Hell's Gate

"You have a theory, Voice Kinlafia?" he asked courteously, and Kinlafia nodded. It was a jerky, almost convulsive nod, and his expression was taut as he waved back towards the fallen timber chan Tesh hadn't actually seen yet.

"I'm not sure what they use for 'artillery,' Company-Captain," he said, "but whatever it is, it isn't anything like ours. I know Voice Traygan has relayed Whiffer Parcanthi's and Tracer Hilovar's reports about the odd residues they've picked up to you. We still don't have any sort of explanation for what could have created them, but during the time Voice Nargra-Kolmayr?" his voice went flat and dead for a moment as he used Shaylar Nargra-Kolmayr's formal title, chan Tesh noted "?and I were linked, I Saw their heavy weapons in action. They have a lot of blast effect, and the … 'lightning bolts,' for want of a better word, they throw seem to affect targets in a remarkably deep zone. But neither of them seems to have very much in the way of penetrative effect."

"No?" chan Tesh cocked his head, one eyebrow raised, and Kinlafia shrugged.

"They seem to rely entirely on the direct effect of the heat or lightning they generate. The 'fireballs,' in particular have a pronounced blast effect, but I think it's actually secondary. And they seem to … detonate the instant they encounter any sort of target or resistance, even if it's only a tree limb or a screen of brush."

"Obviously, none of us?" Arthag's micrometric nod indicated the troopers of his platoon "?actually saw the battle, Company-Captain. But after examining the damage patterns out there, I'd have to say I think Voice Kinlafia's onto something. There's no sign anywhere of the sort of punch-through effect you'd get from our own artillery. And no shell splinters or shrapnel, either. Their artillery seems to be spectacular as hell, and it's certainly devastating to anyone actually caught in what Voice Kinlafia calls its 'zone of effect,' but that zone is smaller than we originally thought, and I don't believe their 'guns' are going to be able to punch through very much in the way of serious cover."

"So you and the Voice think the reason their fortifications seem so … spindly is that their own weapons wouldn't be able to penetrate them and they've assumed that since theirs wouldn't, ours can't?"

"Something along those lines, Sir," Kinlafia said, and surprised chan Tesh with a tight smile. "I've noticed that people?whether they're military or civilians?tend to think in terms of the things they 'know' are true. It's called relying on experience, and in general, it's a pretty good idea, I suppose. But in this case, no one has any experience. Not really."

"A very good?and valid?point, Voice Kinlafia," chan Tesh said, impressed by the other man's ability to think when he was so obviously on fire with grief and fury. The company-captain nodded respectfully to the Voice, then turned back to Arthag.

"These here," he said, tapping the sketch with his forefinger. "These are those tube things?the artillery?Voice Kinlafia's just been describing?"

"Yes, Sir," Arthag agreed, and chan Tesh nodded.

There were, he conceded, a dismayingly large number of the odd artillery pieces. Some of them were also clearly larger than others, which to chan Tesh's mind suggested that they were probably more powerful and longer ranged. From the way they were positioned, he suspected they'd been emplaced to sweep the relatively flat ground on the far side of the portal with fire. Given their demonstrated potency, even without the secondary fragmentation effect of Sharonian artillery, that probably made sense. But why in the gods' names had they put them right on top of the portal that way? And with no better cover than they had?

"I think they're going to have a little problem here, Platoon-Captain Arthag," chan Tesh said after a few seconds. He looked up with a thin smile. "I've brought along a mortar company."

Arthag's eyes narrowed. Kinlafia's, on the other hand, began to glitter with fierce satisfaction, and chan Tesh nodded.

"There's a spot right here, Sir," Arthag said, indicating a point on the sketch map. "There's a nice little ravine on our side of the portal, deep enough to give cover to a standing man. It doesn't have a direct line of sight to the portal, but I think it would do just fine for mortars."

"Good." chan Tesh gave the map another look, then folded up.

"I believe you said something about supper, Platoon-Captain," he observed. "We're going to need to rest the horses for at least several hours, and I don't mind admitting that I could use a little sleep myself. Let's go find that food, and while I eat, I'd like to talk with your Whiffer and Tracer and Voice Kinlafia."

"Of course, Sir. Right this way."

Once the animals had been picketed for the night, chan Tesh's weary men devoured the supper Arthag's troopers had held ready for them, then fell into their sleeping bags, dead to the world within minutes. chan Tesh would desperately have liked to join them, but he had other duties to discharge first. So he sat propped against a tree at Arthag's campfire, finishing his second bowl of stew, and listened quietly to the reports from Arthag, Kinlafia, Parcanthi, and Hilovar.

It wasn't a pretty story. chan Tesh had already heard Kinlafia's report of the initial attack, relayed by Rokam Traygan, but it was different hearing it directly from Kinlafia himself. As the Chalgyn Consortium Voice made himself recount every detail of the horrendous attack, chan Tesh could literally taste the man's anguish and hatred. He wanted to reassure Kinlafia that they would do everything in their power to track down any survivors, but the chances of there being any survivors didn't sound good. None of these men?himself included, he admitted?really hoped to find anyone alive, but they were determined to try.

And failing that, Balkar chan Tesh reflected grimly, I want the opportunity to exact some serious vengeance.

The company-captain was Ternathian by birth and rearing, but his family hadn't always been. In fact, his father had immigrated to Ternathia with his own parents as a youth. Emigrated, in fact, from Shurkhal. chan Tesh didn't normally think of himself as Shurkhali, but he'd just discovered, over the last five days, that the blood of his father's people still ran in his veins. If Shaylar Nargra-Kolmayr had died in that blood-stained clearing over there, there wasn't a hell deep enough for the enemy to hide in.

Watch yourself, Balkar! he chastised himself dutifully. You're not really some Shurkhali nomad out stalking another clan for vengeance. You're also an imperial Army officer, with a responsibility not just to the Authority, but to His Imperial Majesty, as well. Neither of them need a hotheaded, out-of-control junior officer at the other end of the multiverse committing them to all-out war with another trans-universal civilization!

All of which was true enough, but didn't change a thing about the way he felt. Or about his determination to seek punishment for the individual responsible for this debacle. He was honest enough to admit that he would prefer to squeeze the life out of the bastard himself, with his own bare hands, but he'd settle for having the butcher's own rulers, whoever the hell they were, hang him for the murderer he was. And Balkar chan Tesh was grimly certain that punishment exactly like that would be one of Sharona's demands whenever diplomatic relations were finally established.

"The one thing that really worries me," he said at length, having absorbed everything as well as his weary mind was able to, "is how close they may be to reinforcements of their own. We have no idea how far this fortified swamp portal of theirs is from their own next entry portal. Or of how long a transit chain they may be dangling from."