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"Don't say it," Harshu interrupted. Toralk closed his mouth with a click, and Harshu grimaced. "Given a couple of things he said in his dispatches, Klayrman," he said very quietly, "I think he probably has his own eyes and ears out here, keeping him informed. It might not be very wise to ... express your opinion overly freely in front of anyone besides myself, if you take my meaning."
It was Toralk's turn to sit back, and his jaw muscles tensed as the implications began to percolate through his brain.
"That's better," Harshu told him. The two thousand picked up his almost forgotten wineglass and sipped from it, then set it back down again.
"According to Two Thousand mul Gurthak, it was never his intention for us to advance beyond Hell's Gate. And, in fact, he always regarded the use of force to retake even Hell's Gate as an action of last resort."
"Sir," Toralk said, despite Harshu's warning, "I don't see how any reasonable individual could have interpreted his instructions to mean anything of the sort. Certainly not in light of the verbal briefings he gave both of us before he deployed us forward!"
"Klayrman," Harshu said chiding way, shaking a finger at him, "you're letting your opinions run away with you again."
Toralk clamped his mouth shut, and Harshu snorted harshly.
"The interesting thing is that if you read his written instructions without those verbal briefings of his, they can actually be interpreted exactly the way he's interpreting them at the moment. While I would never wish to imputes duplicity to a superior officer, I find that I can't quite shake the suspicion that the discrepancy between his current very clearly expressed views and what you and I understood his instructions to be isn't ... accidental, shall we say?"
"Sir, I don't like what you seem to be saying."
"I'm not overjoyed with it myself. In fact, the thing that bothers me most right now is that I can't decide whether mul Gurthak is simply trying to cover his own ass now that the shit's hit the fan, or if he deliberately set us up—well, set me up, at least—from the start. Did he simply shape his written instructions this way so he'd be covered if something went wrong, or did he want us to do exactly what I went ahead and did, but clearly—for the record, at least—without his authorization?"
Toralk started to open his mouth again, but Harshu's raised finger stopped him. Not, the Air Force officer reflected a second later, that it was really necessary for him to say what he was thinking.
But why? Why would mul Gurthak want us to start a shooting war out here "without his authorization"?
He's still the senior officer in command, even if he did delegate the field command to Harshu.
Ultimately, surely the Commandery is going to hold him responsible for what happens in his command area. So why go to such elaborate lengths?
The thoughts flashed through his brain. He had no answers for any of the questions, but he was sinkingly certain that if he'd had those answers, he wouldn't have liked them.
"Of course," Harshu continued in a lighter tone which fooled neither of them, "Two Thousand mul Gurthak is not yet aware that we've managed to kill the heir to the Ternathian Crown, is he? That's going to be just a bit unexpected, I imagine. As is the way the Sharonians are going to respond to it."
He showed his teeth in a smile which contained no humor at all, and Toralk winced. Unlike Harshu, he'd actually met the senior Sharonian officers at Fort Salby. There wasn't much question in his mind about how the Ternathian Empire, at least, was going to respond.
He looked across the table at Mayrkos Harshu and wondered if he looked as sick as he felt.
Rof chan Skrithik stood stiffly to attention as the haunting bugle notes of Sunset, the call the Ternathian Empire's military had used to close the day for almost three thousand years, floated out under the smoldering embers of a spectacular sunset.
It was a beautiful bugle call, with a sweet, clear purity that no soldier ever forgot. And it was also, by a tradition so ancient no one even knew when it had begun, the call used at military funerals.
The last sweet notes flared out, and chan Skrithik inhaled deeply, gazing out across the neat rows of graves. At least a third of them were marked with the triangular memorial symbol of the Triad. Others showed the horsetails of Arpathia, or the many-spired star of Aruncas of the Sword.
And out there, in the midst of the men who had died to hold Fort Salby, was the young man who had died to save Fort Salby.
Chan Skrithik reached up, gently stroking the falcon on his right shoulder. For mille
And where he slept would be Ternathian soil forever.
"It doesn't seem right, Sir."
Chan Skrithik turned. Chief-Armsman chan Braikal stood beside him, looking out across the same cemetery.
"What doesn't seem right, Chief?"
"It doesn't seem right that he's not here, Sir." Grief clouded the chief-armsman's voice. "None of us would be here without him, and—"
Chan Braikal broke off, and chan Skrithik reached out and touched him lightly on the shoulder.
"It was his choice, Chief. Remember that. He chose to die for the rest of us. Never let anyone forget that."
"No, Sir. I won't." Chan Braikal's wounded voice hardened. "And none of us will be forgetting how he died, either."
Chan Skrithik only nodded.
Division-Captain chan Geraith's entire First Brigade had marched past Janaki's body. Every surviving man of the fort's PAAF garrison had done the same, and Sunlord Markan had personally led his surviving Uromathian cavalry troopers past the bier in total silence, helmets removed, weapons reversed, while the mounted drummers kept slow, mournful time.
Janaki chan Calirath's death had done more than save Fort Salby. Rof chan Skrithik already understood that. Janaki had been added to the legend of the Caliraths, and the fighting men of Sharona would never forget that the attack which had killed him had been launched in time of peace by the very nation which had asked for the negotiations in the first place.
He wasn't the only victim of their treachery. In fact, chan Skrithik never doubted that Janaki would have been dismayed—even angry—if anyone had suggested anything of the sort. Yet it was inevitable that the young man who would one day have been Emperor of all Sharona should be the focal point for all the grief, all the rage—all the hate—Arcana had fa
"I stand between," chan Skrithik thought. Well, you did, Janaki. You stood between all of us and Arcana.
And you stood between me and the gryphon that killed you. It's a hard thing, knowing a legend died for you. But that's what Caliraths do, isn't it? They make legends. They become legends, and, gods, the price they pay for it!
Taleena made a soft sound on his shoulder, and he reached up and stroked her wings once again.
"I know, My Lady," he said gently. "I know. I miss him, too."
Taleena touched the back of his hand very gently with her razor-sharp beak, and chan Skrithik looked across at chan Braikal once more.
"His horses and his sword are going home, Chief," he said. "And you and his platoon are taking them."
"Yes, Sir." Chan Braikal's voice was husky again.
"Tell them for us, Chief." Chan Skrithik looked into the Marine's eyes. "Tell them all. This fort, the cemetery, it's ours. He bought it for us, and no one and nothing will ever take it away from us again."
Andrin Calirath sat on her bedroom window seat, staring out into the moon-soaked gardens of Calirath Palace, and wept.
Her tears were nearly silent, and she sat very still, watching the moonlight waver through them. She wept for the brother she would never see again. She wept for her parents, who would never again see their son. She wept for all the other mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and daughters who would never see their loved ones again.
And she wept for herself.
In the cold, still hours of the night, it was hard. She was only seventeen, and knowing that what she must do would save thousands, possibly even millions of lives—even agreeing to do what she must do—was cold and bitter compensation for the destruction of her own life. She was frightened, and despite her youth, she had few illusions about what sort of marriage Chava Busar and his sons had in mind for her.
She knew her strengths, knew the strength of her parents' love, how fiercely they would strive to protect her. Yet in the end, no one could protect her from the cold, merciless demands of the Calirath destiny. At best, it would be a marriage without love, without tenderness. And at worst—
She folded her arms, trying to wrap them around herself, not because she was physically cold, but because of the chill deep inside.
She was going to spend her entire life married to the son of her father's worst enemy. Her children would be the grandchildren of her family's most deadly foe. She could already feel the ice closing in, already sense the way the years to come would wound and maim her spirit, and she wished—wished with all her heart—that there could be some escape. That Shalana could somehow find that single, small scrap of mercy for her. Could let her somehow evade this last, bitter measure of duty and responsibility.
But Shalana wouldn't. She couldn't. "I stand between." How many Caliraths had given themselves to that simple, three-word promise over the mille
"Sho warak, Janaki," she whispered. "Sho warak. Sleep, Janaki. Sleep until we all wake once more. I love you."
She put her head down on the back of the padded window seat and let her tears soak into the upholstery.
She never knew how long she wept into the window seat's satin before, with absolutely no warning, her bedroom door opened, spilling lamplight into the darkened room. She jerked upright, spi