Hell Hath No Fury

Chapter Twenty-One

"Come in Klayrman! Come in."

Klayrman Toralk obeyed the invitation and stepped into Two Thousand Harshu's command tent. He'd half-expected a summons like this one. In fact, he wondered what had taken so long. More than two days had passed since the revelations of his supper with Harshu. Tayrgal Carthos had been sent upon his way forty-eight hours previously, but Harshu had yet to move towards his own next objective, and so far, at least, Toralk had no idea why he hadn't.

Hopefully, that's about to change, he told himself as he approached the map table floating in midair at the center of the outsized tent.

Aside from himself and Harshu, the only other person present was Commander of Five Hundred Herak Mahrkrai, Harshu's Chief of Staff. Mahrkrai-old for his rank, with iron-gray hair and oddly colorless eyes-was the sort of officer who seemed to have specialized in unobtrusiveness throughout his entire career. Toralk had worked with him enough in planning the Expeditionary Force's operations to know he was a highly competent, even an imaginative man, but he didn't project that. His apparent … blandness, for want of a better word, was the most striking thing about him, and Toralk wondered why. He supposed it might have owed something to the fact that Mahrkrai's less showy personality was simply lost in the shadow of Harshu's far more extroverted and aggressive impact on everyone about him.

Of course, it's always possible Harshu picked him expressly because he has that sort of personality. But if he did, the question is whether it was because Harshu was smart enough to know he needed a balance wheel like Mahrkrai? Or was it because he wanted to make sure his chief of staff wouldn't challenge him for the spotlight?

"Thank you for getting here so promptly, Klayrman," Harshu continued, reaching out to offer the Air Force officer his hand.

"I'd say you were welcome, if there were any particular reason why I shouldn't have come promptly, Sir," Toralk replied, and Harshu snorted.

"What a polite way of saying we've been sitting here on our arses too long!" the two thousand said.

Toralk opened his mouth, but Harshu shook his head before he could speak. "No, that's a perfectly reasonable thing for you to be thinking, actually. Especially given how heavily all of our preliminary planning emphasized the need to move quickly once we got through the initial Sharonian defenses.

Unfortunately, Five Hundred Neshok has turned up some intelligence which Herak and I have been kicking around for the better part of twelve hours now."

"What sort of intelligence, Sir, if I may ask?" Toralk said cautiously.

"According to two or three of our prisoners, there are Arcanan prisoners being held in our next objective, Sir," Five Hundred Mahrkrai answered for his boss.

"What?" Astonishment startled the question out of Toralk. The instant it was out of his mouth, though, he wondered just why he was surprised. They'd known all along that the survivors of the Second Andarans had been taken prisoner, which meant, logically, that they had to be being held somewhere.

I suppose I simply assumed they'd have done the same things with their prisoners that we did with ours-

gotten them moved to the rear for proper interrogation as quickly as possible. Except, of course, that we haven't been doing that since we launched this attack, have we?

That last thought suggested some potentially grim reasons for holding prisoners closer to the front, so he decided not to think about it any more just at the moment.

"We've confirmed it," Harshu told him. "At least, the verifier spells have confirmed that the prisoners giving us the information believe it's accurate. According to the best information Neshok's been able to put together, the worst wounded of our people were held at this Fort Ghartoun,or Fort Raylthar, or whatever the hells it's named these days."

"It makes sense, Sir," Mahrkrai put in. "As far as we can tell, they don't have anything like our magistrons. They're pretty much limited to natural healing times, and transporting badly wounded men without even dragons must be a nightmare. So they probably parked the most badly hurt of our people at this Fort Ghartoun. Since they didn't know a thing about our aerial capability, they must have figured Ghartoun was far enough from our point of contact to be secure."

"But you see our problem, don't you, Klayrman?" Harshu said, waving one hand at the sketch map on the table. "We can't exactly use the yellows-or even the reds-in a surprise attack if our own people are being held inside the fort."

"No, we can't, Sir," Toralk agreed, stepping closer to the table and gazing down at the map.

"At least it's on this side of the next portal," Harshu pointed out. "As long as we exercise a little caution, there's not too much chance of anyone spotting us moving into attack position."

"I'm not sure how significant that really is, Sir," Toralk replied. Harshu raised an eyebrow, and the Air Force thousand shrugged. "Obviously, there's always a greater chance of being spotted moving through a portal-one of the more irritating things about them is the way they bottleneck your movement options to at least some extent, after all. But we've pretty much swept the area between here and the next portal.

There weren't any civilian settlements-" thank the gods, he very carefully did not say aloud, thinking about Neshok "-and we'd neutralized the Voice relay even before we hit Fort Brithik. So we can move with virtual impunity right up until the instant we jumpoff for the attack. All of that's true. But from the outset, one of our primary planning considerations has been the neutralization of their Voice chain's next link, the one immediately beyond whatever might be our current objective. So we're still going to have to get our long-range penetration teams through the portal before the attack, which is going to take us right back to that bottleneck situation."

"Maybe not, Sir," Mahrkrai put in diffidently. He tapped the sketch map. "From this, it looks as if their fort is a good mile or mile-and-a-half inside the portal. If we can get people on the ground, maybe a talon or two of dragons in the air, between the fort and the portal, they won't be able to get a Voice through to the other side. Not, at least, until we can get our people through to take their next Voice relay station."

"And you know roughly where that is?" Toralk asked.

"Yes, Sir. We do."

"I see."

Toralk fell silent, pursing his lips as he moved his gaze to the sketched floor plan pinned to the table beside the map. He wasn't about to invest too much confidence in that sketch's accuracy-not knowing how Neshok obtained his information. Still, it was probably fairly close. The Sharonians, like the Union of Arcana itself, seemed to stick to fairly standardized designs for things like portal forts.

He ran a fingertip across the sketch, thinking hard, then looked back up at Harshu.

"I could wish we had some SpecOps troopers to spearhead this thing, Sir. Still, I think we could probably do it without an opening air strike. Assuming, of course, that we still have the advantage of surprise." His expression was sober, and his voice took on a warning note as he continued. "With their weapons, if they figure out we're coming and get themselves stood-to in time, even a relatively small garrison is going to inflict heavy casualties if we don't hammer them with a surprise air strike first."

"Understood." Harshu stepped over close beside the Air Force officer, gazing at the same sketch.

"To be honest," the two thousand went on, after a moment, "I never expected that we'd get much farther than we already have without taking substantial casualties of our own. I'm inclined to think now that I was overly pessimistic in that respect, given how decisively your combat strikes have been shutting them down before we ever have to go in on the ground. I don't really want to do anything to change that, like sending in some sort of conventional assault instead. But if they do have any of our people inside, then we can't justify not trying to get them out-or, even worse, possibly killing them ourselves-

simply because we might risk a few more casualties in a rescue attempt."

"I agree, Sir," Toralk said firmly, although he was strongly tempted to point out that even if they hadn't suffered very many casualties in human terms, the dragons they'd lost had been more than merely painful. The diversion of both transports and battle dragons he'd been forced to make to Five Hundred Mala to support Carthos' independent advance hadn't helped his force availability any either, of course.

"How soon can you give me an operations plan?" Harshu asked.

"Probably by lunchtime, Sir." Toralk shrugged. "As I say, I'd feel better with a SpecOps company to lead the way, but this is a fairly standard scenario. We spend a lot of time planning and executing these on the fly in our normal training exercises, and we've learned a lot about these people, too."

"Good. It's going to take us a full day to get our transports moved into striking range and rested, anyway.

Can you do your planning while we're actually in the air?"

"No, Sir," Toralk said with fairly massive understatement. "But what I can do is hold a small planning staff right where we are while we put the ops plan together. Then I can load them all onto a single transport and catch up with you sometime this evening. We'll have to leave the transport behind to rest while the rest of the attack kicks off, but the availability of a single transport dragon either way isn't going to make or break the op."

"Good," Harshu repeated. "Good! I'll be looking forward to seeing your plan."

"Good, Syrail. Good!" Folsar chan Tergis Said enthusiastically as he Watched the crystal-clear imagery of something physically seen through someone else's eyes. "I've known Voices three times your age who wouldn't have gotten it that clear. I think you're finally getting the hang of it."

The Fort Ghartoun Voice could Feel Syrail Targal's pleasure at the compliment. A pleasure due in no small part to the fact that the thirteen-year-old boy knew that it was deserved.

"You know, Folsar," Syrail Said back, "you really are a pretty good teacher."

"Am I?" chan Tergis chuckled. "Just between you and me? I'd rather be sitting in a school somewhere a lot closer to Sharona than being stuck out here."

"Well, I'm just as happy you're here."

"Thanks … I think," chan Tergis Said dryly.

The truth was that chan Tergis had been a teacher-and a good one-in one of the private Talent academies before his weakness for distilled grain products landed him in the uniform of the PAAF. He wasn't above occasionally bewailing the change in his fortunes, although-while he wasn't prepared to admit it to anyone (including himself, most of the time)-he actually rather enjoyed his present life. Oh, he really did miss the amenities of the home universe or the more developed of the colonized universes.

But he also knew that his drinking problem-and the fact that it was a problem simply could not be denied-was far more difficult for him to deal with in those universes.

Funny, he thought on a level carefully shielded from young Syrail. Two-thirds of the drinking problems in the military happen out here in one of the frontier postings. I guess some folks miss the bright lights enough that sheer boredom gets them. Me, I think seeing all this empty, unspoiled breathing space takes the pressure off, somehow.

He didn't know if that was the truth, or if he was fooling himself, and it didn't really matter. He'd been sober for almost a full year this time, and he'd discovered that he really liked Regiment-Captain Velvelig. There was a lot more humor and warmth hidden behind that Arpathian facade than most people would ever realize. Besides, the "can't-make-me-a-soldier" game was ever so much more fun with a CO who understood the rules!

"Mom's calling me, Folsar," Syrail Said, and the imagery of the view from his window which he'd been sending to chan Tergis disappeared abruptly. "I think I may have left a few chores undone this morning.

"

"Haven't you figured out yet that you can't fib to another Voice?" chan Tergis replied with a chuckle.

"You don't just think you left them undone."

"Well, maybe not," Syrail admitted sheepishly. "Bye!"

The boy withdrew, and chan Tergis sat up in the straight backed chair beside his small desk and opened his eyes.

Syrail was a good kid. He reminded chan Tergis of his own youngest cousin, as a matter of fact, although Syrail's Talent was considerably stronger. In fact, it was a shame, bordering on something worse than that, that he was stuck out here in Thermyn. There weren't more than a couple of thousand people in and around Fort Ghartoun and the surrounding countryside. No one-unless it was Regiment- Captain Velvelig-had any hard and fast official numbers for Thermyn's population, but however many people there were, there weren't enough to have a proper Talent academy, and Syrail's Voice really needed training.

Fortunately, the boy's family's cabin was less than thirty miles from Fort Ghartoun. That was close enough that chan Tergis had caught the telltale involuntary Voice transmissions of an extraordinarily powerful Talent just coming into its own. It hadn't taken him long to track down the source, although he had been a bit surprised by Syrail's youth. Generally, a Talent as strong as Syrail's didn't truly begin manifesting until its possessor was at least fifteen or sixteen years old. Which probably explained why his parents hadn't worried about having him tested for Talent before they headed out to Thermyn. After all, Syrail had been only twelve when they set out, and they were due to return to Sharona in only a few more months.

Syrail's father, who was also named Syrail, although he usually went by his nickname, "Kersai," which meant "redhead" in his native Tadewian, was a geologist, employed by the Fairnos Consortium, who'd been assigned to the preliminary survey of the Sky Blood Lode in Thermyn. Even though the basic geology was identical in every universe, there were almost always minor variations. Landslides limited to individual universes, or forest fires, or floods, or any number of purely local factors could affect plans to develop something like the huge silver deposits.

In this case, the altitude differential between the Thermyn and Failcham sides of the portal had produced more of that than usual. It was fortunate that this portal had obviously been here literally for centuries, if not longer. There were ample clues as to what must have happened to the local geography and flora and fauna when that savage tidal bore of furnace-hot, kiln-dry wind from the Ricathian Desert came ripping through it and blasted straight into the western face of the Sky Blood Mountains. The local plant life had recovered, masking the worst of the inter-universal sandblasting under fully mature forest, but there were still spectacular expanses of naked, wind-blasted rock where the lash of the portal blast had scourged the flesh from the mountains' bones.

Kersai was young for the responsibility of dealing with that sort of "minor variation," but he was also smart and hardworking, and from everything chan Tergis had been able to discern, he'd done a first-rate job. In fact, he, his wife Raysith, and Syrail were going to be heading back to Sharona in just a few days, at least three months ahead of their original schedule, for a well-deserved vacation and promotion. Chan Tergis had already discussed young Syrail's need for additional training with his parents, and although neither Kersai nor Raysith was very strongly Talented, they were obviously delighted by his enthusiastic praise for what Syrail had already accomplished.

Chan Tergis was glad. The truth was that he was going to miss the boy, and he'd given the lad his own bronze falcon badge as a going-away gift. Technically, Syrail wouldn't be allowed to wear it until he'd passed at least his second-stage training and been certified, but chan Tergis had a spare, and he'd known it would be the perfect gift even before he watched those brown eyes go huge and round with delight.

And I can use anything good that happens these days, he told himself.

His expression tightened at the reflection. There was still no word from Roakm Traygan or Shansair Baulwan. In fact, there was still no word from Erthek Vardan, for that matter, and there damned well ought to have been by now. He knew Regiment-Captain Velvelig was more perturbed by the ongoing silence than he'd chosen to let on, and so was chan Tergisx. He was beginning to wonder if something rather more serious hadn't happened to Erthek. Fatal accidents were scarcely unknown out here on the frontier, where a man might be bitten by a snake, mauled by a bear, break his neck in a fall, or be crushed when a falling horse rolled over on him. True, things like that happened rather less frequently to Voices than to others, given the (relatively) sedentary nature of their duties, but they could happen. And he was becoming unhappily certain that he was going to discover that something a lot more serious than a simple allergy or the flu had happened to young Erthek.

Stop borrowing trouble! he scolded himself. If you find out it was nothing serious after all, think how stupid you're going to feel.

Janaki chan Calirath straightened in his seat and stretched hugely as the abbreviated, shabby train hissed and banged to a halt at the Fort Salby station. The standard seats in the Trans-Temporal Express's thirdclass carriages hadn't been designed to fit Caliraths. And the seats the coin-counters in the TTE home offices had seen fit to put into the carriages on their work trains made third-class carriages seem palatial by comparison. Still, as he and Chief-Armsman chan Braikal had already agreed, even this beat the hell out of a saddle.

He snorted with amusement at the thought, then glanced at chan Braikal.

"Go ahead and get them organized to detrain, Chief. I'll find out where we need to put them."

"Yes, Sir."

Janaki left that task in chan Braikal's more than capable hands and climbed down onto the sun-blasted boardwalk of the Fort Salby rail station. It wasn't the first time he'd been here, but the place hadn't gotten much cooler between visits.

There was one notable change, he noticed, and he was glad he'd been warned about it before he saw the Uromathian cavalry standard for the first time. Given the traditional relationship between Ternathia and Uromathia-and his own … unanticipated marital prospects-he wasn't overjoyed to see the crossed crimson sabers on a black field flying from one of the flagpoles on Salby's parade ground.

"Platoon-Captain chan Calirath?" a voice said, and he turned towards the speaker.

"Yes, Sir!" he said crisply, coming to attention and saluting the dark-complexioned company-captain with the pronounced Shurkhali accent.

"Stand easy, Platoon-Captain," the company-captain said dryly and extended a hand. "I'm Orkam Vargan, the XO. And I'm glad to see you, for several reasons. One of which, I don't imagine you're going to like very much."

"Sir?" Janaki said a bit warily, and Vargan gave him a lopsided smile, dark eyes sympathetic.

"I'm afraid there have been some changes in your orders. I know you were supposed to be their military escort all the way back to Sharona, but given what's been going on in Tajvana, the Powers That Be have decided they need you home as quickly as possible, and not as just one more platoon-captain. Which means, I'm sorry to say, that delivering these prisoners to Salby is the last thing you're going to do as an Imperial Marine … Your Highness."

Janaki had guessed where Vargan was headed, and he'd been prepared to protest. But he didn't. He didn't because even as Vargan spoke, a lightning bolt seemed to stab through his brain. It hit so hard, so suddenly, his breath actually caught.

The Glimpse made no sense. Not yet. Regiment-Captain Velvelig had told him about the warning his father had sent down-chain after the Emperor and Andrin had experienced their initial Glimpses.

Unfortunately, the warning hadn't come with a great deal of detail-not unusual, as Janaki knew only too well, where Glimpses were concerned. Yet the little bit Velvelig had been able to tell him resonated strongly with the images of fire and explosions, the sound of screams and the thunder of weapons, ripping through him now.

Janaki's Talent had never been remotely as strong as his sister's. In fact, he'd always been rather guiltily thankful that it wasn't. He'd watched his father and Andrin dealing with the … discomfort of their Glimpses, and he'd been glad his own Glimpses had never hit him that hard.

Today, though, he longed for a bit more of Andrin's sensitivity. Chan Braikal had told him about the Glimpse he'd experienced on their march to Hell's Gate, but Janaki himself remembered nothing from it.

That was more than merely frustrating, although he'd been able to guess-given the fact that the Chalgyn Consortium crew had been massacred only a very few hours after he'd experienced it-what it must have been about. But from the physical reactions chan Braikal had described, it was obvious that it must have been a very powerful Glimpse, much more powerful than he'd ever had before. And because no one had ever expected him to have a Glimpse of that strength, his training in how to dig it back out of his subconscious was nowhere near as good as his sister's.

"Are you all right, Your Highness?"

He heard Vargan's voice echoing weirdly through the power of his Glimpse and tried to force his eyes to focus on the company-captain. For a second or two-possibly even a little longer-they flatly refused.

They were … somewhere else. Somewhere dark and frightening.

Then they did focus, and Janaki sucked in a deep, sudden breath.

"Your Highness?" Vargan repeated, and this time there was genuine concern in his voice.

"I'm sorry, Company-Captain," Janaki said, shaking himself vigorously. "I … guess I really didn't want to hear that."

"I wish I hadn't had to tell you," Vargan admitted.

"Well, I hope all of this enthusiasm to get me home doesn't mean I have to leap right on the next train."

Janaki prayed that his smile didn't look as forced as it felt. "I've been doing nothing but traveling for the best part of four months now-first to Hell's Gate, and then straight back home from Hell's Gate. I'd really, really like to spend one day or so sitting still. Preferably in a deep, hot bathtub somewhere."

"They said they want your return expedited," Vargan said slowly. "Still, it's going to take us most of a day just to figure out the train schedule, given the way the Third Dragoons' movement is screwing up the TTE's timetables. I can't guarantee anything, but I suspect Regiment-Captain chan Skrithik could see his way to letting you have twenty-four hours. Maybe even forty-eight."

"I'd like that, Sir."

"We'll see what we can do, Your Highness. I promise."

"Thank you, Sir."

"And now," Vargan continued, "let's get these POWs of yours off the train. I've arranged suitable-and secure-quarters for them while they're our … guests."

Janaki nodded and followed Vargan as the company-captain strode briskly over to the train, but the crown prince's thoughts were somewhere else entirely. He hoped Vargan was right about chan Skrithik.

If the company-captain wasn't, then it was going to be up to Janaki to find some way to change the regiment-captain's mind. Janaki needed that time here at Fort Salby, and not just for a bath, however sensually seductive hot water and soap might be.

Whatever he'd just Glimpsed, it was going to happen here-right here, at Salby, and physical proximity to a Glimpse's locus had a powerful sharpening, focusing effect on the Glimpse itself, even for someone whose Talent was as erratic as Janaki's. So he needed to be here, if he was going to figure out what that Glimpse truly meant. But the one thing he knew with absolute certainty was that if he explained what he'd already Seen to chan Skrithik, he'd never be given the opportunity. The Fort Salby CO would literally throw him onto the next train-and, in the absence of trains, onto horseback-to get him as far away as possible if Janaki told him the one crystal-clear image he'd brought back from his Glimpse in the instant his eyes refocused.

The image of Company-Captain Orkam Vargan's decapitated body sprawled across torn, corpse-strewn ground while his blood soaked into Fort Salby's parade ground.