by David Weber
* * *
Petty-Captain Baulwan took one more look at his watch, then nodded in satisfaction. Erthek would be starting to Listen for him sometime in the next couple of minutes, and Baulwan began preparing himself to contact the other Voice. He closed his eyes, concentrating on his Talent, letting it flow up from the depths of his mind like a crystal-clear water welling up from the throat of a mountain spring. At moments like this, he knew the shamans were right about the wondrous touch of the gods.
He felt himself relaxing, and breathed slowly and deeply, preparing, getting ready to reach out—
* * *
No one in Fort Shaylar saw them coming.
Hundred Geyrsof's pilots, guided by their navigation units, had arrived at precisely the right spot at precisely the correct moment and tipped over into their attack dives when all they could see was the wet, soaking interior of the clouds through which they were flying. It was risky—they didn't know exactly how low the cloudbase actually was, or what obstacles might be hiding in it if their navigation was even slightly off—but it also meant they had perfect cover all the way down. Even if anyone in the fort had suspected the existence of Arcana's dragons for a moment, it would have done them no good under those conditions.
In fact, the lumpy gray ceiling was at barely twelve hundred feet. At that low an altitude, the attack dragons were already starting to pull out when they broke clear of the clouds. They were going to have time for only a single attack each, and they had mere seconds to find their targets for it, but seconds were enough.
Sixteen fireballs exploded in the interior of Fort Shaylar almost as one.
* * *
Grafin Halifu had just signed the report about the triumphant relocation of those incredibly irritating cavalry mounts when the first explosions began.
He lunged up out of his chair, snatched up his pistol belt, and charged out his office door.
By the time he reached Farzak Partha's desk, the entire parade ground was a roaring holocaust.
There couldn't be that much to burn, a shocked, horrified corner of his mind insisted while the shrieks and screams ripped through his very soul. The shrieks and screams of his men—his men—burning like living torches in that impossible inferno. There'd been no warning, no preparation. One instant, everything was orderly, normal; the next instant, devastation was upon them all.
Partha leapt up from his own desk just in time to tackle Halifu. The outer surfaces of the fort's log structures were already smoking and charring under the incredible heat radiating from the red dragons' fireballs, but they still offered at least some protection to the people inside them, and Partha's quick thinking saved Halifu's life at least briefly.
The company-captain hit the rough floor hard. Hard enough to shake him back into a semblance of rationality. He squirmed free of Partha's grasp and climbed back to his feet as the initial wave of fireballs exhausted their power and dissipated.
He moved forward again, then, this time with Partha at his heels. The admin block's door was jammed, warped in its frame by the brutal heat, and he had to kick it open. Then he stepped out into a scene of nightmare.
The lucky ones were already dead.
Everywhere he looked, it seemed, there were bodies. Twisted, contorted, charred dead men, smoldering with an intolerable stench of burning flesh. Here and there among the corpses were the screaming, writhing bodies of hideously maimed troopers who were still alive. He knew those men, knew most of them by their first names, and he couldn't even recognize them.
He advanced onto the parade ground, and half the fort's buildings were on fire around him. The observation tower blazed like a huge torch, soaked in oil, and a seared scarecrow of a human figure hung over the platform rail like a shriveled, blazing mummy. His mind refused to absorb the reality, couldn't find a way to process the information. He needed time for that, and there wasn't any time.
Something made him look up at the sky just in time to see a final pair of huge, impossible creatures hurtling suddenly out of the clouds. They streaked down towards the flame-wracked abattoir which had once been Fort Shaylar, and Grafin Halifu found his H&W in his hand.
The heavy, long-barreled revolver rose, his thumb cocked the hammer, and he began to fire.
He was still firing when the gas cloud enveloped what was left of his command.
* * *
Commander of One Hundred Sylair Worka looked at his chronometer and grimaced in disgust.
It wasn't his fault, but that didn't make him any happier to be running well over two hours behind schedule. Those damned Sharonian booby traps had imposed a delay out of all proportion to their actual effectiveness, and he wished Fifty Narshu had at least been assigned a hummer handler.
But, no, Worka thought sourly. We couldn't risk the Sharonians finding out about the hummers, could we? Of course not! So what if it makes it impossible to communicate when it all hits the fan?
His expression grew briefly even more disgusted, then he shook his head. Part of the problem was that neither side knew what it ought to be concealing from the other, he reflected. So Arcana had wound up hiding just about everything . . . even when it was an operational pain in the arse.
He supposed it all made sense, but it would have been far more convenient—and, undoubtedly, more reassuring to Narshu—if Worka had been able to send him a message to explain the delay.
Well, we're only thirty minutes or so out now. In fact, the point ought to be—
"Sir!"
Worka looked up from his chronometer as one of his troopers came towards him at a stiff canter. A light cavalry unicorn could manage speeds of up to forty miles an hour and maintain a gallop for ninety minutes at a time in decent terrain . . . which, of course, this mass of trees most definitely was not. Still, Lance Ranlak was moving at a good clip.
The trooper drew up beside his company commander and saluted.
"What is it, Yurain?" Worka asked.
"Sir, Sword Kalcyr's respects, and he thinks we've got a problem."
"Problem?" Worka stiffened in the saddle. Senior Sword Barcan Kalcyr was the company's senior noncom. He'd been everywhere and done everything, and he didn't use the word "problem" lightly.
"Yes, Sir. He said to tell you he smells smoke. Lots of smoke."
Worka gazed at the trooper for a few moments, then pressed with his heels, and sent his mount galloping forward.
The constant coming and going of the diplomats who'd been negotiating with the Sharonians—not to mention all of the Sharonian traffic between the swamp portal and the Class Eight—had produced a well-worn, surprisingly broad trail, and Worka's troopers crowded aside to let him pass. He made good time, and well before he reached Kalcyr's position, he'd come to the conclusion that the senior sword had, if anything, understated the situation. The hundred's unicorn snorted uneasily, tossing its horned head, as the first sharp-smelling banners of smoke came flowing through the woods.
"What do we have, Barcan?" Worka asked as he drew up beside the noncom.
"According to my nav unit, we're only about five miles out, Sir," Kalcyr replied. "I don't think we're getting through that, though."
He pointed, and Worka's jaw tightened as he looked in the indicated direction. The stiff breeze was blowing across the trail at the next best thing to right angles. Now, as he gazed ahead, he realized that the smoke he'd smelled on his way forward had been only outriders, only the stray tendrils of the massive wall of smoke rolling steadily westward ahead of them.
"Where there's smoke, there's fire, Sir," Kalcyr observed in a tone which sounded as disgusted as Worka felt.
"Yes, there is, Senior Sword," Worka agreed. "In fact—"
He broke off, gesturing, and Kalcyr grunted as they both saw the first, abrupt crackle of flames coming towards them through the smoke. One of the towering forest giants went up like a torch in a glare of crownfire, little more than two hundred yards farther along the trail.
Worka's unicorn flattened its lynxlike ears, and he
felt the sudden tension quivering in its augmented muscles.
"Time to go, Senior Sword," the hundred said.
"You've got that right, Sir," Kalcyr agreed feelingly as a second tree flared up, and he blew his whistle.
The point men responded instantly—after all, they were even closer to that oncoming inferno than Kalcyr or Worka. The hundred and the senior sword waited until they were sure everyone had heard the signal, then turned their own unicorns and headed back the way they'd come—rapidly.
Worka knew he'd made the right decision, but he didn't like the implications one bit. He supposed it was remotely possible a random lightning strike out of the cloudless sky might have just happened to start a forest fire in this particular place at this particular time. It wasn't very likely, though. Unfortunately, he couldn't think of any good reason for Fifty Narshu to have been starting any fires. Which meant that if it wasn't the result of some sort of accident—which Worka strongly doubted was the case—someone else must be responsible.
Which probably meant things hadn't gone quite as well as everyone had been assuming, after all.
'Chapter Eight
Acting Commander of Five Hundred Alivar Neshok looked up from the notes transcribed into his personal crystal as two of the troopers assigned to his Intelligence section hustled the latest prisoners into the large room Neshok had taken over for interrogation purposes. The room in question had originally been meant to serve as a secondary armory, as nearly as Neshok could tell. It was part of the same building as their main armory, at least, although it appeared that the fort's garrison must have been awaiting substantially more weapons and ammunition, since it had been empty when the Arcanans occupied it.
The five Sharonians' hands were manacled behind them, and most of them were white-faced, obviously shocked and not a little terrified.
Good, the Intelligence officer thought. Apparently even these barbarians are capable of absorbing object lessons . . . if the lesson's pointed enough, at any rate.
He returned his attention to his crystal, ignoring the prisoners as obviously as possible while the handpicked, carefully instructed guards kicked and cuffed them into position.
Very few of the Sharonian garrison had survived. In fact, only eleven of the Sharonians actually in the fort at the moment of the attack had lived long enough for the healers to reach them. Two of those had died anyway, which was unfortunate. Prisoners represented intelligence, and intelligence was the most deadly weapon of all, especially in a war like this.
And it was Alivar Neshok's task to wring every single drop of information out of these Sharonian scum. Interrogation wasn't always a pretty job, but someone had to do it, and Neshok knew he did it well.
Too many of his colleagues seemed to forget the psychological aspect of interrogation techniques. Probably, Neshok often thought, because they'd basically been nothing but glorified policemen for the better part of two hundred years. There'd been no wars, no true "enemy" personnel to interrogate, since the founding of the Union, after all. For the most part, specialists in Neshok's particular area of expertise had been interrogating brigands, bandits, claim jumpers—the sort of scum who routinely preyed upon society out here in the frontier universes. In the process, they'd gotten lazy. That sort of criminal was hardly trained or motivated to resist questioning the way soldiers were, and the interrogator generally had a pretty detailed idea going in of what he expected to learn. A few basic verifier spells, and the prisoner's knowledge that those spells were in place (and of the consequences of adding perjury to the charge list), were usually enough to get them talking.
It was going to take a little more in a case like this, though, which was why Neshok had designed his prisoners' "preparation" so carefully.
The healers wouldn't let him talk to their patients yet. That was also unfortunate. If he'd had his druthers, Neshok would have interrogated those "patients" before they were ever allowed to see the healers in the first place. Pain and terror were great psychological motivators, after all. But Commander of Five Hundred Dayr Vaynair, Two Thousand Harshu's senior medical officer, had other ideas. He'd gotten up on his high Andaran horse and taken the position that the Kerellian Accords applied even to these people, which made him irritatingly representative of healers in general, in Neshok's experience. Well, Neshok was Andaran, too, but he wasn't about to let the antiquated Andaran "honor code" get in the way of his responsibilities. All very well for Vaynair to stand upon his Healer's Oath without even bothering to hide his contempt for the people charged with securing the information the operational commanders simply had to have. This entire operation had gone so well so far solely because of the activities of people like Alivar Neshok, but did Vaynair recognize that? Did he realize he'd had so few Arcanan patients expressly because Neshok and his Intelligence team had done their jobs so well?
Of course he didn't! He was too occupied with his contempt for the despised Intelligence people's efforts to continue to do their jobs.
Well, we're just going to have to do something about Five Hundred Vaynair, aren't we? Neshok reflected. But not yet. Not until I've had time to build my case, at any rate.
But if Vaynair wasn't going to let him interrogate his precious patients just yet, then Neshok would have to make do with prisoners like these.
So far, the cavalry patrols Thousand Carthos had sent spreading out from the captured fort had swept up over thirty Sharonians who'd been outside the fort at the time of the attack. Most of them had been engaged on the sort of work details any military post had to provide. The tree cover on this side of Hell's Gate was just as bad, from the prospect of aerial operations, as on the other side, which explained why Carthos had been forced to rely on his unicorns to get out under the branches to secure the prisoners. Neshok suspected there were still at least one or two work parties who'd managed to evade the cavalry this far, although the odds of their continuing to do so much longer were slim.
All of the prisoners they'd so far taken had been close enough to see the attack on the fort itself, which meant they'd finally realized that Arcana had combat capabilities which tremendously outclassed their own. They'd seen the dragons, seen the explosions of searing heat as the reds belched their fireballs. They hadn't seen the yellows' gas clouds, but Neshok had made certain they'd seen the consequences of both dragon types' breath weapons. That was why he'd had them marched straight here, across the fort's still-smoldering parade ground into this log building. The Sharonians hadn't peeled the bark off the conifer logs from which all of the fort's buildings had been constructed, and the radiant heat from the fireballs had turned that bark into flaking ash on every wall which had faced the parade ground.
The bodies hadn't been policed up yet, either. They lay where they had fallen, twisted and contorted. Those who'd died of gas inhalation after the second pass of the attack wore expressions of horror and agony. Most of those who'd been killed by the fireballs in the first pass, on the other hand, showed no recognizable expression at all. There wasn't enough left of the shrunken, twisted chunks of charcoal which had once been humans for that.
Now Neshok entered a few notes into his PC. They didn't actually say anything particularly important, but it was one more bit of window dressing, and he gave himself a curt nod of approval, then looked up.
The prisoners knelt in front of him. One of them—a short, wiry fellow kneeling at the left end of the line—reminded Neshok of Hulmok Arthag. That would have been more than enough to inspire the Intelligence officer with a lively sense of dislike, since there wasn't much doubt that whatever had gone wrong at Fallen Timbers, Arthag had almost certainly been at the bottom of it. Worse, though, this fellow wore the four red collar pips of a senior-armsman. That made him roughly the equivalent of a javelin, or possibly even a sword, according to the tentative table of organization Neshok had managed to work out for the Sharonians.
It also meant that he was the senior prisoner, which made his hard eyes and masklike expression unpromising.
&nbs
p; The other four were about as physically diverse as a similar sampling of Arcanan military personnel might have been. One of them—a towering, broad-shouldered, red-haired bear of a man with the two red pips of a petty-armsman, which made him the next senior prisoner—was bigger even than the Sharonian diplomat, Simrath. The other three ranged in height between the big petty-armsman and the Arthag-like senior-armsman.
"Well," Neshok said finally, relying upon a translating crystal to render his words in fluent, idiomatic Ternathian, "I do hope you . . . gentlemen are prepared to be reasonable."
None of the prisoners said anything, and Neshok allowed himself a slight frown as their faces hardened defiantly.
"Now, I suppose you may be feeling heroic," he continued. "Of course, that would be a particularly stupid thing for you to do, under the circumstances. I'm sure that what you saw on your way across what used to be your fort has already suggested as much." He smiled thinly. "It isn't going to be very long before we move on to your next fort—in Thermyn, I believe you call it? And after that, we'll be continuing on up-chain. We won't be getting all the way to Sharona this time, of course. But by the time your reinforcements can get here, we'll be in position to run right over them before they even know what's happening."
He smiled again, even more coldly.
"You've seen what we did to your precious fort," he said. "I assure you, your portal fortifications were even less effective. So just what do you people think is going to happen when our dragons catch your reinforcement columns in the open, without any protection at all?"
Two of the prisoners' faces had crumbled as Neshok spoke. They had no way of knowing how vastly the Intelligence officer had overstated the ease with which chan Tesh's positions had been taken. Nor could they possibly know he'd just expended almost his entire store of knowledge about what Two Thousand Harshu's expeditionary force was likely to run into on its way up-chain. All they knew was that he seemed to be well informed, already. The big redhead, and the wiry little senior-armsman, on the other hand, appeared less impressed. The smaller man's expression showed no reaction at all—which, of course, was a reaction in its own right. But his taller companion seemed to be less adept at concealing his reactions. His eyes narrowed, his mouth tightened, and his shoulders squared.
