The Road to Hell (Hell's Gate Book 3)

by David Weber

  And now this. What in all Shartahk’s Hells was going on at the front? He’d had his doubts, had his concerns, but this—!

  His staff commo officers, with some assistance from Magister Gadrial—he wasn’t going to let a possible forgery slip by when he had a theoretical magister of her caliber on hand—had confirmed the message was legitimate. Arylis Ulthar hadn’t faked it, and the original message had definitely been recorded on a hummer at the front. He had to bear in mind the theoretical possibility that Fifty Ulthar hadn’t sent the original message, but the chance of anyone’s getting a successful forgery past Gadrial Kelbryan was virtually nil. Which only made it even worse, in a way. Ulthar had a solid performance record before his posting to the frontier, and Jasak had flatly stated that he’d been the best fifty in C Company. There was no reason—no sane reason Thankhar could think of, at any rate—for a man like that to invent an elaborate story, especially one like this…which meant what he’d reported was almost certainly true.

  And that meant Thankhar had to assume the events at the front really were as bad as the message claimed. He needed to find out what was going on out there—everything that was going on out there—and he needed to find out yesterday. Most people would have felt the meat of Ulthar’s message was all about the violation of the Kerellian Accords and the truly horrible treatment of Sharonans held under Arcanan military authority, and Thankhar Olderhan’s fury had burned fiery hot as he read that part of it. Yet under the fury had been something far, far colder.

  The Commandery knew the truce had broken down, that Two Thousand Harshu had led a counterattack deep into the Sharonian-claimed universes, and that the initial offensive seemed to have done well. But aside from that bare notification and the report that at least some Second Andaran survivors had been recovered alive, there were still no additional official messages. It was preposterous—or worse—but the most recent reliable information they really had was Jasak’s report, and that was both suspect in certain quarters and locked down, denied public release, until after his court-martial had delivered its verdict.

  It wasn’t unheard of for there to be delays—sometimes very lengthy delays—in reports from the frontier when officers were overwhelmed dealing with some crisis. The Union of Arcana had learned long ago that it couldn’t micromanage affairs over a communications chain that could take weeks or even months to pass a message one way. The military had to trust the judgment of the officers on the spot, and those officers were often more focused on the problem at hand rather than on writing reports for superiors who couldn’t do one damned thing to help them, anyway. So, yes, there’d been lots of examples of that sort of delay over the years.

  But it also happened when officers were doing something profoundly stupid and thought they could fix it before the Commandery found out, and Thankhar Olderhan had decided weeks ago that that was almost certainly the case this time…unless it was something still worse. In fact, he’d been inclining further and further towards that “still worse” hypothesis even before Jasak, Gadrial, and Jasak’s shardonai reached Portalis. Now, with what Therman Ulthar had said about intelligence reports which contradicted what he knew first hand to be true added to what Jasak and Gadrial had already told him…

  For anyone who’d spent as many years as he had fighting corruption and facing down one scheming political maneuver after another, the possibility that Army and Air Force personnel were being deliberately lied to by their own superiors raised questions which were far more chilling even than the violation of the Accords. Ugly questions about who was doing what, who was covering it up, and—above all—why he was covering it up. And when that was added to what was clearly an orchestrated campaign to leak the false narrative from the front to the news services which were most hostile to the current government…

  He needed an investigation, and he needed it now. And whatever team he sent down-chain needed the military teeth to be listened to and the strength to withstand whatever threat the Sharonan military—and, much as he hated the possibility, its own military—represented. Collecting evidence in an active war zone was not for the faint of heart.

  Lucky for him, Thankhar Olderhan was an Andaran, and Andaran inquiry officers didn’t come in faint of heart.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Hayrn 24, 206 YU

  [January 15, 1929 CE]

  The winter air was crisp and the sunlight crystalline as it drenched the target range on the outskirts of Portalis. The temperatures had been freezing since Jathmar and Shaylar arrived, but Arcana’s use of magic to heat their homes and offices had produced one consequence no Sharonian would have anticipated: no coal smoke. As a result, the distant tree line was a sharp, dark thicket of bare branches, undimmed by the gray smudge of urban smoke. They were as clear here with Jathmar’s eyes wide open as they would have been in this same meadow in Sharona if he’d closed his eyes and stretched out his Mapping Talent.

  He drew a deeper, fuller breath than any he’d taken since their arrival at Portalis. He didn’t try his Talent—he had no desire to face either a headache or the heartache of its extremely reduced range. It was enough to enjoy the familiar bite of cold air and the joy of being outdoors. They’d been confined in one room or another since their arrival, allowed outdoors only long enough to dash into or out of the duke’s motic or ornate, improbably speedy coach for trips between Garth Showma House and wherever the current day’s inquisition happened to be located.

  For this trip the shiny new motic and its driverless GC had been deemed unacceptable. The angry crowds outside the huge townhouse undoubtedly had something to do with that—the motics’ restriction to pre-set, predictable routes would have been a nightmare for the duke’s security personnel—but Jathmar wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have preferred a vehicle controlled by the central traffic system. It might have been more susceptible to ambushes, but at least he’d have been confident the journey itself wouldn’t kill him!

  The duke’s black coach horses, on the other hand, had whipped through the city streets so fast his hands had gone white-knuckled gripping the seat arm while Shaylar leaned against him, eyes shut tight, the whole way. He’d braced for collision so many times he’d spent the whole city portion of the ride stiff as a brick. Yet not even that speed had prepared him for what those horses could do on open roads, like the one leading to this army post.

  He’d been convinced they’d sprout wings and fly. Instead, they’d merely whipped along the open highway so fast their coach might well have outraced a bullet. Not one from a modern gun, of course, but they’d have given one of those early, slow-moving balls from a Ternathian matchlock a real run for its money.

  The journey to this firing range had scared him nearly pissless. But now that they were here…He could actually breathe, out here. The knowledge that they must go back to those hateful walls, which pressed more closely and more unbearably with every day, was a physical agony he could scarcely bear. Confinement was killing them. Slowly, cruelly killing them, and they had no hope of clemency from their captors.

  Jathmar intended to enjoy every moment out here to the fullest, despite the unexpectedly large, avidly curious, openly hostile audience. He turned his gaze to the viewing stands where the entire Commandery sat in a glittering array of gold and silver and bronze devices on their fancy dress uniforms: forest green and gray for the army, a crimson as vivid as any tropical fish for the navy, and the velvet-ink black of night skies for the air force. He hadn’t seen anything resembling Marines and had opted not to ask, since giving his captors new military ideas was not on his agenda.

  Also seated in the viewing stands were the members of the newly appointed Parliamentary War Operations and Intelligence Committee, led by the Speaker of the Union, himself. The committee’s interest in their planned demonstration was both obvious and intense and, unlike the military’s board of inquiry or court, the committee included two Mythalans: one garthan and one of the shakira he’d heard so much about, during their travels and since their
arrival.

  The shakira—Gerail vos Durgazon, the Union minister of industry—wore a supercilious sneer that appeared to be permanently etched into his face. Jathmar had detested him on sight, and not just because prior experience had amply confirmed Gadrial and Jasak’s attitude towards shakira in general. No, he had a very specific and personal reason to detest this individual representative of Mythal’s hereditary overlords: the truly filthy way the man had looked at Shaylar. Part cold-blooded hatred, part carnal lust, and part thwarted rage, that smugly superior, violently hostile look told Jathmar Minister vos Durgazon had no intention of abiding by military regulations or Arcanan law, should Shaylar ever fall into his custody.

  The garthan, on the other hand, had the gentlest, kindest eyes Jathmar had ever seen. He hadn’t expected that, particularly from a Mythalan, but Gadrial had told him Jukaru Tumnau, the minister of health, although unGifted, with no trace of the Healing capability, was one of Arcana’s best psychiatrists. He’d also been a close personal friend of Halathyn vos Dulainah—which helped explain the notorious bad blood between him and vos Durgazon. Tumnau wasn’t about to accept anything the Sharonians told him without considering it very, very carefully, but he wasn’t automatically hostile, despite vos Dulainah’s death. In fact, what Jathmar read most strongly in Tumnau’s eyes was an almost childlike curiosity, which rippled through a deep and glimmering compassion.

  A long table stood just in front of the viewing stands. That table provided seats for the officers of Jasak’s court-martial. There were five: three Andarans, one Ransaran, and one Tukorian, and Jathmar already had cause to view all of them with a cold hostility. They’d spent the entire day, yesterday, questioning each of the witnesses in what they referred to as a mere “preliminary inquiry.” Those questions had been fairly sharp when directed at Jasak Olderhan, patient and attentive when directed at Otwal Threbuch, grim and scornful when leveled at Bok vos Hoven, and gently respectful when addressed to Gadrial Kelbryan.

  As for Jathmar and his wife…

  The officers had badgered them with a remorseless barrage of questions that were hostile, scathing to the point of deliberate cruelty, and contemptuous of every syllable they uttered in response. The board of inquiry before which they’d first appeared had been difficult enough initially, but its members had quickly taken their tone from Commander of Wings Brith Darma and become almost courteous. Not so the court-martial board. If he’d been inclined to be charitable—which he wasn’t—Jathmar might have put that down to the fact that they were scared to death by what had already been reported to them and were taking that fear out on the closest example of what they were frightened of. The reasons for their attitude didn’t much concern him, however; its consequences, on the other hand, most assuredly did.

  Of course, he thought with a certain bitter amusement, I have to say they learned better, too, didn’t they? And a godsdamned sight quicker this time around.

  His lips quirked in a smile of memory, and he shook his head. There were huge differences between Sathmin Olderhan and his own mother, but under the skin, the New Ternathian farmer’s wife and the Arcanan duchess were more alike than either of them might have believed. Duchess Garth Showma had already tolerated quite as much abuse of her son’s shardonai as she intended to, and she’d sailed into the hearing room at Shaylar’s side like a Ternathian battleship breaking an enemy line.

  Commander of Twenty Thousand Helfron Dithrake, Count Sogbourne, the senior and presiding member of the empaneled court-martial, had been less than pleased to see her, though he hadn’t been stupid enough to say so in so many words. His courteous suggestion that Her Grace might, perhaps, want to await the witness in the lounge had been answered only with the sort of cold stare with which governesses reduced unruly children to terrified obedience, and the count had shown he was even smarter than Jathmar had thought by dropping that line of suggestions immediately.

  Some of his colleagues had been rather less discerning, however. They’d intended to treat Shaylar as a hostile witness, and treat her as a hostile witness they had. Squadron Master Olvarn Gerandyr, the court-martial’s Navy representative and second ranking member, had led the way. Gerandyr was a Chalaran, from the Arcanan equivalent of Esferia, the enormous island off the peninsula of Yar Khom, and Thankhar Olderhan (who’d known him for over twenty-five years) had warned Jathmar he was about as tactful as a brick at the best of times. He was also, the duke had said, a man of honor who would do his best to consider the evidence, but it had been obvious the squadron master was one of those who regarded all things Sharonian—and especially Sharonians with those unnatural “Talents”—with profound suspicion.

  “So, Madam Nargra-Kolmayr,” he’d begun in a sharp, aggressive tone, “you continue to assert that your ‘party of civilians’ had nothing but peaceful motives, do you? Perhaps, then, you’d care to explain why all of you were armed to the teeth? And why, when you realized there was another survey force in the area your immediate response was to run—run in a body—for the nearest portal rather than sending a single member of your group, or even a small delegation of it, to attempt to establish nonviolent contact with it? Surely people with these ‘Talents’ of yours should’ve been able to locate and contact Hundred Olderhan’s platoon without precipitating a bloodbath if you’d chosen to make that effort instead of settling into what can only be described as an ambush position!”

  Shaylar had stepped back half a pace, wincing under the power of the emotions rolling off of him. Then she’d rallied.

  “I’m not ‘asserting’ anything,” she’d replied in an equally sharp tone. “I’m telling you what actually happened—exactly what happened—and your own lie-detection spells should tell you I’m doing it as honestly as I possibly can.”

  “Oh, really?” Gerandyr had scowled. “And how do we know our spellware even works against someone with your ‘Talent’? All we have is your word for that. And, frankly, I’m not at all convinced we should accept it. Besides that—”

  “Magister Gadrial’s also explained that—” Shaylar had begun, but Gerandyr’s palm had slapped the top of the bench before him like a gunshot.

  “I was speaking, Madam!” He’d glared at her, flushed with anger. “You’d do well to remember your situation here! In the eyes of this court, you and your husband—”

  “Are my son’s shardonai.” Sathmin Olderhan’s cold, clear voice had cut through Gerandyr’s bluster like a scalpel. It had also snapped the ship master’s eyes to her, and her smile had been even colder than her words.

  “Shaylar and Jathmar come under the house honor of House Olderhan and the civil protection of the Duchy of Garth Showma under the provisions of the Code of Housip,” she’d continued with merciless precision, “and that code—like the Kerellian Accords—was given formal force of law and incorporated into the Articles of War—by the Union’s Constitution at the time it was drafted. They are members of my family, Squadron Master, and I’ll thank you to remember that!”

  “Your Grace,” Gerandyr had started, “I was merely—”

  “I know precisely what you were doing, Olvarn Gerandyr,” the duchess had said crisply. “However, you will not verbally abuse, or threaten, or attempt to frighten a member of my family! Shaylar is not your prisoner, nor is she accused of any crime. The worst that can possibly be alleged against her is that she and her companions defended themselves against attack by a far larger force of trained soldiers. That they did it superlatively well is to their credit and no grounds for abusing her when she and her husband are captives so far from home! If you wish to lodge formal charges against her, then I invite you to do so.” She’d bared her teeth. “I don’t think you’d like how that would turn out, Ship Master, but by all means try, if that’s what you want. In the meantime, however, you’ll keep a civil tongue in your head when you interrogate a member of my family.” She’d paused, sweeping the assembled, momentarily petrified court with cold eyes.

  “I trust,” she’d added then in velvet t
ones wrapped around a dagger of ice, “that I’ve made myself clear?”

  She had.

  Under the circumstances, the court had decided to excuse Shaylar from any further examination that day and allowed her to return to Garth Showma House. Clearly, they’d hoped the duchess would go with her.

  She hadn’t.

  With Shaylar absent, Jathmar had, perforce, borne the brunt of the officers’ questions about Sharona, but with the duchess sitting silent and watchful at his side, they’d been remarkably calm, even courteous about it. They hadn’t been any less suspicious or thorough, but they’d definitely watched how they asked those questions, and he was just as happy they’d been asking them of him. He might not be good at lying and prevaricating, but he was better at it than Shaylar. He’d succeeded in tiptoeing through the brutal day without once tripping the lie-detection spell’s alarm, which he considered quite an achievement.