David Weber - The Road to Hell

Ulthar’s expression was sick, but it wasn’t sick enough yet, and Velvelig felt something almost like sadistic pleasure, as if he were somehow paying back all of Arcana for every single Sharonian life which had been destroyed, every drop of Sharonian blood which had been shed.

“You don’t have Talents, just like we don’t have your ‘Gifts,’ so maybe you don’t understand what a Voice truly is. When I say every trace Mind Speaker in Sharona Saw that message, I mean they experienced it with her . They felt every single thing she felt. All of it-sights, sounds, smells, even her thoughts and emotions. They were firsthand witnesses to the entire fight, to the entire fucking massacre , because they were right there inside her head with her while she experienced it! You think your people are pissed off over being lied to about your magister? You have no idea, no frigging concept , of how pissed off and infuriated my entire home universe is, because we absolutely know that every single thing she sent us was completely true! And then, on top of all that, you not only launched this godsdamned attack while we were negotiating for a peaceful settlement but shot every additional Voice you could find along the way?!” He shook his head. “Trust me, what you’ve already done is enough to turn every single nation of Sharona against you, and every one of them sees Shaylar as its own martyr. I don’t know exactly what’s happening back home right this minute, but I don’t need to know any specifics to guarantee you that you can’t even begin to imagine what’s headed your way sometime very soon…assuming it’s not already on its way.”

Ulthar and Sarma stared at each other, expressions horrified. They’d thought they understood how bad the situation was. Now they knew their worst nightmares had fallen dismally short of reality.

They were still standing there, still staring at one another, when Valnar Rohsahk, who’d been sent to fetch Fifty Maisyl and his medical detachment, dashed back to them.

“Sir! Fifty Ulthar!” the recon crystal specialist panted. “Hathnor’s dead and Hundred Thalmayr and Bahbar are both gone!”

* * *

“I’d love to have some idea of what we do now,” Therman Ulthar admitted wearily and looked around the unlikely group at the huge table in the Fort Ghartoun mess hall.

He sat at one end of the table, despite his lowly rank, as the most senior Arcanan present, with Jaralt Sarma to his right and Commander of Fifty Cothar to his left. The very dark-complected Hilmaran cavalry officer looked less than delighted at the situation, but he’d burned his bridges as thoroughly as any of the others when he didn’t join the effort to resist the mutiny. Sorthar Maisyl, Fort Ghartoun’s senior healer, sat to Cothar’s right, and Evarl Harnak and Keraik Nourm, faced Maisyl across the table. Both noncoms looked acutely uncomfortable at finding themselves in an officer’s council, but they’d earned the right to be there and the dragon shit was so deep they deserved the chance to speak up for themselves and the enlisted men who’d followed Ulthar and Sarma into mutiny. Besides, any junior officer who wasn’t a complete fool knew enough to listen to his senior noncommissioned officers’ advice.

Namir Velvelig sat at the far end of the table, flanked by Company-Captain Silkash, his senior surviving officer, and Master-Armsman Hordal Karuk. Silkash looked enormously better than he had, thanks to Maisyl’s healing Gift. The Sharonian surgeon was an Inkaran, from the island off the coast of Shaloma which the Sharonians apparently called Bernith, with sandy hair and blue eyes which were still more than a little bemused from watching Maisyl and his assistants work on the wounded. Tobis Makree was still in the infirmary, although his condition was enormously improved, so Senior-Chief-Armsman Lestym chan Visal sat beside Karuk, and Armsman Thakoh chan Dersain filled out the Sharonian end of the table.

Chan Dersain was both the most junior and the youngest person present, and he looked more than a little nervous. Velvelig had insisted upon his presence, however, and neither Ulthar nor Sarma could fault him for that. The youngster-he had to be at least eight or nine years younger than either of the two fifties-had dark auburn hair and brown eyes. He was from Parnatha, which the Sharonians called Alathia, and his left eye had been blinded in the fight for Fort Ghartoun. It was possible Maisyl would be able to do something about that…but it was also possible the magistron wouldn’t be able to, given how much time had passed. Yet whatever might have happened to his physical vision, chan Dersain had a very useful Talent for an observer. He was what the Sharonians called a “Sifter,” which made him a human lie detector. With him at one end of the table and a sarkolis crystal charged with a verifier spell at the other end, all parties could be satisfied that no one was lying to anyone else.

Gods, I hate to think how the Commandery’s going to react to this one, Ulthar thought almost whimsically. Talk about violating military security -!

“I think a lot of what we decide to do now depends on what you were already planning to do,” Velvelig observed in response to his opening remark.

The regiment-captain was the equivalent of a commander of two thousand, which made him astronomically senior to anyone else at the table. He was also at least ten years older than any of the Arcanan officers, and he spoke with a calm sense of assurance and authority which ought to have been out of place in a prisoner of war. Under the circumstances, Ulthar found that more reassuring than anything else.

“What we’d intended to do, Sir,” he said now, after glancing at Sarma and receiving the other fifty’s nod of agreement, “was to place Hundred Thalmayr under arrest, disarm and secure anyone who opposed our actions, and send a hummer-that’s a messenger bird-back to commander of Five Hundred Klian in Mahritha with a report of what we’d done and a request for orders.”

“A commander of five hundred is-what? The equivalent of one of our battalion-captains?”

“Approximately, yes, Sir.”

“And you thought he’d have the seniority to untangle the mess you were planning to drop into his lap?” Velvelig sounded skeptical, and Ulthar didn’t blame him.

“We didn’t know whether he’d have the seniority or not, Sir,” Sarma put in. “But my uncle served with Five Hundred Klian when they were both squires-that would be under-captains in your Army. He invited me to dinner when I arrived in Fort Rycharn-as the son of an old friend, not one of his junior officers-and my platoon was one of the first ones ordered to move up as reinforcements. I talked to several of the Five Hundred’s men before Two Thousand Harshu or Five Hundred Neshok arrived from Erthos. That’s why I knew something wasn’t right about the intelligence briefings we were given just before the offensive kicked off. I had a lot better idea of what had actually happened at Toppled Timber and at the swamp portal than anyone else in the Expeditionary Force seemed to have. I couldn’t be sure what they were telling us was wrong, but it sure sounded that way. And Five Hundred Klian knows exactly what really happened when all this started, since he personally debriefed Hundred Olderhan on his way up-chain. If anybody would be likely to believe us and be in a position to give us some kind of advice, maybe even some cover, it’d be him.”

“But the fellow in charge of this Expeditionary Force of yours is a commander of two thousand, right?” Velvelig asked. Ulthar nodded, and the Sharonian grunted. “It seems likely to me that, as the CO, he has to have a pretty damned good idea what his intelligence pukes are telling his army. I can’t see anybody who could pull off an operation like this as slickly as he has not knowing that. In fact, I’d be deeply surprised if he wasn’t a part-probably a big part-of the entire story.”