“Yes, Sir.”
The senior-armsman nodded, reined his horse around, and trotted back along the column, and chan Mahsdyr dismounted to take the weight off his own horse’s back while he waited. Folsar chan Sabyr’s 1st Platoon was scheduled to take the lead when they set off into Nairsom, and chan Mahsdyr wanted to be certain chan Sabyr and his men had properly prepared themselves. The platoon-captain was experienced, but he was also young, and his senior-armsman was from coastal Teramandor-a long, long way from New Ternathia-and a bit new to his duties as the platoon’s senior noncom. It wouldn’t hurt to tactfully remind both of them of some of the unpleasant realities of winter in Roantha. For that matter, it might not be a bad idea to send chan Sabyr’s entire platoon through as chan Golar’s “picket.” They’d spend a milder night in close proximity to the portal, given the portal wind blowing through from Resym, but it would still be chilly enough to find any holes in their preparations and…underscore the desirability of plugging said holes before they set out for Ulthamyr.
And it definitely won’t be a bad idea to get chan Parthan and chan Ynclair over to the other side for a looksee, he reflected.
Chan Parthan was the youngest of the half-dozen Plotters assigned to Gold Company for this little foray, but he was also the most strongly Talented, with by far the greatest range. And chan Ynclair was one of the strongest Distance Viewers chan Mahsdyr had ever encountered. If chan Parthan detected any of the Arcanans’ damned dragons hanging about, chan Ynclair would be able to spot them without difficulty.
One interesting discovery they’d made in the course of their journey was that a Plotter’s range seemed greater against airborne creatures…and got greater still the higher the altitude at which he searched. Chan Parthan’s current theory was that the “background noise” of other living organisms-including plants, chan Mahsdyr had been surprised to discover-became less and less a factor at higher and higher altitudes. Without that distraction, he could simply Plot farther and more clearly.
Of course, that might not have come as a surprise to every Plotter. The detection of flying creatures wasn’t something with which anyone except bird watchers and a relatively small number of Plotters assigned to various park services or ornithological research organizations had much experience, however, because most of them were normally concerned with landborne or seaborne critters. Chan Mahsdyr had come to the grim conclusion that it might very well be that neglect of watching for aerial threats which had let the Arcanans take out Company-Captain chan Tesh’s men in New Uromath without anyone’s getting a warning out up-chain. Something had certainly let them get into range and eliminate chan Tesh’s assigned Voice before any alert could be sent, and since chan Tesh’s Plotters and Distance Viewers had almost equally certainly been anticipating landborne threats…
Whatever had happened in New Uromath, chan Mahsdyr had no intention of allowing that to happen to Gold Company. He did wish he had a better notion of just how far someone on dragonback at an altitude of a few thousand feet could actually see, though. He knew it was possible to see as much as fifty or sixty miles-sometimes even farther-from a high enough mountain, and even with the greater range chan Parthan had been able to achieve against aerial targets, that would exceed his reach. On the other hand, how much detail could anyone see from that sort of elevation?
No one knew the answer to that, and ever since they’d emerged from the rain forest on their way to Shdandifar, he’d been acutely aware of the lack of any sort of measuring stick by which to judge the threat’s true parameters. That was the main reason he’d had binocular-equipped lookouts backing up his Plotters every weary mile of the way. He intended to go right on backing them up, and he devoutly hoped the present overcast visible through the portal would remain with them all the way to Ulthamyr. However he might worry about the horses’ vulnerability to cold, he’d prefer anything much short of a howling blizzard to clear skies and good visibility for any aerial spies the other side might have left behind.
The handful of hardy souls in Resym who’d ignored the evacuation orders sent down-chain from Lashai had reported no Arcanan presence in that universe to any of 12th Dragoons’ scouts, but chan Mahsdyr was none too certain any of the stay-behinds would have recognized a dragon or an eagle-lion even if they’d seen one. The idea of such creatures remained profoundly unnatural to chan Mahsdyr even after all these weeks, and he’d actually examined their carcasses at Fort Salby. Even if someone here in Resym had seen one of them, why should anyone who’d never heard of them have realized that what he was seeing was much larger than any bird and simply far farther away than he’d thought?
That thought had loomed large in his mind ever since they’d left jungle’s tree cover, and he was more grateful than ever for the Steel Mules which had been sent after him following his discussion with Ganstamar Yanusa-Mahrdissa in Shosara. They’d overtaken his mounted men without any difficulty, and he’d redistributed his supplies as they’d arrived. The half-tracked Mules could keep up with his dragoons effortlessly, and without the betraying banner of coal smoke a Mark One Bison emitted. So he’d loaded the Mules with fifteen days of everything his mounted troops would require and left the remainder of his supplies aboard the Bison-towed trailers. That should be more than enough to get him all the way from Lake Wernisk to Ulthamyr before he had to call the Bisons forward, and he was all in favor of remaining as invisible as possible while he did just that.
He hoped none of his men were stupid enough to think he was truly as unconcerned and confident as he pretended, although the game required them to pretend that he’d fooled them. Yet the truth was that everything at least appeared to have gone extremely well so far. Now if only things stayed that way.…
Chapter Thirty-Six
February 24
“Well, another day, another portal.”
Therman Ulthar looked up from his steaming mug of bitterblack as Jaralt Sarma sat on the large rock beside him. It was a gray, cold evening, moving steadily towards full dark, with a miserable drizzle dusting downward, and the vista through the portal before them was less than welcoming, to say the very least. Especially for Ulthar.
“The last time I was this way,” he said, “there were trees on the other side of this one. Mind you, I wasn’t paying them a lot of attention at the time. Getting shot with one of those damned rifles puts a damper on your sightseeing. But this…”
He shook his head, and Sarma grunted in agreement, although the last time he’d crossed that portal the land on the other side had been blackened and still smoking while hooves and dragon wings stirred up torrents of bitter, clinging ash. It had been like a foretaste of Shartahk’s own hell, but he had to admit that even that had looked more welcoming than this.
It was winter on both sides of the portal, but the other side wasn’t just much colder, with snow falling heavily on a steady wind from the northwest. It was also far bleaker, with snags of burned stumps sticking up through the snow. Some of the bigger forest giants seemed to have survived the torrent of fire which had burned out a thousand square miles of woodland, but if they had, they were clearly in the minority. Either way, it would be impossible to be certain until spring, when they’d either leaf once more…or not. For now, the universe both Arcana and Sharona had agreed to call Hell’s Gate looked very much like its name: a barren, blackened drift of dead trees, burned snags, and blowing snow where the current temperature hovered far, far below freezing.