David Weber - The Road to Hell

“No, we won’t,” Ustmyn said almost gently. “On the other hand, I don’t really think we’re going to need them. Do you?”

Galvara stared at him. Then his eyes widened and he swallowed.

“No, Sir. Don’t reckon we will,” he said, reaching for the crystal.

“Which makes it especially important to get this one right.” Ustmyn gripped the lance’s shoulder. “Make sure you do, Gordymair.”

“Aye, Sir. I’ll do that thing.”

The lance’s Limathian accent was more pronounced than Ustmyn had ever heard it, but his jaw firmed and he nodded sharply.

“Good man.” The fifty squeezed his shoulder again. “Now, go get it sent,” he said and turned to follow Forstmir as Galvara ran towards the hummers.

* * *

“Oh, laddie, that’s a bad, bad idea,” Wendyr chan Jethos said softly.

“Can’t blame them for trying,” Fozak chan Gyulair replied and drew a deep breath as he settled even more squarely behind his Mark 12. “And it’s why we’re here.”

“I know.” Chan Jethos shook his head. “Doesn’t hardly seem fair, though.”

“And what those bastards did to every Voice between Hell’s Gate and Traisum was fair?”

“Didn’t say that.” Chan Jethos closed his eyes, concentrating on his Talent. “Good news is there’s only one of ’em so far. Might be the others’ll take the hint.”

“Maybe.”

Chan Gyulair had his own eyes closed as he squeezed the rear trigger, transforming the one in front of it into a hair trigger that could be touched off almost with a thought. He ignored the bulky, powerful telescopic sight mounted atop his rifle. In fact, he hadn’t even opened the protective lens caps. There were times he needed that sight, because his was a very special Talent. He was a Predictive Distance Viewer. His range was too short to be useful for the artillery, where ranges of up to fifteen or even twenty miles might be required, but it was more than long enough for other purposes, and the Army aggressively recruited men like him for its snipers. He had to know where to Look, which was why he was normally paired with chan Jethos, whose Plotting Talent located his targets for him. Without that sort of spotter, he had to search for them the old-fashioned way, using his eyes first and his Talent second, which explained the sight.

But today, he did know where to Look, and as he Watched Gordymair Galvara racing towards the hummers, he recognized the exact moment when he’d be in exactly the right spot.

Of course, it wasn’t enough to simply know where the target was. No Talent could provide the breath control, the steadiness, the ability to gauge the range and put a bullet precisely where it needed to be precisely when it needed to be there. That took years of training and constant practice, but Fozak chan Gyulair had invested those years in mastering his trade.

* * *

The 320-grain bullet was still traveling at almost nine hundred feet per second when it struck Lance Galvara directly above his right eye like a five hundred and seventy-pound hammer.

March 23

“Your boys have done one hell of a job, Renyl,” Arlos chan Geraith said, exchanging a forearm clasp like hammered steel with Brigade-Captain Renyl chan Quay. “I knew I was asking a lot of you, and you’ve done all of it and more. Especially chan Malthyn and young chan Mahsdyr.”

“They have done the Brigade proud, haven’t they, Sir?” Renyl chan Quay was almost a foot taller than chan Geraith, with hazel eyes and the dark hair of his Teramandorian birth, and white teeth flashed against his dark complexion as he smiled broadly, pleased with the division-captain’s well-deserved praise.

“They’ve done the whole damned Army proud,” the division-captain corrected. “There were so many things that could’ve gone wrong with this march that I couldn’t even begin to count them. I’d say probably at least a third of them did go wrong, for that matter. But the entire corps pulled my arse out of every hole we almost fell into, and your brigade’s done more of that than anyone except-possibly-chan Hurmahl and the other engineers.”

Chan Quay nodded, his smile fading into a more sober expression, because chan Geraith had a point.

Breakdowns had accelerated at an alarming rate over the last couple of weeks. Third Corps was down almost half of the Bisons which had been assigned to it at the beginning of its epic march. Some of those had been made up out of additional Bisons sent down-chain as replacements, but the corps remained thirty percent short of its theoretical establishment and the Steel Mules and steam drays couldn’t compensate for the missing Bisons’ massive hauling capacity. It was like using switching engines in place of one of the TTE’s Paladins, and it was beginning to bite their logistics badly.

Despite that, there’d been enough redundancy-barely-in chan Geraith’s original planning to compensate for their losses. So far, at least.

“I’ve been following all your Voice reports,” chan Geraith continued, “but it’s not the same as a face-to-face briefing.”

Chan Quay nodded again, his expression neutral. Unlike chan Geraith, the brigade-captain was a Voice, although his range was only a few hundred yards. Had chan Geraith been equally Talented, the two of them could have conferred directly through their staff Voices, despite the distance between them, a point he had no intention of making. The division-captain needed no Talent to read his non-expression, however, and snorted dryly.

“Wasn’t the first time I’ve regretted being deaf as a post when it comes to Hearing reports, Renyl. Won’t be the last, either…I hope. So why don’t you just step over to my office and my maps.”

“Yes, Sir,” chan Quay said respectfully and followed chan Geraith back to the division-captain’s HQ Steel Mule.

Unlike the icy winter in Nairsom, the weather here, about midway between what should have been the towns of Carotal and Simaryn, was clear, dry, and much, much warmer. The early afternoon temperature hovered in the mid-fifties, though chan Geraith’s staff Weather Hound predicted it would drop well below freezing overnight. At the moment, however, it seemed almost balmy to the division-captain, and the windows in the shell covering the Mule’s cargo bed were open to let in the brisk southeasterly breeze.

That breeze ruffled the corners of the map paperweighted down on chan Geraith’s desk as he and chan Quay bent over it.

“We’re here,” the division-captain said, tapping a point roughly two hundred miles west of Chindar and a thousand miles east of the New Uromath portal. The long line of the Sand Rock River, snaking from northwest to southeast, lay a hundred and thirty miles to the south, and the terrain offered firm, relatively easy going for their vehicles as they rolled along, throwing up a vast plume of dust-which he hoped to every Arpathian hell there were no Arcanan eyes to see-from the dry soil.

“Yes, Sir,” chan Quay acknowledged. “As of twelve hours ago, Regiment-Captain chan Malthyn had the rest of Second Battalion here at High Rock City, a couple of hundred miles behind chan Mahsdyr’s Gold Company,” he touched a spot just over two hundred miles northwest of their current location. “Chan Grosvar’s been holding First Battalion here, about ten miles west of us, at Broken Shoe Butte, for the last couple of days.” He tapped another spot. “He’ll be moving up to join Second Battalion tomorrow morning. He’s been waiting for that load of engineering supplies Battalion-Captain chan Hurmahl needs. Assuming nothing untoward happens, he should reach chan Mahsdyr day after tomorrow.”

Chan Geraith nodded slowly, leaning forward to take his weight on his arms, his palms spread on the map while he considered the positions of the rest of his division. The 9th Dragoon Regiment had closed up with Teresco chan Urlman’s 16th Dragoons five days ago, and the 23rd would overtake the main body within another seventy-two hours. At that point, two of his three brigades would be concentrated in a single fighting force, ready to hand.