David Weber - Hell's Gate

"Jathmar?" the five hundred said, and the prisoner gave him a jerky nod.

"Sarr," Klian said, touching his uniform blouse. "Sarr Klian." He waved his hand, indicating the room, the compound beyond the window. "I command this fort."

He pointed to the palisade walls visible through the window, then pointed at himself again. Jathmar studied him through narrowed eyes for a moment, then gave a slow nod. Clearly he'd already guessed as much.

"You," Klian said, pointing to Jathmar, "will go with Jasak Olderhan."

He pointed to Jasak again and pantomimed walking. Jasak regarded him suspiciously for a moment, then nodded again. A fraction of the tension gripping him relaxed, but his eyes remained deeply wary. Klian would've given a great deal for the information behind those eyes. As he'd told Jasak, he wasn't at all happy about the decision he'd made; he just didn't see any other decision he liked better. But if more fighting did break out, Sarr Klian was going to be the one in the hot seat, and he was desperately short of information.

"Very well, Hundred." He switched his attention back to Jasak. "I'll make arrangements for those quarters immediately. Take him back to the infirmary for now. Let him sit with his wife until your accommodations are ready."

"Yes, Sir."

"And, Hundred Olderhan," Klian continued, standing and offering the younger officer his hand, "good luck. You deserve it … and you're going to need it."

"Yes, Sir. Thank you."

Jasak shook the proffered hand firmly, and Klian watched him leave with his prisoner. Then the five hundred sat back down behind his roughhewn desk and discovered he'd developed a raging headache.

Now there's a surprise, he thought with harsh humor, and then he got grimly to work.

Darcel Kinlafia stood moodily in the chill, rapidly falling evening under the mighty trees and tried not to look sullen.

It wasn't easy, not even when he knew all the reasons for the delay. Not even when his intellect approved of most of the reasons. For that matter, not even?or, perhaps, especially?when the delay was at least partly his own fault for insisting upon accompanying Acting Platoon-Captain Arthag's expedition in the first place.

Patience, he told the hunger coiling within him. Patience, they're here now.

And it was a damned good thing they were, too, he reflected, watching the head of the column.

The horsemen and their mounts looked exhausted, as well they might, given how hard they'd pushed themselves over the past five days. Kinlafia grimaced and walked across as Platoon-Captain Arthag looked up from his mess kit, then stood.

The column halted, and the man riding at its head beside the standardbearer with the dove-tailed company guidon, embroidered with the three copper-colored cavalry sabers which denoted its place within its parent battalion, looked around. Kinlafia had never actually met him, but he recognized Company-Captain chan Tesh without any trouble, and the dark-skinned petty-captain beside him had to be Rokam Traygan. The fact that Darcel had seen chan Tesh's face through Traygan's eyes without ever seeing Traygan's was one of those oddities Voices quickly became accustomed to.

chan Tesh's searching eyes found Arthag, and the Arpathian officer waited until the company-captain had dismounted before he saluted.

"Acting Platoon-Captain Arthag," he said crisply.

"Company-Captain chan Tesh," chan Tesh replied. The newly arrived cavalry officer looked almost Shurkhali, but he was a Ternathian, with an accent which sounded so much like Ghartoun chan Hagrahyl that Darcel winced. chan Tesh's voice even had the same timbre.

"I'm glad to see you, Company-Captain," Arthag said.

chan Tesh studied his face for a moment in the rapidly failing light. Kinlafia wondered if he was looking for any indication that Arthag actually resented his arrival. After all, chan Tesh's superior rank gave him command, which also meant his name was undoubtedly the one going into the history books. And his impending arrival had effectively nailed Arthag's feet to the forest floor, preventing the Arpathian from acting until chan Tesh got there. But if the Ternathian had anticipated any resentment from Arthag, what he saw in the other officer's expression clearly reassured him, because he smiled wearily.

"We're glad to be here, Platoon-Captain," he said. "Not least because our arses need the rest!"

"I think we can provide more than just a rest, Company-Captain," Hulmok Arthag said. "My people have a hot meal waiting for you."

"Now that, Platoon-Captain, is really good news," chan Tesh said. "I think my backbone's about ready to start gnawing on my belt buckle from the back!"

It was a humorous exaggeration, but not that much of one, chan Tesh reflected. He and his column had been just over twenty miles from the entry portal to New Uromath when the stunning news reached them. chan Tesh was willing to admit privately that he hadn't been pushing the pace at that point, since he'd expected to relieve Company-Captain Halifu on routine garrison duty and hadn't really been looking forward to taking over Halifu's rainsoaked portal fort. The Uromathian company-captain's reports had made it abundantly clear just how soggy chan Tesh's new duty post was likely to be.

But word of the mysterious strangers who'd slaughtered the Chalgyn Consortium survey crew had changed all of that. chan Tesh had quickly reorganized the transport column, leaving the infantry and the majority of the support troops, including his half-dozen field guns, with his executive officer while chan Tesh himself took a hard core of mounted troops ahead as quickly as he could. Over the last five days, he and his relief force had covered almost three hundred miles, most of it through dense, rainy forest. If it hadn't been the worst five-day ride of Balkan chan Tesh's life, it had to come close.

But we're here now, he thought grimly. And if Arthag's report's as accurate as his reports've always been in the past, the bastards on the other side of that swamp portal aren't going to be a bit happy about that!

He looked over his shoulder as the rest of the column came in. He was proud of those men. Tired as they were, weary as their mounts were, there'd been no straggling. These were mostly veterans, who didn't worry about parade-ground precision, but the column was well ordered and well closed up.

chan Tesh's own cavalry company?Copper Company, First Battalion, Ninth Regiment, Portal Authority Armed Forces?led the column. He'd left one of his three platoons with his XO, and Copper Company had been a bit understrength to begin with, but he still had eighty-five experienced, hardened troopers. Then there were the two platoons of Imperial Ternathian Marines.

Most nations' marines were straight leg-infantry?not surprisingly, since marines were supposed to spend most of their time in shipboard service. Ternathian Marines were a rather special case, however. They prided themselves on their ability to go anywhere and do anything their orders required, and they'd been a mainstay of the Portal Authority's multinational forces for over half a century. There were those in the Ternathian Army who were firmly convinced that what had really happened was that the Marines had hijacked a lion's share of the Ternathian commitment to the Portal Authority purely as a means of preventing the Imperial Marine Corps' demise, and chan Tesh rather suspected that those critics had at least a semi-valid point. Certainly there'd been an ongoing struggle for the military budget between the Imperial Marines and Imperial Army for as long as anyone could remember. The Navy, of course, had always stood by and watched the squabble with a sort of amused tolerance. No one was going to suggest funding land troops at the expense of the Imperial Navy, after all.