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

by David Weber

  Chan Byral smiled and sent his unicorn pacing forward.

  Behind him, the rest of the column was closing up with remarkable speed, given the weather conditions and terrain. The Portal Authority wagons, floating on the dwindling Arcanan levitation spells, had moved through the treacherous, burned-out, snow-covered forest with an ease the Sharonians still found profoundly unnatural. Welcome, yes, but definitely unnatural.

  From Namir Velvelig’s perspective, those levitation spells had offered another advantage. The passage of so many unicorns had churned the snow badly enough, but not to the same extent wagons would have under normal circumstances. Given the current heavy snowfall, the traces of their journey between portals should be completely obscured by dawn. He hoped so, anyway. He had a suspicion that tracks in the snow would be glaringly visible to an aerial observer once the clouds broke, and the last thing he wanted were any arrows pointing in the direction of their flight.

  Platoon-Captain Sedryk Tobar and Platoon-Captain chan Brano, the most junior of his four surviving line officers, brought up the rear. None of the Arcanans had commented on the fact that their column’s rearguard was solidly Sharonian, or on the fact that Company-Captain Halath-Shodach and Platoon-Captain Larkal just happened to be commanding the scout parties on either flank for tonight’s march. To be honest, he wouldn’t have expected them to complain about it, but he’d seen no sign of silent resentment on their part, either. He doubted very many of them could have failed to understand why Tobar and chan Brano were keeping an eye on things, but rather than resenting it, what he’d seen the most evidence of was satisfaction. They knew what would happen to them if they fell into the wrong hands, and they were strongly in favor of anything likely to prevent that from happening.

  Now the regiment-captain watched through the portal as Harnak and chan Byral rode into the humid, blessedly warm rain forest and paused. Not for the first time he wished they had at least one Plotter, although a rain forest was probably so stuffed with living critters as to knock any Plotter’s reach back to little more than range of sight. He also would have liked to send chan Byral through the portal’s other aspect, as well, to let him get a good Look around the huge blind spot it created, but they didn’t have enough time for that.

  Several minutes passed. Then chan Byral’s unicorn came trotting back across into Hell’s Gate.

  “I don’t See anything I shouldn’t, Sir,” he told Velvelig with a salute. “I’m not saying there isn’t anything out there—just that if there is, it’s well enough hidden I’m not going to pick it up in the dark. There’s no sign of any Arcanan pickets, anyway.”

  “I suppose that’s the best we’re going to get,” the regiment-captain said simply. “Let’s go.”

  He touched his unicorn with his heel and started across the interface between universes. The air grew steadily warmer as he approached the actual portal; by the time he crossed it, he was shedding his gloves, unbuttoning his heavy coat, and already sweating heavily. Not that he had any intention of complaining.

  The damp, powerful, earthy smells of riotous vegetation enveloped him, and the sound of night birds and gods only knew what other night-roaming creatures filled the darkness with a welcome chorus of living things. After the cold winter weather of their journey, the sudden flood of noise was as welcome as the gentle breeze stirring the night and he drew rein to remove his coat completely and hang it on the pommel of his saddle while he turned and watched the rest of the column follow him into the nameless universe.

  He couldn’t see much, and all he really knew about this particular universe was that the portal probably opened somewhere in the Dalazan Rain Forest. There’d been no time for any further exploration before everything went to hell, which meant that probability had never been definitively confirmed. They’d probably get a chance to do something about that, assuming they could find another break in the overhead canopy and establish exactly when local noon occurred. The PAAF was as accustomed to taking noon sights to establish latitude and longitude as any mariner, for obvious reasons. The problem would be finding the aforesaid break. The area immediately around the portal was choked with thick, luxuriant herbaceous varieties: vines, leafy ferns, low-growing shrubbery. Clearly something—possibly the formation of the portal itself—had killed back the towering hundred-foot high trees beyond that tangle and let in the sunlight which had created such an explosion of growth. He had no intention of hanging about this close to the portal, however, and once they’d gotten a few hundred yards farther in-universe, they’d be back in typical triple-canopy jungle, where undergrowth was blessedly uncommon and the sun and stars were seldom seen.

  The column flowed past him, not without difficulty given the thickness of the ground cover. Even the floating wagons found the going difficult. The vegetation was dense enough—and tall enough—to catch at their wheels as they floated over it, and even if it hadn’t been, the draft animals had to work hard to force their own way forward, far less haul the wagons with them. Velvelig was trying very hard not to glower at the column’s glacial progress when one of Platoon-Captain Zynach Larkal’s men trotted up to him.

  “There’s some sort of game trail to the east, Sir,” Armsman 1/c Shalsan Thykyl reported, and Velvelig wasn’t even tempted to ask how he could be so sure of that in the dark. Thykyl was the best of the 127th Regiment’s scouts and the finest hunter Namir Velvelig had ever seen anywhere. If he said there was a game trail, there was a game trail.

  “Is it wide enough for these damned wagons?”

  “’Pears to be, Sir.” Thykyl turned in the saddle to point back the way he’d come. “Wouldn’t be if they had to run on their wheels, but on the Arcanans’ crystals the unicorns should be able to get ’em through. There’s a nasty steep ridge up there ahead of us, too. Trail looks like our best way up it.” He turned back with a smile. “Always trust animals to find the easy way, I say, Sir.”

  “Or the easiest way, at least,” Velvelig agreed. “All right. Go find Master-Armsman Karuk and tell him we’re changing course. Then show him this trail of yours.”

  “Yes, Sir.” Thykyl saluted and sent his unicorn in search of the master-armsman while Velvelig moved back to the very edge of the portal to halt the rest of the column until they got its head straightened out.

  * * *

  “Well thank Hali Thykyl found that trail,” Therman Ulthar said with profound gratitude.

  He rode once again at Regiment-Captain Velvelig’s side, as the weary column reassembled itself back into a semblance of order behind them. There’d been times while they wrestled the wagons through the undergrowth—even with the game trail, that had been no picnic—when Ulthar had entertained serious doubts about the practicality of using this universe as their refuge. Dense jungle might be as ideal for evading pursuers as Velvelig said it was, but one had to get to it first and it had seemed unlikely the wagons would let them do that.

  The game trail had made it possible, but no one in his right mind would have called the task easy. Once or twice, he’d been tempted to suggest simply abandoning their vehicles. The thought of leaving behind all of the Sharonian weapons and ammunition they’d hauled with them—especially the mortars and machine guns—had been unpalatable, but they probably could have packed the truly essential supplies on unicornback. Of course, leaving the wagons just inside the portal would also have been a dead giveaway to anyone looking for them who happened to glance this way, and there were plenty of things in those wagons which might not be truly essential but were certainly very good to have along. So it was fortunate they hadn’t had to abandon anything after all.

  “Agreed,” Velvelig said now. “Of course, it’s fairly obvious which way we went, for now, at least. The one good thing about jungle like that, though, is how quickly it grows back. Give us a few days—a couple of weeks at the outside—and somebody would have to look really, really closely to see that anyone had passed through.”

  He sounded, Ulthar thought, like a man trying to convince hi
mself he was being clever rather than a man who didn’t care to admit how much he hated this kind of terrain.

  “You’re right about that, Sir,” he said helpfully, then shook his head. “I never would’ve thought of heading this way on my own, but Jaralt was right. If you’re looking for a place to hide from dragons and recon gryphons, this kind of jungle takes some beating.”

  “I know.” Velvelig’s tone was undeniably sour. “I know, but the rain and the humidity are going to play hell with our equipment.”

  “They won’t do ours any favors, either,” Ulthar admitted. “We don’t have as many moving parts to rust solid as you do, but sarkolis doesn’t really like this kind of sustained heat and humidity, either. The crystals issued to the Army are as climate-proofed as anybody can make them, but we still have to take Graholis’ own extra precautions. And you don’t want to see what the gearing on an arbalest looks like after a couple of weeks of this kind of weather. As for sword blades—!”

  He rolled his eyes, and Velvelig chuckled.

  “Probably not any worse than what it does to our bayonets,” he suggested. “Axe blades and machetes, too, for that matter. But at least it gives the noncoms something else to keep the men busy with!”

  “I think that’s what they call finding a bright side to look on, Sir,” Ulthar said dryly, and Velvelig chuckled again, harder.

  “Oh, I don’t know. When you come to it—”

  CRRAAAACK!

  Namir Velvelig froze, his head jerking around in astonishment, as the single rifleshot set twice a hundred birds into raucous, terrified flight. The racket was deafening, but that wasn’t what froze him in place. No, what stopped him dead in his tracks was the fact that the shot had come not from any of his men but from somewhere in the jungle ahead of them.

  “Column, halt!”

  Halath-Shodach headed their column at the moment. His bellowed command stopped their entire party as effectively as the gunshot had already stopped Velvelig, and the regiment-captain nodded in approval. Then he sent his own unicorn cantering—except, of course, that unicorns didn’t “canter;” they loped—to the front, Ulthar at his side. By the time they reached the column’s point, Halath-Shodach had dismounted and was peering through his binoculars.

  “Can’t see a damned thing, Sir,” he confessed, looking up as Velvelig halted beside him. “Has to be out there somewhere, though. And whoever it is, it’s sure as hell not an Arcanan, unless he’s acquired a Model 10 somewhere.”

  “What it sounded like to me, too,” Velvelig agreed. He was staring intently into the dim, shadowed depths of the jungle while his mind raced. Was it possible someone had survived the destruction of Balkar chan Tesh’s Copper Company after all? But if they had, how in Kreegair’s name had they gotten here? They were the better part of fifty miles from the swamp portal! Besides—

  “Regiment-Captain Velvelig! I certainly didn’t expect to see you here!”

  The voice—raised to carry but almost conversational in tone—floated out of the jungle. It was a voice, Velvelig realized incredulously, that he recognized…and speaking Arpathian.

  “It seems you’re an even harder man to kill than I thought, Platoon-Captain Arthag!” he shouted back after a moment in the same language, and it was difficult to maintain a proper Arpathian imperturbability. “Would you care to come out and talk to me, or should I come in and talk to you…wherever the hells you are?”

  “Oh, I imagine I can come out. And I hope you won’t take this wrongly, Sir, but until we’re sure you’re in charge, the rest of us will just stay out here with our rifles and keep an eye on things.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way, Platoon-Captain,” Velvelig replied with a faint smile.

  * * *

  “So when we spotted you and saw the unicorns and the wagons floating a foot off the ground, then saw all those fellows in Arcanan uniform, we were pretty sure the bastards had finally gotten around to hunting us down. Fortunately, our lookouts spotted quite a few PAAF uniforms, too, and the people wearing them didn’t seem to be prisoners. Then Hulmok got a good look at you through his binoculars, Sir. After that, it seemed like a good idea to at least give you a chance to explain what in Saramash’s name was going on instead of just shooting you.”

  “I’m glad it did, Platoon-Captain chan Baskay,” Velvelig said dryly. “I’ve discovered I have a constitutional objection to being shot. And you can’t have been any more surprised to see us than we are to see you. We didn’t think anyone had gotten away.”

  “Not many did, Sir,” Dorzon chan Baskay, Viscount Simrath, said grimly, and his expression as he looked at the three Arcanan fifties seated behind the regiment-captain could have been carved out of flint. “If not for Hulmok’s Talent, they’d have caught us as flat-footed as they must’ve caught Company-Captain chan Tesh. As it was, sixteen of his boys didn’t make it.”

  “I can imagine.” Unlike chan Baskay’s face, Velvelig’s was expressionless—he was an Arpathian septman, after all—but his voice was equally harsh. “Most of my men at Fort Ghartoun didn’t have any more chance than yours did. And I’m fairly certain what you’re thinking. But Fifty Ulthar was already a prisoner in my custody at the time of the attack. He didn’t have anything to do with it, and Fifty Sarma and Fifty Cothar—and all their men, for that matter—put their necks right into the noose to get what was left of my people out alive. For that matter, my own Sifter’s confirmed that everything they’ve told me is the truth. And none of my people would be here now if not for them and their assistance.”

  Chan Baskay glared at the three Arcanans for another few seconds. Then his nostrils flared as he inhaled sharply.

  “Point taken, Sir,” he said quietly. “And, to be honest, we’ve had confirmation of our own that something about this whole attack stinks to high heaven. Besides the fact that it was a treacherous, cold-blooded ploy from the very beginning, I mean.”

  Sarma and Ulthar winced slightly at his last sentence, but they met his hard eyes levelly, and something like a tinge of approval flickered in the depths of those eyes.

  “We took three of the Arcanan ‘honor guard’ alive, and all three of them were regular troopers, without any idea what Fifty Narshu and his ‘Special Operations’ assassins had in mind. I didn’t want to believe that, but Trekar”—he twitched his head at Under-Captain Trekar Rothag, sitting beside him—“Sifted them the same way your Sifter did for the fifties.” He shrugged. “So I’m at least open to the possibility that the Arcanan command systematically lied to its own men. In fact, I’m godsdamned certain it did.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Velvelig cocked his head. The man in front of him looked very little like the immaculately groomed Ternathian cavalry officer who’d passed through Fort Ghartoun on his way to Fallen Timbers as Zindel Calirath’s diplomatic representative. It wasn’t just the inevitable weathered raggedness, either. Unlike his own people, chan Baskay and the survivors of Hulmok Arthag’s guard detail hadn’t been given the opportunity to pick through Fort Ghartoun’s supply rooms before heading off cross-universe, and the jungle had been less than kind to their clothing and uniforms. Their weapons and equipment, however, were spotless, meticulously cleaned and cared for. But the endless weeks he’d spent keeping his tiny command of fugitives together in this jungle, never knowing if—or when—an Arcanan pursuit would come through the portal after them, had toughened more than just his exterior. There was good, solid metal inside Platoon-Captain chan Baskay, and that metal had been hammered into something hard and lethal.

  “It happens that one of the Arcanan ‘diplomats’ also survived the ambush attempt,” the platoon-captain said now. “He almost didn’t, but Master Skirvon’s been remarkably…forthcoming, and he’s had ample proof Trekar knows when he’s lying. And that he really, really doesn’t want to lie to me ever again.”

  Namir Velvelig was an Arpathian, yet something in the younger man’s tone sent a shiver through him. Somehow he didn’t think he’d want to lie to
Dorzon chan Baskay, either.

  “Forthcoming, is he?” The regiment-captain’s tone was no more than mildly interested, and Hulmok Arthag, standing behind the seated chan Baskay, grunted.

  “Told you you wouldn’t put him off stride, Dorzon,” he said, and chan Baskay snorted a brief laugh.

  “Yes. Yes, you did, Hulmok,” he acknowledged, then looked back at Velvelig.

  “Yes, ‘forthcoming’ is about the best word for it, Sir. As a matter of fact, he’s tried very hard to come up with something new I’d like to know every day. He seems to be under the impression that his ability to do that has a direct bearing on his longevity.”

  “I see. And while he’s been so ‘forthcoming,’ what exactly has he told you?”

  “Well, besides the fact that Shaylar and her husband survived the massacre—” He broke off and arched an eyebrow. “You already knew about that, too, Sir?”

  “I told you Fifty Ulthar and Fifty Sarma have been as honest with us as they could. For that matter, they didn’t know we didn’t already know they were alive. Would it happen that your ‘forthcoming’ diplomat’s told you why they were so idiotic as to lie about it in the first place?”