David Weber - Hell Hath No Fury

Without the information Neshok had gotten out of his prisoners, it was likely the relay station would have been overlooked by people who expected the Voice they wanted to be inside Fort Brithik's protection. And if that had happened, the odds were entirely too good that the Voice might have evaded the Arcanans long enough to break back across the portal himself and pass a warning back to Sharona.

That wasn't going to happen now. Those same interrogations had informed Neshok that the relay station had been built on ground which, unlike most of the rest of the terrain between here and Thermyn, was not covered in dense woodland. It was hard to conceive of a forest fire in these environs, and Neshok suspected that the one which had made the clearing in which the relay station had been built had actually been set by a prairie grass fire coming through the portal from Thermyn long before the Sharonians discovered either universe. Where the fire had come from didn't matter, however. What mattered was that it was big enough to offer landing space for dragons relatively close to the relay station, yet far enough back to land unseen and invisible on a moonless, drizzling night.

And that the relay station itself was far enough away from the portal for the discharge of weapons less … showy than the Sharonians' to pass unnoticed by the fort's garrison.

And, he thought coldly, still watching the quartet of transports and their escorts fade into the early evening sky, even if something should happen to go wrong there, there's always the next Voice relay beyond Fort Brithik.

There Voices might offer the Sharonians all sorts of strategic advantages … but only as long as the long, vulnerable chain of relay posts remained unbroken. And it would remain unbroken only as long as Arcana didn't know where to find it.

Alivar Neshok smiled again, baring his teeth in a snarl of triumph, then straightened. It was time to get his professional interrogation face back in place to greet the next batch of prisoners, he thought, and turned around to walk back inside.

"You wanted to see me, Fifty?"

Commander of One Thousand Carthos sounded brusque, as well he might, given the thousand and one details he had to deal with at the moment. The captured fort was a bubbling cauldron of movement, orders, questions, answers, and curses as the thousand's infantry and cavalry got themselves sorted out for the next day and the leap forward to position themselves for the attack upon the universe the Sharonians called Thermyn.

"Yes, Sir. Thank you for finding time."

Fifty Jaralt Sarma made his own voice crisp and firm-the sort of voice a senior officer might expect out of a subordinate who was determined not to waste his time.

"Well?" Carthos said impatiently.

"Sir," Sarma drew a deep breath and braced himself, "I'm afraid we've had a serious violation of the Kerellian Accords."

"Really."

The single word came out flat, devoid of any emotional overtone at all, and Tayrgal Carthos sat back in the chair behind the desk which had once belonged to the fort's Sharonian commander. He interlaced his fingers across his flat midsection and cocked his head to one side.

"What sort of 'violation,' Fifty?" he asked after a moment.

"Sir," Sarma said, "it's Five Hundred Neshok. My platoon has the guard duty on the fort's armory. We saw one of the five hundred's troopers drag a Sharonian prisoner out of the side of the main building where the five hundred's set up for interrogation. He-the prisoner, I mean, Sir-had been beaten. Badly beaten."

"And?" Carthos prompted with a slight frown as Sarma paused.

"And a little later we heard screams, Sir," the commander of fifty said. "A lot of screams. None of the other prisoners came back out. Not until two of Five Hundred Neshok's men dragged out another prisoner. Sir," Sarma met the thousand's eyes levelly, "the man's throat had been cut. He'd been murdered."

The fifty used the verb deliberately, and watched Carthos's eyes harden. Silence hovered for a moment, then the thousand allowed his chair to come back upright.

"As it happens, Fifty Sarma," he said, "I've already received a report on the events you've described.

According to Five Hundred Neshok-and the corroborating testimony of five of his men who were physically present at the time-the dead prisoner attacked the Five Hundred. Exactly what the lunatic thought he was going to accomplish eludes me, of course, but five reliable witnesses-six of them, counting the Five Hundred himself-all agree that the prisoner managed to get his hands on one of the guard's weapons and that Five Hundred Neshok killed him in self-defense."

Sarma's jaw dropped. He couldn't help it … but he managed, somehow, to stop himself before he actually said anything.

Carthos' expression hardened ever so slightly, but the thousand kept his own voice level.

"I commend you for your obvious desire to see to it that Two Thousand Harshu's standing orders extending the protection of the Kerellian Accords to any prisoners we take are adhered to, Fifty. And I assure you that any possible violations of the Accords will be investigated most carefully. In this case, however, given the existence of half a dozen witnesses, all of whose testimony corroborates one another's, I suspect that you've overreacted to a situation in which you weren't privy to all the facts."

Sarma got his mouth closed again, locking his teeth against the protests which hammered upon them from behind. Gotten his hands on another guard's weapon, had he? Then perhaps Thousand Carthos could explain Just how that had happened when the dead man's hands were still chained behind him as he was dragged out of the interrogation room like so much slaughtered meat. Or explain where those screams had come from, or the reason for the savage beating the first prisoner had obviously sustained.

But those, Jaralt Sarma knew now, were questions he dared not ask. Not now, not here. Perhaps never, but definitely not today.

"I see, Sir," he heard his own voice say levelly. "You're right, of course. Obviously, I wasn't aware of all the details. Nor was I aware that you were already so well informed about the incident. I … apologize for wasting your time at a moment like this."

"Nonsense, Fifty," Carthos replied. "No officer is ever guilty of 'wasting' his superiors' time when he believes that something as serious as you obviously thought had happened has occurred. A deliberate violation of the Kerellian Accords?" The thousand shook his head. "The Articles of War themselves are quite specific about the responsibility of any Union officer to report something like that, after all."

"Yes, Sir, they are. I still appreciate your being so understanding, though."

Sarma was distantly surprised that he could get the words out without gagging, but he managed.

"Don't worry about it, Fifty." Carthos' smile somehow failed to reach his eyes, Sarma noticed. The thousand paused for a moment, then arched one eyebrow.

"Was there anything else, Fifty Sarma?"

"No, Sir," Jaralt Sarma said. "Nothing else, Sir."

"Voice Kinlafia?"

Darcel Kinlafia's head snapped up, like a startled rabbit exploding out of cover, as he turned to face the assistant chamberlain. His movement wasn't quite sudden enough to count as "whipping around," he realized an instant later, but it was too sudden for any other description.

"Yes?" His response came out half-strangled, and he cleared his throat, blushing furiously.

"If you'll come this way, please," the assistant chamberlain said with a small smile. Kinlafia didn't have to touch the man to feel the sympathy-and understanding-behind that smile, and a trickle of comfort flowed through him. Obviously, he was far from the first visitor to the Great Palace to wonder if his blood pressure was going to survive the visit. He supposed that the fact that most of them appeared to have made it through the ordeal intact should have been comforting, but somehow it didn't actually make him feel all that much better as the chamberlain led the way down the broad, marble-floored passageways with the walls adorned with paintings and tapestries, any one of which was probably worth a prince's ransom.