David Weber - Hell's Gate

Gadrial's breath caught savagely.

"It appears to be understrength, still under construction," Klian continued. "But the Chief Sword watched the arrival of a relief column which had evidently moved ahead by forced march. They had more of those weapons you and the Hundred here, encountered. And other weapons, as well, with tubes that were?"

He glanced at Threbuch.

"How large again, Chief?"

"They were about six feet long, Sir," Threbuch replied. "Looked like they were probably four and a half or five inches across, with fairly thin walls. They had four of the damned things covering my aspect of portal, but according to Javelin Shulthan here, there were at least two or three more covering the other aspect. And they had something else, too. I don't know what to call it. It was another tube, shorter and not as big across, mounted on a tripod, almost like an infantry-dragon. But it wasn't a dragon. It had a … crank on the side, and a long belt of those cylinder things we found at their camp went into it. When they turned the crank?" He swallowed, his lips tight. "It was like those shoulder weapons of theirs, Sir," he said, turning to look directly at Jasak. "But instead of firing just one shot at a time, it fired again and again, so fast together that it sounded like one, long, single shot. It must've fired hundreds of times a minute, Sir."

He stopped speaking abruptly, and a line of sweat trickled down his brow.

He saw it used, Gadrial realized, going even colder.

"They attacked the portal." Her voice was a thread. "Our portal?didn't they?"

"They did." Five Hundred Klian gave her a jerky nod. Harsh, full of pain and anger. "After asking?asking by name, mind?for Shaylar."

Gadrial's breath hissed and she paled as she instantly recognized what he was implying. If they'd asked specifically for Shaylar, did that mean they somehow knew she'd survived the initial battle? It must! But if they did …

She turned to stare at Jasak.

"How? My God, how could they have gotten a message out? Your men searched for any sign of a runner, both at their camp and at the clearing."

"Yes," Jasak said through clenched teeth. "We searched?damned thoroughly. No messenger went out, unless he went up the river before he headed for their portal. But however it happened, they got a message through … somehow. And somehow damned quick, too. According to the Chief, here, the head of their initial scouting column passed him long before anyone could have gotten back to their portal on foot to summon them even if they did manage to get a runner out."

Gadrial touched her own cheek with fingers which had gone icy chill.

"But that's?" She broke off. Clearly, it wasn't impossible, since they'd obviously done it. "They must have something like hummers," she said instead, aware her intellect was grasping at straws, seeking any excuse, any distraction, to avoid hearing the rest of the doom they were about to pronounce.

"Something," Klian agreed. "And we're hoping you can find out what. Shaylar, at least, seems to trust you, to a certain degree. If you can find out how they warned their people, you'll give us information that will save lives. Possibly a lot of lives. We need every advantage we can possibly get to deal with their people, Magister, because they've just demonstrated a frankly devastating military superiority.

"Granted," he added in a harsh voice, "we made mistakes which made it even worse. I did, for example, when I failed to listen to Hundred Olderhan's warning, and Hundred Thalmayr made several serious mistakes of his own that proved costly. At least one of those was probably my fault, too, because I'm the one who ordered him to position himself on our side of portal. I intended that to apply only to his fortifications and main position, not to his sentries. It's standard procedure to picket both sides of any contested portal in a threat situation, and I expected him to follow SOP in applying my orders. Apparently, however, he interpreted my instructions to mean he was to do otherwise."

Fort Rycharn's commander paused again, his face tight and grim.

"I'm afraid, though, that however much Thalmayr's mistakes?and mine?may have contributed to the disaster, there was an even more terrifying factor involved." He looked directly into her eyes, his own appealing, almost desperate. "Somehow, these people can fire artillery through a portal, Magister."

He stopped, and Gadrial stared at him. No wonder he was staring at her that way, pleading with her to explain how it might have happened. But she couldn't. No spell could be projected through a portal interface! That had been established two centuries ago. It was an absolute fundamental of portal exploration, and?

Her yammering thoughts stopped abruptly, as a truly terrifying possibility occurred to her. No, a spell couldn't be projected through a portal … but from Shaylar's reaction to Magister Halathyn, these people didn't even know what sorcery was! Their weapons obviously relied on totally non-arcane principles; she and Jasak had already figured that much out. But if that was true for their shoulder weapons, why shouldn't it be equally true for their artillery weapons? And if their artillery fired physical projectiles, like the ones their shoulder weapons fired, then?

"I don't have any idea what makes their weapons work, Five Hundred," she said frankly. "Not yet, at least. But one thing I do know is that they don't rely on any magical principles with which I'm familiar. Which means the limitations we're familiar with probably don't apply, either."

She saw fresh, even worse fear in his eyes, and shook her head quickly.

"Whatever they are, however they work, I'm certain they have limitations of their own," she said. "Any form of technology does. We simply have to figure out what limitations apply to theirs. For the moment, though, I think we're going to have to assume that instead of projecting a spell the way our weapons do, they launch a physical projectile which actually carries the spellware, or whatever it is they use. If that's the case, then they can fire them anywhere any physical object could pass. Like through a portal interface."

Klian and Jasak looked at one another, their faces tight, and then the five hundred looked back at her.

"However they did it, Magister, it was devastating. I'm sure Hundred Thalmayr never expected it, any more than I would have, and it turns our entire portal defense doctrine on its head. We're going to have to come up with some answer, whether it's a way to stop them from doing it, or a way of figuring out how to do the same thing ourselves."

Gadrial nodded, and a part of her brain truly was even then reaching out, looking for some sort of solution. But it was only a tiny part, for most of her mind refused to let her hide any longer from what she most dreaded.

"How badly?" She had to stop and clear her throat. "How badly did they hit us?"

For a moment, no one spoke, and she cringed away from their silence. Then Fort Rycharn's commander inhaled deeply.

"The only men left from the swamp portal detachment are in this fort, Magister." His voice was harsh with emotion that not even years of Andaran military discipline could disguise. "Of the men actually stationed at the portal at the time of their attack, including the wounded we hadn't yet evacuated, only Chief Sword Threbuch and Javelin Shulthan made it back. All the rest are either dead or prisoners."

Gadrial felt her hands clench into white-knuckled fists on the arms of her chair. Despite all they'd already said, all her own efforts to prepare herself because of what she'd seen in their eyes, the sheer scope of the disaster hit her like a hammer. And behind that was the regret, the pity, burning in Sarr Klian's eyes as he faced her squarely.

She couldn't speak, literally couldn't force the words past her lips to ask the question that would confirm what her heart and mind already knew. She tried, but nothing happened, and then it was no longer necessary.