David Weber - Hell's Gate

Half the cavalry spread out, sweeping along the parapet's inner face. The rest thundered straight ahead, heading for the tents.

Many of the riders flung themselves off their horses, storming into the tents, hand weapons ready, and Thalmayr felt horror grip him by the throat. He still had wounded men in those tents, less-critically injured and yet to be evacuated to the coast. Men unable to defend themselves. What if??

Then a fresh blur of motion caught his eye. Magister Halathyn crashed backwards through the opening of his tent. He staggered, clutching at one visibly wounded arm, then went heavily to his knees on the muddy ground. An enemy trooper exploded out of the tent on his heels, shouting at him, holding one of those ghastly hand weapons and pointing it directly at the aged magister.

Magister Halathyn was gasping out something, pointing frantically towards the east, then jabbing the same hand at the tents full of wounded. The dismounted cavalryman glared at him for an endless instant, still pointing his weapon at the magister's head. Then he lowered it, holding it by his side, and reached out his free hand to help the wounded Halathyn to his feet.

Thalmayr gasped in relief?only to scream in useless denial a heartbeat later as a lightning bolt lashed out from his own parapet. It caught two more of the enemy horsemen … and slammed through them to catch Magister Halathyn and the man helping him to his feet, as well.

They went down, writhing in the actinic glare. Lightning lifted and twisted their bodies, then slammed them down into the mud. They lay hideously still.

"Magister Halathyn! Oh, gods … "

It took Hadrign Thalmayr a moment to realize the voice was his own. And then, finally, the merciful darkness pulled him under.

Jasak Olderhan was torn between impatience to get underway, frustration, fury, and fear.

Otwal Threbuch was overdue. A soldier of his ability and experience should've made the hike to the class seven portal and back to the base camp by now. But his walking wounded had reported back two days ago, according to Hundred Thalmayr's hummer report to Five Hundred Klian, and still there was no sign of Threbuch or Emiyet Borkaz.

That was worrisome. Had Threbuch run into more of Shaylar's people? Even if he had, that didn't necessarily mean anything dire had happened. For one thing, it simply took longer to move without being seen or heard by an enemy than it did to hike through unoccupied territory. And, Jasak reminded himself, he really had no idea how big the portal he'd sent the chief sword to recon might be. If Gadrial and Magister Halathyn were right about it, its sheer size might well have delayed Threbuch?especially given the chief sword's idea of what constituted an adequate reconnaissance. For that matter, Gadrial herself had said her new portal-sniffer was experimental. It could have given a false reading on the portal's size, or on the distance to it.

In short, there were any number of non-disastrous reasons the chief sword might have been delayed. Unfortunately, given what had already happened, Jasak found it difficult to feel optimistic.

The fact that Therman Ulthar and his Third Platoon had been ferried forward by dragon to support Thalmayr's asinine forward defense of Arcana's "sacred soil" only added to Jasak's worry … and anger. The more Jasak considered Thalmayr's stance, the less sense it made even from a tactical perspective. He suspected he wasn't completely alone on that opinion, either. Five Hundred Klian might have decided to support Thalmayr's decision, but unless Jasak was badly mistaken, the five hundred nursed more reservations about it than he was prepared to admit.

At least Klian had sent a request back to Fort Wyvern for reconnaissance gryphons. In a more perfect world, they would already have been moved forward to Fort Rycharn, given the fact that Rycharn was the staging point for the exploration of this universe's only known portal. But, like everything else this far out along the frontier, recon gryphons were in short supply, and Commander of Five Hundred Waysal Grantyl, Fort Wyvern's CO, had only four of them. He'd decided?for reasons best known to himself?that it was more important to retain them under his own direct control, and he was senior to Klian. It was true enough that the heavy forest on the far side of the swamp portal was exactly the worst sort of terrain for gryphon reconnaissance, which undoubtedly figured in Grantyl's decision, but Jasak prayed nightly that he would relent in the face of Klian's request. Suitable terrain or not, Jasak had men in harm's way.

Of course, he reminded himself bitterly, even if Grantyl did to change his mind, it would take over a week for Klian's request to reach Fort Wyvern and the gryphons to reach Fort Rycharn. And, he reminded himself even more bitterly, they weren't "his" men anymore. Not officially, anyway. That pompous, stiffnecked idiot Thalmayr had made that clear enough. But that didn't mean it was true; it simply meant there was no longer anything Jasak could do to protect them.

He'd had a brief conversation with Fifty Ulthar before the transport dragons moved Third Platoon back to the swamp portal. Military protocol had made it impossible for Jasak to discuss his reservations about Ulthar's new company commander frankly, but he and the fifty had known one another a long time. He was confident Ulthar had read between the lines of what propriety did allow him to say, and the fifty was the late, unlimited Shevan Garlath's antithesis. Jasak was confident Ulthar would do the best anyone in his position could. The problem, of course, was that there wasn't really all that much a platoon commander could do when his company commander had decided to insert his head into his anal orifice.

Jasak stood glowering eastward out the window of his assigned quarters across the beautiful tropical sea as the sun slid toward the western horizon. It should have been a soothing panorama, but at the moment, the softening shadows and the water's turquoise serenity only irritated him further. He hauled out his PC and checked the time, then snorted in mingled amusement and frustration. It would be dinnertime in another half-hour, which would kill at least another hour and a half or so. After which he could probably put his head back into Fort Rycharn's communications center, before he turned in, to see whether or not there'd been any word from Threbuch without seeming too anxiety ridden.

Not that he was fooling anyone, he knew.

He turned from the window, left his quarters, and headed across to the ones which had been assigned to Gadrial and their prisoners. The shortcut he followed took him past a rear corner of the armory, and his brisk stride paused suddenly?in surprise, more than anything else?as he heard a low, harsh voice hissing something vicious in Mythalan.

As the Duke of Garth Showma's son and heir, Jasak had been tutored in at least the basics of every major Arcanan language … including Mythalan. He'd made considerably less use of Mythalan than most of the others, over the years, but he'd enjoyed the opportunity to practice his language skills with Magister Halathyn. The magister had been gently amused at Jasak's atrocious accent, but at least their conversations had scoured much of the rust of disuse from Jasak's comprehension of Mythalan.

Now the hundred's eyes narrowed and his face darkened at what he was hearing.

"?fucking garthan! Are you really stupid enough to think that just because you've escaped your proper station in Mythal, you can put on grand airs out here and act like my equal?"

It took Jasak a second or two to recognize the voice. Then he placed it. It belonged to Lance Bok vos Hoven, a Gifted combat engineer who'd transferred into First Platoon along with Shevan Garlath when Garlath had arrived as Fifty Thaylar's temporary replacement. vos Hoven's job had been to recharge the storage units for the platoon's infantry-dragons, and Jasak had been a bit surprised to see his obviously Mythalan name on First Platoon's roster. Shakira were rare?very rare?among the Arcanan army's noncommissioned ranks, aside from a relatively small number who were also multhari, and who were then properly known as "vos and mul," not simply "vos." The fact that vos Hoven wasn't multhari had piqued Jasak's curiosity mildly, but the man had kept largely to himself, and Garlath, his platoon commander, had seemed satisfied with him. Indeed, Garlath had specifically requested vos Hoven's transfer from his original platoon when he himself was assigned to take over First Platoon.