Their column drew close, then stopped, a little more than two hundred meters short of being level with the observation post, for what seemed one of their hourly march breaks. The troops dropped to the ground, loosened their pack straps and lay back with the silence rule apparently relaxed for the moment. Hal slipped down from the tree.
"The two of you stay here," he told Jason and Joralmon. "When they start to move again, keep parallel with them but at least this far out and on this side of them. If I don't get back to you in half an hour, or you see some evidence they've got me, get back to Rukh with the information we've already picked up. If I've just been delayed, I'll still catch up with you. But if they've got me, they'll be watching for anyone else and you won't have a chance to get close safely. Understood?"
"Yes, Howard," Jason said; and Joralmon nodded.
Hal went off toward the Militia's stopping spot. When he got there, he found that it was entirely possible for him to prowl up and down their line close enough to clearly overhear even relatively low-voiced conversation. The column had evidently been marching with no point and no flank guards, and nothing resembling sentries had been set up while they were taking their break. It was an incredible behavior that probably stemmed from the fact that the last thing in the world these domestic troops expected was any kind of counterattack from the Commands they chased - which said nothing complimentary about the Commands, themselves.
He moved up and down the length of the resting column, a handful of meters out from them, hidden by the undergrowth that flanked their line; and, since it was clear he could choose whatever he wished to listen to, he ended up squatting behind some bushes less than five meters from the head of the line, where a sort of officers' council was being held.
There were five men there wearing the better-fitted black uniform of the commissioned ranks, but the argument that was going on seemed to be between two of them, only. Both of these wore the tabs of Militia Captains; and one of them was familiar - it was the officer of the Citadel cells and the ambush in the pass, the one that the driver's information had identified with the name of Barbage.
"… Yes, I say it to thee," Barbage was saying to the other Captain. Barbage was on his feet. The others sat in a row on a log uprooted by some past storm, with the second Commandant at one end of their line. "I have been given commission by authority far above thee, and beyond that by the Great Teacher himself; and if I say to thee, go - thou wilt go!"
The other Captain looked upward and across at Barbage with a tightly-closed jaw. He was a man perhaps five years younger, no more than mid-way into his thirties; but his face was square and heavy with oncoming middle age, and his neck was thick.
"I've seen your orders," he said. His voice was not hoarse, but thick in his throat - a parade-ground voice. "They don't say anything about pursuing over district borders."
"Thou toy man!" said Barbage; and his voice was harsh with contempt. "What is it to me how such as thee read thy orders? I know the will of those who sent me; and I order thee, that thou pursuest how and where I tell thee to pursue!"
The other Captain had half-risen from the log, his face gone pale.
"You may have orders!" he said, even more thickly. "But you don't outrank me and there's nothing that says I have to take that sort of language from you. So watch what you say or pick yourself a weapon - I don't care either way."
Barbage's thin upper lip curled slightly.
"Weapon? What Baal's pride is this to think that in the Lord's work thou mightest be worthy of affront? Unlike thee, I have no weapons. Only tools which the Lord has given me for my work. So thou hast something called a weapon, then? No doubt that which I see on thy leg there. Make use of it therefore, since thou did not like the name I gave thee!"
The Captain flushed.
"You're unarmed," he said shortly.
And indeed, Hal saw, unlike all the rest of the officers and men here, Barbage was wearing only his uniform.
"Oh, let not that stop thee," said Barbage, ironically. "For the true servants of the Lord, tools are ever ready to hand."
He made one long step while the other still stared at him, to end standing beside the most junior of the officers sitting on the log, laid his hand on the young officer's sidearm buttoned-down holster and flicked up the weather flap with his thumbnail. His hand curled around the exposed butt of the power pistol beneath. A twist of the wrist would be all that would be needed to bring the gun out of its breakaway holster, aim and fire it; while the other would have needed to reach for his own buttoned-down holster before he could fire.
From the far end of the log the Captain stared, suddenly white-faced and foolish, at him.
"I meant…" the words stumbled on his tongue. "Not like this. A proper meeting with seconds - "
"Alas," said Barbage, "such games are unfamiliar to me. So I will kill thee now to decide whether we continue or turn back, since thou hast not chosen to obey my orders - unless thou shouldst kill me first to prove thy right to do as thou wishest. That is how thou wouldst do things, with thy weapons, and thy meetings and thy seconds, is it not?"
He paused, but the other did not answer.
"Very well, then," said Barbage. He drew the power pistol from the holster of the junior officer and levelled it at his equal in rank.
"In the Lord's name - " broke out the other, hoarsely. "Have it any way you want. We'll go on then, over the border!"
"I am happy to hear thee decide so," said Barbage. He replaced the pistol in the holster from which he had drawn it and stepped away from the young force-leader who owned it. "We will continue until we make contact with the pursuit unit sent out from the next district; at which time I will join them; and thou, with thy officers and men, mayst go back to thy small games in town. That should be soon. When are the troops from the next district to meet us?"
The other Captain stared at him without answering for a moment.
"It'll take them a few hours," he said, at last.
"Hours?" Barbage walked forward toward him; and the other stood up swiftly, almost as if he expected Barbage to hit him. "Why hours? When did thou message them to meet us?"
"We… generally don't message until we're sure the Children of Wrath are going to cross over into the next district - "
"Thou whimpering fool!" said Barbage, softly. "Hath it not been plain from the beginning that they were fleeing into the next district and beyond?"
"Well, yes. But we might have caught them…"
The other's voice hesitated and ceased.
"Message them now!" Barbage's eyes were absolutely unmoving.
"Of course. Of course. Chaims - " he turned sharply to the young force-leader whose sidearm Barbage had laid his hand on, "get a message off to Hlaber District Command and tell them the situation. Say that Captain Barbage, operating here under special orders, needs a pursuit unit out here to take over from us in one hour. Tell them to check with South Promise HQ on his authority to require that sort of special action. Well? Move! Move!"
The junior officer jerked to his feet and ran off down the column.
Hal faded back through the greenery until he was safely enough beyond observation to turn and run himself - for the observation point. Jason, sitting at the foot of the tree with Joralmon above him in the observation post, scrambled upright as Hal reached him.
"I've found out what we need to know," Hal said, "and I'm going to be making the best time I can to get the information to the Command. You two follow as fast as you're able to. As we estimated, it's two full pursuit units under Barbage, the captain who ran the ambush on us in the pass. They've just sent for help from the next district; and Barbage is going to keep this bunch coming until they can be relieved - then he'll switch over and travel with the new unit. Share that information with Joralmon, and both of you come after me as fast as you can."