David Weber - The Road to Hell

“All right,” he said after a moment. “I realize I’m not in your chain of command and that I’m an enemy officer, but I think you boys are in a hell of the mess, and my boys are in it right with you. Mind you, if you hadn’t done what you’ve done, I’m pretty sure all my officers and men would’ve been ‘disappeared’ sooner or later by either your Two Thousand Harshu or mul Gurthak, so don’t think I’m ungrateful. But the fact remains that we’re in the same quicksand and sinking fast, so do you want my advice?”

“Yes, Sir,” Ulthar made himself say firmly. Rather more firmly than he actually felt, to be honest.

“All right,” Velvelig said again, and there might have been just a hint of a twinkle in those hard, dark eyes of his. “I don’t think you’re going to like some of it, but as I see it, if you fall back into the hands of Harshu or mul Gurthak before this Duke of yours can get some sort of investigation moving out here-an investigation with teeth and muscle-you’re dead.” He shrugged. “The truth is, you are mutineers, and you and your men did kill other members of your own Army. I know why you did it, and from what you’ve been saying, Duke Garth Showma would not only understand but probably approve. But with five or six months to work on it, the people responsible for this’ll have plenty of time to make sure you’re all neatly dead and buried by the time his investigators arrive, and there’ll be plenty of testimony-most of it honest testimony-to justify the court-martial’s sentence. You do understand that, don’t you?”

“Yes, Sir,” Ulthar said quietly. “We’d hoped we could confine Thalmayr to his quarters and keep up the appearance that he was still in command until we’d at least had time to get our message to Five Hundred Klian. Now, though…”

He shrugged, and Velvelig nodded, forbearing to mention just how unlikely they’d been to get away with anything of the sort even if Thalmayr and the missing Senior Sword Kalcyr hadn’t stolen unicorns and disappeared into the night.

“We can always hope Thalmayr and the other two will never be heard from again,” he said instead. “Frankly, if they’re headed for your field army and they didn’t have time to grab supplies, that could damned well happen-it’s cold out there at night, and crossing Failcham without enough water could kill just about anyone-but I’m going to assume your light cavalry’s as good as ours. That means Kalcyr can probably keep them alive, and despite your damned dragons, I’m willing to bet there are posts along the way where Thalmayr can resupply and get medical care. And that means his version of what happened’s going to reach Two Thousand Harshu. I don’t think that’s going to make Harshu very happy, do you?”

Ulthar shook his head, and Velvelig smiled faintly.

“So you’re caught between Vaylar and Sankhar-I mean, you’re damned whichever way you jump. Maybe- maybe -Duke Garth Showma will eventually figure out what happened and see to it that whoever’s responsible pays for it, but you won’t be around to see it. I wouldn’t like that after the risk you’ve run for my people. And what I wouldn’t like even more, frankly, would be that my people and I would have to be swept under the rug right along with you. As I see it, that means we’re in this together. I mean really together.”

“What are you suggesting, Sir?” Ulthar asked, but his tone said he already suspected where Velvelig was headed.

“I’m suggesting that in the interests of survival, and of possibly getting the truth into the hands of someone who can actually do something to stop this insanity, your men and mine have to work together. We have to combine forces and abilities-Talents and Gifts-and figure out how less than two hundred men can avoid being run down and captured by your entire Army.”

“And how do we do that?” Ulthar’s voice was edged with bitterness, and Velvelig shrugged.

“I’m an Arpathian, and most of the boys I’ve got left are veterans. We’re used to wilderness and staying alive in it, and I’d bet you ‘Andaran Scouts’ are pretty damned good at that yourselves. I say we integrate our people-I mean really integrate , Fifty Ulthar, into one force-and head for the bush. Go ahead and send your message to Five Hundred Klian. Tell him what you’re doing and why and ask him to send his report up-chain to your Duke, as well. But after you’ve done that, your duty-your duty to your Army, if what you think is happening really is, and certainly to your own men-is to stay alive until the Duke can organize some action in response. The only way you’re going to do that is to be someplace Harshu and mul Gurthak can’t find you.”

“You mean here in Thermyn,” Ulthar said.

“There are places in the Sky Bloods where two hundred men could hide from two hundred thousand men,” Velvelig said.

“But can they hide from aerial reconnaissance?” Sarma asked. The regiment-captain looked at him, and it was the fifty’s turn to shrug. “Don’t forget we have dragons, Sir. For that matter, we’ve got recon gryphons. They can search a lot of area in a very short time.”

“They wouldn’t even have to do that,” Maisyl pointed out. “All they’d have to do is trigger the recovery spells.”

“‘Recovery spells’?” Velvelig repeated, and the magistron nodded unhappily. None of the other Arcanans looked particularly happy either, the Sharonian noticed.

“Every Arcanan soldier is tagged with a recovery spell when he enlists, Sir,” Maisyl said. “It’s intended to help us locate the wounded after a battle…or to recover the dead, anyway. I’m only a journeyman myself, but I could trigger any recovery spell within forty or fifty miles, and my PC would tell me exactly where I had to go to find it after I did. A full magistron like Five Hundred Vaynair, Two Thousand Harshu’s senior healer, could probably trigger recovery spells over as much as two or three hundred miles.”

Velvelig didn’t pretend even to himself that he understood how the process Maisyl had described worked, but he didn’t need to. It was enough to understand that the Arcanans around him literally couldn’t hide from their superiors.

“Isn’t there anything that could block or cut off those spells?” he asked.

“Nothing we’ve ever found.” Maisyl shrugged. “They’re designed to find helpless or unconscious men under the worst possible circumstances, Sir, and they do a damned good job of it.”

“Wonderful,” Master-Armsman Karuk muttered. Maisyl looked at him, and the graying Arpathian noncom grimaced. “There’s been plenty of times I’d’ve loved to have something like that, Master Maisyl. This isn’t one of them.”

“No, it isn’t,” Ulthar agreed. “And I hate to admit it, but it’s not something Jaralt and I thought about when we were having the brainstorm that led up to this.”

“Wait,” Sarma said. The others looked at him, and he held up one hand in a “give-me-time-to-think” gesture, his eyes unfocused in thought. Then he shook himself and looked at Maisyl.

“The recovery spells work through a portal, do they, Sorthar?” he asked intently.

“No. It’s about the only place they don’t work, but then, no spell can be cast across a portal.”

Velvelig didn’t allow himself to raise any eyebrows, but he filed that bit of information quietly away. Interesting that magic didn’t work across a portal threshold any better than a Talent did.

“So to trigger our recovery spells, they’d have to be in the same universe, right?”

“Yes, but what good does that do us? The Expeditionary Force’s in control of every universe between here and Mahritha. If they really want to find us, all they’d have to do is cross through into each of them in turn and activate the spells.”