“Agreed. On the other hand, if Jaralt and I are right and mul Gurthak is the one who set all of this in motion, he at least managed to find someone like Alivar Neshok when he needed him. I don’t like to think he could have found a lot of other officers who were…equally apt, let’s say, to his purposes. But he might not need many of them if the ones he does have are in the right positions. Or, from our perspective, the wrong positions.”
“Like on the other side of this portal?” Velvelig arched his eyebrows, and Ulthar nodded. “Well,” the regiment-captain said more briskly, sliding his binoculars back into their case, “there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?”
He swung back up into the unicorn’s saddle and squinted up at the sky through the branches. Like many Arpathians, he wasn’t especially fond of trees, but under the circumstances, he was willing to make an exception to his usual attitude.
“Gets dark early, this time of year,” he observed. “Light’ll be gone in another couple of hours, and there’s no moon tonight-on either side of the portal. The troops in that fort of yours are going to be showing at least some lights, which should help us keep wide of them while we creep around to the other side, but it’ll be slow going without lights of our own. Still, I figure we should get chan Byral far enough around the western end of the portal to get a good Look for any outposts covering the southern aspect in, say, three hours. And if he doesn’t see anything, we may just be justified in thinking this mul Gurthak of yours doesn’t realize how crazy we really are. And if he doesn’t”-the Arpathian grinned suddenly and broadly as Fifty Ulthar climbed into his own saddle-“we may just have a straight dash from here to Hell’s Gate after all!”
Chapter Thirty-Five
March 8
“Well, Sir, can’t say I’m looking forward to this next bit,” Tersak chan Golar said.
“Whyever not?” Grithair chan Mahsdyr asked with a smile. Chan Golar, Gold Company’s company senior-armsman, was from southern Jerekhas, accustomed to the Mbisi’s mild summers, and the company-captain had a pretty shrewd notion of the reasons for his discontent.
“Might say nobody but a pure and simple lunatic would go anywhere near Lake Wernisk in th’ winter if he had any choice about it, Sir,” chan Golar replied glumly. “If I was inclined t’ complain, that is, which gods know I’m not. And according t’ my cousin Rhodair, not even bison’re stupid enough t’ spend the winter at Ulthamyr. Migrate south into Benteria, he says, like anything else with a brain. But us?” The lean, grizzled noncom shook his head in disgust. “We’re not only goin’ to Lake Wernisk, we’re goin’ the next best thing t’ six hundred miles cross-country to Ulthamyr. Gods bless the poor sodding cavalry!”
“I swear, Tersak, you’d complain if they hanged you with a golden rope!” chan Mahsdyr said, and the senior-armsman’s chuckle acknowledged the hit.
Chan Golar had been with chan Mahsdyr for almost two years now, and he and the senior-armsman understood one another well. At the moment, they sat in their saddles on the bank of the Rathynoka River in what ought to have been the Darylis Republic in New Farnalia, gazing west at the never-boring spectacle of yet another door between universes. The Resym side of the Resym-Nairsom Portal was several miles west of the location of the town of Shdandifar, but the Nairsom side-as chan Golar had just none-too-obliquely observed-lay just outside what would have been the small bison-ranching town of Ulthamyr in the Republic of Roantha, well over three thousand miles north of and twelve hundred feet higher than their present location. Here in Shdandifar, the afternoon temperature was in the high nineties; in Nairsom, the temperature was well below freezing, with lazy snowflakes drifting down a steel-gray sky. This particular portal had obviously been around a while, since the portal wind speed was no more than ten or twelve miles per hour, and what there was of it was out of Resym and into Nairsom. That produced a bubble of warmth on the far side in which there was no accumulation of snow…but it was a rather small bubble.
“Awful cold ’round a man’s neck, those golden ropes, Sir. Or so they tell me. Never tried one, m’self.”
“Yet, at least.” Chan Mahsdyr observed cheerfully. “There’s always time.”
“True enough, Sir. On the other hand, it really is goin’ t’ be a shock for the horses, not t’ mention the men, you know.”
“Now there, Tersak, you’ve got a point,” chan Mahsdyr acknowledged less than happily.
His dragoons had brought along the heavy winter uniforms and cold weather equipment they’d need for the six hundred-mile trek between Lake Wernisk and Ulthamyr, but their horses had not. And those same horses had just completed a grueling twenty-eight hundred mile journey between Shdandifar and Paditharyn, during which the temperature had seldom dropped much below seventy degrees and had occasionally risen into the high nineties. They were thoroughly acclimated to that climate, and not even the Imperial Ternathian Army’s Shikowrs were going to take the sixty-degree drop in average temperature anything like well. They’d brought along plenty of heavy blankets to keep their animals well rugged when they weren’t actually riding, but he wouldn’t be at all surprised if they lost some of them over the next week or so.
“At least the Mules have held up well,” he said now. He wasn’t referring to flesh and blood mules, and chan Golar nodded in emphatic agreement. “The Bisons’ve done better than I really expected, but the Mules have been the real surprise,” the company-captain continued. “I’m beginning to think Division-Captain chan Stahlyr might have a point about those ‘mechanized troops’ of his.”
“Wouldn’t go that far, Sir,” chan Golar said, stubborn despite his agreement of a moment before, and leaned forward to pat his mount’s shoulder. “Horses’ve been around a lot longer nor tea kettles. Mind, they’ve done well enough so far, and I’ll not deny it, but they’ve got no heart, no guts. Had my skin saved more’n once by a good horse that was too damned stupid t’ know it couldn’t keep goin’, begging your pardon. It’ll be a while before I’m willing t’ trade in my saddle for good.”
“I don’t doubt that for a second,” chan Mahsdyr agreed with a grin. “And I’m not suggesting we shoot them all next Marniday, either. But just between you and me, I thought the Division-Captain was smoking things he shouldn’t have been when he first came up with this brainstorm. Now-assuming we get across the Stone Carve at Coyote Canyon without the Arcanans spotting us while we’re about it-I think he’s about to go down in history as a military genius. I sure as hells don’t know anyone else who’s ever proposed a frigging eight thousand-mile approach march with a single division!”
“All due respect for the Division-Captain, and all, but I b’lieve I’ve heard as there’s a thin line, sometimes, ’twixt genius and crazy,” the noncom observed. “Never a doubt in my mind which the Division-Captain is, you understand, Sir!”
“I’m sure,” chan Mahsdyr said dryly. “In the meantime, I think we’ll go ahead and bivouac. Take time to break out the cold weather gear and inspect it properly before we poke our noses into that nice, cool climate on the other side.”
“Good idea, Sir,” chan Golar agreed in a considerably more serious tone. “Your permission, and I think it’d be another good idea t’put at least a picket on the far side, though.”
“Agreed.” Chan Mahsdyr nodded. “Send chan Parthan and chan Ynclair with it. I’ll want to talk to both of them before they cross the portal, though.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Good. And ask Platoon-Captain chan Sabyr to join me here, as well.”