David Weber - The Road to Hell

“I don’t like leaving them behind, either, Silky,” Velvelig said after a moment, “but it’s not like we had a lot of choice. Or time, for that matter.” He shook his head. “Besides, they’re probably safer keeping their heads down where they are than they’d be slogging through the hills with us. Especially if Harshu’s bastards turn up and run us to ground.”

“I know,” Silkash conceded. “It doesn’t make me feel any better about it, though. And I don’t like thinking about what could happen to any of them who’re Talented, especially if somebody like Thalmayr decides to make examples out of them!”

“I don’t like that thought any more than you do,” Velvelig said. He didn’t think it was likely to happen, either, though it was probably too much to ask Silkash or Tobis Makree to expect anything but the worst, given their own treatment at Thalmayr’s hands. “On the other hand,” he continued more grimly, “I doubt they’d be all that interested in any of the remaining Talents. It’s the Voices they’ve been worrying about, Silky.”

Silkash nodded jerkily, remembering Senior-Armsman Folsar chan Tergis. He’d been Fort Ghartoun’s senior-and only-Voice, and he’d been murdered in cold blood by Alivar Neshok. That was bad enough, but Sahrimahn Cothar had confirmed that a section of Arcanan cavalry under Senior Sword Barcan Kalcyr had also murdered young Syrail Targal, chan Tergis’ student and protegee. They’d been the only two Voices in or around Fort Ghartoun.

“For the most part, the best we can do for all of them is to get as far away from them as we can,” Velvelig said. “I don’t want any of them in our vicinity if it comes to a firefight.”

“Understood, Sir. It’s just-”

Silkash broke off with a jerky headshake that was as sharp with frustration with himself as with anything else, and Velvelig smiled slightly. It wasn’t a happy smile, because he understood exactly what Silkash had just started to say. It was the PAAF’s job to protect civilians. For the most part, that might consist of protecting them from fellow civilians with…flexible attitudes towards things like law codes and other people’s property rights rather than ravening hordes of magic-wielding barbarians, but protection was still the heart of their job description. It felt wrong to be leaving any of them behind, and the fact that they’d have been more endangered trying to escape along with the column didn’t make it feel any less wrong.

Probably wouldn’t exactly be a pleasure trip for them, if we did pull them out with us, though, the regiment-captain reflected. It’s sure as hells not going to be one for us, for that matter!

In theory, it was “only” about fourteen hundred miles from Fort Ghartoun to the portal to New Uromath, located a few miles west of what would have been the site of the small city (or large town, depending on one’s perspective) of Wyrmach in the republic of Thanos. Unfortunately, those were fourteen hundred miles as a bird-or one of the Arcanans’ dragons — might have made the trip. It would be closer to two thousand for land bound refugees, and getting through the Wind Peak Mountains east of Bitter Lake City was going to be…unpleasant in the extreme, even with the well marked trails, the wagons’ canopies, and the Arcanans’ magic to help along the way.

The good news was how much tougher, hardier, and faster the unicorns were than any horse Velvelig had ever encountered. He was sufficiently Arpathian to find that profoundly unnatural and more than a little distasteful, but he was too pragmatic not to be grateful for it. With them for draft animals and mounts and with the Arcanans’ levitation spells to boost the wagons across the rougher terrain, they ought to be able to make thirty or forty miles per day even through the mountains and probably up to a hundred miles a day once they were clear of the Wind Peaks. At the best speed they could manage, though, it would take them over two weeks just to reach Bitter Lake City and-hopefully-get beyond the range at which the mutineers’ locator spells could be triggered by their pursuers.

The question, of course, was whether or not they’d have two weeks.

Only one way to find out, I suppose , he thought now, turning to face back into the snowy wind. If I were a betting man, I’d probably bet against our pulling it off. Fortunately, Arpathians are so lousy at math that we don’t have a clue how to calculate odds .

December 28

Howan Fai straightened his jacket for the Conclave, even though it wasn’t quite time to head down to the Chancellery. With so few staff traveling with them, he’d prepared first and given his father more time to breakfast. Their few staff had been supplemented, but Howan and his father didn’t know these new servants well. And neither did he know their loyalties.

With so few staff traveling with them, he’d prepared first and given his father more time to breakfast. The fact that it had also given him an excuse to avoid breakfast himself was something he’d chosen not to mention to anyone, including his father. Howan Fai had never been the hearty early morning eater his father was, but he had even less appetite than usual this beautiful sunlit morning.

Not when he knew that within the next few hours Andrin Calirath would be betrothed to a man who would do everything in his power to kill her in childbed.

At the moment, King Junni’s boots rested on the floor, brushed to a high gloss. The man himself was ruining the press on his court garments by leaning out the windowsill with bits of sweet roll and calling to the birds.

The cheery sounds of vibrant Tajvana covered up any answering hoots or caws the local birds might have made.

“He thought he saw the falcon called White Fire, Highness.” Munn Lii explained.

Crown Princess Andrin’s imperial peregrine falcon might have flown by the window, but Howan Fai doubted Finena would care to eat breakfast crumbs. He speared a sausage and offered it to his father instead.

They hadn’t packed birdfeed. A trip to Tajvana hadn’t called for it, but on any normal trading route, King Junni’s staff would have provided several trunks of the stuff. The high northern ranges were tough country for any creature, and it was an article of Uromathian faith that a good man returned value to nature for the beauty it gave him. Sharing some seeds with the birds in exchange for the rough fodder the horses consumed along the old caravan ways was as natural to an Eniathian as breathing.

And it was the same on the seas that were home to Eniathians of Howan Fai’s mother’s branch. The continental shelf was favored by hundreds of bird species, and he often thought his mother knew the names of every single one of them.

Nothing native to Uromathia compared to an imperial Ternathian falcon, of course. Eniath’s few inland fortresses and cities did boast many fine falconers and had developed several lines of the fierce birds, but the Ternathian falcons were something more. Still, the study of lesser birds only increased an Eniathian’s natural appreciation of the remarkable imperial falcons, and-

King Junni let out a whoop just piercing enough to carry over the city’s noise. A blur of silver-white feathers passed by the window before Howan Fai could get a good look, but the satisfaction on his father’s face when he pulled back inside confirmed exactly which bird had snatched the last breakfast sausage.

“My son-”

Tears shone in King Junni’s eyes, and a flush colored his cheeks that had nothing to do with the exertion of leaning too far out of an upper story palace window. Howan Fai’s father wrapped his son in a tight hug.