David Weber - Hell Hath No Fury

"If they've planned this as carefully as I think they have, they probably allowed for the possibility that at least some of us might get away. From where I stand, that means they probably figure they can get here before any of us could reach Halifu."

"How?" Arthag's question was genuine, not a challenge, and chan Baskay shrugged.

"I don't have the least damned idea," he admitted. "Given what we've seen of their boats, and what they just did here, though," he waved one arm at the carnage sprawled about them, "I'm not going to assume they can't do it. Gods, man! If they can make conference tables float, maybe they can conjure up flying carpets for their people, too! Until I know different, I'm certainly not going to say they can't, at any rate."

"Me neither." Arthag tapped two fingers on his chin for a moment. Then it was his turn to shrug.

"I'll get the troops saddled up," he said.

"Good. And while you're doing that," chan Baskay's smile was razor-thin and cruel, "I'll just have a little chat with our guests."

Skirvon wrenched his eyes away from the revolver in Chief-Armsman chan Hathas' hand as Viscount Simrath waded back across the clearing through the deep leaves. The Ternathian's expression was no more comforting than the gaping bore of Hathas' revolver.

"So, Master Skirvon," he said in a voice fit to freeze the very air about him, "this is Arcana's idea of talking instead of shooting."

Skirvon kept his mouth shut. His belly was a frozen knot, and he swallowed convulsively, again and again. Somehow, despite everything, he'd never imagined anything like this. He'd been far too focused on what was going to happen to the Sharonians to consider what would happen if the carefully orchestrated plan failed.

"Not so talkative now, I see," Viscount Simrath observed. "I think, however, that you might want to reconsider that, Master Skirvon. In fact, I think what you really want to do is tell me exactly what's happening."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Skirvon managed to get out. "I had no idea Narshu was going to do anything like this!"

"Trekar?" Simrath glanced at the other apparent civilian standing beside him, and Trekar chan Rothag shook his head.

"That was a lie," the viscount said flatly, turning back to Skirvon. "Not that I really needed Trekar to confirm that. However, perhaps I should warn you that Trekar is what we call a 'Sifter'. You obviously know more than you wanted us to realize you do about our Talents. Well, Trekar's Talent is that he can always tell when someone is lying. I would strongly advise you not to lie again."

"Or what?" Uthik Dastiri asked. The Manisthuan had apparently recovered the ability to speak, although Skirvon wasn't at all certain that that was a good thing. He might be speaking again, but his eyes were still only half-focused and his expression was belligerent, and Skirvon recognized his associate's anger with a sudden, sinking sensation. Dastiri's temper had always been too close to the surface for a professional diplomat. Now his sense of shocked disbelief had transformed itself into unreasoning rage, and his hands twitched at his sides as he glared at Simrath.

The viscount seemed singularly impervious to his anger.

"You've systematically lied to us," the Ternathian said, and his eyes were far colder-and far more lethal

– than Dastiri's. "You've violated the truce between us and killed our soldiers. No doubt, you intended to kill or capture Trekar and myself, as well. In short, you're guilty of premeditated murder, and the penalty for that is death."

"You wouldn't dare!" Dastiri shot back.

"I wouldn't?" Simrath repeated in a deadly calm voice.

"We're diplomats," Dastiri said. "Even barbarians like you ought to understand what that means!

Besides, it's only a matter of time until our soldiers get here."

"Barbarians, are we?" Simrath's voice was very soft. "The sort of barbarians who massacre civilians, perhaps? Or who systematically lie when they claim to want a negotiated end to the violence? Or who commit murder under cover of their diplomatic status?"

"Uthik, shut up!" Skirvon said harshly.

"I won't!" Dastiri shot back. "This bastard thinks he can threaten us? Well, he's wrong!" He turned his glare on the Ternathian. "Go ahead," he sneered. "Tell us what you're going to do to us! Just remember, our soldiers are coming!"

"Really?" Something about the Ternathian's smile tightened Skirvon's belly muscles even further.

"I'm afraid you've been operating under a bit of a misapprehension, Master Dastiri," Simrath continued, reaching back into his jacket and withdrawing his revolver once more. "I really am Viscount Simrath, and I really am Emperor Zindel's accredited representative to these negotiations. But I'm also Platoon- Captain chan Baskay, Imperial Ternathian Army, on assignment to the Portal Authority Armed Forces.

And I'm afraid that at the moment, I'm feeling much more like Platoon-Captain chan Baskay and very little like a diplomat."

Skirvon swallowed again, harder, and chan Baskay smiled icily.

"Under Ternathian military law, Master Dastiri, I have full authority to conduct summary courts-martial in the field and to carry out their verdicts."

"You can't bluff me," Dastiri sneered. "Not even you could be stupid enough to think you could get away with murdering an Arcanan diplomat!"

"Perhaps not," chan Baskay conceded. "On the other hand, I am 'stupid enough' to execute a murdering piece of scum."

He raised his pistol hand, and despite himself, Dastiri's eyes widened as the Polshana's muzzle aligned itself with the bridge of his nose. Chan Baskay's free hand waved two troopers standing behind Dastiri out of the line of fire, and the Manisthuan's nerve seemed to waver for a moment as the cavalrymen stepped aside. But then his mouth tightened once again, and he glared back at chan Baskay, as if his momentary weakness had only made him even angrier.

"I would most earnestly advise you to give me a reason not to kill you," chan Baskay said.

"Fuck you!" Dastiri spat.

"Wrong answer," chan Baskay said, and squeezed the trigger.

The black hole which appeared in Dastiri's forehead wasn't all that big, actually, a corner of Skirvon's brain reflected. But the entire back of the younger man's skull disintegrated in an explosion of red, gray, and splintered white bone. The body was flung backward. It thudded to the ground, quivering slightly, and chan Baskay brought that deadly muzzle to bear on Skirvon's forehead.

"You have five minutes to convince me not to kill you," chan Baskay told him. "I'm sure you know the sorts of things I'd be interested in hearing. And, just as a reminder, don't forget that Trekar will know the first time you lie to me. And if you ever lie to me again, Master Skirvon, I'll be very, very unhappy with you. Is that clear?"

Commander of Five Hundred Cerlohs Myr, CO of the First Provisional Talon, Arcanan Expeditionary Force, settled himself even more deeply into the cockpit hollowed out of Razorwing's neck scales. He felt the deep, subterranean rumble vibrating through the accelerating battle dragon, felt the prodigious power of Razorwing's sweeping pinions, and a matching flood of eagerness poured through him, for t here was nothing-nothing in all the universes mankind had ever explored-which could equal the sheer thrill of piloting a battle dragon into combat.

Not that anyone's had all that much combat experience over the last couple of centuries.

The thought flickered through the back corners of his brain as the air stream began to scream just above his head. Battle dragon pilots didn't use the saddles transport pilots favored. They rode their mounts in a prone position, strapped into their cockpits-the depressions which centuries of careful breeding had formed in the backs of their dragons' huge, scaly necks. Carefully sculpted scutes in front of that depression acted as baffles, protecting it and fairing the airflow. At a battle dragon's maximum speed, that airflow could severely injure any limb which strayed into it, but the curved scales bent it up and around, leaving the pilot in a pocket of absolutely calm air, like the eye of a hurricane.