Velvelig glanced at the glowing display and nodded. He wasn’t fully enamored of trusting his navigation to someone who was technically the enemy, but the Arcanan device was clearly better than anything he had. And at least he knew the rough compass bearing to their destination, which should tip him off if they started steering him in the wrong direction for some reason. Of course, seeing his compass was going to be just a bit difficult under the circumstances, he reflected, unable to suppress a stab of envy as he looked at that lighted display.
Oh, come on, Namir! he told himself. What kind of sorry excuse for a septman needs a compass to find his way around even on the darkest night? And in the snow? When he can’t see a damned thing? Anyway, the damned glow’s probably visible a thousand yards away in the dark! Not exactly the best thing in the world when you’re sneaking around in the shrubbery. Assuming the damned forest fire’d left any shrubbery, anyway.
His lip twitched in the fractional lift that served him for a smile and he raised one hand, waving at the darkness before them.
“After you, then,” he said.
* * *
The snowfall thickened as full night fell. It didn’t quite qualify for the term “blizzard,” but it was clearly headed that way. In fact, it ought to reach it in the next few hours, which pleased the fugitives no end. Dragons didn’t mind snow, but few of their riders were particularly fond of it. And even if the inclement weather didn’t ground any potential overflights, not even a dragon would see much on a night like this. The snow which already blanketed the burned out forest was more than a little treacherous underfoot, and it was deep enough to hide the kind of obstacles which could break a horse’s-or even a unicorn’s-leg entirely too easily, but it also made the night seem less dark.
They produced what seemed like an incredible racket slogging through the snow. In fact, Velvelig knew, there was actually very little noise, considering the number of men and vehicles moving through the dark. It was only tight nerves and adrenaline that made it seem so loud. And even if it had been just as loud as it seemed, the Hell’s Gate portal was what the Arcanans called a Class Eight, just over thirty-six miles across. There was no way in all the Arpathian hells the Arcanans at what had been Fort Shaylar could hope to cover that kind of frontage on a night like this-and he didn’t care if they did have magic to do it with!
He’d never heard of portals as close together as the Hell’s Gate cluster, but he thanked his ancestors’ ghosts for it. The swamp portal to the universe the Arcanans had dubbed Mahritha was thirty miles from the Hell’s Gate itself, but one of the other portals was barely half that far away. In fact, it was close enough that they ought to reach it easily before what ought to have been sunrise, assuming the cloud cover broke enough for there to be a sunrise.
Namir Velvelig was Arpathian, born and bred to the steppes, and he hated close country. He especially hated jungle, if he was going to be honest, but under some circumstances, jungles had a great deal to recommend them. For one thing, they offered lots of hiding places. And, for another, as hard as rain forests could be on equipment and clothing, they never got cold enough for hypothermia to kill his men.
* * *
“Marshan’s mercies, but that feels good,” one of the Arcanans said, and Master-Armsman Hordal Karuk nodded in profound agreement.
He had no idea at all who “Marshan” was. As an Arpathian, he had too many demons of his own to keep track of to worry about all the other Sharonian deities be, much less about heathen Arcanan pantheons! But he was heartily in favor of staying on the good side of any divine being who specialized in mercies, and the blessed warmth blowing into their faces constituted the greatest mercy he’d encountered since leaving Fort Ghartoun.
“Does feel nice,” he agreed. “But let’s hold up for a minute till the rest catch up a bit.”
“Right, Master-Armsman,” the Arcanan replied. Or, rather, his crystal replied for him. What he’d actually said was probably something like “Sure, Master Sword,” but by now Karuk was almost accustomed to the damned twinkly rocks.
He chuckled mentally at the thought and eased himself in the unicorn’s saddle. Unlike his regiment-captain, he’d decided early on that the horned beasties were vastly superior to horses. As an Arpathian, he wasn’t supposed to admit anything of the sort. As someone whose arse had spent entirely too many hours making the acquaintance of entirely too many saddles, however, he approved enthusiastically of unicorns. It might be a tad inconvenient to have a mount who might nip off your arm if it got hungry, but that was a small price to pay for all of the other good points.
He’d also decided, much to his own astonishment, that he rather liked most of the Arcanans in their…diverse party. He hadn’t expected that, even after they’d broken him and the other POWs out of their own brig, yet it was true. He’d spent too many years in uniform not to recognize the Arcanans’ hard core of professionalism, and those same years told him how hard it must have been for them to turn against their own superiors, whatever the provocation, over what amounted to a matter of principle and conscience. He wasn’t sure he bought into the notion that someone with motives of his own had deliberately fanned the flames for the current war, but he’d found he had no choice but to believe these men were simply doing their duty the best way they could in one hell of a messy situation. And the fact that they were said some things which were at least hopeful about the society and military which had produced men willing to run such risks in the name of their army’s honor.
“Have we lost anybody, Master-Armsman?” a voice asked quietly from beside him, and he snorted.
“Now why should we be losing anybody, Evarl?”
“Are telling me Regiment-Captain Velvelig didn’t discuss that possibility with you?” Thermyn Ulthar’s senior surviving noncom replied. “Fifty Ulthar and Fifty Sarma sure as hells both discussed it with me!”
“Ah, well, that’s the sort of thing officers’re paid to worry about, isn’t it?” Karuk turned to glance at the Arcanan, whose face was faintly visible in the backwash from his navigating crystal. “You and me, we’re a bit closer to the lads than that.”
“Have to admit that once they brought it up I was a little nervous,” Evarl Harnak acknowledged. “Couldn’t think of anyone who was likely to hightail it, though, once I put my mind to it.”
“Me neither,” Karuk told him. “Seems to me your boys are pretty solid.”
“Yours, too. ’Course for mine there’s the problem that if that bastard Thalmayr’s story’s gotten out, anybody we go running to might just shoot first and wonder whether we were innocent bystanders second. That’s got to weigh on the mind of any bastard who’d turn on his squad mates in the first place.”
“That kind does like to keep his skin in one piece, doesn’t he?” Karuk chuckled harshly. “Nice to know some things don’t change from universe to universe, isn’t it?”
“Kind of wish some of them did, just between you and me,” Harnak said.
“You think this Duke of yours really has the reach to straighten this mess out?” It was the first time Karuk had actually asked any of the Arcanans that question, and Harnak cocked his head, green eyes glinting in the light from his crystal.
“I’m not saying I don’t think he’ll try, understand,” Karuk continued. “I’ve got a pretty good idea about you Second Andarans by now, and I reckon your Duke’s probably about as stubborn as the Regiment-Captain. I know damned well what Regiment-Captain Velvelig’d do in a situation like this, and I expect your Duke’ll do the same. But seems to me that whoever’s pushing this thing probably has a line or two in his plans for dealing with the Duke, too. And even if he doesn’t, won’t having his own son right in the middle of this make it harder for him to get a hearing?”