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—"
"I'm telling you, they didn't do it," Ulthar said. "They couldn't have. It wasn't one of their weapons—it was one of ours. An infantry-dragon. A lightning-thrower."
"Are you sure, Therman? Are you positive?"
"Damned right I'm sure," Ulthar said. "They allowed us funeral rites when they buried the dead. I saw Magister Halathyn's body with my own eyes, Iftar. He'd been wounded in one arm, probably by one of their hand weapons, during the attack, yes. But it was the lightning that killed him."
"Oh my gods," Halesak whispered, remembering the hatred, the fury which had impelled him. "They said they couldn't confirm it, but ..."
"I don't know what 'they' told you," Ulthar said, "but as far as I can tell, these people have treated all of their prisoners—including me, Iftar—with respect. I haven't seen one bit of casual brutality, and their healers—such as they are—have done everything they could for our wounded. Despite the fact that we shot at them first."
"We shot first?" Halesak parroted.
"Of course we did!" Ulthar's voice was suddenly harsh and bitter. "Hundred Olderhan was right. He wanted us pulled back, away from the portal until we could sort out how to manage a peaceful contact, but Hundred Thalmayr had other ideas. I talked to one of the sentries he ordered to open fire on the single cavalry trooper they sent forward to talk to us. To talk to us, Iftar!"
Halesak's mind was working overtime, putting bits and pieces together, remembering the rumors about how Five Hundred Neshok went about "interrogating" captured Sharonians ... and remembering that Two Thousand Harshu hadn't done a thing to stop him.
"Listen, Therman," he said quickly, urgently, leaning closer to the bars and keeping his voice low, "can you prove we didn't kill Magister Halathyn?"
"Prove it?" Ulthar's confusion was obvious, and Halesak shook his head hard.
"All our intelligence briefings have ... strongly suggested that the Sharonians murdered Magister Halathyn after he surrendered. I didn't have any more reason to question that than anyone else did. Not till now. Now I do, and I have to wonder why they've gone out of their way to 'suggest' to all of us that that's what happened."
Ulthar stared at him for a moment, then grimaced.
"Magister Halathyn's been buried for three months now, Iftar. In a grave in a swamp, without any sort of preservation spell. I don't know if anyone could prove exactly how he died at this point. I know I saw his body, and I think at least one or two of the others did, but I can't prove anything."
"And can anyone else confirm that we shot first?" Halesak pressed.
"I don't know," Ulthar said slowly. "The man I spoke to—Lance Tiris—died shortly after we were captured. Their healers tried, but they couldn't save him."
"Damn," Halesak murmured, and Ulthar cocked his head, blue eyes intense.
"What the hells is going on here, Iftar?"
"Look," Halesak said, even more quietly than before, "I don't know for sure what's going on. We were told they started it both times. And we were told there were those 'unconfirmed reports' that Magister Halathyn was murdered after he surrendered. Plus the rumors—I don't know exactly who started them—
that they shot our wounded after they surrendered."
"That's bullshit!" Ulthar exploded. "That's—"
"Shut up!" Halesak hissed. "Shut up and listen to me!"
Ulthar spluttered to a stop and Halesak drew a deep breath.
"That's better," he said, then paused, trying to decide how to say what needed saying.
"Look," he said again, finally, "you're my sister's husband, my daughter's uncle. I don't want to go home and explain to either of them that something happened to you after I found you alive!"
"But—"
"I'm telling you, we wouldn't have been told what we were told as often as we were told it before this op kicked off unless somebody had decided it was what we needed to be told. And if that was what happened, it fucking worked." He smiled grimly. "Believe me, Therman, you don't want to know the things I've been contemplating since they told me how Magister Halathyn is supposed to have died, and I am sure as hells not alone in that.
"But if I'm right, if it was done on purpose, how do you think they're going to react if you insist on telling them we've all been lied to?"
"If you've been lied to, then it's my duty to tell people the truth." The familiar stubborn look in Ulthar's blue eyes made Halesak's stomach clench painfully, and he fought a sudden urge to seize his less massively built brother-in-law by the front of his uniform blouse and shake some sense into him.
"Godsdamn it, you listen to me this time, Therman Ulthar," he said instead, a whetstone of passion sharpening the edge of his intense voice. "I'm a garthan. My people—your people now, damn it—know all about being lied to and manipulated. Gods, man! Those bastard shakira have been doing it for thousands of years! And given what you've just told me, I smell the mother of all lies. Don't you think for one moment that whoever's responsible for it wouldn't be perfectly willing to 'disappear' a single inconvenient commander of fifty who can't even substantiate his 'preposterous claims.'"thinspace""
"That kind of thing may go on in Mythal," Ulthar said sharply, "but this is the Union Army, godsdamn it!"
"And I'm not telling you to keep your mouth shut forever," Halesak shot back. "I'm telling you to keep your mouth closed and your head down until you know for absolute, fucking certain that the senior officer your telling about it isn't part of a deliberate campaign to change the truth. Do you understand me, Therman? I'm not going home to tell Arylis that you got your stupid self killed playing Andaran honor games with somebody you shouldn't have trusted!"
Ulthar glared at him, but then, slowly, drop by drop, the anger flowed out of his blue eyes to be replaced by something else.
"I'm sorry, Ulthar," Halesak said more gently. "I'm sorrier than I can say. And I agree with you. The truth has to be gotten out eventually. But for that to happen, you have to be alive to do the getting, and I am not going to lose you when I just got you back from the dead. Do you read me on this one?"
Ulthar looked at him for long, long moment of silence. And then, finally, nodded slowly.
"Good," Halesak said quietly, reaching through the bars to squeeze his brother-in-law's sound shoulder.
"Good."