That was more than merely frustrating, although he'd been able to guess—given the fact that the Chalgyn Consortium crew had been massacred only a very few hours after he'd experienced it—what it must have been about. But from the physical reactions chan Braikal had described, it was obvious that it must have been a very powerful Glimpse, much more powerful than he'd ever had before. And because no one had ever expected him to have a Glimpse of that strength, his training in how to dig it back out of his subconscious was nowhere near as good as his sister's.
"Are you all right, Your Highness?"
He heard Vargan's voice echoing weirdly through the power of his Glimpse and tried to force his eyes to focus on the company-captain. For a second or two—possibly even a little longer—they flatly refused.
They were ... somewhere else. Somewhere dark and frightening.
Then they did focus, and Janaki sucked in a deep, sudden breath.
"Your Highness?" Vargan repeated, and this time there was genuine concern in his voice.
"I'm sorry, Company-Captain," Janaki said, shaking himself vigorously. "I ... guess I really didn't want to hear that."
"I wish I hadn't had to tell you," Vargan admitted.
"Well, I hope all of this enthusiasm to get me home doesn't mean I have to leap right on the next train."
Janaki prayed that his smile didn't look as forced as it felt. "I've been doing nothing but traveling for the best part of four months now—first to Hell's Gate, and then straight back home from Hell's Gate. I'd really, really like to spend one day or so sitting still. Preferably in a deep, hot bathtub somewhere."
"They said they want your return expedited," Vargan said slowly. "Still, it's going to take us most of a day just to figure out the train schedule, given the way the Third Dragoons' movement is screwing up the TTE's timetables. I can't guarantee anything, but I suspect Regiment-Captain chan Skrithik could see his way to letting you have twenty-four hours. Maybe even forty-eight."
"I'd like that, Sir."
"We'll see what we can do, Your Highness. I promise."
"Thank you, Sir."
"And now," Vargan continued, "let's get these POWs of yours off the train. I've arranged suitable—and secure—quarters for them while they're our ... guests."
Janaki nodded and followed Vargan as the company-captain strode briskly over to the train, but the crown prince's thoughts were somewhere else entirely. He hoped Vargan was right about chan Skrithik.
If the company-captain wasn't, then it was going to be up to Janaki to find some way to change the regiment-captain's mind. Janaki needed that time here at Fort Salby, and not just for a bath, however sensually seductive hot water and soap might be.
Whatever he'd just Glimpsed, it was going to happen here—right here, at Salby, and physical proximity to a Glimpse's locus had a powerful sharpening, focusing effect on the Glimpse itself, even for someone whose Talent was as erratic as Janaki's. So he needed to be here, if he was going to figure out what that Glimpse truly meant. But the one thing he knew with absolute certainty was that if he explained what he'd already Seen to chan Skrithik, he'd never be given the opportunity. The Fort Salby CO would literally throw him onto the next train—and, in the absence of trains, onto horseback—to get him as far away as possible if Janaki told him the one crystal-clear image he'd brought back from his Glimpse in the instant his eyes refocused.
The image of Company-Captain Orkam Vargan's decapitated body sprawled across torn, corpse-strewn ground while his blood soaked into Fort Salby's parade ground.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Commander of Fifty Halesak reminded himself that he was going to need the use of his hands soon.
Which would be a bit of the problem if he insisted on clinging to the rope so tightly that the hands in question were numb.
He forced himself to loosen his grip—a little—and pressed his face against the side of the transport dragon's freight platform. Even with the Air Force-style face shield on his helmet, the wind of the mighty beast's passage threatened to suck the breath right out of his lungs. He felt every prodigious sweep of the dragon's pinions, the pounding of its vast heart, and the night wind battering past him was cold even through his heavy clothing and thick gloves, also Air Force-supplied, at an altitude of almost six thousand feet.
All of that was true—and none of it mattered at all. Not tonight. Tonight was even more important than silencing the relays in the Voice chain. Tonight they brought some of their people home again, and no one—no one—was going to do that without the Second Andarans.
The dragon slowed abruptly, and Halesak's nerves tightened as the cargo-master slapped him on the shoulder in warning. The commander of fifty pulled his head back as the slipstream weakened. He looked down, and saw their objective.
Timing for this operation had been tricky. Halesak wasn't sure exactly where the other side of this portal was located, but it had to be at least seven or eight thousand miles further east in its own universe, given the obvious ten-hour or so time difference between the two aspects of the portal. Personally, he suspected that was one reason the Sharonians had located their portal fort in the lee of a steep ridgeline.
The last thing someone needed in the middle of his night was to have a miles-wide half-disk of noonday brightness streaming in through the window. To be sure, it was undoubtedly a spectacular sight when that flaming sun and hot, bright sky carved themselves out of a sky dusted with winter constellations.
Halesak had watched the same sort of thing himself, with an unfailing sense of awe ... and knew how fervently he and his fellow troopers would have bitched if it had been shining in through their windows.
From all the reports, the far side of the portal also had to be substantially lower in altitude. There'd been ample signs of the kind of damage that sort of differential produced, although it had obviously happened a long, long time ago. That damage had complicated things a bit when it came to picking the path for the ground element, too. In the end, they'd had to take a chance on sending in a high-altitude recon gryphon and generating detailed topographic maps from the imagery its crystal had captured.
Fortunately, no one on the ground seemed to have noticed the unusually large eagle circling over their fort.
Ideally, the planners would have liked to hit Ghartoun in full darkness. Thanks to the portal, however, there was no full darkness for this particular objective. The best they'd been able to do was to schedule the attack for roughly five o'clock in the morning, local time. At this time of year, that would still be about thirty minutes before local sunrise, and about thirty minutes after sunset on the other side of the portal. It wouldn't be true full dark on either side, but at least the portal was east of their objective. That meant all of the available light would be coming from the same direction, which would let them approach out of the darker western sky above the Cratak Mountains. Personally, Halesak would have preferred some heavy cloud cover, but that wasn't going to happen here.
The cargo-master slapped his shoulder again, harder this time, and Halesak nodded vigorously. Then the dragon swept over the parapet of the fort, clearing it by barely fifty feet, and braked into an abrupt hover as the Gifted cargo-master activated the levitation spell.
The spell wouldn't support the dragon's heavy bulk for more than a very few minutes, but that was all the time in this universe—or any other—Iftar Halesak and his men needed.
Under-Armsman Lyntail chan Turkan hated the dawn watch.
Chan Turkan was what was technically known in the PAAF as "a screwup." Actually, Master-Armsman Karuk, Fort Ghartoun's senior noncom, was prone to use a rather more pithy and less polite term in his own native Arpathian on the many occasions when he ... counseled chan Turkan. Which was one reason chan Turkan tended to draw the dawn watch as often as he did, given that Karuk was a great believer in using unpleasant duty as a gentle spur to encourage better performance. And when Regiment- Captain Velvelig decided to double the sentries on each watch for reasons best known only to himself, chan Turkan had been the inevitable candidate for his present duty.