. From the sound of that”—he jerked his head at the brig door to indicate the bell pealing deafeningly outside it—“something went wrong.”

  Velvelig looked at him, his face giving no sign of the thoughts racing through his brain. That simple paragraph of explanation stood everything he’d thought he understood on its head. Of course, there was always the possibility the Arcanan was lying to him, although he couldn’t think of any same reason for the man to do that.

  “So what happens now?” he asked.

  “Sir, my orders are to secure the brig and hold it until Fifty Ulthar or Fifty Sarma tells me otherwise. It’s my job to look after you until one of them can get here.”

  “Does that include letting us out of these cells?” Velvelig demanded.

  “Nobody said anything to me about letting you out, Sir.” Harnak’s tone carried an edge of apology. “And, to be honest, even if Hundred Thalmayr’s been breaking the Accords, you’re still prisoners of war.”

  * * *

  “Move your arses!” Fifty Varkan shouted as the men who’d been turned out for inspection started grabbing helmets, sidearms, and arbalests. “Rokar! Take your squad and shag arse over to the admin block! Find out what’s going on there and then put yourself at Hundred Thalmayr’s orders!”

  “Yes, Sir!” Javelin Shelmyn Rokar replied, then jerked his head at the eleven other members of his squad. “All right, you lot! Let’s go!”

  “Jathyr, you get your arse to the brig and make sure the damned Sharonians are still there!”

  “Yes, Sir!” Lerso Jathyr took long enough to salute, then turned for the barracks back door, the shortest route to the brig. The men of his squad followed him in a thunder of boots, most of them still buckling weapons harnesses as they went, while Varkan went on barking orders behind them.

  * * *

  “Oh, crap.”

  Keraik Nourm, platoon sword for 3rd Platoon, A Company, saw the first man burst out the front door of Fifty Varkan’s 1st Platoon’s barracks. The man in question was in full combat gear, and he looked disgustingly wide awake. Worse, if he was up and about, then—

  More troopers erupted from the same door, and Nourm glanced over his shoulder at Tolomaeo Briahk.

  “So much for catching them in their racks!” he snarled. “Now we do it hard way.”

  “Whichever way we have to,” the very dark-skinned garthan who was 2nd Squad’s javelin said grimly.

  Like Nourm himself, Briahk had accepted the lies they’d been told about the Sharonians without question. And, even more than Nourm, the javelin had treated the Sharonians he’d encountered with brutality on more than one occasion when he thought Fifty Sarma wasn’t looking. Magister Halathyn vos Dulainah had been universally admired and loved by the garthan of every explored universe, and the news that he’d been shot out of hand by the Sharonians after he’d surrendered to them had been carefully and coldly calculated to fan the hatred of men like Briahk to a white-hot flame. Now, looking back at his own actions, he was bitterly ashamed of them…and even more infuriated by the way Magister Halathyn’s death had been used.

  “Drop your weapons!” Nourm shouted at the emerging squad, and heads snapped around in their direction. “Do it now!”

  * * *

  Shelmyn Rokar had no idea what was happening. Like his fifty, he’d heard the sound of the Sharonian weapon and, also like Fifty Varkan, he’d automatically assumed the weapon in question had to be in a Sharonian hand. Now he saw a full squad of Arcanans coming at him in an ordered line with arbalests already locked and loaded, and that made no sense at all.

  “What the fuck is going on?!” he demanded.

  “Drop the weapons, I said!” the same voice shouted, and this time he recognized it. It was Keraik Nourm from that pain in the arse Sarma’s platoon.

  “Like hell we will!” Rokar shot back as his men skidded to a halt and turned instinctively towards Nourm’s men. They didn’t know any more about what was happening than their javelin did. “We—”

  * * *

  “Take them!” Nourm barked, and 2nd Squad’s arbalests spat bolts.

  Rokar and two thirds of his men went down like targets on a range, dropping without a sound as the stun bolts slammed into them. The other four gawked in disbelief, then turned and scrambled back towards the barracks door.

  “Shit!”

  Nourm glared after the escapees. The men who were already down would stay that way for at least twelve hours, but it was unlikely the rest of Fifty Varkan’s men were going to be returning fire
with stun bolts of their own.

  “Brysyl, suppressive fire on the windows!” the platoon sword snapped. “The rest of you, on me!”

  Shield Brysyl Vahrtanak and the squad’s second section went instantly to one knee and brought their arbalests to their shoulders. The standard infantry arbalest was a heavy weapon, without the box magazine of the shorter, handier dragoon arbalest. It was also more powerful and longer ranged, however, and the spell assist stored in its integral sarkolis crystal allowed a trooper to span the powerful steel bow with a single stroke of the charging lever. The crystal was good for only sixty shots before it required recharging. After that, respanning the bow required six to eight throws and a hell of a lot more muscle, but until the spell was exhausted a trained arbalester could get off at least six aimed shots per minute. There were only two windows in the front wall of the barracks, and Vahrtanak’s section broke down into two three-man fire teams. Using sequenced fire, each section sent a stun bolt hissing through its assigned window every three seconds.

  Unfortunately, each man had been issued only ten stun bolts. There’d been no way to draw more of them without somebody asking inconvenient questions. Which, given that there were fifty-four men in Varkan’s platoon and that not every shot was going to hit its target, meant there were far too few of them to go around.

  There was an answer to that, however, and Briahk and the squad’s first section followed Nourm as they charged the barracks. Someone inside already had his act together and, despite the stun bolts sizzling through the windows several of Varkan’s men were getting shots off in reply. The fire was hasty and not very well aimed, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t deadly, and one of Briahk’s men went down with a cry of pain as a steel-headed bolt drove into him. At least 1st Platoon’s dragons were locked up in the armory right beside 3rd Platoon’s, so there were no lightning bolts or fireballs coming at them.

  Nourm and Briahk reached the boardwalk in front of the barracks side-by-side and flung themselves down, rolling across the rough-surfaced planking until they fetched up against the wall itself, directly beneath the windows. The sword yanked the fist-sized grenade off his belt, twisted the arming knob, and heaved it through the window above him. He heard it thump and rattle on the wooden floor, heard someone shout in alarm, and heard Briahk’s grenade land a heartbeat after his own, and then the spells activated.