Hell's Gate

Chapter Forty-Nine

Hadrign Thalmayr lay rigidly on his side on the white-sheeted bed in the airy, sunlit room. His eyes were screwed tightly shut, beads of sweat stood out on his forehead, and his fists were clenched so tightly that his nails had cut bleeding crescents into his palms.

The breeze through the open window moved gently, almost caressingly across him. He could hear the distant but unmistakable sounds of a drill field: voices shouting orders in a foreign language, whistles shrilling at irregular intervals, the occasional clatter of weapons as troops went through their own version of the manual of arms, and the deep-voiced sound of drill formations counting cadence. The air was cool, the distant background noise?deeply familiar to any professional soldier, despite the fact that he couldn't understand a single word of the orders he overheard?only made the quiet around him even more soothing, and he could almost literally physically feel the relaxing, comforting peacefulness which had settled over this place.

It was all reassuringly calm and normal … and its very normality only made his terror and helpless rage still worse.

The man sitting in the chair beside his bed spoke again, in that same utterly incomprehensible, comforting voice, but Thalmayr wasn't fooled. He squeezed his eyelids even more tightly together and bit his lip, welcoming the pain of the bite as it helped them summon all of his resistance while that insidious, loathsome touch slid once again across the surface of his mind.

It took all he could do not to moan or whimper in terror. He called up all of his hatred, all of his fear and disgust, to bolster his defiance, but it was hard. Hard.

He never knew exactly how long it lasted this time. Sometimes the man behind that lying, soothing voice stayed longer; sometimes he gave up sooner, and left. But he always came back, Thalmayr thought despairingly. And he always would come back, again and again. Until, finally, he managed to breach his victim's defenses at last, and the mere thought of what would happen then filled Hadrign Thalmayr with horror.

But eventually, finally, his tormentor gave up … this time. The commander of one hundred lay rigidly still, refusing to move or even open his eyes until he was positive the other man had truly left. That he wasn't just waiting, lurking above the bed like a vulture.

He lay there for a long time, then slowly and cautiously let his eyes slip back open. The chair beside the bed was empty, and he heaved a tremendous sigh of relief and finally allowed himself to relax, at least a bit.

He wanted to roll over onto his back, but the sandbags holding him on his side prevented it. Which, he admitted, was just as well, given the incision across his spine.

His teeth clenched again as he thought about that wound and all the pain their so-called "healers" had inflicted upon him. Butchers?barbarians! He'd been right about them all along, and he cursed Sir Jasak Olderhan in vicious mental silence as he remembered the other hundred's precious "shardonai."

I should've fed the pair of them to the nearest godsdamned dragon! he thought savagely. Them and all their fucking friends!

He'd long since figured out that that sneaky little bitch with her bruised face and pitiful "poor me" eyes had somehow managed to get a message out to her butchering friends. He still didn't know how, but the way they'd flung her name at him again and again in their questioning proved she had … and the way they kept battering at his own mind suggested several ugly possibilities as to how she had.

The whole time that fucking idiot Olderhan was standing there 'protecting her,' she was busy telling her friends where we were and how to come find us and kill us! It's the only way they could've known she was still alive!

His molars ground together. It was all her fault. She was the one who'd brought the attack in on Thalmayr's command. It wasn't his fault. There was no way he could possibly have known what the little bitch was doing, that she'd managed to bring an entire godsdamned regiment down on him! If it hadn't been for her, his men would still be alive. Magister Halathyn would still be alive.

And Hadrign Thalmayr wouldn't be the half-paralyzed prisoner of the butchers who'd started all of this by massacring that brainless incompetent Olderhan's men in the first place. The butchers who'd somehow transported him over what had to be hundreds, if not thousands, of miles without his remembering a single thing about the journey. The butchers who cut open the flesh of helpless captives in some obscene pretense of trying to "help them," and then, when they were weakened by the pain, tried to rape away any useful information in their minds.

Well, they might break him in the end. Any man could be broken by enough torture, enough cruelty, and he had no way of knowing what other, even more horrendous powers of mental destruction they might yet be able to bring to bear upon him. But they wouldn't find it easy. He swore that to himself yet again, repeating it like a precious mantra of defiance, while despair poured over him with the gentle, soothing breeze.

"Frankly, Sir," Company-Captain Golvar Silkash said, "I'm at a loss." The Healers' Corps officer shook his head, his eyes unhappy. "I've done all I can, and Tobis is still trying, but I've never had a patient with this man's attitude. I just don't know what else we can do to get through to him."

Namir Velvelig grunted unhappily. It wasn't the first time Silkash had reported the same things to him, but the regiment-captain kept hoping that somehow, some way, something would change. But it didn't, of course, he thought moodily, playing with the mug of tea on his desk. Silkash had a matching mug in his left hand, but the Healer had been ignoring it ever since he sat down.

"Is Tobis right, do you think?" he asked.

"What? About the man having at least a trace of Talent of his own?"

"Yes. Could that be what's going on?"

"I suppose it could," Silkash said with a grimace. "Tobis knows a lot more about that sort of thing than I do, but I think even he's shooting blind on this one. We just plain don't have any experience with people who've never even heard of Talents!"

Velvelig grunted again, gazing out his window, where the steadily setting sun sank slowly behind the Sky Bloods, as if he imagined he could somehow find the answers he needed out there in the bronze and copper glow gilding the mountains. Company-Captain Silkash was the finest surgeon and medical doctor with whom Namir Velvelig had ever had the pleasure of serving. But, unlike the majority of the Healers' Corps's commissioned officers?or Platoon-Captain Tobis Makree, his assistant surgeon, for that matter?he had no Talent at all. That put Silkash at a distinct disadvantage when it came to trying to analyze the Arcanan prisoner's reaction to Makree's Healing Talent. And, as Silkash had just pointed out, no one had ever had to deal with a patient who didn't even know what the Healing Talent was!

"How's chan Tergis coming with their language, Sir?" Silkash asked, as much for a frustrated change of subject as out of genuine curiosity, and Velvelig grunted yet a third time. It was remarkable, the surgeon reflected, just how expressive his CO's grunts could actually be, and he wondered if all Arpathians were like that. Velvelig's first grunt had expressed unhappiness; the second had expressed both agreement and frustration; and the third had expressed frustration and anger. Which, now that Silkash thought about it, was a logical enough progression whenever it came to dealing with these maddening "Arcanans," whether collectively or as individuals.

"Not well," the regiment-captain amplified after a moment. "We're keeping him so damned busy relaying messages up-chain from chan Baskay and chan Tesh that he really doesn't have a whole lot of time to devote to the project. And even when he does, he's running into the same sort of non-cooperation Tobis seems to be encountering with this Thalmayr idiot."

The regiment-captain paused, then forced himself to be fair.

"I suppose, if I'd been captured?especially after the sort of massacre these people got put through?I wouldn't be in any hurry to cooperate with my jailers, either. After all, they're probably as imbued as our own people with the idea that it's their duty to refuse to give the enemy any useful information. And despite the total incompetence of their commander, it's obvious these are elite troops."

"If you say so, Sir," Silkash said dubiously. Velvelig raised an eyebrow at him, and the surgeon shrugged. "I know I've only seen them since they got here, but they don't exactly look like 'elite troops' to me."

"No?" Velvelig gazed at him speculatively, then snorted. "They seem a bit demoralized to you, do they? Sullen? Uncooperative? Silently resentful?"

"Yes, Sir. All of those." Silkash cocked his head to one side. "Why?"

"Because that's exactly the reaction I'd expect out of elite troops who'd suffered the sort of pounding these men survived. Think about it, Silky. From chan Tesh's reports, it's obvious they never even suspected we could fire on them through a portal. Their CO?such as he was, and what there was of him?went down in the first volley, which decapitated their entire command structure. The mortar rounds coming in on them must've been the most terrifying thing they'd ever experienced. chan Tesh was massacring them?literally?and they couldn't even shoot back. So how did they react?"

Silkash's perplexity was obvious, and Velvelig waved his tea mug for impatient emphasis.

"They charged, Silky. They came out of their fortifications, got up out of their protective holes under fire?which is harder than hells for anyone to do, trust me?and they charged straight into the fire that was killing them." He shook his head. "Whatever we may think of what they did to the Chalgyn crew, and however stupidly they may have been commanded when chan Tesh hit them, these men were magnificent soldiers. In fact, I'll absolutely guarantee you that that idiot Thalmayr didn't have a thing to do with training them. Not these men. They were so much better than he was that there's no comparison. And that's exactly why so many of them got killed. Instead of turning around and running away, instead of breaking, they charged in an almost certainly spontaneous effort to get their own weapons into action on the far side of the portal. It's probably the bloody-minded septman in me, but I'm prepared to forgive men for a lot when they show that kind of guts."

"I guess I hadn't thought about it quite that way," Silkash admitted after a moment.

"No, I didn't think you had. But it also explains a lot about their present attitude, I imagine. These men weren't used to the idea that they could be beaten. They expected to win. And if they were going to lose, they never would have believed that anyone could have simply … wiped them out for the loss of barely half a dozen men on the other side. They're smart enough to have figured out that it was because they were up against weapons they had no experience fighting and had an idiot for a CO, but that's an intellectual understanding, not an emotional one. It doesn't get down inside a soldier's guts and heart where his belief in himself lives. Defeat is one thing for an elite unit at that level; abject, humiliating, total defeat is something else again. So they're bitter, ashamed, and convinced that they've failed their country, their honor, and themselves. But instead of simply collapsing, what have they done?

"They've dug in and refused to cooperate with us in any way, that's what they've done," Velvelig continued, once again answering his own question. "Maybe, in time?and especially if these negotiations actually go somewhere?that may change. I've been trying to help that change along; that's why I've been so insistent on our men treating them not just correctly, but with dignity. In the meantime, though, I'm not surprised by their attitude."

"Now that you've got me thinking in the same direction, neither am I," Silkash conceded. "But Tobis is probably right that their lack of familiarity with Talented people is also a factor. First, because they don't have a clue what chan Tergis is trying to accomplish, which sort of automatically precludes the possibility of cooperating, even if they wanted to. And, second, because if any of them do have a touch of Talent of their own, they might well react the same way Thalmayr is."

"Probably," Velvelig agreed. "Which, I'm afraid, brings us back to Thalmayr." The Arpathian's lips twisted briefly with all of the contempt he refused to feel for Thalmayr's unfortunate subordinates. "Just what is his prognosis?"

"Physically?" Silkash shrugged. "I can understand why Petty-Captain chan Rodair sent him on to us here at Fort Ghartoun, but I really wish he hadn't. For several reasons."

"Such as?"

"As much as I've grown to dislike the man, Sir, I'm a Healer. My Healer's Oath requires me to treat any patient with compassion and respect, and to offer him the very best treatment possible. That's why chan Rodair wanted him here at Ghartoun, because he thought the damage to Thalmayr's spine might be amenable to surgical intervention. Well, he was wrong. For that matter, I was wrong when I first examined the man. I think it may have been because I wanted so badly for chan Rodair to have been right, but that doesn't change the fact that we were both wrong. So we subjected him to a completely unnecessary?and useless?operation. That's bad enough, but even worse, whatever it is that's causing him to be so resistant to Tobis' efforts to get at his mental and emotional traumas is also hampering our efforts at pain management. So we've inflicted that additional suffering on him, as well."

"That's hardly your fault," Velvelig said. "You were doing the best you could for him, under very difficult circumstances."

"Oh, I know that, Sir. And so does Tobis. The problem is, I rather doubt Thalmayr does. And it doesn't change our responsibilities towards him, either."

"Well, we already knew the man was an idiot," Velvelig said comforting way. "No reason he shouldn't be an idiot about that, too, I suppose."

"I hadn't … quite looked at it that way, Sir." Silkash found that he was experiencing an unanticipated difficulty not smiling.

"Then you should. But I noticed that you prefaced your remarks by referring to his physical recovery. So, how do his mental and emotional prospects shape up?"

"It's really hard to be sure about that when our Talented Healer can't even reach the man. Still, as near as Tobis can tell, he's at least managed to divert Thalmayr's drive towards suicide."

"Which even Thalmayr should admit is a positive step!" Velvelig snorted.

"Assuming that he gives Tobis credit for it, yes, Sir. Of course, if he doesn't understand what Tobis is doing in the first place, he probably doesn't."

"No, I'm sure he doesn't," Velvelig said glumly. "You know, I really wish Prince Janaki hadn't brought us this particular guest."

"At least dropping him off with us helped get the Prince out of the combat zone, Sir. That's got to be a plus, however you look at it."

"It certainly does." Velvelig sipped more tea, gazing ruminatively out the window once more. The sun was almost gone, he noticed, leaving the mountain summits etched dark and black, looming against the afterglow. He was going to have to light the lamps, he thought.

"If you don't mind my asking, Sir," Silkash said out of the gathering dimness after a moment, "you mentioned how busy chan Tergis is passing messages back up-chain. How well are the negotiations going?"

"I don't mind your asking, but if I had the answer to that, I wouldn't be a regiment-captain sitting out here at the ass-end of nowhere," Velvelig said dryly. "I'd be making my fortune as a Precog back home."

He drank a little more tea, set his mug back down on the desktop, got out a box of matches. He lit the lamps, replaced the glass chimneys and adjusted the wicks, then tipped his chair back and folded his hands behind his head.

"chan Baskay and Rothag are still convinced these people are lying about entirely too many things for my peace of mind," he admitted. "What bothers me most about it isn't that diplomats … shade the truth. Gods know, they do that back home whenever they can, and if our diplomats didn't have Talents on the other side to keep them honest, they'd probably do a lot more of it. But if they're as urgently interested in negotiating some sort of permanent cease-fire as they claim to be, then I'd think they should have a lot more incentive to be at least forthcoming, if not completely honest. But they haven't really given us a lot more information. They seem almost obsessed with the little stuff, the fine details about how we're supposed to go about negotiating, rather than more substantive questions like what we're supposed to be negotiating about. And I don't much care for the attitude their military escort seems to be showing. There've been a couple of potentially ugly incidents already."

"What sort of incidents, Sir?"

"That's just it, they're the stupid kind. People who take umbrage or even insult from innocent remarks. Or people who insult our people, apparently by accident. Three times now, this Skirvon of theirs has suggested postponements in the talks themselves in order to 'let tempers cool.' I'm not there, of course, but I'm inclined to back chan Baskay's view. I think their troopers are actually under orders to provoke incidents as a deliberate delaying tactic and I've said as much in my own reports up-chain."

"But why would they be doing that, Sir?" Silkash's puzzlement showed.

"That's what neither chan Baskay nor I can understand," Velvelig admitted. "Logically, if all they want to do is waste our time, then why talk to us at all?"

"So you don't have any idea why they might be doing it?"

"Actually, chan Baskay's come up with one possible explanation that sort of makes sense. After all, one of the reasons we haven't pressed them harder is the delay in message turnaround between here and Sharona. We don't know exactly how these people communicate over long distances, but if they don't have Talents, they obviously don't have Voices. They may use this magic of theirs to do the same sort of things our Voices can do, but they may also have to physically transport messages, as well, and chan Baskay's suggested that their communications loop may well be even longer than ours. He thinks this Skirvon may be trying to kick grit into the works to slow things down until he can get definite orders?or maybe even until a more senior diplomat can arrive at Hell's Gate with official instructions from home about exactly what they are and aren't willing to settle for when it comes to possession of the cluster."

"And they're bothering to talk with us in the meantime because??"

"I'm not sure, although I suppose it's possible they want to make sure we don't press on with our own exploration beyond the swamp portal. From Voice Kinlafia's Portal Sniffing, we know their entry portal for that universe isn't very close to the swamp portal, but that's really all we know. They might have some particularly important installation or colony much closer to it than that, and they might be trying to divert us from any exploration in its direction."

Velvelig shrugged, clearly unhappy with his own hypothesis.

"I don't say that's the only explanation. It's just the only one I can come up with. And, at least while we're negotiating, we're not shooting anymore. So, in some ways, it's as much to our advantage as to theirs to just keep right on talking. Besides," he grinned suddenly, "it gives us some time to get a 'real diplomat' in here to relieve poor chan Baskay!"

Commander of Two Thousand Mayrkos Harshu looked up from the paperwork in his PC as someone rapped gently and respectfully at the frame of his office doorway. His dark, intense eyes focused like a hunting gryphon on the officer standing in the open door. Then he laid his sarkolis crystal stylus on his blotter, much the way another man might have sheathed a sword.

"Enter," he said, and acting Commander of Five Hundred Alivar Neshok obeyed.

"I assume you're here for the afternoon briefing?" Harshu said, raising his eyebrows, and Neshok nodded.

"Yes, Sir, I am. May I go ahead and set up for it?"

"Of course you can, Five Hundred," Harshu said testily. "Unless my memory fails, that's why you're here, isn't it?"

The two thousand had a near-fetish for not "wasting time." Especially with what he considered pointless, unnecessary questions. Of course, he also had a reputation for cutting people off at the knees if they made mistakes because they were too stupid or too lazy to ask questions. Which could make things rather … difficult upon occasion.

"Yes, Sir," Neshok said, and moved quickly, uncasing his own crystal and bringing it swiftly on-line. He Felt Two Thousand Harshu's impatient eyes on him while he made his preparations, but he found them far less intimidating than some of his fellow officers did. He had an even more powerful patron of his own, after all. Besides, he was far too well aware of the opportunities of his present assignment to worry about the two thousand's famed temper tantrums.

And that asshole Olderhan probably thought he'd spiked my career with his godsdamned shardonai, the acting five hundred thought with a mental sneer. Gods! He's even stupider than Two Thousand mul Gurthak told me he was.

Neshok hadn't enjoyed the reaming-out mul Gurthak had given him in front of Olderhan and the two diplomats. Nobody would have, and he'd labored under the additional suspicion that mul Gurthak intended to leave him swinging in the wind if Olderhan lodged any formal protests about Neshok's behavior when he got back to Garth Showma. But he'd wronged the two thousand. mul Gurthak had simply been covering his own back, and Neshok's brevet promotion to his present rank and his assignment as Two Thousand Harshu's senior intelligence analyst was sufficient proof of mul Gurthak's continuing confidence in him.

And if it hadn't been for Olderhan's insistence on extending shardon to that arrogant little bitch and her husband?and 'Magister Kelbryan's' backing him up?the two thousand's plan would have worked, he reflected. We didn't know she'd already managed to learn a civilized language, but that only would've made it easier to get her to talk. She'd damned well have told me anything I wanted her to by the time I got through with her.

He let the fingertips of one hand brush the unsleeping eye insignia of the Intelligence Corps on his collar. He'd taken that off, at mul Gurthak's instructions, before he ever went to "greet" Olderhan and his prisoners. Aping the part of a line officer hadn't been all that difficult, however distasteful it might have been, and the two thousand had hoped a fellow line officer might have found it easier to separate Olderhan from his prisoners. And once they'd been separated and "administratively lost" somewhere at Fort Talon, it would all have turned out to have been a completely honest case of confused orders at a junior officer's level. Most unfortunate, of course, but just one of those things. Neshok had never doubted that Olderhan would have been furious, even if he'd gotten his prisoners back with only minor damage, but his own Intelligence superiors would have been quick to protect him, if only behind the scenes, if he'd managed to extract vital information first.

Well, that hadn't happened, but mul Gurthak clearly recognized the debt he owed Neshok for having made the attempt. That was why he'd been promoted and assigned to his present duty, which should allow him to acquire at least as many career points with his superiors.

And one of these days, I'll be in a position to give that smug, sanctimonious prick Olderhan exactly what he fucking well deserves, he thought viciously. Yet even as he thought it, he felt a tingle of remembered fear as he recalled the cold, fleering contempt in Sir Jasak Olderhan's dark eyes. And the fact that Olderhan's precious Second Andaran Scouts flunkies had actually been willing to take on his entire detachment if he'd so much as laid a finger on that little bitch.

He pushed the thought aside with a fresh promise of vengeance … and wished he could push aside the memory of a crackling corona of combat magic ready to strike and the steely-cold promise in Gadrial Kelbryan's lethal almond eyes, as well. Unfortunately …

Behind him, Two Thousand Harshu cleared his throat in his patented "get on with it" style, and Neshok shook himself free of his brooding thoughts.

"Beg pardon, Sir," he said. "I'm ready, now."

"Good." Harshu's tone added an unspoken "and it's about time," and Neshok ordered the office's spellware to dim the lights. Then he tapped his PC with the stylus, and a moving, living image glowed into being above Harshu's desk. The fidgeting two thousand stopped fidgeting instantly, as his fiercely intelligent eyes darted from place to place, carefully comparing the present image to the ones he'd seen before. As always, once the keen intellect behind those eyes had a fresh task to engage it, most of the affected impatience and hyperactivity disappeared quickly.

"As you can see, Sir, we're still getting very good imagery," he began.

"Yes, we are," Harshu agreed thoughtfully. "In fact, are we sure they don't know we are?" His eyes darted up from the small moving images of Sharonian soldiers to impale Neshok. "Could they possibly be setting all this up to show us what they want us to see?"

"No, Sir," Neshok said confidently, then snorted. "They're still pulling every boat up onto the island and turning it keel-up before they let anyone cross over into Hell's Gate." The Arcanans had adopted the Sharonian name for their contact universe. After all, as the Sharonian diplomat, Simrath, had pointed out at the time, it was grimly appropriate for both sides. "It's obvious Master Skirvon's observation is correct. The stupid, superstitious barbarians don't have a clue how magic works, so they aren't taking any chances … they think."

"It might not be a bad idea," Harshu said almost pleasantly, his eyes returning to the images before him, "to spend a little less time patting ourselves on our backs for cleverness and a little more time making certain we aren't underestimating the other side."

"Yes, Sir. Point taken," Neshok said just a bit more crisply. Harshu's notoriously short fuse with subordinates who he thought had screwed up might be as carefully cultivated as other parts of his reputation. Still, the stories about what had happened to people who'd really screwed up or ugly enough to dissuade even Neshok from relying upon his Intelligence patrons' protection.

"What I meant to say, Sir," he continued, "is that, as you know, we went to considerable lengths to convince them that the spell accumulators for the boats have to be attached to the keels. They haven't even looked inside the flotation tank under the after thwart, which?in the opinion of my staff and myself?strongly indicates that they don't have any idea we've hidden the real movement accumulator in there. And because they're still turning the boats upside down as a security measure, they're giving the recon crystals attached to their bottoms a three-hundred-sixty-degree field of view. It's not as good in terms of flexibility and total reach as we'd get if we could actually move them around, or as good as what a gryphon pass with an RC could give us, and their actual bivouac area is outside our zone from where the beach the boats. In other ways, though, it's actually better. The RC is close enough to get a good look at their fieldworks and their deployments, and it just sits there, which gives us an excellent opportunity to eavesdrop on anything they're saying within its scan area, as well."

Harshu glanced at him again, then nodded in grudgingly approving acceptance.

"Although the boat-mounted RCs never move," Neshok continued more confidently, "we have managed six RC walk-throughs." He smiled thinly. "Sending Master Skirvon's escort in dress uniform was a brilliant idea, Sir. I wish I'd thought of it myself." It never hurt to show a superior officer you knew how to give a subordinate credit for good ideas … especially when the superior officer in question already knew the idea in question had come from a subordinate. "They'd never seen our dress uniforms, so they didn't have any reason to suspect that the crystal mounted on that ridiculous horsehair crest on Fifty Narshu's helmet is actually a reconnaissance device, not just a particularly tasteless bit of decoration.

"At any rate, everything Narshu's RC has picked up only confirms what we're getting from the boat RCs."

"I see." Harshu frowned thoughtfully, leaning his folded forearms on his desk. "And is there confirmation about these two?" He twitched his head at the two Sharonians under the canvas sunshade at one end of the portal.

"Yes, Sir." Neshok nodded. "We're still not certain how they do what they're apparently doing, but thanks to the translation software Master Skirvon and Two Thousand mul Gurthak provided, we've definitely confirmed from their conversation and the chatter of their buddies that they're some sort of lookouts. And we've also confirmed that whatever it is they're doing, they can't do it through a portal any more than we could cast a spell through one. They rotate around the end of the portal on a quite rigid schedule, apparently to clear the blind spot the portal creates for them. We've watched them for days now, and they never deviate by more than a very few minutes from their set timing."

"I wish we had managed to determine exactly what it is they're doing," Harshu mused, and Neshok nodded.

"So do I, Sir, but there's just no way of guessing how these 'Talents' of theirs work. From what we've been able to overhear, it sounds as if the Talent this one is using?" he indicated the smaller of the two Sharonians "?works sort of like one of our scrying spells. It isn't the same, obviously. For one thing, they don't need a crystal to gather the image. And, for another, they appear to be able to sweep a general volume, rather than needing to know exactly where whatever they're trying to observe is within that volume. And, for a third thing?and we're not certain about this one, Sir; it's based on a couple of fairly cryptic remarks we've overheard and translated?he appears to be limited to the ability to detect living creatures."

"I suppose that could make sense," Harshu said thoughtfully. "If these Talents of theirs are all some kind of weird mental powers, then perhaps what they're picking up on is some sort of vibration or mental wave. Wouldn't get much of that off of a rock, I imagine."

"No, Sir."

"And you've managed to confirm their detection range, have you?" Harshu inquired.

"Ah, no, Sir," Neshok admitted. Harshu slanted his eyes sideways, looking back up at the acting five hundred, and Neshok grimaced. "So far, they haven't actually referred to their maximum range?not, at least, where any of our RCs have overheard them."

"That's not so good to hear, Five Hundred," Harshu observed. "It could have a rather significant effect on our military options, don't you agree?"

"Yes, Sir." Neshok refocused his own attention on the display rather than continuing to meet Harshu's gaze. Then he cleared his throat.

"Actually, Sir, we do have at least an approximation. Or perhaps I should say a bottom limit at which we know they can't 'see' us."

Harshu unfolded his arms and made a "go on" gesture with his right hand.

"As you know, Sir, we've been taking pains to conceal the existence of our dragons from them. And while I'm on the subject, Sir, the recorded take from the boat RCs confirms that they've never even dreamed about any sort of aerial capability for themselves and don't seen to have a clue that we have one." Which, he didn't add aloud, just confirms what utter barbarians they are, doesn't it? "Apparently they'd been wondering for some time how we got people in and out from the Second Andarans' base camp through all that muck and mire. Now that they've seen our boats, they think they know."

"Well, that's certainly good to hear."

"Yes, Sir. It is. And the fact that they don't know about dragons or gryphons clearly indicates that their lookouts haven't 'seen' our diplomats or their escort being flown in. We've been landing our people on an islet about forty miles from the portal and sending them the rest of the way in from there in the boats. Partly, that was because we needed an excuse to get the boats' RCs right up to the portal. But, just as importantly, we wanted to keep our dragons safely out of sight. We hadn't realized at the time that they had whatever kind of Talent this lookout of theirs is using?somehow Hundred Olderhan's shardon neglected to mention its existence to us, for some odd reason?but Master Skirvon and Five Hundred Klian agreed that it would be best to err on the side of caution. Fortunately, it would appear.

"At any rate, at forty miles, they haven't seen our people arriving. If they had, I'm positive someone would have remarked on it by now where our RCs could hear it. That both suggests that the dragons have remained safely unknown to them, and gives us a limit?forty miles?beyond which we ought to be safe from detection."

"Forty miles," Harshu murmured. "Call it thirty minutes for a dragon?twenty minutes, minimum."

"Yes, Sir. On the other hand, as I say, that's a minimum safe distance. His actual range for spotting us may be quite a bit shorter than that."

"And it may not be, too," Harshu replied tartly.

"No, Sir. As you say," Neshok agreed. "On the other hand, there is one other point." He paused until the two thousand looked at him again, then shrugged very slightly. "From a couple of things our RCs have overheard, while this fellow appears to be able to … sweep, for want of a better term, an entire volume, and while we don't really know how large a volume that is, it would seem that he does have to define the volume pretty carefully. We've watched him while he's doing whatever it is he's doing, and he sits very still, with his eyes closed, but his head turns slowly from side to side, as if he's looking at something behind his eyelids."

"And?" Harshu prompted.

"And he never tilts his head back, Sir."

Harshu frowned at him for a moment, and then the two thousand's eyes narrowed slightly.

"So you're suggesting that since they don't know about dragons, he's not looking up, just out?"

"That's what I think he's doing, Sir," Neshok said, and this time he chose not to mention that it was one of his noncommissioned analysts who'd actually first spotted the Sharonian lookout's head movements. "If they don't have any flight capability of their own, it would make a lot of sense for them to be concentrating on surface threats. After all, they wouldn't know there was any other kind, would they?"

"No, they wouldn't," Harshu agreed slowly.

His eyes were focused on something else, something only he could see, and they stayed that way for the better part of two minutes. Then they refocused on Neshok.

"Anything else? Anything new?" he asked.

"That's most of the new information, Sir. I've prepared a complete download for you, of course. Shall I transfer the file to your PC?"

"Yes, go ahead."

"Yes, Sir."

Neshok arranged the transfer with brisk efficiency. As he did, he noticed the headers for the documents Harshu had been working on when he arrived. Troop strengths and arrival schedules, the acting five hundred noted without very much surprise.

"There you are, Sir," he said as the little icon that indicated the file transfers were complete appeared in both crystals.

"Thank you." Harshu considered him for a moment or two, then nodded. "Aside from a certain tendency to denigrate the enemy, that was an excellent brief, Five Hundred," he said. "Keep up the good work … and try like hell not to let the fact that you dislike these people lead you into making the sorts of mistakes contempt produces. Am I clear?"

"Yes, Sir! You are, Sir!" Neshok said, bracing quickly to attention.

"Good. Carry on, Five Hundred."

"Yes, Sir."

Neshok turned with rather more than normal military precision and marched out of Harshu's office. The compliment on the quality of his work had felt good … which, of course, only made the sting of Harshu's admonition sharper.

Well, the two thousand was good at that sort of thing. It was one of his hallmarks. Everybody got a zinger from him every so often, Neshok reminded himself; far fewer got the compliment which had gone in front of this one.

He decided to concentrate on that as he stepped out onto the Fort Rycharn parade ground.

Rycharn wasn't much of a fort, he thought. About right for that broken down ass-kisser Klian to command. At the moment, though, it was crowded to the bursting point and beyond by the scores of dragons thronging its improvised dragonfield. There were more transports than Neshok had ever seen in one place in his entire life. The heavy transports' cargo pods were parked as neatly as possible around the field's perimeter, but there wasn't room to be very neat about it. The tactical transports and the battle dragons were based on the western side of the field, as far away from the fort's palisade and the troop encampments as they could get. Three of Two Thousand mul Gurthak's planned four reinforcement waves had arrived already, and the fourth was due within the next week.

And what happens then, I wonder? Neshok mused, listening to the sounds of the immensely overcrowded encampment. Everybody's still being very careful to insist that no final decision's been made yet. I wonder just how true that actually is?

He snorted wryly at the thought. From what mul Gurthak had said to him in his own private briefing before he was sent out here, especially about the importance of not allowing the enemy to tighten his grip on Hell's Gate even further, he was fairly certain what the Fort Talon commander had in mind. Of course, he could be wrong, and even if he wasn't, circumstances might have changed?depending on what Skirvon and Dastiri had been able to accomplish diplomatically?since Neshok had been sent forward himself. And there was also the problem that Harshu was the commander actually on the spot. mul Gurthak couldn't push Harshu too hard without being rather more direct than Neshok was pretty sure the Mythalan two thousand wanted to be.

Which, of course, is the reason he sent me out here, isn't it? A military commander's decisions are always based on the intelligence available to him. Which means that the fellow who provides him with that information has a better chance than most to … shape his probable command decisions.

Commander of Five Hundred (Acting) Alivar Neshok smiled thinly as he gazed out across the ranks of dragons, the cargo pods, the white canvas tents of the waiting troopers, and the rows of field-dragons lined up so neatly in the artillery parks, and reflected upon the influence which had come to rest in his hands. It was a heavy responsibility, he told himself. One which had to be discharged carefully, thoughtfully.

And the fact that it put him in a position to help kick that sanctimonious, cowardly son-of-a-bitch Olderhan's gutless plans to just hand the biggest, most important portal cluster in history over to the enemy right in the balls was totally beside the point.