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Chapter Twenty-Six
"Sir! Sir, wake up, please!"
Division-Captain chan Geraith twitched awake. His eyes snapped open, and his right hand reached up and closed on the wrist of the hand which had been gently but insistently shaking his shoulder.
"What?"
He blinked, summoning himself back from the depths of sleep, then sat up quickly, eyes narrowing, as he realized he'd been awakened not by his batman, but by Company-Captain chan Korthal.
"What is it?" he asked his staff Voice more sharply.
"Sir, I've just received an urgent message. It's for you—from Crown Prince Janaki."
Chan Geraith's expression didn't even flicker, but he twitched internally in surprise.
"From the Crown Prince?" he repeated in the tone of someone who wanted to be absolutely certain he'd understood correctly. "Not from His Majesty?"
"That's correct, Sir." Chan Korthal's expression, chan Geraith noticed, was tight and worried, and his own i
He started to reach for the bedside lamp to turn up the wick, then snorted and diverted his hand to the window shade above his berth, instead.
Like most trans-universal travelers embarked on a lengthy journey by rail, the men of chan Geraith's division hadn't bothered to reset their watches or readjust their internal clocks. They weren't spending long enough in any one universe to even try to acclimate themselves to local time zones, so they might as well wait for that until they reached their destination. Which meant that it was the middle of the night by chan Geraith's body's time sense, but brilliant sunlight was leaking in around the edges of the window shade as it swayed and bounced gently with the staff car's movement.
He raised it a fraction of an inch, letting natural light illuminate his sleeping compartment, then stood.
After so long, he thought as he shrugged into the robe his batman had left ready on the bedside chair, it would have felt u
"All right, Lisar. What's this message?"
Chan Korthal looked at him for a moment, then closed his eyes. Because chan Geraith had no Talent at all, he required the services of a particularly competent Voice, and Lisar chan Korthal filled that requirement admirably. When he began to speak a heartbeat later, it was not his voice chan Geraith heard; it was the voice of his future Emperor, perfectly reproduced.
That was chan Geraith's first thought. Then the words chan Korthal was relaying so perfectly registered, and Arlos chan Geraith's face froze almost as solid as the ice forming in his veins.
"... so that's the situation, Division-Captain," Janaki chan Calirath said through chan Korthal's mouth the better part of fifteen minutes later. "What I've Seen so far explains a lot about the Arcanans' transport and combat capabilities, but I still don't have a clue why they're doing this. The fact that we haven't heard a word from Company-Captain chan Tesh, Regiment-Captain Velvelig, or any of our other outposts seems to me to represent clear proof that this is a carefully pla
What that says about their ambitions and ultimate intentions—much less about whether or not there's any point even attempting to treat with them—is more than I'm prepared to speculate about at this point.
"I've relayed as many details of my Glimpses to your staff Voice as I could. Unfortunately, those Glimpses are not yet complete. If and as the opportunity arises, I'll send additional details. At this time, my best estimate is that we'll be attacked here within no more than forty-eight hours, and probably sooner than that. Preparations to meet that attack are underway. In my judgment, my presence here will be necessary if that attack is to be successfully resisted."
Chan Geraith's face was carved from stone. The young man who had sent him this warning was vital to the successful unification of his planet. His life, his function in that unification process, were vastly more important than the defense of a single portal fortress and the town about it. There was absolutely no question in Arlos chan Geraith's mind on that point, and unlike Regiment-Captain chan Skrithik, he was a full division-captain, so—
"That's all I can tell you right now, Sir," Janaki said. "Except to add this. Chunika s'hari, Halian. Sho warak."
The division-captain's eyes closed, and the stone of his face twisted. For an instant, he looked twenty years older. Then he inhaled deeply, and nodded.
"Sho warak, Your Highness," he murmured.
Chan Korthal's eyes opened. Like any Voice with the monumentally high security clearance the company-captain had to carry in order to serve as chan Geraith's staff Voice, he knew there were questions which would never be answered. That he would transmit information again and again which meant a great deal to its recipients, but nothing at all to him. As chan Geraith looked into the younger man's eyes, he saw chan Korthal's curiosity ... and his awareness that this was going to be one of those times.
And he was right.
"Thank you, Lisar," the division-captain said quietly. "Please ask Regiment-Captain chan Isail to wake the staff. And have him include Brigade-Captain chan Quay in his wakeup call."
"Yes, Sir," chan Korthal replied, equally quietly, and withdrew from the sleeping compartment.
Chan Geraith contemplated the door which had closed behind the Voice, but his thoughts were far away.
They were with the young man who had sent him that final message in a language so ancient that probably no more than a handful of people in all of Sharona would have understood it.
Chunika s'hari, Halian. Sho warak.
"I am your son, Halian. I remember."
Chan Geraith closed his eyes once more, and let those words toll through him. The words which absolutely precluded him from ordering Janaki chan Calirath out of Fort Salby before the hammer blow landed.
"Sho warak," the division-captain murmured one more time. Then he straightened his shoulders and pressed the button to summon his batman with his uniform.
Alivar Neshok sat in his tent, glaring at the words of the report floating in his personal crystal. Outside the tent, the Expeditionary Force's encampment swarmed with activity. The follow-on echelons of transports bringing up the heavy cavalry which had been left behind weren't due to arrive for another several hours, but the preparations for the attack on Fort Salby were moving ahead already.
Moving ahead based on the information I got for them, Neshok told himself bitterly. Moving ahead at the end of an entire advance that's only been possible at all because of the information I got for them!
He managed to keep his teeth from grinding together, but it wasn't the easiest thing he'd ever done. He knew who he had to thank for Two Thousand Harshu's abrupt decision to "relieve you of the stress of the duties you have performed so outstandingly," as Harshu's memo had so cloyingly put it. Thousand Toralk and that sanctimonious prick of a Healer, Vaynair. They were the ones.
Well, we'll see just how well their godsdamned offensives go without me holding their hands and wiping their arses for them!
His nostrils flared, but even as he told himself that, deep down inside of him a tiny voice told him he should have seen this coming long ago. That in the end, it was Harshu, not Toralk or Vaynair. That the two thousand had used him to do a dirty job that needed doing without getting any of the dirt on his own lily-white hands, and that now Harshu had decided to discard him. That the gratitude, the patronage, Neshok had anticipated were going to turn out to be very different things, indeed, as far as Harshu, that
"noble" Andaran, was concerned.
But that was all right, he told that tiny voice right back. He had another patron, one senior to Harshu, and Two Thousand mul Gurthak would appreciate and remember his efforts on mul Gurthak's part.
He'd better, anyway, Neshok told himself grimly. If he doesn't—if he tries to send me for the long drop, too—he won't like what I have to say to the Inspector General. Not one little bit, he won't like it.
A raised voice shouted orders outside his tent, a squad of infantry doubled past, equipment clattering, and somewhere on the far side of the hot, dusty encampment he heard the rumbling grumbles of irritated dragons growing impatient for their meal. Everyone else was so busy, so focused, and here he sat, finishing up his routine paperwork like a good little clerk in a forgotten corner. Tidying up his reports, making sure all the blanks were filled in. And, while he was at it, doing some careful editing about his exact interrogation techniques, as well.
He glowered down at the crystal for several more seconds, then drew a deep breath and got back to work.
"This," Under-Armsman Kardan Verais muttered under his breath, "is a godsdamned pain in the arse!"
It became evident that he hadn't spoken quite as much under his breath as he'd thought he had when Junior-Armsman Paras chan Barsak slapped him across the back of his pith helmet.
"Less bitching, more digging," chan Barsak told him. The junior-armsman was noted for a certain lack of understanding for anyone who gave less than his full effort to the task at hand, but Verais wasn't particularly worried. Given how liberally coated his shirtless torso was with a pasty skim of dust, dirt, and sweat, even chan Barsak had to be relatively satisfied with his efforts.
Of course, Verais reflected, "relatively satisfied" wasn't quite the same thing as "completely satisfied."
"I don't mind digging. It's prying out the godsdamned rocks I hate," he said with a grunt as he heaved another head-sized hunk of stone to one side. "Besides, this is a stupid place to be digging a hole anyway."
"Oh, you think so?" Chan Barsak was just as filthy as Verais—not surprisingly, since he'd been the one doing the digging until they'd changed off again ten minutes ago. "You don't like the field of fire?"
"I like the field of fire just fine ... I guess." Verais dragged a forearm across his sweaty face, then spat and watched the dust-darkened spittle disappear over the lip of the nearly vertical slope in front of them.
"We're a long way from the road, but I guess we can reach it from here. But we could've covered it better from closer, and without having to hump the guns and ammo all the fucking way up here! Not to mention—" he started swinging the mattock again, grunting the words between swings "—being a hells of a lot easier to dig in!"