David Weber - Hell Hath No Fury

"You poor, pathetic excuse for a sword," Harnak said almost pityingly. "My gods, you've been kicking around the Service for this long, and you don't recognize a pile of unicorn shit when they put it on your plate and call it scrambled eggs?"

Nourm's wide eyes narrowed at the slang phrase. It could be used to describe orders that were unusually stupid or confused or to describe someone's particularly blatant-and unconvincing-cover-his-ass excuses. But it was also used to describe "confirmed" intelligence that was just plain wrong … or a deliberate lie.

"What do you mean?" he demanded harshly.

"I mean I was there," Harnak grated, taking the pipe out of his mouth and stabbing the stem in Nourm's direction. "I was there at Fallen Timbers when it all fell into the shitter. Hells, Osmuna-the first man down-he was in my fucking platoon and I was the one who found him with a frigging hole blown all the way through his godsdmaned chest! Don't you sit there and tell me what the fucking intelligence pukes have been feeding you! I was there, godsdamn it. I saw what the hells happened!"

The pipe in his hand quivered, and Nourm's expression changed suddenly as he recognized the barely leashed fury in that quiver.

"Then tell me," he said in a very different voice. "Tell me what happened."

Harnak looked at him for several heartbeats, as if weighing the risks, then inhaled deeply and shrugged ever so slightly.

"Hundred Olderhan was right all along," he said then, softly. "I don't know who shot first, Osmuna or their man. I don't think anyone ever will know. But I know who fucking shot first at Fallen Timbers, and it wasn't them. It wasn't the godsdamned civilian standing there with his hands empty, trying to fucking talk to us-just talk to us-when my own shitty excuse for a fifty shot him right in the throat against the Hundred's direct orders!"

Nourm recognized the look in Harnak's eyes now, and the agonizing shame he saw there was more convincing than any anger might have been.

"Did you know Hundred Olderhan made the only two of them we didn't manage to kill his shardonai?"

Harnak continued, glaring at the other sword. "You know whose son he is-you think he did that because we'd acted so fucking honorably? And I'll bet you didn't know the Hundred offered to cut Thalmayr down right there in front of everything that was left of my platoon when that asshole sitting in that office over there wanted to put manacles on the Hundred's shardonai. Well, I know. I was the sword Hadrign ordered to do it … and the one the Hundred ordered to stand fast!

"And Magister Halathyn? They didn't kill him-we did." Anguish tightened Harnak's fierce, low voice.

"It was an infantry-dragon, a godsdamned lightning-thrower-you seen any of them in these people's armory, Nourm? 'Cause I sure as fuck haven't seen any of 'em!"

Harnak jerked his head in the direction of the Fort Ghartoun armory building and his mouth twisted as if he wanted to spit.

"And all that crap about shooting prisoners, torturing them, denying medical care-dragon shit! Dragon shit! These people-the officers in that brig over there-saw to it that we were treated well. I never saw a single one of their guards as much as butt-stroke one of our guys with a rifle! You want to explain to me just how that compares with the way we've been treating them?

"And then there's that bastard Thalmayr and his lying shit about how they 'tortured him.'"thinspace""

Harnak's tone dripped contempt. "Fifty Ulthar and I got left here because we were both wounded, too. I saw their healers at work-hells, they worked on me!-and I never saw one of them do less than the very best he could do. They aren't like our magistrons; they can't do the same things. Can't any of you get that through your godsdamned skulls? They did the best they fucking could, treated us every bit as well as they did their own people, without once asking whose uniform we were wearing, and that's who your precious Hundred Thalmayr's beating and stomping the shit out of every couple of days! It godsdamned makes me want to puke!"

Nourm stared at the other noncom in shock as he realized there were literally tears of fury-and shame-

and Evarl Harnak's eyes.

"I-" he started, then broke off. It was too much for him to take in all at one sitting, stood too many preconceptions he'd spent too long cherishing on their heads. But in Evarl Harnak's rage and shame he recognized truth when he finally saw it.

"What?" Harnak half-snapped as Nourm hesitated.

"I guess, maybe, I should've spent a little more time listening to Fifty Sarma," Nourm replied finally, slowly. "Maybe then I wouldn't feel like as big a piece of shit as I do right now."

"Yeah?" Harnak growled. "Well, you aren't the only one who feels that way. Trust me."

"Maybe not."

Nourm sat staring out across the captured fort's parade ground, thinking about everything Harnak had just told him. Thinking about everything he'd said … and done.

"Maybe not," he repeated, "but what in Graholis' name do we do about it?"

"I don't know." Harnak put his pipe back into his mouth and turned away from the other man while he fished out an accumulator and used it to relight the tobacco, and his voice was even lower than before. "I know what I'd like to do, but I can't. And I wish the Fifty would remember the same advice he gave me," he added, turning to look in the direction in which Ulthar had disappeared. "If he keeps on with this, keeps getting in Thalmayr's way, I don't know what's going to happen."

Nourm's eyes followed Harnak's, and as they did, they deepened and darkened with fresh worry all their own.

I know exactly what's going to happen if Ulthar doesn't back off, he thought grimly. And he's been spending an awful lot of time with my fifty. The same "wet-behind-the-ears kid" I should've been listening to all along.

Keraik Nourm looked into the future and didn't like what he saw there at all.

The miles-long train pulled into the Fort Salby station in a long, shuddering, clanking spasm of steam and hissing air brakes. It stretched as far back down the tracks as the eye could see, and Rof chan Skrithik's eyes narrowed in appreciation as he saw the machine guns and light pedestal guns which had been mounted on top of many of the freight cars.

The command and staff cars were at the head of the train, and chan Skrithik came to attention as the doors opened and an officer in the uniform and paired golden sunburts of a Ternathian division-captain came down the short steps.

The division-captain was short, for a Ternathian, with dark hair beginning to be streaked with dramatic silver highlights. He was also wiry and fit, with a horseman's build and large, powerful hands which went well with his cavalry boots and the bone-handled grips of the H amp;W holstered at his side instead of the lighter Polshana many other officers preferred these days. But his brown eyes were dark, and the black mourning band on his right arm matched the identical mourning bands worn by every other person in sight.

"Division-Captain chan Geraith," chan Skrithik said quietly.

"Regiment-Captain," chan Geraith replied.

"I'm glad to see you, Sir. I only wish-"

"So do we all, Regiment-Captain," chan Geraith said as chan Skrithik broke off. The division-captain held out his hand and gripped chan Skrithik's firmly. "So do we all. But you did a fine job out here. A

fine job."

"Thank you, Sir. We didn't do it all on our own, though, and, I'd like to intro-"

Chan Skrithik broke off again, but not this time because he couldn't find the words. This time, he was interrupted by the magnificent peregrine falcon which came slanting down across the station platform's roof and landed on his shoulder.

Chan Geraith's eyes widened. He hadn't actually noticed the leather pad on the regiment-captain's shoulder, he realized.