by David Weber
"You two had better go check it out," he said, without checking with chan Tesh. Which, chan Tesh reflected as the Whiffer and Tracer trotted off in Wirtha's wake, was precisely what a good subordinate was supposed to do.
The two officers, accompanied by Darcel Kinlafia, followed the Talents at a bit more leisurely pace. chan Tesh rather wished that Kinlafia hadn't been present. He'd done his dead level best, tactfully, to suggest that Kinlafia should return to Company-Captain Halifu's fort, since it was essential that they have a Voice available to relay further up the transit chain if something unfortunate?something else unfortunate?happened out here.
Kinlafia, unhappily, hadn't been interested. And, unlike Rokam Traygan, the civilian Voice wasn't under chan Tesh's direct authority. It was obvious that the only way the company-captain could have sent Kinlafia to the rear would have been under armed guard, and he hadn't been able to bring himself to do that in the face of the civilian's obvious pain. So Traygan had been sent back, instead, and Kinlafia was still here. Here waiting for the next, crushing blow if they confirmed Shaylar Nargra-Kolmayr's death, and here where his brooding grief and the white-hot smolder of his thinly-banked fury hung like a storm cloud in the back of every mind.
But there wasn't much chan Tesh could do about that. Even if he'd been inclined to change his own mind about ordering Kinlafia to the rear, it was too late. Traygan was already more than halfway back to Halifu's fort, which left Kinlafia as the only Voice available at the sharp end.
Since there wasn't anything he could do about that, the company-captain put it out of his disciplined mind and concentrated on Wirtha's discovery. He wasn't very surprised that the scouts had found another bit of debris jettisoned by the people whose trail they were following back to the portal. If these people did have Talents, they appeared to be remarkably unconcerned about anything a good Whiffer or Tracer might be able to discern from their castoffs. Although, to be fair, given the number of wounded the other side was carrying with them, at least some bits and pieces were bound to get away from them.
It was a sign of how good Arthag's people were, though, that they were searching just as diligently this time around as they'd searched the first time they scouted the enemy's trail back to his entry portal.
The three of them caught up just as Hilovar and Parcanthi dismounted and walked across to the object the scout had found. As usual, Hilovar stopped short, allowing Parcanthi first crack at the energy residues, and the Whiffer crouched over whatever it was.
"A soldier dropped this," he said at length. "Not an officer, I don't think, but that's harder to be sure of. He's wounded, staggering. I can See more wounded all around him. Limping?cursing, it sounds like. They're carrying a fair number of men on those strange stretchers of theirs." He grimaced. "I still can't See how they get the damned things to float that way," he complained almost petulantly, then opened his eyes.
"Same as usual, Sir," he said, standing and turning to look up at Arthag. "They were moving slowly, but steadily. It was nearly dark when whoever dropped this dropped it." He indicated the item with his foot, without actually touching it, and glanced at his partner.
"Your turn, Soral."
Hilovar nodded and crouched down in Parcanthi's place. He stared down at what had been dropped, and his brow furrowed.
"What the hell is that?" he muttered under his breath.
It was a small, square object, made of something that looked almost like glass which had been deliberately opaqued. There were markings on it, but what the alien symbols signified was anyone's guess. Hilovar considered it for a moment, then shrugged and picked it up?
?only to let out a startled yelp and drop it back into the leaves on the forest floor.
"What's wrong?" chan Tesh asked sharply, watching the Tracer shake his hand as if he'd just burned it.
"Sorry, Sir." Hilovar looked a bit embarrassed. "It just took me by surprise. It's … unnatural."
"That fucking word again," Arthag growled.
"Sorry, Sir," Hilovar said again, glancing back at the scowling Arpathian. "But this thing?it's got the same feel as those accursed ash piles, only stronger. Much stronger. Concentrated as acid, in fact. It prickled my hand so hard it was like being swatted by wasps."
chan Tesh winced at the image, then sighed.
"Do what you can, Junior-Armsman. We need anything you can dredge out of that thing?whatever it is."
Hilovar nodded, gritted his teeth, and picked it up again. It was obvious that just holding the thing caused him considerable pain, but he endured grimly.
"He's shot through the shoulder," the Tracer said, after a heartbeat or two, in a grating, savagely satisfied tone. "Bleeding into his bandages and hurting like a son-of-a-bitch. Stumbling a good bit. Wishing he could ride on one of the stretchers, it feels like. He keeps looking at them, up ahead."
Then, suddenly, Hilovar shot upright.
"Great gods! There's a woman with 'em!"
"Shaylar?" The name tore from Darcel Kinlafia like a cry of pain, jerking Hilovar out of his concentration, and the Tracer turned to meet his tortured gaze.
"No," the junior-armsman said gently, watching the Voice's face crumple again. "I'm sorry, Darcel. She looked Uromathian?a little thing, pretty as a peach. She was walking beside one of the stretchers. I caught just a tiny glimpse of her. I think the man who dropped this," he held up the surprisingly dense object on his palm, "wanted her to help him."
"A Healer, then?" Arthag mused.
"Sounds like it," chan Tesh agreed, and cocked an eyebrow at Hilovar. "Can you get anything else off of it?"
"No, Sir. Not really," the Tracer said, obviously unhappily. "It's just more of the same. He's just moving slowly?very slowly. And hurting like hell."
"Good!" Kinlafia snarled, and Arthag leaned over in the saddle and gripped his shoulder wordlessly.
"Is there anything else on the ground here?" chan Tesh asked, and Wirtha shook his head.
"No, Sir. We looked around pretty carefully before I reported it to the Platoon-Captain."
"In that case, may I see it, Soral?"
Hilovar stepped over between chan Tesh's mount and Arthag's magnificent stallion. He held his hand up, allowing the officers to study the object on his palm. Neither of them offered to touch it lest they contaminate it for further Whiffing or Tracing.
"Doesn't look like much, does it?" Arthag murmured, and chan Tesh frowned.
"It looks like glass. But it isn't, is it?"
"It's made from the same thing as those godsdamned 'artillery pieces' of theirs," Darcel said harshly even as Hilovar shook his head.
"Now that's interesting," chan Tesh mused. He glanced at Kinlafia, then back at the Tracer. "It's heavy, isn't it?"
"Yes, Sir. Very dense," Hilovar added. "Surprisingly so, for its size."
"Are those buttons along the side?"
"That's what they look like, Sir," Hilovar agreed.
"Well, I'm damned if I'll try pushing one of them!" chan Tesh snorted.
"If you don't mind, Sir, I'd like to put it into an evidence bag. This thing hurts to hold. I don't know what it's made of, or what's inside it, but it's got that same foul, nasty?unnatural?" he added, meeting Arthag's gaze grimly "?feel. I'm not real anxious to push those buttons, either, Sir, and that's no lie. This thing is damned weird."
"Very well." chan Tesh nodded. "Put it away. Carefully."
Hilovar pulled a small canvas evidence bag out of his saddlebags and slid the dense little cube into it, then slid both of them into a larger canvas bag slung from his saddle horn, where he'd stored the other bits and pieces they'd found scattered along the trail.
"All right," chan Tesh said then. "We're getting close to that overnight bivouac of theirs, aren't we?"
"Yes, Sir," Wirtha agreed. "About another ten, fifteen minutes. There's quite a bit of stuff scattered around where their fires were. Most of it's little bits and pieces of personal gear, torn uniforms, that kind of thing. And lots of soiled bandages," he ad
ded with grim satisfaction.
"Let's move along, then," chan Tesh said.
"Here it is, Sir," Wirtha told chan Tesh shortly afterward, and the company-captain drew rein one more. The area before him, a clearer space along the bank of the same stream which had flowed beside the slaughtered survey crew's day-fort, showed the rings of half a dozen big bonfires and a handful of smaller ones. Even from here, he could see that there was a lot of debris strewn around, including a stained snowdrift of gore-crusted bandages.
"Has anyone been out there yet?" he asked.
"No, Sir," Wirtha replied. "We bypassed it on the way through."
chan Tesh glanced at Arthag, and the acting platoon-captain shrugged very slightly.
"Nolis and Soral had their hands full with the debris we'd already found at the fallen timbers and at the Chalgyn crew's day-fort, Sir. I'd left them behind to deal with that while I went ahead. By the time we actually found the campsite, we also knew we were hot on their trail, so I took the point and pressed on in hopes we might overtake them. But they got to their own entry portal at least several hours before we did. By the time Nolis and Soral were ready to follow us up, we'd received the order to hold in position and wait for your arrival. It took a while to get a runner forward to my position to recall me to meet you, and Nolis and Soral stayed put in the meantime, as per their orders from Company-Captain Halifu. By the time I got back to camp and could have ordered them forward to the bivouac area here, you were only a couple of hours out."
"I see." chan Tesh smiled thinly. "So that old saying about order, counter-order, disorder came into play."
"More or less, I'm afraid," Arthag agreed.
"Well, it's no one's fault," chan Tesh sighed, and looked at Parcanthi and Hilovar. "Go ahead," he said.
The two noncoms saluted, dismounted, and headed forward. Hilovar, as usual, waited while Parcanthi moved into the bivouac area, sweeping from one cold ash pit to another, following the energy residues. It took him the better part of twenty minutes, but when he returned to the waiting officers, his eyes glowed.
"I got some good, solid Whiffs, Company-Captain!" he told chan Tesh. "There's a place a bit further down the creek over there," he pointed, "where something came in during the night."
"Something?" chan Tesh repeated. "What sort of 'something'?"
"Gods alone know," Parcanthi said frankly. "It was big. Dark. I could see firelight on what looked like … hide, maybe. If it was hide, the creature under it was big, Sir. Really big, like nothing I've ever seen. But it was too damned dark to get a good look at it. They were loading stretchers onto it, whatever it was."
"Some kind of transport," Arthag muttered. "So, that's what they did." chan Tesh glanced at him, and the acting platoon-captain grimaced. "We knew they were traveling a little faster when they moved on from here. Didn't notice any particular decrease in the number of their walking wounded, but they were definitely moving more quickly."
"Did they load all the stretchers onto it, whatever it was, Parcanthi?" chan Tesh asked the Whiffer.
"No, Sir. It looked to me like they might've been loading up a dozen or so, like they were taking the most critically wounded out. Whatever it was, and however big it was, I don't think it had enough carrying capacity to take all of them. All I could see was something big and dark that moved off down the creek bed. Then I lost the Whiff."
"Down the creek," Arthag murmured with a frown which drew chan Tesh's attention back to him.
"Something's bothering you," the company commander observed. "What is it?"
"Just that something the size Nolis is describing damned well ought to have left a trail. Once you get to the other side of the creek, the terrain's just like it is on this side. And the underbrush along the stream banks is awfully dense. Anything much bigger than a house cat should've left some sign of its passage when it pushed through it, and we didn't see a thing. Or, rather, we didn't see the tracks of anything but the men on foot we'd been following all along."
"Could it have headed along the streambed to avoid leaving a trail?" chan Tesh asked.
"I suppose it's possible, Sir. I just don't see any reason why it should have. If the party on foot is still headed steadily south, then their destination must lie in that direction. Why should their transport have headed in some other direction?"
"I agree it doesn't make a lot of sense," chan Tesh said. "By the same token, it has to've gone somewhere. Parcanthi Saw it, so we know it was here. Unless you want to suggest that it just flew away, it had to leave tracks somewhere, too, and I know your men's reputation. They wouldn't have missed the sign something that size had to leave behind."
"I don't?" Arthag began, but Parcanthi interrupted, his voice a bit edged.
"I'm sorry, Sir. And I apologize for interrupting, but I hadn't finished my report."
Arthag and chan Tesh both turned back to him, and he waved back in the direction he'd already pointed.
"It was dark, like I said, but I might?I just might?have Seen one of our people among them." Both officers?and Kinlafia?jerked upright in the saddle, eyes narrowing, as he continued. "I could see someone's back, climbing up onto whatever it was. I couldn't see the face, or even get a good look at the hair, because whoever it was, they were wearing some kind of leather hat, or helmet. And they were out beyond the range of the firelight. But I'm positive that they weren't in uniform."
Darcel Kinlafia sucked down air in the sudden silence.
"Could it have been the woman you Saw, Soral?" Arthag asked quietly. "The one you said looked Uromathian. Was she in uniform when you Saw her?"
"She wasn't," Parcanthi said, before Hilovar could speak. "In uniform, I mean. But this wasn't her. I could See her clearly, standing on the bank. She couldn't have been anyone else, not from Soral's description earlier. It looked like she was waiting her own turn to climb up onto whatever it was."
"How … how big a person did you See?" Kinlafia whispered harshly.
"Small. Very small. Maybe this high," Parcanthi said, measuring with his hand.
"Oh, gods!" Kinlafia's voice was barely audible, and his throat worked convulsively. The others stared at him as he bowed his head over his saddle bow, eyes tight shut.
"Darcel?" Arthag said, very quietly, after a moment, and the Arpathian's eyes widened as he saw the Voice's face.
"It's her?Shaylar!" Kinlafia said hoarsely. "It's got to be her! Nobody else in the crew was remotely close to that small!"
"I didn't get a very good look at whoever it was," Parcanthi cautioned. "It was dark as sin out there in the brush, and they were climbing up whatever that thing was, which means I couldn't get a good contrast reading. All I could really see were dark shapes against the dark, black wall of hide, or whatever it was. It was a small person, slightly built, in civilian clothing. That much I could See. But I don't know that it was Sharonian clothing. And," he added in the tone of someone desperately trying not to step on the flaming hope in Kinlafia's eyes, "we already know they had at least one other woman?in civilian clothing?with them. If they had one, they might have had two."
All eyes turned to Hilovar, and the Tracer cleared his throat.
"If we can find anything Shaylar was holding, I'll know," he said. "But that's a big if, Darcel. A damned big if."
"I know," Kinlafia's voice was full of grit and gravel. "But I've got reason to hope, now. That's more than I've had ever since I lost contact with her."
"I agree," chan Tesh said, but his own voice was heavy. "If it was Shaylar, though, and she was conscious, up and moving, why didn't she contact you, Darcel? She had to know you'd be waiting, that you were well within her range. For that matter, I happen to know you've been trying to contact her every hour on the hour since you crossed to this side of our own portal."
Kinlafia looked at him, then cleared his own throat.
"She struck her head on something, remember? Hit hard enough to knock her unconscious, at least. And Soral's already said there was damage inside her head, serious dam
age. She could have been injured badly enough to be rendered Voiceless."
"But if she's hurt that badly, would she have been on her feet and climbing up whatever it was Parcanthi glimpsed out there?" chan Tesh asked.
"I don't know." It came out practically in a groan, and Kinlafia ground his teeth. "Mother Marthea, these monsters are capable of anything! If they're willing to force an injured girl to walk, to climb up this thing, when we know she's suffered a critical head injury, then what in the gods' names else are they willing to do?! They could?"
"Stop it!" chan Tesh's voice rapped out harshly, jerking Kinlafia back around to face him.
"There's no point to this," the company-captain growled, albeit more gently. "You're torturing yourself with visions we have no way to prove or disprove. The people who did this may be a complete unknown, Voice Kinlafia, but one thing we do know; if they have got surviving Sharonians, they're going to want them as healthy as possible."
"You're right," Kinlafia whispered. He sounded unsteady, but he drew another deep breath and slowly nodded. "You're right," he repeated. "I'm sorry. I'm just about out of my mind, worrying and wondering and feeling so gods-cursed helpless. … "
"I understand," chan Tesh told him. "But none of us can afford to let anger swamp our thinking."
"Yes, Sir," Kinlafia said quietly. "I'll bear that in mind. The last thing in this universe?or any other?I want to do is something rash that jeopardizes any Sharonian lives. Ours?" he nodded to the column of mounted men "?or that of anyone they've taken with them."
"That's good," chan Tesh said quietly, and smacked him lightly on the shoulder before turning back to his two Talented specialists. "Soral, I think it's your turn in the barrel. See what you can find out."
A half-hour later, the Whiffer and Tracer had completed their reports. They'd managed to pick up quite a lot of additional detail about the individuals who had bivouacked here; very little of it did much good, unfortunately.
"So what do we really know?" chan Tesh asked, looking around the circle of faces around him. He and Arthag had been joined by the Marine officers in command of the two platoons he'd brought along. Hilovar and Parcanthi were both there, too, despite their noncommissioned ranks, available for consultation at need. And, of course, there was also Darcel Kinlafia.
