David Weber - Hell's Gate

Under the Portal Authority's accords, any trooper had the right to bring his own horse with him, if he chose and if the horse in question met the Authority's minimum standards. Less than a third of them took advantage of that offer, but Arthag had never met an Arpathian who hadn't, and his own mount was the envy of many a general officer. All of which explained why Arthag watched the stallion's reactions so carefully. Bright Wind could be taken by surprise, of course, but his senses were far keener than Arthag's, and both horse and rider had learned to trust them implcitly.

They were perhaps an hour or an hour and a half's ride from the abandoned stockade when Bright Wind suddenly laid back his ears and halted. Arthag felt the shudder that caught the stallion's muscles a single heartbeat before they turned to iron. And then a slight shift in the wind brought the scent to him, as well. Smoke: a complex, unnatural stink that mingled foully with the ordinary scent of wood smoke and less ordinary smell of burnt flesh. Bright Wind's golden flanks had darkened with sweat, but the stallion wasn't afraid. Nostrils distended, ears pinned flat, he was ready for battle.

"What in Harmana's holy name is that stench?" Junior-Armsman Soral Hilovar muttered softly. The Ricathian Tracer wore an expression of horror, and something inside Arthag quivered. He didn't share Hilovar's Talent, but he didn't need to?not with that stench blowing on the wind.

"Let's go find out," he said quietly. He turned in the saddle, waving hand signals to the column which had halted instantly behind him. Scouts peeled off from the flanks, spreading out. The precaution was almost certainly unnecessary, but Hulmok Arthag didn't care.

Once his skirmishers were in position, he touched Bright Wind with his heels. The stallion stepped forward, dainty yet tense, and Petty Captain Arthag rode out from under the trees into a scene of nightmare.

It was even worse than any of them had been expecting, particularly for Darcel Kinlafia. The Voice really should have been left behind, with Company-Captain Halifu, but he'd flatly refused, and he hadn't been at all shy about it. He might be legally under Halifu's authority, despite his own civilian status, but he hadn't really seemed to care about that.

Arthag's platoon had only been attached to Halifu's command for a couple of months. The Chalgyn Consortium team's rapid-fire chain of discoveries had the Portal Authority scrambling for troops to forward to the new frontier. Arthag's men had been among the units swept up by the Authority broom and whisked off to an entirely new universe?and attached to an equally new CO?with less than a week's warning. A man got used to that in the Authority's service.

But although Arthag scarcely knew Halifu well, he didn't think Kinlafia would have been able to browbeat the company-captain into acquiescence if it hadn't been for the fact that he was the Voice who'd received Shaylar Nargra-Kolmayr's final message. Unlike Arthag or any of his troopers, Kinlafia had already seen the battlefield through Shaylar's eyes. That meant he might be able to give Hilovar or Nolis Parcanthi, the Tracer and Whiffer Halifu had attached to Arthag for the rescue mission, some critical bits of information or explanation which would let them figure out what had really happened here.

But whatever Kinlafia had seen through Shaylar's eyes, it obviously hadn't been enough to prepare him for what he saw through his own. He let out a low, ghastly sound as his gaze swept across the killing field where so many of his friends had died. It was pitifully clear that he saw something Arthag didn't?and couldn't?and Parcanthi reached across to grip Kinlafia's shoulder in wordless sympathy and support.

"Standard perimeter overwatch. Chief-Armsman chan Hathas," Arthag said briskly, pretending he hadn't noticed the Voice's distress. "First Squad has the perimeter. Third has the reserve. Second Squad will dismount and prepare to assist Parcanthi and Hilovar on request, but keep them out from underfoot until they're called for."

"Yes, Sir!" Rayl chan Hathas, Second Platoon's senior noncom, saluted sharply and turned to deal with Arthag's instructions. For a moment, Arthag envied him intensely. He would far rather have buried himself in the comfort of a familiar routine rather than face the sort of discoveries he was afraid they were going to make.

"Soral, Nolis," he continued, turning to the two specialists. "Do what you can to tell us what happened here. The rest of the column will remain outside the clearing until you're finished."

Hilovar and Parcanthi nodded, dismounted?awakwardly, in Parcanthi's case?and tied their reins to fallen branches. Arthag allowed no trace of amusement to cross his expressionless nomad's face?the Septs had their reputation to maintain, after all?but neither the Whiffer nor Tracer were cavalry troopers. They were technically infantry, and Parcanthi looked like a lumpy bag of potatoes in the saddle. Hilovar wasn't a lot better, and Arthag found the two of them about as unmilitary as anyone he'd ever seen in uniform. Hilovar was a tall, solidly built Ricathian who'd been a Tracer for a major civilian police department before the fascination of the frontier drew him into the Authority's service. Parcanthi, a bit shorter than Hilovar but even broader, was a Farnalian with flaming red hair and a complexion which Arthag suspected started peeling about a half-hour before sunrise. On a rainy day.

Both of them, despite their relatively junior noncommissioned ranks, were the sort of critically important specialists the Authority was always eager to get its hands on. And as critically needed specialists often did, they had a tendency to write their own tickets?often without actually realizing they'd even done it. Which, when it came right down to it, was just fine with Hulmok Arthag. He suspected that both of them would be just about useless in a firefight, but they knew that as well as he did. If it came to it, both of them were smart enough to stay out of the line of fire (if they could), and that, too, suited Arthag just fine, because they were also far too valuable to risk in a firefight. As it happened, and despite their lack of horsemanship or military polish, he liked what he'd seen of both of them?a lot. And if they could tell him anything about what had happened here, he would forgive them any military faux pas they might ever commit.

He waited until he was confident chan Hathas had the perimeter organized, then dismounted himself with a murmured command to Bright Wind, whose ears flicked in acknowledgment. Until and unless he told the golden stallion it was time to move, Bright Wind would stay exactly where he was. Arthag patted the horse's shoulder gently, then stepped up to the edge of the clearing, rifle ready, and settled in to wait.

There'd been no rain and little wind, which was a gods send for Parcanthi. Even so, the residual energy had already begun to dissipate. A sense of horror and pain would doubtless linger for years, but raw emotion wasn't what Parcanthi?and the rest of Sharona?sought.

The Whiffer stepped out into the center of the toppled timber, closed his eyes, and reached out with quivering senses to taste the surviving residual patterns, and images flashed through him. Whiffs of what had been. Smoke. The crash and roar of rifle fire. Screams of agony.

He turned, eyes still closed, to face the trees where the Chalgyn Consortium's crew had sought cover. He caught a flash of Ghartoun chan Hagrahyl standing up, hands empty. Caught another flash of a uniformed man spinning around, raising a crossbow, firing. Yet another flash of chan Hagrahyl staggering back, throat pierced with steel.

Other flashes cannoned through him. Barris Kasell dying monstrously inside a massive lightning bolt. Men in strange uniforms falling to the broken ground, as bullets hammered through them. Other Sharonians back in the trees, caught by fireballs and crossbow fire.