The Road to Hell

Chapter Nine

December 16

“I hope this works,” Therman Ulthar murmured from the corner of his mouth as he and Jaralt Sarma walked placidly across Fort Ghartoun’s parade ground towards the administrative block. Their breath plumed in the frigid air, smoke-white in the icy moonlight, and Sarma slapped his gloved hands together as if for warmth, flexing his fingers energetically, and smiled at the other commander of fifty.

“The good news is that if it doesn’t work, we probably won’t have a lot of time to regret it,” he pointed out in turn.

“Oh, thank you,” Ulthar replied, rolling his eyes.

He heard a snort from behind him and glanced back at the noncom following them across the parade ground. Shield Fraysyr Hathnor was Sarma’s platoon clerk, and he was carrying the record crystal which had been carefully loaded with stacks of routine paperwork. None of it meant anything in particular, but if their calculations proved in error and more than the night orderly was on duty, that paperwork would be their excuse to get close enough to take out the extra bodies, hopefully before any alarm was raised.

He looked farther back, over Hathnor’s left shoulder towards the stables, and those blue eyes narrowed as he caught a brief flicker of movement. It was as much imagined as seen, something gliding smoothly across a patch of moonlight and back into the darkness beyond it. The moon was almost full, and the splotches of light breaking through the trees the fort’s builders had left unfelled to shade its interior were so bright they made the dark beyond them seem even blacker, denser, almost solid. He would have preferred an overcast, or even fog, but the visibility they had was bad enough to suit their purposes.

Probably.

“The truth is,” he said, glancing back at Sarma as they started up the steps to the admin block’s covered veranda, “I’ve been looking forward to this ever since that bastard got the Company massacred. I know the dragon shit we’re about to step into’ll only get deeper if we end up killing him, but I can’t help hoping Firsoma lets him be as stupid about this as he is about everything else. I mean, that would only be fair, wouldn’t it?”

“You’re a very strange man with a nasty sense of humor, Ulthar,” Sarma told him. “It’s one of the things I particularly like in you.”

* * *

Namir Velvelig’s eyes opened.

He woke up the way a septman in the presence of his enemies woke up, which was to say that, aside from his eyelids, not another muscle so much as twitched, and the regiment-captain kept it that way, listening to the deep breathing and snoring around him. The cell in which he and the other officers and senior noncoms of the PAAF garrison had been confined would have provided ample space for a third as many human bodies. There was room-barely-for each of them to have his own patch of floor at night, but anyone who rolled over in his sleep was going to awaken quickly when he was pushed off of whoever he’d rolled onto. On the other hand, there was something to be said for the congested conditions. This far back from the stove, the air temperature was frigid, to say the least, and no one had bothered to issue the prisoners any blankets. The warmth of crowded bodies could be welcome under those conditions.

Velvelig kept his own breathing deep and steady as he tried to decide what had awakened him. He couldn’t identify it at first, and his jaw tightened as he heard the catch and painful wheeze of Tobis Makree’s breath. The Healer had survived another beating the day before, but he wouldn’t survive many more. The Mulgethian was two inches taller than Velvelig, but he’d never been physically robust, and his Healing Talent’s sensitivity made him especially vulnerable to the malice and gloating cruelty behind Hadrign Thalmayr’s brutality. Velvelig wasn’t surprised by his increasing fragility. If anything, he was astounded that the Healer hadn’t already willed himself into the merciful escape of death.

He may not be as “robust” as a good Arpathian septman, Velvelig thought, but he’s tougher than an old boot inside.

It would have been better if he wasn’t, the regiment-captain reflected bitterly. It wasn’t as if any of the Arcanans’ prisoners had any illusions about what was going to happen to them in the end. Especially not Makree or Golvar Silkash. Thalmayr had completely convinced himself that they’d been trying to torture him rather than to Heal his paralysis, and only the intense pleasure he took in beating, kicking, and stomping them had kept them alive-more or less-this long. And of course the Arcanan Healers couldn’t be bothered to waste the magical healing abilities which had restored the use of Thalmayr’s legs on his victims! There’d be no-

Velvelig’s dark thoughts jerked to a halt as the sound which must have awakened him repeated itself. Knuckles rapped on the brig’s sturdy outer door, and his stomach muscles tensed. Thalmayr usually waited at least one more day between beatings to allow his victims to recover a bit of endurance for the next one, but he took a special sadistic pleasure in dragging Silkash and especially Makree out of a deep, exhausted sleep to face his truncheon and his fists, his boots and the heated poker he’d taken to using over the last week or so. The regiment-captain turned his head slightly, looking through the bars at the guard room, wondering if this time Thalmayr had screwed up and sent less than four men to collect his prey. If he had, it might finally be time.…

The knock came again, and Velvelig’s eyes narrowed. It wasn’t the usual deliberately thunderous pounding Thalmayr’s toadies used to announce their status as Kraisan’s own minions. In fact, the three regular night guards went right on snoring.

Despite the tension in his belly and the quickening of his pulse, the regiment-captain felt his lip curl in disdain. He’d learned very little about the Arcanans’ military, aside from the fact that Fort Ghartoun’s current tenants were quick with a boot or a fist or the butt of an arbalest, but he knew damned well they weren’t from the same unit as the prisoners he’d held in custody while the fort had belonged to the Portal Authority Armed Forces. Those had been elite troopers, with a deeply ingrained sense of discipline-both as a unit and personally-who’d maintained their military bearing and dignity even in captivity. None of them would have kicked back in chairs around the coal burning stove’s welcome warmth and dozed off on duty! And if they had, their officers and noncoms would have sorted them out quickly enough.

But any military unit took its cue from its CO, he reminded himself. He was still convinced that whoever had trained those original prisoners of his, it hadn’t been Hadrign Thalmayr. No, the slovenly attitude he saw in the guard room’s current watch was more Thalmayr’s speed.

Whoever was knocking, knocked again-harder-and Velvelig found himself wondering if the real reason the guards dispatched to haul Silkash and Makree back and forth pounded so hard on their nocturnal visits had more to do with the difficulty of awakening their sleeping fellows than a desire to terrify their victims.

Not that they weren’t entirely capable of accomplishing both goals at once, of course.

Somebody’s snoring hitched, then ended in a raucous, questioning sound, and one of the slumbering Arcanans shoved himself upright in his chair. The knocking sound came yet again, and the roused guard shook himself, then reached out with one foot and thumped one of his companions on the leg. He growled something that sounded unpleasant, and the second Arcanan heaved up out of his chair, stretched his arms high overhead in a spine-popping yawn, and ambled towards the front door.

* * *

Trooper Zhandru Mysa blinked sleep-scratchy eyes and jerked his camo-pattern tunic straight while Thankhar Zoa and Shield Foswail Tohsar, the guard detail’s senior man, climbed out of their own chairs. Shartahk only knew who’d be banging on the door at this time of night, and the odds were that it was going to be bad news for Tohsar’s section. Not that it was likely to be too bad, but a man never knew. At least Fifty Varkan wasn’t like that prick Sarma or that holier-than-thou pain in the arse Ulthar! Or any of those other Andaran Scout bastards. Of course, even Fifty Varkan would have a little something to say if he had to take official cognizance of someone who’d been catching a few winks on duty. Which was why it was only prudent to let Zoa and Tohsar stretch themselves into a suitable facsimile of awakeness before he opened the door.

He glanced over his shoulder to be certain they had, then shot back the locking bar and pulled the door open with a certain briskness, just in case it really was an officer on the other side.

It wasn’t, and his mouth tightened at the unpleasant sight of one of the very Andaran Scouts he’d been thinking about.

“Yes?” he half-growled in a deliberately surly tone. He probably should have shown at least a little respect for a senior sword, but it wasn’t like the other man was an officer. And it wasn’t like anyone was going to pay a lot of attention to complaints from someone whose unit had fucked up as thoroughly as the 2nd Andaran Scouts had managed to do when the Sharonians took the Mahritha-Hell’s Gate portal away from them.

“What d’you want?” he continued, holding the door half open-there was no point letting any more of the guard room’s precious warmth leak out of it than he had to-and glowering around it at the newcomer.

“Funny you should ask,” Sword Evarl Harnak said pleasantly…and kicked the door as hard as he could.

Harnak’s stocky build and powerful shoulders and arms fooled some people into thinking he was shorter than he was. In point of fact, he stood two inches over six feet and weighed a good two hundred and fifty pounds, very little of it fat. When he kicked a door, that door opened…rapidly and with a significant degree of force.

Mysa squawked in astonishment-and anguish-as the heavy panel smashed into him like a misplaced wrecking ball. He flew backward, one kneecap shattered, then slammed into the sturdy logs of the guardroom’s rear wall. The back of his skull whacked into them with stunning force, and he oozed down into a slovenly, half-conscious puddle.

The door continued its backward arc after hitting him until it slammed into the wall itself, and Sword Tohsar’s and Trooper Zoa’s mouths dropped open in shock. Astonishment and the rags of sleep held them motionless for perhaps three heartbeats. By the time they started to stir, five men in the uniform of the 2nd Andaran Scouts had stormed into the guardroom, drawn short swords in hand.

“What the fu-?!” Tohsar began furiously, only to stop abruptly as the cold, disagreeably sharp point of one of those swords made contact with the base of his throat. The hand holding that sword belonged to Evarl Harnak.

“I never much liked you anyway,” Harnak told him pleasantly. “Are you going to be reasonable about this, or do I get to cut your throat after all?”

* * *

Namir Velvelig sat up.

There didn’t seem to be much point in pretending to be asleep. Not after all that racket, and not when it had awakened eight of the other nine men in his cell almost as abruptly as the door had floored the idiot who’d gotten in its way. The regiment-captain had no idea what was going on, but he felt an undeniable glow as he contemplated the semiconscious idiot in question. It looked as if his nose, at least, was broken, and Velvelig wouldn’t be surprised if he’d lost a tooth or two along the way. That was an interesting thought. Could the Arcanan Healers actually regrow missing teeth? If they couldn’t, someone was going to need a good set of false ones.

He climbed slowly to his feet, stepping over Makree, who’d been so badly battered he’d actually slept through the hullabaloo. The others got out of his way, pushing back to give him space as he faced the bars and watched what was happening beyond them.

He recognized all the newcomers. They were the ones for whom he’d conceived a special hatred over the last hideous weeks, for every one of them had been left at Fort Ghartoun to be cared for by Velvelig’s Healers, and those Healers had given them the very best treatment they possibly could. Unlike Thalmayr, the rest of them had realized what was happening, too. That made their betrayal, the fact that none of them had so much as protested Thalmayr’s brutality, even worse than the callous approval the rest of the Arcanan garrison showed for that same brutality. Now he glared at their senior noncom-Evarl Harnak, as nearly as he could pronounce the outlandish name the man had given when he arrived at Fort Ghartoun as a prisoner-while his fellows finished shoving the two regular guards who were still on their feet into a corner of the guard room. They stripped their captives of the swords and daggers Arcanans carried as personal weapons instead of revolvers, and Velvelig’s eyebrows rose infinitesimally-the equivalent of a shouted astonishment for an Arpathian-as the guards were turned around and their wrists were fastened together with yet another of the Arcanans’ preposterous bits of casual magic.

* * *

Harnak finished securing Tohsar’s wrists with the binding spell from his utility crystal, then looked at Trooper Marsal Hyndahr and twitched his head at the moaning heap in the corner.

“Drag his arse over here with the others,” he said, and Hyndahr nodded with a certain grim delight.

Hyndahr had a special bone to pick with Hadrign Thalmayr, who’d reduced him to trooper from sword for “insubordination.” The insubordination in question had consisted of agreeing with another noncom in a private conversation that Hundred Olderhan’s proposal for withdrawing from the swamp portal rather than digging in to defend it had sounded like a good idea. It had been no more than one seasoned veteran talking to another one in the face of potential combat which would involve their squads, quietly, without involving anyone else, but Thalmayr-who’d already been pissed off by the way Hundred Olderhan had made him back down when he tried to put the Hundred’s shardonai in irons-had overheard it. Not simply overheard it, but taken it as a personal criticism directed at him and decided to vent his spleen at Hundred Olderhan by taking out his spite on one of the hundred’s men. Given the way Thalmayr had proceeded to get the entire company cut to pieces shortly afterward, it seemed self-evident that Hundred Olderhan-and Hyndahr-had been exactly right. Which, of course, had only prompted Thalmayr to assign him to every shit detail he could find since he’d been given command of the Fort Ghartoun garrison.

Now he crossed to Mysa, grabbed him by one ankle-the one with the kneecap that seemed to have been pushed to one side-and dragged him across the floor to join his mates.

Harnak watched him for a moment, then shrugged and reached into a pocket for his personal crystal. No one except the “designated interrogators”-which consisted mostly of the uniformed thugs Thalmayr had deputized as assistants for his periodic beatings-was supposed to have access to the translating spellware Two Thousand Harshu’s troops had brought with them. Shield Rohsahk had hacked Thalmayr’s own PC for a bootleg copy, however, and now the sword touched his stylus to the crystal and brought it up.

* * *

“Yes, Sir?” the shield behind the desk said, looking at Sarma and ignoring Ulthar, at least for the moment. “How can I help you?”

Ulthar was surprised the noncom’s deliberate discourtesy didn’t bother him at all, this time. Tahras Bahbar was Thalmayr’s senior orderly clerk, and he’d taken his cue from his superior. Under other circumstances, Ulthar would have had him up on charges weeks ago. As it was, there’d been no point, and Bahbar had gotten increasingly insolent-and blatant about it-as a result. Although, to be fair, this time at least the man had a slightly better excuse than usual for ignoring him, since Sarma was officially officer of the watch and Ulthar wasn’t. Of course, the main reason it didn’t bother him was because their calculations hadn’t been in error, after all. Bahbar was all alone, holding down the graveyard shift by himself.

“We need to see the Hundred, Shield Bahbar,” Sarma replied.

“I’m afraid that’s impossible, Sir,” the shield told him. “He’s been in bed for hours, and-”

“And I’m afraid we’re just going to have to insist,” Ulthar interrupted him pleasantly, and the shield’s eyes flared wide as the commander of fifty’s short sword materialized in his hand and its point was suddenly pressed against his chest. “I hope you’re not going to be messy about this.”

* * *

Javelin Hynkar Vahsk opened the armory door and stepped through it into the welcoming light and warmth. Tarwal Klomis, the javelin responsible for the midnight watch, looked up from the game he’d been playing on his PC with a surprised expression, then stood.

“What can I do for you, Vahsk?” he asked. His tone wasn’t exactly warm and welcoming, but the question came out civilly enough.

The men from B Company, 1st Battalion, 176th Regiment who constituted sixty percent of Fort Ghartoun’s Arcanan garrison weren’t exactly fond of Jaralt Sarma’s 3rd Platoon. Partly that was because they were from a different regiment than 3rd Platoon’s 343rd Regiment, but even more of that stemmed from the fact that Sarma didn’t see eye-to-eye with Commander of Fifty Brys Varkan or Commander of Fifty Dernys Yankaro. None of the fifties made a point out of arguing with one another in public, but the men in their various platoons knew. Just as they knew Hundred Thalmayr wasn’t especially fond of Sarma, either. That was why Sarma’s platoon had the guard duty at such a godsforsaken hour, since Hundred Thalmayr made a point of assigning them to the most detested duty slots. On the other hand, Javelin Klomis had made the mistake of irritating Falstan Makraik, Fifty Varkan’s platoon sword, which was how he came to be sitting here in the middle of the night himself, so he supposed that to some extent, at least, he and Vahsk were riding the same dragon.

“Just passing by and saw the light in the window,” Vahsk said now, his tone dry as the twitched his head at the armory’s small, barred windows. “How’s it going?”

“No worse than usual, I guess.” Klomis shrugged. “I know somebody’s got to babysit all this shit, but personally, I’d rather be asleep and letting somebody else do it.”

“You and me both.” Vahsk grinned and pushed the door shut behind him. It didn’t quite close completely, although Klomis didn’t notice it. “And to be honest, it wasn’t so much the light in the window as the smell of burning coal,” Vahsk added, moving a bit closer to the stove and holding his hands out to its warmth. “It’s cold out there, and the wind’s getting up.”

“Tell me about it.” Klomis grimaced and came out from behind the counter, opened the stove door, and dropped a couple of more lumps of coal into it. Iron clanked as he closed the door again, and he snorted. “Rather be sitting around nice and toasty in a warmth spell, myself.”

“Me, too.” Vahsk shrugged. “Gods only know how long we’re going to be stuck out here, though. Makes sense to go ahead and use up their coal heap first, I guess. At least that way we won’t all freeze to death if those idiots in Supply don’t get enough heating accumulators shipped forward!”

“Guess so,” Klomis agreed, holding his hands out above the stove. “Wish they’d go ahead and haul the rest of the Sharonians’ ‘guns’ the hells out of here, though.” He shivered with something besides cold. “Damned things give me the creeps. Not natural, know what I mean?”

“Oh, I agree entirely.” Vahsk nodded. “Till we do, though, it makes sense to keep somebody sitting on them, I guess.”

“That’s what they tell me,” Klomis said sourly. “But, getting back to my original question, what can I do for you?”

“Well,” Vahsk said as the door he hadn’t pushed entirely closed behind him swung wide and half his squad flowed quickly through it, “you can start by staying right where you are and handing me the keys.”

* * *

Ulthar and Sarma left the shield in the orderly room parked in his chair once again, with the binding spell from Ulthar’s utility crystal as a firm suggestion that he should stay there. They crossed the fort commander’s office to the door to what had been Namir Velvelig’s personal quarters. They belonged to someone else now, however, and the two fifties glanced at one another. Then, in unison, almost as if they’d rehearsed it, each of them drew a deep breath…and Sarma drew his sword, as well.

Ulthar shifted his own sword to his left hand and tried the door’s knob gently with his right. It didn’t move, and he grimaced. Just like someone like Thalmayr to lock his door at night against imagined boogiemen, he reflected sourly. Then he smothered a sudden, quiet laugh as the absurdity of his disdain for Thalmayr’s paranoia struck him, given that two men with drawn swords were standing on the other side of that locked door at the moment.

Sarma looked at him oddly at the sound of his laugh, and he grinned.

“I guess even paranoiacs can have real enemies,” he murmured. There was quite a bit of nervousness in the other fifty’s answering snort, but there was at least as much genuine humor, as well. Then Ulthar stepped back from the door, drew another deep breath, and slammed the sole of his booted right foot into the door, right on top of the latch.

The door flew open, and Sarma was through it before it had crashed back against the wall. Ulthar followed him, flipping his sword back into his right hand on the move. By the time the Andaran Scout crossed the threshold, Hadrign Thalmayr had already jerked up into a sitting position in bed and Jaralt Sarma had reached his bedside.

The commander of one hundred was obviously confused at being so rudely awakened, but he wasn’t confused enough to miss the eighteen inches of steel shining in Sarma’s hand.

“What the fuck’s the meaning of this?!” he snarled.

“The meaning is that I’m relieving you of the duty, Sir,” Therman Ulthar said coldly, and Thalmayr’s eyes snapped from Sarma to him. The hundred’s face darkened with fury, and his lips worked as if to spit.

“You motherless bastard,” he grated. “You’ll go to the dragon for this one, Ulthar! And, by the gods, I’ll kick your arse into the feeding ground myself!”

“Maybe I will,” Ulthar replied in that same, cold voice. “But if I do, you’ll go with me.”

“Like hell I will! I’m not the one committing mutiny!”

“No, you’re just the one violating the Kerellian Accords and the Articles of War.”

Thalmayr’s angry eyes widened in surprise and contempt. There might have been a momentary flicker of concern, as well, but it vanished quickly, replaced by a fresh surge of confidence.

“You’re dreaming,” he scoffed. “If you think anyone’s going to listen to a gutless bastard like you-”

“Oh, I don’t know if anyone’s going to listen to me out here in the boonies,” Ulthar told him with an icy smile. “But that doesn’t matter. I’ve already sent a full report to Duke Garth Showma. I don’t know what the hells is going on in the Expeditionary Force, but how d’you think he’s going to react to the shit you’ve been pulling here in Fort Ghartoun?”

“You’re lying out your arse,” Thalmayr shot back, but a shadow of uncertainty and what might have been fear burned under the words.

“It wasn’t that hard to sneak past that arse-kisser Wentys.” Ulthar’s smile turned even thinner. “Believe me, Sir, it’s in the pipeline where nobody can stop it, and I’ve named people, places, and times. The Duke wouldn’t stand for something like this out of anyone, and especially not when the sick son-of-a-bitch pulling it belongs to the Second Andarans. He’ll insist the Regiment hold the court-martial internally, and guess what kind of sentence the Scouts’ll hand down to a worthless piece of dragon shit who got three quarters of his own company killed and then deliberately tortured prisoners of war?”

Thalmayr stared at him for a moment, then wrenched his eyes away and glared at Sarma.

“Are you really stupid enough to go along with this idiot, Sarma?” he demanded.

“Damned straight I am,” Sarma replied flatly. “Now, with all due respect, Sir, get your arse out of that bed. We’ve got a different set of quarters in mind for you-one with bars. I’d suggest you get your uniform on, but we really won’t mind dragging you over there bare-arsed if that’s what you’d prefer.”

“Like hell you will!”

Thalmayr’s hand darted under his pillow, then reemerged with one of the Sharonian revolvers. His thumb brought the hammer back, and the muzzle swept towards Sarma.

The Sharonian weapon came as a complete surprise, but Thalmayr was something less than expert in its use and Jaralt Sarma was a stocky, boulder of a man, with very strong arms and shoulders. He also had very good reflexes, and his sword hissed before Thalmayr could get his weapon aimed. There was the sound of a cleaver hitting meat, the beginning of a scream of pain, and then the ear-smashing roar of the revolver.

* * *

“What the hells was that?!”

Commander of Fifty Brys Varkan wheeled away from the hapless trooper whose improperly stowed personal gear had just been dumped across his bunk by Falstan Makraik, 1st Platoon’s platoon sword. The platoon had grown a bit lax in Makraik’s opinion, and he’d suggested to his fifty that it might be an appropriate time for a surprise inspection. Varkan had agreed the sword had a point, and since 1st Platoon was due to relieve that officious, pain-in-the-arse Sarma’s platoon in about two hours, this had seemed like a good time for the aforesaid surprise inspection.

Now he and Makraik stared at one another, his question hanging between them.

“Sounded like one of those Sharonian guns, Sir,” the sword said after a heartbeat. There was more than a hint of uncertainty in his reply, but Varkan’s face tightened.

“That’s exactly what it sounded like!” he snapped. “Turn the men to, Sword!”

“Yes, Sir!” Makraik turned on his heel, glaring at the assembled platoon. “You heard the Fifty! Move!” he barked.

Varkan left that up to his sword. His own hand darted into his pocket for his PC. He jerked it back out, activated it, and input a command.

An instant later, the alarm began to sound.