David Weber - Hell's Gate

"Or the ones with valuable information," he said bitterly before he could stop himself.

"That's probably part of it," she said unflinchingly, "but I don't think that's all of it. They put you first in line because you were the worst hurt of all."

Doubt flickered in his eyes, and she shook her head.

"I mean it, Jath. The woman with them, Gadrial, she's some kind of Healer, too, but not a very strong one. Or not by these people's standards, anyway. She wasn't strong enough to heal either of us, but …" Shaylar bit her lip. "Without her, you would have died before their real Healer ever got to you."

Her voice had dropped to a terrible whisper, and his blood ran cold. Yes, his memories were brutal enough to believe that. He didn't need the inexplicably broken marriage bond to sense her deep anguish, the horror of her belief that he was already dead still burning in her memory, and his mind flinched like a frightened animal from the vision of her all alone among their enemies.

"It's all right," he whispered raggedly, pulling her close again. "It's all right, I'm still with you."

But even as he cradled his shaken wife, his gaze sought and found the girl?Gadrial?who stood a few feet from the officer. She wasn't Uromathian, no matter what she looked like. It took a real effort to dismiss his preconceived notions, to remind himself that she wouldn't think like a Uromathian or hold the same opinions, attitudes, biases, or customs. And he owed her his life. For a Faltharian, life-debt was a serious business, entailing obligations, formal courtesies, reciprocal bonds of protection, none of which she would understand.

And none of which he particularly relished.

He would owe the other, stronger Healer, as well, he realized, wherever he or she might be. That didn't make him any happier, he admitted. And meanwhile, Gadrial was watching him, her expression uncertain. When he met her gaze, she gave him a tentative smile. Very sweet, very human. Very … normal.

Another shiver touched his impossibly healed back, which, he realized for the first time, was bare. Startled, he glanced down and discovered that his entire shirt was missing. Momentary disorientation swept over him as he found himself kneeling on the ground beside his wife, shirtless, just beginning to realize that he had absolutely no idea where he was, or how far he and Shaylar were from the site of that hideous battle, or how much time had passed. The totality of his ignorance appalled him, and he looked back into Shaylar's worried eyes and frowned as something important nibbled at the edges of his scattered thoughts. Then he had it.

"Shaylar? Where are the others?"

Her composure crumbled. She began to cry again?helplessly, this time, softly and hopelessly, shaking her head in mute grief?and horror sent ice crystals through Jathmar's blood.

"No one?" he whispered. "Nobody else? Just us?"

She nodded, still unable to speak. Her struggle to hold herself together, to stop herself from falling to pieces, broke Jathmar's heart again. He drew her close, held her while she trembled, and he realized their bond wasn't gone, so much as wounded. Too badly wounded to function properly, but not so badly he couldn't feel her grief, her sorrow and despair.

"I'm sorry," he groaned. "I'm sorry I dragged you out here, into this?"

"No!" She looked up swiftly and shook her head with startling violence. "Don't say that! It isn't true!"

She was right, but at the moment, that was a frail defense against his own crushing sense of responsibility and guilt. His awareness of his complete inability to protect her.

It was painfully evident they were prisoners, but how did their captors treat prisoners of war? They must have some sort of procedures to deal with captured enemy personnel, and a further thought chilled him. Would these people think he and Shaylar were soldiers? Even he knew soldiers and civilians received different treatment from the military during armed conflicts. It had been a long time since any major Sharonian nation had gone to war, but even on Sharona there was the occasional border dispute, the "incident" when a patrol from one side wandered across the other side's frontier, the "brushfire" conflict between ancient and implacable enemies. And there'd been more than enough violent conflict in Sharona's pre-portal history to make such procedures necessary.

But how in the multiverse could he convince these people he and his wife were only civilians, when they'd killed so many genuine soldiers and wounded so many others? If Company-Captain Halifu sent real troops after them, these people would get a taste of what Sharonian soldiers could do, but would that help him and Shaylar? If the crossbows he'd seen were the best individual weapons their soldiers had, if they'd never before even seen what rifles and pistols could do, would they believe that ordinary civilians carried such weapons, even in the wilderness?

The memory of that frantic, dreadful fight replayed itself once more in jagged, terrifying flashes, but one thing was clear to him. It was only their artillery?that terrifying, unexplainable artillery?which had turned the tide against Ghartoun chan Hagrahyl's survey crew. As severely outnumbered as they'd been, they'd still been more than holding their own until the fireballs erupted among them.

No wonder those crossbowmen were so twitchy.

He'd already seen evidence that the regular troopers were poised on a hairtrigger where he was concerned, but how would their commanding officer behave toward him and Shaylar? If anyone hurt Shaylar, he'd …

Jathmar bit his lip. He couldn't do that. Couldn't even defend his own wife. If he tried, he'd wind up dead, and Shaylar would be at the mercy of his killers. His pain and self-blame doubled?tripled?but wallowing in misery accomplished nothing, so he dragged his attention back to the present.

"Where are we? Do you know how far we've come?"

"No. I was asleep when we came through that."

Shaylar pointed to something behind him, and he turned, then blinked. A portal. Gods, he really was a scattered, distracted mess to have missed seeing or even sensing a portal literally right behind him. It led into the forest their survey crew had discovered just days ago, but it clearly wasn't the one they'd used to enter that forest. This pestilential swamp was nowhere near the cool, rainy universe on the far side of their portal, and this portal was tiny compared to theirs.

"They took us out in the middle of the night," Shaylar murmured. "On a … dragon."

She hesitated over the word, but Jathmar glanced at the hideous creature and grunted in agreement. If there was a better word for that monstrous beast, he couldn't think of it.

"They put all the most critically wounded on its back," Shaylar continue. "They rigged up a special platform, like an ambulance, or a hospital car. Only this hospital car can fly. I tried to contact Darcel, but something's wrong inside my head. I can't hear anyone?not even you. There's a roaring blackness where my Voice should be, and I have a terrible headache. It never stops."

"That's what I sensed when I tried to touch the bond," he muttered. "When I first woke up, it was all I could hear. I … I thought it meant you were gone."

He met her gaze, saw the pain burning behind her brave eyes, saw it in the furrows that never quite smoothed out between her brows and the tension in her neck and face, where the bruises and swelling so cruelly disfigured her.

"Why the hell haven't they healed you?" he demanded again, much more harshly this time.

"I told you," she said, her tone clearly an explanation, not an excuse for their captors. "Their Healer has his hands full, Jathmar. And as decent as Gadrial and their commander have been, I'm glad their hands are full. I wish they were fuller."