Hell's Gate-ARC

by David Weber

  When that realization sank in, some of her own shame eased. The abrupt loosening of her grip on her shuddering emotions was followed almost instantly by a flood of tears and violent tremors. She struggled grimly to hold them back, but without much success. Barris took her by one elbow and Tymo took the other. They helped her to climb to the top of the bank, and Tymo slipped an arm around her.

  "Let them come, Shaylar. Let the shakes run their course. That's the way emotional shock will drain, as it should, not fester in your mind and poison your body."

  That almost made sense. The fact that it didn't make complete sense, when it should have, rang faint alarm bells. But Tymo knew what he was talking about, if anyone did, so she sat there in the warm sunlight and waited for the tremors to ease up. When they did, she drew down a final, ragged gulp of air and looked up again.

  "I heard his rifle," she said. "That must've been when . . . "

  "Yes, I heard it, too." Barris nodded, his voice bitter with self-condemnation. "To think he'd been struggling all that time, trying to make it back, and we didn't do anything—"

  "It's not your fault, Barris!" Ghartoun's voice interrupted sharply, and Kasell looked up at the team leader.

  "I used to be a soldier, curse it!" he snarled almost defiantly. "I should've—"

  "Done what?" Ghartoun chan Hagrahyl demanded, his own expression angry and shaken. "Snatched the truth out of thin air? You're not Talented. Neither was Falsan. Shaylar's a Voice—the best telepath in the five nearest universes—and she didn't feel a thing. There's not a Voice that's ever been born who could have picked up something like that from a non-telepath. So just stow the frigging guilt, right now!"

  Kasell's jaw muscles clenched for a moment. Then he nodded and relaxed a fraction.

  "Yes, Sir. You're right, of course. It's just . . . "

  "I know. Triad, but I know. And I'd like to know where his rifle is, too. It's not with him."

  Kasell swore one filthy, ugly word.

  "Fanthi," Ghartoun called to a rugged hulk of a man who'd always given Shaylar the impression that every stretch of ground he walked across was a potential battlefield, "set sentries in a perimeter fifty yards out in all directions. We don't know where these bastards are, or how close they might be, let alone how many of them there are."

  Fanthi chan Himidi, who'd served a double stint in the Ternathian infantry before signing on with Chalgyn Consortium, nodded sharply and organized the rest of the survey crew with swift, efficient dispatch. They had eight men with at least some military experience, who took charge of the others, sending their cook, their drovers, their smith—even Ghartoun's clerk—out to form a circular guard around their little camp. Shaylar felt better just watching the process chan Himidi had set in motion.

  Ghartoun hesitated, looking unhappily into her eyes, then crouched down beside her.

  "Shaylar," he said gently, "I have to ask. Did Falsan say anything?"

  "He—" She drew an unsteady breath and made herself repeat those pitiful few words, then added, "I'm pretty sure he started to say 'They can't follow,' there at the last. But he didn't get the whole thing out before he—"

  She stopped and swallowed hard.

  "They?" Ghartoun asked, his voice sharp. "You're sure of that? Not 'he'?"

  "No," she said slowly. "I'm not sure. He said 'can't follow,' but the impression I got was 'they.' I don't know if that means he saw several of them, Ghartoun, or if he was simply afraid there might be more of them nearby."

  The expedition's leader exchanged grim glances with Barris Kasell. Then he looked back at Shaylar.

  "Did you pick up anything else? Anything at all that could help us figure out what in the gods' names really happened out there?"

  Shaylar drew another deep breath and shook her head to clear it, then held up one impatient hand when he misconstrued her meaning and started to speak. She closed her eyes and sorted through every impression she'd been able to catch during those fleeting seconds of contact. Falsan hadn't been Talented, but Shaylar had been touching him, which helped. She couldn't See anything that he'd seen, but the emotions behind those gasped-out words of warning had slammed their way into her awareness, along with the words themselves. If she could just get a solid grasp on them . . .

  "I don't think there was more than one when he was actually shot, Ghartoun," she finally said. "I'm not picking up a sense of 'me versus them'. It's more a 'me versus him'. I think he was just afraid that there would be others who could follow a blood trail back to us."

  "Which is why he stayed in the water," Ghartoun muttered.

  "Where there's one, there are bound to be more," Kasell said with quiet intensity. "And did you get a good look at what killed him?"

  "Oh, yes. A crossbow bolt."

  "Crossbow?" Shaylar stared at the expedition's leader. "But that's—that's medieval!"

  "So are clubs and rocks," Ghartoun snapped, his eyes crackling with suppressed fury. "And they'll still kill a man just as dead as a rifle will. Crossbows were weapons of war in our history for damned near a thousand years, come to that, until we finally figured out how to make gunpowder. These people don't have to be our technological equals to kill us."

  "That's a fact," Kasell muttered in a voice of steel, and Ghartoun chan Hagrahyl glanced back at Shaylar.

  "Can you pick anything else out of those impressions?"

  She tried, but nothing else came.

  "I'm sorry," she whispered miserably. "I only touched him for just a few seconds, and . . ." Her voice went unsteady. "I'm sorry. I just can't get anything more."

  "I'm grateful you got as much as you did," chan Hagrahyl told her, squeezing her shoulder with surprising force, as though he'd forgotten she was barely the size of a half-grown Ternathian child.

  "All right." He stood up, hands curling around the butt of his handgun and the hilt of his camp knife, both sheathed at his wide leather belt. "We don't know exactly who or what we're up against, but we do know they're nasty tempered and don't like company." He met Barris Kasell's gaze, his own hard and grimly determined. "We may have some time, especially if Shaylar's impression is right and there really was only one of the bastards. If Falsan hadn't nailed him with his first shot, we'd probably have heard at least two. And if Falsan got him, it may be a little while before his friends figure out he's not coming home. But we have to assume that there were others of them fairly close by, and that they'll at least be able to backtrack him to camp. And they will, too, after something like this. So we've got to get back to the portal before these bastards overrun us, and it's been a while since we heard that rifle shot."

  Shaylar's breath caught. She hadn't thought about that, and the thick woods, so hushed and lovely, suddenly menaced their little party from every shadow, every movement of sun-dappled leaves in the breeze. In a single blink of her eyelashes, the entire forest seemed to be in sinister motion, tricking the eye and confusing the senses. And somewhere out there, well over two miles east of their camp, Jathmar was alone and unaware of what had just happened. She started to make contact when Elevu Gitel's voice jolted her out of her reverie.

  "We've got to warn Company-Captain Halifu. Shaylar has to send a message. Immediately."

  Shaylar looked up, and chan Hagrahyl nodded, meeting her gaze.

  "Contact Darcel. Let him know what's happening. Have him take the message to Company-Captain Halifu, then come back to our side of the portal to listen for additional messages from you. Then try to contact Jathmar. I know you can't talk to him, but we've got to warn him to break off the survey and rendezvous with us."

  "Rendezvous?" Braiheri Futhai's voice was incredulous. "Don't you mean return to camp?"

  chan Hagrahyl met the naturalist's astonished gaze.

  "No, I do not mean return. We're abandoning this camp as fast as humanly possible. I want everyone to pack up the absolute essentials and be ready to march in ten minutes."

  "We can't possibly be ready to leave in only ten minutes!" Futhai protested.
>
  "If you can't pack it that fast, leave it," Ghartoun snapped. "And if you can't carry it at a dog-trot from now until we reach the portal, abandon it. Is that clear enough?"

  "But—but what about Falsan?"

  "Falsan's dead! And it's my job to make sure none of the rest of us join him!"

  Futhai's eyes widened at the harshness in the expedition's leader's voice. But his jaw muscles clenched, and he gave chan Hagrahyl the obstinate glare Shaylar had come to associate with the naturalist at his absolute worst.

  "We are not leaving this camp until that poor man is properly buried!"

  "We don't have time." chan Hagrahyl's voice was a glacier grinding up boulders.

  "We are civilized people, sir, and civilized people bury their dead," Futhai shot back, and Kasell's nostrils flared as he rounded on the naturalist.

  "Not when the godsdamned natives are shooting at them!" he snarled in a voice of withering contempt.

  "Nobody is shooting at us." Futhai pointed out in maddeningly reasonable, patiently courteous, patronizing tones. "And since we're not in immediate danger, we can at least behave with respect for that poor man's death."

  Barris Kasell's right hand clenched into a white-knuckled fist around the carrying sling of his rifle. From his expression, he would have vastly preferred to have the naturalist's neck in that fist's grasp, instead.

  "If you're that nonchalant about the danger," he grated, "you stay behind to bury him. But don't, by all the gods, expect the rest of us to hang around here waiting for a pack of murdering bastards to follow Falsan's trail back to us!"

  "He stayed in the water, so there isn't a trail to follow," Futhai pointed out almost pityingly. "You said as much yourself, and—"

  "Enough!" chan Hagrahyl's bellow silenced the entire clearing. "We don't have the luxury of time—not for funerals; not for arguments. Yes, Braiheri, he stayed in the stream on his way back to us, but there wasn't any reason for him to try to hide his tracks on the way out, was there? It may take them a little while to get organized, but they won't have any trouble finding as once they do!"

  He glared at the naturalist for a moment, then turned back to Shaylar.

  "Shaylar, send the message to Darcel immediately. Then pack your essential gear and abandon the rest. And don't leave behind anything that would let Falsan's murderers trace us beyond the portal. Carry all your maps, your notes—everything."

  He shifted his gaze to include the others.

  "Don't abandon any technology higher than knives and sticks, either. These people don't know a solitary thing about us, and I'd like to keep it that way. Braiheri, if it'll make you feel better, strip Falsan's gear and cover him with a cairn of rocks. Preferably in the stream, so they don't find his body and realize they've killed one of us. You can pack your notes, or bury him: your choice. And that's all you have time for."

  He switched his attention back to Shaylar again.

  "You understand why Jathmar will have to rendezvous with us en route? Or catch up with us as best he can? My duty's to get as many of us out as possible. I can't wait for anyone."

  He held Shaylar's gaze, pleading with her to understand.

  Her heart cried out with the need to protest, but he was right. She nodded, stiffly, instead, her muscles rigid with the knowledge that Jathmar was completely alone out there in a forest where someone had already committed murder.

  Thank you, chan Hagrahyl's gaze seemed to say. Then he turned back to the others.

  "Let's get busy, then. Take only enough trail rations to get us to the portal. We're marching light and fast."

  Shaylar saw eyelids twitch as several of the men started to glance down at her. All of them—except Futhai—managed to abort the movement. But their thoughts were as clear as if each of them had been a full-blown Voice, and she swallowed hard as the import of those not-quite-glances sank in.

  I'm going to slow us down. They know it; and I know it. And we can't afford it.

  Something hard and alien stirred deep inside, giving her strength as she pushed herself to her feet. She surprised herself when she realized she'd already shoved aside the shock of Falsan's death. She had a job to do. It wasn't precisely the job she'd signed up for, since a shooting war with unknown people was the last thing anyone had expected to occur out here. But that didn't change the facts.

  "I'll send the message to Darcel from my tent," she said in a hard voice she barely recognized. "While I'm packing. And I'll do my best to warn Jathmar."

  Her voice actually held steady, and Ghartoun chan Hagrahyl looked into her eyes for long moment, taking careful measure of what he saw reflected there. Then he nodded.

  "Good. Let's rip this camp apart and hit the trail."

  Chapter Four

  They found the footprints first, naturally.

  "Whoever it was," Gaythar Harklan said, pointing toward the far bank, "they came down that into the water."

  Jasak studied the steep slope opposite them, and his eyes narrowed speculatively. The other bank was steeper, rising a good ten or eleven feet above Osmuna's body. Had the killer entered the water before he attacked? Or to investigate the body after the killing was done? Or, the hundred's eyes hardened, to make certain his victim was dead?

  Nothing offered any answers, just as nothing he saw could explain the sharp cracking sound which had split the morning apart.

  "What's up there?" he asked Osmuna's squad shield.

  "Nothing much, Sir. Looks like he'd been following the stream bank when he spotted Osmuna."

  "Show me."

  "Yes, Sir."

  Harklan started back across the stream, with Jasak wading alongside. Threbuch followed the hundred, and Garlath tagged sullenly along behind.

  "Here's where he slid down the bank, Sir," Harklan said. "See the gouges and footmarks?"

  Jasak saw them clearly. Whoever had come down that bank had been clumsy as hell doing it. No Andaran Scout worth the uniform on his back would have left a trail like that to follow. In fact, Jasak couldn't think of anyone who would have.

  He very carefully didn't glance at Fifty Garlath for his reaction. Instead, he stooped closer to the mud, peering intently.

  "Send a couple of men both directions along this creek, Fifty Garlath. Tell them to look for a blood trail."

  "Blood trail?" Chief Sword Threbuch muttered to himself. He peered more closely at the same marks, then grunted.

  "By damn, Sir, you're right. Osmuna nailed the bastard. I didn't even think to check his arbalest to see if he'd fired it," the chief sword admitted in a chagrined tone.

  "We're all a little rattled," Jasak answered, his voice dry as brittle weeds. "What I can't tell from this is how badly Osmuna nailed him."

  There were only a few drops of blood splashed into the mud, but whoever had slithered down this bank had been wounded when he did it.

  "Search this whole area," he told Garlath. "I want every inch of this ground run through a sieve, if necessary. Get me some gods-cursed facts to look at here!"

  Garlath nodded sharply and turned to spit orders with a brisk efficiency that Jasak tried—hard—to give him credit for, since they were actually the right orders for a change. Search teams spread out, looking for a trail to follow and whatever else might be out there waiting to be discovered.

  "Fifty Garlath!" someone called only moments later. "I've got something, Sir. I just don't know what it is."

  Jasak followed Garlath to the top of the bank. Evarl Harnak, the platoon sword, was crouched down in a tangle of weeds almost directly above Osmuna's body.

  "Look here, Sir," he said. "Here's a set of footprints. You can see where he must've been standing when Osmuna came along."

  The noncom pointed to a distinct pair of footprints in the soft earth. Unlike the prints on the slope, these were undistorted and crisp, and Jasak studied them closely.

  The feet which had made them had been wearing boots, he realized. Not soft-soled ones, either. They showed deeply ridged treads, the sort of treads
found in the footgear of soldiers, or civilian outdoor enthusiasts. A design had been worked into the tread, he noticed uneasily. The kind of design an Arcanan bootmaker would use as a maker's mark, cut into the thick leather of the sole. If that footprint hadn't been left by a manufactured boot, Sir Jasak Olderhan would eat the ones on his own feet.

  The realization chilled him even further. Osmuna's killer was no primitive half-wild savage. He was wealthy and sophisticated enough to wear manufactured boots and wield weapons of frightening, unknown power.

  "You said you'd found something you couldn't understand?"

  "Yes, Hundred." Harnak nodded and pointed into the clump of weeds. "The sunlight caught it as I was bending down to look at the footprints. It's metal, Sir. But I'm hanged if I can figure out what it is."