David Weber - Hell Hath No Fury

"Agreed." Harshu nodded.

"It's going to cost us a couple of days before we can move on Fort Salby, you understand, Sir? We're going to have to use up some additional transport flights leapfrogging them forward to Fort Mosanik before we can ship them the rest of the way to Traisum."

"Understood," Harshu said.

"Then that only leaves the question of exactly what we do about this after we punch out Mosanik."

Harshu tapped another push pin, then looked up at his commanding officer. "I've viewed the imagery from the recon-gryphons, Sir. These people may not have magic, but seeing the kind of engineering they're capable of is … well, it's impressive as hell, is what it is, Sir. I'd like your guidance on exactly how we want to approach it."

"I wish I were going with you, Iftar," Therman Ulthar said quietly as he watched his brother-in-law strapping up his backpack.

"Don't be silly." Iftar Halesak looked up at him and shook his head. "You've sure as hell earned a little more rest, Therman!"

"Maybe."

Ulthar moved his newly healed shoulder gingerly. His stint as a prisoner of war of people who didn't have magistrons had given him a whole new appreciation for modern medicine. The fact that he'd recovered the shoulder's full range of motion literally overnight would have been wonderful enough, but it was also the first time he'd been truly pain-free in literally months. He luxuriated in the sensation, but even as he delighted in the absence of pain, that very delight brought home the thing that most concerned him.

"It's not the rest I'm worried about," he admitted, and Halesak frowned.

"What is worrying you?" the garthan asked. "You're not still feeling guilty over what that bastard Neshok did, are you?"

"Actually, I am." Ulthar's expression was profoundly unhappy. "I should have said something, stopped him-"

"By the time you were out of the healers' hands and knew what the hell was going on, Two Thousand Harshu and Thousand Toralk had already put a stop to it," Halesak pointed out. "This time, at least," he added.

Ulthar's mouth tightened, and Halesak shook his head.

"I'm telling you, Therman. Let it lie, for now, at least. I don't know what else is going on, but it looks to me like the Two Thousand's decided to put a muzzle on Neshok. If that's the case, then he's not going to be torturing or murdering any more POWs. Which means you don't have to play the noble Andaran paladin in shining armor and maybe get your fool self killed trying to stop it."

"Not trying to stop Neshok, anyway," Ulthar muttered.

"And what does that mean?" Halesak demanded.

"They're leaving Thalmayr in command here."

"Thalmayr?" Halesak frowned in surprise. "Who had that brainstorm?"

"I think it was Five Hundred Isrian."

"Oh, wonderful." Halesak looked as disgusted as he sounded. Chalbos Isrian was one of Two Thousand Harshu's senior battalion commanders. He was also one of the officers who'd argued most forcefully in support of Neshok's plan for dealing with the Voicenet.

"Exactly."

"It may not be that bad," Halesak said, but he sounded as if he were arguing with himself, not his brotherin- law, and he knew it.

"I hope not," Ulthar said bleakly. "But the fact is, Thalmayr is a frigging idiot at the best of times. And I've got a feeling-a really bad feeling, Iftar-that he's just been biding his time. He blames the Sharonians for what happened to us, instead of blaming his own stupidity. And I think-"

He broke off with a shrug.

"You think what?" Halesak asked sharply.

"I think he'll never believe the Sharonians were really trying to help him. I know their healers testified that they were under verifier, and as far as I know, no one's ever been able to fool the verification spells.

I know I'm convinced they were doing their best to help me. But I don't think there's enough evidence in the multiverse to convince Thalmayr of that. And what really scares me is how stupid he proved he could be before he was wounded. Gods alone know how much stupider he's capable of being now!"

"Wonderful," Halesak repeated with a sigh, then shook his head. "Thanks a lot, Therman. Now you've almost got me wishing you were coming along with us!"

"All right," Commander of Five Hundred Cerlohs Myr said, looking around the briefing tent at the circle of faces one last time. It was pitch black outside the tent's canvas walls, but the spell-powered light globes illuminated its interior brilliantly. "All of you know what you're supposed to do. Now, let's go get the job done. Right?"

"Right!"

The one-word response came back in a strong, confident rumble of voices, and Myr nodded in satisfaction … mostly.

He looked around at his flight and strike commanders. Their losses in the first attack had come as a shock to all of them, but since then, they'd scored an unbroken string of successes and advanced the better part of three thousand miles in barely eleven days without the loss of a single additional dragon. It was the sort of operation they'd trained at in maneuvers for years and never really expected to have the opportunity to mount, and they knew they'd performed brilliantly so far. Which explained why their faith in themselves went far beyond mere confidence now. They viewed themselves as an elite, and there was a brashness, a swagger in them.

That's good, Myr told himself. Dragon pilots are supposed to know they have big brass ones. That they're the best of the best.

But there was still that tiny, tiny flaw in his satisfaction. That sense that too much faith in themselves might still lead them to take one chance too many. To push that little bit too hard.

And just what do you want to do about it, Cerlohs? he asked himself. You want to make them less confident before you send them out on an op?

There could be only one answer to that question, he reflected, and had to smile at his own perversity.

It's just your own crossgrained cussedness, he scolded himself. You'd find something to be upset about even if you fell into a vat of beer!

"All right," he repeated again. "We've got another fort to burn. Let's get them in the air, gentlemen!"

Janaki chan Calirath sat in the tiny sitting room attached to his quarters and gazed out at the salmoncolored sky as dawn came to Fort Salby.

The lack of handy trees had enforced a different building plan on Fort Salby, and the time-and the presence of the TTE construction crews-which had been required for the Traisum Cut had provided the labor force and materials to execute that plan. Instead of the wooden palisades which surrounded most portal forts, at least until permanent long-term settlements went in, Salby had been built from the outset out of a combination of stone and adobe. It had also been built on a considerably larger scale, since it was intended from the outset to be the permanent administrative center for this portal. Its walls-and those of its internal structures-were not only tougher, they were also considerably thicker than those of most portal forts, as well, which helped their interiors stay cooler during the worst of the day's heat.

And it also makes them a hell of a lot tougher, the crown prince thought almost calmly. Almost.

The morning was still cool, chill, as the dry semi-desert air waited for the sun's heat. It was very quiet, and the calm tranquility swept over him, made even stiller and calmer somehow by the chaos swirling within him.

Taleena slept on the perch stand just inside the window, and his eyes lingered on her. There were ghosts in those gray eyes. Ghosts which hadn't been there the day before. The same ghosts which had haunted many a Calirath's eyes over the millennia.

I guess there's no such thing as a weak Calirath Talent, after all, under the right circumstances … or the wrong ones, he thought. Too bad. There are some things I'd really rather not know about.