David Weber: March to the Sea - Empire of Man Book II

The junior NCO cleared her throat. "It was my idea."

"So noted," Pahner said with a smile. "I won't hold it against you. I take it that was a 'buy the beasts' vote?"

"Yes, Sir, but D'Len Pah hasn't said he'll sell."

"Good point," Roger said. "D'Len? Can we buy them from you?"

The old Mardukan hesitated, drawing his circles on the stony ground.

"We must have at least one to make it back to the forests," he temporized.

"Granted," Roger said promptly.

"And ... they aren't cheap," the mahout added.

"Would you rather bargain with Captain Pahner or Poertena?" the prince asked.

"Poertena?" The mahout looked around wildly. "Not Poertena!"

"We'll strike a fair bargain," Pahner said severely. "If we decide to buy them." He thought about it for a moment. "Oh, hell. When. There isn't a choice, is there?"

"Not really, Captain," Roger said. "Not if we're going to make it over the mountains."

"So," the commander said to the mahout. "Are you willing to bargain for them? In gems, gold, and dianda?"

The mahout clapped his lower hands in resignation.

"Yes. Yes, we will. The flar-ta are like children to us. But you have been good masters; you will treat our children well. We will bargain for their worth." He lowered his head and continued, firmly. "But not with Poertena."

"Good t'ing they didn't know I was coaching you over tee poc-tee radio, Sir," Poertena said as they waved to the mahouts, slowly making their way back downslope.

"Yep," Roger agreed. "How'd I do?"

"We got pock- We got screwed."

"Hey," Roger said defensively. "Those things are priceless up here!"

"Yeah," Poertena agreed. "But t'ey takin' tee money down t'ere. We prob'ly pay twice what they flar-ta is worth. T'at more money than t'ey ever see in t'eir po ... in their lives."

"True," Roger said. "I'm glad that Cranla went with them. Maybe he can keep people from taking it before they buy their new mounts."

"Sure," the armorer complained. "But now I out a fourth for spades. What I gonna do 'bout t'at?"

"Spades?" Roger asked. "What's spades?"

"I can' believe I get taken by my own pocking prince," Poertena grumped much later as he and Denat watched Roger walk away, whistling cheerfully while he counted his winnings.

"Well," Cord's nephew told him with a remarkable lack of sympathy, "you keep telling us there's a new sucker born every minute. You just didn't get around to mentioning that you were one of them!"

Cord raised the flap of the cover as the flar-ta came to a halt. The three remaining Mardukans had ridden the big packbeasts for the last several days while the humans had searched for a path through the mountains. To avoid the cold and desiccating dryness, the three had huddled under one of the hide tents. There, in a nest of wet rags, they had spent the day, warmed by the sun on the dark tents.

But as the packbeasts continued to stand motionless, Cord decided to brave the outside conditions. Pushing aside one of the moistened clumps of dianda, the shaman slipped out from under the tent and began to walk towards the front of the column, and Roger looked up and smiled as he approached.

"We might have hit a bit of luck," the prince said, gesturing at a pile of rocks. The cairn was clearly artificial, a fairly large pile of stones at the mouth of one of three valleys diverging from the river they'd been following.

The humans had been hunting back and forth in the mountains for a week and a half, looking for a relatively low way across. Several promising valleys had so far yielded only impossibly steep ascents. This valley would not have been considered promising, since it narrowed abruptly up ahead and bent sharply to the south out of sight. However, the existence of the cairn was indisputable.

"Could be some traveler's idea of a practical joke," Kosutic said dubiously. The sergeant major shook her head, looking up the narrow track. "And it'll be a bitch getting the beasts through there."

"But it's the first indication we've had that there's ever been anybody up here," Roger said stubbornly. "Why would anyone lie about the path?"

Pahner looked up at the path the valley might take.

"Looks like there's a glacier up there," he said. He nodded to the stream roaring out of the valley. "See how white the water is, Your Highness?"

"Yes," Roger said. "Oh. Yeah. I've seen that before."

"Snowmelt?" Kosutic asked.

"Glacial runoff," Pahner corrected. "Dust particles from the glacier grinding the mountains. At least part of this stream has its origin in a glacier." He looked at Cord and then back at the flar-ta. "I don't see them being able to make it in glacial conditions."

"There is that," Roger admitted, looking up at the snowy caps. "But we still need to check it out."

"Not we," Pahner said. "Sergeant Major?"

"Gronningen," she said instantly. "He's from Asgard, so he could care less about cold." She paused and thought. "Dokkum is from New Tibet. He should know something about mountains. And I'll take Damdin, too."

"Do it," Pahner said. "We'll make a solid camp here in the meantime." He looked around at the coniferlike trees. "At least there's plenty of wood."

Kosutic looked around the narrow defile with critical eyes. In the week since they'd started up the valley, they had yet to find a spot the packbeasts couldn't negotiate, but this was pushing it.

"You think they can get through?" Dokkum asked. The little Nepalese was taking the slow, steady steps he'd taught the others when they tried to take off like jackrabbits. The simple method of one step per breath was the only way to move in serious mountains. Anything else would wear humans to the bone between the thin air and steep slopes.

Kosutic measured the defile with the range finder in her helmet and looked at the ground. "So far. Much worse and the answer would be no."

"Heya!" Gronningen shouted. "Heya! By Jesus-Thor!" The big Asgardian was perched at the top of the slope, shaking his rifle overhead in both hands.

"Well, I think we found our pass," Kosutic said with a breathy chuckle.

"Damn," Roger said, looking at the view spread out below the company.

The last of the flar-ta were scrambling up the defile as he stepped aside to get a better look. The broad, U-shaped valley at their feet was clearly glacial shaped, and in the center of the deep bowl directly below them was an immense tarn, an upper mountain lake.

The water of the lake, still several thousand meters below their current altitude, was a deep, intense blue, like liquid oxygen. And it looked just about as cold. Given their surroundings, that was hardly surprising. What was a surprise, was the city on its shore.

The town was large, nearly as large as Voitan once had been, and did not fit the usual huddled-on-a-hilltop pattern of every other Mardukan city the humans had yet seen. This town frankly sprawled around the shores of the lake and well up the valley slopes above it.

"It looks like Como," Roger said.

"Or Shrinagar," O'Casey added quietly.

"Whichever it is," Pahner said, stepping out of the way of the beasts as well, "we need to get down to it. We've got less than a hundred kilos of barleyrice left, and our diet supplementals get a little lower every day."

"You're always such an optimist, Captain," Roger observed.

"No, I'm a pessimist. That's what your mother pays me to be," the Marine added with a smile. The smile quickly turned to a frown, however. "We have a smidgen of gold and a few gems left after we paid the mahouts. Oh, and some dianda. We need barleyrice, some wine, fruits, vegetables-everything. And salt. We're almost out of salt."