"What do you mean, Sir?" Toralk asked, his expression unhappy, when Harshu paused once more.
"I mean he doesn't have any prisoners. Not one. Apparently-" Harshu met Toralk's eyes levelly across the table "-every single Sharonian died fighting rather than surrender."
Klayrman's Toralk's belly muscles tightened. It wasn't really a surprise, of course. And a part of him couldn't help feeling a sudden surge of fury directed not at the distant Thousand Carthos but at Two Thousand Harshu. It was just a bit late for Harshu to be feeling upset with anyone over violations of the Kerellian Accords after he'd sown the seeds for everything Carthos had done by what he'd allowed Neshok to do!
Something of the thousand's emotions must have shown in his face, because Harshu's jaw tightened. But then the two thousand inhaled deeply and made himself nod.
"You're right, Klayrman. It is my fault. And if I'd listened to you in the beginning, it wouldn't have happened. But it has, and it's going to be a hell of a lot harder to stop it than it would have been simply too never let it start."
He shook his head, then leaned back in his chair with a smile that was even more sour than before.
"Of course, there's always that second set of dispatches to help distract me from the Carthos situation."
"Second set, Sir?" Toralk asked cautiously.
"Oh, yes. The set from Two Thousand mul Gurthak."
"From Two Thousand mul Gurthak?"
Surprise startled the repetition out of Toralk. Mul Gurthak had been oddly silent ever since the Expeditionary Force began its advance. In fact, as far as Toralk was aware, he hadn't sent Harshu a single message in all that time.
"Indeed," Harshu told him. "It would appear that Two Thousand mul Gurthak is most distressed over the way in which I have misinterpreted his desires and grossly exceeded his intentions."
Toralk's eyes went wide. He couldn't help it. He'd read most of the official instructions and memoranda mul Gurthak had sent forward to Mahritha before Harshu launched his attack.
"But, Sir, that's rid-" he began.
"Don't say it," Harshu interrupted. Toralk closed his mouth with a click, and Harshu grimaced. "Given a couple of things he said in his dispatches, Klayrman," he said very quietly, "I think he probably has his own eyes and ears out here, keeping him informed. It might not be very wise to … express your opinion overly freely in front of anyone besides myself, if you take my meaning."
It was Toralk's turn to sit back, and his jaw muscles tensed as the implications began to percolate through his brain.
"That's better," Harshu told him. The two thousand picked up his almost forgotten wineglass and sipped from it, then set it back down again.
"According to Two Thousand mul Gurthak, it was never his intention for us to advance beyond Hell's Gate. And, in fact, he always regarded the use of force to retake even Hell's Gate as an action of last resort."
"Sir," Toralk said, despite Harshu's warning, "I don't see how any reasonable individual could have interpreted his instructions to mean anything of the sort. Certainly not in light of the verbal briefings he gave both of us before he deployed us forward!"
"Klayrman," Harshu said chiding way, shaking a finger at him, "you're letting your opinions run away with you again."
Toralk clamped his mouth shut, and Harshu snorted harshly.
"The interesting thing is that if you read his written instructions without those verbal briefings of his, they can actually be interpreted exactly the way he's interpreting them at the moment. While I would never wish to imputes duplicity to a superior officer, I find that I can't quite shake the suspicion that the discrepancy between his current very clearly expressed views and what you and I understood his instructions to be isn't … accidental, shall we say?"
"Sir, I don't like what you seem to be saying."
"I'm not overjoyed with it myself. In fact, the thing that bothers me most right now is that I can't decide whether mul Gurthak is simply trying to cover his own ass now that the shit's hit the fan, or if he deliberately set us up-well, set me up, at least-from the start. Did he simply shape his written instructions this way so he'd be covered if something went wrong, or did he want us to do exactly what I went ahead and did, but clearly-for the record, at least-without his authorization?"
Toralk started to open his mouth again, but Harshu's raised finger stopped him. Not, the Air Force officer reflected a second later, that it was really necessary for him to say what he was thinking.
But why? Why would mul Gurthak want us to start a shooting war out here "without his authorization"?
He's still the senior officer in command, even if he did delegate the field command to Harshu.
Ultimately, surely the Commandery is going to hold him responsible for what happens in his command area. So why go to such elaborate lengths?
The thoughts flashed through his brain. He had no answers for any of the questions, but he was sinkingly certain that if he'd had those answers, he wouldn't have liked them.
"Of course," Harshu continued in a lighter tone which fooled neither of them, "Two Thousand mul Gurthak is not yet aware that we've managed to kill the heir to the Ternathian Crown, is he? That's going to be just a bit unexpected, I imagine. As is the way the Sharonians are going to respond to it."
He showed his teeth in a smile which contained no humor at all, and Toralk winced. Unlike Harshu, he'd actually met the senior Sharonian officers at Fort Salby. There wasn't much question in his mind about how the Ternathian Empire, at least, was going to respond.
He looked across the table at Mayrkos Harshu and wondered if he looked as sick as he felt.
Rof chan Skrithik stood stiffly to attention as the haunting bugle notes of Sunset, the call the Ternathian Empire's military had used to close the day for almost three thousand years, floated out under the smoldering embers of a spectacular sunset.
It was a beautiful bugle call, with a sweet, clear purity that no soldier ever forgot. And it was also, by a tradition so ancient no one even knew when it had begun, the call used at military funerals.
The last sweet notes flared out, and chan Skrithik inhaled deeply, gazing out across the neat rows of graves. At least a third of them were marked with the triangular memorial symbol of the Triad. Others showed the horsetails of Arpathia, or the many-spired star of Aruncas of the Sword.
And out there, in the midst of the men who had died to hold Fort Salby, was the young man who had died to save Fort Salby.
Chan Skrithik reached up, gently stroking the falcon on his right shoulder. For millennia, since the death of Emperor Halian, the House of Calirath's tradition had been that when one of its own died in battle, he was buried where he fell. Buried with the battle companions who had fallen at his side, and with his enemies. Chan Skrithik would have preferred to send Janaki home to his mother. To let him sleep where he had earned the right to sleep, beside Erthain the Great. But like Halian nimself, Janaki chan Calirath would rest where he had fallen, further away from Estafel and Tajvana than any other Calirath.
And where he slept would be Ternathian soil forever.
"It doesn't seem right, Sir."
Chan Skrithik turned. Chief-Armsman chan Braikal stood beside him, looking out across the same cemetery.
"What doesn't seem right, Chief?"
"It doesn't seem right that he's not here, Sir." Grief clouded the chief-armsman's voice. "None of us would be here without him, and-"
Chan Braikal broke off, and chan Skrithik reached out and touched him lightly on the shoulder.
"It was his choice, Chief. Remember that. He chose to die for the rest of us. Never let anyone forget that."
"No, Sir. I won't." Chan Braikal's wounded voice hardened. "And none of us will be forgetting how he died, either."
Chan Skrithik only nodded.
Division-Captain chan Geraith's entire First Brigade had marched past Janaki's body. Every surviving man of the fort's PAAF garrison had done the same, and Sunlord Markan had personally led his survivi
ng Uromathian cavalry troopers past the bier in total silence, helmets removed, weapons reversed, while the mounted drummers kept slow, mournful time.
Janaki chan Calirath's death had done more than save Fort Salby. Rof chan Skrithik already understood that. Janaki had been added to the legend of the Caliraths, and the fighting men of Sharona would never forget that the attack which had killed him had been launched in time of peace by the very nation which had asked for the negotiations in the first place.
He wasn't the only victim of their treachery. In fact, chan Skrithik never doubted that Janaki would have been dismayed-even angry-if anyone had suggested anything of the sort. Yet it was inevitable that the young man who would one day have been Emperor of all Sharona should be the focal point for all the grief, all the rage-all the hate-Arcana had fanned into a roaring furnace.
"I stand between," chan Skrithik thought. Well, you did, Janaki. You stood between all of us and Arcana.
And you stood between me and the gryphon that killed you. It's a hard thing, knowing a legend died for you. But that's what Caliraths do, isn't it? They make legends. They become legends, and, gods, the price they pay for it!
Taleena made a soft sound on his shoulder, and he reached up and stroked her wings once again.
"I know, My Lady," he said gently. "I know. I miss him, too."
Taleena touched the back of his hand very gently with her razor-sharp beak, and chan Skrithik looked across at chan Braikal once more.
"His horses and his sword are going home, Chief," he said. "And you and his platoon are taking them."
"Yes, Sir." Chan Braikal's voice was husky again.
"Tell them for us, Chief." Chan Skrithik looked into the Marine's eyes. "Tell them all. This fort, the cemetery, it's ours. He bought it for us, and no one and nothing will ever take it away from us again."
Andrin Calirath sat on her bedroom window seat, staring out into the moon-soaked gardens of Calirath Palace, and wept.
Her tears were nearly silent, and she sat very still, watching the moonlight waver through them. She wept for the brother she would never see again. She wept for her parents, who would never again see their son. She wept for all the other mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and daughters who would never see their loved ones again.
And she wept for herself.
In the cold, still hours of the night, it was hard. She was only seventeen, and knowing that what she must do would save thousands, possibly even millions of lives-even agreeing to do what she must do-was cold and bitter compensation for the destruction of her own life. She was frightened, and despite her youth, she had few illusions about what sort of marriage Chava Busar and his sons had in mind for her.
She knew her strengths, knew the strength of her parents' love, how fiercely they would strive to protect her. Yet in the end, no one could protect her from the cold, merciless demands of the Calirath destiny. At best, it would be a marriage without love, without tenderness. And at worst-
She folded her arms, trying to wrap them around herself, not because she was physically cold, but because of the chill deep inside.
She was going to spend her entire life married to the son of her father's worst enemy. Her children would be the grandchildren of her family's most deadly foe. She could already feel the ice closing in, already sense the way the years to come would wound and maim her spirit, and she wished-wished with all her heart-that there could be some escape. That Shalana could somehow find that single, small scrap of mercy for her. Could let her somehow evade this last, bitter measure of duty and responsibility.
But Shalana wouldn't. She couldn't. "I stand between." How many Caliraths had given themselves to that simple, three-word promise over the millennia? Janaki had given his life to that promise, and Andrin could do no less than sacrifice her life to it, as well.
"Sho warak, Janaki," she whispered. "Sho warak. Sleep, Janaki. Sleep until we all wake once more. I love you."
She put her head down on the back of the padded window seat and let her tears soak into the upholstery.
She never knew how long she wept into the window seat's satin before, with absolutely no warning, her bedroom door opened, spilling lamplight into the darkened room. She jerked upright, spinning towards the brightness, but her angry rebuke for whoever had dared to intrude upon her died unspoken.
Lady Merissa Vankhal stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the light. There was a chair just outside the door behind her, one which hadn't been there when Andrin went to bed, with a blanket tossed untidily across it, and Lady Merissa herself was clad in a silken sleep robe over her night dress, devoid of the least trace of make-up, her hair all awry. Andrin had never seen-never imagined-her fussy, propriety-obsessed chief lady-in-waiting in such disarray, and she wondered what fresh cosmic disaster could have driven Lady Merissa to her bedroom in such a state.
Yet before she could even start to frame the question, Lady Merissa crossed the bedroom to her and, to her utter astonishment, Andrin found herself enfolded in a tight embrace.
"Oh, my love," Merissa whispered in her ear. "Oh, my poor love. I didn't hear you-I didn't know."
Andrin felt herself beginning to crumble in that totally unexpected, immensely comforting embrace.
Lady Merissa sat down on the window seat beside her, and a corner of Andrin's brain wondered just how ridiculous they looked. She was a foot taller than Lady Merissa, yet Merissa cradled her as if she were a child, and Andrin abandoned herself to the comfort of that touch.
"There, love," Merissa murmured, stroking her back while she sobbed. "There, love."
Andrin clung to her, as if the fussy, fluffy, irritating lady-in-waiting were the last solid rock in her universe, for that was precisely what Lady Merissa had become.
And then someone knocked gently on the bedroom door.
Andrin stiffened, and Lady Merissa's spine straightened with an almost audible snap.
"Really!" she huffed. "Is this a grand imperial princess' bedroom, or is it the waiting room down at the local train station?!"
She set Andrin aside gently, then came to her feet, straightening her robe, and stalked across the enormous bedroom towards the door, muttering as she went.
"Can't leave the poor girl in peace," Andrin heard floating malevolently back from her remorselessly advancing lady-in-waiting. "Middle of the night, for goodness sake! Coming bursting in on her, keeping her awake at all hours! I'll give you a piece of my mind, just wait and see if I-!"
Lady Merissa reached the door and yanked it open. A Palace maid stood there, hands folded anxiously, and the poor young woman ought by rights to have burst spontaneously into flame under Lady Merissa's fiery glare.
"Well?" Merissa snapped at her luckless victim.
"Beg pardon, Lady Merissa!" the maid said quickly. "I wouldn't ever have disturbed Her Grand Imperial Highness, not ever! But they insisted."
"Who insisted, girl?" Lady Merissa demanded. "And what could possibly be so important that it couldn't wait until morning?"
"I'm sure I don't know what's important, My Lady!" the maid said. "But it's Privy Voice Yanamar and Voice Kinlafia. They say they have to talk to Her Grand Imperial Highness right away!"
Glossary
Aeravas-a Sharonian city in Harkala; located in approximately the same place as Shiraz, Iran.
Alathia: one of the provinces of the Ternathian Empire, it is the trans-temporal analog of Italy.
Andara-the Arcanan equivalent of the continent of North America. Andara is the home of the warrior kingdoms of the Andarans and provides the backbone of the Union of Arcana's military.
Arau Mountains-the Sharonian equivalent of the Yoblonovy Khrebet mountain range east of Lake Baikal.
Arcana-the home universe and Earth of the Union of Arcana. Its physics are based on "magic."
Arpathia-the Sharonian equivalent of the area stretching from the Caspian Sea through the Siberian tundra north of Mongolia to the Pacific Ocean. While there is no united government for this region, i
t is often referred to as the Septentrion, which is a trade union developed by the septs (see Septs and Septentrion, below).
Aruncas of the Sword-the Uromathian god of war.
Baranal-literally, "protector" in old Andaran. A baranal is the individual responsible for protecting a shardon (see below).
Barkesh-a city in Sharona located at the approximate trans-temporal site of Barcelona, Spain.
Bergahl-the dominant deity of the Order of Bergahl. Bergahl is a god of both war and justice. His order is a militant one, which has traditionally provided the judges and law enforcement mechanism in the Kingdom of Othmaliz.
Bergahl's Comforters-an ironic nickname for Berghal's Dagger (see nelow).
Bergahl's Dagger-a highly militant cult within the Order of Bergahl. The Dagger was officially disbanded over a hundred years ago.
Bernith Island-the Sharonian analog of the island of Great Britain.
Bernith Channel-the Sharonian analog of the English Channel.
Bernithian Highlands-the Sharonian analog of Scotland.
Bison-the steam-powered tractor portion of the Ternathian Army's experimental mechanized transport.
Blade of Ibral-the Sharonian analog of the Gallipoli Peninsula.
blood debt-an ancient Ransaran concept of justice based on the principle of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." It also has personal conotations of vengeance, but has been renounced by modern Ransarans as a barbaric and horrific basis for true justice. The term is sometimes still used as a slang phrase to describe a highly personal form of redress for wrongful actions.
Hell hath no fury / David Weber & Linda Evans. Page 52
