David Weber - Hell Hath No Fury

The vast breadth of the Grocyran Plain stretched away to the north and east, an endless land of swamps, birch forests, and conifers in the center of the vast continent of Chairifon. The double strand of rails stretched thirty-nine hundred miles, as a bird might fly, from this universe's Lake Arau in the eastern foothills of the Arau Mountains to the southwestern mountains of Harkala, close to the ancient city of Aeravas. But this massive train, loaded with the men, horses, vehicles, and artillery of the First Brigade of his Third Dragoon Division of the imperial Ternathian Army was no bird. The compromises forced upon the Trans-Temporal Express' construction engineers by uncooperative terrain had added at least seven hundred miles to that theoretical straight-line distance.

They were less than halfway across the universe of Faryika, pounding furiously down-chain towards Traisum, with almost nine thousand miles still to go. The good news was that there was only one more water gap to be crossed; the bad news was that the gap was over a thousand miles wide and that shipping would be agonizingly hard to come by in the thinly inhabited universe of Salym. It was going to take time to get his men and equipment across that stretch of saltwater.

Time, he thought. Please, Vothan give me the time! It's not supposed to take months just to get my troops into the likely theatre of operations! The War College never prepared any of us for a move like this one.

Or, his thought turned grimmer, a war like this one could turn into.

He unbuttoned the top button of his coat and took the flat, thin case from an inside pocket. He opened it and extracted one of the long, slender, handrolled New Ternath cigars, then returned the case to his pocket. He took a moment to savor the rich smell of the tobacco, passing it slowly under his nose, then clipped the end, put it in his mouth, and struck a match. He shielded the fragile flame in his cupped palms until it had burned away the last of the chemical taste, then lit the cigar slowly and carefully, turning the tip in the match flame until it was evenly alight. Then he tossed the match from the platform and watched it arc out into the carriage's slipstream like a short-lived comet, snuffed out the instant it left the wind-shadow of the platform.

He stepped to the right side of the platform and leaned on the rail as he gazed out westward across the plains. Thick stands of birch, trunks gleaming silver-white in the moonlight, stretched away on either side of the right-of-way, interspersed with equally thick stands of evergreens. The reflected light from the coach windows raced along the ground, keeping pace with the train, flickering hugely as it crossed boulders or the sides of the occasional rail cutting. Stars gleamed overhead, and a halo of ice crystals encircled the high, white moon as it floated in a sky of midnight blue. Far ahead, invisible from chan Geraith's position on the platform, three powerful engines thundered down a diamond cavern, carved through the darkness by the lead engine's powerful headlamp, and a thick streamer of funnel smoke trailed back from them like a twisted banner, shot silver and black with moonlight.

They were the only bubble of life and light-of human life, at least-for literally thousands of miles.

The permanent human population of this entire universe was less than twenty thousand, which meant First Brigade's three thousand men had increased it by over fifteen percent. And it also meant that those less than twenty thousand human souls were a tiny, tiny presence on this vast and empty world.

They'd had to leave the mighty Paladins of their original train behind. None of the immediately available heavylift freighters had boasted the capacity to carry those enormous locomotives across the water gap in Haysam. Besides, they'd been too badly needed for the Sharona to Haysam run. Hayrdar Sheltim, chan Geraith's train master, had needed three of the Norgamar Works' individually smaller and less powerful Windcleaver-J 2-8-4 locomotives to replace the pair of Paladins, but it was probably just as well. The Windcleavers were nimbler than their larger cousins, better suited to the mountainous terrain between them and Harkala.

He drew heavily on the cigar, watching its tip glow brightly, savoring the moment of privacy and the pristine beauty of the world racing past him at least as much as he savored the rich taste of the smoke.

He treasured moments like this. Moments when he could step away from his staff, his unit commanders.

When he could take off the persona of a division commander, allow himself to step off the stage where his performance must engender confidence and determination.

I suppose it's sort of sad that I have to stand out here freezing my posterior off to find what Misanya calls my "comfort zone."

He smiled at the thought of his wife. She was a soldier's daughter, as well as a soldier's wife, and she understood what that meant, how their joint lives must be subordinated to the sometimes harsh demands of his chosen profession. But it had also left her with a refreshing irreverence for the sort of posturing and grand tragedy that certain soldiers of their acquaintance liked to embrace. She was quick to exterminate any tendencies in that direction in her own husband, at least, for which chan Geraith was profoundly thankful.

Then his smile faded as he reflected upon how many weary thousands of miles behind him Misanya was.

Stop that! he scolded himself. You're not the only a soldier who's missing his wife tonight, Arlos!

Which was true enough. And it wasn't as if he didn't have enough other things to worry about. He particularly disliked what Company-Captain Lisar chan Korthal, his staff Voice, had been reporting from the negotiations at Hell's Gate. The obstructionism Platoon-Captain chan Baskay's messages described made no more sense to chan Geraith than it did to chan Baskay himself. Nor had the divisioncaptain much cared for the suspicions chan Baskay and Arthag had reported up the chain.

The bastards are up to something, he thought moodily. It's not just my ingrained paranoia, either. I just don't know what they're up to … but I'm afraid we may all be going to find out.

He took the cigar out of his mouth long enough to grimace properly, then put it back.

At least chan Tesh and chan Baskay haven't sent any more bad news our way in the last couple of days.

That's something. And the fact that these godsdamned Arcanans don't have a clue how much firepower an entire dragoon brigade represents is another something. Of course, I don't have a clue what else they may have available, now do I?

He snorted at the thought. It wasn't precisely the first time he'd had it, and he suspected it wouldn't be the last.

In fact, I'm going to go right on wondering about that until-and unless-I find out. And if I do find out, it's going to be because everything's fallen straight into the shitter. So I suppose it's actually one of those little mysteries of the multiverse I'd really rather not solve, if it's all the same to the Triad.

He shook his head and stood, gazing out at the untouched beauty of the moon and stars, and wondered how long he could last tonight before the chill finally drove him back inside.

Nith mul Gurthak closed his office door carefully, then crossed to his desk and seated himself behind it.

Outside his windows, a chill, moonless night wrapped itself about Fort Talon, and he smiled crookedly.

There was no reason he had to do this during the hours of darkness, yet it always felt curiously satisfying.

Conspiracies ought to be worked upon in darkness, however justified their objectives, he thought as he reached for the ornamental rankadi knife on his blotter.

He picked it up, closed his eyes, and reached out once more-not with his hands, this time, but with his Gift. His very powerful Gift, which no one outside the Council of Twelve and his own immediate line family suspected that he had.