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"Tough to tell," the medic admitted. "He took a solid hit, and the surgery was very rough and ready. Then there's the dosage on the anesthetic, and any secondary effects it might have, like increased bleeding. He's a tough old bird, but the emphasis on that could be on 'old.' If you know what I mean."
"Maybe, maybe not," Roger said with a sigh. "Do whatever you can, Doc."
"I won't ask if we could stop someplace, Sir," Dobrescu said to Pahner as the captain walked up. "I don't want to end up as somebody's lunch."
"You heard, I see," Pahner observed. "Yeah. Great guys, huh?"
"Gotta love civilization," Roger said, and gestured around. The ash had finally stopped falling, and the true expanse of the Valley of the Krath could be seen, opening out in a vast panorama before them.
The valley itself was at least a hundred kilometers wide, a broad U-shaped cut through the midst of rugged mountains, some of them rearing to well over five thousand meters. The Krath ran down its middle, a broad, silt-laden stream that fed and watered the valley via the repeated canals that ran up towards the flanking mountains.
The valley's floor and walls, though, were what caught the eye. As far as the eye could see, the valley was a patchwork of irrigation canals and tended fields. It was so intensively cultivated that not one square meter of land appeared to be unused. The majority of the houses, and all of the towns, were on the steep slopes of the mountains to leave every flat patch for cultivation, and each and every one was surrounded by growing greenery, most of it clearly edible.
The road itself followed the line where the flatter base of the valley started to climb up the mountain slopes. All of the towns they had passed had been evacuated before they arrived, leaving an eerie, u
Other than that, there wasn't a soul in sight.
The management of the valley—the regular roads, the neat villages, and the well tended canals—was arguably more frightening than the city of ca
"Civilization is either great, or truly terrible," he said, putting his thoughts at least partially into words. "Mediocre doesn't enter into it." He gazed out over the valley for a moment longer, then shook his head and looked over at Pedi. "Now on to the next battle," he said.
Pahner nodded and walked around the line of turom to touch Pedi on the arm.
"Ms. Karuse, could you join us for a moment?"
Pedi looked around at the Marine, then at the medic, who shrugged.
"I'll keep an eye on him," Dobrescu told her. "Right now, the best thing for him would be for us to stop. But that's not going to happen anytime soon."
"Very well," she said. She patted the covering over the shaman, then turned to Pahner and Roger as the ambulance moved on. "What can I do to help?"
"You know we're heading for the hills," Roger said. "What can you tell us about the route?"
Pedi obviously had to stop and think about that.
"What I know is all from traders and raiders. I've never traveled the hills myself." She paused until the prince nodded understanding of the qualification, then continued. "There's supposed to be a broad road to the town of Thirlot, where the Shin River drops through the Seisut Falls from the Vales to the valley of the Krath. There is a road up along the Shin, but it is closed by the citadel of Queicuf, and the town of Thirlot itself is walled, very heavily defended. You would have to take the gates, at least, and I don't think that's possible."
"You might be surprised," Roger told her. "We could probably take out the gates, but then we'd still have to fight our way through the city."
"And we probably don't have enough forces to do that," Pahner said. "We took the Krath in Kirsti by surprise, but fighting our way through a fully prepared town is something else."
"You could call upon them to surrender," the Shin said, rubbing her horns in thought. "If they refused, and you took them by storm, they would be liable for total destruction. If you created even a small breach, they would almost automatically have to surrender."
"That's a recognized law of war?" Pahner asked. "It sounds like it."
"Yes," the Shin answered. "The satraps fight all the time, and they don't want to destroy the cities. So they have elaborate rules about what is and isn't permissible, and what cities should and must do. Fortifications, also, but those are considered much harder to take. But even if Thirlot surrendered, you'd also have to fight your way through the stronghold of Queicuf, and that would be much harder."
"Two fortifications." Pahner pulled out a piece of bisti root and cut off a slice. He slipped it into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully, then shook his head. "If this were a purely military party I could see it. But we've got a swarm of hangers-on and the human noncombatants to worry about, too. I'd really rather not risk it, under these circumstances."
"What kind of alternative do we have?" Roger asked.
"Up the mountains," Pedi replied, with a gesture to the east. "There's a small track that leads to the south side of the Mudh Hemh lands; it comes out near Nesru. The Krath have a curtain wall there to prevent Shin parties from taking the Shesul Pass, but the position is only lightly defended from this side."
"So you think we could punch them out of our way?" Pahner asked.
"Having witnessed your warriors in action, I feel sure of it," she replied. "But there are Shin raider parties on the other side of the wall, from Mudh Hemh and elsewhere. Those from Mudh Hemh, I can talk out of attacking us, if they a
"And what," Roger asked, "are nashul and ralthak?"
"Nashul are ... burrower-beasts. They look like rock and attack by surprise. Very large, very hard to kill. Ralthak are fliers, very large. They both eat the high-turom, the tar."
"And if we take the route by the Shin?" Pahner asked.
"We will be headed directly to the Vale of Mudh Hemh," Pedi said with a gesture equivalent to a human shrug. "We will have to pass through the Battle Lands, and I have no idea what the traders in Nesru will think of that, but they're all under the control of Mudh Hemh, more or less. We shouldn't have trouble on that route. Not from Shin, at any rate. Thirlot and Queicuf are considered impregnable, though."
"I'm sure we could take them," Pahner said. "If we used plasma ca
"Not," Roger said. "Overhead."
"Precisely, Your Highness," Pahner said dryly. "That was in the nature of sarcasm."
"Oh," the prince replied with a smile. "And there I was thinking it was a test." He shrugged. "Whichever, the mountain route it is."