by David Weber
“Like on the other side of this portal?” Velvelig arched his eyebrows, and Ulthar nodded. “Well,” the regiment-captain said more briskly, sliding his binoculars back into their case, “there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?”
He swung back up into the unicorn’s saddle and squinted up at the sky through the branches. Like many Arpathians, he wasn’t especially fond of trees, but under the circumstances, he was willing to make an exception to his usual attitude.
“Gets dark early, this time of year,” he observed. “Light’ll be gone in another couple of hours, and there’s no moon tonight—on either side of the portal. The troops in that fort of yours are going to be showing at least some lights, which should help us keep wide of them while we creep around to the other side, but it’ll be slow going without lights of our own. Still, I figure we should get chan Byral far enough around the western end of the portal to get a good Look for any outposts covering the southern aspect in, say, three hours. And if he doesn’t see anything, we may just be justified in thinking this mul Gurthak of yours doesn’t realize how crazy we really are. And if he doesn’t”—the Arpathian grinned suddenly and broadly as Fifty Ulthar climbed into his own saddle—“we may just have a straight dash from here to Hell’s Gate after all!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Fairsayla 20, 5053 AE
[March 8, 1929 CE]
“Well, Sir, can’t say I’m looking forward to this next bit,” Tersak chan Golar said.
“Whyever not?” Grithair chan Mahsdyr asked with a smile. Chan Golar, Gold Company’s company senior-armsman, was from southern Jerekhas, accustomed to the Mbisi’s mild summers, and the company-captain had a pretty shrewd notion of the reasons for his discontent.
“Might say nobody but a pure and simple lunatic would go anywhere near Lake Wernisk in th’ winter if he had any choice about it, Sir,” chan Golar replied glumly. “If I was inclined t’ complain, that is, which gods know I’m not. And according t’ my cousin Rhodair, not even bison’re stupid enough t’ spend the winter at Ulthamyr. Migrate south into Benteria, he says, like anything else with a brain. But us?” The lean, grizzled noncom shook his head in disgust. “We’re not only goin’ to Lake Wernisk, we’re goin’ the next best thing t’ six hundred miles cross-country to Ulthamyr. Gods bless the poor sodding cavalry!”
“I swear, Tersak, you’d complain if they hanged you with a golden rope!” chan Mahsdyr said, and the senior-armsman’s chuckle acknowledged the hit.
Chan Golar had been with chan Mahsdyr for almost two years now, and he and the senior-armsman understood one another well. At the moment, they sat in their saddles on the bank of the Rathynoka River in what ought to have been the Darylis Republic in New Farnalia, gazing west at the never-boring spectacle of yet another door between universes. The Resym side of the Resym-Nairsom Portal was several miles west of the location of the town of Shdandifar, but the Nairsom side—as chan Golar had just none-too-obliquely observed—lay just outside what would have been the small bison-ranching town of Ulthamyr in the Republic of Roantha, well over three thousand miles north of and twelve hundred feet higher than their present location. Here in Shdandifar, the afternoon temperature was in the high nineties; in Nairsom, the temperature was well below freezing, with lazy snowflakes drifting down a steel-gray sky. This particular portal had obviously been around a while, since the portal wind speed was no more than ten or twelve miles per hour, and what there was of it was out of Resym and into Nairsom. That produced a bubble of warmth on the far side in which there was no accumulation of snow…but it was a rather small bubble.
“Awful cold ’round a man’s neck, those golden ropes, Sir. Or so they tell me. Never tried one, m’self.”
“Yet, at least.” Chan Mahsdyr observed cheerfully. “There’s always time.”
“True enough, Sir. On the other hand, it really is goin’ t’ be a shock for the horses, not t’ mention the men, you know.”
“Now there, Tersak, you’ve got a point,” chan Mahsdyr acknowledged less than happily.
His dragoons had brought along the heavy winter uniforms and cold weather equipment they’d need for the six hundred-mile trek between Lake Wernisk and Ulthamyr, but their horses had not. And those same horses had just completed a grueling twenty-eight hundred mile journey between Shdandifar and Paditharyn, during which the temperature had seldom dropped much below seventy degrees and had occasionally risen into the high nineties. They were thoroughly acclimated to that climate, and not even the Imperial Ternathian Army’s Shikowrs were going to take the sixty-degree drop in average temperature anything like well. They’d brought along plenty of heavy blankets to keep their animals well rugged when they weren’t actually riding, but he wouldn’t be at all surprised if they lost some of them over the next week or so.
“At least the Mules have held up well,” he said now. He wasn’t referring to flesh and blood mules, and chan Golar nodded in emphatic agreement. “The Bisons’ve done better than I really expected, but the Mules have been the real surprise,” the company-captain continued. “I’m beginning to think Division-Captain chan Stahlyr might have a point about those ‘mechanized troops’ of his.”
“Wouldn’t go that far, Sir,” chan Golar said, stubborn despite his agreement of a moment before, and leaned forward to pat his mount’s shoulder. “Horses’ve been around a lot longer nor tea kettles. Mind, they’ve done well enough so far, and I’ll not deny it, but they’ve got no heart, no guts. Had my skin saved more’n once by a good horse that was too damned stupid t’ know it couldn’t keep goin’, begging your pardon. It’ll be a while before I’m willing t’ trade in my saddle for good.”
“I don’t doubt that for a second,” chan Mahsdyr agreed with a grin. “And I’m not suggesting we shoot them all next Marniday, either. But just between you and me, I thought the division-captain was smoking things he shouldn’t have been when he first came up with this brainstorm. Now—assuming we get across the Stone Carve at Coyote Canyon without the Arcanans spotting us while we’re about it—I think he’s about to go down in history as a military genius. I sure as hells don’t know anyone else who’s ever proposed a frigging eight thousand-mile approach march with a single division!”
“All due respect for the division-captain, and all, but I b’lieve I’ve heard as there’s a thin line, sometimes, ’twixt genius and crazy,” the noncom observed. “Never a doubt in my mind which the division-captain is, you understand, Sir!”
“I’m sure,” chan Mahsdyr said dryly. “In the meantime, I think we’ll go ahead and bivouac. Take time to break out the cold weather gear and inspect it properly before we poke our noses into that nice, cool climate on the other side.”
“Good idea, Sir,” chan Golar agreed in a considerably more serious tone. “Your permission, and I think it’d be another good idea t’put at least a picket on the far side, though.”
“Agreed.” Chan Mahsdyr nodded. “Send chan Parthan and chan Ynclair with it. I’ll want to talk to both of them before they cross the portal, though.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Good. And ask Platoon-Captain chan Sabyr to join me here, as well.”
“Yes, Sir.”
The senior-armsman nodded, reined his horse around, and trotted back along the column, and chan Mahsdyr dismounted to take the weight off his own horse’s back while he waited. Folsar chan Sabyr’s 1st Platoon was scheduled to take the lead when they set off into Nairsom, and chan Mahsdyr wanted to be certain chan Sabyr and his men had properly prepared themselves. The platoon-captain was experienced, but he was also young, and his senior-armsman was from coastal Teramandor—a long, long way from New Ternathia—and a bit new to his duties as the platoon’s senior noncom. It wouldn’t hurt to tactfully remind both of them of some of the unpleasant realities of winter in Roantha. For that matter, it might not be a bad idea to send chan Sabyr’s entire platoon through as chan Golar’s “picket.” They’d spend a milder night in close proximity to the portal, given the p
ortal wind blowing through from Resym, but it would still be chilly enough to find any holes in their preparations and…underscore the desirability of plugging said holes before they set out for Ulthamyr.
And it definitely won’t be a bad idea to get chan Parthan and chan Ynclair over to the other side for a looksee, he reflected.
Chan Parthan was the youngest of the half-dozen Plotters assigned to Gold Company for this little foray, but he was also the most strongly Talented, with by far the greatest range. And chan Ynclair was one of the strongest Distance Viewers chan Mahsdyr had ever encountered. If chan Parthan detected any of the Arcanans’ damned dragons hanging about, chan Ynclair would be able to spot them without difficulty.
One interesting discovery they’d made in the course of their journey was that a Plotter’s range seemed greater against airborne creatures…and got greater still the higher the altitude at which he searched. Chan Parthan’s current theory was that the “background noise” of other living organisms—including plants, chan Mahsdyr had been surprised to discover—became less and less a factor at higher and higher altitudes. Without that distraction, he could simply Plot farther and more clearly.
Of course, that might not have come as a surprise to every Plotter. The detection of flying creatures wasn’t something with which anyone except bird watchers and a relatively small number of Plotters assigned to various park services or ornithological research organizations had much experience, however, because most of them were normally concerned with landborne or seaborne critters. Chan Mahsdyr had come to the grim conclusion that it might very well be that neglect of watching for aerial threats which had let the Arcanans take out Company-Captain chan Tesh’s men in New Uromath without anyone’s getting a warning out up-chain. Something had certainly let them get into range and eliminate chan Tesh’s assigned Voice before any alert could be sent, and since chan Tesh’s Plotters and Distance Viewers had almost equally certainly been anticipating landborne threats…
Whatever had happened in New Uromath, chan Mahsdyr had no intention of allowing that to happen to Gold Company. He did wish he had a better notion of just how far someone on dragonback at an altitude of a few thousand feet could actually see, though. He knew it was possible to see as much as fifty or sixty miles—sometimes even farther—from a high enough mountain, and even with the greater range chan Parthan had been able to achieve against aerial targets, that would exceed his reach. On the other hand, how much detail could anyone see from that sort of elevation?
No one knew the answer to that, and ever since they’d emerged from the rain forest on their way to Shdandifar, he’d been acutely aware of the lack of any sort of measuring stick by which to judge the threat’s true parameters. That was the main reason he’d had binocular-equipped lookouts backing up his Plotters every weary mile of the way. He intended to go right on backing them up, and he devoutly hoped the present overcast visible through the portal would remain with them all the way to Ulthamyr. However he might worry about the horses’ vulnerability to cold, he’d prefer anything much short of a howling blizzard to clear skies and good visibility for any aerial spies the other side might have left behind.
The handful of hardy souls in Resym who’d ignored the evacuation orders sent down-chain from Lashai had reported no Arcanan presence in that universe to any of 12th Dragoons’ scouts, but chan Mahsdyr was none too certain any of the stay-behinds would have recognized a dragon or an eagle-lion even if they’d seen one. The idea of such creatures remained profoundly unnatural to chan Mahsdyr even after all these weeks, and he’d actually examined their carcasses at Fort Salby. Even if someone here in Resym had seen one of them, why should anyone who’d never heard of them have realized that what he was seeing was much larger than any bird and simply far farther away than he’d thought?
That thought had loomed large in his mind ever since they’d left jungle’s tree cover, and he was more grateful than ever for the Steel Mules which had been sent after him following his discussion with Ganstamar Yanusa-Mahrdissa in Shosara. They’d overtaken his mounted men without any difficulty, and he’d redistributed his supplies as they’d arrived. The half-tracked Mules could keep up with his dragoons effortlessly, and without the betraying banner of coal smoke a Mark One Bison emitted. So he’d loaded the Mules with fifteen days of everything his mounted troops would require and left the remainder of his supplies aboard the Bison-towed trailers. That should be more than enough to get him all the way from Lake Wernisk to Ulthamyr before he had to call the Bisons forward, and he was all in favor of remaining as invisible as possible while he did just that.
He hoped none of his men were stupid enough to think he was truly as unconcerned and confident as he pretended, although the game required them to pretend that he’d fooled them. Yet the truth was that everything at least appeared to have gone extremely well so far. Now if only things stayed that way.…
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Chesthu 3, 206 YU
Fairsayla 8, 5053 AE
[February 24, 1929 CE]
“Well, another day, another portal.”
Therman Ulthar looked up from his steaming mug of bitterblack as Jaralt Sarma sat on the large rock beside him. It was a gray, cold evening, moving steadily towards full dark, with a miserable drizzle dusting downward, and the vista through the portal before them was less than welcoming, to say the very least. Especially for Ulthar.
“The last time I was this way,” he said, “there were trees on the other side of this one. Mind you, I wasn’t paying them a lot of attention at the time. Getting shot with one of those damned rifles puts a damper on your sightseeing. But this…”
He shook his head, and Sarma grunted in agreement, although the last time he’d crossed that portal the land on the other side had been blackened and still smoking while hooves and dragon wings stirred up torrents of bitter, clinging ash. It had been like a foretaste of Shartahk’s own hell, but he had to admit that even that had looked more welcoming than this.
It was winter on both sides of the portal, but the other side wasn’t just much colder, with snow falling heavily on a steady wind from the northwest. It was also far bleaker, with snags of burned stumps sticking up through the snow. Some of the bigger forest giants seemed to have survived the torrent of fire which had burned out a thousand square miles of woodland, but if they had, they were clearly in the minority. Either way, it would be impossible to be certain until spring, when they’d either leaf once more…or not. For now, the universe both Arcana and Sharona had agreed to call Hell’s Gate looked very much like its name: a barren, blackened drift of dead trees, burned snags, and blowing snow where the current temperature hovered far, far below freezing.
“It’s not too late to change our minds and head for Fort Rycharn,” Sarma said after a moment. Ulthar looked at him sharply, and the short, stocky fifty shrugged. “I’m not saying I think it’s a wonderful idea, but at least it’d be warmer. And once we cross over into that”—he twitched his head at the uninviting terrain beyond the portal—“we’re going to be moving hell for leather and any air patrol that spots us is going to wonder what the hells we’re doing. If we made for the Mahritha portal we’d at least be heading towards our people instead of obviously avoiding them! And I’m pretty sure Five Hundred Klian would at least listen to us before he slapped us into the brig.”
“Something to be said for that, I guess,” Ulthar replied after a moment. “Personally, though, I think the idea really sucks.”
“That’s one of the things I like about you, Therman. That tact and exquisite sensitivity to the sensibilities of others.”
“Screw tact. Are you seriously suggesting we do that?”
“No.” Sarma sipped his own bitterblack. “The notion does possess a certain comfort quotient, though. We’ve been completely off the grid ever since the mutiny, in more ways than one. Don’t you find it at least a little tempting to consider getting back into a world we know about?”
“No, not at the moment.” Ul
thar leaned forward to lift the bitterblack pot from the heating crystal and refresh his mug. “And not just because I don’t think for a minute that the five hundred could keep us alive long enough for anyone else to listen to us. We still owe Regiment-Captain Velvelig and his people for the way they were treated, Jaralt. We both gave the regiment-captain our word to accept his orders, too, and all the Sharonians have more than pulled their weight getting us this far. Besides, I’ve come to the conclusion the regiment-captain’s probably smarter than both of us put together.”
“And trying to change plans at this point would be a really good way to touch off a firefight we might not survive. You forgot that bit,” Sarma said dryly.
“I’m damned sure it would touch off a firefight.” Ulthar snorted. “For that matter, at least some of our boys would side with the Sharonians. They’ve done the math on what’s likely to happen if whoever’s behind all this gets his hands on us before we hear back from Duke Garth Showma.”