The Road to Hell - eARC

by David Weber

  The arid terrain on the other side of the portal was hardly inviting, but hopefully their supposed route would make sense to any pursuers. The barren desert was no picnic, but it wasn’t likely to be lashed with New Ternath’s bitter blizzards, either, and they could reach the Sarlayn Valley and follow the mighty river for almost six hundred miles, all the way to the Mbisi Sea. Conversely, they could keep heading east for another hundred and fifty miles until they reached the Finger Sea and cross into Failcham’s version of Shurkhal. In either case, the PAAF wagons were designed for ready conversion into pontoons or even sailing craft—not, admittedly, the fleetest and most maneuverable of vessels, but surprisingly stable—which would provide fugitives with a wide option of possible destinations (and hiding places) that wouldn’t be frozen solid.

  Which, Namir Velvelig conceded as he felt the cold setting its teeth in his bones, actually had quite a lot to recommend it.

  “I wish I didn’t feel so guilty about leaving the civilians behind, Sir,” Golvar Silkash said from beside him, his voice half-lost in the snow-sharpened wind sighing through the pines, and Velvelig turned to look at the surgeon.

  Fort Ghartoun’s garrison had been badly understrength at the time it was attacked. Unlike the Imperial Ternathian Army, the PAAF’s regiments contained only two battalions at the best of times, and out here on the bleeding edge of the frontier, it wasn’t unusual for a regiment to have its battalions deployed to widely separated locations. In Fort Ghartoun’s case, 2nd Battalion of Velvelig’s 127th Regiment had been heavily raided for reinforcements for New Uromath and Hell’s Gate following the initial clash at Toppled Timber, while 1st Battalion was still somewhere up-chain from Salym, as far as Velvelig knew. There’d been no great urgency to get them forward to Thermyn prior to the confrontation with the Arcanans, and even after that, Velvelig hadn’t expected their arrival for at least another month or two.

  The single understrength battalion under his command when the Arcanan attack crashed over the fort had taken heavy casualties, and those casualties had been worst among its officers. Only four of them had survived: Company-Captain Halath-Shodach, Gold Company’s CO; Platoon-Captain chan Brano and Platoon-Captain Tobar, who had commanded Gold Company’s 2nd and 4th Platoon, respectively; and Platoon-Captain Larkal, who’d commanded 1st Platoon of Silver Company. Although Silkash outranked all four of them in terms of seniority, he was a medical officer, which meant he stood outside the direct line of command. He was ten years older than Halath-Shodach, however, and better than twice young Larkal’s age, and he’d become Velvelig’s executive officer, for all intents and purposes. It wasn’t something Silkash and ever been trained for, but as he’d pointed out just a bit sourly, it wasn’t as if the regiment really needed his services as a surgeon at the moment, since Fifty Maisyl and his Gifted healers had the magic touch—literally—when it came to medical needs. And, despite his tendency to deprecate his own competence outside sick bay, Silkash had been a tower of strength during the organization of this hasty withdrawal.

  “I don’t like leaving them behind, either, Silky,” Velvelig said after a moment, “but it’s not like we had a lot of choice. Or time, for that matter.” He shook his head. “Besides, they’re probably safer keeping their heads down where they are than they’d be slogging through the hills with us. Especially if Harshu’s bastards turn up and run us to ground.”

  “I know,” Silkash conceded. “It doesn’t make me feel any better about it, though. And I don’t like thinking about what could happen to any of them who’re Talented, especially if somebody like Thalmayr decides to make examples out of them!”

  “I don’t like that thought any more than you do,” Velvelig said. He didn’t think it was likely to happen, either, though it was probably too much to ask Silkash or Tobis Makree to expect anything but the worst, given their own treatment at Thalmayr’s hands. “On the other hand,” he continued more grimly, “I doubt they’d be all that interested in any of the remaining Talents. It’s the Voices they’ve been worrying about, Silky.”

  Silkash nodded jerkily, remembering Senior-Armsman Folsar chan Tergis. He’d been Fort Ghartoun’s senior—and only—Voice, and he’d been murdered in cold blood by Alivar Neshok. That was bad enough, but Sahrimahn Cothar had confirmed that a section of Arcanan cavalry under Senior Sword Barcan Kalcyr had also murdered young Syrail Targal, chan Tergis’ student and protégée. They’d been the only two Voices in or around Fort Ghartoun.

  “For the most part, the best we can do for all of them is to get as far away from them as we can,” Velvelig said. “I don’t want any of them in our vicinity if it comes to a firefight.”

  “Understood, Sir. It’s just—”

  Silkash broke off with a jerky headshake that was as sharp with frustration with himself as with anything else, and Velvelig smiled slightly. It wasn’t a happy smile, because he understood exactly what Silkash had just started to say. It was the PAAF’s job to protect civilians. For the most part, that might consist of protecting them from fellow civilians with…flexible attitudes towards things like law codes and other people’s property rights rather than ravening hordes of magic-wielding barbarians, but protection was still the heart of their job description. It felt wrong to be leaving any of them behind, and the fact that they’d have been more endangered trying to escape along with the column didn’t make it feel any less wrong.

  Probably wouldn’t exactly be a pleasure trip for them, if we did pull them out with us, though, the regiment-captain reflected. It’s sure as hells not going to be one for us, for that matter!

  In theory, it was “only” about fourteen hundred miles from Fort Ghartoun to the portal to New Uromath, located a few miles west of what would have been the site of the small city (or large town, depending on one’s perspective) of Wyrmach in the republic of Thanos. Unfortunately, those were fourteen hundred miles as a bird—or one of the Arcanans’ dragons —might have made the trip. It would be closer to two thousand for land bound refugees, and getting through the Wind Peak Mountains east of Bitter Lake City was going to be…unpleasant in the extreme, even with the well marked trails, the wagons’ canopies, and the Arcanans’ magic to help along the way.

  The good news was how much tougher, hardier, and faster the unicorns were than any horse Velvelig had ever encountered. He was sufficiently Arpathian to find that profoundly unnatural and more than a little distasteful, but he was too pragmatic not to be grateful for it. With them for draft animals and mounts and with the Arcanans’ levitation spells to boost the wagons across the rougher terrain, they ought to be able to make thirty or forty miles per day even through the mountains and probably up to a hundred miles a day once they were clear of the Wind Peaks. At the best speed they could manage, though, it would take them over two weeks just to reach Bitter Lake City and—hopefully—get beyond the range at which the mutineers’ locator spells could be triggered by their pursuers.

  The question, of course, was whether or not they’d have two weeks.

  Only one way to find out, I suppose, he thought now, turning to face back into the snowy wind. If I were a betting man, I’d probably bet against our pulling it off. Fortunately, Arpathians are so lousy at math that we don’t have a clue how to calculate odds.

  Chapter Fourteen

  December 28

  Howan Fai straightened his jacket for the Conclave, even though it wasn’t quite time to head down to the Chancellery. With so few staff traveling with them, he’d prepared first and given his father more time to breakfast. Their few staff had been supplemented, but Howan and his father didn’t know these new servants well. And neither did he know their loyalties.

  With so few staff traveling with them, he’d prepared first and given his father more time to breakfast. The fact that it had also given him an excuse to avoid breakfast himself was something he’d chosen not to mention to anyone, including his father. Howan Fai had never been the hearty early morning eater his father was, but he had even less appetite than usua
l this beautiful sunlit morning.

  Not when he knew that within the next few hours Andrin Calirath would be betrothed to a man who would do everything in his power to kill her in childbed.

  At the moment, King Junni’s boots rested on the floor, brushed to a high gloss. The man himself was ruining the press on his court garments by leaning out the windowsill with bits of sweet roll and calling to the birds.

  The cheery sounds of vibrant Tajvana covered up any answering hoots or caws the local birds might have made.

  “He thought he saw the falcon called White Fire, Highness.” Munn Lii explained.

  Crown Princess Andrin’s imperial peregrine falcon might have flown by the window, but Howan Fai doubted Finena would care to eat breakfast crumbs. He speared a sausage and offered it to his father instead.

  They hadn’t packed birdfeed. A trip to Tajvana hadn’t called for it, but on any normal trading route, King Junni’s staff would have provided several trunks of the stuff. The high northern ranges were tough country for any creature, and it was an article of Uromathian faith that a good man returned value to nature for the beauty it gave him. Sharing some seeds with the birds in exchange for the rough fodder the horses consumed along the old caravan ways was as natural to an Eniathian as breathing.

  And it was the same on the seas that were home to Eniathians of Howan Fai’s mother’s branch. The continental shelf was favored by hundreds of bird species, and he often thought his mother knew the names of every single one of them.

  Nothing native to Uromathia compared to an imperial Ternathian falcon, of course. Eniath’s few inland fortresses and cities did boast many fine falconers and had developed several lines of the fierce birds, but the Ternathian falcons were something more. Still, the study of lesser birds only increased an Eniathian’s natural appreciation of the remarkable imperial falcons, and—

  King Junni let out a whoop just piercing enough to carry over the city’s noise. A blur of silver-white feathers passed by the window before Howan Fai could get a good look, but the satisfaction on his father’s face when he pulled back inside confirmed exactly which bird had snatched the last breakfast sausage.

  “My son—”

  Tears shone in King Junni’s eyes, and a flush colored his cheeks that had nothing to do with the exertion of leaning too far out of an upper story palace window. Howan Fai’s father wrapped his son in a tight hug.

  Pure plainspoken Eniathian-dialect Uromathian rolled off the tongue with the natural open vowels common to the Arpathian wilds. But King Junni spoke barely above a whisper, not in Uromathian, but in thick north country Arpath.

  “My son, I think Sharona needs us.”

  Howan Fai held tight to his father, listening hard. Too many nobles at the Conclave interpreted King Junni’s lack of Ternathian language ability as a sign of lacking wits. A prince raised by that king understood it as merely the natural result of a political choice made in his grandfather’s day.

  “Understand I do not know this,” the king murmured. “I do not have any message. I do not have any promises. But I have my guesses, and I need to be sure you are ready, just in case I am right.

  “My son, my heir, could you marry the eldest daughter of the Winged Crown’s clan chief?”

  Shock at the question froze Howan Fai, but he quickly recovered and answered with a nod and a tighter squeeze. If his father was avoiding proper names, he wouldn’t be the one to say “Ternathia” or “Crown Princess Andrin” out loud.

  “You meet the requirements of the agreements between the clan chiefs of clan chiefs.” The Articles of Unification, Howan Fai translated. “If we can reach the eldest daughter, we must try.”

  “Did the white bird carry something?” Howan Fai couldn’t hold back the question, but he did his best to pitch his voice low and muffle the words against his father’s shoulder.

  “No,” King Junni whispered. “My audience requests with the Winged Crown were all scheduled for too late. I tried to attract the bird to send a message. Yesterday she would come but not even eat from my hand.” Whitefire was well trained. “But the falcon will take food back to the high window. It left with the sausage. And my white jade ring. I trust her falconer will notice the sign.”

  A remarkable hope began to blossom in Howan Fai’s heart. Fear for his family and the Eniathian people bristled in thorns around that hope, but still he hoped. The Ternathian Army greatly outpowered the Uromathian Empire. A direct attack—if Eniath were to be tightly aligned with the imperial house of Ternathia—would be highly unlikely. Emperor Chava was vicious and vindictive, but not a fool. Only if Eniath were to make an offer of alliance and the Winged Crown rejected it would Eniath be at extreme risk from the Uromathian Empire.

  King Junni broke the hug, stepped back and clapped his son on the shoulder.

  Finena would return to her perch in an alcove in Crown Princess Andrin’s rooms and present that beringed sausage to a falconer or quite possibly the princess herself, before the falcon would trust eating something from an unknown hand. The white jade was, Howan Fai hoped, known to the Caliraths as symbol of the Eniath royal family.

  King Junni bustled about pretending quite well that no desperate whispering had happened in that long hug. He submitted to having his clothes straightened and to the application of his boots. Rokel Lii, the king’s bodyguard, refused to let the staff attempt to iron out the overrobe’s creases while the king was still wearing it, so away the garment went.

  More staff came and went, clearing the breakfast table. Stains from the windowsill proved too difficult to remove, and the staff changed course to press a new overrobe leaving King Junni in his underclothes in front of the scandalized Othmali kitchen staff. The garments were perfectly modest and provided more coverage than the staff’s knee and elbow length uniforms, but that clearly didn’t prevent them from striking at the staff’s concept of how royalty should be clad.

  As usual, the Othmalis pleaded non-understanding of Eniath-accented Uromathian, so Junni turned to gestures and communicated mock horror at his state of undress, then exaggerated pride in his physique when the youngest maid blushed. No matter how scandalized they might be—or pretend to be—there was no resisting Junni when he chose to be charming and his performance earned delighted laughter and smiles from them all.

  Howan Fai was happy to see it, yet even as he smiled back at them, he couldn’t put aside the internal wariness he never quite dared to relax anywhere outside Eniath. The Grand Palace at Tajvana had some servants who’d arrived with the Caliraths from Hawkwing or followed later. Some others had continued on after service under the Seneschal. Still more had been hired to support the Conclave visitors, but the ones who cared for the apartment assigned to Eniath were all of the last two categories. And however innocent they might be, some of these same Tajvanese staff also visited the apartments assigned to the Uromathian Empire each day, where they might be receiving small gifts to repeat back anything they’d seen and heard. King Junni tipped them each generously, after Eniathian custom…and a reasonable sense of caution. A well-inclined staff would intuitively protect patrons in ways more neutral servants would not.

  Howan Fai wondered if some of these would ask to follow them home after the conclusion of the Conclave. A part of the palace staffing increase would be temporary work, due to end after most of the foreign kings and princes returned home, and King Junni was an exceptionally easy royal to serve, especially when compared to some of the others in residence. Of course, any who might wish to return with them still had much to learn about Eniath and its customs. What the staff missed in their surprise about the king in his underclothes, for example, was the nature of the garments themselves.

  His father had gone traditional today, with a djadja berry treated underjacket and loose trousers. The tough deep brown fabric protected a fisherman from rough barnacles and fishhooks, but it could help turn a knife too. Howan Fai wore much the same thing under his dress jacket, but with a long shirt rather than the full underjack
et. Kings wore full overrobes, but princes only had to wear elaborate jackets.

  King Junni joked that the first Eniathians to take to the seas hadn’t stolen enough fabric to drape everyone with it, so they’d settled on only making the king wear three bolts worth of silk and treated every other bit of line or yarn they had with djadja berries to make sure the stuff would endure as many centuries as they had to wait for peace to break out again on the Uromathian subcontinent. It was only partly a joke.

  Munn Lii and Rokel Lii wore uniforms of the same tough fabric a few shades darker. Howan Fai could tell the guards especially approved of their royal charges’ choice of clothing today. He hoped it wouldn’t be tested.

  King Junni had the fresh, pressed overrobe draped over his head by a Tajvanese footman. As usual the presence of a local man reminded Howan Fai of just how short Eniathians were compared to the parts of Sharona beyond Uromathia. The footman was probably only average height for Tajvana, but he was a full head taller than the king and even Howan Fai looked eye-level at the man’s chin. It did make the dressing process easier though.

  Perhaps the footman would be among those seeking to follow them back to sea and to Eniath. The man could include in his list of skills a notation that he was professionally tall. And he might even not be a spy.

  The clock still read too early an hour to head directly to the Conclave, and in truth Howan Fai couldn’t think of a plan for how to get to Crown Princess Andrin or Emperor Zindel to point out his father’s insight. If the Goddess Mother Marthea had kept direct control over humanity instead of gifting Her children with free will, a marriage between the Ternathian Empire and Uromathian Empire would peaceably unify Sharona. But the Uromathian Empire itself was only about a generation shy of dissolution. Maybe, just maybe, two generations. King Junni and Howan Fai had discussed it at length—with equally great discretion—and neither of them saw any way it could last much longer than that.