Hell's Gate

He clenched his jaw, eyes burning, as he reflected on everything he had to report, including the death of Emiyet Borkaz.

Borkaz had been unable to force himself to sit out the fight. When the desperate survivors had launched their hopeless charge in a despairing bid to get their own support weapons to this side of the portal, Borkaz had left his cover and run madly towards them, screaming and cursing. He'd managed to get most of the way through the trees before he was spotted, and Threbuch thought he'd managed to kill at least one of the enemy on the way through (which was more than Threbuch had managed), as well. And then at least three of those hideous thunder weapons had struck him almost simultaneously. He must have been dead before he hit the ground, Threbuch thought grimly.

But at least the enemy could make mistakes, too. The fact that Borkaz had obviously come from behind them ought to have set off a search for whoever else might be behind them, as well. On the other hand, perhaps he was being too hard on them. Given the nature of the terrain, they might not realize where Borkaz had come from at all. They might think he'd come from the swamp side of the portal and simply gotten further than any of the rest.

The chief sword froze abruptly. Something had moved, and he stood motionless, straining his eyes and ears. There!

The enemy sentry hadn't moved very much at all. Probably nothing more than easing a cramped limb. But it had been enough, and Threbuch slid silently, silently to his right, giving the other man a wider berth.

Part of him was intensely tempted to do something else. His arbalest would have been all but inaudible under cover of the night wind sighing in the trees. For that matter, he probably could have gotten close enough to slit the other man's throat. It was something he'd done before, and the thought of managing at least that much vengeance for Charlie Company burned within him like a coal. But his job wasn't to kill one, or two, or even a dozen enemies, however personally satisfying it might have been. His job was to get home with the most deadly weapon in any universe?information?and if he left any dead bodies in his wake, the enemy would know at least one Arcanan had gotten away. They'd also know how important his report might be, and a dead sentry would set off a relentless search he might well fail to evade.

He felt the moment of transition as he belly-crawled across the portal threshold, moving instantly from autumnal chill into steamy tropical heat, and he fought down a sudden sense of release, of safety. Any soldier with an ounce of competence?which, unfortunately, these bastards certainly appeared to have?would have sentries on both sides of the portal.

He kept going, easing forward, working his way cautiously through the dense swamp grass and mud at one edge of the portal and praying that he didn't startle some nesting swamp bird into sudden, raucous flight.

Somehow, he managed to avoid that, and to creep silently behind the one additional sentry he did spot on the swamp side of the portal, silhouetted against the moon. It took him almost three hours to cover a total distance of little more than another eight hundred yards, but he made it. And once the wrecked base camp was a quarter-mile behind him, he rose to his feet at last, got out his PC, activated the search and navigation spellware, took a careful bearing on Fort Rycharn, and started walking. The thought of hiking seven hundred-plus miles across snake and croc-infested swamp, without any rations at all, was scarcely appealing, but he couldn't think of anything better to do.

Just over an hour later, Threbuch stiffened in astonishment. He froze instantly, listening to the night, and looked down at his PC. The crystal's glassy heart glowed dimly, its illumination level deliberately set low enough to keep anyone from seeing it at a distance of more than a very few feet, and the chief sword's eyes widened as he saw the small, sharp-edged carat strobing at one side of the circular navigation display.

He stood very still for several more moments, watching, but the carat was equally motionless. After a moment, the noncom turned towards his right, rotating until the strobing carat and the green arrowhead indicating his own course lined up with one another. Then he moved slowly, cautiously, forward through the currently knee-deep swamp.

The carat strobed more and more rapidly, and then, abruptly, it stopped blinking and burned a steady, unwinking green.

Threbuch stopped, as well, standing in a dense, dark patch of shadow in the lee of a cluster of scrub trees growing out of the swamp. The combination of moonlight, shadow, and swamp grass rippling in the wind created a wavering sea of eye-bewildering movement, and he cleared his throat.

"Who's there?" he asked sharply.

"Chief Sword?" a hoarse voice gasped. "Gods above, where've you been?"

"Great thundering bollocks?Iggy?"

"Yes, Chief."

Threbuch watched in disbelief as Iggar Shulthan crawled cautiously out of the scrub trees. The other Scout's silhouette looked misshapen, and Threbuch's eyes went even wider as he realized what Shulthan had strapped to his back.

"Gods!" the chief sword half-whispered in the reverent voice of the man who'd suddenly discovered there truly were miracles. "You've got the hummers!"

The company's hummer handler reached out. Threbuch extended his hand, and Shulthan gripped it so hard the bones ached. The younger noncom's face was muddy, and even in the uncertain moonlight, Threbuch could see the memories of the horror Shulthan had witnessed in his eyes. Or perhaps he couldn't, the chief sword reflected. Perhaps he simply knew they had to be there because he knew they were in his own eyes.

"I-I ran, Chief." Shame hovered in the javelin's voice. "I grabbed the hummers, like Regs said, and ran with 'em. I ran, Chief!"

Tears hovered in Shulthan's voice, and Threbuch released his hand to grip both of the younger man's shoulders hard.

"Son, you did exactly the right thing," he said. "Don't you ever doubt that! Those regulations were written for damned good reasons. You're the Company's link with the rest of the Army. When the shit hits the fan, and the bottom falls out, somebody's got to get word back. The hummer handler's the only man who can do it."

"But the Hundred never gave me the order," Shulthan whispered, blinking hard. "He went down so fast, and they were dropping us like flies, and?"

"I know, Iggy," Threbuch said more gently. "I was trapped on their side of the portal. I had to sit there and watch it all, because my recon report for Five Hundred Klian is every bit as critical as yours." Threbuch found it abruptly necessary to swallow hard a few times. "That was the hardest thing I've ever had to do?ever. So don't think for a minute I don't understand exactly what you're feeling right now, Iggy."

The younger man nodded wordlessly, and the chief sword gave his shoulders another squeeze before he released them, stood back, and cleared his throat roughly.

"So, do you think anyone else got out?"

"No, Chief." Shulthan shook his head. "I haven't seen anyone. Not even them."

"I haven't seen any signs of pursuit, either," Threbuch said with a nod, although that wasn't exactly what he'd asked. He'd already known Shulthan was alone. Unlike the hummer handler's PC, the chief sword's carried specialized spellware which could give him the bearing to any of his company's perso