The Road to Hell - eARC (64 page)

Chapter Thirty-Six

February 24

“Well, another day, another portal.”

Therman Ulthar looked up from his steaming mug of bitterblack as Jaralt Sarma sat on the large rock beside him. It was a gray, cold evening, moving steadily towards full dark, with a miserable drizzle dusting downward, and the vista through the portal before them was less than welcoming, to say the very least. Especially for Ulthar.

“The last time I was this way,” he said, “there were trees on the other side of this one. Mind you, I wasn’t paying them a lot of attention at the time. Getting shot with one of those damned rifles puts a damper on your sightseeing. But this…”

He shook his head, and Sarma grunted in agreement, although the last time
he’d
crossed that portal the land on the other side had been blackened and still smoking while hooves and dragon wings stirred up torrents of bitter, clinging ash. It had been like a foretaste of Shartahk’s own hell, but he had to admit that even that had looked more welcoming than this.

It was winter on both sides of the portal, but the other side wasn’t just much colder, with snow falling heavily on a steady wind from the northwest. It was also far bleaker, with snags of burned stumps sticking up through the snow. Some of the bigger forest giants seemed to have survived the torrent of fire which had burned out a thousand square miles of woodland, but if they had, they were clearly in the minority. Either way, it would be impossible to be certain until spring, when they’d either leaf once more…or not. For now, the universe both Arcana and Sharona had agreed to call Hell’s Gate looked very much like its name: a barren, blackened drift of dead trees, burned snags, and blowing snow where the current temperature hovered far, far below freezing.

“It’s not too late to change our minds and head for Fort Rycharn,” Sarma said after a moment. Ulthar looked at him sharply, and the short, stocky fifty shrugged. “I’m not saying I think it’s a wonderful idea, but at least it’d be warmer. And once we cross over into that”—he twitched his head at the uninviting terrain beyond the portal—“we’re going to be moving hell for leather and any air patrol that spots us is going to wonder what the hells we’re doing. If we made for the Mahritha portal we’d at least be heading
towards
our people instead of obviously avoiding them! And I’m pretty sure Five Hundred Klian would at least listen to us before he slapped us into the brig.”

“Something to be said for that, I guess,” Ulthar replied after a moment. “Personally, though, I think the idea really sucks.”

“That’s one of the things I like about you, Therman. That tact and exquisite sensitivity to the sensibilities of others.”

“Screw tact. Are you seriously suggesting we do that?”

“No.” Sarma sipped his own bitterblack. “The notion does possess a certain comfort quotient, though. We’ve been completely off the grid ever since the mutiny, in more ways than one. Don’t you find it at least a little tempting to consider getting back into a world we know about?”

“No, not at the moment.” Ulthar leaned forward to lift the bitterblack pot from the heating crystal and refresh his mug. “And not just because I don’t think for a minute that the Five Hundred could keep us alive long enough for anyone
else
to listen to us. We still owe Regiment-Captain Velvelig and his people for the way they were treated, Jaralt. We both gave the Regiment-Captain our word to accept his orders, too, and all the Sharonians have more than pulled their weight getting us this far. Besides, I’ve come to the conclusion the Regiment-Captain’s probably smarter than both of us put together.”

“And trying to change plans at this point would be a really good way to touch off a firefight we might not survive. You forgot that bit,” Sarma said dryly.

“I’m damned
sure
it would touch off a firefight.” Ulthar snorted. “For that matter, at least some of our boys would side with the Sharonians. They’ve done the math on what’s likely to happen if whoever’s behind all this gets his hands on us before we hear back from Duke Garth Showma.”

“You’re probably right. But I didn’t broach the idea to suggest we should do it, Therman. I’m bringing it up because it’s occurred to me that it’s entirely possible one or two of our people might be thinking that making a run for Fort Rycharn and turning the rest of us in would be a way to get their own arses out of the dragon’s reach.”

“I don’t think I like that thought very much,” Ulthar said after a long pause.

“I don’t either, but we need to be thinking about it. And as you just pointed out, Regiment-Captain Velvelig’s smart enough to be thinking the same sort of thoughts. I think it would be a really good idea for the two of us—and Sahrimahn—to make sure we’re on the same page he is.”

“You’re probably right.” Ulthar’s scowled down into his mug and grimaced. “Damn, I don’t like that thought. I really don’t.”

“The good news is that I’m probably worrying more than I ought to,” Sarma said. “I mean, if anyone really wanted to desert, he could’ve done it when we crossed into New Uromath.”

“Yeah, but at that point they’d’ve been in the middle of nowhere, with the rest of us wondering where they’d gone,” Ulthar pointed out. “The entire garrison at that excuse for a portal fort couldn’t’ve been more than fifty or sixty men. If we’d had to take it out instead of sneaking around it, we sure as hells had the firepower for it, and that was the only place they could’ve gone. I’m pretty sure most of them are smart enough to figure out what the rest of us—and especially the Regiment-Captain—would’ve done if we’d figured out they’d gone running to the fort to report us. No,” he shook his head, “if anybody’s really thinking about turning his coat on us, he’ll wait until he has a clear run for Mahritha.”

“Probably,” Sarma acknowledged. “If it’s any comfort, anybody who might be thinking that way’s almost certainly one of my boys or Sahrimahn’s cavalry. Your Second Andarans are about as all in on this as it’s possible for someone to be!”

“Well, of course they are!” Ulthar’s frown turned into a grin. “Unlike the rest of you, we know
exactly
what the Duke’s going to do. By now Arylis has to’ve delivered my report to him, and none of my boys have any doubt about what’s been heading down-chain towards us ever since. So we’re not in any hurry to be throwing ourselves into the dragon’s mouth in the meantime.”

“Faith,” Sarma observed, sipping bitterblack, “is a wonderful thing. I just hope to Hali it’s not misplaced.”

* * *

“Ready to proceed, Regiment-Captain,” Therman Ulthar said an hour later as he reined in his unicorn beside Namir Velvelig and Company-Captain Traisair Halath-Shodach, Velvelig’s senior surviving subordinate. His tone was rather more formal than the one he normally used when addressing the Sharonian he’d come to know so well over the last several weeks. Sarma and Fifty Sahrimahn Cothar came cantering up behind him, their unicorns moving with the almost feline stride to which Velvelig had finally become accustomed.

“Any cold feet on your side?” he asked now, raising one eyebrow by perhaps a thirty-second of an inch. For a moment, Ulthar looked blank, then grimaced once the spellware came up with the Andaran equivalent of the cliché.

“Not that we know of, Sir,” he replied, glancing at his fellow Arcanans. “Everyone’s present and accounted for at the moment, at any rate.” He looked back at Velvelig and shrugged. “Actually, Jaralt and I were rather hoping that particular concern wouldn’t have occurred to you. Not that we figured there was much chance it wouldn’t.”

“People are people, Therman, whether they’re Arcanan or Sharonian. Much as I didn’t think I’d ever say this while I was locked up in my own brig, your lads are about as good and solid troops as I’ve ever seen. They’d be more than human if at least some of them weren’t thinking about it, though.”

“The thought had occurred to me, too, Sir,” Halath-Shodach said, stroking his flowing mustache with a gloved finger. “But to be honest, I haven’t seen any sign of its occurring to any of Fifty Ulthar’s men.” He smiled a bit crookedly. “Maybe they’re just not as corruptible as Sharonians.”

“Oh, we’re just as corruptible,” Ulthar replied a bit more grimly. “That’s what we’re all doing out here, after all—coping with
someone’s
corruptibility.”

“But not
your
boys’ corruptibility,” Halath-Shodach said. As a Shurkhali, he’d been filled with just as much hate for all things Arcanan over Shaylar’s death as any
garthan
in the Arcanan Army had been infuriated by Halathyn vos Dulainah’s “murder” at Sharonian hands. And like his Arcanan trail companions, he’d had to do some profound rethinking once he learned the truth. In the process, he’d become something suspiciously close to an Arcanan sympathizer.

Where
some
Arcanans were concerned, at any rate.

“I don’t know if I’d go as far as Traisahr, Regiment-Captain, but I think we’re good,” Cothar said, meeting the Sharonians’ eyes levelly. Velvelig gazed back at the cavalry officer for a moment, then nodded.

“In that case, I think it’s time we were going. I trust your little navigating rock is ready?”

“It is,” Ulthar assured him, lifting his navigation unit and showing him the activated display. At the moment, it was still oriented to New Uromath; the instant they crossed back into Hell’s Gate it would shift to the stored navigational data for that universe, although only a sixty mile radius around the Mahritha portal had been mapped and loaded when Sarma and Cothar passed through on their way towards Thermyn. A broader upload was undoubtedly available by now, but what they had was enough for their present need.

Velvelig glanced at the glowing display and nodded. He wasn’t fully enamored of trusting his navigation to someone who was technically the enemy, but the Arcanan device was clearly better than anything
he
had. And at least he knew the rough compass bearing to their destination, which should tip him off if they started steering him in the wrong direction for some reason. Of course,
seeing
his compass was going to be just a bit difficult under the circumstances, he reflected, unable to suppress a stab of envy as he looked at that lighted display.

Oh, come on, Namir!
he told himself.
What kind of sorry excuse for a septman
needs
a compass to find his way around even on the
darkest night? And in the snow? When he can’t see a damned thing?
Anyway, the damned glow’s probably visible a thousand yards away in the dark! Not exactly the best thing in the world when you’re sneaking around in the shrubbery. Assuming the damned forest fire’d
left
any shrubbery, anyway
.

His lip twitched in the fractional lift that served him for a smile and he raised one hand, waving at the darkness before them.

“After you, then,” he said.

* * *

The snowfall thickened as full night fell. It didn’t quite qualify for the term “blizzard,” but it was clearly headed that way. In fact, it ought to reach it in the next few hours, which pleased the fugitives no end. Dragons didn’t mind snow, but few of their riders were particularly fond of it. And even if the inclement weather didn’t ground any potential overflights, not even a dragon would see much on a night like this. The snow which already blanketed the burned out forest was more than a little treacherous underfoot, and it was deep enough to hide the kind of obstacles which could break a horse’s—or even a unicorn’s—leg entirely too easily, but it also made the night seem less dark.

They produced what seemed like an incredible racket slogging through the snow. In fact, Velvelig knew, there was actually very little noise, considering the number of men and vehicles moving through the dark. It was only tight nerves and adrenaline that made it seem so loud. And even if it had been just as loud as it seemed, the Hell’s Gate portal was what the Arcanans called a Class Eight, just over thirty-six miles across. There was no way in all the Arpathian hells the Arcanans at what had been Fort Shaylar could hope to cover
that
kind of frontage on a night like this—and he didn’t care if they
did
have magic to do it with!

He’d never heard of portals as close together as the Hell’s Gate cluster, but he thanked his ancestors’ ghosts for it. The swamp portal to the universe the Arcanans had dubbed Mahritha was thirty miles from the Hell’s Gate itself, but one of the other portals was barely half that far away. In fact, it was close enough that they ought to reach it easily before what ought to have been sunrise, assuming the cloud cover broke enough for there to
be
a sunrise.

Namir Velvelig was Arpathian, born and bred to the steppes, and he hated close country. He
especially
hated jungle, if he was going to be honest, but under some circumstances, jungles had a great deal to recommend them. For one thing, they offered lots of hiding places. And, for another, as hard as rain forests could be on equipment and clothing, they never got cold enough for hypothermia to kill his men.

* * *

“Marshan’s mercies, but that feels good,” one of the Arcanans said, and Master-Armsman Hordal Karuk nodded in profound agreement.

He had no idea at all who “Marshan” was. As an Arpathian, he had too many demons of his own to keep track of to worry about all the other
Sharonian
deities be, much less about heathen Arcanan pantheons! But he was heartily in favor of staying on the good side of any divine being who specialized in mercies, and the blessed warmth blowing into their faces constituted the greatest mercy he’d encountered since leaving Fort Ghartoun.

“Does feel nice,” he agreed. “But let’s hold up for a minute till the rest catch up a bit.”

“Right, Master-Armsman,” the Arcanan replied. Or, rather, his crystal replied for him. What he’d actually said was probably something like “Sure, Master Sword,” but by now Karuk was almost accustomed to the damned twinkly rocks.

He chuckled mentally at the thought and eased himself in the unicorn’s saddle. Unlike his regiment-captain, he’d decided early on that the horned beasties were vastly superior to horses. As an Arpathian, he wasn’t supposed to admit anything of the sort. As someone whose arse had spent entirely too many hours making the acquaintance of entirely too many saddles, however, he approved enthusiastically of unicorns. It might be a tad inconvenient to have a mount who might nip off your arm if it got hungry, but that was a small price to pay for all of the other good points.