Harshu paused for a moment, gazing down into the PC on the table, and his dark eyes were as stony as the crystal itself. Then he looked back up at Toralk.
“That’s the first thing it suggests to me,” he said flatly. “But the second thing-the worse thing-is that the reason he wanted to get his version to me is that he hopes I’ll clean up the mess to protect my own arse. He hasn’t said so in so many words, but it’s pretty damned obvious what he really wants is for me to send out an air-mobile detachment with orders to run down the ‘mutineers’ and shoot to kill when they do. Dead men make piss-poor prosecution witnesses.”
“I imagine they do, Sir,” the Air Force officer agreed after a moment, meeting those stony eyes levelly.
“Well,” Harshu took another sip of bitterblack and cradled the cup in both hands, “I’m afraid he’s going to be disappointed. I’ll be sending an air-mobile battalion back, all right, but its orders will be a bit different from the ones he wants. I want Ulthar, Sarma, all their men, and any surviving Sharonians apprehended, but I want them taken alive, and I’m sending Thousand Stanohs to personally see to it they are if it’s humanly possible.”
He paused, and Toralk nodded. Valchair Stanohs commanded 2nd Battalion of the 703rd Infantry Regiment, and although he was junior to Tayrgal Carthos or Faildym Gahnyr, he was smarter than Gahnyr and far less loathsome than Carthos. More to the point, as the senior officer present, he was the acting commander of the entire 703rd, which made him Five Hundred Chalbos Isrian’s CO, and it was Isrian who’d selected Thalmayr to command Fort Ghartoun when his own battalion was called forward. Stanohs and Isrian didn’t much care for each other, and the fact that Stanohs’ one thousand’s rank was only an acting one-that he was Isrian’s commander on the basis of less than three months’ seniority-hadn’t made the five hundred any fonder of him. Nor did the fact that they didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye on the treatment of Sharonian POWs.
“I can trust Stanohs to do his damnedest to pull it off,” Harshu continued, “and once he finds them, a full battalion ought to be enough to convince them resistance would be hopeless. I hope so, anyway, because I really, really want those men-all of those men-back alive, and then I want them immediately deposed under verifier and their depositions handed directly to the IG and Judiciary General. I don’t want them coming across my desk at all, I don’t want to know what’s in them, I don’t want anyone to even think I had the opportunity to tweak them, and above all”-his expression turned as hard as his eyes-“I don’t want Two Thousand mul Gurthak even finding out they exist until backup copies are safely out of his reach on their way back to the Commandery.”
Toralk looked deep into his eyes, then nodded slowly. If those reports went to the IG and the Commandery, they’d inevitably spark a massive investigation of Harshu’s conduct and the Kerellian violations at which he’d winked. The consequences would be profound, yet he felt gratified-almost but not quite pleased-by the proof Mayrkos Harshu truly did intend to face his responsibility for those violations. It wouldn’t undo a single thing he’d done or allowed someone else to do, but it might go a little way towards restoring the Army’s honor.
But underneath any satisfaction he might feel in that regard there was a cold ripple of fresh concern as he considered Harshu’s final sentence. There was no legitimate reason for Harshu to keep mul Gurthak in the dark. The Mythalan was not simply his direct military superior but the designated governor in whose area of responsibility the conflict with Sharona had begun. Legally, Harshu was required to report something as serious as a mutiny to the local military and political authorities. That meant mul Gurthak, and as Klayrman Toralk thought about the carefully worded directives Nith mul Gurthak had sent forward after the offensive he’d ordered had kicked off, he found himself wondering just how thin the ice under the Expeditionary Force’s feet truly was.
* * *
“You’re sure about this, Lisaro?” Commander of Five Hundred Neshok tried and failed to disguise the intensity of his gaze as he looked at the noncommissioned officer of the other side of his desk.
“No question about it, Sir.” Lisaro Porath shrugged and stroked his thin mustache with an index finger. “I got it from Falmyn.”
Neshok pursed his lips thoughtfully. Shield Tyzar Falmyn was a clerk in Brychar Tamdaran’s cartography section. He stood well over six feet, with a powerful physique, but he was no more than nineteen years old, and while he was obviously devoted to Hundred Tamdaran, he was also a long way from home and more than a little homesick. “Home” in his case was the continent of Shalomar, but his Shalomar lay in New Tukoria, thirteen universes down-chain from Arcana. That universe had been settled just over a hundred years ago, primarily by colonists from the Hilmaran Kingdom of Tukoria, and his coppery skin and dark eyes reflected those ancestors. That heritage might also be one reason he’d become such a close friend of Lisaro Porath, given Porath’s Hilmaran birth back on Arcana itself. Aside from their ancestry, Porath and the youngster actually had very little in common, although Falmyn might be excused for not realizing that. Porath was almost twenty years older than he was, and it had no doubt been flattering-as well as comforting-to be taken under the more senior noncom’s wing, and Porath could be surprisingly charming when he put his mind to it.
Which was exactly what he’d done when Neshok pointed out to him how useful a window into Tamdaran’s shop might prove.
“And Two Thousand Harshu’s orders were definite?” the five hundred pressed.
“He was pretty damned clear, Sir…according to Falmyn, anyway. He wants Ulthar, Sarma, and the others taken alive-especially any Sharonians with them-and he’s sending Thousand Stanohs back to handle it very quietly.”
“I see.”
Neshok nodded slowly, drumming his fingers on his desk while he considered the news. His sources had reported Hadrign Thalmayr’s arrival almost before the dragon landed, and he’d had a quiet word with Senior Sword Kalcyr that same afternoon. Kalcyr had worked well with Neshok in the advance from Hell’s Gate, but he’d been less forthcoming than Neshok had anticipated. It had taken the five hundred the better part of an hour to worm the story out of him, because Thalmayr had ordered him to keep his mouth shut. And now Harshu was sending out his own troops to look for the mutineers under remarkably constraining orders.
And he’s not telling mul Gurthak about it. Neshok’s fingers drummed harder. That’s not a frigging oversight on his part, either. It’s deliberate. And if he wants those Sharonian bastards back alive, it’s not for any reason the Two Thousand’s going to like.
He caught his lower lip between his incisors as he tried to evaluate how this latest disaster was likely to affect his own precarious position. It was obvious there was no love lost between mul Gurthak and Harshu, and Neshok had quite a lot riding on the relationship between the pair of two thousands. There were times when he wished he’d gotten mul Gurthak’s instructions in writing before he’d been transferred to Harshu’s command, especially now that he found himself drifting in an ambiguous no man’s land between the Mythalan and his field commander.