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"Division-Captain chan Geraith," chan Skrithik said quietly.
"Regiment-Captain," chan Geraith replied.
"I'm glad to see you, Sir. I only wish—"
"So do we all, Regiment-Captain," chan Geraith said as chan Skrithik broke off. The division-captain held out his hand and gripped chan Skrithik's firmly. "So do we all. But you did a fine job out here. A
fine job."
"Thank you, Sir. We didn't do it all on our own, though, and, I'd like to intro—"
Chan Skrithik broke off again, but not this time because he couldn't find the words. This time, he was interrupted by the magnificent peregrine falcon which came slanting down across the station platform's roof and landed on his shoulder.
Chan Geraith's eyes widened. He hadn't actually noticed the leather pad on the regiment-captain's shoulder, he realized.
"I'm sorry, Sir," chan Skrithik began when he saw chan Geraith staring at the bird. "I know she's Prince Janaki's, and I'm sure there has to be some other arrangement, but since he was killed, she's ..."
His voice trailed off helplessly. For a moment longer, chan Geraith just looked at him. Then the divisioncaptain gave himself a visible shake.
"That's an Imperial Ternathian Peregrine, Regiment-Captain," he said. "No one tells them what to do in a case like this. On the thankfully rare occasions when they lose their human companions, they decide where to go and who, if anyone, to bond with. If she's chosen you, then that's her decision, not anyone else's."
"But, Sir, I don't know anything about falcons," chan Skrithik protested in a half-desperate voice. "If not for the Sunlord here, I wouldn't have had a clue what to do for her!"
"Then it would appear to me, Regiment-Captain," chan Geraith said, turning to extend his hand to the cavalry officer standing at chan Skrithik's shoulder with a matching mourning band on the right arm of his Uromathian uniform, "that we have two things to thank Sunlord Markan for. Believe me," he continued, speaking directly to the Uromathian, "I am as deeply and sincerely grateful to you and all of your men as Emperor Zindel himself will be, Sunlord."
"It was a cooperative effort, Division-Captain," Markan replied, gripping the offered hand firmly. "No one here at Fort Salby had a monopoly on courage ... or sacrifice."
His dark, almond-shaped eyes dropped to the dark band around his own sleeve, matching the one on chan Geraith's, and the division-captain nodded soberly.
"Well said, Sunlord." He gave Markan's hand a final squeeze, then drew a deep breath.
"Gentlemen," he said, looking at both of them, "I suspect that my staff car is actually better equipped, at least until we can get your fort put back together again, for the briefings and discussions awaiting all of us. But before we start all of that, I would like to see my Prince."
Crown Prince Janaki chan Calirath, dressed in a clean uniform, lay on the bier in the Fort Salby chapel with his hands folded on the hilt of the dress sword on his chest. The presence lights of the Triad glowed above the altar where the three faces of Vothan the Protector, Mother Shalana, and Marinlay the Maiden gazed down upon him, and an honor guard composed of the seven surviving men of Janaki's platoon, under the command of Chief-Armsman chan Braikal, stood stiffly at attention around the bier. It was thankfully cool in the chapel, yet chan Geraith was surprised that there were no visible signs of corruption. He looked at chan Skrithik, and the regiment-captain shrugged.
"Maybe I shouldn't have done it, Sir, but the senior Arcanan Healer offered to put but he called a
'preservation spell' on the Prince's body."
"They've been informed he was killed?" chan Geraith asked sharply, with more than a hint of disapproval.
"He already knew when he approached me, Sir," chan Skrithik said levelly. "Apparently one of the wounded mentioned it where he and his ... translating crystal could overhear. Since he already knew, I saw no reason not to accept his offer."
Chan Geraith grimaced, but chan Skrithik faced him squarely.
"Sir, every single one of your men is going to want to pay his respects to the Prince, just like every one of my men—and of the Sunlord's—did. They're going to need to see him, and there are going to be Voices among them. For that matter, I know you've got Voice correspondents with you. I didn't want his lady mother—anyone—to see him looking like—"
The regiment-captain stopped with another shrug, his eyes glittering under the presence lights, and chan Geraith felt his grimace smooth into something else.
"I hadn't thought about it that way," he admitted. "I'd rather they didn't know a thing about it, but if they already knew, then I think you probably made the right decision."
"Thank you, Sir," chan Skrithik said quietly. He shook his head slightly. "Actually, it seems to me—and Petty-Captain chan Darma, my Voice, agrees with me—that this Five Hundred Vaynair is a genuinely decent human being. I don't know what someone like him is doing in the Arcanan Army, but my Sifter agreed that he was sincere when he said he wanted to do this as a mark of his personal respect."
"Indeed?" Chan Geraith frowned thoughtfully.
He'd been surprised by the Arcanan commander's offer when chan Skrithik's Voice relayed its terms to him. In fact, he'd seriously contemplated ordering chan Skrithik to refuse. Like the regiment-captain, he was grimly suspicious of the real reasons this Harshu was mysteriously "not authorized" to release any other prisoners he might hold. And, as Harshu himself had pointed out through his mouthpieces, the Arcanan POWs constituted a potential intelligence treasure trove whose value was impossible to estimate.
But weighed against the release of less than three hundred military prisoners was the return of over two thousand civilians and most of their heavy equipment. Two Thousand Harshu had agreed to allow them to remove any and all equipment they could load in a twelve-hour window, starting when the exchange was agreed to. Since Olvyr Banchu had been loading cars with an eye to a retreat to Traisum for almost thirty-six hours at that point, the grace period acrually amounted to almost two full days.
That, unfortunately, had stell been a short enough time to preclude taking any of the really big excavators, since it would have been necessary to break them down into their component loads, and the lack of flatcars meant that almost a third of the other heavy equipment had been left behind, as well.
Nonetheless, Banchu had returned to Fort Salby with millions of marks worth of construction machinery that was going to be worth considerably more than its weight in gold when it came time to resume the advance towards Hell's Gate. Indeed, chan Geraith had to wonder if Harshu had realized for a moment just how valuable that machinery was going to prove. If Sharona had lost all of it, it would have taken literally months to ship in replacements and the trained perso
Chan Geraith had seen the endless lines of work cars, portable machine shops, flatcars loaded with bulldozers and scrapers, passenger cars, portable sawmills, auxiliary steam engines, loads of unused rails and ties, bolts, spikes, hammers, pickaxes ... The list seemed endless, and the cars and work locomotives filled the extensive sidings left behind when TTE finished construction of the Traisum Cut almost to capacity. He couldn't possibly have justified holding on to chan Skrithik's prisoners if they were the price of getting so many Sharonian civilians and so much priceless capability back.
He'd accepted the offer because he'd seen no choice, but he'd been more than a little surprised by how scrupulously the Arcanans had honored the terms of their agreement. According to chan Skrithik's post surgeon, for example, the regiment-captain would never have regained full use of his arm without the intervention of the Gifted Arcanan healers. At least fifteen of chan Skrithik's wounded—including Prince Janaki's chief-armsman—would almost certainly have died without that same intervention, and many more, like chan Skrithik, would have been crippled for life. Indeed, the Arcanans had ended up healing twice as many Uromathian and PAAF casualties as they had of their own men.
And then there was this, he thought, gazing down at the dead young man lying before him as if he were only sleeping.
"I suppose there have to be at least some decent men anywhere—even in Arcana," he said finally. "And I'm grateful. But I don't think this is going to soften public opinion back home an ounce when word gets back to Tajvana."
Chan Skrithik winced at the reminder that Janaki's parents still didn't know about his death.
"I wish, Sir—you don't know how badly I wish—that he hadn't been here," the regiment-captain said softly. "We'd never have held this post without him, but—gods!" He shook his head, eyes gleaming with remembered tears as he looked back down at the body. "To lose him like that, so young. So full of promise. I know we always think crown princes are 'full of promise,' but Triad above, he was. He really was!"
"I know." Chan Geraith reached out and squeezed chan Skrithik's left shoulder, careful to make no sudden movements near Taleena. "I know."
"He told me he had to be here," chan Skrithik continued. "I wanted to argue with him, but somehow I just couldn't. And gods know, I needed him. With all the civilians, the portal's strategic importance ... I just couldn't tell him no. And to the very last moment of his life, he was totally focused on saving the rest of us. On doing his duty. On being certain I knew what he'd Glimpsed. Without that knowledge, that warning, we never would have held. Hells, without his warning we'd all have died in our beds! He saved us all, and at least I can honestly tell his parents that he died almost instantly. He never could have known what hit him."
"Oh, he knew, Regiment-Captain," chan Geraith said quietly. "He knew exactly. He Saw it coming—he experienced it—before the first Arcanan ever came into sight of your fort here."
"Sir?" The word came out half-strangled as chan Skrithik's head whipped back around. He stared into chan Geraith's eyes, and the division-captain nodded slowly.
"He was in fugue state," he said simply, "and his Talent was never as strong as his father's, or his sister's.