David Weber - Hell's Gate

She set the final page aflame, then tossed the leather binder and map case themselves into the burning deadwood. Only a handful of rifles were still spitting defiance, and she snatched out her Polshana again, turned back towards her firing position.

And then it happened.

Jathmar had realized what she was doing, and how important it was. He'd stood over her, firing steadily, protecting her while she worked. But as she tossed the final load into the flames, he jumped down to pull her back to a safer spot … just as another fireball struck. It caught his back, flung him against a fallen, crosswise tree branch. His belly and chest struck hard, and he doubled up around the wood, pinned for horrible seconds with flames scorching his back.

His clothes ignited. Fire crisped hair and skin.

"JATHMAR!"

This scream tore her throat. Shaylar and Darcel were scrambling forward, trying to reach Jathmar as he slid off a branch and fell to the ground. Lightning branched and slammed inches away. The concussion of thunder hurled them sideways. Their head struck something incredibly hard with bone-crushing force?

Darcel exploded back into his own body.

The air was clear. No smoke. No screams. No dying men. The portal, silent as sunlight, stood thirty yards to his left as he lay sprawled across the ground. Psychic shock held him immobile for long, soul-shaking moments. He heard distant voices shouting and saw someone running toward him from the far side of the portal, where a slow but steady rain was falling. Darcel shoved himself into a sitting position, groped for a rifle that wasn't there. Then he realized who it was running toward him. Grafin Halifu, himself. Commander of the new fort that was only three hundred yards from where Darcel lay sprawled, stunned, in the sunlight.

"What's wrong?" Halifu demanded, his own rifle in his hand as he closed the last ten yards. "You started shouting something about soldiers in the woodline!"

Darcel lifted unsteady hands, scrubbed his face, tried to reorient himself.

"Attack," he managed to say in a wheezing groan. "Our crew's under attack. Infantry, artillery fire?"

"What?" Halifu's face washed white with shock.

"I was linked with Shaylar." Darcel shut his eyes. "Oh, gods?Shaylar!"

He tried to contact her, tried frantically to get through. But he found only deathly cold silence.

"She's not?" Halifu's horror-choked voice broke off, unwilling?or unable?to complete the question.

"I don't know." Darcel was shaking, unable to control the runaway tremors. "We were hit by an artillery blast of some kind. Thrown by the concussion. Hit our head on something."

He wrapped his arms about himself, gulped down air.

"Ghartoun's dead. So are Barris Kasell and Braiheri Futhai. Elevu Gitel. And if Jathmar's still alive?oh, gods, the burns were horrible?"

He realized he was rocking back and forth only when someone else's arm around his shoulders steadied him and Halifu pressed something metallic against his chattering teeth.

"Drink!"

Darcel gulped, choked, wheezed as the whiskey went down. His eyes smarted … but his whirling senses steadied.

"Thanks," he whispered as the world stopped looping around him.

More people were arriving from the fort, armed for battle and staring a little wildly at the trees around Darcel's camp. Company-Captain Halifu got a second deep gulp of whiskey into him, then waited until the worst of the shakes had eased up.

"Can you give me a report now?" he asked quietly.

Darcel couldn't look into the officer's worried eyes. He knew if he did, he wouldn't be able to speak at all. So he stared at the ground instead and started to talk.

He rambled, his voice unsteady and hoarse, trying to convey the horror, the terrifyingly alien attack, the inexplicable weapons that had sent death crashing across the terrified, outnumbered survey crew. Most of them were civilians, totally unprepared to deal with something as brutal as an all-out attack by trained troops.

Darcel realized he'd finished talking when Company-Captain Halifu ripped out a hideous oath. He clenched his jaws so tightly his teeth creaked, still sitting on the ground.

"Stinking bastards!" Halifu snarled. "I may be supposed to have a company here, but all I've got is two understrength platoons, less than a hundred and fifty men, and Platoon-Captain Arthag's cavalry detachment. And he's riding straight into a trap with half of his men right fucking now! I can't possibly meet an attack by weapons like that?not without reinforcements?and we're over five thousand miles from the nearest railhead! The column from Fort Salby's due any day, but how close it is yet is anyone's guess."

The fort's commander made himself stop, draw a deep breath. He stepped back from his rage and fear and shook his head.

"Armsman chan Therson!"

"Sir!"

Chief-Armsman Dunyar chan Therson, Bronze Company's senior noncom, snapped to attention.

"Get Bantha. Tell him we need to get a dispatch to Petty Captain Arthag at once. He's to stop where he is and hold position."

"Yes, Sir!" Therson said.

"Then find Petty Captain chan Shermayr. His infantry's going to have to assume full responsibility for our security here; I want the rest of Arthag's men in the saddle and moving up to reinforce him inside the next five minutes. See to it that Arthag knows they're coming and that he's not to move another yard until the rest of the rescue party catches up with him."

"Rescue party?" Darcel choked out. "What's the fucking point?"

Company-Captain Halifu went white again.

"Surely there must be some survivors," he said hoarsely.

Darcel never knew what showed on his face, but suddenly Halifu was crouched in front of him, gripping his shoulders with bruising force.

"Don't give up yet," the Uromathian said in a voice full of gravel and steel grit. "I'm sure as hell not giving up, not until we've seen proof. If I were the Commander of that military force, I'd want survivors, someone I could question?"

Darcel flinched, and Halifu bit his lip.

"I'm sorry, Darcel. I know they're friends, almost family."

"Shaylar," Darcel groaned, closing his eyes and despair. He was half in love with her himself. He'd treated her like a kid sister, mostly to convince his heart it didn't actually feel what it stubbornly insisted it felt. Oh, yes, he'd loved Shaylar, just as he'd loved Jathmar for treating her like a queen, as well as a beloved spouse and professional partner.

Shaylar, he whispered into the dead silence of his broken telepathic link. Wake up, please. Please, Shay!

But her voice remained lost in a black nothingness at the center of his soul, and Darcel slowly lifted his head. He came to his feet, scrubbed at wet eyes while the others scuffed tufts of grass with their boots and dug divots out of the ground rather than embarrass him by noticing the tears.

"Company-Captain Halifu," he said in a voice of steel-sharp hatred. "I believe you said something about needing reinforcements?"

Halifu met his gaze levelly?met and held it. Then he nodded.

"Yes, I did. If you'd be so kind as to transmit a message for me, requesting them we'll get started on that rescue mission."

"Compose your message, Sir," Darcel said very, very softly. "I'll be waiting when you're ready to send it."

He turned away than, without another word, and started breaking out the ammunition boxes in his gear.

"Cease fire! Cease fire!"

Jasak plowed into the nearest infantry-dragon's crew. He caught the closer assistant gunner by the collar and heaved him bodily away from the weapon. The gunner didn't even seem to notice … until Jasak kicked him solidly in the chest.

"Cease fire, godsdamn you!"

The gunner toppled over with an absolutely astonished expression. For just an instant, he didn't quite seem to understand what happened. Then his expression changed from confusion to horrified understanding, and he shook himself visibly.