The Road to Hell

Chapter Twenty-Nine

January 24

Commander of One Thousand Tayrgal Carthos snarled behind his goggles as his command dragon spiraled earthward. The pilot was too busy looking down to notice Carthos’ expression and there were no other passengers to see it, since he’d deliberately flown ahead of the main body of his once independent command. His subordinates could oversee the rest of the movement, and he’d decided it would be better for him to meet Mayrkos Harshu with as few witnesses as possible. He doubted the upcoming interview would do anything to improve his relations with the AEF’s commander, whatever happened, and it might be wise to not have any of his subordinates or aides where they might inadvertently offer…unfortunate responses to questions. Better to get the lay of the land so he could brief them on how best to characterize their independent operations in the Nairsom-Kelsayr chain.

Their abortive independent operations, he thought bitterly. He remained far from certain why Harshu had diverted him to that long, roundabout advance, but however hard he’d tried, he’d been unable to think of a single good reason for it. There’d never been any real point from a strategic perspective, even if he’d managed to secure every universe from Nairsom to Kelsayr, given the water gap in Traisum itself. Without ships, getting across the Treybus Ocean-especially in winter! — would have been flatly impossible, even assuming they had managed to take the entire chain and been able to maintain a supply line through it. That had been obvious to Carthos from the moment he’d received his orders.

But it had to have been equally evident to Harshu before the two thousand sent him off anyway, and he’d never provided the support a serious advance through four universes would have required. In fact, he’d proceeded to starve Carthos of even minimal supplies on the pretext that his own advance required everything the AATC could haul. If not that excuse, he would’ve found another, Carthos thought with a fresh surge of anger. He was sure of it, the only question in his mind was why Harshu had shoved him down a useless rathole and then jammed a cork into it behind him.

They’d never liked each other, but this went further than that. He’d pushed Carthos aside, cut him out of any hope for glory, and picked that Air Force prick Toralk to share the spotlight with him. And there’d been something else, something in Harshu’s manner that went beyond anything so simple as dislike. It got a lot closer to scorn, possibly even contempt, and Carthos had found himself wondering if Harshu had somehow discovered the financial transactions between himself and the Mythalan banking interests. The ones Nith mul Gurthak had helped arrange.

It wasn’t as if Tayrgal Carthos were the only Army officer to have skated around the edges of legally allowable loan agreements, but he’d dipped far deeper into those prohibited waters than the majority of his fellows. Worse, the fact that he had gave mul Gurthak a degree of leverage that was…unfortunate. Carthos would have shed no tears over any unpleasantness which befell these Sharonian bastards under any circumstances, but mul Gurthak had made it clear he wanted the gloves to come completely off from the very beginning. Carthos knew the same suggestions had been made to Harshu himself, but mul Gurthak had been more subtle-or perhaps cautious-in the way he’d approached his fellow two thousand. In many ways, Carthos had enjoyed watching the Mythalan manipulate Harshu, maneuver him into deciding on his own to give Alivar Neshok his head. However little Carthos might like dancing to mul Gurthak’s tune himself, seeing a man he detested-and who he knew detested him in return-abandon his high and mighty principles and unknowingly put his entire career into the hands of someone like mul Gurthak had been gratifying.

The fact that his own career was already in mul Gurthak’s hands had been a less pleasing thought, and the Mythalan had been less delicate in his approach to Carthos. His “suggestions” had amounted to scarcely veiled orders delivered outside official channels, and while Carthos would have been inclined in the same direction himself, there’d been no question about how far mul Gurthak wanted him to go. Nor had there been any question about what mul Gurthak intended to happen to Harshu in the end. Carthos didn’t know why the Mythalan had decided to destroy Mayrkos Harshu, but he’d recognized the noose tightening around the other officer.

Harshu had appeared oblivious to the threat, but over the last month or so, Carthos had begun to wonder if he truly had been. If he hadn’t, if he’d seen this coming all along, and if he’d realized Carthos was effectively mul Gurthak’s creature…

The dragon spiraled lower, the flat, brown terrain below taking on texture, and the sheer, knife-sharp cliffs of the portal located near where the Shendisfalian city of Tayrmek ought to be rose before them. Carthos tightened his seat belt for the landing and worked on getting his expression under control. Whatever Harshu’s reason for diverting him from the main advance, the arrogant bastard had changed his mind after his own operations turned into an unmitigated cluster fuck. His losses in the thoroughly bitched up assault on Fort Salby had compelled him to recall Carthos, but the tone of his orders had scarcely been anything one might call cordial. No, whatever else happened, Tayrgal Carthos hadn’t been summoned to Karys to give him an opportunity to shine. Somehow-he wasn’t sure how, but he was certain Harshu would find a way-he’d be shoved aside again, denied the chance to acquire any credit.

Yet there might be a bright spot after all, he told himself, leaning back as the dragon’s powerful legs reached for the ground. Given how completely Harshu had fucked up, his own relief was inevitable, probably sooner rather than later. And that arse-kisser Toralk would be tarred with the same brush. He’d have to go, too, and he was junior to Carthos, anyway. Which meant all Carthos had to do was bide his time, watch his back, keep his own skirts clean, and the command would almost certainly devolve upon him in the end. For that matter, as much as he resented-and feared-mul Gurthak’s power over him, that very relationship might act in his favor. Carthos still hadn’t figured out what mul Gurthak’s real motives might be, but he rather suspected the Mythalan would prefer to have someone he could…strongly and directly influence in Harshu’s place.

I can wait, arsehole, he thought, glaring in the direction of the encampment where Harshu awaited him. I’ve waited this long, and I can wait a little longer. Because in the end, mul Gurthak’s going to put the blocks to you and I’ll be standing on the edge of the pit while you slide straight down to the dragon.

* * *

Commander of Five Thousand Pardinar Rukkar wasn’t exactly looking forward to this meeting.

His old friend Thankhar Olderhan had been stalking Portalis, white-lipped and vibrating with fury for days, but Rukkar had to acknowledge his longtime comrade had kept up with every one of his duties despite his inchoate rage. The work of governing an entire planet didn’t stop just because the Union was at war. Or because his heir was on trial. None of which had made Olderhan’s task one bit easier, of course.

As he followed the liveried footman in Garth Showma’s colors down the hallway, the five thousand made a mental note to treat the duke gently.

The footman reached the door to the duke’s private study and rapped once, sharply, on the frame. Then he opened the door.

“Your Grace, Five Thousand Rukkar,” he announced.

“Show him in, by all means, Larsu!” Olderhan’s deep voice replied

The duke rose to greet his guest, reaching out to clasp forearms as Rukkar entered the study, and despite his own mood, the five thousand smiled in familiar amusement at the contrast between them. Thankhar Olderhan looked every inch the Andaran duke he was, and Rukkar…didn’t. A small ruddy-featured man, the five thousand looked as if his first ancestor had been decanted by Mythlan magisters expressly as the first rider of the first dragon-which was fitting. Rukkars had been flying Andaran dragons almost as long as Olderhans had been commanding Andaran armies.

And that was why Sir Pardinar Rukkar had been chosen to run the investigation into the shit storm with the yellow. He’d sent updates over the last several days, but he’d come to deliver a summary of the final report in person.

Now he lowered himself heavily into a well-worn leather chair at the duke’s gesture and drew a deep breath as he prepared to do that delivering.

“Thankhar, it’s a mess,” he said frankly, skipping any honey coating preamble. “I know it’s to be expected, given what it takes for this kind of cluster-fuck to happen, but-” He grimaced. “There’re going to be people who’ll never believe my report, and I don’t know as I’ll blame them. For about the first twenty-four hours, I thought it was a clear-cut case. Stupidity all ’round-but simple. And I still think it is, really. But then things got a lot less clear-cut.”

Olderhan leaned back in his own chair, listening but certain he wasn’t going to like what came next.

“A hundred with Mythal Air Expeditionaries took full credit for sending one of my boys still in flight training out to scare off the crowd in front of your offices. Someone’d told them you’d asked for assistance with a riot. The boy needed saddle time, so this Hundred mul Belftus gave him the mission.

“So far so good, I thought at that point. But when my investigator asked mul Belftus where the hummer was who’d brought that request message from you, the Hundred died.”

“He what?” Olderhan jerked upright in his own chair, and Rukkar winced. There was no easy way to explain the oddities of the report.

“His heart, the Healers said.” He threw up his hands. “And it gets worse. My boy flying that yellow-I know he was a fool to take the mission, but before that he was shaping into an excellent flier. He was a third-generation Andaran pilot, and he’d been flying retired transports at home since his arms were long enough to reach the controls. I had to write his parents a letter. He never woke up.”

“From a crowd control spell?” Olderhan wasn’t taking this nearly as calmly as Rukkar could have wished.

“Two blasts from peacekeeper staffs at focused max power.” He corrected. “Unusual, but not unheard of for that to be fatal.”

“Even at that range with him at least partially shielded by a dragon’s body?” Thankhar shook his head disbelievingly.

“I know,” Rukkar said. “If I hadn’t been running this investigation, I’d be a skeptic myself. But for any other explanation, I’d have to believe someone walked into the hospital and shot the boy with a daggerstone at exactly the same angle as he’d been hit by your retainers. Angles,” he corrected himself. “It’d need to be two shots to the same spots. It’s ridiculous.”

Thankhar Olderhan looked at him, his expression absolutely blank, and Rukkar raised an admonishing index finger.

“Don’t be thinking that, Thankhar. People’re stupid far more often than they’re wicked. Mythlans do things like gassing their field hands if they try to riot. We’d never do it, but to someone like mul Belftus, it wouldn’t have seemed so outrageous under the circumstances.”

“Slaves, Rukkar.” Olderhan spoke through gritted teeth. “They gas their garthan slaves and do it for revolts, not riots.”

“You know what I mean.” Rukkar regretted mentioning the Mythlan practices.

“And I never sent a hummer,” Thankhar said. “None of my Portalis staff sent a hummer. None of the Garth Showma Househummers left their coops within four hours of that dragon’s arrival.”

“Maybe someone on your staff forgot to log it, or-”

“No, I’m telling you a message was never sent!”

“Old friend, I understand,” Rukkar said, “but there’s no proof of that. You weren’t at home yourself until afterwards, so you can’t swear to it of your own knowledge. And no one’s staff would have the clearest recollection of what happened after that kind of surprise.”

“You don’t believe me.” The look in Olderhan’s eyes was not friendly.

“That’s not what I said.” Rukkar tried to calm him. “I only said there’s no proof, and I have a sworn statement from Hundred mul Belftus that someone sent him a hummer. And there’s a note in his office log that he did receive one. You say you didn’t send it, and I know you too well to think you’d say that if it wasn’t true. But think about it. Mul Belftus’ senior commo clerk-an Andaran, not a Mythalan-noted a message from someone at exactly the time mul Belftus said he’d received one, and why would anyone fake a message like that?”

Sir Thankhar Olderhan looked very old. “If that horror had happened, I’d look like someone who’d kill my officers’ wives and sisters on a whim. I’d be a pariah, a man no one could trust, much less believe.”

Rukkar shook his head. “It didn’t happen.”

“Only because the chief sword who manages my duty roster decided he needed to stand a ceremonial door watch himself that morning. I usually have two lances in that position, Rukkar! Lances!”

Rukkar raised his hands again. “Your staff did very well. It was brilliant. Almost anyone else would’ve stepped inside and sealed the doors instead of shooting at the yellow’s pilot.”

“The same staff you believe uniformly lied to your investigators about not sending the message supposedly asking for that mission.” The iciness in Olderhan’s tone began to frustrate Rukkar.

“I’m not the enemy here, Thankhar!” He shook his head. “I admit the coincidence of mul Belthus and the pilot both dying like that looks odd. Maybe even suspicious. But I did my investigation, and I had the medical examiner run detailed forensic exams on both bodies. There’s absolutely no evidence the Hundred died of anything but natural causes, and the pilot’s death was clearly the result of the crowd control spells your people hit him with-entirely justifiably, under the circumstances! It was a mess, and I’ll say so. But there’s no evidence of any conspiracy. Some of the MAE pilots thought a new breed of yellow had been flown in-one with a very mild breath weapon the shakira claim to have used on, yes, garthan slaves with no long-term injuries-and that that wingling was one of those. The pilot trainees who weren’t picked for the flight thought it was, too.”

“And was it?” Olderhan’s voice was flat.

“No. But that doesn’t change the fact that everyone who was on-site thought it was. And before you say another word, everyone in the Air Force understands how near this horror came to happening. I have a debrief with the Undersecretary for Dragon Affairs himself. We’ll ensure controls are put in place so that nothing like this can ever happen again.”

“You didn’t have controls already?” The tone was deceptively mild.

“We damned well had controls! But the wing deputy, Hundred mul Belftus made an exception and no one questioned it because they thought the Governor of New Arcana was being assaulted in his home by a mob!” He winced. “And I know you weren’t actually there, but they scrambled that mission thinking they were helping you and your family. I understand how pissed off you are, and under the circumstances, I don’t blame you for questioning the likelihood of that many fuck-ups piling on top of each other. But you spent enough time in the field yourself to know crap like this does happen. And”-the five thousand looked his old friend straight in the eye-“there’s absolutely no evidence-none, Thankhar-that this was anything but just that: an effort to get help to your townhouse as rapidly as possible that almost blew up in everyone’s faces!”

The duke looked back for a long, silent second, then nodded minutely.

“Shartahk spare us all such ‘help,’” he said, and Rukkar made an averting sign against the devil. Olderhan matched the sign, and rose to walk him out.

“Thank you for taking the time to give me the report in person,” he said. “I know it wasn’t a pleasant chore.”

It was obvious to Rukkar that the duke wasn’t about to accept his conclusions, but Olderhan’s tone acknowledged that there was no evidence to support any other determination. And, if he was honest with himself, Rukkar didn’t blame his old friend one bit. In fact, he was prepared to admit there was a distinct whiff of something rotten about the entire affair, but he’d taken too much testimony under lie-detection spellware. Every witness-every surviving witness, at any rate-said the same thing, and that was that.

“Of course I brought it in person,” the five thousand said, and grinned crookedly. “Knew I had to bring it in person, because you’d damned well’ve taken the head right off anyone else I’d sent, now wouldn’t you?”

The duke’s lips twitched in a small, unwilling smile, and Rukkar snorted. Then, on a wall in the outer office, he spotted an old picture of himself and Olderhan as squires. Rukkar’s first black lifted a wing in the background to frame the two men for the image spell capture, and the five thousand smiled more naturally and tapped the picture to draw the other man’s attention to it.

“Remember my first dragon? She was a beauty, wasn’t she?”

“I’ve never been very fond of dragons.”

Rukkar shook his head. Olderhan’s perspective had never been comprehensible for him.

“I love ’em,” the five thousand said simply, then racked his brain for something neutral to part with. Nothing came for a moment, but then he nodded.

“Say, I received an interesting bit of correspondence from a colleague on New Mythal the other day,” he said. “A man from the vos Sidus family. He served a few years as an Air Force officer a decade ago, but his family’s been breeding dragons for ages. They’re old money, though. No transport dragons or regular combat types for them; they do sea dragons. They call ’em drakes or hydras. Strong swimmers. A few of them fly, but mostly they’re sea creatures-great for securing coasts and rivers, he says. Monsters, really, since the Mythlans breed ’em for those nasty spectator fights, but he wanted to press a proposal for the creatures to be used for military purposes. He’s going to pitch ’em to the Navy. Doesn’t that sound interesting?”

“I think it sounds horrible,” Olderhan said. But after a pause he admitted, “Still, they might be useful, I suppose. Are they docile enough for transport?”

“I’m not so sure about that. These are fighter lines. They’re worse than combat dragons. They’re bred to fight each other, not just selected enemies.”

“How barbarically Mythlan.” Olderhan grimaced. “Do they have any officers for them?”

Rukkar shrugged. “After a fashion, but I can’t say I trust any of ’em. And none of them are actual operators. The Mythlans use garthans with the drakes, not shakira-the operators often die in the gladiator shows, and no shakira’s signing up for that! — and no shakira would ever consider making a garthan an officer, either. So if we want officers with hands-on experience, we’ll have to commission garthans, and you know how well that’s likely to go over with Mythal. And, truth to tell, they aren’t the most genteel folk to invite into an Air Force officer club.”

Olderhan’s lips tightened, and Rukkar shook his head.

“Don’t get me wrong, Thankhar. I’m just saying that these aren’t emancipated garthans; they’re still literal slaves and the Mythlans seem to treat them like just another animal to go with the drakes. And less valuable than the drakes, come to that, because the drakes are at least carefully bred and trained. Not surprising the poor bastards won’t come equipped with the attitudes and…call ’em social skills we expect in our officers. But Torkash knows we can’t allow the shakiras’ attitudes to spread to the Air Force, so I’m recommending to the Undersecretary that if we make these into some kind of Air Force Naval Auxiliary, we have to insist on commissions for the drake riders, anyway.”

Olderhan actually laughed at that. “You hate the very idea, but you’re going to push them forward anyway just in case they’re useful in the war effort. You’re Andaran to the core, Rukkar! Sometimes I wonder about the sorts of people who want to spend so much time with dragons, but then I think of you, my friend, and I know we’ll be okay. Andara’s in good hands as long as five thousands like you run the Air Force.”

Rukkar brushed the compliment off, but he was deeply relieved to feel back on easy footing with Olderhan again.

“That’s just ground pounder jealousy because some of us get to freeze solid during the long travels and then spend our days digging latrines and building up the frontier fort while you marching lot take your sweet weeks-long promenade across perfectly flat looking ground to get to the place we have all set up for you by the time you get there,” he said.

Olderhan smiled at the old joke, not as widely as Rukkar would have liked, but there was a faint smile there. Rukkar knew full well that marching over a bit of ground and flying over it were two drastically different propositions.