Hell's Gate

"If you're that nonchalant about the danger," he grated, "you stay behind to bury him. But don't, by all the gods, expect the rest of us to hang around here waiting for a pack of murdering bastards to follow Falsan's trail back to us!"

"He stayed in the water, so there isn't a trail to follow," Futhai pointed out almost pityingly. "You said as much yourself, and?"

"Enough!" chan Hagrahyl's bellow silenced the entire clearing. "We don't have the luxury of time?not for funerals; not for arguments. Yes, Braiheri, he stayed in the stream on his way back to us, but there wasn't any reason for him to try to hide his tracks on the way out, was there? It may take them a little while to get organized, but they won't have any trouble finding as once they do!"

He glared at the naturalist for a moment, then turned back to Shaylar.

"Shaylar, send the message to Darcel immediately. Then pack your essential gear and abandon the rest. And don't leave behind anything that would let Falsan's murderers trace us beyond the portal. Carry all your maps, your notes?everything."

He shifted his gaze to include the others.

"Don't abandon any technology higher than knives and sticks, either. These people don't know a solitary thing about us, and I'd like to keep it that way. Braiheri, if it'll make you feel better, strip Falsan's gear and cover him with a cairn of rocks. Preferably in the stream, so they don't find his body and realize they've killed one of us. You can pack your notes, or bury him: your choice. And that's all you have time for."

He switched his attention back to Shaylar again.

"You understand why Jathmar will have to rendezvous with us en route? Or catch up with us as best he can? My duty's to get as many of us out as possible. I can't wait for anyone."

He held Shaylar's gaze, pleading with her to understand.

Her heart cried out with the need to protest, but he was right. She nodded, stiffly, instead, her muscles rigid with the knowledge that Jathmar was completely alone out there in a forest where someone had already committed murder.

Thank you, chan Hagrahyl's gaze seemed to say. Then he turned back to the others.

"Let's get busy, then. Take only enough trail rations to get us to the portal. We're marching light and fast."

Shaylar saw eyelids twitch as several of the men started to glance down at her. All of them?except Futhai?managed to abort the movement. But their thoughts were as clear as if each of them had been a full-blown Voice, and she swallowed hard as the import of those not-quite-glances sank in.

I'm going to slow us down. They know it; and I know it. And we can't afford it.

Something hard and alien stirred deep inside, giving her strength as she pushed herself to her feet. She surprised herself when she realized she'd already shoved aside the shock of Falsan's death. She had a job to do. It wasn't precisely the job she'd signed up for, since a shooting war with unknown people was the last thing anyone had expected to occur out here. But that didn't change the facts.

"I'll send the message to Darcel from my tent," she said in a hard voice she barely recognized. "While I'm packing. And I'll do my best to warn Jathmar."

Her voice actually held steady, and Ghartoun chan Hagrahyl looked into her eyes for long moment, taking careful measure of what he saw reflected there. Then he nodded.

"Good. Let's rip this camp apart and hit the trail."

Chapter Four

They found the footprints first, naturally.

"Whoever it was," Gaythar Harklan said, pointing toward the far bank, "they came down that into the water."

Jasak studied the steep slope opposite them, and his eyes narrowed speculatively. The other bank was steeper, rising a good ten or eleven feet above Osmuna's body. Had the killer entered the water before he attacked? Or to investigate the body after the killing was done? Or, the hundred's eyes hardened, to make certain his victim was dead?

Nothing offered any answers, just as nothing he saw could explain the sharp cracking sound which had split the morning apart.

"What's up there?" he asked Osmuna's squad shield.

"Nothing much, Sir. Looks like he'd been following the stream bank when he spotted Osmuna."

"Show me."

"Yes, Sir."

Harklan started back across the stream, with Jasak wading alongside. Threbuch followed the hundred, and Garlath tagged sullenly along behind.

"Here's where he slid down the bank, Sir," Harklan said. "See the gouges and footmarks?"

Jasak saw them clearly. Whoever had come down that bank had been clumsy as hell doing it. No Andaran Scout worth the uniform on his back would have left a trail like that to follow. In fact, Jasak couldn't think of anyone who would have.

He very carefully didn't glance at Fifty Garlath for his reaction. Instead, he stooped closer to the mud, peering intently.

"Send a couple of men both directions along this creek, Fifty Garlath. Tell them to look for a blood trail."

"Blood trail?" Chief Sword Threbuch muttered to himself. He peered more closely at the same marks, then grunted.

"By damn, Sir, you're right. Osmuna nailed the bastard. I didn't even think to check his arbalest to see if he'd fired it," the chief sword admitted in a chagrined tone.

"We're all a little rattled," Jasak answered, his voice dry as brittle weeds. "What I can't tell from this is how badly Osmuna nailed him."

There were only a few drops of blood splashed into the mud, but whoever had slithered down this bank had been wounded when he did it.

"Search this whole area," he told Garlath. "I want every inch of this ground run through a sieve, if necessary. Get me some gods-cursed facts to look at here!"

Garlath nodded sharply and turned to spit orders with a brisk efficiency that Jasak tried?hard?to give him credit for, since they were actually the right orders for a change. Search teams spread out, looking for a trail to follow and whatever else might be out there waiting to be discovered.

"Fifty Garlath!" someone called only moments later. "I've got something, Sir. I just don't know what it is."

Jasak followed Garlath to the top of the bank. Evarl Harnak, the platoon sword, was crouched down in a tangle of weeds almost directly above Osmuna's body.

"Look here, Sir," he said. "Here's a set of footprints. You can see where he must've been standing when Osmuna came along."

The noncom pointed to a distinct pair of footprints in the soft earth. Unlike the prints on the slope, these were undistorted and crisp, and Jasak studied them closely.

The feet which had made them had been wearing boots, he realized. Not soft-soled ones, either. They showed deeply ridged treads, the sort of treads found in the footgear of soldiers, or civilian outdoor enthusiasts. A design had been worked into the tread, he noticed uneasily. The kind of design an Arcanan bootmaker would use as a maker's mark, cut into the thick leather of the sole. If that footprint hadn't been left by a manufactured boot, Sir Jasak Olderhan would eat the ones on his own feet.

The realization chilled him even further. Osmuna's killer was no primitive half-wild savage. He was wealthy and sophisticated enough to wear manufactured boots and wield weapons of frightening, unknown power.

"You said you'd found something you couldn't understand?"

"Yes, Hundred." Harnak nodded and pointed into the clump of weeds. "The sunlight caught it as I was bending down to look at the footprints. It's metal, Sir. But I'm hanged if I can figure out what it is."

Jasak crouched for a closer look of his own.

It was a metal cylinder, closed on one end, open on the other. There was a small, distinct ridge or lip formed into the metal around the closed end, as if to form a base, and there were faint marks on the metal. Striations that were discolored. It smelled sharp, sulfurous, a deeply unsettling smell.