The Road to Hell - eARC (57 page)

“And was it?” Olderhan’s voice was flat.

“No. But that doesn’t change the fact that everyone who was on-site
thought
it was. And before you say another word, everyone in the Air Force understands how near this horror came to happening. I have a debrief with the Undersecretary for Dragon Affairs himself. We’ll ensure controls are put in place so that nothing like this can ever happen again.”

“You didn’t have controls already?” The tone was deceptively mild.

“We damned well had controls! But the wing deputy, Hundred mul
Belftus made an exception and no one questioned it because they thought the Governor of New Arcana was being assaulted
in his home
by a mob!” He winced. “And I know you weren’t
actually there
, but they scrambled that mission thinking they were helping you and your family. I understand how pissed off you are, and under the circumstances, I don’t blame you for questioning the likelihood of that many fuck-ups piling on top of each other. But you spent enough time in the field yourself to know crap like this
does
happen. And”—the five thousand looked his old friend straight in the eye—“there’s absolutely no evidence—
none
, Thankhar—that this was anything but just that: an effort to get help to your townhouse as rapidly as possible that almost blew up in everyone’s faces!”

The duke looked back for a long, silent second, then nodded minutely.

“Shartahk spare us all such ‘help,’” he said, and Rukkar made an averting sign against the devil. Olderhan matched the sign, and rose to walk him out.

“Thank you for taking the time to give me the report in person,” he said. “I know it wasn’t a pleasant chore.”

It was obvious to Rukkar that the duke wasn’t about to accept his conclusions, but Olderhan’s tone acknowledged that there was no evidence to support any other determination. And, if he was honest with himself, Rukkar didn’t blame his old friend one bit. In fact, he was prepared to admit there was a distinct whiff of something rotten about the entire affair, but he’d taken too much testimony under lie-detection spellware. Every witness—every
surviving
witness, at any rate—said the same thing, and that was that.

“Of course I brought it in person,” the five thousand said, and grinned crookedly. “Knew I
had
to bring it in person, because you’d damned well’ve taken the head right off anyone else I’d sent, now wouldn’t you?”

The duke’s lips twitched in a small, unwilling smile, and Rukkar snorted. Then, on a wall in the outer office, he spotted an old picture of himself and Olderhan as squires. Rukkar’s first black lifted a wing in the background to frame the two men for the image spell capture, and the five thousand smiled more naturally and tapped the picture to draw the other man’s attention to it.

“Remember my first dragon? She was a beauty, wasn’t she?”

“I’ve never been very fond of dragons.”

Rukkar shook his head. Olderhan’s perspective had never been comprehensible for him.

“I love ’em,” the five thousand said simply, then racked his brain for something neutral to part with. Nothing came for a moment, but then he nodded.

“Say, I received an interesting bit of correspondence from a colleague on New Mythal the other day,” he said. “A man from the vos Sidus family. He served a few years as an Air Force officer a decade ago, but his family’s been breeding dragons for ages. They’re old money, though. No transport dragons or regular combat types for them; they do sea dragons. They call ’em drakes or hydras. Strong swimmers. A few of them fly, but mostly they’re sea creatures—great for securing coasts and rivers, he says. Monsters, really, since the Mythlans breed ’em for those nasty spectator fights, but he wanted to press a proposal for the creatures to be used for military purposes. He’s going to pitch ’em to the Navy. Doesn’t that sound interesting?”

“I think it sounds horrible,” Olderhan said. But after a pause he admitted, “Still, they might be useful, I suppose. Are they docile enough for transport?”

“I’m not so sure about that. These are fighter lines. They’re worse than combat dragons. They’re bred to fight each other, not just selected enemies.”

“How barbarically Mythlan.” Olderhan grimaced. “Do they have any officers for them?”

Rukkar shrugged. “After a fashion, but I can’t say I trust any of ’em. And none of them are actual operators. The Mythlans use
garthans
with the drakes, not
shakira
—the operators often die in the gladiator shows, and no
shakira
’s signing up for
that!
—and no
shakira
would ever consider making a
garthan
an officer, either. So if we want officers with hands-on experience, we’ll have to commission
garthans
, and you know how
well
that’s likely to go over with Mythal. And, truth to tell, they aren’t the most genteel folk to invite into an Air Force officer club.”

Olderhan’s lips tightened, and Rukkar shook his head.

“Don’t get me wrong, Thankhar. I’m just saying that these aren’t emancipated
garthans
; they’re still literal slaves and the Mythlans seem to treat them like just another animal to go with the drakes. And less valuable
than
the drakes, come to that, because the drakes are at least carefully bred and trained. Not surprising the poor bastards won’t come equipped with the attitudes and…call ’em social skills we expect in our officers. But Torkash knows we can’t allow
the
shakiras’
attitudes to spread to the Air Force, so I’m recommending to the Undersecretary that if we make these into some kind of Air Force Naval Auxiliary, we have to insist on commissions for the drake riders, anyway.”

Olderhan actually laughed at that. “You hate the very idea, but you’re going to push them forward anyway just in case they’re useful in the war effort. You’re Andaran to the core, Rukkar! Sometimes I wonder about the sorts of people who want to spend so much time with dragons, but then I think of you, my friend, and I know we’ll be okay. Andara’s in good hands as long as five thousands like you run the Air Force.”

Rukkar brushed the compliment off, but he was deeply relieved to feel back on easy footing with Olderhan again.

“That’s just ground pounder jealousy because some of us get to freeze solid during the long travels and then spend our days digging latrines and building up the frontier fort while you marching lot take your sweet weeks-long promenade across perfectly flat looking ground to get to the place we have all set up for you by the time you get there,” he said.

Olderhan smiled at the old joke, not as widely as Rukkar would have liked, but there was a faint smile there. Rukkar knew full well that marching over a bit of ground and flying over it were two drastically different propositions.

Chapter Thirty

January 31

Commander of Two Thousand Mayrkos Harshu’s expression was bleak as his orderly escorted the exhausted-looking, travel-stained commander of one hundred into his chansyu hut office. The sarkolis-crystal heater filled the office with a comfortable warmth, but none of that warmth had leaked into the two thousand’s cold eyes.

“Hundred Thalmayr, Sir,” the orderly—who could read his two thousand’s moods unerringly after so many years in his service—announced in a somewhat flattened voice, then withdrew as Hadrign Thalmayr braced to attention and saluted with the stump of his right wrist. Not even the best of Gifted Healers could regenerate a totally lost or destroyed limb.

Harshu returned the salute with a curt nod, not even glancing at the other two officers he’d asked to join him here. He already knew what he would see in Herak Mahrkrai’s and Klayrman Toralk’s expressions. They’d read the brief hummer message Thalmayr had sent ahead of him, and neither of them was stupid enough to miss the weasel-wording of that dispatch…or the holes in it. Nor had they missed the fact that it had arrived less than twenty-four hours before Thalmayr himself. Worse, they probably understood the reasons for the tardiness of its arrival as well as Harshu did.

The hundred’s journey—flight, more accurately—from Thermyn to Karys had begun over a month earlier. True, he’d spent much of that time on unicornback, covering the vast distance between Fort Ghartoun and the first of the AEF’s airheads in Failcham, but he’d still had ample opportunity to send word ahead if he’d wanted to. For that matter, he could have gotten higher priority for air transport if he’d been willing to tell Toralk’s AATC station commander what had happened in Thermyn. The dispatch he’d finally written could say whatever it liked about maintaining security to prevent rumor mongering, but the truth was obvious.

He hadn’t wanted anyone else to know about it before Harshu because he hoped the two thousand would protect
his
worthless arse the way he had Neshok’s. That he’d wink at Thalmayr’s barbarities because he’d allowed so many others. And the hundred was so concerned with covering up his own actions—and their consequences—that he didn’t give a single solitary damn how much additional damage the time he’d wasted might have caused.

Well, Mayrkos, you always knew the gryphon would get loose in the henhouse sooner or later, didn’t you?
Not that you ever expected it to happen
this
way
. His iron expression never wavered, but internally he winced.
On the other hand, you knew no plan survives contact with the enemy, too, and you ought to’ve borne
that
in mind while you were deciding what kind of shit you were willing to let people like Neshok get away
, he reminded himself.
Thought you could keep it from getting out of hand, did you? Sure, you knew that stinking
shakira
bastard would’ve just shuffled you out of the way and given the job to that arsehole Carthos, and only the gods know how much worse it would’ve been with
him
in command. No way you could’ve gotten anyone back home to override the son-of-a-bitch in the available time, either. So you went all Andaran-noble and decided to jump down the dragon’s throat to keep as much control as you could. And the fact that you really
needed
that info—that keeping your own men
alive
required it—made it easier, didn’t it? Besides, you were so damned sure you could keep it from splashing on anyone else when the time came, weren’t you? Well, guess what? If what you think happened really did…

He let the silence linger, watching the tall, broad shouldered commander of one hundred’s face as that silence worked on his nerves. For all his powerful build, the dark-haired, dark-eyed Thalmayr’s body language was stiff, defensive, as if he were bracing for a blow. His eyes were nervous and a muscle in his cheek quivered as his stiffly squared shoulders seemed to hunch under the weight of the two thousand’s silent gaze. The hundred was obviously exhausted, as well he should be, given the journey he’d undertaken to reach this office, but the sweat smell which hung about him carried a stronger stink of fear than of exertion.

“Very well, Hundred,” Harshu said at last. “I suppose we’d better hear your report, hadn’t we?”

“Yes, Sir.” Thalmayr swallowed visibly and his nostrils flared. “Last month,” he began, his voice harsh with fatigue and something else, “two of the officers under my command at Fort Ghartoun—”

* * *

“—until I arrived here this morning, Sir,” the hundred finished. He’d spoken for little better than a half hour, interrupted by only a handful of questions, but perspiration gleamed on his face.

Silence fell, coiling in the corners like a serpent, and he swallowed again, harder than before, as Harshu gazed at him with the hooded eyes of a hunting dragon.

“And you had no intimation that such an obviously well organized mutiny was being prepared in your command?” the two thousand asked finally.

“No, Sir.” Thalmayr’s remaining hand clenched tighter on his right wrist behind him as he stood in a position of parade arrest.

“And how do you think that happened, Hundred?” Harshu’s voice was icy.

“I don’t know, Sir. In retrospect, I
should
have known, of course. Fifty Ulthar always resented my authority, and I believe he blamed me, rather than Hundred Olderhan, for what happened to Charlie Company. And Five Hundred Isrian did remark when he left me in command of the fort that Fifty Sarma had a reputation as a complainer. But I never anticipated something like this, and if there were any warning signs, I missed them. I shouldn’t have.”

“You should have known,” Harshu repeated softly, and Thalmayr seemed to wilt a little further. The hundred’s cheeks, chapped and reddened from his winter dragonback journey from Failcham, turned paler, and Harshu smiled thinly. “Yes, I think we can all agree about that.”

Thalmayr said nothing. There was very little he
could
have said.

Harshu let him stand there for several more heartbeats, then exhaled harshly.

“Is there anything you’d care to add to your report?” he asked. “Any additions or…clarifications?”

“No, Sir.” The muscle in Thalmayr’s cheek twitched harder, but there was an almost defiant glitter in his eyes, something composed of far too many emotions for easy analysis. “Not at this time.”

“I’ll expect a formal report in my PC by tomorrow morning,” Harshu told him.

“Yes, Sir.”

The hundred didn’t look happy to hear that, Harshu reflected with a certain satisfaction. And he was going to look one hell of a lot
less
happy before the two thousand was done with him.

“Very well, Hundred Thalmayr. That will be all for now. My clerk will see to your billeting.”

“Yes, Sir!”

Thalmayr saluted again, turned on his heel, and marched out of the office, and Harshu sat back wearily in his comfortable chair as the door closed.

It was very quiet—quiet enough the voice of a distant sword could be heard through the closed office window, counting cadence on one of the drill fields—and the two thousand pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Perfect,” he said into the silence. “Just perfect.”

“Not the word I’d choose, Sir,” Toralk said, and Harshu snorted. Trust the Air Force officer to get right to it, he thought.

“I suppose that’s fair enough,” he replied. “And,” he confessed, lowering his hand and turning his head to look Toralk straight in the eye, “it’s nothing you haven’t been trying to warn me was coming, either, Klayrman.”

Toralk nodded, and to his credit there was barely a trace of I-told-you-so about that nod, despite his own obvious dismay.

Harshu pinched his nose again. The only good news, such as it was and what there was of it, was that Thalmayr had not only kept his mouth shut on his way from Fort Ghartoun to Karys but also failed to send word back to Two Thousand mul Gurthak’s headquarters in Erthos. He’d done it for all the wrong reasons—in fact, from Thalmayr’s viewpoint, it almost certainly would have worked out better if he
had
reported it to mul Gurthak—but that didn’t mean Harshu wasn’t grateful.

“How do we want to handle this, Sir?” Mahrkrai asked.

The chief of staff’s tone made little effort to hide his own unhappiness. He’d never criticized Harshu’s decisions in the run-up to the AEF’s advance—not openly, at least; he was far too loyal for that—but private conversations with his superior had been another matter. Under those circumstances, he’d never tried to hide his reservations about where those decisions might ultimately lead. The consequences and wreckage they might leave in their wake. Even his worst fears, however, had fallen short of the situation Thalmayr’s report suggested.

If one read between the lines of what the hundred had actually said, of course.

“The first thing is to find out how much that piece of dragon shit’s lying to cover his arse,” Harshu said grimly. He gripped the arms of his chair and shoved himself to his feet so he could pace properly about the office’s tight confines. “I know godsdamned well he
is
lying; resentment and malingering are piss-poor reasons for a pair of fifties to mutiny against their CO in time of war, and I don’t believe for a minute that’s why they did it. And it was obvious from every word he said how he feels about Sharonians. He wouldn’t have spent so much time on how they’d used ‘their sinister mind powers’ to influence Ulthar and Sarma’s men into following their ‘treasonous’ lead if he wasn’t trying to set up some sort of defense for any reports that might come out about how he treated the POWs he was responsible for. So the only questions in my mind are how big his lies are and how much worse than we already know this clusterfuck really is. And before you say it, Klayrman, I know whose fault it ultimately is.”

Toralk’s jaw tightened slightly, and Harshu shook his head.

“Sorry. I don’t imagine you really were going to say it, but I know damned well you were thinking it, because I’m thinking exactly the same thing. And I can’t—and won’t—pretend you didn’t warn me about it every step of the way. I can honestly say I never wanted anything like I’m pretty godsdamned certain happened in Thermyn, but I damned well set up the conditions to
let
it happen. There’s an old Chalaran proverb that says a fish rots from the head, and there’s no point trying to deny that’s what’s happened here.”

He stood still for a moment, meeting the Air Force officer’s eyes unflinchingly, then gripped his hands together behind him and resumed his pacing in silent, frowning thought.

“How bad do you think it really is, Sir?” Toralk asked after a handful of minutes, and Harshu grunted.

“Bad,” he said flatly. “The way Thalmayr was dancing around the edges of ‘prisoner discipline’ and the way he kept watching my expression when he did it is enough to tell me that much. The arse-kissing bastard’s hoping I’ll clean up his mess to keep it from splashing on me when the IG starts investigating. He’s wrong about that, as it happens, but I’m not going to start issuing any orders about how to deal with this until I’ve had the chance to have him questioned under a verifier spell—and not
Neshok’s
verifier, either.” The two thousand showed his teeth in a tight, feral grim. “We can’t afford to allow any gryphons of a feather to flock together on this one, and Neshok’s been busy trying to bury his own bodies for weeks now. We need someone who’s not likely to help him shovel more dirt back into the holes.”

“I think young Tamdaran might be the man for that job, Sir,” Mahrkrai said, and Harshu grimaced. Not because he disagreed but because he knew exactly how the youthful Ransaran was likely to react to what he, Mahrkrai, and Toralk all knew a close interrogation of Thalmayr would reveal. Nonetheless…

“You’re right, Herak,” the two thousand sighed. “And it makes sense to get him involved early on. He’s almost as pissed with me over this as Toralk here, so he’ll go after Thalmayr like a dragon after a bison. And given his position on the intelligence staff, he’s likely to be a critical witness at the court-martial, after all.”

“At whose court-martial, Sir?” Toralk asked. Harshu glanced at him again, and the Air Force thousand shrugged. “You and I both know
Thalmayr
deserves a court,” he pointed out grimly. “I could fly an entire strike of dragons through the holes in that cover-your-arse story, and any serious interrogation’s going to nail him right to the wall. When it does, you’ve got more than enough officers of sufficient rank to impanel a summary court under the Articles, and frankly, I think you ought to seat one as quickly as possible.” Harshu raised one eyebrow, and Toralk shrugged again, a bit more sharply. “Morale’s already sagging, Sir, and word of this is bound to leak. When it does, we’re going to have to deal with it, and this is probably a time to cauterize the wound as quickly as possible.”

Harshu grunted. He couldn’t argue with anything Toralk had just said, although he might have chosen a stronger verb than “sagging” to describe the AEF’s current confidence. That was probably inevitable, given decisively the Sharonians had rebuffed their attack on Fort Salby, and the bloody repulse had hurt even more after how rapidly—and with such light casualties—they’d advanced up to that point. The further proof of the efficacy of Sharonian weapons and the extent to which their air power had been whittled away with a machete weren’t calculated to make the men feel any better, but underlying all of that was the sense that they were out at the shaky end of a very long limb. They were well aware of how tight the logistics situation was—the number of cavalry mounts, gryphons, and dragons who’d been pulled back from Karys to graze or hunt was proof enough of that—and there was no sign that situation was going to improve anytime soon.

Personally, Harshu didn’t blame his men for wondering what had become of the reinforcements Two Thousand mul Gurthak had promised to send after them, and his own worry about that question had hardened steadily into conviction rather than simple suspicion. It wasn’t surprising, perhaps, that no additional manpower or dragons had actually reached them yet, given how far from home they were and how scattered the Union’s armed forces were along this distant frontier. But by now, mul Gurthak had had plenty of time to at least determine what reinforcements were available and how soon they might arrive, and Harshu hadn’t heard a peep out of him. That would have been worrisome under any circumstances, but coupled with the tone of the official dispatches from mul Gurthak which had made their way to Harshu’s HQ it became downright ominous.