David Weber - Hell Hath No Fury

Janaki nodded back, grateful that some of the aspects of the Calirath Talent were so closely held. It would never have done for chan Skrithik to truly understand what Janaki had just told him.

"Assuming that His Highness' Glimpse is indeed accurate," Markan said after a moment, "then it's obvious we must warn higher authority and inform them of what must already have transpired downchain from here."

"Agreed, Sunlord," chan Skrithik said, glancing at chan Darma. "And we need to warn Olvyr Banchu and the rest of his work crew."

"We need to do more than just warn them, Sir," Vargan said. "There's no way we could pull all of them back to safety in the time we appear to have. To my mind, that suggests we have to send a detachment forward to help defend them."

"But if they are too obviously anticipating attack," Markan pointed out in a completely neutral tone,

"and if the Arcanans realize that, then are they not likely to alter the attack plan His Highness has Glimpsed?"

Vargan's expression tightened, but Janaki raised one hand before the company-captain could speak.

"I'm afraid the Sunlord has a valid point, Company-Captain. On the other hand, there are some fragmentary bits and pieces of Glimpse which suggest pretty strongly that the Arcanans aren't planning to attack the railhead itself until after they've dealt with Fort Salby."

"With your permission, Your Highness?" Petty-Captain chan Darma said before Vargan could respond.

"Yes?"

"What you've just said makes a lot of sense, actually."

"It does?" Vargan looked skeptical, and chan Darma shrugged slightly, his expression grim.

"As His Higness has already pointed out, somehow they've kept any hint of warning from reaching us, Sir. They couldn't have done that by accident. That means they have to know about the Voicenet … and that they've somehow been eliminating, or at least silencing, the links in the chain as they advance. If that's the case, though, then when they see a labor force as large as the one Engineer Banchu has out there, they're going to have to anticipate that there's a Voice assigned to it. And I doubt very much that they could believe it would be possible to completely take out that many people, that widely dispersed, before the Voice in question got a warning off."

"He's right, Orkam," chan Skrithik said. "They'll probably count on cutting the Voicenet chain here at Salby, or else slipping a raiding force past us to find and take out the next relay station up-chain. But they're not going to want to risk the construction crew's warning us that they're coming before they get here."

"I still think we should beef up their security, Sir," Vargan said after a few moments. "I know most of them already have their personal weapons, and gods know they've got enough heavy equipment to dig themselves in deep. For that matter, a lot of them are veterans. But most of them are still civilians."

"I'd certainly be willing to do that," chan Skrithik agreed. Then he smiled nastily. "Suppose we mount a couple of Yerthaks on flatcars and send them down to Banchu? We could send along a rifle company to back them up, of course. And what about sending along Platoon-Captain chan Morak, as well?"

Vargan considered the suggestion. Platoon-Captain Harek chan Morak was Company-Captain Meris Nalkhar's senior assistant, and Nalkhar was Fort Salby's senior combat engineer officer.

"I think that would be a very good idea, Sir," he said after a moment.

"Good," chan Skrithik said, then turned his attention back to Janaki. The regiment-captain remained obviously unhappy about the notion of Janaki's remaining at Fort Salby, but he equally obviously knew it was going to happen anyway, which meant it was time to make the best possible use of the resource Janaki represented.

"Very well, Your Highness. What can your Glimpse tell us about their probable attack plan?"

"Well, Regiment-Captain, from what I've Seen so far, they'll open the attack with a couple of those

'dragons' of theirs. They'll come in this way," he turned to trace a line from the Traisum-Karys portal through the mountainous terrain to Fort Salby, "and apparently the range of their … breath weapons, for want of a better term, is fairly limited. They have to get in close, so I'd say they're going to go for surprise. Which means-"

He went on talking, outlining what he already knew, and even as he spoke, other bits and pieces of Glimpses roiled through the back of his brain like unquiet ghosts.

Be patient, he told those ghosts. Be patient … I'll be with you soon enough.

"Sir! Sir, wake up, please!"

Division-Captain chan Geraith twitched awake. His eyes snapped open, and his right hand reached up and closed on the wrist of the hand which had been gently but insistently shaking his shoulder.

"What?"

He blinked, summoning himself back from the depths of sleep, then sat up quickly, eyes narrowing, as he realized he'd been awakened not by his batman, but by Company-Captain chan Korthal.

"What is it?" he asked his staff Voice more sharply.

"Sir, I've just received an urgent message. It's for you-from Crown Prince Janaki."

Chan Geraith's expression didn't even flicker, but he twitched internally in surprise.

"From the Crown Prince?" he repeated in the tone of someone who wanted to be absolutely certain he'd understood correctly. "Not from His Majesty?"

"That's correct, Sir." Chan Korthal's expression, chan Geraith noticed, was tight and worried, and his own inner tension clicked up another notch.

He started to reach for the bedside lamp to turn up the wick, then snorted and diverted his hand to the window shade above his berth, instead.

Like most trans-universal travelers embarked on a lengthy journey by rail, the men of chan Geraith's division hadn't bothered to reset their watches or readjust their internal clocks. They weren't spending long enough in any one universe to even try to acclimate themselves to local time zones, so they might as well wait for that until they reached their destination. Which meant that it was the middle of the night by chan Geraith's body's time sense, but brilliant sunlight was leaking in around the edges of the window shade as it swayed and bounced gently with the staff car's movement.

He raised it a fraction of an inch, letting natural light illuminate his sleeping compartment, then stood.

After so long, he thought as he shrugged into the robe his batman had left ready on the bedside chair, it would have felt unnatural not to have the floor vibrating and swaying underfoot. He belted the robe, then turned back to chan Korthal.

"All right, Lisar. What's this message?"

Chan Korthal looked at him for a moment, then closed his eyes. Because chan Geraith had no Talent at all, he required the services of a particularly competent Voice, and Lisar chan Korthal filled that requirement admirably. When he began to speak a heartbeat later, it was not his voice chan Geraith heard; it was the voice of his future Emperor, perfectly reproduced.

That was chan Geraith's first thought. Then the words chan Korthal was relaying so perfectly registered, and Arlos chan Geraith's face froze almost as solid as the ice forming in his veins.

"… so that's the situation, Division-Captain," Janaki chan Calirath said through chan Korthal's mouth the better part of fifteen minutes later. "What I've Seen so far explains a lot about the Arcanans' transport and combat capabilities, but I still don't have a clue why they're doing this. The fact that we haven't heard a word from Company-Captain chan Tesh, Regiment-Captain Velvelig, or any of our other outposts seems to me to represent clear proof that this is a carefully planned, well thought out offensive which they must have been putting together the entire time they've been ostensibly negotiating with us.