Hell's Gate

Chapter Fifty-Two

The bright morning sunlight only made Sarr Klian's mood even darker by comparison.

The final draft of Two Thousand Harshu's reinforcements had arrived last night, and it was, Klian conceded, an impressive force. mul Gurthak had managed to assemble even more fighting power than he'd projected in his original dispatches to Klian. He'd not only managed to dig up two complete Air Force talons, but he'd even come up with an additional four-dragon flight of the rare yellows. Klian hadn't expected that.

The Air Force's battle dragons were divided into flights and strikes on the basis of their breath weapons. The reds (the traditional colors of the original Mythalan war dragons bore very little resemblance to modern dragons' actual colors but still made a convenient shorthand for purposes of reference) were the fire-breathers, although it probably would have been more accurate to describe them as spitting fireballs. They'd been bred as a general attack type, although the "flight time" required for a fireball to reach its target made them less suitable for air-to-air combat.

The blacks were the lightning-breathers, who'd originally been developed expressly to fill that gap in dragon-versus-dragon combat. Their attacks delivered less total damage than a red's, but it was extremely focused. More importantly, it struck with literally "lightning-speed," which meant there wasn't any point in attempting to evade it the way someone might a fireball, if he was fast?and lucky?enough.

Both weapons sites were, of course, also effective against ground targets. No one in his right mind wanted to get in the way of dragon-spawned fireballs or lightning bolts, and it had been two hundred years since anyone had. But however little Klian might have liked the thought of being incinerated or flash-fried by lightning, the yellows were the ones that really gave him nightmares.

Almost every peace organization on Arcana?and a rather surprising number of officers within the Air Force itself?had tried repeatedly to have the yellows banned along with the weapons of mass destruction which had been outlawed when the Union was formed. Although the yellows' opponents hadn't succeeded in getting them completely banned, the Air Force had allowed their numbers to run down drastically. There simply weren't very many of them left, and Klian hadn't imagined that any of them were out here in the Lamia Chain. Nor could he imagine why they'd been sent in the first place, or what possible use anyone in the Commandery might have expected them to be.

Yellows were poison-breathers.

The shortest-ranged of all the dragons, they were also the most lethally effective against unprotected personnel. Their breath weapon had the largest area of effect, and without gas masks and a sound doctrine in their use, there was no defense against it.

They came in several varieties, the most deadly of which breathed what the Healers called a nerve-toxin that was uniformly lethal. Others breathed gases like chlorine, which were horrible enough but at least offered some possibility of survival if the wind was in your favor, or if you could get out of the gassed area quickly enough. But even a tiny concentration of the nerve-toxin was deadly once it was inhaled. There were rumors that the Mythalans had developed contact nerve-toxins during the Portal Wars. If that were true, at least they'd never been used, thankfully, but the existing varieties of yellows were more than enough to make Klian's skin crawl.

Especially now, as he stood on the Fort Rycharn parapet, gazing out across the crowded dragonfield at the rows upon rows of canvas tents. According to the latest returns, Harshu currently had two cavalry regiments and eight infantry battalions, plus artillery support, assembled under his command. That gave him over two thousand cavalry and almost nine thousand infantry, even before he counted the artillerists, the Air Force personnel, and the special combat engineer units. All told, Harshu had better than fourteen thousand men?as many men as many a full division could have boasted?and Klian felt a deep surge of inexpressible bitterness as he gazed out across that crowded encampment and thought how easily he might have contained this situation at the outset if he'd had it under his command.

Assuming you hadn't pissed it away the way you did Charlie Company, he told himself with bleak self-honesty.

He heard the flag above the fort cracking and popping in the crisp wind, and he was tempted to turn around and gaze back at the central office block. But he didn't. There wasn't any point. He'd already heard everything he needed to hear.

"Gentlemen," Two Thousand Harshu had told his assembled officers less than two hours ago, "Master Skirvon's latest dispatches make it quite clear the other side is not negotiating in good faith. That fact has become increasingly clear to him over the past several weeks, and he's communicated that conclusion to Two Thousand mul Gurthak. In addition, our reconnaissance has confirmed that the enemy actually on the portal are anticipating the arrival of substantial reinforcements within the next sixty to ninety days."

He'd paused, and Klian's heart had sunk into his boots. The five hundred had looked around at the silently watching faces, willing one of them to speak. When no one else had, he'd drawn a deep breath and lifted his own hand.

"Yes, Five Hundred Klian," Harshu had said.

"Excuse me, Sir. But if they aren't negotiating in good faith, what, exactly, does Master Skirvon think they are doing? Why talk to us in the first place?"

"They haven't requested a freeze on troop movements," Harshu had pointed out. "Obviously, that's because they believe?or hope, at any rate?that they can move their reinforcements to the front faster than we can. Unfortunately for them, they appear to be wrong. Master Skirvon's assessment is that they've basically been intent on buying time to bring those troops into play, without any intention of ever seriously attempting to resolve the differences between us peacefully. They continue to insist that the original confrontation was entirely our fault, and they've persistently refused to move beyond that to any discussion of the future possession of the portal cluster. Master Skirvon?who, I hardly need to remind anyone in this room, has by far the most personal experience in dealing with them?is of the opinion that they intend, at a bare minimum, to secure their own permanent and exclusive possession of Hell's Gate. Whether or not they intend to move beyond the cluster into our own territory is more than he's prepared to say at this point. That possibility cannot be overlooked, however."

Klian had hovered on the brink of pointing out that Skirvon hadn't requested any freezes on troop movements, either. But he hadn't said it. Harshu already knew that, and Klian had no doubt that Skirvon had waited to see what the other side proposed specifically as a test of the Sharonians' sincerity.

"Based on Master Skirvon's dispatches," Harshu had gone on, "Two Thousand mul Gurthak has authorized me to take preemptive action against the enemy, if, in my judgment, the situation requires it." Klian's plummeting heart had seemed to freeze as the two thousand paused briefly, then continued in measured tones. "He hasn't ordered us to attack, but he's eleven days away by dragon. As he says, he can't possibly be as good a judge of the immediate situation as we can here, at Fort Rycharn."

He'd surveyed the taut ranks of his officers. His eyes had challenged them to disagree with anything he'd said, but not a single voice had spoken. Not even Klian's.

"At the moment, we have a clear and overwhelming superiority. All of our reconnaissance confirms that they have less than one full regiment equivalent, and they remain in complete ignorance of our aerial capabilities. We have an equally overwhelming advantage in the speed with which we can move our troops. Given the fact that we know they have heavy reinforcements headed in our direction, I believe we have no option but to strike quickly and decisively."

Klian's jaw had tightened as he heard the words he'd dreaded from the beginning of the meeting, but Harshu hadn't been finished.

"Our immediate objective, obviously, is to secure Hell's Gate and control of its portal cluster," he'd said. "Two Thousand mul Gurthak has made it quite clear that the Union can't afford to leave it in Sharona's possession. Especially not given the fact that they may well have designs upon even more Arcanan territory. However, while the seizure of Hell's Gate itself ought to be a relatively straightforward proposition, given the balance of forces currently available, holding it may be quite another matter, given the hostile forces we know are already headed in this direction. To be blunt, we need additional defensive depth, especially given the size of the Sharonians' entry portal to that universe. We can't possibly adequately defend a portal that size with the forces currently available to us.

"Accordingly, I've decided that we'll continue through Hell's Gate. Thanks to Magister Halathyn's final discovery, we're equipped with portal detection devices of unparalleled range and sensitivity. If necessary, we can survey for, locate, and secure all of the portals in a given universe far more quickly than was ever possible before. Our objective, however, will be to get as far forward as we can. Ideally, I'd prefer to find another portal, no larger than our own swamp portal, to use as a chokepoint against the inevitable Sharonian counterattack. Failing that, I want enough depth for us to use our air power to hammer them mercilessly as they advance, and rip apart their supply lines behind their spearheads. It's essential that we buy enough time for the Commandery to dispatch heavy reinforcements of our own, and we can't do that by standing passively on the defensive in Hell's Gate."

Still no one had spoken, and he'd shaken his head slowly.

"I realize that if we continue beyond Hell's Gate we'll be clearly and unambiguously moving into Sharonian territory. That, of course, would constitute an act of war by anyone's definition. But there's no point in deceiving ourselves, gentlemen. The moment we attack Hell's Gate, we will be at war with these people."

He'd said it unflinchingly, and continued in the same level tones.

"I don't say that lightly. Nonetheless, as Two Thousand mul Gurthak has pointed out, leaving Sharona in possession of Hell's Gate, and a foothold in our own territory, constitutes an unacceptable risk to the security and interests of the Union of Arcana. As soldiers in the Union Army, it's our duty to protect that security and those interests. I intend to do so. And once we've opened the ball by attacking at all, it would be criminally negligent of us to fail to act in accordance with the military realities and imperatives of our mission. The diplomats can sort out who's responsible for what and which of their universes we're prepared to hand back at the negotiating table, after the shooting is over. Our job is to make sure that when they sit down at that table, they sit down with the winning cards already in their hands. Is that clearly understood?"

Heads had nodded all around the room, and he'd nodded back.

"Good," he'd said, then showed his teeth in a feral smile.

"Now, as I'm sure we're all aware, the greatest single disadvantage we face are these 'Voices' of the Sharonians. Frankly, I'm not convinced they represent as much of a threat as some of us have suggested. It doesn't matter what kind of messages they pass along if they don't have the military wherewithal to stand up to us, after all. Nonetheless, I could be wrong about that, and even if I'm not, denying the enemy information about your own movements is one of the cardinal principles of warfare.

"I confess that I'd given this problem considerable thought without hitting on a solution to it. I wasn't the only one thinking about it, though, and Five Hundred Neshok has come up with an approach which may just work. It has its downsides," his expression had gone grimmer, "and it's more complicated than I'd prefer in an ideal world. In the world we've got, though, I think it may just work.

"Five Hundred?"

He'd gestured for Neshok to stand. The intelligence officer had obeyed, and as he'd explained the concept he'd come up with, Klian had understood exactly why Harshu's expression had been less than delighted.

Now, as he stood on the parapet in the clean morning air, he felt … dirty. And frightened. He had no doubt that Harshu was right about the immediate tactical situation. Nor did he doubt that the two thousand's initial operational plan would succeed.

But what happened after that? What happened when the Sharonians discovered that they'd been attacked yet again? And that this time no Arcanan could claim it had been a simple "misunderstanding"?

Neshok keeps calling these people "barbarians," the five hundred thought almost despairingly. Harshu's always careful to avoid doing that himself, but it's there in the way he thinks about them. I don't know how much of that stems from the fact that it's what Neshok keeps feeding him in his intelligence analyses, and how much of it comes from inside his own head, but I've met Shaylar and her husband. Whatever these people may be, they aren't "barbarians," and after what they already did to Charlie Company, they're not going to be military pushovers, either, even if they don't have magic. Am I the only one who sees that?

He had no answer to that question. Or not one that didn't terrify him, at any rate.

The sun wheeled slowly overhead. Neither of them even tried to tune into the real-time Voicecasts of the ferocious Conclave session they knew was raging in Tajvana. Near the noon hour, the staff King Fyysel had assigned to them brought a beautiful little luncheon out to them, and they made a show of trying to eat it, although neither of them could work up much enthusiasm.

"The debate has been furious," Dalisar Tharsayl, the head of their new staff said as he watched them nibble at the food. "The Emperor of Farnalia keeps shouting about Chava's 'extortion' and 'blackmail.' The King of Hinorea keeps responding with rants about Ternathian 'crimes against humanity' from two thousand years ago and demanding to know just why Emperor Ronnel seems so eager to put his good friend Zindel on the throne of Sharona, yet so bitterly opposed to accepting any Uromathian representation in the dynasty he intends to 'foist off upon the rest of us.'"

He shook his head, his expression a mixture of bemusement, anger, and concern, and Shalassar lifted her gaze to his.

"Did you expect anything else?" she asked, and he shook his head again, harder.

"No, Lady," he conceded. "I've given up expecting rationality out of human beings under any circumstances. Why should I expect that to change under these? Ancient prejudices and resentments, coupled with opportunism where the possibility of power is involved, are more than enough to reduce any semblance of reason to pure emotional chaos."

Shalassar surprised herself with a ghost of a laugh, and he smiled. Then he half-bowed in her direction.

"The debate continues," he said, "but I truly believe it's winding towards a conclusion. Our King has spoken several times, and surely everyone in the entire world must know how much King Fyysel?and all of our people?loathe and despise all Chava stands for. Yet the King speaks steadily and powerfully in favor of accepting the modification to the Act of Unification. To those who oppose the amendment, he points out that they intend to make Zindel of Ternathia Emperor of all Sharona, their ruler, and asks if they expect this man to be a mere figurehead. And if they don't, then why do they propose to begin his reign by questioning his competence to decide upon the political acceptability of the marriage of his own heir?"

Thaminar couldn't quite keep the surprise out of his eyes, and Tharsayl smiled crookedly.

"I wouldn't say His Majesty makes the argument cheerfully, Master Kolmayr," he said. "Indeed, the mere thought that his children must someday bow to Chava Busar's get, even knowing that any child of Prince Janaki will also be Zindel's grandchild, must be taking years off of his life. But," the chief of staff's smile vanished, "he's determined to accept it. Believe me," Tharsayl looked at both of them, "the Act of Unification will be amended and sustained. King Fyysel?and Emperor Zindel?will settle for no less than the creation of a world government capable of fighting any war, meeting any foe. It will happen, and justice will be done for your daughter."

Shalassar's eyes burned, and Thaminar reached out to grip her hand fiercely.

"Thank you," she got out, and King Fyysel's servant bowed deeply. Then he departed, directing the rest of the staff with silent gestures as they carried away the remnants of lunch.

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the Conclave, may I have your attention please."

Orem Limana's voice was tired but clear and strong, and the huge chamber of the Emperor Garim Chancellery stilled. It didn't happen instantly, but it did happen quickly, and Davir Perthis smiled tensely at Tarlin Bolsh in the Universal News Network booth high above the chancellery floor. A corner of his own Talent was tapped into the Voicecast going out from Darl Elivath, but most of his attention was on the Conclave before him.

It all came down to this, he thought. Everything he'd done, all of the corners he'd cut where the letter of his profession's official ethics were concerned. All of the Delegates' debates, all of the horsetrading and the convincing … and the threats, and the browbeating. All of it came down to this moment, and this final vote.

He'd never thought for a moment that it would be this close, but no one was prepared to predict whether or not the vote to amend the Act of Unification would succeed.

Who would have thought that Ronnel Karone would fight so hard against Zindel's obvious wishes?

The Chief Voice shook his head, bemused by the way the bizarre convolutions of politics could surprise him even now. The spectacle of Ternathia's oldest and closest ally fighting to the last ditch against a Ternathian proposal would have been one for the history books even if the issue in question hadn't been so grave.

"What do you think?" he whispered to Bolsh.

"I don't," the International News Division chief replied out of the corner of his mouth, never taking his own eyes from Limana. "And I'm not sticking my neck out with a guess, either, so don't try to get one out of me. By my count, it's going to come right down to the finish line."

"You're a lot of help!"

"Sorry," Bolsh grunted. "You want accurate predictions about something like this, hire a Calirath."

"I?" Perthis began, then shut his mouth as the chancellery finally settled into the sort of silence that hurt a man's ears.

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the Conclave," Limana repeated into the stillness, "the vote has been tabulated. Chairman Kinshe?"

Halidar Kinshe, the chairman of the Committee on Unification, stood with a sheaf of papers in his hand.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," he said, "the motion before this Conclave was to amend Section Three of Article Two of the previously approved Act of Unification, by the addition of the following subsection."

He looked down at the papers in his hand and read in a slow, clear voice, giving each delegation's Voices the time to guarantee a clean translation to its delegates.

"Article Two, Section Three, Subsection Fourteen: It shall be agreed that the Heir to the co-joined Thrones of the Empires of Ternathia and Sharona shall, within three months of the ratification of this Act of Unification by all Parties, wed a Royal Princess of Uromathia, and that the Issue of this Marriage shall in perpetuity displace the claim of any other Individual, Dynasty, or Nation upon the Crown of the Empire of Sharona."

He paused and cleared his throat.

"The vote in favor of amending the Act by the addition of the preceding subsection is four hundred and sixty-three in favor, two hundred and thirty-seven opposed. The motion to amend," he drew a deep breath, "is carried."

The sun had continued to wheel steadily overhead. Now, at last, it was sliding down the sky and painting the western heavens in glorious colors as it descended. The day had faded nearly into dusk, and a chill breeze had begun to blow in across the water, when Tharsayl reappeared. He walked down the beach in the loose white robes which marked him instantly as a royal servant and gave them a profound bow.

"It is done," he murmured.

Shalassar's heart shivered under Thaminar's arm, and they looked up into Tharsayl's face, more than half-dreading, even now, what they might see there. The chief of staff loomed up across the last of the golden sunset as he straightened and looked back at them.

"The amendment was sustained by a single vote more than was required, and Uromathia, as was agreed, has formally ratified the Act," he said simply. "We have a new Emperor: Zindel chan Calirath. Zindel XXIV of Ternathia … and Zindel the First of Sharona."

Thaminar's breath exploded out of him. Until it lifted, he hadn't truly realized how heavy the weight of his fear had been. Despite all he'd said to Shalassar, all the arguments logic and reason could present, he'd been so afraid that at the last minute …

"Mother Marthea," he whispered, feeling Shalassar's matching relief rippling through her, "thank you for this mercy."

A burst of light dazzled their eyes for just an instant; then the sun slipped down past the edge of the world, and he realized that their long vigil here by the sea had come to its close, after all.

"Let me take you in, love," he murmured to Shalassar. "You're cold and tired."

She turned in his arms, peering up into his eyes, and then her eyes lit with their first real smile since the dreadful news had arrived.

"So are you," she said. "And … I'm actually hungry."

She sounded almost surprised, and Thaminar crushed her close for just a moment, nearly weeping with relief. Then he stood and reached down, pulling her up from the sand, and walked slowly with her back to the home they'd made together over so many years.

They were just passing the dock, when the bell rang. The sound startled them, and they paused. Then Shalassar gave Thaminar's hand an apologetic squeeze and hurried out onto the dock. He and Tharsayl followed her more slowly, then stopped.

It was a dolphin. There was just enough light to see its sleek hide, glistening wetly where the elegant snout had lifted out of the water to reach the bell pull, and Shalassar knelt down beside it, resting one hand on the dolphin's head, just behind one large, liquid eye.

Those eyes had always seemed to Thaminar to watch her?and him?with deep and endless curiosity whenever one of these beautiful, mysterious creatures came calling at their dock. But there was something different about it, this time, and he stiffened as Shalassar's breath caught in obvious surprise.

The dolphin made a sharp staccato, chittering noise that sounded … happy, somehow. Thaminar wasn't actually able to Hear the dolphins his wife Spoke with. But he could sometimes feel echoes of her conversations through their marriage bond, and the dolphin's reaction felt light and buoyant in a way he couldn't explain. It lingered for several moments, then rolled slightly in the water, nodding its head deliberately toward Thaminar and Tharsayl. And then it uttered a strange burbling sound and slipped away from the dock.

It submerged, but only for an instant. Then its dorsal fin reappeared, cutting through the water with a dark V-shaped wake until the entire dolphin suddenly exploded out of the water once more. It leapt into the air, droplets of spray flying high enough to catch the fringe of the setting sun and glitter like a shower of topazes and rubies. The dolphin made a complete flip, three feet above the dark water, then splashed back into its mysterious world and was gone.

Shalassar straightened slowly, turning away from the waves, and Thaminar felt her sense of wonder through the marriage bond.

"They wanted to know if we'd decided yet," she said. "They wanted to know if we'd decided who would lead us."

"They what?"

Thaminar wasn't quite sure he'd heard her preposterous statement correctly. In all the years she'd served as an ambassador, the dolphins had never taken notice of human political affairs. Not like this.

She crossed the dock to his side and slipped one arm around him. She stood beside him, leaning her head against his shoulder, gazing at the spot where the emissary had vanished from sight.

"They knew, somehow, that we were making this choice today," she said softly. "Marthea alone knows how?tonight, I could actually believe She told them! But however they learned about it, they knew. So one of them came to ask, when the light went. He was an emissary I'd never met before, but it felt as if he must be very important in the pod in which he travels, and he was very concerned when he asked."

"What did he say when you told him?" Tharsayl asked in an almost reverent voice, and a smile of wonder spread slowly across her face.

"He didn't say anything. Yet I felt a burst of joy, one unlike anything I've ever sensed in dolphin-kind before. I don't understand it. You may tell King Fyysel that, Dalisar. I don't understand it, but … the dolphins are pleased?very pleased?that Zindel chan Calirath has been chosen to lead us. It felt?"

She hesitated, biting her lip.

"Lady?" Tharsayl prompted gently, and she met his gaze in the steadily darkening evening.

"It felt as though their emissary had reached a decision. A desperately important decision. It's very difficult to put dolphin-speech into human words, but they've decided something. I'm sure of it. Decided something critical, but whether or not they ever tell us what it is … "

She shrugged and held out her palms in a gesture indicating helplessness.

"We may never know. But I find it very intriguing that the dolphins, at least, are paying attention to what happens to human politics. That's never happened before."

"Never?" Tharsayl asked almost sharply, and she shook her head.

"Never. The cetaceans are remarkably indifferent to most of us land-dwellers, on the whole. The great whales are more indifferent than the dolphins or orcas, who are naturally curious souls. But even the dolphins, who enjoy playing with us in the water and almost always help swimmers in trouble, have never shown any interest in how we govern ourselves. Their only 'political concerns' have always been strictly limited to how our actions, our plans, might affect them, and vice versa, not how we reached our decisions in the first place."

Tharsayl stood frowning at the dark water, barely visible now, and his eyes were troubled.

"Crown Prince Danith had a remarkable story to tell his father, the day he came home from here, Lady. The day you learned what had happened."

Thaminar frowned. So did Shalassar.

"When you were linked with the Portal Authority's Voice?" The chief of staff hesitated, clearly choosing his words with care. "There were dolphins here, in the floating ring, and one of the singing whales, and they … reacted to the news.

"Reacted?" Shalassar repeated with a frown. "Reacted how? To what?"

"There came a moment, a terrible moment, when you screamed, Lady," Tharsayl said. "And when you did, the sea came alive. They leapt from the water?all of them. His Highness said … He said the sound that broke from them was unearthly, horrifying. A sound of rage."

Shalassar's eyes went wide in shock. She stared at the chief of staff, and Tharsayl shook his head slowly.

"Representative Kinshe said your pain was so great, Lady, that it spilled across into their minds. They were angry, Lady. Both the Representative and His Highness agreed on that."

"But why?" Shalassar half-whispered, her eyes meeting Thaminar's equally dumbfounded gaze. "I could understand grief. Most of the emissaries who come here knew Shaylar, watched her grow up. Many of them, of the dolphins and orcas, at least, have played with her in the water. But anger? I've never felt anger from a cetacean." She turned a baffled look on Tharsayl. "Why did they say it was anger?"

"I don't know, Lady, but they both felt the same thing. The sound was a sound of rage, and their anger was so deep, so powerful, that Lady Kinshe Felt it through her Healing Talent. The singing whale came completely out of the water Lady. It stood on its tail and bellowed so loudly it shook the windows."

Shalassar gasped and her hand tightened on Thaminar's forearm.

"They don't do that!" she protested. "They just don't."

Neither man spoke, and Shalassar shivered, abruptly and oddly frightened as the night closed in around them.

"I want to go inside now," she said in a small voice.

Thaminar nodded and slipped his arm around her once again, steadying her on the walk back to their home. She was more shaken, he realized, than she'd been by anything since the day the news from Hell's Gate had shattered their world.

He glanced back once at the dark water, where the vast sweep of black sea met the equally vast bowl of mostly-black sky. A faint glow remained visible on the western horizon, where the sun had set beyond the coast of Ricathia, but stars were already visible in the eastern sky and overhead.

Why were the cetaceans angry over Shaylar's death? Why were they so interested in the outcome of the day's vote? The world which had been so quiet and predictable for the vast majority of his life seemed very cold and frightening tonight. And under other skies, he knew, there were Sharonians even closer to the danger that loomed, out there in the darkness.

Keep them safe, Mother Marthea, he prayed with a sudden fervor he couldn't explain. Keep us all safe… .

Then they reached the house, with its warm gas lamps to dispel the cold and frightened feelings which had overwhelmed them all on the darkened dock. Merely closing the door felt like an act of preservation, somehow. An act that barred the way against the evil that lay waiting, out there in the multi-universal darkness.

He helped Shalassar into a chair, poured whiskey into three glasses, and handed them around. While they sipped their whiskey and felt safe behind the closed door, here inside these walls where the lights were warm and comforting, he wondered again what the cetaceans were planning … and why he'd felt that sudden, deep surge of fear.

Keep them safe, he found himself praying once more. Please, keep them safe.

"All right, Five Hundred," Commander of Two Thousand Mayrkos Harshu said to his senior Air Force commander as the early afternoon sunlight burned down across Fort Rycharn. "Let's get these dragons in the air."